<TITLE>09. Par 34-38</TITLE>L-34 Now, as they picked up their oars, and begin to move away, they'd probably... Now, them days the boats wasn't--wasn't powered by motors as we have today. Sometimes it was a sail. They used both sail and oar. And it wasn't a ship like we have, as the Bible puts it here "in the ship," but they were large boats, more like a--a fish boat. And they had oars, great, huge oars. And the man that handled these oars had to know what he was doing, because the waves...
Anyone knows that if you get in the storm on the lakes, or the sea, you can't just let that boat drive itself, and chop; it'll sink. You've got to know how to catch these waves, and ride them up sideways, and down. If you take your boat right up, and it comes over the whitecap, you better watch, it'll sink it. It'll go right, fill up full of water. So you have to know how to ride those waves with the boat.

L-35 So therefore, they usually put, maybe a man on each side, in the small boats. Sometimes they had two on an oar, but usually one man on an oar in a small fish boat like this was, and they kept time. And then, when they got into a storm they had to know just exactly how to pull these oars to make this boat ride the waves, that they could ride it out.
Then they had a sail. When the winds was blowing, the waves not too great, they could take this sail and tack sometimes. And you know how it is, in sailing. But this was real smooth. It was a beautiful day, and the--and the old sea was just as quiet, not a riffle in it.

L-36 And what a pleasure it must have been to dip those oars down into that fresh water, and bend those backs to that, and just in time, each oar. It's like a rhythm. Then they'd make two or three oars, and somebody would stop, and all them wave good-bye, and on and on till the little group on the bank begin to get smaller and smaller. And to them, the little boat got smaller as they went out. Finally, they were past seeing each other, out into the sea. The sun was getting well down now, just red streaks up in the sky from the sun, from the distant Galilean mountains.

L-37 And then we notice as they went along, it must have been young John; he was the youngest of the bunch; he got tired. He wasn't as able to oar as those big old fishermen, who had lived on the sea all their life, and strong arms, and used to that oaring day and night.
Young John, in his--probably in his thirties, or twenties or thirties, must've stopped and wiped the perspiration, throwed the hair back out of his face, and said, "Whew. Brethren, let's--let's rest a few minutes. My, this is kind of wearing me down. I'm tired." And they pulled the oars in, must've set quiet for a few minutes, nobody saying nothing.

L-38 And after while young John must've turned around and said, "I would like to testify while we're resting here." You know how it is. After you've had a meeting, something has happened, thrills you, you must testify about it. You've got to tell somebody about it.
So young John said, "I'd like to give a testimony. That is one thing: that after today we can say truly that we're not following a false prophet. It certainly was convincing to anyone today to see that we are not falling a fal--following a false prophet, as many teachers of our days are telling us that we are. We're following a Man that don't belong to any great organization. He condemns them and so forth. And they tell us that we're just off on the deep end, but we're not. For I can clearly remember when I was a little boy." (Now, we're going to listen to a testimony meeting. Let's join in with them now, thinking of ourself.)


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