The Second Surrender

The Second Surrender

by Thomas Carruth

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I want to announce the subject and explain to you something of the thesis we’re going to develop here this morning, because I feel that to fail to do that might be difficult for you to get in the first part of the message, enter into the spirit and meaning of it. We’re going to share with you today on the second surrender of Jesus. Love and the second surrender of Jesus. Now, if I ask this blended group today, how many of you believe we are to follow Jesus in the first surrender? You would have with one answer, the surrender to the Father. You’d say, yes, we ought to follow Jesus in this surrender. If I would ask all of you, how many of you believe we ought to follow Jesus in the third surrender, the surrender to Himself, to becoming and being the person God wanted Him to be? Your answer would be yes. But when we ask you about the second surrender, we might get a variety of answers. Because the second surrender is the surrender to other people. And this is not easy. It’s not difficult here in a nice friendly group like we have today to surrender or kneel before any person here and say, I gladly serve you today. But this is only a small chapter in the large book of life. And out there somewhere, perhaps everyone here has had difficulty in this relationship, and we may have some difficulty in the happy days and years that lie here.

Now a proper scripture background for this is in this 40th… in this 26th chapter. We begin reading with the 40th and read through the 46th verses. And He cometh unto the disciples, and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, Could ye not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done. And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. Then came He to His disciples, and said unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, and let us be going. Behold, he is at hand, that doth betray Me. Now this subject, our text, is an implied text. It has to do with the mood that’s written here between the lines. And that mood has to do with the great difficulty, even in the life of Jesus, of giving Himself to His enemies.

I heard General William Bower speak, who was on the death march at Bataan. He said the hardest task a soldier has in battle, or in war, is to die in the hands of the enemy, and never know the outcome of the battle of the war, for which he gives his own life. And perhaps the hardest task you and I ever have in life, is to surrender to our enemies, when we know they’re really going to hurt us, and try to hurt the cause for which we die. Now let’s get the perfect picture of this type of personality, back in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned every one to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Will you please listen kindly to this next verse. He was oppressed and He was afflicted. And yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was He stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death. Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief. For Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin. And He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands. He shall see the travail of His soul. And shall be satisfied by His knowledge.

And shall My righteous servant justify many. For He shall bear their iniquity. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great. And He shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because He hath poured out His soul unto death. And He was numbered with the transgressors. That’s a hard verse, isn’t it? And He was numbered with the transgressors. And He bare the sin of many. And made intercession for the transgressors.

I suppose that all of us recognize this morning that the greatest problem in the world has to do with how one person can be properly related to another. I could bring two splendid people out of this group right now, and they would be a demonstration, as friends, as ones who love each other, of a part of the solution of the world’s greatest problem. But wherever there are two people who are wrongly related this morning, whether it be in an office, a home, a school room, on the street, or one of a thousand places we might name, wherever there are two people who are wrongly related, those two people are part of the problem instead of being a part of the solution. Now when you multiply this to the ends of the earth, you come to see that the greatest problem between nations is how they are going to live together.

I was so happy when Gertrude told us the other night about how people are really a part of the problem, even though they seem to be isolated as individuals. And the world problems, about a summary of the problems of what we are as individuals. Now, when you study the life of Jesus, you come to see that He knew when to surrender. And He knew when not to surrender. You see Him before Pilate. He doesn’t do anything. He just stands there quietly. You see Him in the temple, and He takes a whip and drives out the people. Now you must see both sides of life. And if you see both sides of life, then maybe you can pray the prayer that goes something like this: God, help me to know the things I can change. Help me to know the things I cannot change. And help me to know the difference. There’s some times in life when you are to surrender. There’s some times in life when you are not to surrender. And in between these two insights into life, perhaps lies the greatest genius of our total living. Now this morning as we think about this challenge and this responsibility, I want to introduce you to two people. I don’t think either one of them are here today. But maybe you’ve met them somewhere.

The first one I call Mr. Kingfish. Not anybody here named Kingfish, are they? Alright. The first is Mr. Kingfish. He enjoys being in a group because he likes to rule the group. If he gets that late to a meeting, he finds out what else has been done so he can bestow his wisdom on the group. He feels that he is called to dominate other people. And you sometimes say in the church, we can’t run the church with him, and we can’t run the church without him. What are we going to do? Now, we find an extreme illustration and a horrible and cruel illustration of this in the life of Adolf Hitler. He got tired of hanging paper and started hanging people. And before he died, someone had said that he brought more sorrow in the world than any other human being who’s ever lived. I was down in Switzerland the summer before last, and a man there was telling me one of the special ways Hitler had of hanging people of his own nation and his own race. He didn’t just use a nice comfortable rope around that neck. That squeezes you out pretty quick, I think. You know what he did? He took a hook. It was a little bit sharp. The skin under here is tender. Not too many muscles right in there.

You can run that up through there, then let it come out in your mouth and then hang you up by your chin. Kind of pulls your jaws out of joints, hard on your jaws. Then your spittle and the blood go together and you kind of strangle while you’re dying. He went… he did that to hundreds of people and just went ahead about his work as if you’d killed a fly, a little mouse or something. And for some strange reason, he seemed to feel that’s what he was supposed to do. Now, dear friends, this type of personality is all across the land. It’s in the church, it’s in politics, it’s in communities, and it’s all across the world. And in Moscow this morning, Mr. Khrushchev wants to see his red flag fly over every castle before he dies. He announced over here that he was going to bury us. I wanted someone to tell him, well, if you bury us, we plan on a resurrection, but if you’re buried, what are you planning on? But nobody got around to asking him that question. Now, the other person I want to introduce you to, I don’t think he’s here either, I’m not sure. I want to introduce you to Mr. Milquetoast. Anybody here named Milquetoast this morning? No. I don’t see anybody with that name.

Mr. Milquetoast represents the other extreme. He’s the kind of a man that wouldn’t hurt anything. Why, if a mosquito lit on his hand, he’d let him feed first, then he’d blow out and say, excuse my breath, and push him over to the side. Say, now, drop off gently and go ahead and feed on another person. He wouldn’t step on an ant, he wouldn’t mash a red bug, he wouldn’t push little ducks in the water. They might not know how to swim here. He never takes a stand about anything. He comes to the meeting late. How did they vote? Majority voted this way. Let me get on that side. Hooray, we won a great thing. He feels that the way to get through life is to never really express his opinion. If somebody asks him a question, what do you think? He says, well, that’s a good question, what do you think? And he just pitches it back and forth. I don’t need to tell you intelligent people, dear friends, that this kind of person never really helps to build a great nation, a great family, a great church, or a great anything. You’ve got to have a backbone. You’ve got to have courage. And sometimes you’ve got to take a stand.

Now, there are four or five complexes I want to share with you this morning, in which we have the challenge of love and the challenge of the second surrender. First is the complex of tyranny. We mention to you this complex in an extreme illustration in the life of Adolf Hitler. But if this were the only incident in the world, sure, it would be bad. But this is just a chapter in a large book. Somewhere in America this morning, there are people who work under tyranny. I remember a lady down in Georgia who told me she worked for a man and she was afraid of the man. I said, well, why don’t you quit and get another job? She said, Brother Carruth, I can’t quit. She said, this is meat and bread to me, and I have to work in that office. I know a lady who told me that she worked for a certain man. And she said, for two or three days sometime, the man wouldn’t speak to her. Probably she took aspirins or Anacins to the office to take them during the day because she didn’t know what to do. Now, there are many people, my friends, who are in prisons this morning that are far more cruel than stone walls and steel bars and iron gates.

They are in the prison of economy and even physical oppression. Why? Because somebody else wants them to surrender to them. They haven’t learned the art of being gracious and being kind. I don’t need to tell you, I touched on it late last night, or last night, that across this nation, there are people who live in homes, and their home has become a prison. There’s a man who brings home a check at the end of the month, bows and hands it to his wife and says, Can I have a quarter for myself if anything is left over? And she said, Well, I’ll have to see about it. What did you do with the quarter I gave you last month? And he’s afraid of his wife. And you know why I know this? Men talk to me. Now, could I say the other side? There are wives who are afraid of their husband. A lady talked to me out in California, and she said, I never speak to my husband when he comes in until first he’s spoken to me. Now, that was in Kentucky, Ohio, Mississippi. That was out in California. I’m not sure they do that way in other states. And then think of the dear little children this morning who are in prison. They’re in prison because they’re afraid to talk to their parents.

I say this to my own heart and what you say to yours. The saddest day you ever saw as a parent is when your child would do something wrong. They’re afraid to talk to you about it. They come to some minister. They say, Brother Charlie, something terrible has happened in my life. What am I going to do about it? You say, Well, have you talked this over my mother and father? They throw up their hands and say, No. No, they’re the last people in the world I can talk to. And sometimes children are in terrible trouble eating around the table day after day with their parents, and the parents never suspect. A little girl came to a minister out in Texas. What do you suppose she wanted to counsel with him about? She was 16. She said, Since I’ve been 14, I’ve been living with a boy. We’ve been living as husband and wife. What are we to do about it? 14 years old. What are we to do about it? Why couldn’t she have gone to her mother when the first experience happened, wept her eyes out, and the mother sheltered her and taken her out for prayer and renewal in Christ and said, Now, I’m with you all the way. I’ll never turn you down. I love you. I’ll be a friend to you.

Maybe she was afraid of her mother. Now, dear friends, the complex of tyranny has many, many manifestations. There’s only one answer, and that answer is love. That answer is love that brings itself out in a gracious Christ-like surrender. Then here is one that may surprise some of you. It’s what we call the complex of self-sufficiency. You know, Jesus took a towel and started to bathe the feet of a disciple. And one of the disciples rejected Him. They said, No, Master, You don’t bathe my feet. I’m to bathe Yours. You remember what He said? He said, I must bathe your feet if you have any part in the kingdom of heaven. Now, the quickest way to make an enemy that I know of is to go out of here and reject what other people want to do for you. For love and the second surrender, and this sounds like saying it backwards, but it’s true. It means also, dear friends, you’ve got to let people surrender to you. You’ve got to let people serve you. I remember a man back in a little church I served years ago who brought us a ham one night. Well, I don’t usually turn down hams when people bring them. Well, we received this and we were out on the circuit.

I think it must have weighed 17 to 18 pounds. It seemed like it’s gotten heavier through the years as I thought about. But we put that ham in the car. We thanked him for it. We hadn’t gone many miles until I said, Lucille, we’ve got to throw this ham away. That ham had acquired a personality. I came back there and lifted up that trunk, and I got a hold of this ham. Well, I gave a sling out in the briar patch, and I guess the possums and the polecats had a banquet that night. I was getting ready for them. I knew Mr. Thompson was going to say to me, What about that ham we gave you? It came. What about that ham we gave you? Just appreciate ham so much. I’m so glad for what you did. And my wife and I both are very grateful. Which was true. But there were two blessings in that ham. One was a blessing of receiving, the other was a blessing of throwing away. I don’t know which was the greatest blessing. But suppose I’d have sniffed to that ham and said, Oh, man, what do you mean giving a rotten ham to your preacher? Isn’t this an awful thing to do? I’m ashamed of it. I’d have broken his heart and have probably had an enemy the rest of my life.

Somebody may come up sometime and offer you some Garrett’s snuff. Now, that may not be the kind of snuff you use. That’s all right. You just go ahead and take it. Maybe you’ll trade it off for Tube Rose snuff. Some of you are looking off for Solomon. My grandmother dipped snuff and she went to heaven. Quite all right to dip snuff if you sit near and off the edge of the porch. And… But… I used this story down in the great church in Athens, Georgia, where the university is. You know what somebody did? They put some Tube Rose snuff on the desk of the preacher. And some of those sinners thought that I would do a terrible thing like that. But when somebody gives you something, just go ahead and receive it. Just go ahead and receive it. Unless there’s something morally wrong. But some people are so self-sufficient. Oh, they’re just not going to let anybody do anything else to fall. I heard of a lady… Who was an unclaimed blessing. I started to say an old maid, but a maid better not say it here. And… She came toward the end of life and she was planning her own funeral. Just like she planned everything else in life. Planned to be alone. Planned her own funeral.

She’s going to have a way in life and in death. She said, I want ladies to be my pallbearer. Well, they said, now, isn’t that a little unusual? Thought about the weight of the casket and everything. And maybe the weight of the lady, I don’t know. But… They said, well, perhaps we can do that, but… We maybe ought to know some reason for it. So when we have the service, we can say it’s really your request. They’ve never seen a funeral. Well, ladies, it’s pallbearers. Well, she said, it’s very obvious. She said, the men didn’t take me out when I was alive. They’re not going to take me out when I’m dead.

So you can see why this lady never got married. She just didn’t surrender to men. She didn’t let them take her out in life. And she didn’t let them take her out in death. So she just had to go on through eternity having a good time without her. But today, as we think about this matter of letting other people serve us and do things for us, I’m carried back to Europe. I say this, a great kindness. Three or four people are here who are with us. And our group there this summer wanted to give a nice new station wagon to a family in Europe. Now, that was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever known. I’m sure there were plenty of people there who could have easily helped them make it possible. And they started turning in the checks and everything. We went to the family to try to give it to them. And the father wanted it. Of course, the young man wanted it. But the mother didn’t want it. And they wouldn’t receive it. And we couldn’t convince them that they ought to receive it. There wasn’t any strings attached to it. They could have written it once a week or once a year. I kept it 30 days and sold it or done one of a hundred honorable things with it.

But somehow, if I may say it very kindly, I think this dear woman had a poverty complex. Now, a great lady down in Texas helped me to get over the idea of poverty complex. It’s just as wrong to be proud of your poverty as it is to be proud of your riches. I knew a couple of people down in the deep south who had a very serious problem. They had $10 million and didn’t know what to do with it. And a friend of mine went there and got them to pray. They got this close that they held the ends of their fingers. Not a whole handclap. Just kind of the ends of their fingers. And he got them to pray together. Now, wouldn’t you hate to have $10 million this morning and not know what to do with it? Well, Brother John Lynn could tell you back there. He knows what to do with $10 million. But I don’t know what to do with it. But it wouldn’t have been wonderful if they had known how to surrender to other people and let God use them in this great blessing.

Perhaps some of you have heard this marvelous story that comes to us from the ministry of Dr. Merton S. Rice. He tells about a doctor in this town who performed a very delicate operation for a little boy. I think it was for restoring his sight. I’m not absolutely sure. But the operation was successful. And the little boy was about ready to go home and the doctor came in for his final visit. What do you suppose the little boy did? He handed the doctor a three-legged teddy bear. And that probably had a lot of germs on it, too. Now, what would the doctor do with a little dirty, three-legged teddy bear? What would you do? The doctor took it. He didn’t stand up and say, Oh, son, I have no use for a teddy bear. I’m a doctor. He took that teddy bear. He held it close to his heart. He made that little boy happy. But get the rest of it. He took the teddy bear and brought it in his office and had a glass box built and put around the teddy bear. And he put on it this, the greatest fee I ever received. The greatest fee I ever received. He blessed that little boy by receiving what that little boy had to offer him.

Now, isn’t this the story of our surrender to God? Does God really need you and me this morning? Well, in a way, He does. But He got along pretty well before we came along, didn’t He? Yeah, He had things pretty well in hand. Now, I think God could get along forever without me. My friends, I can’t get along without Him. And if He turned me down, unworthy, sinful, confused as I am, when I bring myself to offer myself to Him. Suppose you say, well, I don’t need you, Tom Carruth. I’ve got plenty of other people. Then my life would be ruined. So I must receive others. I must receive what they have to give, even as God has in mercy received me. And will you please believe this morning and write it down in your heart? As you think of surrendering to others, let me say this slowly. It’s just as important for you to know how to graciously receive as it is how to lovingly give. And if you never learned it, you never learned the other side of life. I was in a car one afternoon with two ministers. And both of them wanted to give $7 to the other one. And neither one of them would receive it. I said, all right, I’ll take and hold it.

I’ve still got the $7. I don’t know what to do with it. If you need it, come and I can give it to you. I wasn’t that crazy that neither one of them would receive the $7. And then the next complex that’s related to love and surrender is what we might call a fighting complex. You and I have known people, of course none of us, but we’ve known people, who get up in the morning fighting. They fight all day. They fight in all directions. They fight themselves. They fight the world. And they’re so tired at night. They’re just worn out fighting. You heard about the Irishman who walked up while some fellows were fighting. He said, is this the private fight or can I get in on them? And if Riley hadn’t had a fight all day, he was getting lonesome. He wanted somebody to fight. I’ve seen people who fight with their children. I stayed in a place once where a lady was in a running battle with a little boy. And the strange thing was, she seemed to enjoy it. I’m not sure he enjoyed it so much. Now friends, this is one way of life, but it’s harder the ideal way of life. You can fight the circumstances around you. You can spit on the jailer when you’re locked up, but it won’t help him very much.

It won’t do you much good. Did you know that when Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in jail, they were getting ready to kill him? That when the jailer, I’m told that when the jailer sometime would come to lock the door, they would apologize for locking. He wasn’t trying to get out. He was just seated there. A long time ago, a fellow had a good long vacation in jail. His board bill was paid. So he said, why don’t I write a book while I’m in here? He wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. That’s one way to have time to write it and let him put you in jail. And several people have read the book. Remember about a man named Paul? They decided to put him in jail and he was there at midnight. He wasn’t fighting and hating the jailer. At midnight, Paul and Silas got sorrowful himself and started crying. Is that what scripture says? No, it doesn’t say that. It says at midnight, Paul and Silas were singing and praising the Lord. I would say hallelujah, but he might break the tape of the quarterback then. Now, my friends, what does this mean? It means that they were not fighting. They were not fighting the jailer. And what did the jailer come in and do and whack him over the head with a stone and knock him out?

No, that’s not what he did. He came in then and probably got on his knees and said, Well, you fellows have got something I don’t have. Tell me how I can get it. What must I do to be saved? Now, if these men had been fighting the jailer, that never would be in the scripture. There is a beautiful Chinese proverb that says, He who strikes the first blow loses the fight. And one of the tests of mature love is to have in your heart a feeling and an attitude. To ask yourself the question, How long can I listen to another person before I start building up a mental fight with him? How long can I suspend judgment? Now, I’m not afraid that you and I are going out here today and put on gloves and knuckles and go up and knock somebody down. We are too old and too respectable for that, aren’t we? I hope you’ll read this printed article in the Reader’s Digest by Jack Dempsey on prize fighting. And he tells about having a fight, I believe it was with Luis Firpo. And how Brother Lewis tapped him on the head. And he says that for the rest of the round, he was out on his feet. Because this other man had hit him on the head.

I thought, Brother, he’s talking about us preachers. We can be out on our feet and not know it. Somebody said that a seminary graduate, a young minister, is one who has all the answers, looking for somebody who has the questions. And we’re just waiting for somebody to come around to let us know how very, very sensible we are. But in this matter of fighting, and you can fight this room this morning very easy. You can get in a fight with each wall. These colors may clash for you. There’s several ways you can get out of this room. You could jump through one of those windows. There’s steel bars that slow you down a little. But several attempts, you’ll probably get through. We could take you up through here. It’d be a little trouble to open it up. We can dig a tunnel right under here and let you out that way. That would take several hours. You’d have to wait on it. Or you could just get up and walk down the aisle and go quite loud. Which way do you recommend? I recommend that you go down the aisle. But there’s some people who’ve got the fighting complex, and they’ve never surrendered to the situations around them. I can take you in situations where people live in castles and they’re very unhappy, because they’re fighting life and they’re surrounded.

I can take you in other places where people live in seeming poverty, and yet they’ve known how to surrender. And they’re very happy. Why? Because they’re not fighting anybody. When we came back from Europe, the year before last, and this year too, there was one place I wanted to see in particular. I wanted to see the coast of Labrador, and to see this country where Grenfell used to work. Later I picked up a book about this great Christian missionary. It told the story of a little girl whose family had died. All the family had died except her. She had no place to go and no food to eat. What do you suppose she did? She went out to live with these great huskies, these Eskimo dogs, and in a cold winter night down below zero, she would cuddle up between their, perhaps their backs, and their big fur would keep her warm, and the Lord had put a white blanket of snow over her curly head even as she slept during the night. She lived that way for about two weeks. When they found her, they were utterly amazed at what they saw. They knew that these dogs, get this, had already had a taste of human blood. They couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t devoured this little girl.

Brother Joe, I saw a whole mountain of truth open up. You know why they didn’t devour her? Of course, she didn’t fight her. She just knew to go out there and look. And if she had started fighting those dogs, you know what? One would growl, the other would start growling. Within less than a minute, they would have torn her limb for limb and licked her blood out of the snow. She lived because she did not fight. Now, we have a lady here in our group who has a snake in her room. Not next to you, of course, I hope. Last night, I visited that lady and that snake. Now, I never have learned how to feel too comfortable around snakes. I’ve seen several. She took the snake out of the box and the snake looked at me and he ran his tongue out like that. And there the snake was in her hand. But I don’t think the snake admired it very much. Maybe her hands were a little cold. I’m not sure. I didn’t feel that. But she loved the snake and the snake seemed to love her. Now, this is a wonderful law of life, isn’t it? That when we’re not fighting things around us, we’re surprised at how much other people surrender to us.

Now, let’s take another complex. I don’t know a better word in this one than the word furious. There are some people who feel that the way to bless the world is to blow their top. Not your husband, but have you ever heard of somebody else’s husband coming in the afternoon, the first thing he wants to do, well, turn down the radio, no, you can’t go out tonight, where’s the evening paper, when he’s supper ready, he settles down in to a pleasant evening with his family. I heard of two ladies who were talking, and one said to the other, do you have a den in your house? She said, no, my husband just growls in every room. He said, I don’t need it. I don’t need a den. That’s a better word. Goes around with a furious complex. They think the world is blessed. Now, you’ve got to pray for us preachers. Sometimes a preacher come on and say, boy, I’ve certainly got them told today. But what he doesn’t know is that they haven’t roast preacher for dinner. That’s right, they are returning the complex. You don’t bless people when you blow your top. You don’t even bless your top. Maybe you’re living at the bottom when you blow your top, because somehow that isn’t the way to do.

In 1945, I was in Albion, Michigan. We were having a great retreat, a room about this size. Dr. Albert Day and many fine others were launching the Disciplined Order of Christ. I learned that one of the greatest lessons of my life. If you just take one thing on this little talk this morning, I hope you’ll take this. We picked up the paper one afternoon. We saw why the first bomb had been dropped in Japan, the first atom bomb. How thousands of people were killed. Of course, we got excited, as they did around the world. We didn’t know what to do or what to say. The next morning, a man came forward with a telegram. He said, we’ll not send this telegram unless everybody here agrees that it ought to be sent. President Harry S. Truman, the White House, Washington, D.C. We respectfully request you to be very prayerful about any further use of the atom bomb. Didn’t condemn him for using it. Didn’t say he shouldn’t use it in the future. He’d hardly brought his telegram and hardly finished reading it until a man came and stood before us. If he didn’t mow us down with his words, he mowed us down with his eyes. He just had fire almost coming for his face. Let us know he wasn’t in favor of this telegram.

The other man stood up and said, well, if they’re gonna fight, let’s get down to it. This crowd, which has just been just as peaceful and almost as sweet as you are, not quite. This crowd, which had been so nice for eight days, suddenly turned into a different kind of fellowship. And the man came forward and lifted up his telegram. I don’t know what he did with it. I wish he’d given it to me. I could have kept it and framed it and go. Now, here’s what I’m trying to say to you. I learned there, my friends, one of the greatest lessons in all my life. Now, you can afford to be wrong in your judgment, but you cannot afford to be wrong in your spirit. And the one thing everybody in this room can have, if you just want it’s just yours to receive. When you go out of here this morning, you can have the spirit of pride. You can be loving toward everybody in the world, toward every person, toward in every situation. You can be loving and you can have this spirit 24 hours a day. Now, I grew up in a family where we had three redheaded brothers. I love red hair, but you gotta pray a lot when you got three redheaded brothers.

And then, let me ask this question, if you don’t mind. Anybody here ever live on a farm besides me? Anyone in this group? My, I started to say some of you look like you live in the country, but I won’t say that because it might embarrass you. Well, I lived on a farm and I used to plow. And I plowed Charlie a mule, it wasn’t a Christian. And sometimes I used to get mad at you. But you know, after I learned to pray and surrender to others and get over this furious complex, I’d hate to tell you what I’ve done to some of those mules. They want to turn before they get to the end of the row and you’d be plowing up the corner of something, you’d be calling them things that you shouldn’t have called them, and trying to get out to the end of the row. And then, one day I realized that I didn’t have to have this furious complex anymore. That I could surrender even to the mule, I could be kind to him. And that I could get along all day long with my redheaded brother. If I surrendered to Christ in the early morning, I learned I could stay in a good humor all day.