The Stethoscope That Became His Stole

The Stethoscope That Became His Stole

by Dr. Bill Reed

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

It really made me cry because I thought about my wife, and she’s all I want, I say, in this old earth, and all I’ve ever needed, but she’s gone. That’s the hardest thing to know. But Jesus fills the void.

What’s the matter? Give me a hug. Oh, I know. Thank you, dear brother. I’ll tell you when you’ve gotten hugged by him. It’s hardly an anemic little gesture. Jesus, I thank You. I thank You from the very depths of my heart tonight.

And I thank You that I’m a Christian. And that I hope in heaven… Thank You, Lord, that we say… Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. We thank You that Your presence is near us, strengthening us, blessing us, anointing us, and helping us, taking all the edges of the hurt away.

And I thank You, Lord, that You’re here. And I thank You, Lord, that You’re here. And I thank You that I’m here, privileged to be here. And let these, Thy children, know how much I appreciate the very fact that I was invited here.

And thank You, Lord, for the fact that CFO means so much to me. And I know to You. Thank You that it’s just not an organization. But it’s You, Lord Jesus. And I thank You for it, Lord. Thank You for the opportunity of exalting the holy name of the Lord.

Thank You that we have that privilege to live for Him, to live and move and have our being. Jesus, I thank You, Lord, that this quality of living is so available to us. And so important to us, Jesus, when we’re at a time like this, when we need You. Far beyond anything that we ever imagined, that we would need You like this, O Lord. I thank You.

I thank You for the love of Your people. And the joy of the Lord, which is truly our strength. It’s a little question that Jesus asked the man at Bethesda’s pool. He said, “You want to be made well?”

The scripture, the King James Version, says, “Wilt thou be made whole?” And Beth Ellis wrote a song. Wilt thou be made whole? Spirit by soul? I don’t know whether you know it or not. What a beautiful hat you’re wearing, laddie. Wilt thou be made whole? Spirit by soul. Rise, take up your bed and walk. Rise, take up your bed and walk. Loose every fetter, break every chain. Rise, new life to gain. Rise, in Jesus’ name.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There’s just something about Your name. Master, Savior, Jesus. Like the fragrance after the rain. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Let all heaven and earth proclaim. Kings and kingdoms, they’ll all pass away. But there’s something about Your name.

This thing that’s hanging about my neck, I didn’t mention it today. It’s a stethoscope. And I really have not been running around listening to anybody’s heart tonight. Well, I did try to listen to my own. I couldn’t hear it tonight.

A little fellow came up to me and wanted to listen to his own heart. And I don’t know whether you heard it. So I took a listen to see how mine sounded. It was not beating. Perhaps it was the noise in the dining room. I don’t know. But anyhow, I got to thinking. I don’t know how many of you know much about the Episcopal church. I mean the Episcopal church. Or the Anglican church or whatever.

But the priest wears a… It’s called a stole. And it’s sort of a thing like a necktie. And he wears it. It goes down on both sides. And that shows he’s actually an actual ordained priest in the church. If he’s a deacon, it’s only down one side. So you can tell pretty well by looking at them just exactly where they fit in the situation at the church. But I was thinking one day as I was walking around the hospital, and I was looking at the doctors, and I always kind of carried my stethoscope in my pocket. But I noticed that they’ve been wearing them around their neck. And I don’t know. I guess it’s just because of convenience or something. I don’t think it has any spiritual quality.

But I thought, you know, I think I’m going to wear my stethoscope around my neck and wear it like my stole. So I’m a priest of my church. Well, not ordained in that category. I’m a lay reader in my church. I’m a person who can give the… to take the Holy Communion to people and things like that. I can give the chalice to the people at the altar after the Holy Communion. And I consider that to be a great honor and a privilege. I’ve never gone up there yet wearing my stethoscope around my neck. Maybe I might try it sometime. Do it as a healing and blessing. Us? At the healing and blessing. Yeah, that would be great, wouldn’t it?

Well, you know, when we’d go up and the priest would give us the chalice and the wine, and then he had already given the people the host, the wafer. He’s given the body of Christ to the people. And then we come up and we give the representation of the blood of Jesus. And we say, well, it all depends upon your orientation toward Jesus as to what you say. But I use the old words of demonstration where we say, “The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this and remembers that Christ’s blood was shed for thee and be thankful.” And, of course, that’s a lot easier than just saying “the cup of salvation,” which is all right. But I think to tell the people that Jesus’ blood was shed for you is a very important thing. And, inevitably, when I would go to give the cup to my wife, the tears would flood down my face because it meant everything for everybody. But it meant something very, very, very, very special for her.

And the Stephen ministers, a little group of folks that loved Jesus in our church, including the rector and the associate rector, the vicar at our church, they would come virtually every day and give my wife the Holy Communion. And the Stephen’s ministers would come in and they would pray every day. They were largely women. Just men are out there working usually. One was a doctor’s wife. There were some people that I didn’t even know. I thought I knew most of the people in the church, but to have them come in and to pray for her, that meant everything to her and it meant everything to me.

So, I love the church and I love the fact that Jesus’ blood was shed for me and for my wife and for my kids and for you, every one of you. And it’s not lost its potency to change and transform you. It’s infinitely more able to do for you far beyond anything that you can imagine. Ephesians 3.20.

Somebody sent me this in the mail. You’d be amazed at the kinds of things that people have sent me through the mail. Wonderful things. Listen to this. This person said, “I wanted you to… I wanted to share this,” she says. And I wrote on the back who it was that sent it to me. Roy and Myrtle Clendenning, friends of ours from Platte City. I’m free. Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free. I’m following the path God laid for me. I took His hand when I heard Him call. I turned my back and left it all. I could not stay another day to laugh, to love, to work, or play. Tasks left undone must stay that way. I found that place at the close of day. If my parting has left a void, then fill it with remembered joy. A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss. Yes, these things I too will miss. Be not burdened with times of sorrow. I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow. My life’s been full. I’ve savored much. Good friends, good times, and a loved one’s touch. Perhaps my time seemed all too brief. Yes. Don’t lengthen it now with undue grief. Lift up your heart and share with me. God wanted me now. He set me free. That helped.

It truly helped. Bucky and Peggy have heard this poem that I wrote. You’re a captive audience, so you’ve got to hear a few of my poems. Poems are spiritual things that God gives you. They don’t emanate from the gray matter as much as they emanate from the anointed gray matter. I don’t know… I’m not a theologian, so you can correct me on this, but I think that we have… We’re born with a mind that might be called material mind. And the Holy Ghost, according to Romans 12, 2, we are to have a total transformation of our mental nature. So the material mind must be transformed into the spiritual mind. Because we have to have the spiritual mind. And I think poems come from the spiritual mind. Oh, you can write worldly poems. I went to a place up in Illinois one time to speak at a church, and I was staying with the minister and his wife, and the daughter was attending the University of Illinois, and she had written some poems, you know, and I would have kind of worried a wee bit about her and the types of poems that she was writing. I think a poem should be something that emanates from your spirituality and your contact with Jesus and your love of Him.

Songs are the same way. Music is the same way. The music that you compose. But this I wrote… I was thinking about when I met my wife, and I had written a little poem called “My Heart Throb.” I gave the students at an Anglican church up in Montreal this poem and they applauded it, so I thought I might test you on it. My heart’s problem is just simply idiopathic. No etiology at all. Maybe it’s just psychopathic. Your green flashing eyes cause a cardiac rush. My songs of romance cause the songbirds to hush. What diagnosis is there for my myocardial pain? The strange symptoms within are most difficult to explain. Hook me up to an EKG as you come into the room. Turn it on. Turn me on.

Trace me in my peculiar cardiac swoon. I thought it’d end in a decade or two. But it’s still going on and it fails to subside. Why do you pluck on the cord I tend and I strings? Such inner music my heart always sings. In the midst of the pain there’s a transforming joy. So please don’t desist, cause it’s like heaven above. My myocardial problem has a diagnosis called love.

My wife was speaking on Ephesians the first chapter one time on our Tuesday. We met on Tuesday, but we still meet on Tuesday mornings at our little church where my office is. I saw a dental office up in Fremont, Maine. I think that’s the name of the place. We stayed at a bed and breakfast across the street, and this church across the way had been made into a dental office, you know. And I thought, well, it’d be kind of nice to have a surgical office in a church. And I kept going by this church not far from my office. And so when I retired from doing surgery, I thought, well, instead of going down to my old office, I think we’ll see if we can’t buy that little old church. It’d been there for 12 years just idle, and used it as a storage place. It was an Advent Christian church. And I began to find out how much they wanted for it, whatever, you know. I saw it with the eyes of my heart. And Kay was talking this one Tuesday morning about Ephesians 1, where it talks about the eyes of one’s heart. And I wrote this.

When I first saw my little son, as the first little boy was born in Santa Ana, California, when I was at the Blimp Base there, the Naval Air Station, when I first saw my little son on a moonlight night when the moon was bright, I saw my son with the eyes of my heart, viewed his little frame with a tearful, joyous sight.

When I first saw my dear beloved wife, the snow was falling on a cold December night, strange, I saw her with the seeing of my heart, a vision of beauty and love to never leave. When I first strove to bring a baby forth in the heart of Chicago’s hottest night, the little black boy was named for me, my heart so happily that it was right. She said, “Doctor, I’ve had several children, and I don’t know what to call this little boy. What’s your name, Doctor?” And I was a senior medical student. I wasn’t even a doctor at that point, but the first baby I delivered was named William Standish McDowell. He’d be 60 years old right now if he’s still alive, and I pray he is. I feel he is. When I used to deliver babies and I’d bring the baby forth, I’d say, “Jesus, I give this baby to You.” It was a spiritual experience to deliver babies. You give them to the nurse and so forth. The baby goes through spiritual things. He bows his head. He doesn’t come out face first or whatever. He bows his little head and comes out head first, and when you see the little bit of the top of his head, you call it crowning.

You know, we used to sing “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” I used to think about things like that. I still do. When first I saw my Savior on the cross, I saw Jesus with my heart and not my eyes. My heart’s eyes saw Him wash away my sin, saw His healing love, my wholeness realized.

And I guess I’ll give you one more. Do any of you know German at all? Well, there’s just a nice word called Liebchen. Liebchen. You don’t, in German, you don’t call your wife darling or dear or honey punch or whatever, but you call her Liebchen. So I wrote a little poem to my wife called “Liebchen.” Liebchen somehow is better than darling or sweetheart or baby. Somehow it just fits. Fits our love. Fits the way the way we always feel. Funny, we don’t ever have to say much. Just being together with you nearby, it’s wunderbar.

Ausgezeichnet. Great. Oh, do, oh, do always stay near. Don’t get too far away. Please stay reasonably close. Nice to feel your quiet hand on my shoulder. Comforting to sense your closeness in the night. What do people do who draw like strangers far apart? It’s openness. Yes, oneness and duality. Identical differences. Sweet gentle kisses, not the Hollywood style. They kiss like biting into a 1930s double dip.

Isn’t it true? Our life has a gentleness, a maturation, a spirit. Not a matter of mind or nerve impulse. Just heart. The wondrous gift of love. God’s love. Infused with ours. I don’t think that we really think much, that much about love.

You know. It’s love that makes the world go round. I’m not going to sing that one. But there is a song like that. It’s love. It’s love. It’s love. It’s love that makes the world go round. Now, if you have difficulty in memorizing that one, I’ll refer you to a psychiatrist friend of mine.

You know, I was mentioning this morning about the time that we made rounds, grand rounds, well, not grand rounds, just rounds, at University Hospital. And the chief, Dr. Collar, was listening to all the studies and so forth and the history of the patient. And I was saying that the patient was lying there listening to all of this and becoming very, very distraught and disturbed because she thought that if I’ve got all those things wrong with me, I’m not going to be here very long. And the tears were beginning to flow and she was really beginning to cry. And the chief, Dr. Collar, looked over at her and he looked at the resident and he said, “Comfort her.” Well, the poor resident didn’t have the remotest idea how in the world to comfort her, what to say. He hadn’t read anything in the textbook about comforting somebody or whatever. And he just looked dumbfounded. So the chief went over and talked to her and assured her that there was nothing serious. But Christopher over there, a nephrologist, that’s a kidney specialist, he came to me after the talk this morning and he said that same thing happened to him. And I said, “You come on up. I’m going to have you tell your story.” So come on up, Christopher.

His father. There is his father. And there, that wee one over there, that wee little lovely one that picks up my notes. What’s that? Sugar plum. That’s a sugar plum if I ever saw one. But tell us, laddie, a bit about this… I was talking to Dr. Reed today and I was a fourth year medical student. Un momento. Talk into that thing. I’ve never been accused of being quiet before. I was a fourth year medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. Medical students are to be seen and not heard. We’re to listen and not talk. Amen.

Some things never change. Now I’m the attending and they’re supposed to be seen and not heard. And we were on the cardiothoracic unit. And we’ve got these surgeons who are doing open heart transplants and cardio bypass surgeries. And extremely amazing things. And the surgeons aren’t quite as benevolent as internal medicine physicians. As to which group? Internal medicine docs. Well, you think they’re more passionate? I mean, compassionate? Maybe. Maybe both. But we had… The hierarchy is the hierarchy of the coats. You’ve got your short coats of your medical students. The coats that go just above the ankles. What do I say? Just above the knees, which are your residents. Your fellows go down to the knees. And the attendings wear suit coats. And so you can always tell who is what on the floor. And so we were doing rounds one morning. And we had a fellow cardiothoracic resident who basically knew all, was all, could do all. And he was teaching us. And we were at the bedside one morning. And we were going through… This patient had… Didn’t even have a heart attack. The poor lady had just come in with anxiety. Had some chest pain. And he’s going through this long, different diagnosis of rare parasitic infections. Going through… Possible different heart block vessels that probably could have been blocked.

Going through different infectious, as well as malignancies in the heart. And he’s just going through this litany for 15 minutes. And we’re all there taking notes, looking very seriously. Because we’re supposed to be seen, not heard. And the poor patient’s over there getting whiter. Whiter. Whiter. And she’s already anxious to begin with. So suddenly she just breaks out and screams, “When am I going to die?”

And again, we’re supposed to be seen and not heard. So we’re not seeing anything. And so the chief of surgery walks in. And a very compassionate gentleman, Dr. Calavit. And looks at the chief fellow and goes, “What are you doing?” He goes, “Well, I’m just teaching the residents.” He goes, “Well, are you taking care of the patient?” And he goes…

What? And I have yet to see a chief resident since that day lambasted and appropriately humbled for not forgetting what we’re supposed to do, which is take care of people. We’re to care always, heal when we can, and always have compassion.

Wonderful, my boy. I’ve often wondered just what I would do when I head for heaven, but I can see that the Lord is beginning to raise them up. I was thinking about patients. And, you know, I think more patients die of prognosis, diagnosis than die of illness, you know.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, of death and dying fame. She was from Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, which I was very familiar with. And I knew Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. She was a very lovely, believing Jewish lady from Switzerland originally. And she tried to get doctors to be more honest about going to the patients and telling them what was actually going on with them. And so… And I’ve heard her lecture, and I’ve attended her meetings, and I knew her personally.

And the last… well, not the first time I was with her, she called… There was an announcement over the loudspeaker system. It must have been about 1,000 people at this meeting in Jacksonville. And I heard the loudspeaker say, “Is Dr. Reed in the auditorium?” I thought, good night, who wants me? So I went to the phone, and it was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross herself. I had written her a letter, and she wanted to talk to me. So I went backstage there and talked with her throughout the noon hour. And finally at 1.30, I said, “Well, you know, you’re supposed to give your 1.30 talk now. It’s 1.30 right now.” And she said, “Let them wait.” She said, “I want to talk to you.” What do you think we were talking about? We were talking about the Lord. We were talking about our triune God. We were talking about compassion and love and caring and taking care of the patient and what we should do for the people at that particular stage of life.

So what has happened in American medicine is the fact that we feel that we must be honest. I was in Philadelphia with Dr. Ravdon, who happened to be Eisenhower’s surgeon. He operated down in Dwight Eisenhower. He was in the hospital. And I was making rounds with him and with his son, Robert, in one of the hospitals in Philadelphia. And Dr. Ravdon went in and talked to this one lady and was asking her how her arthritis was and so on and so forth. And Bob Ravdon, is it our son, nudged me in motion that I ought to go out in the hall with him. I went out in the hall and he said, “You know, Dad has never told this patient in there that she has metastatic cancer.

“But he’s afraid that if he were to share that with her, knowing her as well as he does, that she would not be able to take it. Heaven knows what she might do. So Dad is just biding the time until the day comes when this information can be given.” Tournier, when I was in Switzerland with Dr. Tournier for part of a summer, he wrote a book called The Doctor and the Book. That’s not exactly quite right, but it’s not coming to me. But it’s a very excellent book on spiritual medicine, how to practice spiritual medicine.

And in that book, Tournier said, “We should tell the patient the truth, but we should give it to him in small doses.” And with my wife, there were two different doctors who violated that rule. One just came in flat out, told her that she had cancer, and the other told her that she wasn’t going to live very long. That happened to be true. But Kay said to me, “You know, Bill,” she said, “those doctors took away my hope.” My little book, Surgery of the Soul, for healing the whole man, will be here in the morning. I brought a few copies along if anybody wants. And we’ll have them at the back of the room, and I’d be glad to sign them for you. The price is minimal.

Surgery texts usually run rather expensively, but this one was written by the Lord, really, when we had our healing hospital out in Medford, Oregon. I wrote this down one time. It fell out of my Bible this morning when everything hit the floor. And here’s the name of one of my patients, a lady who died of cancer.

This lady said to her surgeon at one of the Tampa hospitals, “Doctor, when I have this surgery, I just wanted to know if you would pray for me.” You know what he said? He said, “What God do you want me to pray to?”

See, that’s the kind of hyper-cerebral attitude that comes from secularism. And we do not have the compassion that we have unless… I don’t know, compassion seems to come along with Jesus. When you ask Jesus to come into your heart and into your life, and when you get filled with the Holy Ghost, He just brings in that tremendous and magnificent passion that fills you.

I’m just going to read a wee bit to you out of God’s Word. What time am I supposed to quit? You didn’t tell me, Chris. Oh, 8.30. It’s now a quarter to nine. No. No, it’s 20 after eight. But listen to this. This is 1 Corinthians, the second chapter, St. Paul saying, “My language and my message were not set forth in persuasive, enticing, and plausible words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the Holy Spirit and the power of God operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers and my most holy emotions and thus persuading them, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, human philosophy, but in the power of God.” That’s really what we have tried to do at Christian Medical Foundation. “Yet when we were among the full-grown, spiritual, mature Christians who are ripe in understanding, we do impart a higher wisdom, the knowledge of the divine plan previously hidden, but it’s indeed not a wisdom of the present age or of this world, nor of the leaders and rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away.” It almost sounds like it could have been written the day before yesterday or even today. “But rather we are setting forth… what we’re setting forth is the wisdom of God once hidden from the human understanding and now revealed to us by God, that wisdom which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification, to lift us into the glory of His presence.

“None of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory. But on the contrary, as the scripture says, what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and not entered into the hearts of man, all that has been prepared and made and kept ready for those who love Him, who hold Him in affection and reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits that He has bestowed upon us.” The 11th verse, I’ll skip down there, it says, “For what person perceives and knows and understands what passes through a man’s perceptions and thoughts, except a man’s own spirit within him, just so no one discerns, comes to know and comprehend the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God.” Don’t think that you can understand the things of the Spirit of God through ordinarily intellectual pursuits. That’s why there is something called the infilling of the Holy Spirit. “We’ve not received the Spirit that belongs to the world,” that’s a small s, “but the Holy Spirit,” a large S, “the Holy Spirit who is from God, given to us that we may realize and comprehend and apprehend and appreciate the gifts of the divine favor and blessing and being so freely and lavishly bestowed upon us by God.”

I have the sense, at times, of a profound transfusion of blood type J. You know, I don’t know what kind of a jug it comes in, but boy, when it just comes in, it’s invisible, but it’s wonderful. J for Jesus. One of my patients went to the lab and she says, “I want you to check my blood type.” She says, “Why is that?” “Well, Dr. Reed says that I’ve got blood type J.” She said, “There’s no such blood type.”

Well, in the laboratory there isn’t, but in us, at this place, there is blood type J. “We’re setting forth these truths in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Holy Spirit, combining and interpreting spiritual truths in spiritual language to those who possess the Holy Spirit.” You see, it seems to me that’s pretty straightforward talk to us, that we need to have the Holy Ghost. We need to have the Holy Spirit. We need to have His wonderful love. “The spiritual man tries all things, examines, investigates, inquires into questions, and discerns all things, and is judged by no one. He can read the meaning of everything, but no one can properly discern or appraise or get an insight into Him.” I was telling somebody today that when I went before the Oregon State Board of Medical Examiners, they said, “Well, Dr. Reed has been well trained and he’s got lots of all the degrees and everything else, but it did take a whole bunch of psychiatrists to figure him out.”

So you’ve got a nut on your hands tonight in a rather strange sense. But I’ll tell you, there are all kinds of nuts, you know. Peanuts and pecans and all kinds… I’m a Presbyterian… I mean an ex-Presbyterian Episcopal nut.

In Ephesians, the first chapter, I talk to you about seeing people with your eyes and seeing them with your heart. “So that you can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of God’s power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength, which He exerts in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, above every title that can be conferred, not only in this age and in this world, but also in the age and the world which are to come. And He’s put all these things under His feet and appointed Him, Jesus, the universal and supreme head of the church, the headship exercised throughout the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. For in that body live the full measure of Him who makes everything complete and who fills everything everywhere with Himself.”

But in this one He says that He gives us His limitless grace, immeasurable, and He gives us this through the blood of Christ who have been brought near to Jesus. And He gives us the word of truth, the glad tidings, the gospel of our salvation.

And He gives us the ability to see with our hearts. I’m not seeing it, but it’s in that first chapter, and I’ll just give that assignment for you to read that. Because it’s so wonderful. And listen, folks. I told you last night that I used to be an embryo. I guess it was this morning when I said that.

And I used to be not a thermostat but a thermometer. I learned that from the FBI. And I’m getting some great thoughts from him. But I want to tell you that I am also a clone. I’m a clone. And you know what the word clone, what that is in Greek? Clone. C-L-O-N-A-E. And what that means is branch.

Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine dresser.” And He goes on to say that we must become branches. And as branches, we are clones of Christ Jesus. Wouldn’t that be wonderful to know that you are a clone of Him? And if you’re a clone, you’re not just kind of like Him. You are Him. Christ in you, the hope of glory. We’re infinitely beyond anything that we can possibly imagine that we are.

Listen to this one. Isn’t God’s word wonderful? Yes. It’s so amazing. Listen. Here we are. “I appeal to you therefore, brethren,” Romans 12, 1, “and beg of you in view of all the mercies of God to make a decisive dedication of your bodies, presenting all your members and faculties as a living sacrifice, holy, devoted, consecrated, and well-pleasing to God, which is your reasonable, rational, intelligent service and spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world.” I think one of the big problems we have is our tendency to try to be conformed to the world. You know, we see these girls kissing each other over the national television. We see people doing strange things even on the TV at the large football games during the halftime and so forth. Stuff like that. It doesn’t impress me.

And I don’t think it really impresses anybody. But where are we going with all this junk? And where is Hollywood trying to take us? “Don’t be conformed to this world, this age, fashioned after and adapted to its external superficial customs. But be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind, by its new ideals and its new attitudes, so that you may prove for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in His sight for you.” How about having a total transformation of your mental nature, so that you become an absolute incorrigible optimist?

I’ll tell you, to go into the intensive care unit and to look like the last rose of summer, and dragging your carcass in there and embarrassing the nurses and everybody else because you are come to the… you don’t know what in the world you’re going to do beyond this point. And sometimes you get to feeling that way when the patient is just not doing well. But when you walk in there and you say, “Jesus, I ask for Your power and Your love and Your might and for Your ability.” And you go in there and you lay your hand on that patient and say, “Jesus, please help this person.” And you know the nurses don’t object to that. And the hospitals don’t object to that. I think they just say, well, Dr. Reed’s at it again.

But you know, strangely enough, the majority of the company is saying, “Thank you for coming in and praying for her.” And that’s what I strive for. That’s what I ask for. I ask this new generation coming in. I ask that they be oriented totally by the total transformation of their mental nature and their physical being so that they become positive leaders of the body of Christ in the age and era to come. That we come against this creeping secularism that’s going on in our society. That we have the ability to run this nation. And our young people have the ability to have a total transformation of their being to the point that this whole world can be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Lord, thank You that we’ve been able to talk tonight in these terms. Thank You, Jesus, that I’ve had the liberty to be able to say the kinds of things that I’ve said. Thank You, Jesus, that I’m a patriot, that I love the good old United States of America. And I think that we are the hope of the world, folks, with our Jesus orientation. And we can do it. And the time has come for us to stand up and to speak forth what we believe. Amen. And if you get the opportunity to go in on the council ring or to become a leader or to go forward in CFO or in the Order of St. Luke or Faith Alive or in your church or wherever the opportunity exists, don’t just go in there and be just a silent little mouse in the back corner of the church, but be something filled with and controlled by the Holy Ghost, with Jesus’ ability and His knowledge and His anointing on your intellect.

Now, we’re going to have a time of the memorial for this young man who is now in heaven. And June Young’s husband is up there in heaven tonight. And my darling wife is up there in heaven tonight. How many are there others that have lost their mates just recently? Well, within the last year or two or three. I’m carrying that grief around with you. I ask Jesus that Your holy healing life come down. The joy of the Lord. Let it be our strength. Let us have this change of heart that Lee’s been delicate about. Let us have that transformation.

Let us know that a few tears aren’t going to matter. Somehow they do good. I think there is some kind of a channel between the heart and the tear ducts. Because I happen to know that the tear ducts are… I mean not the ducts, but the doctriosis are no bigger than the tip of your little finger. And I have been praying and crying gallons. I don’t know where it comes from, but I think that there is some sort of a collecting mechanism around the heart. In the pericardial sac that there is a channel that goes up there into the eyes. It not only goes through my eyes, it goes down through my nose.

And these songs we have been singing, for some strange reason, they all seem to be just pointed at me and what I need. And I love it. I love that little teeny weeny girl, Jay, your daughter. Isn’t she wonderful? And her daughter is such a sweetheart. A good bit taller. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t Jesus marvelous? Yes, He is. How wonderful. Well, Lord, I thank You for tonight. And I thank You for these young people. I thank You for Dan Klopp, wherever he is. Where is he? There he is. I thank You for that talk we had in Arkansas one Sunday, or whenever it was. And we helped to kind of in our own little way launch you and pray for you. And here you are. God bless you and use you. Don’t let that little infectious mono bother you. Just don’t kiss anybody.

That’s a bad thing to do. But I just thank God for you. And for the youth and for what you are doing. And let this be a blessed time. Thank you. God bless you.