I'd like to read, uh, 2 verses or three perhaps that we read on Friday night in the prayer meeting with you. Those of you who were present, I'd like to read them again. I want to, uh, link them to the story of the sinking of the Thresher. There won't be time this afternoon to take up a m- a message and minister to you, as we ma- ordinarily would have done, and then also tell you the story of our association with Don and Marion Keister at the time that the thresher went down. But I'll read these verses and say a little word in connection with what my two brethren have said, and then tell you the story. These two verses that we're going to read were associated with Marion in the time of her, uh, bereavement. Luke's Gospel, chapter twenty uh two, reading at verse thirty nine: And he came out and went as he was wont to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And two thoughts are here in association with prayer, and one is the blessing there is in prayer, and it is strength, and two, the condition that must govern prayer, and that is subjection to the divine will. In connection with my brother's Van Ryan's message on the seat, uh, uh, yielding of your body, many years ago, to be exact, about ninety, there was a dear servant of Christ, a missionary to Africa called Fred Stanley Arnett. Now, his name likely is not known here in the building today very well, but many of your American missionaries who've gone to what we call the beloved strip in Africa know the name of Fred Stanley Arnett. He opened the continent to our missionaries from the Assembly. He left about ninety years ago after his first furlough, and he took back with him a number of missionaries. There was a large farewell meeting for them in London, uh, before they sailed. Each of the missionaries outgoing was asked to give a testimony, and a countryman of my own, a man called Robert Johnston, he, uh, gave his little testimony, and he read the verses that our brother has read. I came across this story in, uh, a magazine in a brother's home down in New Bedford, Massachusetts. I had never known story. He reached Africa, but was carried off the ship a corpse and buried a little what way inland. He never reached the field. To this day, his letters are preserved, which he wrote on the boat. But at the farewell meeting, he read those words, and he said, I would just like to leave two thoughts with you from this verse, and one is that the Lord does not command you, the Lord be. Two, he said, he does not threaten you, but he says he beseeches you by his mercy. It was the two thoughts, beseeching and mercy, no gun at your head saying you've got to go or else. And that, I believe, would be the basis of true consecration. Knowing that he beseeches, I willingly respond. So, young folks, in the matter of consecration, don't for, for a moment think that you're going to be pulled into God's service and made to live a life holy for him. That absolutely rests with you. There are no conscripts in the service of God. Everyone is a volunteer. Now you make the choice, but let me say by from one who has made the choice, the best choice we ever made was not so much that the night we got saved. Eternally, that is true, but so far as this life is concerned, the best choice that ever me made was not when we were nine years of age, but when we were seventy years of age, and we said, take the world, but give me Jesus. In connection with my brother Milo's message on the Lord's Supper, I would like to tell you two little incidents. Sometimes I speak on the breaking of bread, and the reason I'm going to do this now is it had been in my mind to take up the breaking of bread for my message this afternoon, and I was going to ask a number of questions. And one question would be, who should break bread? Another question, what is the breaking of bread? Another question would be then, and when should we break bread? And another question would be, why should we break bread? In connection with what is the breaking of bread, it's simply the remembrance of the Lord Jesus. Simply the remembering of the Lord Jesus. So nineteen sixty uh, sixty one, we went over to the old country, and I traded my car on this side of the world for an English car to be picked up on the other side, and it would be, it was to be equipped with left-hand steering, such as we have for this country. I arrived on the other side, and I got the car. It was waiting for me at the dock, as a matter of fact, and we had it from the first day we arrived. A few days afterwards, I was in a parking lot, and when I came out, the attendant was standing beside my car, and when I approached it, he said, Mister, you're from America, aren't you? Yes, I said. You don't go into details, you just say, yes, you're from America, big country, that's where we're from, America. Uh, he says, I knew it because he says, you know, look at where your steering wheel is. Yes, I said, that's the where we need it for the other side of the world. He says, I wonder if you'd do something for me if you're from America. What is it, I said? He said, would you, uh, find my boy for me? He's over there. Yeah, I said, maybe I could. Where is your boy in America? He says, I don't know. Well, I said, now, eh, if you don't know, remember it would be difficult because they haven't any conception. Ye- you smile at them, but they don't appreciate the vastness of the country. Tell me, have you no address where he ever was? Yes, he said. Uh, did you ever hear of a place as a Vancouver? I said, yes, but do you know how far it is from where I live? It's almost as far as you are from me here. No, I said, yes, but tell me, you have the address, give me that address. I have friends in Vancouver, and they'll find him if he's there. Well, he said, I just don't have it on me, but mind you, I have it at home, and he said, if you'll promise to come and see me again, I'll get it for you. I said, you do that, and I'll be here again first day I get the chance. You get me that address, and I'll write my friends in Vancouver, and we'll try and get your boy. When did you last see him? Oh, he hadn't written for years and years and years. Um, now I said, um, and I said, no, he said, and by the way, he said, maybe you'd find my daughter for me. I said, have you a girl over there too? He says, yes, and I said, where is she? Well, he says, I don't know where she is now, but I'll tell you where she was the last we heard, she was in Buffalo. Oh, now I said, they're getting on our doorstep. Buffalo's only sixty miles from where I live. We might be able to find her. You get her address? No, he said, but I have it at the house, and I'll get the two of them for you. Good, you do that. Bring them down, and I'll see you, and we'll try and find them. Now, to end that part of the story, I never again found the old girl, the old man. He never came back. I went to the lot, and I never again was able to trace him, and that's the end of the story to that point, because everybody wants to know afterwards, well, what did you do about it? I can do nothing. But now here's the part. After he told me all that, and so pleased that I was going to do this, he said, would you like to see their picture? I said, well, yes, I'd like to see the picture. So he pulled an old wallet out of his pocket, and he pulled out a postcard, that familiar s- size of a picture I remember when I was a little lad with my two, three sisters and brother, dad and mum, getting our picture taken, family group, and it was something like that. And I says, there's my boy. And here was a little fellow standing with his little ta- uh, stockings right up to his knees in the old country style, best neat little fellow, but I would say seven or eight. And here was a little sister, and she had a great big head of pearls falling down round her shoulders. I said, that's your, that's my girl, and that's my boy. And then idly, not knowing why I did it, I turned the postcard over. And when I did, these were the words that I wrote in fake pencil. These are the children I love, but they have forgotten their dad. I went out of that parking lot, and I said to my wife, I'd have crossed the ocean to get that illustration of the Lord's Supper. And on a Lord's Day morning, when the seats are vacant and the friends are absent, I think I hear the Lord Jesus Christ say, these are the children, and I love them, but they have forgotten me. So on a Lord's Day morning, when I take my seat and sit down in his presence, thank God I can able to say, this is what he wants me to do, according to thy gracious word, in meek humility. This would I do, O Christ, my Lord, I would remember thee. The other incident, Milo was talking about the first day of the week. Uh, in the north of Ireland, there was a an old Baptist preacher, and he was a saved, a solidly saved man. But I could, he couldn't say that for his daughters, but he hadn't baptized them and received them into his church fellowship, but they were not believers in Christ. I believe the old man knew it too. But a gospel preacher came. You heard Bill Morgan speak last night of the man that was preaching seven weeks called Sam McEwen, his uncle John Knox McEwen. And John Knox McEwen came to this little Irish town to preach, and these girls came to the meetings and they were saved. And when they were saved, they were baptized again and received into fellowship into the assembly, and the father never said boo. I believe secretly he delighted to see the radical change in his girls, but one day he did say this, uh, tell me, girls, you never go to any parties now, any shows, places you used to like to go to when you were in church with us. Why do you not do that now? And one of the girls with a little bit of a smile said, you know, Dad, you gave us good advice, although we weren't Christians. And you said that when the communion Sunday came round, we should never go to any place of question for three days before it or for three days after it. And she says, you know, we have breaking of bread every Lord's Day, and we've no days left for any place to go that's questionable. So, brethren and sisters, it's to remember him, and thank God it's every Lord's Day. In the, uh, month of August nineteen sixty um, two, I met Don and Marion Easton. I'd known of Marion's father, but I'd never met him. I had never heard of Don before. But they came to Camphoria, where I was ministering for two weeks with another servant of the Lord, and, uh, we enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship. So much so that Don said to me, he said, Brother Kirk, you should come to our assembly in Washington. Well, I said, maybe I'll get there someday, and if the Lord will, we'll go. So the Lord willed it. There's no question of that. He did will it, and we got there the following spring, just about the time of the disaster. I remember that Lord's Day morning when we arrived in Washington, I was told by Mr. Weinberg that I was wanted by the keisters to spend Lord's Day with them. So on Lord's Day morning, we got round to the Sunday school before the breaking of bread, and we sat down, but the Sunday school had started. Don was up at the front, and he was holding, as I found out later, a bunch of quarters in his hand, and he was saying, now who's going to say the verses? You? A boy would get up and say the last two verses of First Thessalonians one. Call him up, give him a quarter. And I was enjoying this, one boy, one girl after another rising up, and he saw me very interested, I suppose, and he said, Brother Kirk, could you say them? I said, I would for a quarter. I didn't mean that really, but it was out of me before I could think. Well, he said, get up and say them. And I got up and I said them, and he said, come up and get your quarter. And so I had to walk up and get my quarter from Don. I believe that was a habit that Don have, giving away quarters. We had a lovely breaking of bread meeting. I remember the Lord gave me something to minister on after the breaking of bread that we hadn't spoken on before. I saw Don writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, and apparently, as I learned afterwards, he made all the notes of the message. And the next after day, after Monday afternoon, when he was leaving home to go to join the sub, he said to Marion, I'm taking your, uh, Bible with me, your little Bible, and Brother Kirk's notes. I'll have plenty of time to digest them down in the sub. So, and he took me then to dinner, and I don't know why this happened. Marion often spoke to me about it after. What in the world got into Don's mind? Because after we had dinner, we sat down in the living room. He brought out the wedding, his wedding album, and we went over this wedding album. We knew so many of the friends who were present at the wedding. We knew this one, and we knew that one, and oh my, have we changed that much? And it was really a very happy Lord's Day afternoon. Then Don said, excuse me, I've got to run upstairs a minute. And he ran upstairs and came down. He'd been up phoning. He says, good, he says, I haven't to join the sub till tomorrow. So he says, we'll be free to spend the day with you. We haven't to leave until tomorrow. Then I said, well, now, John, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to go to a room and get a little rest and get ready for the meeting, uh, this evening. He said, fine. And do you know I couldn't rest very well, nor could I study very well, because for some unknown reason, he decided that Mary and he will sing duets, and the singing was superb. Now, I don't know whether it's my going back because of the tragedy, but I'll tell you truthfully, as I sat in my room that afternoon with my hands on the desk, I couldn't concentrate a bit. I had to listen to those two singing those beautiful hymns, and whether it was with a premonition or not, I don't know that they were spending their last Thursday afternoon together, but that singing was precious. We sang one of the hymns, I believe maybe two, at the memorial service later on. Then came the evening meeting. It was a very happy meeting too. After the meeting, I got a telephone call from Brother Weinberg, who's the Philip, the Washington lawyer in the assembly. He said, Brother Kirk, my little granddaughter wants to talk to you. And a little treble, treble, trembling voice came on the phone. He said, Mr. Kurt, I got saved when you were speaking at the night in the meeting. These are little memories, you see, of that particular lawyer. But now what interests you would be, I said, well, Don, I'll have to say goodbye. Yeah, he says, for I won't be here. I won't see you again because I've been down in the stud. Now, what a prophecy. He meant he wouldn't be there for the week. I was going to have some meeting. He would be down in the sub. He would be away. So I had decided before the Lord that I would speak on prayer on Monday night and on Tuesday night. So on Monday night, I spoke on a number of blessings associated with prayer, and one of the blessings I preached on was strength. Men ought always to pray and not to, uh, faint. Now I said, someday a telephone bell will ring, and you'll get the worst news that ever you've heard, news that you wouldn't for a thousand worlds you'd want to hear. Now what are you going to do? Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. I was quoting the lines of that lovely hymn written by my, one of my countrymen. He was born twenty two miles from where I was born. He was engaged to be married, and within three weeks of the wedding, his fiancée died. It broke his heart. He left Ireland, he came to Canada, he became a, a tutor in a wealthy man's home, and twenty years later, uh, romance came his way again, and for the second time, within a few weeks of the wedding, disaster struck, and he lost his second fiance. And when he lost his second fiance, that's when he penned those words, and I have a copy of the original writing of the poem in my possession. Have we trials and temptation? There is trouble. We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer. Oh, the peace we often forfeit. Oh, the needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. So I say to my audience, when the bell bell rings and the worst news that you could hear comes, beloved saints, remember, take it to the Lord in prayer. Mary went home that night, and she didn't sleep for hours. When the telephone bell rang, take it to the Lord in prayer. What does he mean? What did, why did he say that? This is what she told me happened. Why did he say that? Now, I can remember her in that meeting. Isn't that strange? She was sitting over my right. She wasn't sitting with her back right against the seat, rather she was sitting sideways with her arm on the seat, and she was listening, and her eyes, I don't believe, were taken from my face. I remember that later on. Then the next night I spoke on conditions which govern prayer, and I said, beloved saints of God, there's something we've got to remember. Whether we like it or whether we don't, we'd better say, not my will, but thine be done. The first time I preached on that subject, it was in the city of Detroit, and I told the story there. And after the meeting, a dear sister said to me, we're coming home in the car, she said, when you told that incident, I told it from the Bible of the king who rebelled against God's will. God says, that then hush and order, for thou shalt die and not live. He says, give me more li- spare my life. God said to Isaiah, tell him his life is spared for fifteen years. Manasseh was born, and Manasseh reigned for over fifty years and filled Jerusalem with streets of blood. And I tell you, that man Hezekiah would have said, oh, good God, I said, thy will be done. So this sister said, we had a sister in our assembly, and she had a baby born to her. The baby was very sick when it was only a year old, and the sister assembly took it in prayer, and one night they prayed for that baby. And when the prayer meeting was over, this sister said, I called her on the phone and I said, I wish you'd been to the prayer meeting tonight. You would have heard the brethren pray, and every one of them prayed that God would recover the baby if it would be his will. And she screamed over the telephone to me. She said, it's got to be God's will. It's just got to be God's will. Well, what could I say, brother? She said, that baby did get better and lived to be twenty one years of age, and when that baby was twenty one years of age, she was still changing his diapers. So that night, Mary went home, but this time she called me on the phone. After I hung up on the phone, I said to the sister in whose home I was staying, how long was I talking on that phone? She said, Brother Kirk, you were forty five minutes on. No, I said, I know. It was Marion. Yes, she said, knew it was Marion. I said, I knew when I answered the phone it was Marion. What was wrong? I says, I, nothing that I know of. What was in her mind? Oh, I said, really what she was talking about was some, uh, some, uh, something in, uh, connection with the school the children were going to and the possibility of doing some work for the Lord in that school. I said, really, I don't understand that because, you know, I listen just practically all the time. And she said, well, of course, I don't, can't explain the data. Well, I said, that's it. The next morning, which was Wednesday morning, and that was the morning of sub sign, the next morning the phone rang again. It was Marion. And when I hung up for the second time, I said to the sister, how long at that time? She said, forty minutes. That's the biggest mystery I know. That girl has talked to me last night, and she's talked to me this morning, and I couldn't repeat, there's nothing I could repeat that I believe would, would be worth repeating what she said. Now, now we'll anticipate. Later on, when I got talking to Marion, I said, Marion, why did you call me on the phone? She said, brother Kirk, I just couldn't go to bed, and that was all I could do. She gave me some kind of comfort to talk to you. I said, you didn't talk about dawn. No, she said, I couldn't trust myself to talk about dawn, but she said when I went to bed that night, I couldn't sleep. Night before it was, the telephone bell rang, and you get the worst news that ever you're going to get. What are you going to do? Take it to the Lord in prayer. There's nothing going to happen, so on. But to say thy will be done, oh, I couldn't, I couldn't say that. Oh, she said, surely, surely there's nothing going to happen in, for I, I, I don't think I could say thy will, but still I must. Said, Lord, teach me to say if it is thy will, thy will be done. Now, Wednesday night. When Wednesday night came, I wasn't at that hall. I was in another hall in the city preaching. I came home with some friends in the car, and when I arrived at the house where I was staying, the sister ran down the steps, the sister with whom I was staying, and looked at her. She was trying to get her catch her breath, and she was holding on to the side of the car and speaking to us. Oh, she said, Brother Kirby, the pressure has gone down, and that you're faced with it. And she says, Marion's been calling you on the phone. Oh, I said, no trace. She says, come in, however, there'll be a news flash at ten o'clock. And so we went in, and at ten o'clock the screen flashed these words, the thrasher's gone down, and they gave us the estimated feet in which the thrasher had sunk, and there is no trace, but they have found oil slick. Then the phone rang, and she answered the phone, and when she answered the phone, oh, she said, Brother Kirk, it's for you, it's for you. Marion wants to know, are you home yet, and you're to go. I don't know what I can do, but will you take me? And she wanted to press, sure, take you. So when I went to the house, uh, there was a number of sisters already there, and I think it was some of the brethren there too, but Mary was lying on the couch, and there was a very strong wind. And I thought she was, when she looked at me. So they went over and they spoke to her, and they said, Mary, Mr. Kirks here. She opened her eyes, and she put up her two hands on me, and I put her hands on mine. This is what she said, staring at me. Do you know the Lord sent you to prepare me for this? I said, I don't know, Marion. I didn't know that I had known. I never thought of you in the ministry. But she said, I can say I believe. So, um, we sat and talked a little while, and I felt within my soul that the sub had gone down and never would come. I said, uh, Mary, there's just two verses I'd like to link together for you. My brother Van Ryan read one of them yesterday, who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and the other one was all his saints are in thy hand. So I said, now Mary, maybe dawn is safe, maybe the sub will never rise again, but let me tell you this, the deeper that sub sinks in the ocean, the deeper Don sinks in God's hands. So the young, the youngest of the, their three children, the younger boy, the youngest of the family, when his mother went to see him late that night to comfort him, she told him what I just told you about dawn sinking deeper in her father's hand. The little fella said, well, then mommy says that daddy's safe, isn't he? Daddy is safe. Well, that really brought comfort to Marion Park to find the little fella saying that daddy is safe. Now then, on the following Monday, that was Wednesday, the following Monday, the, not the presidential plane, but the plane of the, um, the chief of the Admiralty was placed at her disposal, and she was chosen to be the guest of honor and was transported, uh, up to the base of the sub for a memorial service. And, uh, traveling up in the plane, the chaplain came over and sat down beside her, and he said, Mrs. Keister, I've been watching you very carefully, and you're not under sedation, am I right? She says, I'm not. He says, I could tell by your eyes that you're not under sedation. Now, he says, tell me, what is your secret? He says, you're the calmest one on board this plane this afternoon. What is your secret? So she said to me, you know, Brother Kirk, I was able to tell my secret, and I, she told him about how I'd ministered on prayer, the will of the Lord be done. We may not always pray, not the same, and that daddy's faith in the Allah of his hand. He pulled a paper from his pocket. He says, there's my sermon for today. This is what I'm going to do with it, and he tore it up in shreds and dropped it in the waste paper basket on the presidential plane. Where is that verse? He turned it up, Deuteronomy thirty three, and he said, that will be my sermon for the that for this afternoon. He told the story that I've told you to the point about the little boy when he learned that daddy was sinking deeper in the hollow of God's hand. Then my daddy safe. There were six thousand people there. The commander's widow was there. He was called, do you remember, John Wesley Hartley. And after that service, that poor Mrs. Hartley, she came to Marion, she put her arms around his shoulder- shoulders, and she said, oh Marion, you know where your Don is, but please tell me where is my heart. What could Marion do? She couldn't tell her the comfort that she was enjoying. Then they, two weeks later, we had the memorial service in the Washington and the University, and I never will forget that. You know what I remind re- I remind, I'm reminded most of all about that? There must have been sixteen hundred people there, and some of us prayed, and some of us ministered the word, but brother Clarkson came to the desk, and he says, you know, we, uh, are not going to sing the praises of Don Keaster today because of his invent- inventary genius. Don was all that, and the presence of the army chiefs today acknowledges genius. But what is genius to us and our Don is that Don was a child of God and lived through faith. He said, I didn't know when I read in the Iowa papers that Don wasn't aboard the Thresher, for they misspelled his name. But when I read the Thresher had gone down, I said to myself, I wonder, was there not someone on board that boat that, when she was sinking, could tell some dear young sailor who was already crying out in agony of soul, what must I do to be saved? Now, Brother Clarkson was quoting from something. The Titanic was built, and by the way, there's a brother here, Brother Laura Hill of Atlantic, and he knows all about this story. When the Titanic was sunk in nineteen twelve, she was built in my native city, where he worked as a boy too. And when that boat was sunk, there was a couple of passengers found themselves drifting together, hanging onto a piece of wood. And one was a godly Baptist minister. His name was Thomas Harper. And Thomas Harper saw the other, the young man floating beside him, and he cried, young man, are you saved? Young man said, no, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And they drifted apart. Minutes later, they came to gather again, and the old preacher said, young man, are you saved yet? He said, no, sir. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And at that moment, Harper lost his grip on the wood he was clinging to and disappeared in two miles of water. And as he disappeared in two miles of water, the young man said, clinging to this piece of wood I had under me, I trusted Christ, and God saved me. Now, Don, uh, brother Clarkson thought of that, and he said, when I learned Don was on board that submarine, and as it was taking its final dive, maybe in those last agonizing moments, with someone crying white face, what must I do to be saved? I hear Don's voice ringing out clear and plain, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be, uh, saved. Marion kept in touch with me for a long time, and she sent me all the correspondence. She sent me, I don't know how many letters, there must have been sixty letters that she sent to me, and I read most of them, glanced through every one of them. There was one from President Kennedy, and then right down the line. You know, there wasn't one. Not one of those letters could bring a grain of solid comfort to Marion and the children. They spoke of Don's genius. They spoke of his ability, and incidentally, in case you didn't know it, the dive that that ship took was to test Don's invention in acoustics, and the fact that the current ship lost all trace so quickly proved that the invention was a success. Don didn't need to have gone down in that ship. He could have sent one of his subordinates, but he chose, because it was his invention, to go down in Texas, and much was made of that in the letter. Everyone lauded Don to the skies for the genius that he was and gave his life for his country. But as I said to Marion, Marion, you found your comfort elsewhere. She found her comfort in the word of God. So then we're not going to go through that experience again, but we don't have to be Marian and Don Keaster to be in need of comfort. Good. So no matter what the days may bring, no matter what the trials may be, thank God there's comfort in clinging to God. May the Lord bless the little souls who are.