<TITLE>19. Par 233-246</TITLE>L-233 Little Billy, my son, was just about to die, too. And the doctors had done said there's not hardly anything more to do for him. And--and he had some kind of a dysentery they couldn't stop, an infection.

L-234   And I was crying, praying, and I thought. Well, I was still holding on to God. I was going up the road, crying.

L-235 I thought I'd go up and listen. I used to set up there, of an evening, by the grave. I'd hear an old dove come down there and go to singing. I hear the pines blow, and the--the--the winds through the--winds through the pines, rather. And it sound like they would say:
There's a Land beyond the river,
They call the sweet forever;
We only reach this Shore by faith degree.
One by one we gain the portal,
There to dwell with the immortal,
Someday they ring the golden bells for you and me.

L-236 I'd stand there, cry, and look up. And I would say to the wife and baby, I say, "I--I know that you're not laying here. This is just where I planted the remains that I held in my arms. But somewhere, beyond the river, you're there."

L-237   So, but, see, I--I was going up to that place, one day, to set up at the grave. Had on a pair of boots, walking along. An old car come up behind me, stopped. It was Mr. Isler, the state senator. He jumped out of the car. Pulled around and come back. Put his arms around me, said, "Billy, I sure feel sorry."
I said, "That's all right, Brother Isler."

L-238 And he said, "I--I oughtn't to have stopped." He seen I was weeping.
I said, "That's all right, Mr. Isler."
And he said, "I'm going to ask you something, son."
I said, "All right. Go ahead and ask me."

L-239 He said, "I've seen you stand there in that pulpit till I thought you'd die." Said, "I've seen you fast till you'd be so peaked I'd feel sorry for you, and," said, "in and out, and in and out, day and night." He said, "And then your wife and baby in there, see, you look at them things." He said, "What does Christ mean to you now?" I said:
Thou the Stream of all my comfort,
More than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside Thee?
Or whom in Heaven but Thee?

L-240 See, I had found that Absolute, that Something that held me when the storm was on.

L-241   Someone said to me, said, "Billy, did you keep your religion during the time of your trouble?"
I said, "No. It kept me." See?

L-242 That's what it was. I was tied to Him in the hours when my strength was gone, and there's nothing I could do. My anchor held within the veil of His Word yonder.

L-243 Where, sometimes I don't understand it. Sometimes I think, "What makes me do the things I do?" There is Something withinside me, pulsating me. I can't keep from doing it, brother.

L-244 I come to Phoenix, other day, with a determination I'd never strike again at any organization. The first thing you know, a vision struck before me, the first night, and I seen myself turn towards the desert. Something turned me around, show me a great big, old, cold church, said, "Stay there, 'fore you go there." Oh, my! There is something I can't keep from doing. It's an absolute that's on the inside of me. It's more than my life, to me. Yes. I can no more change it than I could change the color of my eyes. I couldn't do it.

L-245 Now, by His grace, I'm tied to Him, the One that said, like He did in the days of Moses, "I AM."

L-246   Moses, you know, he had an absolute. When he was down there, he had all the theology a man could have. And he tried hard. He was a military man. He looked out the windows. And by faith... Listen. Now, remember. "By faith, Moses esteemed the reproach of--of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." He had faith in what he was doing. He absolutely believed it. He knowed that he was raised up for that purpose. But he failed. He went out to raise sheep. And he failed.


<A HREF="P20">Next Page</A>