<TITLE>02. Par 8-20</TITLE>L-8 I'm so glad to know that I am a part of a people that has this kind of a spirit. I'm so glad to know that I am your brother. And I trust that I'll never have to return it in that manner, but in some other way.
Then I, standing in the funeral home, by the side of mother, and so many coming in... And some people that look at, perhaps, maybe a person around my age, and take my hand, say, "Billy, it's been a long time." I'd look back, couldn't remember them; they'd changed so much. "You preached my baby's funeral. You preached my mother's funeral. You was come to me on a cold dark night," and all those things like that.
It truly expresses the Word of the psalmist, I believe it was. "Like bread upon the water, it will return to you someday." And if I had, was eloquent enough, or had the speech, I would like to just tell each one of you what I think. But I--I can't do that, because I--I don't even know how to express it. But I'm saying it this way, that you, each one, would know what I mean. I thank you from the depths of my heart. And how the Scripture's fulfilled, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

L-13 It's been a... Her going was something that was strange to me. And I never fully realized why that the Holy Spirit did not tell me beforehands, as I expressed the last time I was in the pulpit here on that morning. And they told me that she was dying then in the hospital. I did not accept it, because that He hadn't told me she was going. Now, of course, we realize this, that there's many things that He do--He can do, and does do; He don't have to tell us anything. He just tells us... And I know this one thing though, that He makes it all work together for the good.

L-14 And this morning while laying on bed thinking of that... The first one to go in our family was my brother Edward. And I was out west working on a ranch when he went. I wasn't home, but I saw him, yet a sinner, saw him in a vision before he went.
The next one to go was Charles. I was... He went quickly, suddenly. He was... I was preaching down here at the little, colored Pentecostal church that night, when Charles was killed up on the highway by an automobile.
The next one to go was dad, went in a heart attack, died in my arms. I committed his soul to God: went suddenly, quick.
The next one to go was Howard. I was out in the west on a vacation down the River No Return, when planes flew in, dropped little parachutes, that he was gone. But I, 'course, saw him go, years, two or three years before he went. We knew he was going.

L-18 But mother has been the only one that lingered. And I thought maybe that's the reason He didn't tell me. All of them going so suddenly, why, He... All of them went suddenly except mother. She lingered some six weeks, right at six weeks.
But I might just say this in expressing it: my ambition was to stand by my mother and to commit her soul to God when she went. Some strange Thing sent me out to the hospital that morning, the wife and I. And she was pretty low. And the last thing I can remember her doing, when I can--could say to her. She couldn't speak. "Mother, if you still love Christ, and He means everything to you, nod your head." And she'd nod her head, and the tears would run down her face. He still meant everything, right at the end of the road. I patted her on the cheek, pulled her face around with my hands, and I said, "Mother, you are a real soldier. I'm proud of you."

L-20 I thought, "Wonder how Satan might've said like he did in the days of Job?" You know, God cannot take our lives. Satan has to do that. We're just turned over to Satan.
And Satan knewing that--knowing that her time had come, knew that she was going to go, said to God, "You know, she's got a boy that's a preacher, some children that profess to be Christians. Let me just torture her awhile; I'll make them all deny You."
No, by the grace of God... And the last thing she nodded her head to, that Christ was still everything to her when she went.


<A HREF="P3">Next Page</A>