So after a little chat with him, he said, well, not this time. He put off the next time, so that's the story. Now our text, chapter fifty-four and two. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation, spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy sticks. Now, you'll see the significance of that text a little later on. In speaking on the leading of the Lord in our life and how God has led right from the conversion, our conversion on through, we're about halfway through now, and I think this is the message. The first three years, as we've been telling you, was spent in Raleigh, North Carolina, meetings around Raleigh for those three years, and something happened after I was in Raleigh. only a few four months to this fight of blow to one's faith, because, as you know, we stepped out in faith. I came to North Carolina, not knowing anyone down in North Carolina, and I left my parents dependent, more or less upon me. So I had to look to the Lord for my own need, as well as also some to help my parents, or something to help them. So in November, my father, riding to work on his bicycle, the roads were high-steering. He slipped and broke his hip, and he never worked again. So that was a little test for our faith. We were just down south, and of course the devil used that to say, you should have never left home. You have stayed up there. See what's happened. Well, I thought, God sent me down here, and he'd help me take care of things which he did. And I'm going to tell you something. The first six months I was in the south. I received two hundred and thirty-one dollars fellowship. And it didn't come from any one church or one individual. It just came a little bit here and a little bit there, and I didn't know who was sending it, but it came. Of course, back in those days, thirty-one years ago, I presume that would be somewhere around nine hundred dollars now for six months. But nevertheless, it was plenty. I got by on it. I was able to send a little to my parents. I've told you about meetings we had in Clayton, Six Forks and Wendell, places around Raleigh, and there were three other places, Swift Creek and Wilders Grove and a place called Ebenezer. These places were around above Raleigh. The furthest, I suppose, was twenty-four miles away. Some of those meetings ran seven weeks, and so between these campaigns, we used to have Bible readings in the whole. Well, then the Lord began leading me away from that area because the work was mostly rural work. And we found out that most of the folks were farmers who planted a lot of cotton, and there was always a lot of migrating. It seemed in the spring of the year early because some of the farms had ten small farms, about twenty acres each. They were sub-rented, and every year there was a transit that seemed to be from place to place, and a lot who got saved seemed to move away, that is, especially the father wanted to move. Some of the other members of the family had gotten saved and wanted to remain, but The work was such that we couldn't consolidate. So then the Lord was exercising us to go up to Winston-Salem, which is about a hundred miles west of Raleigh. Mrs. Chapel, where I was staying for the first three years, which was Chapel, home in Raleigh, why her parents lived in Winston-Salem. And she had often said to me to Mr. Wilson, I wish you'd be exercised about going up to Winston-Salem. She said there's a great need in that city for the gospel. and I wish you would go. So it seems the Lord was leading very definitely in that direction. So I decided in the spring of thirty-four, thank you, thirty-four, to go up to Winston-Salem, and I happened to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Crouch, Mrs. Chapel's parents for the three weeks. And I tried my best to get a building to preach in, a place to have meetings in, but I couldn't find one. And then Mrs. Crouch had heard about a man who had a tent for sale, and she wrote down and told Mrs. Chapel in Raleigh that there was a tent for sale, and why didn't I get a tent and start preaching in a tent? Well, I hadn't had a tent in my own up till this time. So then, Mr. Chapel told me one night, he said, Mr. Wilson, I hear that there's a tent for sale up in Winston-Salem. He said, how about if we here in Raleigh buy that tent, and you have a series of meetings up in Winston-Salem, and then bring it back here, and preach some more around here. I said, Jimmy, I've been around Raleigh for three years, and I think that's quite a while. Now, I said, if you want to buy that tent and let me use it wherever the Lord wants me to use it, I'll agree to that. But to agree to terms that you buy the tent with strings attached, and I've got to come back down there, and after I have a series here in Winston-Salem, I will not agree to that. If you want to buy that tent for me, for me to use it wherever the Lord may lead me, whether it ever sees Raleigh or not, I'll agree. Alright, he says, go ahead and buy the tent. So, I went ahead and went over to see this man, and I asked him if he had a tent for sale. He said, yes, he did. Took me out, and he showed me an tent in two big bags, and I said, what kind of shape it in? He said, it's a good shape. He told me he'd only bought it two years before. Well, I said, I'd like to see it. Well, he said, I'll sell it to you just as it is. He told me how much it cost him, and It's only been bought two years before. So I said, all right, I'll buy the tent. So we bought it and took it out to a lot that we were able to get on North Patterson Avenue. And I'm going to say this, if ever any of you are interested in buying a tent, never buy one in a bag without seeing it. When I put that tent up, I thought I was in a planetarium. I could see stars and planets and everything else all through the canons. It was just full of holes. And I went back to see Mr. Jones. I said, do you know an awful lot of holes in that tent? Well, he said, I don't know. I put it in there a couple of years ago. Evidently he bought it and used it once and put it back in the bag. And that's where it had been. And evidently in his garage a damp place. And that's what happened. Well, anyway, I got started in my meetings and I was preaching one week. Monday night of the second week came and I saw the storm coming up in the distance. And finally, I was just about quarter of the way through my sermon when the storm reached such a pitch that the audience just wasn't listening to me at all. They were looking around. The old tent was just clapping like this. And so finally I said, folks, we'll have to dismiss the meeting. And they scurried out and got in their cars and took off. And I started battling with the tent, running from one side to the other, putting up a post over here, one over here. Finally I saw it. It's useless. My Bible, the pages were flipping over on the pulpit, and I ran up and grabbed my Bible and got out the tent, and just got in my car, was parked in front of the lot, and away went the tent. Big gust of wind got up under it, and the tent, the canvas started flying in every direction. Well, I sat there, and till I could take it no more, seeing the tent all torn to pieces, and so I went home. All night long, I was dreaming of tents going through the air. It was no dream. It was a reality. So next morning, the first thing I did was to get up and hurry up to the tent. Well, all of the standing were the posts and the ropes. The side curtains had fallen down on the ground. They seemed in pretty good shape, but there were the ropes, just as bears could be, like a well-picked chicken. And all the canvas was all over the place. So I thought, well, I don't know what I'm going to do. I have to take a look at it in the morning. I was lying at the back of the lot, lying down on its back, and hymn books were scattered all over the community. So I went home to my room, and I got on my knees. I said, Lord, what am I to do? I felt I was in your will coming here to Winston-Salem, and things seemed to work pretty well. Here we had this tent offered to us, and now it's gone. What does all this mean? I said, Lord, is this the end of my efforts in a tent here in Winston-Salem, or do you want me to get another tent and continue? I said, Lord, and I'm going to say this. I don't want you to do this very many times because it can be very misleading that He's just letting your Bible open. Now and again, it will work. When you're really wanting the will of God, and God knows you really want it, He can lead. I tried it many times since and it haven't worked. But here's one time it did work. I said, Lord, I want your will because the Lord knew I wasn't going to get a tent unless I had direct orders from him. I said, Lord, I want your will and I've got open my Bible. I want you to give me a text that will be appropriate. And this is the text I read it to you. enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation, spare not lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stings. Now, you wouldn't have thought there was a verse like that in your Bible, you see. And I thought, that's all I want. So I got off my knees, and I went over to Mr. Dyes, Dyes, awning and tent manufacturer, and he's the one who had made that tent. Before he told him it to Jones, and so I went into his office, I said, Dyes, I have had a tent. up on North Patterson Avenue, and it was destroyed last night in the store. Yes, he said, I saw it this morning. I came by, I said, quite a mess. Well, I said, you made that tent, didn't you? He said, yes. But he said, that was a bad storm. Yeah, but I said, that thing was full of holes before the storm hit it. Well, he said, that couldn't have been our fault. That was waterproof, and he said, mildew-proof. He said, I don't see how it could have been that way. He said, it must have been neglect on the part of the man who had it, Mr. Jones, keeping it in a damp place. Well, I said, I'd like to know how much a new tent's going to cost. That is, we'll use the old ropes, and what will the canvas cost to put on those ropes. So he did a little figuring, of course, for speaking in terms now, of twenty-eight years ago. Well, he said, I'll put new canvas on those ropes for a hundred and fifty dollars. Well, I said, now the second thing, what are your terms? Oh, he said, cash, of course. Well, I said, I'm just going to brief you a little on my life. I said, I came down south, trusting the Lord. I don't take up any offerings of my meetings. I just trust the Lord for my life. And if you will state some terms, I'll guarantee you one thing, that your terms that we agree upon will be met. That I have faith in God, they'll be met. He looked at me, well, he said, if you've got that much faith in God, I don't see why I shouldn't have that much faith in you. He said, uh, seventy-five dollars down and the rest in six weeks. Voice within me says, go ahead and take them up. I had twenty-five dollars in my pocket. And the voice kept saying, take them up. Well, I said, uh, suppose if we make it fifty dollars down, the rest in three months. He said, all right. So we agreed to that, and I went up to the lot, and when I got up to the lot, I found that the side curtains were gone. I thought, what happened to that? They were here, they'd fallen down on the ground. They were all around the posts, around the tent. They didn't seem torn. Where are my side curtains going? I get in my car, and one of the ladies across the street said she saw some boys hauling them off. Well, I got in my car and drove around that community that the new development. Now, if I saw one tent, I saw twenty. There were little tents all around the backyard. Now, I'll tell you who had the biggest one, the Methodist Ministers Board. He got the biggest piece of canvas, and he had the biggest tent. They got the side curtains and cut them up. So I went back to Mr. Dyes. I said, Mr. Dyes, I'm afraid I'm going to have to have side curtains. I went back up there to... See the situation again, found the side curtains had been pulled off, cut up, boys made a lot of tents that were all around the community up there. He kind of smiled and he said, well, that'll cost you sixty more dollars, Mr. Wilson, two hundred and ten dollars altogether. I said, all right, and you'll be paid, too, on those terms. Three months. Seventy-five dollars up. Well, he went ahead and I said, I appreciate you getting the tent made as quickly as you can. He said, all right. So he told me when I could get it, and I went back, and the tent was there, and I had the seventy-five dollars that he asked for. And I paid him off everything within the six weeks that he, first of all, asked. I had stretched it out for three months, but I met his terms. The Lord sent it in, people that I had never met, sent me some fellowship, and that's the way it was handled. I didn't ask anyone for a penny. I didn't write anyone for a penny. I made no hints. The Lord just took care of it. And here's an unusual thing. When I went to get my pet, I noticed that I had all new ropes. So I went in to see Mr. Dyer. And Mr. Dyer said, I thought I was having the canvas put on my old ropes. I was expecting a little more cost. Yes, he said, that was the arrangement. He said, the foreman back in the office misunderstood the... notice that I gave him those to be put on the tamps to be put on the old ropes. So he says, that's our mistake, so you get the benefit. So I got a complete new tent, new ropes and all for two hundred and ten dollars. So we started in preaching in Winston City. We preached for about five weeks and the Lord saved two or three fine souls. I remember it was after three weeks preaching, a lady of the name of Mrs. Mayberry. It's the first one to find Christ, and I think most of her children are in the assembly to this day. She is too, along with her husband, Mr. and Ms. David Maybrook. So we had a wonderful time there in Winston-Salem. First campaign, even after the tent was blown away, and I might say there's a sideline to that. I went down to Raleigh after that campaign, see the chapels, and Jimmy said, well, Mr. Wilson, where's our tent? We bought you. I said, Jimmy, that's gone with the wind. This is my tent. Win took your tent away. So he got a smile, and I used that tent in Winston-Salem for the opening up of the work there. So it shows you how the Lord can lead, and this text that I gave you, how definitely the Lord revealed His will, and how faithful He was that everything was taken care of. Then there was something else that happened in Winston-Salem that I thought was very interesting. At the end of that summer, we were going to put the tent away, and Mr. Dye said that he would have it stored in his factory for a small amount. So we took the tent down, and Mr. Bigley, a man of the name of Mr. Bigley, had a trailer, so he said, I can put it on my trailer, and we'll take it over from the lock to the Dye's awning and tent place. So we did. Mr. Davis, lieutenant in the fire department, who had found Christ along with Mr. Bigley, At the meetings we had had, Mr. Davis and I, we followed on three or four blocks behind Mr. Beckley. He was going on with his car and the trailer. As we were getting near Salem Station, I thought I saw a big brown bag lying out in the road alongside near the curb. I said, Hughes. Her name was Hughes Davis, and I said, Hughes. George must have had a wreck. I said, I think I see that canvas bag down there. As we got close enough, we saw there had been a wreck. A big truck had stopped quickly in front of him and was following two toes. He didn't see the light changed and the light changed. So all George could do was try and miss the truck. And as he swerved over, he landed a big fender on the opposite side of the street. The car was parked there and the trailer turned over and threw the tent bags up against the curb. So they hurried up and got the traffic straightened out and George pulled his car and the trailer around the side. Well, we were going to debate what we were going to do. Mr. David said, well, if I know a man that's a pretty good mechanic, he said, it's a friend of mine, nothing. We take it up there, he'll give us a praise. Well, this man had already come out and wanted to know what was going to be done with his fender. So we told him where to take this car up, and Mr. Vinkley, he had the bumper torn on his and also a fender. So they both left. And I stood there on the curb only about twenty feet from my mailbox, which was forty-one Salem Station, Winston-Salem. And I said, Lord, you know I don't have any money. You see the cost of this? Well, I thought it was going to be considerable. So I turned around and went into the post office, and there were two letters, three letters, in fact, in my mailbox. One was from my mother. One was from Miss Lynn, an elderly lady who was saved in meetings. We had six walks. I referred to that little while ago. Another letter there from another Christian had fifteen dollars in it, so I had twenty dollars. So this time I thought, well, I'll go on out to the garage, and when I got there, this garage man, mechanic, I just got through talking with Mr. Davis, Mr. Bigley, he told Mr. Bigley, he said, well, I've got a second-hand fender. He said, I think it'll replace yours. He said, I think I have a bumper, too, a second-hand bumper that I can replace the one you had. He said, I don't think it's necessary to be necessary to put anything new on your car. And he told the man, he said, I can straighten out the bump in your fender for three dollars. Now, remember, again, this is twenty-eight years ago, and that three dollars would be about like ten today. So, he said, it'd be around twenty-three dollars, but he said, I'll let you have it for twenty. Well, that's exactly what I have. Fifteen dollars out of one letter and five out of the other. He said, I'll do both jobs for twenty dollars. So I was all right. The Lord saw me do that. So these are some of the ways in which the Lord led in the beginning of the work in Winston-Salem. His guiding hand was very evident. And these things encouraged one, because in those days I was just young. I was dependent entirely upon the Lord. It was my first real pioneer effort when I was down in Raleigh. Why? There was a fine group of Christians there. More or less were... behind me in everything I did and assumed much of responsibility, but while in Winston-Salem, I was alone. I want to say this, I don't know any place where I witnessed the presence of the Lord more than I did in Winston-Salem. I believe the Lord does that when one is young and venturing out for special encouragement. After a while, as you get older, he wants you to walk by naked feet. Without any special encouragement, by this time you ought to be able to trust them by just taking matters word. But when you're younger, the Lord in his grace does things a little out of the ordinary just for your encouragement to strengthen your faith. Now remember when we used to break bread in Mrs. Sneed's home in Winston-Salem when only about four to five of us were there. The presence of God was so real at that worship meeting where we used to meet to remember the Lord on Sunday morning. that sometimes I was afraid to get on my feet because the atmosphere was so charged with the presence of God. You didn't have to open your eyes. You could just hear the Christians, the five or six who were there, sometimes only four or five, and they were all sobbing. Tears were plenty, and there wasn't a hymn being sung, and no brother was on his feet. Everything was quiet, but the presence of the Lord was so real that hearts were softened and Christ was made so precious. that they just sat there and meditated upon the Lord. And I never since had such experience as we had in Mrs. Sneed's Hall back at that time. So we had our discouragements, but we had our encouragements too. The last campaign I had there, after five years, there were forty-six professed to be saved, and about thirty-seven of them came into fellowship, and by this time the assembly was nightly in number. fellowship and that was where we built our first church and it's a flourishing chapel today quite a lot larger than this in numbers and fellowship one other thing I want to mention for concluding that is during that campaign I've just referred to I had the laryngeal very little trouble I ever had with my throat but here's another thing the Lord taught me a lesson in Because the crowds were coming, we could hardly see the people. Place was packed night after night, night after night. People were getting saved. And I had this case of laryngitis, and I just couldn't speak a whisper. When I get up in the morning, I couldn't speak a whisper. I'd try and talk. There was no sound at all. And I swallowed everything from kerosene to power stream. Everything anybody would suggest, I'd try. And... You know, all kinds of remedies won't cost you a penny for prescriptions. You get something wrong with you, and everybody's got the remedy. Well, I took all the remedies, and so I don't know what went down my pipe, and I know some of it wasn't very palatable. But I thought I'd get something that would clear up this laryngitis. And I'm going to tell you the truth, with God's word in my hand. I've gone to that tent at night, and the men were there, helped get things ready. And they said, Mr. Wilson, how's your voice? And I couldn't answer. I just pointed my throat. No need of me saying it's bad because I couldn't say it. There wasn't any sound. Just nothing came up. And I thought to myself, this was the most foolish thing I've ever seen in my life. Here's a crowd of people, and I got a priest. And I don't have a voice. I got Mr. Bigley to take care of the singing. And there I sat. waiting him to get through, and I thought, well, this isn't embarrassing. When he stepped down, he said, I return the meeting over to Mr. Wilson. Well, I stepped up, opened my mouth, and my voice came out just as clear, and it was just ringing right out as if nothing were wrong. That happened night after night for about two weeks. Finally it cleared up. You tell me how it happened? I told him. But I know one thing, I was in the Lord's way. The Lord knew those people need to hear his word. And it just shows you how God can overrule. It wasn't any great faith on my part, I'll tell you that. But it was just the faithfulness of God. And that was another lesson I learned early in my Christian life and as a servant of Christ, a minister of the gospel, that strengthened and fortified my faith for other tests that came later. So that's the experience of how the work began and got started, included in Winston-Salem. leaving it there with a lovely new church building with a large fellowship and we'll tell you next Wednesday night Lord willing if you don't have that film on the missionary work how the work went on there on the Mr. McKay and how I went on to Greensboro to start another work there I had the announcement I did I certainly had him speak and give me a chance to rest Saul Sixty I know his person named George. I can't think of his last name right now. Glad to have him with us. Psalm sixty and verse nine. Who will bring me into the strong city? Who will lead me into Edom? Will not thou, O God, which has cast us off, and thou, O God, which did not go out with our enemies? I want you to rose those words, who will bring me into the strong city and then the five words of the next verse, wilt not thou, O God? Now the translation really helps that, but we leave it as it is for the Lord. Now I think this is about our eighth message on He Lead of Me. He started back with how the Lord first led us out into the work, and then how He led step by step, in reference to opening up the work in North Carolina. We ended up last time with Winston-Salem, and this will be our last message because of our going away next month up to Canada. We're going to have three or four more messages when we return, God willing, in September. So now we get to Greenswell. I might say during the five years that we were in Winston-Salem, and we built a lovely new chapel there, I only made two trips to Canada, and I'm seeing this for a reason. I could drive to my parents' home in town in two days. It was eight hundred and fifty miles. But during five years, I only visited them twice. In other words, I felt that the Lord's work came first. But I'm saying this because it seems some people, they just can't stay away from mother and daddy two weeks. They've got to go and see him. Whether it means missing the Lord's table or what, they've got to go. The Lord didn't mean for me to do any more than he means for any of his children. In other words, we've got to put him first. I don't mean by that. You don't have to go and see your mother and father twice in two years. If she's living somewhere nearby, why, I believe you should go more often. But not too often to put loved ones ahead of the Lord. Now our building is complete in Winston-Salem and a nice assembly there of some ninety Christians remembering the Lord. Nice Sunday school started and one day just as it seemed I was settled down to stay in Winston-Salem for three or four years I began getting some letters telling me that I was making a mistake. The Lord had called me to do evangelistic work. Here I was settling down and becoming a pastor and doing nothing else but looking after one flock of sheep. And the possibility was I would have to stay there until that new church building was paid off, which was not the case. But the Lord had his plan. So one day I was praying, and the Lord very definitely laid it on my heart to go to Greensboro, North Carolina. That's about thirty miles east of Winston-Salem. And the moment that that talked him into my mind, go to Greensboro, I said, Well, Lord, who's going to take care of Winston-Salem? Here we have about ninety Christians, and most of the men had just gotten saved in the last year. The last campaign we had, there were forty-six professed to get saved, and thirty-five of them or thirty-seven of them came to the fellowship, and seventeen of them were men. Before that we only had three or four men. And so the men were quite young in Christ and unable to handle the responsibility of that flourishing work. So I said, Lord, I just can't leave this work now. We've just built our new chapel. And if I were to go to Greensboro, who'd take over the work here? And the voice came, in fact, I believe I stopped praying. It was so clear. A voice behind me said, go and see Harold. Well, immediately I thought of Harold McKay. I'd only met Harold twice and that very briefly, and yet he came within forty miles of my home in Canada. And at that time he was laboring up in Virginia, in Bristol. And the boy said, go and see Tara. I thought, well, I don't know anyone, but what I've heard, I don't know anyone that I would be free to leave this work with, like Tara, but what I've heard. Both about the same age, and he's the one we've reminded you of time and time again, who has a tumor on the brain. Brother Marshman and Evelyn met him when they were up at Bristol. One of the most talented teachers, I believe we have in America today, yet here he is. handicapped because of his tumor on the brain. Harold and I have been like brothers for these many years who have made me together. So the day or two after, I get in my car and I drove up the distance to Bristol. I knocked at the door, and when Harold opened the door, he stood and blared at me. Of all things, he said, if I haven't been thinking of you the last two, three days, he said, it was only yesterday. I took a map out and I figured out how far I was down to Winston-Salem, and I said to Gertie, that's his wife. Gurdy, I'm going down to Winston-Salem to see that work. I've heard so much about it. I want to go down and see it. And he says, here you are, stand in my door. She's, come on in. So I went in and I said, well, Harold, I'll tell you what my mission is. And I told them what I just told you that I was praying. All of a sudden the Lord told me to go to Greensboro. And I said, Lord, what am I going to do at Winston-Salem? The Lord says, go up and see Harold. He looked at me and His wife, Gertie, was there. Well, he said, that could be the answer to all our prayers. We have felt since we came back from Canada last Christmas. If I remember correctly, this was in April. He said, we felt that our work here was done, that the Lord was stirring up our nest. And yet he said, we didn't know where we were going. We just felt we were through here. And we just didn't know where the Lord wanted us. And we've been praying ever since, well, Lord, if you don't want us here, where do you want us to go? There were so many evidences that the Lord didn't want us here. Our next was being stirred up. But where are we to go? He said, this could be the answer to all our prayers. So we decided that he would come down and have a week's meeting and just see how the Lord would lead. So he came down on the Saturday and Sunday. We had such a happy time. The Monday morning, he said, let's look for a house. He was ready. He wasn't going to wait a week. He was ready right then to... get a house and well we looked around town and as we came back after looking around couldn't find anything we were standing in front of the chapel and the man who's a neighbor there at the chapel neighbor of the chapel walked up he says you know they that man in there wants to sell their house it was the house right next to the chapel so we walked up to the door and he said you want to sell this house well he said sell a rent one or you do want a rent he said Yes, he said, I want a rent. Well, how much do you want? So he told us, and the rent was very reasonable. It was right next door to the tap. So Harold and myself, we looked around, and Harold says, well, I don't have enough furniture. He says, you know, he said, he said, I'm not taking all of this furniture with me. He said, I want to leave all this furniture in this room, this front room, he said, in that front bedroom. And he said, there's a stove at the back. He said, I want to leave that here or sell it. We bought the whole business for a hundred and fifty dollars. So he got enough furniture for the house, plus what he was going to bring down with him, and the house was rented right next door to the chapel. So he moved in, and that's how the Lord provided. So now it was Greensboro. Well, I went over to Greensboro to see the lay of the land. Of course, I didn't know anybody in Greensboro. When I got over there and began talking around among... What do you mean? Well, for two years they have barred the use of any kent in Greensboro. Well, I don't understand that. Well, they have a purpose for it. So I went to one of the city officials and I asked if that were true, and he said, yes. The reason for that is he said that a seven-day Adventist man came in here and pitched a big tent and didn't tell anybody who he was, let them believe that he was here for the benefit of all denominations. He was interdenominational and then finally he came out with his seventh-day Adventist doctrine and he caused an awful lot of commotion in town. Then he said, last year a holiness man came in here and pitched a big tent but on a big show and ran up a lot of bills and he pulled out overnight. The next morning the lot was vacant and all his equipment was gone and he said he left such unsanitary conditions behind that the city fathers got together and they passed a by-law. There'd be no more permits granted for head meetings within the city limits of Greensboro. Well, I thought that's strange. Now here, Brother McKay, he's moved down to Winston-Salem and the Lord told me I was going over here to Greensboro. I go over and I find this situation. So I went before the Lord about it, and that's when the Lord gave me this text, and it was, "'Who shall bring me into the strong city? "'Wilt not thou, O God?' I think the real rendering is, "'Who shall bring me into Bicros? "'The rock city? "'Wilt not thou, O God?' So I thought, well, the Lord will do it. And the first thing I thought of was to go and see Chief Anderson, who was Chief of Police, a real Christian who had been attending our meetings. When I was having these meetings in Winston-Salem, he had an architect of policemen, eight big husky policemen, and my how they could sing. He used to bring them to our meetings, had large crowds there, and to see those eight big men standing up above there singing, it was just beautiful. So I went to see Chief Anderson, and I said, Chief... I understand that they've got a law over in Greensboro that prohibits anyone from having meetings, tent meetings inside the city limits. I said, isn't that unconstitutional? Do we not have freedom of religion in our constitution? Well, he said, they've got a reason for it. They've got a purpose for it, Mr. Wilson. I'm sure they wouldn't. Well, I said, I kind of found out why they passed that law, and I told them. Well, he said, I'll tell you what I do, what I'll do. I know Chief Jarvis over there. In Kingsborough, the chief of place, he said, and he's a Christian. And I'll give you a letter of commendation to him. Be glad to do it. Now, it's very seldom you'll find two chief of fleet in two cities like that, that side, both of them wonderful Christians. And so he wrote a letter of commendation. He gave it to me, and I went over the next day, and I went in to see Chief Jarvis. And very fine gentlemen. And I handed them a letter. And he read it and he says, well, what can I do for you? I said, Mr. Jarvis, I want to have some meetings in this town, and I understand that there's a by-law for pivoting the erection of any tent inside the city limits, and that's what I've got as a tent. Yes, he says there is a law. But he said, what do you preach? I said, I preach Christ and him crucified. No, he asked that. He said, what do you preach? Christ and him crucified. I said, yes. risen, glorified, coming again. He said, amen. And then he reached down and opened his drawer at his desk and he pulled out a hymn book. He was the choir director of a Baptist church in Greensboro. And he started coming through the book. He said, oh, this is a hymn I love. Free from the law, oh happy condition, Jesus have bled and there is remission. I said amen. It was my time to say amen. Because I had known that hymn ever since I was a boy. My was so fundamental, I thought, well, here's a man who really knows Christ. And as he thumbed through that hymn book and pointed out some hymns that he loved to sing, here I was talking to a real warm-hearted Christian, and he was the chief of police. Well, after a nice time of fellowship, he said, well, Mr. Wilson, I can see by talking with you that you would have some good meetings here. He said, I'll do all I can to help you. Well, I said, I want you to understand, Chief, that my meetings are not radical. There's no shouting going on. There's no begging for money. We just conduct our meetings in a dignified way, in a dignified way. And we preach the gospel. We want men and women to be sane. That's our object. And then we want to teach them the truth of God's word afterwards. Well, he said, I'll tell you, you go on over and see Mayor Lewis. That is, while you're going over there, I'll pull over, and you'll have to see him, because after all, the by-law will have to be handled by the Board of Elders, the Mayor. So I went on over to Mayor Lewis, and by the time I got there, I didn't get right in to see the Mayor at that moment, because someone else was in there, and I sat in the waiting room. Finally, my term came to go in, and as I walked in, the Mayor was very cordial, and... welcome me very warmly and he said well Mr. Wilson what can I do for you he said you've come highly recommended from Winston-Salem and he said Chief Jarvis has given you his impressions of you now he said what can I do so I told him well he said you know that's too bad he said we had our council meeting last night and he said if you'd only had your application in, we said we could have discussed it last night. He said, you fill out an application, and when we have our next meeting, two weeks from last night, why, we'll take it up. Well, I said, Mr. Mayor, of course, I've had a little experience about the enemy, with the enemy. Don't give them too much information. Don't give them too long the work. I said, you know, If I wait two more weeks, then it'll give me another week to get my equipment up. There's three weeks, and the summer is kind of short, and I like to get in to choose seven or eight-week campaigns in one summer, and if I get delayed two weeks now, that'll push me into the fall, and you know we get cold nights into the fall, September, and I would like to get started just as soon as I can, and I would appreciate it if you would consider that point. I'd like to get the best weather I can for my meeting. So he said, well, I'll tell you what I'll do. He said, I'll call the alderman, or eight of them, and he said, I'll greet them on what we've heard from Chief Anderson and also what Chief Jarvis says and what my own sessions are. They said, if five of them will pass it, he said, then we'll give you the permit, and it'll just be a formality when the meeting comes up to reach hence. He said, you come back in a couple of hours. I said, I'll do that. So I went back in a couple of hours and said, He was very happy. He said, all right, Mr. Wilson. He says, we're right ahead. He said, they're all favorable. He said, except one, he was favorable, but he suggested that you get the permission of the Ministerial Association. Uh-oh. I thought, this is it. Because they're the ones who will block you. If they can, if you're not there in their particular denomination, if you're undenominational and you're going to preach the gospel, they're to oppose it. And, of course, they had memories, I presume, of this seven-day Adventist, the trouble he caused, and of this whole administration, the trouble he caused. So I thought, well, I guess that's it, but I thought, well, God says he'll bring me into a strong city. Everything's been going good up till now. I'll go and see him. So I went to see the Pesons of the Ministerial Association, and after. He's a little cool to begin with, and he asked me a few questions. I answered them. So finally, he said, well, I don't see any reason why we can't let you go ahead. We don't want to be the only one blocking you. All right with us. So the Lord gave us favor with him, and we were all set to go. So then we went to the radio station and talked about getting time on the radio station, and Major Ridge, who was in charge of the radio station, said, well, it would be four hundred and some dollars for the number of broadcast that I want at that time, the only eight dollars of broadcast. the only station in town. Well, I said, what are your terms? Well, he said, pay in advance. I said, what do you mean? Pay all that four hundred some dollars in advance. No, he said, you have to pay a week in advance. A week in advance. Well, I said, all right, I'll take it on. Well, I only had about enough for a couple of weeks broadcast, only about that much money in my pocket. Well, anyway, I paid the week in advance and started my meetings. And one night, one day rather, a lady phoned me up and she'd been attending the meeting that I had and I want to say that I fixed my tent right across from a cemetery so I had those dead in their bodies or across the road and those dead in their sins in front of me in my audience. But there's a music, kind of an amusing angle to this. I said to the chief of police going back a little, I said, where do you think I might get a good lock? Well, he said there's one out here and he started pointing around the town and I went around trying to find these lots. I found a couple of them, but discovered I couldn't get them. And I was driving down this road, and I saw this nice, big, beautiful cemetery. On one side, I thought, well, I won't be able to get many folks out of there to my meetings. But there was a good community all over the other three directions. And I saw this nice lot, and so I went to the City Hall and found out who owned it, went to see them, and I got the rent of it. So then I went back to see the chief. Well, he said, did you get a lot? I said, yes. Well, he said, I don't see why anybody should object to you getting a lot to preach the gospel. He says, where is the law? And I told him, hold on, he said, that's just two goers for me. Well, he just got through saying. He didn't think anybody should object, so what could he say? Well, anyway, I went ahead and put up my tent, and he was a real blessing to us. And I could see how the Lord led in... deep job of being there because he did some things that really protected us from some vandalisms. But it was kind of amusing on two of the occasions. He'd come home from the office sometimes quite late. When he'd grin in the driveway and talk to his wife, he told me this afterwards, he used to say to the wife, Mr. Wilson must have a tent full tonight. He said, I'd hear him two blocks away preaching. And I used to really shout in those days. He said, as soon as I get supper, I'm going to slip up. He said, I know he must have a tent. And he said, I'd walk up there, and you had three people sitting on the back bench. And that was true. I'd reach for three, four, five, and nine. It'd all sit right in the back row. And when you pitch your own equipment and lead your own singing, no pianist, I have a piano there, but you never get a prayer. And then do your own music. Well, I've got to go home and do your own singing. That's the next night of the day there. Henry, the last night of old Friday, he finally trusted Christ. And the biggest crowd we had was when Chief Jarvis brought the whole choir over from the Baptist Church to sing for us one night, and that was the biggest crowd we had. But we thank the Lord for that. Anyway, going back to this other incident, one of the ladies who was attending those meetings called me one day, and she said, Susan, could I see you downtown sometime today? She said around noon time. I said, yes, I'll be free to meet you, any place you say, or any time. So we decided on a place, and the time was to be half past twelve. So when I got there, I recognized her having attended the meetings. She said, I want to ask you something. She said, I've been attending your meeting. You go to ask for money. I said, that's true. I trust the Lord. She said, well, I've been going to some other meetings, one of yours, and the other meeting too. She said, another man, he's been begging for money every night. He wants to get a typewriter for some missionary, and she said some other things, and it runs into about four hundred dollars. Night after night he was saying, I believe there's someone out here that would like to help toward this, and you've got the money. She said three or four times, I just about put my hand up and something said, don't you do it. So she said, the Lord just kept bringing you before me when I was just about to do it. She said, I just wondered whether I don't know where you get your money from, but would you accept some fellowship from me? She said, it's my time. I'll tell you that right now. It's my time. I don't know why I've allowed this much to accumulate, but it's my time. And she said, I just wonder if you would accept it. Well, I said, if you will give it as under the Lord, yes. That's the way I live, yes, from the Lord's feet. Well, she said, here it is. She had me a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. So I walked right over to the radio station and plunk that down. So I was paid up for quite a while. So that's the way the Lord was leading back in those days. And I say the first campaign, there were only two professed from the last night. And then the next campaign, we had six weeks and about fifteen professed to get saved. And the next summer we had another campaign for eight weeks, two campaigns, eight weeks each. And a lot more, a lot more were saved. Then we bought the horse having a tabernacle. It was a receded Baptist church with sixteen Sunday school rooms and auditoriums seating about four hundred. Hughes and all, I got it for five thousand dollars. So that's the, of course, it's been renovated, added to. Today Mr. McKay is there, and that's one of the most thriving assemblies. I would say one of the most solid assemblies in the country. Every Sunday morning about two hundred fifty sit down, remember the Lord, and their Sunday school has gone up for around five hundred and fifty, I think near six hundred. But a wonderful work is going on there, and so that's how the Lord led us to dreams well. I'm going to give one little illustration of how the Lord led. One night I went to my room and I took my coat off. I always used to take my pocketbook out of my coat and put it on the table. This night I put my hand in there and there wasn't any pocketbook. My, I spoke out in perspiration right away. I had some papers in there that I didn't want to lose. I had my passport and the stakes and other papers and all the money I had. It was in that pocketbook. I didn't have any bank account of anything. I tell you, I was sweating. I thought, what happened? So I immediately jumped and ran out of the car, looked around my car, walked all around in the front. I left the folks out the front of the house. I went up the driveway with my flashlight and was all around. I couldn't find anything. So I got in my car and drove on out to the tent. And I got my flashlight and went all around up and down in front of the tent and out to where my car was parked. No. I couldn't find any sign of it. So I went home and I said, Lord, I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight. And you're going to have to give me some sleep with this on my mind. So I did. I went to sleep. Next morning I got up and the first thing's on my mind. I thought, well, I couldn't fight it last night. I'll hurry out there this morning or at daylight and maybe I can fight. So I went out, couldn't fight. I came back and I got on my knees and I said, Lord, if this is a permanent loss or I'm not going to recover it, just let me know and I'll dismiss it and rest in the fact that it is your will. But if I'm to recover it, tell me where it is so I can get it off my mind and get down to my study. And that voice came again. Put on your best coat. I thought, well, that's a foolish thing. Put on my best coat. The voice is put on your best coat. Well, that's the coat I wore the night before. So here I was in my shirt sleeve, and I got off my knees, and I went to the clothes closet, and I took my coat, and I put my hand in. The first thing I grabbed was my pocketbook. It was stuck. Right here in a couple of my boots. Now what happened the night before, I told my coat over the car, the front seat of the car, and I presumed that the parable slipped out here into the sleeve. And when I picked up my coat and took it in the house, it just dropped down into the cloth of the sleeve, and there's cloth. And I'm going to tell you the truth. I tried fifteen times to make that parable stick in that sleeve at that time. I couldn't do it. Now, how in the world it struck me? But the Lord said, Put on your coat. I took my arm down with me and I grabbed my pocket. Well, I said, Thank the Lord. And I got down to my study as usual. These are some of the leadings of the Lord. The way the Lord led God willing, we returned from the Lord by, we will continue, going to Burlington, Silas City, Durham, Sanford, and down to Albany. We'll finish up the law. It's a little over time. Let's have our prayer sessions, prayer groups, brethren, if you pray quickly without waiting on one another. And briefly, we can have a happy time with us, Amen, Fellowship, prayer. So the groups may go there. It's not this time. The others are waiting on a trial for prayer.