<TITLE>03. Par 8-10</TITLE>L-8 Now, let me just say a word on that. Did... Surely, spiritual people would understand, who reads the Bible. Let's just take like this, poets and prophets. Let's just speak, that's inspirational. I'll start on poets first. Poets, a real poet, is by inspiration. Let's just take one poet that I think of; let's take Stephen Foster. I think he was one of the greatest poets we had in America, give us our folk songs and things. Did you ever read his life? Now, the old Kentucky home is just across the river from me. I can go over there in fifteen minutes from my house. There's the desk, it was valued at the world's fair in--for about twenty-five thousand dollars many, many years ago, where he wrote "My Old Kentucky Home," the places where he wondered around, out on the plantation and so forth. Well, every time Stephen Foster would get up in enough inspiration to--to take his pen and write a song, then after the inspiration left him, he'd get on a drunk. Did you know that? He sure did. And finally, when he come out from under it one time, he didn't know where he was at, and he called a servant and took a razor and cut his throat, committed suicide. Did you ever know that? Life of Stephen Foster.

L-9 Let's take... You say, "Well, that man was a worldly man." Well, let's take William Cowper. I stood by his grave in London, England not long ago, just had to weep. He was considered a neurotic. Anyone who lives in the Spirit, to the world there's just one little shade from insanity. Science says that.
William Cowper, when he wrote that famous song, we used it in communion at our--my Baptist Tabernacle at home for years and years. "There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins, where sinners plunged beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stains." You've heard it, haven't you? Did you ever hear the history of it? As soon as the inspiration left him, when he was in there he wrote the song, and when he was up in such a high key where people don't know nothing about, just to sing and shout and dance. That's not in--that's in the Spirit all right, but the Spirit of joy. See? But when you raise up into them spheres that you know nothing of. See, you can't explain it, you just--you have to just know it's there and that's all. When he come out of that, he tried to find the river to commit suicide. How many ever heard the story? Sure. See? Sure. He tried to find the river to commit suicide. It was too foggy; the driver couldn't find the river. He was going to plunge beneath the river, he thought he was still in the song, now he was going to plunge the river, lose all his guilty stains. See?

L-10 Now, you say, "You're talking about song writers." All right, let's turn it right back in the Bible now. Let's take prophets. Let's take the--the prophet Jonah. When he was on his road down to Nineveh, and--and he went by the way of Tarshish, and the Lord take him over to Nineveh, and kept him alive in the belly of a whale for three days and nights. You believe the story's true? He had him--He had him anointed, and when he come out of that, so in prayer for three days and nights in the belly of this whale, when he come out on the banks of Nineveh, he preached with such force until they even put sackcloth on their cattle, and repented in such a way. Is that right? Turn repentance to the city... And went up on the hill when the inspiration left him, and set down under a tree, and prayed for God to take his life (Is that right?) when the inspiration left him. See? It ain't while you're here, you feel like you're a giant, but you don't know what you have to put up with as soon as you leave here. See?


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