Transcription
[Music] Let's worship the Lord. [Music] A man, I am genuinely thankful for the opportunity would be part of the our conference again this year. It is truly humbling to be standing in this particular pulpit, in this particular church, and of course, on this occasion, thankful for the privilege afforded me by the sponsors of this great meeting. It's a joy to be with my boss and Bishop for the Hany. It's not often we have the pleasure of being in the same meeting together, and it's a joy to be with him tonight. Of course, my former boss and Bishop, brother, and what a joy to be with him, and I will always treasure the three years that we had. I had the privilege of working with him. Amen. And of course, brother Mooney, and so many these great leaders on the platform. Some of my very best friends are in this house tonight. It's a joy to see you, and trust we'll get to speak with you. Hebrews chapter 11, beginning with verse 39. Thank you, brother Calvin Jean, for preaching to us like that. Truly, you heard from the Lord, and thank you for delivering it in such a powerful way. [Music]
Not too long ago, I preached about a tower to heaven, a tower that was designed to lift him in from the wreckage of their past and give them a chance to reach out and touch God himself. Of course, we judge them because they thought they could do it with brick and mortar, and we know you can't. But you know, folks judge us because we think we can do it with praise and worship and preaching. But really, all we're trying to do is build that tower. And they would have done it too, and they did accomplish something incredible. They brought God down into their beds because he came to see the town and the city. And here's the testimony of the Lord. He said, "The people is one." And that's not, that's not incorrect English, I don't think, unless God has trouble with his grammar. But I think the translators were trying to tell us the strength of the language that though people is plural, they acted as if they were singular. They were one. And the people is one. And God said, "Because they're one, nothing shall be restrained from them." In fact, when, because they left him out, and by doing that, they quit communicating with one another and quit caring about each other, God said, "We're going to end all this." What he did was just destroy their unity, and the work on the tower ceased. [Music]
We've got to be together. We have got to be. Thank you, brother Jean, so very much. And these all, all the heroes of the faith, all those named and unnamed, their exploits described and left to our imaginations, who populate the Great Hall of Fame of the 11th chapter of Hebrews. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise. God having provided some better thing for us, that they, no matter how awesome or great their exploits, they without us should not be made complete or perfect. Wherefore, because of this fact that they're not done yet, because we're still in the same battle, the same fight, the same church, they without us are not complete. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Lord, thank you for your word this evening. Thank you for its power, its truth, its eternal application. I pray a special anointing tonight on this very special service. I pray the Holy Ghost would move into this house this evening. Without you, Lord, in your presence, not one good thing will be done. But if you'll come in here, incredible and life-changing things will happen. Do what I pray in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you. Thank you. Please be seated.
And a book called "My Brush with History," Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Air Force, John Clark. Albert's writing the first chapter of that book tells about his brush with history. He said when he was a little boy, seven, eight years old or so, he was standing at the curb of a sidewalk in a little town in New Jersey. He and his mother were watching a parade that was marching past. That parade, as all parades, moved in fits and starts, and there were times that it came to a halt. And in one of those times, directly in front of this little boy, who would grow up to be Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force, standing on the curb, looked out, and that was an old Model T, or perhaps a Model A, sitting there sputtering and spitting. And in it sat four or five old men. They wore blue coats and had blue campaign hats. And the little boy that stood there and looked at them, noticed when one of them saw him and waved him over. Little John looked up at his mother, and she nodded her head, and he went out into the street, stood there by that car. And that old man reached out his hand, and he took the hand of that little boy, and he shook his hand, and he said, "Now, son, you can tell your mother that you are two handshakes from the Revolution." He told that little boy that he, too, as a child, had had stood on a street corner just like him, watching a parade go by. And there came a carriage pulled by a horse that came to a stop right in front of him, and there were three or four old men sitting in the back of that carriage, and they wore tri-corner hats. And they called him over, and he walked over, and out came an old hand that took his hand. And that man, a veteran of Grant's army that fought in the Civil War, had shaken the hand of a veteran of Washington's army, and then shook the hand of Colonel Albert's, who still lives today and breathes this air that you and I breathe. And he wrote in his story, "One of these days, I'll be sitting in the back of a car in a parade, and I'll spy some young boy, and I'll call him over, and I'll shake his hand, and I'll say, 'Now, son, you're just three handshakes from the Revolution.'" My Colonel Albert's writes, "We really are a young country. History isn't as far back as you think it is. We are connected to the past in numerous ways that affect every day that you and I live."
I'm sure you've seen the famous photo of former President Clinton as a young man, the hand of President John F. Kennedy. Of course, there's another photo, not quite as famous, of President Kennedy as a young man shaking the hand of FDR. When Kennedy's father was ambassador to, of course, FDR married a Roosevelt. You know, they were some distant cousins, but her uncle gave her away at the wedding, Eleanor's uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, who was President of the United States. Of course, Theodore Roosevelt, there's another famous picture of him as a four-year-old boy standing in the upper window of a New York City brownstone, overlooking the funeral of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln, who happened to be a young congressman from Illinois in 1848 when John Quincy Adams, former president, collapsed and died in the House of Representatives, and Lincoln watched him die. Of course, John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams, who had also been President and was the vice president of George Washington, the very first president. History is not near as far back as we think it is.
Of course, you know what? I'm not really tonight talking about the two hundred and some-odd years of our history. That's just a drop in the bucket. And as much as I love this wonderful nation you and I live in, that's not the real focus of my preaching tonight. I'm gonna tell you tonight that we are even more connected with an event that happened a long time before this country ever came to exist, that predates even President Washington by almost 1500 years. I'm telling you that you and I are living, breathing, connected forever with the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, because what we are tonight is of the same blood and the same name and the same spirit that fell on that wonderful day 2,000 years ago. You and I are forever hands shaking with the greatest event in human history, when God poured out his spirit upon human hearts for the very first time through the baptism of the Holy Ghost, on a link that has never been broken, on a chain that stretches across the centuries and is just as strong tonight as it ever has been. Ladies and gentlemen, we are part of that same church. We are part of that same gunshot. There is no difference between what they had and what we have. No difference between what they preached us and what we preach. The link is forever unbroken. Kinda uh-oh, hallelujah.
We are not a phenomenon of the 20th century. We did not begin at Azusa Street or in Topeka, Kansas. We began with a hundred and twenty, in one accord, and in one place, when suddenly there came from Havana the sound as of a rushing mighty wind that filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared an improvement, tongues are like as a fire that set upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them her to sing. I said, it's the same. We're not different. We're not an aberration of history. We are marching right in the stream of the greatest movement that history has ever known. We are not something that just happened, that rose from the ruins of a century of war and conflict. We are the Church of the Living God, born on that first Pentecost 2,000 years ago. I believe that the march of truth, the march of the power of this church, the march down through all the centuries of struggle and pain and anguish and loss, whether hidden in catacombs or fleeing to the mountains, or or rising from the ashes of depression and war, doesn't really matter. Whether the world recognized it, whether history ever sees it, doesn't really matter. This charge has never ceased to exist on this planet. Ah, it has always been part because Jesus said, "Upon this rock, I am gonna build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." Whether it was tongue-talking Huguenots fleeing to the hills of France, or whether it was Aldersgate Street when John Wesley testified that the fiery tongues of Pentecost were among us, or whether it was the frontier camp meetings where they shouted, danced, fell out, talked in tongues, whether it was Quakers that got their name because they claimed in the China of the Holy Spirit, or whether it was Topeka or Azusa Street. I'm telling you, God has had a church in this world for 2,000 years, and it's the same. I said, it's the same.
Now, you may think I'm crazy, but I believe if the Apostle Paul walked in here tonight, he wouldn't understand a word I'm saying. Even though he probably spoke four or five, maybe six languages, but when he walked in this house tonight, he would have no trouble understanding the power and the spirit that we feel in this service. He was a preacher of whom it was said, "Paul, you are beside yourself. Much learning have made the man." He was not a sad, stick-in-the-mud preacher. He knew how to get wild. He knew how to let the Holy Ghost food. He knew about talking, huh? He knew about God speaking up. Thank you, men Hartsock. He said, "I did not come with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration and in power." And if he walked in here tonight, he'd say, "It's the same church. It's the same power. It's still." And if that simple fishermen from the lake of Galilee walked in this house tonight, he wouldn't understand either. He didn't speak five or six languages. I get the impression he spoke Hebrew, and that not all that fancy, maybe a little smattering of Greek, and that would be about it. But if somebody would sit beside him tonight, and in his language, Aramaic or Greek or Hebrew or whatever he spoke most comfortably, if they would translate what I said tonight, and he heard me say, "Then Peter said unto them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of skin, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.'" That old fisherman would say, "They're still preaching it, just like I preached it 2,000 years ago. The same. We're the same church. There's no difference. Same church."
George W. Bush is not simply the successor of George Washington. He is the recipient of an entirely different nation, blessed by those who went before. He is blessed by Washington, who refused to be a king. Lincoln, who waited through rivers of blood that gave birth to a new nation. Wilson, who worked so hard he gave himself a debilitating stroke, winning World War I and trying to pull this nation out of the isolationism that he knew could not spare them from the coming cataclysm. FDR, who fought in the dark days of World War II and refused to give up, who supported the last outpost of freedom in Europe and brought victory in the Earth's greatest war. Ronald Reagan, who confronted the evil empire and won the Cold War. All of them reaching, every one of them, for a greater and a higher purpose and call. Changed their nation, made it stronger, made it greater, and we are the recipients of it. Ladies and gentlemen, if you believe this church held its breath, biding its time, twiddled its thumbs until we got here to finally figure out how to do it, you've got another thing coming. Ah, we stand on the shoulders of giants, down there lives who took everything they had and put it to work in the kingdom of God. Heroes who refuse deliverance, are heroes who face down the enemy, who put to flight the armies of aliens, who clinched the fire with the sword with their own blood. The heroes of the past, sentry who dug this church out of the ruins of the Dark Ages. Why? Because God has put a Church in this world before you and I ever got here. Oh, God help me preach it like I feel it right now. We did not discover this. We did not dream this up. We did not invent this. We are not better than they, smarter than they, better educated than they, more resource star than they. But by the other hand, we are not less powerful, less. I am now with God's Spirit. We have come behind in no gift. We are just like them. Indeed, the only difference I know between the Church of the first century and the Church of the 21st century is they are dead and we are not. They lived their time with honor, dignity, determination. They brought a church, if you will, into this world. In the end, they conquered the Roman Empire. They sealed their testimony with their own blood, counted not their own lives dear. They left this world some with flaming fire, and others with crucifixion, and others with wild beasts, and others with sharp swords. But they left this world with a testimony, hanging on to a promise, knowing that there's coming a day. We're not a couple of cold water would be forgotten, with every sacrifice, I would be relived and remembered and rewarded. And they left this world a different place than the one they found. Their dad, their time in the arena is pasture, and they acquitted themselves as men. The only difference between them and us is it's our day in the arena. Their story is told, their battles completed. They are finished in the sense that they have given that last full measure of devotion. They have passed from the stage of history, and they sit in the bleachers surrounding all of us. It is now our time. Our story isn't told. We have not yet finished our fight. Us. It is our time to carry the baton. Just stand for that name that is above every name. It is our game in the arena. Please remember that the footsteps in the sand of the arena floor are not our, all ours. That the traces of blood over which we walk are not our blood. That indeed, the sword we hold in our hand is already well worn, many times sharpened and stained with other men and women's blood. No, no. We didn't invent this. And I hate to tell you, we don't own this. Oh, no, no. We're just on the arena floor for a few years. It's our time to sweat and strive, sacrifice. It is our time with might and main to fight the same battle that they fought, to face the same enemy that they faced. Let us acquit ourselves up as men and women of valor. Let it be said of this generation that we stepped on the stage with head high, that ain't your sword in our hand, the same Gospels, the same name of Jesus, ah, the same power. We fought the same fight for it is the same church. Please hear me tonight. I do not mean to imply that the dead watch over us. To be very honest, I tend to doubt it, but I really don't know. But I do know the imagery of Hebrews 11 and 12, particularly 12. The imagery really, we talk about a Hall of Fame and we equate it to statuary and static displays of yesterday's victories. But that's not what's being described in Hebrews 11 and 12. It is a living memorial. It is people who gave their lives 2,000 years ago, and yet they sit tonight in the arena. They are looking down. Paul says if he wrote Hebrews, that we are surrounded. I, who is so great? They are not dispassionate. They are not uninterested. They didn't finish their day in the arena, hang up their sword and say, "I don't care what happens next." Oh, no. They care. They're interested. Why? Because they're not finished yet. They're not completed yet. But the war is not over. The race is not run. We haven't carried this blood-stained baton across the finish line. You and I carry in our hands and our hearts the hope of the ages, the commitment of all history, the law, the blood, and the sacrifice, and the dying of generation after generation. Look around. The sand is marked with their ancient struggles. The blood is testimony to battles forgotten and nameless in the history books, but forever impressed in the hearts of the church. We are connected. We are not just their successors, neither their inheritors. It is not even like it is for President Bush, that we have simply received something greater. There is a mystic car that stretches from this church house tonight, from this very service, and it snakes its way through centuries to millennia, a blood stain of heartfelt, a total and complete sacrifice and surrender. And it all rests upon our shoulders, for the book says they're not finished. They haven't received the promise because we carry their baton, their banners. They have collected through the time of this church's march through history, and they've been given from generation to generation, and none yet have dropped those banners in the sands of history. I've struck the colors and furled the flags and laid the sword in the museum case. No, no. Not yet. Not yet. No, we got this from prayer warriors, ladies and gentlemen. We got this from aisle runners. We got this from people who knew how to pray. Folks threw around an altar. We got this from men and women that knew what it was to preach when everybody in the crowd fight it, fought everything you stood for. We the communities where they were told, "If you keep preaching, we're gonna run you out of town on a rail," or even worse, they preached when the Ku Klux Klan marched in and set on the front rows. They preached when rifle barrels were poking through the windows, but they preached it anyhow. They preached when their spark plugs what broke out of their Model T engines, but they kept on preaching. Their time, they preached it. Now, some of them live in unmarked graves dotting the landscape, but they never dropped the banner. They never laid aside the sword. They fought on until the end. How can't we do any less than take up that old sword and reach here, "O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord." For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. For the promise is unto you and your children, and all that are afar off. The same gospel, the same message. We must fight on. We must run on. In the first, there were only a few that dotted the vast stadium seat, while the majority still struggled in the arena. But time has passed, and now, though there are more of us on the arena floor than probably any generation in history, there are more of them witnessing our struggle. And ladies and gentlemen, they're rooting for us. [Applause]
You think you don't matter. Every time you have a victory, I don't care how unimportant it may seem in the grand scope of things, I'm telling you, it brings a standing ovation to the stands of the arena. Every time you punch the devil in the nose, every time you say no to temptation, every time you fail, but you get back up and you pick up your sword and you get back in the fight. Every time you witness, every time you teach your Bible study, every time you stand behind the preacher, and every time you preach what nobody cares up. Every time you love what everybody else hates up. Every time you love here when nobody else seems to love it, let me tell you, they're on their feet. They say, "Go, go, go, go!" Because they're waiting for their old dict ray. We hold the sum of their sacrifice in our own hands. It is only when we carry it across the finish line that they will stream out of those stands. For the dead in Christ will rise first, but we're gonna meet them. They're gonna strain out of those stands, and we're gonna have us one great rejoicing, because their victory is our victory, and our victory is their victory. Every time you win, you add another. It is our time in the arena. We must be very careful that we do some things that we run to win. It's not about money, not about applause, not about fame, not about impressing certain folks. No, no, no. It's about winning. I said, it's about winning. It's about crossing the finish line to the applause, not of the world, but of the saints of all the ages. And to do it, we must lay aside every weight and the sin that gives me two categories. Of course, it's not in the scope of this sermon to develop them as they should be. Let me tell you something. There's a lot of crud and a lot of junk in this world that'll get a hold of you if you let it. Standing alone, it may not be a sin, but it sure can wait you down. Back years ago, many, many years ago, for I, my family got in the church, I ran track. You know, you're too little for football, and arms too weak for baseball, and you're not tall enough for basketball. You run. You learn to run. So you might as well run for a ribbon. Now, tell you how I trained. We couldn't afford a lot, and we didn't. I didn't. You know, they had those fancy ankle weights that she'd put on, and I didn't have any of those. So I did have a pair of broken. So they still have broken today. They would call him Doc Martens back then. They were Brogan's, working boots. We lived in in Bakersfield, California, about 102 degrees, you know, in the shade, and there was no shade. And I'd put those Brogan's on, and I'd run round and around the house with those Brogan's on, waiting down my feet. The idea was, of course, to build muscles. I don't think it helped much, but the idea was good, I guess. Do you know I'd have been an idiot, wouldn't I, to show up at the at the at the relays, to show up at the track meet, to get in the starting block and have my Brogan's on? There, would that be silly to try to face good, fast runners and weigh myself down, hold myself back, and accept myself? No, no. When it was time for it to matter, it's all right running around the house when it doesn't count. But when it matters for inside, when you're running up for the gold, you know where your weight, your Brogan's, you put on your track shoes. They're lighter, they're flexible, they have their design. But when it matters. Well, friend, we're not box in the shadow or feeding the air. We're running in the relay of the ages. It's time to forget money, forget fame, forget applause, forget ego trips and private personal kingdoms, and it is time to put on our track shoes. Every advantage. It's time to get serious. It's time to realize somebody's gonna cross that finish line, and all of his strength demands that it be us. Sin can so easily beset us. Weights can hold us back. But if you can understand tonight, you're not in this for yourself. It's not just about me or about you. If that's all it was, that when we gave up, quit, went back, when we threw up our hands and said, "I'm not going on," and it wouldn't make very much difference. There would be no ripple in the water. There would be no pause in them grinding marks of history. It would not count for anything. But it's what I carry in my hands, all of history. It matters that you guard your heart and you don't handicap yourself because we carry sacrifice of the ages and run with endurance the race that is set before us.
You know, I sometimes think we're so busy being sure that we're running the same race as other folks. But the book doesn't say that. You got your race. Now, I know there's really one race, understand that. But her son, who struggled an impossible situation, who carved out of the rock a church for his name. There are others who are privileged to run their race in the broad flatlands by the river paths. Some who are given a hoe and a rake, others who drive combines and John Deere tractors. That's why the book says, "It's not wise to compare ourselves among ourselves." It's not smart. It doesn't make any sense. The only, the only comparison is faithfulness. And I think that's what the writer is trying to capture. It doesn't matter whether you struggle in the rocky land, that the produce is seems so small. That doesn't matter. That's not important. What's important is that you run with endurance, that whether you're repent by the harvest loads, or whether you're gathering a sheaf or two at a time, it's that you don't clear top, that you don't give up, that you don't give, that you keep running. Us, wherever your call doctor on, whether you get your name in the paper, keep runnin up. Whether you ever win the Sunday School Drive, keep running. Whether you ever get the preacher at conference, keep returning, keep believin. Just run with endurance, looking unto Jesus. I think a lot of our problem with our brothers is we're not looking at Jesus. We don't recognize him in the face of our brothers, 'cause we ain't seen him in a while. We're checking see where everybody else is in the way, being sure somebody doesn't get too far ahead, hoping somebody will fall too far behind. But the book says, "You don't run looking at the other runners. You run looking at Jesus."
I'm on a hurry, but I gotta tell you this one is the oldest story I know, and probably my favorite. I believe it really happened. I'm not sure, but I believe it did. Young men went to Mississippi College, located in Jackson, Mississippi. He was, he ran track. Name, we'll call him Johnny. Johnny ran in the mile relay. It's very simple. Si have four runners, a quarter-mile track. Each one makes one circuit of the track, passes a baton off to the one that waits at the starting line, takes the baton in a certain distance, ten feet, I believe, takes that baton, and then he runs his circuit, passes the baton off to the next man. Sounds simple, but it's a science, I promise you. Johnny was the third runner. Hands early in the season, but a very important meet. The coach came over. Now, the coach was kind of a calm guy, didn't get excited, didn't get beside himself, very matter-of-fact, but it was a good coach. He came over to him. He said, "I'm gonna tell you boys something." Told them, I'll relay guys, including Johnny. So, I'm gonna tell you boy some. The way it's come down, it's very simple. If we win the mile relay, we're gonna win the whole relay race, the whole track me. If you lose the mile relay, I don't think we can win. No pressure, but there you go. The whole team depends on you." When started out pretty good. They had a fast runner for their first circuit. He had them in about second place, but really knocking on the door of the lead. When he passed the baton off to the second runner, second runner wasn't quite as fast, but he was a smart runner. He didn't gain a lot of ground, but he didn't lose in him. When Johnny stood ready to take the baton, they came around the back stretch, the back turn, come down the homestretch in second place. Johnny began his run. He was already looking ahead, gauging the distance between him and the first place runner, and he wasn't concentrating on the baton. He felt it in his hand. It was there. He knew it was there. But when he closed his fingers behind him, it was not there. Now, under the rules of that particular track meet, if you drop the baton, you could pick it up, and you could run. Johnny, in his haste, came to a dead stop, turned around, trying to find the baton, losing precious seconds. He reached over to get it, and in his haste, he kicked it totally off the track and out in the infield, and they were disqualified. Coach didn't say a whole lot, just said, "We need a little work on our handoff." But Johnny took it to heart. He worked hard that year. He gave himself to practice. Why? He got to where he could have done that handoff underwater, blindfolded. He was going to take the baton. But in his heart work, he also linked the destryed and he picked up some speed. And believe it or not, Johnny became the anchorman, the fourth man, the man who carried the baton across the finish line. Now, the fourth guy is very important. He's very important. Speed is very important. But let me tell you what matters most to the anchor man. He's got to have guts. He's got to be able to take the baton in fourth place and not give up. Take the baton half a track behind the leader and never give up. He's got to find something in him that presses him onward whenever one else says it's hopeless, there's no reason to go on. Because if you're gonna carry it across the finish line, you always have to be the fastest, but you do have to be the hardest fighter. But the whole bugs and the coach saw something in Johnny, and he moved into that anchor place. They went to the Memphis relays at the end of the season. It was the high point of the season for all the Southeast Conference schools and the smaller schools that were involved. It was the very epitome and track in that part of the country, the Memphis relays. And would you believe it, toward the end of the meet, the coach came hambling over to Johnny and the other three in the mile relay and said, "Boys, it's like this. If you win the mile relay, we win the Memphis relays. If you lose it, I don't see how we." Well, they still have that good first man. He had him in second place once again, and off the smooth with the second guy, and he held their position. In fact, he held it well. But the third man slipped a little bit, probably wasn't his fault, it was probably the competition. But when Johnny stepped out there to take the baton for the final circuit around the track, they were in fourth place and slipping bad. Johnny stood there. He watched the other handoffs, held his hand back, started his run, perfectly timed it, slapped into his hand, and he closed his fist around it. And Johnny was off. He flowed in the first turn, sizing up his competitors. He watched the three men that were ahead of him, and something told him, "You can do it. You can take every one of them." He begun to bear down in the backstretch, hugging the center, let the infield in the track. He pounded hard, lengthened astride, gave it everything he had, and he closed on number three in Pasadena. He closed on number two. And coming in the final turn, Johnny moved into the second position. He was less than six feet out of first place, coming down the homestretch. He watched as they strung the his line across the track, and Johnny found his second wind. He began to pound hard down that track, four feet, three feet, two feet. He could taste it now. He was gonna carry the whole team across the finish line. But Johnny knew he was given all he had, and he could not cover the last two feet. As he pounded down the track, watching the finish line approach closer and closer and closer, Johnny heard the stands going wild. Everyone up there seemed to be screaming, "Johnny, you can! Johnny, you can! Johnny, I know you can!" But he couldn't find it in the screams of the crowd. He glanced over to the infield, and that was the whole track team, not just the rims runners, but the shot put and the high jump and the running long jump and all of the others were there, and they were jumping up and down. "Yes, Johnny, you can do it! Johnny, you can do it!" But he couldn't find him even in the cries of his teammates. And then his eye fell on the coach. Coach, that never got excited, that never lost his composure. The coach was standing in the infield. He was jumping up and down, screaming like a wild Indian. His hat was off his head, whistle going one way, and stopwatch going the other. And Johnny focused on him and saw what he was saying over the din of the crowd. Their eyes locked, and it was coach author, "Finish!" And the one on the track, I heard him say, "I know you can. I picked you for just this situation. Believe in you." And what he didn't get from the crowd, and what he didn't get from the teammates, he found in the confidence of his coach. And Johnny began to close the gap. 1 foot, 6 inches up, and jump, a trip, and he fell, and he fell forward, and he won the race by about that much. He lay on the cinders of the track, totally exhausted. He had given it all. He held nothing back. He knew what he was carrying in his hands, not a plastic baton, let the hopes and the dreams and the hard work and the sweat and the toil and the sacrifice of the whole King. And when it was over, he had nothing left. Oh, my friends, when I step inside the gate, I want to step inside not like I just arrived at General Conference. I want to step inside with my hair messed up, sweat rolling down my face. I want to be gasping for every breath. I want to spend it. The crowd went wild. The team was hugging one another, jumping up and down. Johnny lay there trying to catch his breath, not even the strength to stand. And the coach came over and leaned over Johnny, grabbed him by the arm, dragged him off the track into the infield. I leaned over him and said three words that Johnny will never forget. All he said was, "Good job, Johnny." And I know when we carry the dream of the ages across the finish line, the stands will be going wild. The heroes of the past will be clapping and shouting their joy. For them, they will be complete. So then, they will be perfect. But ladies and gentlemen, I'm not running for that. I'm running because I want to hear the coach say, "Well done, Jerry. Keep your eye on him. Run with patience. Lay aside the weight. Get rid of the sand. All of heaven enough, and all of his strength is interested. And whether you make it or whether you don't, your smallest victory sets off paroxysms of joy. One sinner that repents, heaven goes wild. But one saint that stands true, and the saints of all ages shout for joy."
Now, here's the weirdest part of this sermon, the part I cannot for the life of me understand. I just have to report it, fair and balanced, that's all I know to do. [Music] We're the anchorman. [Music] We're gonna carry that baton across the. He must have seen something in us that I don't see when I look in the mirror. I'd be honest. He must have sent something in a some strength. I don't know. I don't understand. We like to beat up on ourselves and talk about how much we've lost and how little we are like the heroes of the past. But all I know is, you don't put your worst runner last. You pick your strongest. You pick your most determined. You pick the one that wouldn't give up in spite of anything, and you put him out there on the starting line with his hand behind him and said, "Now, one of these, one of these days, they're coming around that curve, and they're gonna come pounding down that stretch. You get that hand back there because that baton is going to come slap it in your hand. And I put you there for that moment, for that hour. I chose you to carry that baton across that finish line." [Applause] For your teammates, for the cloud of witnesses. So her uncle wrote her that no, said, "You got to go. You got to go see the King. Haman's gonna kill us all." She wrote back and said, "I'm not good enough." [Music] "I don't have what it takes, 'cause if I go in there and he don't like it, they'll kill me, and I'm just not willing to take that chance." Mordecai wrote her, Esther back, and said, "Do you really think you're that pretty? You really think you won that beauty contest over the entire empire because you're prettier than anybody, more poised than anybody? Don't you think that God brought you to the kingdom for today, for this event, for right now?" It is not an accident that we hold the baton of the ages in our hands. That blood-stained stole swords are grasped in our fists. It is not an accident that in this, the beginning of the final millennia, you and I find ourselves breathing air, standing in the sunshine, in the sands of the arena floor. That it is us beginning the final turn, pounding down the homestretch, our lungs burning, our breaths singing in our ears, our blood pounding in our temples. It is not an accident you have come to the kingdom for such a time. [Music]
So the 16th President of the United States addressed Congress in December of 1862, in what today would have been called a State of the Union address, in which it must have been honestly answered, "The State of the Union is chaos, war, brother against brother, disappointment, disillusionment, heartache, blood, sacrifice, dying." But the President refused to see it as a time of defeat. He saw it as a time of opportunity for heroes to step to the fore. "In times like the present," he wrote, "we must remember, fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance nor insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor until the latest generation." All of history holds its bread. Every martyr ripped by fang, disemboweled by sword, nailed, set afire with the name of Jesus on his lips, stands now, watches. [Music] Heaven falls silent around us. There is nothing but the sound of our own breath and the pound of our own feet. We're only feet away now. Surely, surely it's time to redouble our efforts, to hold nothing back, to run as we have never run. Surely it's time to give as we have never given, sacrifices we have never sacrificed. For this is history's climactic hour, one it has never seen and shall never see again. It is now or never, all or nothing, win or lose. And it is only a mere feet away. It is time to stir ourselves, to awaken, to rise to the occasion, to disenthral ourselves. And then they and we will be complete in victory, theirs and ours. And together, the heroes of the past and the heroes of the present, we'll take our golden crowns and cast them in his feet and declare him [Music] Lord. Run, run, run. History watches. Rub the witnesses watching. Run. The coach reminds you, "I chose you. I selected you. This is your hour. Don't sleep it away. Don't while it away. Run as you have never run. This is our, they are out, our moment." Someone needs to come and make one final life-changing commitment. I hear the cheering of the heroes already beginning, rising in a haiku, Shindo of their jewelry. Somebody is gonna leave this conference. [Music] What people would say or think. [Music] Come on, make up your mind. It matters what I do. It counts how I live. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Tele [Music] [Music] Carry it across the finish. [Music] You. [Music] Determine. You can. You. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] We ought to fill up the solder tonight. [Music] For the jobs. Thank you, sir. Challenges. Let's make one last commitment. We're not gonna turn around. Halleluja. Halleluja.