<TITLE>13. Par -</TITLE>L-20-4 Notice, it makes you do things ordinarily you wouldn't do. Oh, it--it is something... You are certain, you are very certain of it when you get this absolute; you're positive of it. You don't take what--somebody else's experience. That's the reason Christianity has become like little kids in the Bible or--and not (Excuse me.)--little kids in school. They try to copy one off the other; and if that guy's wrong, the whole thing's wrong. See? You got the whole bunch of them wrong. Oh, my, don't copy; meet Him yourself.

L-20-5 A good friend of mine, standing back here, is an old--is a son of a buddy of mine, a lifelong friend, little Jim Poole. Well, his daddy and I were--growed up together in school. And, oh, what a fine fellow. Little Jim and I pray constantly that big Jim will become a Christian, a real believer. And little Jim and I were talking yesterday about where we found God in the woods and seen Him in nature. There's where you find Him, because He's a Creator, and He's in His creation.
And I remember, Jim and I used to go--go--want to go hunting. And when night come, well, we used to go down, take our bicycles, and ride right down this street here (scared to death to pass the graveyard after it got dark), and go down, and get us an ice cream cone.

L-21-1 And Jim liked to shoot pool. Now, we was just boys, ten, twelve, fourteen years old. And then, Jim liked to set around and read storybooks of hunting and trapping. And I would set around and daydream (See?) about... And now, some of the boys can see me. And I'd see a little bitty shack somewhere, and I used to say, "Boy, that would be a good shack to have in the mountains." And I always dreamed that someday I'd have me a shack in the mountains, a big bunch of hounds, and--and some guns. I always thought, "If I could own a .30-30 some of my time..." Thought, "How in the world would I ever own a little .30-30 rifle?" And the other day, standing, looking on my wall, and seeing there some of the best rifles that can be gotten, I thought, "Amazing Grace." I thought, "I'll train myself to shoot and shoot good. And then, maybe sometime to get--take a trip into the mountains, some good hunter will take me along just to be kind of a ('cause he'd want to protect his life maybe from a charging bear; he wasn't too sure, some rich man)--would take me along, just to go along with him, kind of a bodyguard. Maybe someday I'd get to hunt in Africa as a bodyguard. If I could just train. That's the only thing I can do is train to be a good, steady shot. "Oh," and I thought, "God, think of it, You let me hunt over the world. What a wonderful thing."
And Jim used to set and read the book.
I said, "Jim..."
He said, "I--I--I like to read about it."
I said, "Jim, that's what somebody else done; I want to do it myself; I want the experience." When I come to Christ, I couldn't take somebody else's experience; I wanted it myself.

L-21-2 I remember when I read Zane Gray's "Lone Star Ranger." I tore up two or three brooms for mama, riding around the house a-galloping, when I was on this hobbyhorse broom. I--I read that story of--of the lone star ranger, and how he brought the justice to the Big Bend.
Then I read Edgar Rice Burroughs' fiction story of "Tarzan and the Apes." Mother had an old fur rug, a sealskin rug or something that Mrs. Wathen had give her from the fire. And it laid on her room. And I--I--I took that rug out... Mama done knowed the wind didn't blow it out. And I took it out, and cut it up, and made me a Tarzan suit; and set up in the tree. I--I lived half my time in a tree out in this Tarzan suit, because I had seen what he done; I wanted to do it too.
But one day, by the grace of God, I got ahold of the real Book, the Bible. My song and story has been: "To be like Jesus; on earth I long to be like Him." I don't want to be a bishop, or a--or some great fellow in the church, some pope, or some priest, I want to be like Jesus.


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