TONY CAMPOLO'S ADDRESS
TO THE PUBLIC RALLY OF THE
GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE
BAPTIST UNION OF SCOTLAND

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24TH 1991

Transcribed from a Tape Recording
by Paul Mansbacher

Tape Counter - 350
[Applause]

I'm glad to be here. I'm glad that you welcome me. That wasn't much of a welcome. Could you do a little better than that.

[Much Applause]

I'm Italian, and I'm going to convert you first to Jesus Christ, and second I'm going to make you into Italians tonight. I married somebody who is not Italian. Would you believe I married a Scottish woman and she is here tonight. Thank you - would you stand.

[Applause]

We were over there in Greenock and Port Glasgow hunting up birth certificates and marriage certificates today and found her ancestors - I'm proud.

A group of Pharisees came to Jesus to try to trap him by questioning him. Now, I know what that's like. I know what it's like when the students try to ask questions, not to get information from a teacher but to embarrass the teacher - that's what they were trying to do.

For ten years I taught at the large university in the United States - the University of Pennsylvania - one of our prestigious Ivy League schools - and I was in the Sociology Department there, and they were always trying to get me. You know what I mean. I was the resident Christian on the Department staff, and they always tried to ask me questions to embarrass me. And there were particularly a group of snobs on the faculty that came from places like Oxford and Cambridge. [Laughter]. I don't know whether you are as up tight with them as we are over in the United States, but if you are from Cambridge and Oxford, shame on you. [Laughter]. Cause they would always come to me, and, you know, not just ask me simple questions, but say something like this, "Doctor, the word is around the University, that you use transcendental categories to legitimate social order, that the categorical imperative for your ethical morase and folkways are mystically inspired. Is that true?". And I would always say, "Yeh!" [Laughter], and then I would say very loudly, "YEH, I BELIEVE IN GOD!"

That would be the signal. My eight graduate assistants would gather around, because they knew that the old man was about to destroy another 'Oxford Boy'. [Laughter]. If you want to play intellectual games, don't play them with me - I'm too old for that. I've been around the block a few times. I know the questions you're going to ask before you even ask them. So when you're asking them, I'm not even listening, I'm loading up the cannon to blow you out of the room. [Laughter].

And they came to Jesus to trap him. And they came - and one of them, who was a lawyer - that figures [Laughter] - do they have the same reputation over here that they have in...do they? I mean in California they have so many lawyers that they're using lawyers instead of rats for laboratory experiments. [Laughter]. I don't know whether you knew that. There are a variety of reasons. First of all, there are more of them, [Laughter], secondly, you don't get as attached to them, [Laughter], and thirdly, lawyers will do things that rats would never do [Much laughter]. But, one of them who was a lawyer - I shouldn't say that because my daughter, bless her heart, is a lawyer. We prayed for her for a long time, but she's still a lawyer. [Laughter].

[Tape Counter 400]

This lawyer asked Jesus, "Which is the greatest commandment of them all?" Now the Jews had so embroidered the laws of Moses, that they figured that the thing had become a complicated mess. And no matter what you answered, they could come up with an alternative that would prove you to be wrong. No matter what law you chose, they would feel that through casuistry, they could come up with an alternative that would make the law you suggested inferior to the one that they would cite. They thought they would capture him on this one. And Jesus looked at them long and hard and said, "This is the Great Commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength. This is the First Commandment. And the second is likened unto it. Love your neighbour as you love yourself. If you do these two things," said Jesus, "you will do everything that God requires. You will obey all of his laws and all of his commandments." Love God like you should, love other people like you should.

Now I like that phase at the end - Love your neighbour as you love yourself. Because what we have all learned, under the influence of modern psychology, is that people who don't love themselves don't love anybody else. Love your neighbour as yours....He might as well have translated it, You will love your neighbour as much as you love yourself. Now you know that. You know that the people who don't love themselves are nasty about everybody else. You show me the person who never has a good word for anyone, I will show you a person who basically doesn't like who he, or she, happens to be. Contrariwise, you show me the person who has positive feelings about other people and I will show you somebody who feels very positive about himself, about herself. We feel about others the way we feel about ourselves. So one of the things that Jesus came to do is to deliver you from self-hatred.

You say, well I don't hate myself. Well it's probably because you're not honest. I don't want to be nasty about this, but if you knew all there was to know about me, you wouldn't let me speak at your assembly. Don't get nasty, Douglas, if I knew what there was to know about you, I wouldn't talk you. [Laughter]. We are in this together, right?

I used to come to these meetings and hear religious people speak and I would say, Oh if they only knew about me. The problem with most of us is that we're like the rest of us. [Some laughter]. It will take a while for that to sink in. [More laughter]. But let me tell you that we are all concealed people. We present ourselves as righteous. We present ourselves as holy. We present ourselves as gloriously wonderful people. But nobody knows what goes on inside. And whenever those psychologists come and say, you must accept yourself as you are, I always feel like saying, You don't know much about me. You say, Well, what do we do then? Well, we've got to recover that purity and innocence and self-confidence of little children. Little children have it. Oh, I have a friend that has a little girl, Jennifer, and she's only, I think, four years old, and there was one of these thunder and lightning storms. I'm sure you have them over here too. The lightning was flashing, and the thunder was roaring, and he ran upstairs to see if his little girl was frightened. She was standing on the window sill, leaning against the glass, spread-eagled. The lightening was flashing outside. He said, "Jennifer, what are you doing?". And she said, "I think God's trying to take my picture. [Much laughter].

[Tape Counter - 450]

The good news of the Gospel is, in spite of your sin, God loves you anyway. Not only does he love you anyway, but, listen to this, he will take away your sin. He will cleanse you of your sin. No, he won't just...When I grew up, I always had this image that Jesus had died for my sins. That all the punishment that I should endure because of sin, he endured in his life. Now that's true. But that's only the beginning of it, isn't it. That's only the beginning of it. The same Jesus who died on the cross, comes and invades our lives, and, listen to this, he cleanses us - he cleanses us. I don't know whether you've surrendered to the cleansing of Jesus. You can believe in the forgiveness of Jesus, but do you understand that right here and now, tonight, Jesus can enter into your life and cleanse you and purify you. Hey, listen to this. He will even take away the memory of all the sin in your life. Your sin, says the Scripture, will be blotted out, buried in the deepest sea, remembered no more. I can't wait to get to heaven because God will not remember, and Jesus will present me to the Father spotless, without blemish, without sin, perfect. I hope my wife's there. [Laughter]. Sin forgiven and forgotten of the goodness...And what Jesus does is deliver us from the dark side of our personhood. And that's the first thing. We have to be delivered from the dark side, the sinful side. We need to be free from all...because if you have sin in your life you can't love adequately. If you have committed adultery, until you get rid of that you can't sin...you can't love adequately. And if there is darkness in you, if there is dirt in you, if you're in to pornography, it becomes very difficult to even enter into relationships with the people that you're married to. You need to be not only forgiven, you need to be cleansed...cleansed...cleansed. And Jesus will do that. He will cleanse you from the dark side and free you from that whole negative side of who you are. He will deliver you from the old self and create a new you that is beautiful and easy to love. And that's so crucial, because when that new person becomes reality, that new person in Christ, that new humanity in Christ becomes viable, you will then be able to love other people as you love yourself.

[Tape Counter - 500]

Now loving other people is special for Christians. You see the whole world thinks they understand love, but they really don't. The world understands romance. We live in a very romantic society. Even Scotland is romantic. I mean, Italians are very romantic, but Scottish people are getting into it. [Laughter]. Romance is not love, however. It's very intense. It is intense. [Turning to someone on the stage - PFM]. Are you married? [Yes.] You are. You have that worn out look. [Laughter]. I was just wondering. [Turning to someone else on stage. - PFM] But you're not. I can tell. You're not, - right? You've got the smile, [Laughter], you know, the easy-going...The truth of the matter is, you will get married. I can just look at you - you're the type. How old are you now? [Twenty-two.] Twenty-two. I want to break it to you. The median age in Scotland for marriage for males - I just think you ought to know this - is between 23 and 27. You will marry whoever you are romantically turned on to at that time. So be careful. Incidentally, you should know this, the median age for marriage in Ireland for males is 34. So if you blow it here... [Much laughter and applause].

The average young man like - what's your name? [John.] You know...Tom? [John.] John. You don't mind if we refer to you in the cause of this talk, do you? [Laughter]. The average person, and you look far above average, tends to have six to seven romantic turn-ons prior to marriage. He's counting them. I saw you counting them. [Laughter]. You marry whoever you happen to be in love with at the socially prescribed ages of marriage. And people often ask, "Doctor, are you suggesting that if I wait ten years, I'll marry somebody else?" Yeh - that'll probably happen. It's an on-again, off-again affair. You say, "Not if you meet the right one." That's what you believe, don't you? Meet the right ...You ask your mother. "Mom, How will I know when I've met the right one?" Every mother in Scotland answers, "When you meet the right one...," - that really helps, that really helps, that clarifies everything - "...you'll know." And I want to tell you something else, John, it doesn't end there. Three weeks before you get married, she will look at you and say, "Are you...." [Audience responds with laughter, "...sure?" - PFM] It's too late! The invitations are out - the presents are coming in. In Yankee language, "You're dead meat, baby! You're dead meat."

Let me tell you what's going to happen. You're going to be down there in the front of the church. Every person you ever knew will be in the audience. You will look up the aisle. This woman, who you hardly recognise, [Laughter], will be coming at you, [Laughter], wearing a demonic grin on her face. [Laughter]. And you will say, "Lord, what am I doing here?" And at that moment a voice will speak to you and say, "Too late, sucker!" [Laughter]. It really doesn't make any difference, because being romantically turned on is not what makes for marriage. It's what you decide to do after the wedding.

Every - I always tell my students - every wedding creates the possibility for a marriage, that's all, just the possibility. Weddings do not create marriages - just the possibility. You have to be prepared for the day when romance dies down - and it will, it will die down. You will wake up one morning, John, and look across the bed, [Laughter], her mouth will be open, [Much laughter as Tony demonstrates], the hair will be hanging down. Worse than that, she will wake up first and look across the bed and there will be no hair hanging down. [Much laughter and applause]. And when the romance dies down, then we have to cope with the necessity of love and that's why this Christian Gospel is so important, because I don't know of any other place where they teach us how to love, except in the Scriptures. And I don't know that there is anyone who equips us how to love as Jesus Christ does. If there wasn't any heaven and if there wasn't any hell, you'd be crazy not to become a Christian, simply because in Christ one learns how to love.

[Tape Counter - 560]

The first thing that the Bible says about love is that it is a decision. That's why, all through the Old Testament, all through the New Testament, love is something you are ordered to do. It's not something that you automatically feel. Romance is something you feel. It's something you fall into. It's something that happens. It doesn't take any effort. Love, according to Scripture, requires Herculean effort. Love cost Jesus his life, did it not? Love is costly. Love is the result of a decision - a very, very, simple decision. It's a decision to do for the other person what Jesus would do. It's a decision to do for the other person what Jesus would do, if Jesus was in your place. That's simple, isn't it? That's simple. I've taken courses on Social Ethics, and Biblical Ethics, and Philosophical courses on Ethics, and they all are trying to tell me, what is right, what is wrong, what should I do, what shouldn't I do. It all boils down to one statement to me - to be a Christian is to do whatever Jesus would do in any given situation. That's why I must study the Scripture. That's why I must pray. That's why I must have a personal, living, relationship with Jesus. Because, only as I get to know him, only as I get to know him, will I know what he will do in any given situation. And that is what I am called to do. Only as I get to know him, will I know what he is going to be in any given situation. And that is what I am called to be. Only as I get to know him will I be able to speak what he would speak in any given situation. And that's what I am called to speak.

[Tape Counter - 590]

No wonder the Apostle Paul prays this, "That I might know him". "That I might know him. And the fellowship of his sufferings, the power of his resurrection, being made conformable unto his death." [Philippians 3:10, with a slight switching of phrases. - PFM] "That I might know him." To do what Jesus would do.

I have a friend. Her name is Jean Thomson. It was the first day of school. All the children came. And she said what teachers always say the first day of school. "Boys and girls, I love you all the same." Sometimes teachers lie. [Laughter]. I don't know whether you have ever had a teacher who didn't like you - I have. And I know what it is like. And there was a little boy in Jean Thomson's room that Jean Thomson did not like. You would not have liked him either. He sat slouched in his chair and he never looked up. His clothes were musty and dirty, and he never bathed often enough to get rid of an unpleasant odour. And when she spoke to him, he answered in monosyllables of, "Yeh", "No". When she marked his paper, she always got a perverse delight out of putting X's next to the wrong answers, and when she put the "F" at the top of the paper, she always did it with a flair.

She should have known better. Teachers have records. She had records. She had records on Teddy Stollard. First Grade: Teddy is a good boy. He shows promise in work and attitude, but poor home situation. Second Grade: Teddy works hard at his school-work, but he is too serious for a second-grader. His mother is terminally ill. Third Grade: Teddy is becoming withdrawn, detached. His mother died this year. His father shows no interest. Fourth Grade: Teddy is a troubled child who needs help. He needs help very, very much. She had the records. She should have known.

I don't know what they do in this country, but in my country at Christmas, the children bring presents to the teacher and pile them on her desk. And they were all in brightly coloured paper - except for Teddy's present. His was wrapped in brown paper and held together with Scotch tape. But to tell the truth, she was surprised he even brought a present. When she tore open the paper, out fell a rhinestone bracelet with most of the stones missing, and a bottle of cheap perfume that was almost empty. The other children began to giggle and laugh. But Jean had enough sense to snap on the bracelet, and put some perfume on her other wrist, and holding it up to the children she said, "Isn't it lovely? Isn't it lovely?" Taking a cue from the teacher, they all agreed.

At the end of the day, when all the other children had left, Teddy lingered behind. And he came over to her desk, and he said softly, "Miss Thomson, Miss Thomson, all day today, you smelled just like my mother used to smell. That's her bracelet you're wearing. I'm glad you liked my presents." And slowly he turned and left, and she got down on her knees and buried her head in the chair, and cried, and cried, and asked God to forgive her. And the next day when the children came, she was a new kind of teacher. She treated each child as Jesus would. She loved each child as Jesus would. She looked upon each child as Jesus would. She nurtured, she helped, she tutored, particularly little Teddy. She helped him along.

By the end of that school year, he had caught up with a lot of children. He was even ahead of some. She didn't hear from Teddy for a long time. Then, she got this note. "Dear Miss Thomson, I'm graduating from High School. I wanted you to be the first to know. Love, Teddy Stollard."

Four years later, there was another note. "Dear Miss Thomson, I'm second in my class. I wanted you to be the first to know. The university has not been easy, but I enjoyed it. Love, Teddy Stollard."

Four years later, there was another note. "Dear Miss Thomson, As of today, I am Theodore J Stollard, MD. How about that? I wanted you to be the first to know. I am going to be married, July 27th, to be exact. I want you to come, and I want you to sit where my mother would have sat. You are the only family I have now. Dad died last year." And she went - and she sat where a mother would have sat, because she deserved to be there. She was a person who did what Jesus would have done.

Loving is that - but it's more than that. It's the way you look at people. Martin Buber, the great, chassidic, Jewish philosopher, said, "There are two ways of encountering people. You can encounter people in an I-it relationship, or an I-thou relationship." There's a big difference between treating people as 'its', as 'things', as 'objects', or as 'sacred thous'.

[Tape Counter - 700]

So often we evaluate people as though they were 'things', and 'objects', 'its'. The feminist movement is absolutely correct, when they try to tell the church that we ought to join them in their protest against men who look at women as though they were 'things', as though they were 'objects', as though they were 'its', as though they had no value, except as how they appear. I am at the beach with my wife, and a friend and his wife, and a young chickadee in a bikini goes walking by. And this guy says, "Hey Tony, look at that!! Now that's really something!!" I'm a pacifist, otherwise I would have killed him. [Laughter]. Because if that young chickadee is something, what has he just said to his 55 year old wife. And don't tell me she's not going to take it that way. That's what we mean when we talk about living in a sexist world. A world in which women feel themselves treated like 'things' - as 'its' - as 'objects'.

Sooner or later it will slip away from you. Sooner or later you won't be that good to look at. I am so tired in the United States - I hope it's not happening here - but I am so tired in the United States of 45 year old men dumping their wives of 20 years to marry some young thing. I don't want to be nasty. I have to teach young women in the university where I teach. And they're all right. But they drive me up the wall. You know, you say, "Hi." They go, "Oh, Hiii." [Tony in falsetto produces laughter]. I don't want to be nasty, but when I was a child I understood as a child - I thought as a child - I appreciated women like a child. But when you become a man, you ought to put away childish things. [Tony paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 13:11 - PFM]

[Tape Counter - 750]

Here's what Paul says so eloquently in that great love chapter. We look at each other, prior to love, How? "As though through a glass darkly". We look at each other. But then, then, when Jesus teaches us what love is all about, "then its face to face". [1 Corinthians 13:12, which however is not referring to when love comes, but, when that which is perfect is come - verse 10. - PFM] For this is what Jesus teaches. He teaches in the 6th chapter of Matthew, the 22nd verse, that the eyes are the lights, the entrances to the body - the light-houses - the invitational lights to the body. And through the eyes we are invited in to the other person. If the person shuts off his eyes, or her eyes, then that person is in darkness, and the only question is, how deep is that darkness? ["For the light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." This is in the context of storing treasures in heaven, and has to do with the heart desiring what the eye sees (i.e. warning of the dangers of lust, envy, covetousness) and has nothing whatever to do with using the eyes as entrances to the soul of another human being. - PFM]

Let me put it this way. There is a big difference between looking at your wife, or at your husband, and looking into your wife, looking through her eyes, and reaching down into the depths of her being and connecting with the sacred presence of the Lord that is waiting to be encountered there. Because Buber says, that whenever you enter into the other, you encounter not only the other, you encounter the Lord himself. You touch him, when you enter into the other. I have to ask you a simple question - a very direct question - those of you who are husbands and wives, When was the last time you looked into your partners life? When was the last time you didn't just look at her as though through a glass darkly, but when was the last time you used her eyes as entrances and reached through them into the depths of her being and connected? When was the last time you loved like that?

[Tape Counter - 790]

Lao Tse, the founder of Taoism, once asked a man to describe his wife. The man described his wife in detail, and Lao Tse said, "You do not love her! If you loved her, you could not have described her." What did he mean? Well, he meant this. That when you reach through a persons eyes, and you reach down into the depths of their being and touch that sacredness in the depths of their being - when you connect with them in the spirit, you discover something about the person that is so awesomely wonderful, so magnificent, so truly brilliant, that anything you see from the outside is insignificant by comparison. If all you do, says the Scripture, is to look at people after the flesh, you really don't know them. It's only when you enter into them....When you look at people, you only know them in part, says the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. We know each other in part, but then I will know you even as also I am known. [The Scripture does not say that you will know as you are known by connecting with another persons soul. It is referring to "when that which is perfect is come" surely a reference to Jesus, or the new heaven and earth and heavenly city of Revelation chapters 21 and 22. Note well Revelation 22:20, He [Jesus] which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. - PFM]

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 005]

Now let me tell you this. In order to love you need energy - a special kind of energy. It's an energy that is a gift of the Holy Spirit. For this is the first of the fruits of the Spirit - the energy, the love - to love - to love - to love. [The fruit (singular) of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,... in Galatians 5:22. There is no mention of energy! - PFM] People all over this country, everybody's in to the Pentecostal thing, and I'm into it too. I love it. But let me just say this. The evidence of one being filled with the Spirit is not whether one has possession of some gifts - whether one can perform some 'signs and wonders'. That's not the measure. The Bible never said, by their gifts they shall be know. The Bible always said, by their.... [Audience responds, "fruits." Matthew 7:20.] Is there a difference between the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit? There sure is. And you can have the gift. You can speak with the tongues of men and of angels and not have the fruit of the Spirit - and not have love. You can have the gift of prophecy. You can understand all mysteries. You can....you can do it all. You can perform signs and wonders, but it doesn't amount to a thing - you're a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, unless you are surrendered to the indwelling presence of the Spirit who energises you to love, and with love you can come....with the energy....you say, you talk about the Spirit of God as though it was some kind of dynamistic....I am not ashamed of the power of God, for the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. [A slight misquote of Romans 1:16. - PFM] Do you know what it is like to enter into, and touch, and connect another person in the spirit. No wonder Paul says, I came to you, not with excellency of words, but I came to you in the power of the Spirit. [A precis of 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, omitting, For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Verse 2. - PFM] This awesome capacity that Jesus gives us to enter into and touch the other person.

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 030]

I had just finished lecturing at the university. I was waiting for the traffic light to change at the corner. There was a crowd of people around me when up alongside of me came the 'duck lady' - a schizophrenic bag lady that wandered the campus of the university - dirty and filthy and in rags - all of her belongings in a gym bag - a dirty bra hanging out of the thing. And she thought she was a duck. And all day long, incessantly without pause, she quacked. Quack, quack, quack, quaaaaack. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quaaaaack, quack. She quacked, and she was so obnoxious and smelly and dirty. And she came alongside of me. And I almost inched away, but then I turned. And when our faces met, there was an energy - the presence of the spirit that was within me - the energy and dynamism of the spirit which was in me came through her eyes....I reached through her eyes and I reached down in the depths of her being and magnificently she did the same to me. I felt, I felt, Jesus coming through her to me, reaching through my eyes, and down into the depths of my being, and we connected. We had what Buber would call the I-thou. It happened. We connected, and suddenly, the bag-lady, in her dirt, and her filth, and her schizophrenia, stopped her quacking. She looked around, as though she had just discovered the day - and indeed, she probably just had. She smiled at me and she said, "It's a lovely day. It's a lovely day, isn't...?" And before she could finish the sentence the light changed and somebody shoved her and I could watch her head shake and she fell down into her schizophrenic state again and wandered off down the street, quacking. But for a moment - just for a moment, love had lifted her up. Love had lifted her up, when nothing else could help, love lifted her up. [A paraphrase of the chorus from the hymn, "I was sinking deep in sin, Sinking to rise no more" by James Rowe. - PFM] Oh, the Balm of Gilead. [see Jeremiah 8:22 and 46:11. - PFM]

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 050]

People, people, you are living in what many people call the post-Christian era in Scotland. I got off the train in Edinburgh one Easter Sunday, and heard Easter music, and was so thrilled - this is a Christian nation! And then I went to a church, and it was empty! Everybody knows about Jesus. Probably most of Scotland believes in Jesus, but what they don't know is the love of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit. And that's why we are called - not just to be believers - not just to articulate a theology - but to surrender to a Jesus who will fill us with himself and provide us with that energy whereby we can encounter people, not as 'its', not as objects, not as things, but that power that enables us to reach into people and connect with them, and to love them as Jesus loved them. Scripture says, And Jesus knew what was in people, because of the way in which he loved them - he loved them. [Sorry, I don't know this reference. - PFM]

Ministry, Christian ministry is an invitation to love people. I'm always intrigued - I don't know whether they're ordaining women over here in Scotland yet. Are they doing that yet? It's really quite crazy you know. [Laughter]. I mean the woman stands up here and ministers for....brilliantly. But we're not going to ordain you. We'll give you a certificate. [Much laughter and applause. (Kathy White had been given a certificate earlier in the evening in recognition of her ministry in worship.) - PFM] Don't sweat it. When they asked Jesus where he got his ordination, he said, It came from another source. [Laughter].

What is ministry? Well, it's not preaching, it's loving! And I don't know why...why...why, we don't understand that the same spirit that worketh in and through men, works in and through women. [Applause]. I didn't...you all aren't clapping, are you. I, I, I really have, I really have to do a little nastiness here, just a little nasty work before I go on. Don't get mad at me - I'm getting the next plane out of here on Sunday. [Laughter]. But let me tell you. We've been sending women overseas as missionaries for years, haven't we? It's all right for women to go and preach to black people in Africa, just don't let them preach to white Scots. [Drawn out Silence]. Have I made my point? [Laughter].

The Holy Spirit is that presence within any person - male, female, Greek, Barbarian, Scythian [an ancient nomadic people], Jew, for we are all one in Christ Jesus. [Paraphrase of Colossians 3:11 - PFM]. And that spirit flows through us, and into the other, and touches the other. No wonder Sir Thomas More could say about his wife who had small-pox and whose face was covered with sores, "Believe me, when all those endearing young charms, which I gaze on so fondly today, were to fade by tomorrow, and all pass away, thou wouldst still be beloved, as this moment thou art, though thy loveliness, fade as it may." The I-thou. People, Love one another. Love one another. Love one another.

Here's the beautiful thing. That if you do for other people what Jesus would do, if you enter in and touch them in the depths of their being as Jesus would, let me say this - It will affect you - It will change you - It will create within you an emotion that makes romance superficial by comparison.

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 095]

I've a friend. He's a Lutheran minister in Southern Indiana. His name is Walter Wangrine. He's one of the great authors. I don't think they're publishing him over here yet. When he comes, he will take you by storm. He is, perhaps, the most articulate author of our time.

Walter pastored a small church in Southern Indiana. And he said there was a man in his church that he didn't like. You wouldn't have like him either. He was singularly unattractive. He was hunch-backed. He had a disfigured face - a lower lip that hung out about an inch - and he smoked incessantly like this - he walked like this. And this old man never bathed and he smelled terrible. And whoever he sat next to in church, he always talked to incessantly. And people, people, listen to me, he never once sat in the same place. [Laughter]. Now people of God, you know, that if you go to church, it is your God ordained responsibility to sit in the same place. [Laughter]. If this was the Church of Scotland, we would say, "That place which was ordained for you before the foundation of the earth." [Laughter].

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 110]

And this old man Arthur Forbes never sat in the same place - And, worse than that, he always came late. [Laughter]. So nobody knew where he was going to sit! [Much laughter]. So every Sunday, everybody waited for Arthur Forbes. [Laughter].

One Sunday, Arthur did not show up. Walter wasn't upset. But in the middle of the week the phone rang, and it was - it was Arthur Forbes, and in a gruff voice said, "Pastor, do you still make house calls? Cause if you do, visit me, I am sick."

So, Walter visited Arthur Forbes. He lived in a shack, a broken down shack on the side of the hill - junk all over the yard, a broken refrigerator on the front porch. He went up, knocked on the door. The gruff voice of old Arthur Forbes invited him. He stepped into this darkened room. The green, winter shades were pulled all the way down. The old black-and-white television set in the corner had the volume turned all the way up, and the picture was flip-flopping, and there was dirt and filth everywhere, and a stench of urine in the air, and there were dishes with rotted food in, and piles of old magazines and newspapers covered with dirt. It was smelly, and musty, and dark. And there in the middle of the room, sitting on this stuffed chair, with most of the stuffing hanging out, illuminated only by the flickering television set, was old Arthur Forbes. Walter said, "I've come to bring you Holy Communion and to pray with you." The old man said, "Forget the Communion, just pray!" So he prayed.

And after that, Walter visited Arthur at least two or three times a week. Every time he visited, he did something - like, cleaned up the place a little, mowed the grass, did the dishes, paid the bills - he, he did loving things. He did what Jesus would do if Jesus was in his place.

One hot August day, he knocked on the door and the gruff voice invited him in, and when he stepped in, there was Arthur Forbes, sitting in that chair, naked. Walter said, "It was the most repulsive sight I'd seen in a long time - this bony man, with his hunch-back, and his yellow-coloured skin, sitting there nude." The old man said, "I'm hot! - so I took off my clothes." And then he added, "I want Holy Communion today." Walter said, "My hands trembled with anger as I gave him the bread and the wine."

The next day, when Walter stopped by there was no answer to the door. And when he pushed open the door, there was Arthur Forbes' naked body lying on the floor. He had had a stroke.

Walter called the hospital. He called a friend. The friend came over. They got this dirty, filthy man up on his feet. Walter said, "With a sponge and soapy water I scrubbed his dirty body. Tony, I washed him in unspeakable places. And when I had cleansed him, and dressed him, and got him to the hospital, we sat there, and sat there. And I said, Walter, can I get you anything."

And the old man said, "Yeh, I'd like a glass of water."

So Walter went to the nurse and said, "He'd like a glass of water."

And the nurse said, "He can't have any water. He hasn't been admitted yet."

Walter said, "ADMIT HIM!"

"I can't," said the nurse, "It takes a doctor to do that."

And they waited for 15 minutes before a doctor came and they got him up to the room, and they tucked him into bed. And Walter pressed the glass of water to his lips and said a prayer, and kissed Arthur Forbes on the forehead and went home and sat in his darkened study. And the phone rang.

[Prolonged silence].

And the voice at the other end said, "Arthur Forbes is dead."

Walter said that when they told me that Arthur Forbes was dead, I started to cry, [Here Tony sobs.] and my crying turned into wailing. I hadn't cried when my own father died, and I was crying and I was wailing, and my wailing turned into screaming, and I CRIED, and I SCREAMED, and I WOWLED, and I - I realised, I LOVED ARTHUR FORBES! I loved him. He had seduced me into loving him - not by anything he did for me, but my allowing me to give to him what Jesus would give if Jesus was in my place."

When you impart yourself, in the name of Christ, to others, it creates within you an ALIVENESS, an ECSTASY, A JOY, such as this world would never know. That's why every one of you is called to be Christian servants. Because that's where the joy is. People want the joy in order to serve. No, you get the joy in the midst of the service.

I call upon you to do that - to give yourself in loving service. Now, now, there's that personal thing in the place where you work. The personal thing in the place where you live - in your home, with your husband, with your wife, with the person you work with, with your own kids. Oh, how many times do I hear parents say, "I can't talk to my children any more." That's right. All you do is talk at them, instead of entering into them. You lack the energy, the power of the spirit that enables you to reach into another person. That's what the Holy Spirit does.

But it goes beyond that. Thank you. [As Tony is handed a handkerchief to mop his face. - PFM] It goes beyond that. It goes to the ends of the earth, doesn't it? I have some work in Haiti. I head up a mission organisation that has some work in Haiti. We have a Baptist hospital up in the northern part of the country, called Good Samaritan Hospital. About five to six hundred people line up there every morning. There are only three doctors, and no surgeon. We desperately need a surgeon. Does anybody here, who wants to be a surgeon in a place where you can make an incredible difference with your life. Haiti needs one right now. The whole northern part of the country has no surgeon. And they line up, four, five hundred, every morning. And at the end of day, there's, there's usually one or two children who have been left behind - deliberately. Usually they are children who are dying of AIDS. One fourth of all the children born in Haiti are carrying the AIDS virus. And at two or three years of age, the disease becomes full-blown. They have eight or nine different diseases simultaneously.

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 200]

And my Field Director called me and said, "Tony, you've got to do something. We have 50 of them now. We can't really save them. We, we just hook up some bottles so as to feed them, so that they don't starve. And pump their little bodies with morphine so that they don't feel the pain. And all they're doing is waiting to die." And then he added, "It's costing us $150.-- a month to take care of each of those kids." And I knew what he was driving at. Because in Haiti for $10.-- a month you can feed, and clothe, and house, and educate, and evangelise a child. And what we 're spending on a dying kid could do that for 15 children. And he said to me, "You're in charge of this thing. You've got to make a decision." And I said, "Craig, I can't make that kind of decision. And I shouldn't have to make that kind of decision. Because there are enough resources lying around the church of Jesus Christ to do both of those things."

We all know John 3:16, but do you know 1 John 3:16, 17 and 18. We don't like those verses. It reads like this, "If you have this world's goods, and you see people over here who are in need, and you hold on to what you have while they suffer, how can you say, you have the Love of God in your heart?" [Tony's paraphrase of 1 John 3:17, actually. - PFM] Good question. To love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbour as yourself is this - listen - it's to allow your heart to be broken by the things that break the heart of Jesus. Paul praying, That I might know him, and the fellowship of his sufferings. Jesus make me feel what you feel.

When we opened up the little hospital up in Capatian (?), a wing on to the school that we were running there, we put the word out that we would pick up 50 children - cause we figured that there were 50 in Capatian that didn't belong to anybody - throw-away children - children with bloated stomachs who were going to die. And we built the wing. It was all set, and it was all ready, and we put the word out that we were going to pick up the 50 children, that they should be rounded up in the town plaza. And when we got there, there weren't 50 - there were 300. And you know what I did? I did what I had to do. I picked 50 children to live. And you can't pick 50 children to live, without simultaneously choosing 250 to die. And I loaded these 50 children, the chosen ones, on the bus, and tried not to look back to the others, with their rust coloured hair and their swollen bellies, and their skinny arms and legs. I tried not to look back at them.

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 250]

And when we got to city ??? and they got off the bus, the children who were already there were singing that gospel song, "God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, God is so good to me." Something inside of me yelled, "God you're not good, God you're NOT GOOD. If you were good this wouldn't happen." And as sure as I am here, I sensed him saying back to me, "I am good, and I do love them so. And if they die, it's not because I don't love them, it's because people who I have commissioned to love them in my place, refuse to do so."

Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind and soul and strength, and you've got to love these kids like you love yourself. Oh, the gospel, the ministry, the outreach of the Kingdom, is loving, is loving, is giving, is giving, and I call upon you know to give of yourself.

Now, they asked me to lay it on this crowd, for young people to...surr... But I'm not going to just hit on young people. You older people. A lot of you are retired. Well you look retired. [Laughter.] That's one of the most untapped sources of missionary work that...and, and, and you're not doing it. What are you doing? Up here in Scotland you're probably playing golf. A game - where you chase little white balls, because you're too old to chase anything else. [Laughter.] Your, your heirs want you to play golf. That's who wants you to play golf. Who else would put a bag of iron on your back, send you out into the blazing sun for three hours to hike, and when you got home said, "Did you have a good stroke." [Laughter.]

Now I don't know how old you are, but Abraham was 94 years old, when God spoke to him in a dream and he woke up and shook his wife Sarah, "SARAH!"

Poor old lady. She's 92. "Yeh, What is it?"

"Sarah, I just had a dream!" Good approach. [Laughter.]

"What kind of dream?"

"We're going to create a new humanity, a new future for the human race, a new people will be brought into existence. We're going to create a future for God." Poor old lady!

"How does this new humanity start, Abe?" [Laughter.]

"Glad you asked, Sarah." [Much Laughter.] And the next scene is this 94 year old man with his 92 year old pregnant wife. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humour. [Laughter.] Leaving the "Ur of Chaldee" [Genesis 11:31] says the 11th chapter of Hebrews, "not knowing where they were going." [Hebrews. 11:8.] Poor old guy walking down the road, probably in a walker. [Laughter.]

"Where are you going, Abe?"

"I don't know."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know." "Well why are you leaving?"

"Because God has given me a vision."

[Actually, Abraham left Ur much earlier, (Genesis 11:31), and he was 75 when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4). He was 99, (Genesis 17:1), and Sarah 90, (17:17) when God appeared to him, not necessarily in a dream, and Isaac was born a year later (17:21). - PFM]

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 300]

Oh people, the Bible says this, "That when the young, when the young no longer have visions, and the old no longer have dreams, the people perish." [No it doesn't! Tony has mixed two verses, namely, Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs. 29:18), with, And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And, also, upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour my Spirit. (Joel 2:28-29, quoted by Peter in Acts 2:17-18). - PFM]

Where do we get this idea that you're off the hook when you hit a certain age? Retirement is only mentioned once in the Bible. A man fills his barn with securities and wealth, and good things - remember it? It's so packed that he decides to tear it down and build a bigger barn and fill that, until he has enough for retirement. And then he says, "Its time to retire. Take ease my soul." And God says, "Thou fool. This day you're a dead man." [Luke 12:16-21]

People, come alive in mission. Young and old. As a matter of fact, I've got a place for a retired couple right now. I've got a team of 20 young street workers in the city of Philadelphia, all too young to live together in one house without an older couple. You say, "But they're godly people." Godly people with a high level of the hormone testosterone. [Laughter.] And I need somebody in there that will come and pray, and bring spirituality to bear. I kid you not, I can find...you, you want to come, I got the place.

In my church back home - it's a black church - we have a student recognition day once a year, and all the kids come in who are going to the university. They're black, and they're bright and they're beautiful. And the old folks in my church love to hear them as they say, "I'm studying Literature at Yale." "I'm studying Music at Juliard(?)." "I'm studying Science at Harvard." And they love to hear these kids, and they just...At my church they're very responsive. They go, "Mama, thank you Jesus. Mmmm-mmmm. Beautiful, thank you Lord." [Laughter.] It's a really nice feeling.

And when they were all finished and sitting down, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, my pastor got up and he said, "CHILDREN!" He talks like that. [Laughter.] "CHILDREN!", he said, "YOU'RE GONNA DIE! YOU'RE GONNA DIE!" It's a good thing to tell kids. [Laughter.] He said, "You don't think you're going to die, But you're going to die. They're going to drop you in a hole. They're going to throw dirt in your face and they're going to go back to the church and eat potato salad!" [Laughter.] Ain't it the truth? Do you do that over here, too? [Laughter.] He said, "When you were born, you were the only one that was crying - everybody else was happy. More important is this. When you die, will YOU be the only one that's happy? And everybody else will cry." "It depends," he said, "It depends on what you live for. Do you live for titles? TESTIMONIES!" Oh that's good. That preaches. Doesn't that preach? Titles or testimonies. Then he did what only my pastor can do, he swept through the entire New Testament in just five minutes. Now they can't do that when they come out of these Bible Colleges over here. "Today we're going to exegete the 3rd verse of the 2nd ch..." Yerrr! [Laughter and applause.]

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 350]

This guy started in Genesis, swept through Revelation in five minutes. He said, "There was Mo-o-ses, and there was Pharoah. Pharoah. Pharoah had the title. Ruler of Egypt. That's a good title. Good title - Ruler of Egypt. Moses, on the other hand, was the low life, who had no power, but when it was over Pharoah may have had the title, he had the title, but Mo-o-ses ha-ad - TESTIMONIES!!" Ohhh, don't you wish you could do that? [Laughter.] He said, "There was Daniel and there was Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar was King of Babylon. Good title - King. King Nebuchadnezzar. But when it was over, that's all he had. He had the title, he had the title, but Daniel had the...." [Audience responds, Testimonies] You're getting into it, you're getting into it. [Laughter.]

He said, "There was Jezebel, the queen. Good title - Queen. Every woman would love to be Queen Jezebel. And there was Elisha. Elisha the prophet of God. She was going to kill him, but when it was over, that's all Jezebel had, was a title. SHE HAD THE TITLE, BUT ELISHA HAD THE...." [Audience responds, TESTIMONIES.] You're sounding like Baptists now. [Laughter.]

People of God, I tell you the truth, one of these days you are going to die, and they're going to drop you in a hole, and they're going to throw dirt in your face, and they're going to go back to the church and eat potato salad. But the only question is, What do you leave behind? Are you going to leave behind a title - President of Rotary, Vice-president of this? Are you going to have an obituary with a list of titles? Or are there going to be people standing around your grave giving testimonies - testimonies - testimonies.

We heard about the island of Tiree today. [The minister of Tiree Baptist Church, Peter Williams, was on the platform, having earlier recounted how he had been called to the island. - PFM] I mean, that's a weird place. [Laughter.] I don't...Everybody said, isn't he wonderful. No big deal. I have a feeling as you live out your life in service there and they drop you in the hole in the end that there's going to be a lot of people at the isle on Tiree standing around giving testimonies. And that ain't shabby. That ain't shabby.

And you, what are you going to do with your life? You young people, what are you going to do? I talk to you over here. Everywhere I go in Britain I ask, What are you going to do, and kids always give me one answer as they come out of High School, "I don't know". So the kid doesn't know what he's going to do, what he's going to be. What do you do with them? You send them to the university. [Laughter.] Four years later you ask him, What are going to do, what are you going to be? What does he say? [Audience responds, I don't know.] Not if he goes to a good school like Edinburgh or Glasgow. If he goes to good school he doesn't say, I don't know. He says, "I'm keeping all of my options open". [Much laughter and applause.]

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 400]

People of God, I call you, I beseech you to not mess around with a life that doesn't mean much, when you could live out a life of loving service for the Kingdom. Now everybody here ought to commit themselves to Christian service tonight. Everybody. Even if you're going to go back to your regular jobs, you better go back as a full-time Christian servant - to love people and to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to break through where the breakthroughs need to happen. Understand that? Cause, after all, clergy types can't do it. I mean, I remember when I was a minister. You didn't know that I was once the pastor of a church. Did you know that? I, I couldn't handle it. [Laughter.] I hated it. It just wasn't my style. [Laughter.] I remember one Sunday coming out of church, some lady said, "Do you know how many grammatical errors you made in the prayer this morning?" Before I could catch myself, I said, I wasn't talking to you anyway. [Laughter and applause.] Terrible.

But you know, when pastors go places, people put up their defences. That's why, in the end....let me tell you this. Everybody here is ordained to the ministry. To some is given the gift of preaching, to some the gift of teaching, to some the gift of prophecy - for what purpose? To edify the saints! That's you people. To edify the saints. You're a saint - you're a saint - you're a saint. [Tony quotes 1 Corinthians 12:28 which lists the gifts and possibly tries to link with 1 Corinthians 14:4 which lists prophecy as edifying to the church. - PFM]

A friend of mine was really pressing....He said turn to the person next to you and say, introduce yourself as a saint, St. John, St. Harry. One little boy wouldn't do it. Afterwards he said, "I didn't want to do it, my names Bernard." [Laughter.]

You're saints. You're saints and you are called to ministry. But people, kid yourself not, tonight is the time when we call you to special ministry. There are men and women here who need to rise up and say, "Tonight I'm going to lay my life on the line for missionary service. I'm going to lay my life on the line to go to those places out there, those weird places." [Turning to Peter Williams from Tiree...] You ought to be in Star-trek. [Laughter.] To boldly go where no man has ever gone before. [Laughter and applause.] Let me tell you, didn't you kind of envy the guy? I mean...you said, "Oh no, I wouldn't go there." Where are you going to go? "I'm working at the shipyard". It won't be long. I mean, what is out there, that rivals this great opportunity. We need pastors, we need missionaries, we need people who will go where no-one has ever gone before.

Young people, I want to give you an invitation. Every summer, 300 plus young men and women come to Philadelphia to work with me, to be trained in urban ministry for the summer months. We had something like 25 of them come from the British Isles this year. Come and work with us on the streets and learn how to be a missionary so that you can come back here to Scotland and do it on the streets of Glasgow and do it on the streets of Edinburgh, to do it on the streets of London. Man, I was talking about the third world and the suffering in the third world...I was down in London...You've got street people living in paper boxes down there.

[Prolonged silence]

Make your life count, so when it's over you won't just have titles, you'll have testimonies.

Pray with me. Pray with me now.

With our heads bowed and eyes closed I'm going to ask you to make a decision. And then I'm going to ask Doug to come up and wrap this decision time up. I'm going to ask you right now if Jesus is speaking to you. There is excitement in the Kingdom. There's excitement in being an agent of love, in being someone who stands up for the poor and brings hope to the oppressed, and brings justice where there has been none. There's glory in caring for the down-trodden and wiping the tears away from those who hurt. I'm going to call upon you to become agents of God's revolution. You say, "Are you going to beg?" I am going to beseech you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God that you present yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. [Tony paraphrasing Romans 12:1 - PFM]

I call upon you now. I call upon you in this moment to let God speak to you. I want you to answer in a simple manner. "Lord, I'm not just going to be a believer. I'm going to become a disciple". Jesus never said, "Go into all the world and make believers out of people", he said, "Go into all the world and make disciples out of everyone". [In Matthew 28:18-20 (AV), Jesus says to "teach {"make disciples of...(NIV)} all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". In Mark 16:15-18 he says, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." In Luke 24:47, "that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name among all nations". - PFM]

"I want to become a disciple, Lord. I don't know where you want me to go, or where you want me to express your love, and I don't know where you want me to tell the story, or whose wounds you want me to bind up, or whose cause for justice you want me to espouse, but I'm yours Lord. I'm totally yours. Take me, and make me whatever you want me to be."

I'm calling upon you now to totally surrender your life to Jesus. You say, "I'm a believer in Jesus". I didn't ask you that. Totally surrender your life to Jesus. Right now. Let Jesus speak to you. and now I'm going to ask you, if you could commit your life to Jesus, you could...you know you've been playing around with this. You've come close, but you've never said, Jesus I'm all yours. Well tonight, as sure as I am here, Jesus is right there with you. His eyes are focused on you. Believe me, he is looking at you and he is asking you to surrender your life to him. Will you do it? I'll ask you right now to raise your hand and make that commitment. Would you do it? Would your lift your hand high and surrender your life to Christian service. I see hands going up. Put then up high. Young and old alike. Do not be hesitant. Do not be shy. Be bold. Be brave. Be willing. I see many hands going up. You may put them down as soon as you put them up because I want to pick up others. I see yours, way back there, God bless you. Any others? Any others? I see yours here, an elderly women, and there's a young...another, and another. Any others? We're talking about total surrender here. I see your hand. Good. Total surrender, not just believing. We're talk...I see yours. We're talking about radical discipleship. We've been playing church. We've been believing, but we have not been radically surrendered to Jesus. "Jesus I'm yours, wherever you want me to go, I'll go. Whatever you want me to do, I'll be. Change me, Lord. Make me yours. Your hand." I see yours. You can put it down. And another. Any others? Any others - who will raise your hands? I see yours. Good, young man. Older people, come on. I see yours, young sir. Yes. Any one else? Yes, and yes, and yes. I see yours. And way back there. You older folk. You've been sitting for such a long time, enjoying the Word of God, but you haven't been surrendered to full service for his Kingdom. And don't give me this stuff that you're too old. You're not. Jesus wants you. He's begging you. He's pleading with you. Anyone else - would raise a hand? I see yours. And yours, here. Good. And yours. And yours. Good. Anyone else? This is...The Spirit of God's moving. I see yours, sir. God bless you. Anyone else? Anyone else? I see yours on the aisle. Oh, this is great stuff. The Spirit of God is moving. Don't go out of this meeting saying, "You know, I really should have done that. But I was shy." Jesus was willing to be hung spread-eagled on a cross for you. Raise your hand for him. I see yours way back there - and here - and another here. Good. And I see yours - and yours back there - and way in the back, I see both of those hands. God bless you. And yours on the aisle here. Good. And way back there in the corner. And here. Good, sir. God bless you. Anyone else? And yours. God bless you. Anyone else? Anyone else? I see yours way back there. Good. Anyone else?

Father, as we end this service tonight, seal every hand with your presence, take every commitment and inspire them to live out the Kingdom, in Jesus name. Amen.

[Tape Counter - Side 2 - 580] Douglas Inglis now takes over:

Let's just be willing to be quiet before God for a minute or two, because people have responded, and other people may want to do so in the privacy of their hearts. Don't be afraid of the silence. Just make your commitment and covenant with him right now.

Here I am, wholly available. As for me, I will serve the Lord. [Sung]

Oh Lord, I've heard you speak, and I am ready to respond before you now. I love you, and I've tried to serve you, But Lord, I, tonight, I see that I need to allow your love to come deeper into me, and to fill me by your Spirit, and I need to go and minister with a greater love, reaching to places I wouldn't ordinarily want to be. But to be your light before men. Lord, would you show me how to respond, in Jesus name. Amen.

Now we have some counsellors available tonight, under the direction of Alex Russell, and there may be some who want to make their own covenant with the Lord in the privacy of your heart. Well that's all right. But there may be others who want to come and make that public, and make that known - to talk to somebody, and just to have a short prayer, so that we can lead you, and guide you, and share with you, and pray for you. So as we sing our last song, I want to ask you, just where ever you are, to come out and in the livelink come forward - I think John Smith is there - I hope he is and in the main auditorium, just squeeze your way out. Come down and stand in from of us hear, just quietly as we sing - making your dedication to God - saying Lord, from now on, I'm going to live for you as best as I possibly can. Help me by your Spirit. I hope you're ready to do that for, make no mistake, God has spoken to us tonight.