The Clown Who Played the Wrong Tune

The Clown Who Played the Wrong Tune

by Dr. Bill Reed

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

This morning, I was thinking about Chrissy. I don’t know her. I liked her husband. I never knew him before. I liked what he said, and I liked the fact that he wasn’t afraid to allow his emotions to come forth. Yes. I was thinking how wonderful it would be to be the surgeon there about to do this procedure, and he doesn’t know anything about all the things that are going on in the kingdom of God. But just imagine how it must feel to reach out in the operating room in this demeanor and to have a nurse, a scrub nurse, an instrument nurse, place a knife in your hand. I’ve had that happen again and again and again.

One day, I was going to operate upon a Christian woman, and all of a sudden, I sat in the operating room, the patient was anesthetized. All the drapes were on. All the things that we do beforehand were done.

And I raised my hand to get the scalpel, and I said this morning, as the nurse put the knife in my hand, I put it down on the towel. I was going to do an abdominal operation that morning. And I said, for the first time in my life, I said, “This morning, we’re going to pray.”

And I prayed that morning out loud. You could have heard a pin drop in that operating room. I don’t think that anybody had ever prayed audibly. I’m sure some had prayed silently. But I thought, we pray before we eat, we pray before we go to bed at night, or when we go to bed, however you do it.

But here, a person’s life is in your hands, in my hands. And if there’s ever a time in this whole universe that you need Jesus, it’s right then and there. And then I went ahead and did the operation.

I felt the Lord there in the operating room. I felt Him here this morning. What a wonderful feeling to just feel the presence of Jesus. Jesus. And sometimes He comes down as a raining of His love upon us.

And His guidance and His direction are there. And His strength and His confidence are there with you. And the surgeon is just an ordinary human being, just like anybody else. Although he sometimes forgets that as he goes along.

Some people say he gets his M-D-ity. But… Somebody sent me a card one time when I was still sort of in the world. It was a card that said, “To a great M-D, Martini drinker.” And I thought to myself, that wasn’t the way that I wanted to be remembered in this life.

I wanted to be remembered as a man of God. And I’ve had a wonderful life. Born of Christian parents. And born on the 25th of May in the middle of a snowstorm. If you could have mentioned that up here in Florida. Up there in Michigan. At the base of Lake Huron. That’s where my mother had me.

It was so cold that Mother, looking up at the ceiling, thought that place where she was delivering that baby, which was a converted home into an obstetrical unit, she thought, you know, it looks like that plaster there in the ceiling is about to fall. And so she asked the nurse to go over to the crib and to get me and to bring me over into bed with her. And about that time, the plaster fell off the ceiling. And right on top of where I’d been. And so it must have been that the old thief of John 10 was at work then and there. Because you know the Lord, He has known us before we’ve ever arrived. He’s known us before we’ve ever been conceived. And He knows all about us. And He knows about our future too. Imagine looking down there from heaven and thinking, that little funny little fellow in the middle of that snowstorm, I wanted him to become a man of God. The old thief almost took him away. But Jesus protected me at that point.

When we were bringing in the hay in my uncle’s farm, when I was a teenager, you know that when we developed the Fordson tractor, which was an early form replacing the team of horses, one thing about the tractor was that it made a lot of noise. And it was attached to the front of the wagon, the hay wagon. And the various things, including the tongue of the wagon and so forth, were still there, like they used them for horses. And on the back of the wagon, there was this gadget that was whirling around like that, and it was going to pick up the hay and put it up on the wagon. And we were up there with pitchforks, moving it around and so forth. But as we were going back toward the barn, I happened to be at the front of the wagon and I stepped on that area next to the tongue of the wagon. And that was a loose thing. It was not secure. And down I went on the ground. And that conveyor was coming with its great stainless steel teeth, was coming right toward me. And somehow, by the grace of God, bingo, I found myself out probably 20 or 30 feet away from that wagon. I didn’t crawl out there. But I think some angelic being came down and took me out of that situation. And throughout my lifetime, again and again and again, God has protected me, as He has you. And you know that that is true.

Jesus loves us. When we were singing those wonderful songs this morning, how wonderful God is to exalt the Lord, to worship Him, to glorify Him, to thank Him for life. I said I was going to talk this week on life. I thought maybe I’d say something about my life. Because I know an awful lot about me.

You don’t know much about me. You may know a few things about me. But I have, I’ve had an illness, not a true illness, just it’s what I call scallywag-ism. I was early in my life and throughout college and medical school, I was sort of a scallywag. I don’t know whether that’s a good Scottish term or not.

I enjoyed life. I enjoyed all the kinds of things that I did. I was always a happy person. When I played in the symphony orchestra, in the violin section, I thought I was the most fortunate person in the whole wide world.

And I used to feel something in the orchestra that was so blessed and so wonderful. It was sort of like the way I felt in our Presbyterian church when I was a boy. Just lost my sermon. And, you know, I do have some notes, but sometimes I get to them.

But harmony is a wonderful thing. When I was a little boy, we used to have the circus come to town. I don’t know whether they have that sort of thing happen anymore. I haven’t been to a circus parade, but they used to have a parade that went through Port Huron, Michigan. And the various animals and all kinds of things, the calliope, whatever that was, and all these things going through the town and so forth. And the people would find their way down the great big tent and we would have the circus. It was quite an experience. And there was a strange group there that was called the Clown Band.

And these clowns would begin to play these various things. But there would be one clown in there that would play a tune that was different from the tune of the rest of them. And of course, the conductor would take a large gun that had a blank cartridge in it and shoot that fellow.

And he would fall out of the Clown Band and then they could begin to play in harmony. It would be nice to have somebody like that to take care of the scoundrels and scallywags in the church. In the hospital, yeah, there could be a few there too.

But I’ve often thought of that, the unity, the unity of godly love, the unity of godliness. And the wonderful thing that holiness brings, I think it was Pope John Paul II who said that beneath reality in life, there is a wonderful godly holiness.

The trouble is we don’t look for it until we feel it. But we had it this morning. We’ve had it throughout this meeting. Imagine having an FBI man that Jesus got hold of giving us these wonderful talks about the Lord. I think the FBI could stand him back in the harness up there in Washington.

But I’m glad he’s going around planting churches. That’s what it said in the brochure. There’s a nice picture of Brother Kaiser on the front of the brochure and right beneath it said, “Dr. Bill Reed.” I thought, gee, I’ve changed.

But what a wonderful guy. And to hear the things that he has had to say about, you know, his life being on the line. Not just during a war or something like that, but like the police force and the people who take care of us in our country and so forth. Do we ever pray for them? This morning we prayed for this doctor up there. Wherever he is and whatever hospital he’s with and all the people in that operating room. And what a wonderful thing. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a nation like that? And, you know, I kind of think we do have a nation like that, but we need to help to bring it into real existence. That’s what the young people need to have. Because we have to rely upon them. Pretty soon, you know, it’s sort of like doing an end-around and handing the ball to the end that’s coming around from the opposite direction, confusing the team that you’re playing. What we need to do is to have these young people that we can give the ball to. That we can give the Bible to. That we can give a CFO to. That we can give the church to. And I kind of fret about them.

Because they can’t say much about Jesus anymore, even in the school system. And it seems like we have developed a tendency to try to emphasize the cerebral cortex in contradistinction to spirituality. See? It’s the Spirit that gives life. John 6, 63. The flesh profits nothing.

The words that I’ve spoken unto you, Jesus said, they are spirit and they are life. I said to Lee Kaiser last night, I said, you know, you’ve been preaching the word. And that’s what we need. We need to hear the word of God. The words of God. It’s not just the things that are being said, but it’s what happens when the word of God hits you in your spirit. And there’s, well, we have the 4th of July. It’s sort of like the fireworks. Bango. Somebody says something. The reality of Christ and the power of His resurrection. And it explodes within you. When I was a little boy, my dad had a Willys Knight. And we used to, the fun that we had was we’d go for a ride. Mother would say, “Well, can we go for a ride tonight?” And so my brother and I and my two sisters, eventually, we’d all go for a ride, you know, and throughout the town.

But to go in our town, often we’d go by a tent. And dad would say, “Oh, they’re having a meeting there.” And so he’d take the old Willys Knight in there and he’d park the car and we’d sit out there in the car and listen to what was being said. And then the preacher would say something about anybody who wants to ask Jesus to come into their heart and into their lives, “Just come forward right now.” And bingo, I’d hop out of the car and go forward. After I’d done that maybe a dozen times, Daddy said, “You know, Billy, you only have to go there once. You don’t have to go up there all the time when they have an altar call.” And I didn’t get half as much out of just sitting in the car. It was wonderful going forward. And indicating to me and everybody else that Billy Reed is pointing his life toward Jesus.

One day, my next door neighbor, who was a Scottish lassie, Mrs. McGinnis, her husband was a bus driver, they went to a place called the Gospel Tabernacle. I really didn’t know where they went to church. But she came over and she said to Mother, “It would be nice if Billy and Bobby could go over to Daily Vacation Bible School at our church.” Well, we were Presbyterians and we didn’t have, at that point, we didn’t have Daily Vacation Bible School. And Dad and Mother thought that might be a nice place for a couple of little rascals to go. I was ten and Bobby was seven. And so we went to the Gospel Tabernacle. And the teacher of our group of little boys was the minister himself. And the first talk he gave was about Jacob’s Ladder. And he handed out a little thing that showed all the steps on the ladder. They were all various scriptures. And at the top of the ladder, there was a crown that he’d drawn. And it was a crown of righteousness.

And it occurred to me, as he was teaching us, that if we follow these various steps in our lives, someday we’re going to achieve some wonderful thing called a crown of righteousness. And I thought that was so wonderful. And I said to the minister, who happened to be a Welshman, by the way, from Wales, originally. They’d had that great outpouring of the Holy Spirit there at the turn of the last century. But I said to him, you know, I’d like, I would like to just give my life, my heart. I’d like to give myself to Jesus. And he’d been talking about that. So we went down to the altar, and he prayed for me, and I got saved when I was ten years old. Like I said the other night, saved, I think, eventually. Saved from me, myself. Saved from the world system. Saved from the devil. Saved from the tendency of the cerebrum to take dominance over your spirituality.

And the day came at the end of the week where each student had to do something. I played the violin in those days. But I didn’t want to play the violin for some reason or other. And the minister said, “Billy, what would you like to do?” I said, “I’d like to preach.”

He said, “Preach?” And I said, “Yes, I’d like to preach.” He said, “What would you like to preach about?” He said, well, I’d like to tell people about Jacob’s Ladder. And how you can get that crown of righteousness. And so at ten years old, at the end of that time, when it was my turn, I just got up there and I told the people about how to get that crown of righteousness.

And so the next year I went back again. And I gave my second sermon at age 11. And everybody thought I was going to be a preacher. They never ever thought I was ever going to end up in the operating room. But nevertheless, that was really where it began. And I think, folks, I think that I conceived at that point. You know, there’d never be a baby born if the baby had not been conceived.

The spermatozoa, which is a very strange looking little which-a-ma-jigger, unites itself with something that mama produces in her ovary called the ovum. And they get together in the fallopian tube and they exchange their DNA substance with one another. And so that little conception has got characteristics of both mother and father. I think it’s so amazing, so wonderful. Who in the world could ever imagine such a wonderful situation as that? But I don’t think people think very much about it. They must not care very much about it. Because if it’s inconvenient or not appropriate, well, maybe they might even get rid of that little conception. Conception.

And eventually that little conception becomes a zygote, of all things, and it becomes various things until it becomes an embryo. One of the doctors at our meeting in Tampa a couple years ago, he got up and he said, “Well, I just want to tell you folks that once upon a time, I was an embryo.”

You know, he didn’t look any more like an embryo than the man in the moon. But every one of us here was an embryo. And so therefore, we need to be careful what we do to embryos.

Because it might turn out, that embryo might turn out to be somebody like a Lee Kaiser or Bill Reed or Brother Molina, an anesthesiologist, or his wife, a nurse anesthetist. Amazing, you see. And we have to conceive in the same way. Well, not anatomically or physiologically, but we have to conceive a seed. Like the spermatozoa, a seed has got to be planted in us. And out there, you have to accept it or reject it. That’s what the mother does in normal conception. She will either, she will either, her little organism, her body, will either accept that spermatozoa or will reject it. And you’re out there now, you say, well, we’re all Christians. And I think we probably all are.

But have you really allowed the seed to be planted, the seed of Jesus to be planted in you? And what do you think would grow as a result? Newness of life. A life that is anchored in the kingdom of God.

A life that is full of joy unspeakable, full of glory. I had written down something here. There was a man over in Indian Rocks in the Church of God by the name of Vep Ellis. I suppose somebody here might have known Vep Ellis. But Vep Ellis was a great songwriter as well as a preacher. And he wrote a little song. This has to do with conception in the Spirit, and how you may grow into a woman or a man of God as a result of Jesus working it out in you. He does it His own way. And this song says, my God can do

anything. My God can do anything. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And all that life may bring, my God can do anything. Praise the Lord. In the name of God, my God can do anything. You’ll find He’s not too busy to hear your heart cry. He is passing by this moment, your need to supply. Reach out and touch the Lord as He goes by.

You know why people, it used to kind of bother me as a Presbyterian to see people raising their hands and doing things like that. Because we don’t, in frozen Presbyterianism, we don’t move anything much. We hardly even move our carcass. In the Episcopal Church, at least we kneel and stand up and kneel and stand up. It’s sort of our calisthenics that we have there. We haven’t really figured out why we’re doing all of that in many instances. But when we’re lifting our hands, I like to lift both hands. Sometimes I just lift one. And I have what Agnes Sanford used to call the consecration of the imagination. Letting my imagination really feel that I’m reaching out there and touching the hem of Jesus’ garment. And when I pray for my patients in the hospital, you know, I always kind of like those people that would show some kind of an activity. They wouldn’t just lie there on the bed like a stone. They’d raise their hand. Maybe they might even… I’ve walked, I walked into Centro Español Hospital in Tampa one day to see my patient. It was a semi-private room. My patient was over by the window. And as I opened the door, I thought, this is funny, the door is shut. I opened the door and here was about 25 people from a local black church. And they were just about to pray for this patient that was lying there. And the minister, being a man of God, he said, “Oh, Dr. Reed, come on in and join us.” He knew me. Someone in there, and what does he do? But he hands me a hymn book. And there on the surgical floor, old Dr. Reed and all these people that were there for this patient had a wonderful time of singing. And then we prayed. And my patient over there by the window was getting blessed and she hadn’t even paid for that. She didn’t even know.

I wonder what would happen if, you know, if on grand rounds, we used to, at the University of Michigan, we used to make grand rounds, you know, sometimes it’d be as many as 25 or 30 doctors in their white coats, some short, some long coats, some medical students that just had a white coat, interns that had white pants and white coat, and residents that had long coats. You could tell who they were by what they were wearing. And Dr. Collar, the chief, he said to the chief resident, he said, “Well, tell us about…” We walked out on the ward, and here was this patient lying there, a woman, in this bed, and this hole was a big…

It was a ward about the size of this unit here. And there were beds all along the way. And we went to that first bed. And Dr. Collar said to the resident, “Tell us about this patient.” Well, he started telling all the various things about what the laboratory findings were, what her history was, and where her pain was, and what we were going to do. And the next thing you know, as I was looking over there at the patient, there were the tears just flowing down her cheeks, you know, because it sounded terrible to her. We were speaking in a strange language, you know, medical terminology and so forth. And she thought, sure, she was never ever going to make the grade. And Dr. Collar noticed this. Imagine, he’s one of the greatest surgeons in the whole world. And he said to the resident, he said, “Do you see what’s happening to the patient?” “Yes, sir.” “Go over and comfort her.” Well, you know that that fellow knew how to take out gallbladders and resect colons and do thyroidectomies and everything else, radical mastectomies and so on. He didn’t have the remotest idea of how to comfort that patient. And of course, my chief, you know, that guy just flunked right then and there. But there is a way in which you can go over and say, you know, “Honey, we’re just talking medical terms and it doesn’t mean anything serious. You’re going to be all right. Jesus is going to be with you.” That’d be a nice way to comfort somebody. Jesus is going to be with us in this operation. And everybody in that operating room is going to be holding us up. And the people, your church, CFO camp, they’re going to be praying and so forth. That’s the way you comfort somebody.

I hope somebody’s there comforting Chris right now. Jesus, You’re there. The Comforter is there. The Holy Ghost is there. The Holy Ghost is there. Jesus is there. Jesus is there to comfort and care just when I need Him most. Oh, to be His hand extended, reaching out to the oppressed. Let me touch Him. Let me touch Jesus. So that others may know and be blessed.

I thought I might take a quick look at my notes. Oh, there they are. You know, somebody said, “Doc, why do you always bring your library along with you when you get up to preach?” But you never know. Well, thank you, my little plum.

Well, she is. She lives right next door with her husband and she’s been wonderful. Praise God. Let me tell you. This is Jan Karon’s new book, and it’s called Patches of Godlight. Patches of Godlight. Michelangelo, sometime between 1475 and 1564, said, “Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.” I had a vision a long time ago, not the kind where something unfolds before you in some miraculous way, but I had the idea of having been in and out of hospitals, having been in Uncle Sam’s Navy, and having been in all kinds of naval hospitals, and all naval hospitals that have nothing to do with the umbilicus.

That’s a joke, son. But I began to wonder what it would be like to have a hospital that was primarily centered in Jesus. I don’t mean just having a chapel somewhere, you know, but I mean having the Lord… Well, you have the loudspeaker system. What do they have on the loudspeaker system? You hear patients 90 years old, 104, something like that, like some of my patients I’m thinking of right now. And outside there’s a loudspeaker that’s playing Jim Jam Jump and Jive, you know, that they can’t possibly figure out. And it’s got percussion. Boom. Here’s Grandma lying there, you know, just wishing that somebody turned the blame thing off. I wondered, I even wondered where it came from. I said to the nurse on that floor one time, this was at one of our Tampa hospitals, I said, “Where does that music come from? You turn that on here?” She said, “No.” She said, “I don’t know where it comes from.” I said, “Well, find out where it comes from.” So she found out where it comes from. She said, “It’s down in the sub-basement.” About as close to Hades as you could get.

But anyhow, so what do I do? You know, it’s not just, well, to understand or know something. You gotta do something about it. And boy, I went on down there and I found out that the engineers that take care of the air conditioning and the heating sometimes, they are in charge of the music. And there’s that radio, you know, and they have that particular station that has the jive music on there. And that’s where it came from. I said, “Why don’t you put some classical music on? Why don’t you have some hymns?” Well, it never worked. But I thought the only way that this is ever going to happen is that someday there can be a hospital where we can have prayer. We can have prayer over the loudspeaker system. Where the nurses can get together before they go on the floors and have prayer. Where the doctors can go into the chapel and pray before their operative procedures. Where the music, the wonderful hymns. And somebody in Pittsburgh, of all places, here’s two Pittsburghites and their daughter right now. But somebody up there in Pittsburgh sent me some large, old-fashioned records that they had made, which were hymns. And they had birds singing in the background. And I played those things. And eventually, out in Medford, Oregon, I heard that there was a hospital, a little hospital available out there.

And so I took every cent that I had and I went out to Medford, Oregon, of Canine, my darling wife and I. And we took over the reins of that hospital, which was failing, and turned it into a Christian institution and played those records for the patients. We had people that came in there to die because we were an intermediate hospital. And the family would pull the shades. And every room in that hospital opened up onto a patio where they had beautiful flowers and so forth, and a lovely garden out there in Mount Shasta in the distance. I mean, the most beautiful place you can imagine was this hospital.

And these people went in there and they didn’t want that light in there because it bothered Mother. And besides, they just wanted quiet so Mother could just go ahead and die peacefully. But they came in there one morning and all the shades were open. And this music was… beautiful music was playing. And there’s Mama sitting up in bed with a big smile on her face. And the family said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Well, I just am feeling better.” She said, “The nurse came in and prayed for me. And I said, ‘Why is it dark in here? And isn’t that wonderful music and the birds are singing and so forth?’” And so they came down, my wife is the administrator of the hospital, and they said, “What are you doing to Mother? We brought her in here to die and she looks like she’s getting better.”

See? I mean, folks, these are actual things that have occurred in my life. And pretty soon I got called before the State Board of Medical Examiners in Oregon to go up there and be interviewed. I have my… I’m a diplomate in the American Board of Surgery. I have my Master’s degree in Surgery. I’m a university trained surgeon and all of that. Lots of honors and stuff. But they called me up there and my wife was able to come in as one witness. And they said, “We’ve been hearing very strange reports about you. And we understand that you’re utilizing prayer and things like that. And the word has it that you’re just a faith healer.”

And I said, “Well, I have faith in the practice of surgery. I have faith in my surgical textbooks. I have faith in my training. And as an Episcopalian, I have faith in the Book of Common Prayer and in God’s Word.” They said, “Well, tell us about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” And I said to my attorney… I brought an attorney who was a member of the Full Gospel Businessmen. I brought him in.

It was Clarence Fitzwater. I turned to Clarence and I said, “Clarence, why don’t they ask me some questions about anatomy or surgery or physiology or something like that? Why am I getting all these questions about Christianity?” He says, “Well…” He says, “It might be good for them to hear what you have to say about these things.” So anyhow, they asked me about such things as praying in the Spirit and things like that. And so, I never did get a license to practice in Oregon. I went back up to Medford and sort of acted in an administrative capacity. But you see how God turns things around into a blessing. So what did I do? I didn’t have patients to see. They said, “You can’t take care of a dog in Oregon because you don’t have a license.” I had a license in Florida, I had a license in Texas, and I had a license in Michigan. But no Oregon license. And so I couldn’t take care of a dog. And so I was sitting there in my office and I thought, well, what will I do? And so I wrote my book, Surgery of the Soul. Maybe some of you might have read it. And it tells about the kind of surgery that we need. Hebrews 4.12, The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, capable of dividing asunder of the soul and spirit.

We have to have an operation, folks, that cuts between the mental area of man and the spiritual area. Why is that? It’s because the cerebral cortex holds our spirituality in incarceration. Does that make sense to you, this sort of medical terminology? But our cerebral cortex, our natural man, we heard about it last night, our natural man keeps spirituality in us imprisoned somewhere. So there’s not allowed to go up and do anything much to our heart. And it doesn’t do anything to our mentality. But the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, it comes down like a sword and it cuts between that mentality. I don’t understand, I can’t understand what the soul actually is. Because to me, it sometimes is seen the same as spirit. But I think that we’re talking there about material cerebral function. And that intellectual, material, cerebral function has got to come under the control of the Holy Spirit or it’ll kill you. It’ll kill you. Well, what’s the scripture for that? Romans 8, 6. To be carnally minded is death. But to be spiritually minded, to become spiritual out of the Spirit, to come up, transform your heart, transform your mind, to be spiritually minded, is life and peace.

Good night. Where is the time going? I’m supposed to quit at 20 minutes of. But anyhow, ask the Lord. Ask the Lord. He’s an old man. He used to be a government man. So I have to, you know, we have to be obedient to Uncle Sam.

But, you know, God means for us to be totally, entirely, completely submitted unto Him. My submission, I used to like my cerebrum. Boy, what a nice head I’ve got. Look at all these talents I’ve got. You know, my nice parents gave them to me in their DNA. Isn’t it nice I’ve got those things? And so forth. And then He made me a surgeon. And I began, people would say, “Boy, you did a great job. Grandma’s looking great.” So forth. And I’d think, man alive, I did it. You know, before long, I began to think I was really something. But then Jesus got hold of me. One quick thing. I went to Philadelphia to find out about the healing ministry of the Episcopal Church in the Order of St. Luke in 1958.

And I found out that that bunch of quiet folks called Episcopalians were having something happen to them. God was beginning to pour the Holy Ghost upon the Episcopal Church. And I went to prayer meetings and stuff like that, and all the other meetings and so forth. And Billy Graham was in town and went down to listen to him. And I went back to my surgical practice, transformed. We’re supposed to be transformed. It doesn’t mean you take your old mind and just put a little band-aid on it that says, “Good boy.”

Episcopalian. Church of God. Whatever. You know. It’s that you have a total transformation. You become a different creature. Where you’re about change. Transformation of your mental nature and your heart. Well, the next year, Alfred Price got in touch with me and he said, “I want you to give a talk.” And I went… The whole year I thought, what am I going to do? Here I am a board surgeon. Am I going to go there in Philadelphia? That’s pretty close to New York. What if there’s a reporter from Time Magazine there? And I think they’d already gotten hold of Dennis Bennett out in California. An Episcopalian. And I thought, what if that happened to me? Every place I could go where I thought I could get filled with the Holy Spirit. One of my patients was the minister of the Church of God. He said, “I need to get baptized again.” So I went, I got baptized this time in plenty of water.

He wasn’t even a Baptist. And anyhow, the next fall, before I got up there to speak, these Episcopalians got hold of me and I went to a room in the Ben Franklin Hotel and they prayed for me. The guy that laid hands on me was a psychiatrist, a Presbyterian, by the name of Jim Stringham. And all these people gathered around me and prayed for me. I never had that happen. When was the last time you ever prayed for your doctor with a laying on of hands? You never have done it. You just don’t do it. You may do it from a distance. He’s just a human being just like you. He needs to get saved just like you do. So anyhow, I got filled with the Holy Ghost. I got my language. I got interpretation. I went down and took a shower. So I could, in the shower, I could make all the noise I wanted to. You know, nobody would hear me. And I thought, I wonder if I can do that again.

That’s the language. What is it? Somebody said it’s Hebrew. Some person in the congregation and the church out in Medford said, “You’ve been speaking to us in Hebrew this morning.” I think they anoint your understanding so that the language of the Spirit is interpreted. It’s exactly a translation. So anyhow, I went over my time. But it’s… This is a time to go further with Christ, to allow your transformation to be complete. Por completamente.

We’re in the familia de Dios here. We’re in the family of God. We belong to one another. And we need to give one another that which we have. Tonight, I will try with all my heart to get to my notes. And…