There's a real joy to be back at the Park of the Ponds. Appreciate Brother Willie mentioning the Believer's Bible Conference. Most of you are already familiar with it. Numbers of you have been with us from time to time. For about eight years, we met at Lake Louise in Northeast Georgia at the facility which Mr. Archie Laterno, who is now in heaven, built in nineteen thirty-nine before World War II. And then the Georgia Baptist Convention bought this conference facility, and we realized that we would need to find another location in a couple of years, so the Lord opened up the facilities at Covenant College on top of Lookout Mountains. Now, Covenant College is located in what used to be a gambling casino and hotel. It was called The Castle in the Cloud, twenty-four hundred feet above sea level, a beautiful spot, and this Christian liberal arts college was able to buy this property about six to seven years ago now for about one fifth, I suppose, of what it was worth or even less, and they very graciously have leased the facility to us the conveners of the Believers Bible Conference for a week every summer. So we go there the third week in July. We begin the conference on Saturday night and we close on Friday noon. Now the reason we do that is twofold. One is by having the conference over only one Sunday, the people who come from small assemblies where they are solely missed when one or two families are away, don't have to be away from the Home Assembly but one Sunday, one Lord's Day. And then, too, we have a lot of people that come five and six and seven hundred miles or more to the conference. And by beginning on Saturday night, they can leave their homes after they get off from work on Friday, drive two or three hundred miles on Friday, make the rest of the mileage on Saturday and be there in time. for supper Saturday night. And then by closing it Friday noon, they can go part of the way back home Friday afternoon, get back home very easily on Saturday, and get rested up for the Lord's Day on Sunday. Now another reason for having just a six-day conference is that's the only kind of conference you can have at Covenant College now. That's the way they have their program set up. But we found that it works out very well. The Believers Bible Conference was one of the first conferences that had a complete, full program for the entire family. We start with a nursery, and we have meetings for the boys and girls from four to seven years of age, meetings for the boys and girls from eight to twelve years of age, special meetings for the teenagers. And by the way, would you believe that last summer we had so many teenagers we didn't know what to do with them? We had six to two teenagers. Unfortunately, a lot of the people that brought teenagers forgot to tell us ahead of time they were going to bring them. But we're going to have enough counselors this year. Also last summer, we had another problem we've never had before, and that was, would you believe it, we didn't have enough room. And we had to turn some people away. Once again, the reason for this was that some of our dear Christian friends and Christians are worse about this, I believe, than unconverted people, they forgot to raise them. until just before they came. And we were not able to tell the college we're going to have three hundred and fifty people of something like this, and we had to turn some people away, and we hate to do this. So we're asking the people this year to be sure and register early. In fact, we even had a convener. He and his family didn't get to come last year because he didn't register, and we didn't have room. But he's already registered this year, so Bill Berry and his family would be with us this year. The speakers this year are men that you know and love and appreciate in the Lord. Our dear brother, Harold McKay, will be with us for the full time. And Brother Harold McKay is like the Bible. It just gets gooder and good. The older he gets, the deeper and the sweeter he is in the Word. And I'm sure that you love and appreciate this brother. And then our brother... T. Ernest Wilson from down at North Palm Beach will be with us. Mr. Fred Kosen of Florence, South Carolina, will be responsible for the teenagers. And Mr. and Mrs. William King of Silas City, North Carolina, will be responsible for most of the activities of the eight to twelve-year-old young people. And then Mrs. Kosen... We'll be responsible for the wheeler tots from four to seven. And then Tommy Steele, Jr., who is rather a gifted chalk artist, is going to be on campus all week. And he'll be speaking one or two times or drawing one or two times for the teenagers, one or two times for the boys and girls, and one or two times for the adults. And then I believe he's responsible for the morning meeting for the eight to twelve-year-old boys and girls. Yes. Give us the name of the speaker a game from north on the beach. You say a T or anything? I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Are the initials the same? They're very much alike. I appreciate your calling out to my attention. Yeah. Ernest T. Tatham, T-A-T-H-A-M. Thank you a lot. There are two entirely different people. Both of them are very honored of the Lord. All right. Brother Tatham. The man who I imagine, if you could have known George Whitfield, you could have said this is the kind of voice he must have had, from what I've heard. Brother Tatham does not need a public address system. And the Lord has richly blessed him, and he has another man. We've tried for about eight years to get Brother Tatham. He's a hard man to get. For many years he went to Guelph every summer, but now he's available, and we're looking forward to Brother Tatham being with us for the first time this year. I haven't seen any folders around, but we have some here. I have some with me, and we'd like for all of you to take a folder, whether you can come or not. The important thing is you can pray for the conference and tell your friends about it. Now, there are a lot of people here that have familiar faces, but some of your faces are thinner or fuller than they were when I last saw you. Some of you don't have any hair where you used to have hair. Some of you have glasses and you don't have, you used to didn't have glasses. And so don't be embarrassed to come up and say, by the way, my name is so-and-so because I probably met you in New Jersey or Connecticut or Detroit or Grand Rapids or Minnesota or somewhere. And it could have been like this brother who walked up to me last night and I hadn't seen him in twenty-one years. And he seemed a little surprised that I didn't remember him, even though I'd thought of him many times. I feel a little bit like the darky who, before his conversion, had been in prison for a while. Now none of his parishioners of the church he passed knew that he'd ever spend any time in prison, but he did, and he looked out one morning on the back seat of his church and he saw a former cellmate from the prison, and he just didn't care about his people knowing that he'd ever been in prison before his conversion. He was a little nervous and a little flustered, but he said, I read today from Hezekiah, chapter three, verse ten. Them which sees me and knows me, please be quiet till the end of the service, and I'll see you later. Well, I'm glad to say that I believe most of the people that are here today are perhaps all of you. I have known you since I knew the Lord. If I was ever in prison, it was before I ever knew you. Now, all of the messages this week will be directed to Christians, primarily with exception of the one this morning. But today, I want us to consider some of the blessings which come into the life of the man and the woman, of the boy or the girl, who receives Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. I hope that all you people who normally don't come out on Sunday nights will be here tonight because the Lord willing, I'm going to begin a message. I don't think I'll get to finish it. I'll finish it tomorrow night. But I'm going to begin a message tonight on New Testament evangelism. And you know where I got it? Thirty-six thousand feet in the air on an EC-Nine. So I hope you can come back tonight. I'm going to begin that message, but I won't get to finish it tonight. New Testament evangelism. But this morning, I'd like to do what a salesman needs to do if he's going to sell something. Did you ever buy something? And after you had bought it, you found out that it wasn't all that you thought it was going to be? I'm sure you have. And did you ever buy something? And after you had purchased this particular thing, you found out that it was far more than you ever thought it would be. Well, you know, that is the way it is with eternal life. That's the way it is with Jesus Christ. You can say what the Queen of Sheba said. The hand was never told. And in order to get people to purchase something, now we cannot purchase salvation. We receive salvation as a free gift. But there are a lot of people, and there may be someone here this morning, and you do not down in your heart really know, personally, experimentally, the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and your Lord. And one of the reasons you have never really committed your heart and life and body and soul to Him is because you never really thought of all that is involved and of what you'll be the recipient of when Jesus Christ becomes your Savior. So I want to mention about five or six things. Naturally, I wouldn't have but three or four or five minutes on each thing in the time that we have. But I want to mention some of the things that will come your way when you receive a person. And that person is the Lord. Jesus Christ. Now, you don't need to turn to it because most of you know this scripture, but if you want to, it's First John five. We begin reading in verse ten. He that believeth on the Son of God has to witness in himself. He that believeth not God has made him a liar because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is one of my favorite texts right here. This is the record. that God has given to us eternal life and this life in his Son. How much simpler could it be? He that hath the Son hath life. And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And so before I go any farther, let me ask you one question. Do you have the Son this morning? Is he a reality in your life and in your heart? Do you have the Son? The Word of God says very simply that if you have the Son, that means the Son of God, Jesus Christ. If you have the Son, you have life. But he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. And these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God. One of the first things that comes to the one who receives by simple childlike faith the Lord Jesus Christ is P-A-R-D-O-N. Pardon me. I'm sure that numbers of you people here this morning have heard our brother in Christ, Harold Wildish. And I never shall forget an illustration I heard him give it to Columbia Bible College, perhaps twenty years ago now, about how wonderful it was to know that he'd been pardoned and that he'd been forgiven. And I heard him give that illustration. I'm sure that some of you have heard him give it also of how he's been a very naughty boy. And don't expect me to talk with a British accent. I'm not Bob Willie. But he's been a very naughty boy. And he said his mother used to come in and tuck him under the covers every night. and have a word of prayer with him and plant a kiss upon his brow and he'd be right off to sleep. But on this particular day he'd been a very, very naughty boy and the fellowship had been broken between he and his mother. And on this particular night she didn't come in. And he knew there was a barrier there. And he said he turned and he tossed and he turned and he tossed and he turned and he tossed and he turned and he tossed. And finally, he called his mother and he said, Mother, I'm very, very sorry I was a disobedient, naughty boy. And she came in and said, Well, Harold, I'm glad you told me you're sorry. You're forgiven. And she tucked him in, had a word of prayer with him, placed a kiss upon his brow, And she had not gotten back to her room, he said, before he was asleep upon his power. He knew he had been forgiven. He knew he had been pardoned. My dear friend, let me ask you a very simple question. Has the Word of God, the Holy Spirit of God, ever convinced and convicted you that you were a sinner? And that you were lost and doomed and damned and hopeless in the sight of a righteous, holy, pure, all see in God? And has the Holy Spirit of God pointed you to the cross of Calvary and the man upon that cross, Jesus Christ, as your only hope for sins being forgiven? And have you by simple childlike faith said, Yes, I do trust in him and in him alone? And have you recognized that God has very simply and clearly said in his word that without faith you cannot please God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That is, God's Holy Spirit led you by simple childlike faith to believe in him. For the Word of God says, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart men believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made under salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I think that one of the most heartbreaking experiences has ever comes to one of us who the Lord has given the wonderful privilege and responsibility of preaching the Word of God, is to meet someone who has not yet learned the precious truth of trusting in Him and in Him alone, that their sins might be forgiven. I think of a dear man. I talked to him a few months ago in Chicago. This man had for about twenty-seven, eight years been the treasurer of a large church. and there he's coming regularly through this chapel where the Word of God is preached every Sunday. And the Christians there praying for him day by day by day, and yet if you speak to this man about his relationship to God, he'll always remind you that he's gained his way to heaven because he counted the offering every Sunday for twenty-seven years in this church. And how encouraged I was after bringing a message On this particular Sunday morning on the south side of Chicago, when the man said, You know, most of you, I believe I'm beginning to understand what it means to trust in Christ and not in what I've done. It looks like that maybe just a little light is beginning to come into that man's heart and life. I trust that there's not a single individual in this chapel this morning that's trusting in anything, but in the work of Christ. upon the cross of Calvary for your redemption, for your pardon, and for your sins being forgiven. In whom we have forgiveness of sins? The Word of God says, Without the shedding of blood, there is no redemption. Now, you know, as a rule, when you buy something, when you purchase something, you get a lot more, as I suggested in the beginning, than you thought you were going to get. I have used the illustration many times when I bought the rings for my wife. The jeweler put the rings in a little case, and then he put the case in a little box, and then around the box he put some gorgeous paper and a ribbon. Now I paid him for the rings, but all for the price of the rings, he gave me the case, the box, the paper, and the ribbon. So when you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are forgiven of your sins. You are pardoned. But that's just the first installment. That's just the beginning of the blessings we have in Christ Jesus. Another wonderful blessing that comes to the one who knows Christ is the power to live a new life in Christ Jesus. Not in your own strength. but it is strength and the power of the living. If you read Paul's epistles, you'll notice again and again and again that he uses this phrase, the living Christ. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Ye have overcome them, little children, first John, four, four, because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life, and I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Do you know what it means, my dear friends? my brother, my sister, that you know what it means not only to be forgiven and to be pardoned from your sins, but to have the life of the living Christ within your heart and life. We're going to be talking a little bit about discouragement and about people being fearful and afraid, maybe perhaps Tuesday morning or Tuesday night. I'll tell you this, the way you react when things go wrong is a good thermometer. of your spiritual temperature. You know what it means to walk in the power of the risen Christ. And so the one that we want to magnify and glorify and point to is not one that's on a cross, but one who is risen, one who is alive, and one who gives us the power of to be victorious over sins, over death, and over the grave. Power, pardon. And then another wonderful, wonderful blessing of knowing and loving the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is the blessing of having the peace that God alone can give, that the world cannot give, and that the world cannot take away. It has intrigued me Recently, and I'm going to be talking about this on several occasions this week, I would imagine. It has been very, very interesting to me to find out in recent weeks and months in my reading, and I think that Christians should read magazines and papers and other publications that will help them know what's happening in the world. I have some preacher friends that don't go along with me, but I still love them. I think that we should keep abreast of what's happening in the world, but it has really blessed me to hear of people in all walks of life who have reached the pinnacle. They've reached the top. But they were bored stiff in their life of empty. And then someone pointed them to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. Then someone pointed them to the one who is the Prince of Peace. And the Lord Jesus himself has given them the peace that he alone can give. I want to catch him when I was here, I remember mentioning from this pulpit the nephew of the Pope in Rome, who was a missionary in South America. And an evangelical missionary whose name I do not know, it's not important. happened to observe that each day when the people in this little village in South America went into this little chapel to say Mass, that this particular priest always lingered for quite a while after the service was over. And so this evangelical missionary had been praying for this priest for quite a while, and on one occasion he met him and he said, I happen to notice that after you go into the chapel and you linger for quite a while after Mass is over before you come out. And the priest said, well, Seth, you want me to be quite honest with you? Let me tell you something. He said, all my life I have tried to have peace in my heart. And I've never found peace. I sought peace. I sought it in a monastery. I sought it in seminary. I sought it when I was ordained. I sought it when I came here. But, Seth, No matter how desperately I seek peace with God, I do not have peace with God. And the dear evangelical missionary being a real man of God, inviting him to meet him somewhere at an undisclosed location and to open up the Scriptures. And there this evangelical missionary pointed this priest. This Roman Catholic missionary in South America, the nephew of the present Pope, pointed him to real peace with God in, through, and by Jesus Christ. He instructed him and he taught him and he grew in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus and in the course of events he left the church, was established in the words. by this evangelical missionary, and today he's about two hundred miles away in another section of South America, ministering and teaching and feeding a flock of Christians who are meeting the names of the Lord. And he says he's found peace. In fact, he found such wonderful peace, and he was so happy and thrilled with it that he wrote his dear mother, who was the sister of the Pope. and the dear mother came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And she's now in heaven with the Lord. And so this nephew of the Pope is now praying, of course, daily that his uncle, whose name I can't pronounce, but some of you maybe could pronounce it if you have a little Italian or Spanish background. He's praying daily that he might come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, beloved friend, if you happen to be without Christ, You'll never have real peace apart from Jesus Christ because you see, He is the Prince of Peace. He is the giver of peace. He made you, and He knows how to make you run. I remember on another occasion when I was here, perhaps I gave you the illustration of Henry Ford in the model of peace. The man couldn't get his car to run, you know, and another man came along and said, wait, push this, and do this, and turn this, and pretty soon the car was purred like a kitten, you know. And the man said, Say, thanks a lot, Mr. By the way, what's your name? He said, Henry Ford. He made the car. He knows how to make it run. And so there's a wonderful, wonderful joy of knowing the Prince of Peace. And so we have pardon, we have power, and we have peace. What else do we have as Christians? We have a purpose in our lives. You know a lot of the young people that have turned the church off and turned parents off and turned the establishment off? Let me tell you something real interesting. When they genuinely and truly come to know Jesus Christ, their outlook on life and their purpose in life will be changed tremendously. Yay, most of them have no purpose. But when they come to know Christ, Christ gives them a reason to live in. I think of a young man right now. He is home right now after his second term on the mission field in Africa. And when I was director of Youth for Christ in the early fifties, a lot of young people from Columbia House, he would say, Shockley, you ought to get Cash Godbow to come to Youth for Christ. Get Cash Godbow to come to Youth for Christ. You ought to get Cash Godbow to come to Youth for Christ. And finally he came and he found the Lord. And as soon as he found the Lord, he had a new dimension and a new purpose and a new reason for living. And now, He's graduated from high school, graduated from Columbia Bible College, and he and his wife and their family have already spent two terms of service in Central Africa. Why? Because when Christ came into his heart and life, he had a reason for living. He had purpose. And that purpose was to make Jesus Christ known to the ends of the earth. Our oldest son is now twenty-five years of age. When he was born, we named him for a wonderful Christian doctor who then lived in Birmingham, Alabama. And when Gil graduated from high school, we thought it would be only proper to send an invitation to his graduation to the man for whom he was named. And we did not hear from this doctor for some three or four or five months. Finally, after three or four or five months, we received a wonderful letter from Dr. Gilbert Fisher. Dr. Fisher said, Gil, when I received the invitation to your graduation, I could hardly believe that that many years had gone by since you were born. He said, I'm not as young man as I once was. God has allowed me to lose and make a million dollars several times. And I'm on my way up the third time. You know, in nice, modest terms, he just told it like it was. And he said, many honors have come my way. He's been invited to lecture on air and throat operations around the world. He goes at his own expense to Thailand once every year and spends six months in Thailand at his own expense to minister physically and spiritually in the hospital. And he said, I'd like to give you a little advice and a word of testimony. He said, I want to tell you, Gil, that since I've come to know and love my Lord Jesus Christ, the only thing in life that really matters is to tell people about Jesus Christ. The only thing in life that really matters is to tell men and women about Jesus Christ. And I cannot help saying this. You know why that man knows the Lord today and why his ministry has been blessed around the world? Because he happened by God's grace to move next door to a man that knew Jesus Christ. and who across the back fence got acquainted with this man and went into his living room with a Schofield Bible one night and five hours later he was still there. And when he left Gilbert Fisher knew Jesus Christ as his Savior. What about your neighbors back up there in Rochester or back in Chicago or Detroit? Do you really know your neighbors? Do they know that you know and love Jesus Christ? We'll talk about that tonight. So if you don't want to get your toe stepped on, you might or not come. All right, purpose. Now what's the next one? And time's about us. The next one is provision. A few days ago I was recommending the book to a friend in the bookstore up there in Columbia that the Lord has privileged us to have. And I was recommending a book by James Hudson Taylor. And I saw a little phrase in there that he made famous. And you know what he said? God's work done in God's ways will never lack God's provision. And you know it has always intrigued me and always interested me that I know of several ministries on the radio, for example. Gospel, evangelical ministers, and yet they always remind you about money. And yet I know of another one that's been on the air for some twenty-odd years, and so far as I know, I've never heard them mention money. And that's always interested me. God's work done in God's ways will never lack God's provision. And you can rest assured, beloved, that if you are walking in the path that God wants you to walk, God will provide your needs. Now, let me put this in here. He won't always provide your needs the way you think he ought to provide. He may want you to get a job. He may want you to do this. He may want you to go to another area, but you can trust in this. The Lord will provide your needs when you're doing His work the way God wants you to do them. Provision. Do you remember the story of Elijah in First Kings? God told Elijah to go to a place. And he said, Elijah, when you go there, I'll provide for you. But he didn't say, if you go anywhere you want to, I'll still provide the ravens and the food. He says, Elijah, when you go there, I'll provide for you. Now, God does not promise to provide for his people unless his people are where he has told them to go. So if God isn't provided my needs, it could mean, it could mean that God wants me to move somewhere else. And the last one is the one I could take an hour on, but I don't have the three minutes. You know, one of the good things about heaven, there won't be any clocks there. Isn't that one of them? No clocks, no watches, no sundown, no night. Not only will you have provision when you know and love the Lord Jesus and you're walking in His way, but you'll have the most wonderful prospect in all the world. You know, there's a wonderful new interest in prophecy. And the amazing thing about the interest in prophecy is that not only are God's people having rekindled and renewed interest in prophecy, but a lot of unconverted people are interested in prophecy. We have a book, Brother Willie. I didn't see it back there. You might not know about it. We're selling twenty copies a week. And the name of it... is the late great planted earth. Have you had it? Well, it's written by a man that's got his feet on the ground theologically. He went to Dallas, so he's all right, see? And it's nothing in the world but just a very simple interpretation of how the fact that Christ's first coming was a fulfillment of the messianic prophecies and of how the stage is getting set right now, every day. of what's going to happen when the Lord comes back for his church. And people, unconverted people, Christian people, saved people, unsaved people, they're reading the book, and they say, I never saw anything like it. Of course, I don't see how anybody can read the Bible and not see it. But anyway, the Christian has a prospect that no one else has. And the prospect is the church shall sound and the dead in Christ shall arise first. And then it says, And so shall we ever be with the Lord. A lot of people are real concerned about what's going to happen then and then and then. You know, it doesn't bother me much. Because it says, And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Now, the coming of the Lord holds nothing but horror and fear and frustration for those who are out of Christ. For those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, we can only say, Even so come, Lord Jesus. But if I were not a Christian today, and if I did not know the Lord Jesus as my Savior, I would want to say, how can I come to know him? because I want to be prepared for the Lord to come. Christians, set your hearts. Christians, set things right. Christians, live today as though the Lord will not be coming tomorrow, but today. Because He has very, very clearly said, We do not know the day, nor the hour, when the Son of Man shall come. All right? Do you have pardon? Do you have power? Do you have peace? Do you have purpose? Do you have provision? And if you have those things, you have the last one. a wonderful prospect that our Lord may come. This young lady in a Christian, not a Christian college, in a secular college, I understand, she was very active in the ministry known as Entevasity, and they were taking a poll on this particular campus, and the question was, as they were asking all the students, what is your first thought every day? And one girl says, I wonder if I'm going to pass my history exam. Another young lady was a girl's college. Another young lady says, well, I wonder if I'm going to get a letter from Bill today. Another young lady says, I wonder if my dad's check is going to arrive in time for the semester fees. And different questions like that. Oh, I wonder if I'm going to be able to make the tennis team. And finally they came to this young lady who knew and loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all of her heart. And they said, what's your first thought every day? And she said, my first thought every day is, my Lord may return today. What a wonderful thought. My Lord may return today. Shall we pray? Our Father and our God, we pray today that if there happens to be a man or woman in this chapel who does not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have passed from death under life, that you would cause them to know that right now, right this moment, They can settle this thing once for all by simply saying, Lord God, right now I'm going to stop trusting in anything that I've ever done or haven't done, and I'm going to put my trust and my faith in your Son, Jesus Christ. I don't trust in words or merit or goodness, but I trust in Jesus Christ. and in His precious blood. And for those of us who know and love you already, may the imminent return of our Lord be precious and dear to the thoughts of our hearts. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you.