Well, we were driving up this afternoon. Peter Lord was in the car with us. You'll hear from Peter tomorrow. He and my wife were comparing notes on grandchildren. The Lords have six. Is that right, Peter? Where are you? Yeah, we've got eight. We both started about the same time. It's hard to believe that 30 years ago there was just two of us, and now there's... 20. Most of them have moved back home. They're all poor, but it's great. I wouldn't have it any other way. But that's the reason that we've published this little book on sex education.

Well, there's more reasons than that. I'm concerned about the world in which we live. Deeply concerned about it. I'm concerned about the pressures that are upon my grandchildren. I would hope that we brought a thousand of those things up here, those books. I would hope that you would buy one for each of your grandchildren and then one for all the grandchildren on the neighborhood. And it's not designed for them to read. It's designed for somebody to read to them because I don't believe that anything is as deep and as profound as our sexuality should be handled without parental guidance.

And so I'm hoping that a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle will sit down and go through this. I really believe that it's possible to turn the next generation around, but it'll not be done unless somebody does something about it. Simply talking about it or even praying about it is not sufficient. Something else has to be done.

Five weeks ago, My dear friend John French, who is also a friend of Peter Marshall's who is here, had open-heart surgery in Boston. John is from Scottsdale, Arizona, but he flew to Boston for a couple of reasons, one because of the hospital and the surgeon who was there, another because he is also part of a community out on Cape Cod, the community of Jesus, and he wanted to have close friends around him during this time.

In his pre-surgery consultation with the surgeon, he was told that he would need up to nine pints of blood to be on hand because of the blood loss in open-heart surgery, bypass surgery. And then the surgeon told him that unfortunately, neither he nor the hospital could give a sure guarantee. that the blood that they received from the hospital blood bank would not be infected with AIDS.

Now fortunately, John's friends out in the community of Jesus on Cape Cod came in and donated nine pints of whole blood so that it would be there on hand. And John is recovering. But I can't help but think, what of others who don't have nine friends to give whole blood? Or they don't have time to get their nine friends there. Or they're in a hospital that won't cooperate with their friends who would come in and give their blood separately.

Last year, a young Baptist minister in Kansas, Southern Baptist minister, discovered that his wife and his twin infants were all infected with AIDS. They trace the problem back to a blood transfusion she received in childbirth while they were living in San Francisco doing home mission work with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Three weeks ago, Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who was a devout evangelical Christian, declared that the disease of AIDS is now a raging epidemic. And he called for massive measures to combat it, beginning with sex education in the public schools all the way down to the third grade.

That's one of the reasons this book is so appropriate right now. Here are the deadly facts. The disease of AIDS is 40 times as deadly as the deadliest disease ever known to mankind. including the bubonic plague. For the last decade, the number of people infected with the disease has doubled every 10 months.

To date, 15,000 people have died, known cases of AIDS, with an estimated six times that many who have died that have not been registered as deaths from that disease. More than 2 million people in the United States are now infected. There is no cure. There is no vaccine. Most carriers do not show that they are infected. But once the virus becomes active, it always kills.

Dr. John Seal of the British Royal Society of Medicine. says it is the molecular biological equivalent of the nuclear bomb, and it has the capability of wiping out the entire human race within the next 22 years.

There are dying AIDS patients in every major hospital in the United States tonight, and yet hospital authorities are consistently warning their employees to say nothing. for they are afraid if the public knows that, the public will panic, and rightly so, they would. Many nurses and doctors refuse to treat AIDS patients, either for fear of contacting the disease themselves or for fear of scaring off other patients.

And even though there's no proof that the disease can be transmitted by touch alone, The fear grows more and more. A Christian doctor I know treats AIDS patients, but he does at night, after hours, after dark, to keep from scaring off his other patients, for if they knew that AIDS patients were using the same examining tables that they would use, they would not return to his office.

The prisons of America are the largest breeding ground for AIDS in the world. Michael Moore, who is the Securities Director of the Texas Department of Corrections, says that up to one-third of all the inmates in Texas prisons are infected with AIDS. 14,000 out of 38,000 prisoners in Texas alone are AIDS carriers.

The disease, according to the federal government, is basically transmitted through homosexual activity. and through what they call dirty needles by drug users. As a result of that, the federal government is now implementing a program to where they will provide clean needles for all drug addicts in the United States.

Your tax dollars are going to be used to provide needles for drug addicts because they would rather have them addicted to drugs than spreading the disease. Now we understand that the disease is not limited to homosexuals, but is also transmitted through heterosexual contact, and that the carriers are nearly always healthy.

Johnny Carson had an actor on his program the other night in which he told the terrifying tale of picking up a model in a city in the United States, spending the night with her. getting up the next morning, finding that she had already left, going into the bathroom and finding where she had scrawled on the mirror with lipstick, welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS.

And now the actor says he has had to break off all contact with his wife and with his children. Well, that's the good news for tonight. There's more. Let me read you something that Jesus said. This is from the 24th chapter of the book of Matthew. Matthew 24, beginning with verse 6.

And if you think what I have told you sounds terrifying, you ought to read this. Matthew 24, verse 6. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you're not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time, many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. But he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Now Jesus goes ahead to talk about something called the abomination that causes desolation, which I don't understand, and it sounds so terrible I'm not sure I want to read it, but he says that's going to be part of this whole thing that's going to take place. Now there's an awful lot in that particular passage of Scripture.

If you will take time to dig through it. But what we are experiencing in the United States tonight is simply part of the fulfillment of prophecy that Jesus has given here. Actually going all the way back and starting with the prophet Daniel and moving on to Jesus.

And we are seeing things rapidly escalate in these days as we come down to this end time, whenever that is. Now Jesus indicates that there are two kingdoms that are at work and they are clashing against each other. And those kingdoms are fighting for the souls and the bodies of mankind.

There's a kingdom of darkness and there is a kingdom of light. Therefore, at the very heart of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray is that little phrase that we have chosen for the theme of this conference, thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come.

For there are two kingdoms that are vying for us. And therefore, we are encouraged, in fact, we are commanded to pray that God's kingdom... will come because the other kingdom is already here. It is much on us. It says it owns this world and if you'll listen to the king of that kingdom, he will tell you that he owns you at the same time.

There's an interesting passage over in the 8th chapter of the book of John that you might want to look at for a moment. John 8. There's a big argument going on between the Pharisees and the followers of Jesus. as to who Jesus is and whether his testimony is valid.

And then Jesus himself gets involved in this confrontation with these adversaries, these religious people. And he begins to talk to them about who he is and finally gets around to talking to them about who they are. Now they said that Abraham is their father and he turns to them and he says, this is John 8. 39.

Abraham is our father, they answered. And he says, if you were Abraham's children, said Jesus, then you would do the things that Abraham did. As it is, you're determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.

And you are doing the things your own father does. Now they said, we're not illegitimate children. The only father we have is God himself. And then Jesus turns. And he says, if God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and now I'm here. I have not come of my own, but he sent me.

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. And then he gives a little dissertation about who their father is. And in the process, he gives a description of who the devil is.

He says, you belong to your father, the devil. And you want to carry out your father's desire. And then he tells us who the devil is. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Aha. Now we discover that the devil, who is the leader of the kingdom of darkness, is both a murderer and a liar. While God, on the other hand, who has sent Jesus Christ to be the leader of the kingdom of light, is a God of truth and a God of life. Life and truth on one hand, murderer and lies on the other hand.

That's the clash of the kingdoms. that's coming to pass here on this earth. And so we back off and take a look at our world in which we live and we see the clash taking place right now.

What can Christians do about the AIDS epidemic? And we need to be doing something about it. What can we do? Well, we start... by seeing AIDS for what it really is. It is the natural result of sin gone wild in this nation. It's the natural result of giving in to the kingdom of darkness rather than submitting ourselves to the kingdom of light.

Now, when we give in to the kingdom of darkness and when sin goes wild in our nation, then that means that good people suffer right along with the bad. When the nation of Israel turned against God and set up idols and began worshiping false gods, then the righteous of Israel suffered right along with the idol worshipers.

And they were all carried off into captivity. Now I believe that a vaccine will eventually be developed for AIDS. Because I don't believe God's going to wipe out this world with AIDS. I think he's described other ways that he intends to do that. Probably a lot more horrible than that.

But I believe that a vaccine will be developed. I think man is smart enough. I think we've got enough scientific genius in this nation or in Germany or in England or someplace else that a vaccine will eventually be developed. It'll probably not be developed until the scare gets so bad that people realize that it's better to live than it is to make money.

Right now the drug companies understand. that AIDS is the biggest business in all the world. And to develop a vaccine for it would put that whole area out of business. And so it's far better to develop drugs to contain it than it is to cure it. But the time will come when a vaccine will be developed and the kingdom of darkness will take another step back.

But there is only one cure. And the cure is this, a return to national righteousness. A return to national righteousness because if it's not AIDS, it's going to be some kind of epidemic that's 40 times worse than that. God has promised it. He said it's going to come.

We shouldn't be surprised when we pick up the newspapers and hear the experts saying plague is on us. It is on us. And the next plague will be worse than this one. It's not just rumors of wars, but wars themselves that are there.

And there is a clash of the kingdoms that is going on. Now, I think some interesting things are going to happen out of this whole thing. I'm kind of excited about it, in fact. I think, for one thing, Christians are going to be forced to band together.

That some of the things that God has been talking to us about for a long time, we're going to be forced to do simply because I don't want to use somebody else's blood. So you're going to have to shed a little for me and I'm going to have to shed a little for you.

And in the process, we're going to have to enter into some kind of blood covenant together. I realize that God's way of doing that is far better than the way that we're going to come up with. But even if it's just for protection and healing that we begin to come together, that is better than staying apart the way we have been.

And so I think, and it's already started, the churches around this nation are forming their own little blood banks. And they're saying, we'll take care of our own. And that's good. That is good.

It is good and it is proper that we take care of our own. That's what family is supposed to do. And God is calling us into covenant relationships. We can fight it. We can stay alone as much as we want. But pretty soon we're going to have to come into the shelter of a group of people.

who will stand with us, and in order for that to happen, we're going to have to stand with them because nobody will stand with us unless we're willing to stand with them. We are being forced by the circumstances into that which God has been calling his people into for 2,000 years, family, koinonia, covenant relationship.

Something else has already begun to happen which I think is extremely interesting. We're being forced to return to monogamous sexual relations. Everybody's asking each other questions nowadays. But casual sex means high risk. Remember, there are 1.5 million healthy carriers out there, both men and women, who give no indication that they are typhoid Mary's. or AIDS, Amos, or whatever else they may be.

But they're there, and they're sprinkled throughout our society, and they are doubling every 10 months. And as a result of that, we're being forced back into the kind of thing that God called us into in Genesis 1.

Christian sex education for children has become imperative because the government is now saying, we're going to teach them anyway. And if you don't start teaching your children the way God told you to a long time ago or teaching your grandchildren or teaching your neighbors or teaching the kids in your Sunday school class, the government's going to get to them.

They're going to do it. They have made a total about-face. In the last six weeks, Everett Koop, Surgeon General, has fought this all the way down the line. Sex education has been totally taboo as far as the Reagan administration is concerned.

Now, faced with the facts that they have no choice because Christians have failed for the government to step in. And we're going to be forced, unless we're going to let the government take over that which is the most intimate and important fact in child education, we're going to be forced to do it ourselves.

That's good. That's good. Now, how should the church react when all of this takes place? You see, it's not just AIDS. It's what's happening out all across the kingdom of God. Thy kingdom come.

We've been praying it for years and now it's beginning to happen and we don't like what's happening because there's a rumbling that's going on at the same time. Of course there's a rumbling that's going on. We're at war. We're talking about warfare. We're stepping into territory that the enemy has said belongs to him.

God had already promised it to us. The moment we put our foot on the land, somebody's going to shoot at us. Why do we think that we can get away with all this charismatic stuff and not have somebody shoot at us? You think that we can think that we can go for an entire generation and talk about healing and talk about supernatural power and talk about spiritual warfare and not have somebody resist us?

What we're experiencing out there is resistance. I'm not talking about a few church people who throw folks out of their churches. I'm not talking about that. Jesus is not talking about that. I'm talking about deadly epidemic. That's where it's coming from.

It's not just a few folks out there who don't like the way we worship who are coming down on top of us. It's the devil who's coming down on top of us. We better recognize that.

With other things

Here is the cleaned and formatted sermon transcription:

Ralph Reed recently said, "This generation knows nothing about persecution." He said, "Wait till the assassinations start." It's been a long time since anybody's been assassinated in the United States of America because of his stand for Jesus Christ. Oh, we've knocked off a few kooks now and then. We kind of expect that. But I'm talking about the Christian leaders who are going to be targets for the devil's assassins because they have taken a stand for righteousness. And we can expect that to happen. That too is part of what we should be aware of is going to take place.

I've got my little Americans for Robertson pin on tonight. That's not necessarily because I believe God wants Pat Robertson to be president of the United States. I'm not really sure that God is terribly concerned about that. We've done pretty well under folks of all kinds of banners. But I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that God wants Pat Robertson to run for president of the United States. And the reason is because it's going to bring a whole lot of things out into the open.

That's going to happen. Now, who was elected? That's God's business. I can't do very much about that. But I do believe that God is saying we're going to smoke some folks out. I was at home a couple of weeks ago and somebody called and they said, "Turn on the Phil Donahue show." Well, I don't turn on the Playboy channel or the Phil Donahue show.

Anyway, I went in and flipped on the Phil Donahue show. And there's Pat Robertson, big as life on the Phil Donahue. Has the whole hour sitting over here in the heart of the Bible Belt, Atlanta, Georgia, talking about God. He's not even talking about Jesus. He's just talking about God.

Audiences filled with angry people. Now, I know that Donahue stacks his audience. Of course he does. That's the whole purpose of the show. But here's all these Atlanta women. As far as I could tell, the audience was maybe 100% women. I don't know. Never did show any men. If they were, they were hidden behind the women.

And they were angry. I mean, they were really angry. They were so angry, and the camera would pick up their faces and their facial expressions and the demonic expressions reflecting from the eyes that I realize give some of those women a gun. And they'd take care of this matter right now.

And you know what they were angry about? They were angry because Pat Robertson said that he talked to God. And they were angrier because he said God talked to him. Now, I'm not up here tooting Pat Robertson's horn. He's going to do that himself without me having to do that. But you know what he is saying is at the very heart of what we believe.

I mean, nothing is more critical than the fact that I talk to God and God talks to me. That's what this whole Christian faith is about. I mean, just in very, very simple terms that there is a way open for me to communicate with him and for him to communicate with me and that he can give me instructions on what I should do with my life.

Now, that makes people angry. Nothing threatens the person who doesn't talk to God any more than me saying that I do. And nothing threatens the person who's never heard God's voice any more than for a person to walk into the room and said, "Last night God said to me."

Now, if it's just you and me, they can laugh us off. They can put us out of the room. They can sneer. They can snort. But you can't do that with a valid presidential candidate. And that's the reason that the campaign is so much in the purpose and the plan of God for this generation and for this nation.

Pat Robertson, one of his security men, told me that they have already had more than 40 serious death threats on Pat's life. And he hasn't even announced yet. There have been people appear in the same room where he is with guns on their clothing, stuck in their belts or down in their shoes or someplace else.

And we haven't even gotten into the campaign. Now, Jesus said, "We need to expect this kind of thing." Now, let me tell you what the campaign is going to do. You need to be aware of this because it's going to happen whether you like it or not. It's going to happen.

I don't care whether you vote for him, whether you wear a thing on your lapel or put a bumper sticker on your thing that says whatever you want to. I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat. It doesn't make any difference, really doesn't make any difference because the fellow's going to run.

You need to understand that. Now, what is that going to do to you? What is that going to mean for you next year?

This time next year when the candidacy has already been announced and he's out there stumping across this nation saying, "I talk to God and God talks to me." Let me tell you what it's going to do. It's going to mean that every one of us who says, "I talk to God and God talks to me," is going to be open for the same kind of persecution that presidential candidate is going to be open for.

Every pastor in this nation who says, "I talk to God and God talks to me" is going to be interviewed by the secular press. And he's going to be asked the same questions that they're asking Pat Robertson. And the same reaction that he got on the Phil Donahue show in Atlanta is going to be yours and your church's.

It's coming, folks. It's coming. Now, mark it down. I'm not saying it in King James English, but I'm prophesying to you tonight. It's on the way. It's going to be happening, and you better be ready for it. Don't be surprised when it happens.

This nation is rolling towards something that I have no idea what's going to happen out there, but I know what's going to happen in the process of getting there. We're coming toward it. And pretty soon, you're going to be forced to say, "I'm one of them." Or you're going to be forced to say, "I never knew him."

And I'm not talking about Pat Robertson. I'm talking about Jesus.

Now, I believe that the Robertson campaign is going to do basically two things. I think it's going to polarize this nation like this nation has never been polarized before, even more so than the Civil War, because it's going to hit us at a far deeper level than ever before.

And those of us who have been over in the half-liberal camp are going to have to make some decisions. And those of us who have been all the way over in the far right are going to have to make some decisions as to whether we want to really associate with those who are in the ultra-right.

Because we're all going to be lumped together. The press, the secular press, the secular media is not going to distinguish between us, just like they don't in Israel, and Derek knows this.

The moment you get over there, it doesn't make any difference whether you're a liberal Christian or an evangelical or a charismatic or a Pentecostal. You're all blocked into the same thing because they don't make distinctions on those things, and they're not going to make them here.

You're either going to be for him or you're going to be against him.

And it's going to polarize this nation.

Now, a second thing that's going to happen is I believe it's going to unite the body of Christ like the body of Christ has never been united before.

Now, I've said that one or two places among some Christians, and they have wanted to throw me out of the room because they don't believe that. But I really believe it. By the time we finish with all of this, we're going to come together.

We don't have any choice but to come together. So you better die. Literally die.

And I think we're going to, we've already started coming together. I think it's a remarkable thing what's happened in Lynchburg, Virginia, where Jerry Falwell, who had already come out and publicly endorsed George Bush, has now taken a big step backward and has rethought his position and has come right out with a Pat Robertson endorsement.

But he's saying I'm not going to campaign for George Bush. Now that's kind of interesting to me.

I don't know what that says to you, but that says something about unity. A fundamentalist Baptist and a tongue-speaking charismatic.

Now, mind you, they haven't gone to bed together, but they're in the same bedroom. I think it's remarkable what happened down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after Jimmy Swaggart comes out in print.

It says that Pat Robertson, there's no way that he can support the man. Pat gets in a plane, flies down there, spends two and a half hours with Jimmy, and he's studying. They come out arm in arm. Swaggart says, this is my man. I'm glad to hear that Jimmy Swaggart's for something.

Let me tell you something. Jackie and I made a little trip out to Utah two weeks ago. I went out to visit a community, a Christian community, in the western desert of Utah.

A group of people who pulled out of the Mormon church 30 years ago felt that God told them through their prophet that they were going to the desert and stay there for at least a generation to purify themselves of all materialism. They hold all things in common. They wear little uniforms like the Amish do.

They've made the desert bloom. They feel they have a ministry to Israel. None of them have ever been to Israel. They feel that God has given them a... the ministry of the Levites.

And so they call themselves the Aaronic Order, and they feel that their whole purpose in being there is to learn to bless God, and they're living as the Levites of old lived.

Beautiful, well-educated people, highly musical, everybody in that little desert community, and they've taken consecrated vows living there. Everybody there plays at least two musical instruments.

They have their own symphonic orchestra.

The head of the orchestra who lives there is a former professor of music at Brigham Young University.

The head of the community is a former professor of education at the University of Utah.

I was deeply moved. We spent four days living there with them and came back, and I'll go back again.

But an interesting thing has happened. I've come back out of the desert to try to tell a few folks what I experienced out there.

And you know the reaction I get? Anger. Anger.

And people say such things to me as, "You mean to tell me I'm not a Christian if I don't go off and live in the desert?"

I say, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that. I'm just telling you that there's a group of folks who heard God.

That's the kind of thing that makes folks flee to the mountains and sell everything they have and wait for Jesus to come or go into caves.

And I say, yeah, yeah, I understand that. But all this kind of anger. I mean, people are threatened.

And I've reached a conclusion. I wrote it down here in the front of my Bible.

My conclusions are written in the front of my Bible.

Let me see if I can find it here. Oh, here it is.

Anyone who takes the commands of Christ seriously will be considered dangerous by those who don't.

What do we do with dangerous people? We kill them.

It's what they did to Jesus because he was dangerous. And Jesus said that's what they will do to you if you take him seriously.

And if they don't kill you, if you're smart enough, and you can be, and I think you ought to be, to duck bullets and other things, the devil will try to do it himself.

And I'll tell you how he'll try to do it. He'll try to do it by scaring you to death because he is a liar.

And fear is the weapon of the liar.

Or he will do it by trying to infect you with some deadly disease because he is a murderer at the same time.

That's how he will try to do it. It's the process he's always used.

And that's the process he's using today.

He's just pulled out the big guns now to go to work.

Let me ask you a question. How... How should the church react?

How should your church react some Sunday morning when there you are sitting there all hatted and stockinged and all the other things that are so important for church today?

Sitting there doing what you have always done on Sunday morning.

And you look around and there sitting at the end of the pew is a thin, emaciated homosexual. who is dying of AIDS, and he has come into your sterile sanctuary.

What are you going to do?

Now think about it seriously. Don't give me one of those pat little answers that I'll stomp on the devil and walk all over you.

That's okay for up here, but that won't do out there. Suddenly it's your life that's involved, and your wife or your husband's life, and your children's lives, and your grandchildren's lives.

What are you going to do?

Maybe we should pass out those little sterile face masks at the door that we could all wear in church on Sunday.

Oh, oh, oh, oh. And what's going to happen when you come and kneel at the altar for Holy Communion and the common cup is coming down the row and you look two people down and there he is who is kneeling at your altar.

and drinks from the cup and passes it to your child and then to you.

Maybe I should read you a passage of scripture that suddenly becomes apropos.

1 Corinthians 11, 27. You better underline this because it could mean your life.

1 Corinthians 11, 27. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord.

A man ought to examine his neighbor before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.

And that is why many among you are weak and sick, and some of you have died of AIDS.

Well, it's an interesting time to be alive, isn't it?

Because suddenly all this that we have played with in our Christian dollhouse has suddenly grown up and become real and taken on form.

And the question we have to ask ourselves is, are we serious about Jesus?

Am I willing to go to the cross for his sake?

Is this cup that I so glibly drink of really the body and the blood of our Lord?

If it's not, you better not drink of it or you'll get sick and die.

At least in this congregation you will because you don't know who's down at the end of the road.

Now you can say, well, we're Baptists. We don't serve the common cup.

We have protected ourselves from that.

We have individual trays with throw-away glasses.

Okay. And so it comes in front of the AIDS guy, and he sneezes.

I said a few minutes ago that casual sex can kill you.

I want to tell you something else. Casual communion will kill you also.

Casual communion, like casual sin, is equally dangerous.

Only those who really mean business with God would dare drink from his cup under such circumstances.

Otherwise, everything we're doing is play-acting.

Just play-acting.

That's all.

And suddenly there's a whole bunch of us who think it may be time to go home.

It's okay. For God's looking for a few good men and a few good women.

who are willing to run the risk.

Now, the bottom line of all of this is this.

I believe that God is calling on us to run the risk of ministering to those who by their own sin have brought themselves to a place of God's judgment and wrath as Jesus touched lepers.

So I believe God is calling on a generation of people.

who will walk into the worst epidemic that the world has ever known and will say, in the name of Jesus, be healed.

Now, to my knowledge, there has not been a single certified healing of an AIDS patient.

Certified healing. Not by medical means nor by any other means.

As far as I know, the United States Department of Health says that everybody who has active AIDS will die because everybody who has had it has died.

It is the only disease ever to hit the world that the medical authorities are calling totally terminal, and they are saying in 22 years, unless something is done, we'll all have it.

Maybe I should give you another scripture.

This is the last chapter of the book of Mark.

Now remember, we're talking about the kingdom come. The kingdom come.

What is the kingdom of God?

The kingdom of God is the antithesis of the kingdom of darkness.

The kingdom of darkness is a kingdom of lies and death.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of truth and life.

Truth and life.

Jesus said to them, this is Mark 16, 15, go into all the world and preach the good news. Preach the gospel of the kingdom to all creation.

And whoever believes and is baptized will be saved and whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And then he says, you're going to have a tough time out there because the world will try to kill you. Satan will try to kill you.

The kingdom of darkness will come against you to wipe out your life.

Therefore, these signs will accompany those who believe.

In my name, they will drive out demons and they will speak in new tongues.

They will pick up snakes with their hands, and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

And they will place their hands on the sick people, and they will get well.

I don't find any place where Jesus says, if you place your hands on sick people, you'll get sick. He doesn't say a single thing about the infection being stronger than your faith.

He says your faith should be stronger than the infection or the contagion.

And he demonstrated that by going out and touching those folks who had leprosy, which was the equivalent of AIDS today.

In fact, it looked a lot worse because there it was outward with running sores, limbs that had fallen off, pus oozing from the wounds.

And there is the Son of God putting his hands on those people.

and daring to believe that God would heal.

And then telling us, oh my goodness, telling us to go out and do the same thing.

But he gives some other assurance here.

He says if you drink deadly poison, it'll not hurt you.

He says you'll even be able to pick up snakes with your hand.

Now listen, some of you are from Jack Wells, you're from Tennessee. I have to caution Jack every once in a while because he takes all this pretty seriously.

That is not justification.

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription:

Or going out and finding yourself a copperhead and passing it back and forth across the dinner table with Pat. But it's justification if you're on your way to where God has sent you, as Paul was on his way to Rome because God had commissioned him to go into that Gentile world. And you're shipwrecked on an island as Paul was on Malta. And a snake crawls out of the fire that you've built and fastens itself on your hand; that thing won't hurt you because the power of God within you is stronger than the power of the kingdom of darkness that's without.

I believe that God is calling for a group of people who will take a stand and say, "I will run the risk." I will run the risk for the sake of Jesus. Everything we've been teaching. How long have we had these CBU retreats? 12 years? I've been here for 12 years. I've heard it taught for 12 years. I know that it was taught for many, many years prior to that when it wasn't taught at this place.

But every time I've been to this conference, I've heard somebody say, "If you lay hands on the sick, they'll recover." And I believe it. I believe it with all my heart. I believe that God is a God of the supernatural. I believe that greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world. I believe that with all my heart.

I believe there's divine protection in the body of Christ, not just because we have blood from the church blood bank, and that's okay, but there's divine protection in the body of Christ because it's the body of Christ. Snakes can't kill Jesus, and neither can AIDS. Who's going to go out into this world and bring in those who are dying for adventure for a good man? Some might die.

For a homosexual who has been in utter and total rebellion against everything that God teaches, who has gone out there and infected himself? You mean for him I'm supposed to die? Yes, because for him Jesus died. And his love is just as great for him. As it is for Miss Purity, who's been sitting on the organ bench for all those years.

It's a fun time to be alive if you don't die. But even if you die, to die for the sake of Jesus is the greatest of all that have. And so your faith isn't strong enough, but you've dared to risk it for his sake. Either we believe in the blessing of God or we don't believe it.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven say, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God." When? Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ. That's not after they ring the golden bells for you and me. That's now.

It's ours today if we believe anything about a God of the now. It's that he is a God of authority and a God of power and a God of salvation. And the kingdom of God is here. Now it is here. And it is ours because we are followers of the king.

Oh, for the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. He is a defeated enemy, still crying from the pit, fear, fear, you'll be infected, fear, run, don't take the Lord's cup, fear, fear. But he is a liar, and he is a dying liar, and he is already defeated.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from the fear of death. Who will touch and heal? What church will stand believing?

Who will be the first to run a little ad in the newspaper that says AIDS victims welcome here? Who will be the first to open up a Sunday school classroom for ministry to the families they've spent? Who will be the first to walk out into the streets and the ghettos and to believe that God still lays hands on lepers and heals?

Who will be the first? I'll tell you this when it happens. When it happens, the kingdom of God will mushroom like an atomic bomb.

When it happens and the media picks it up that somebody has done this in the name of Jesus. Now, I'll tell you what they'll also pick out, that somebody went out and tried it and died. So I suggest that you screw faith to the sticking and dare to take the step for Jesus.

Let's be the body of Christ. Let our churches be the healing agents that God has called. Let's not be satisfied with a few leg lengthening and hangnails. Wonderful as those are, but let's not be satisfied with anything unless we go all the way for the big one.

And believe God that that which he has promised in this word, he'll bring them. Now you don't think I'm scared by talking about this tonight. I am scared because I know that every time I get involved in this kind of thing in a public meeting, there's somebody out there who's going to fall over or creep up against me and cough in my face and say, "Do you really believe what you've been saying?"

And I thought about that before I said this. I believe God has given me a lot more years to live on earth, and that's one of the reasons that I am. Are you willing? I want us to stand together.

Lord, I believe that you have stretched us out in our thinking and in our spirit to a place where we can't be stretched anymore. And now we're going to have to take a step in order to keep from snapping. And I pray tonight, Lord, that you give us courage to take that step towards Jesus.

Jesus has said there'll be some who will turn and flee because it's going to be hard. And I understand that, Lord. We all understand that. But I also know that the power that you give us, O God, is greater than the scourge of this world.

Believe with all my heart that when I have prayed since I've been a boy back in Sunday school, thy kingdom come, that you really intended to answer that prayer on earth as it is in heaven. That you want us to live and, if necessary, to die for the sake of... The ones that your son Jesus died for.

I don't like the idea of going to a cross. I don't like the idea of being infected with AIDS. I don't like the idea of somebody shooting at me because I stand up for one of your servants. I don't like the idea of some newspaper reporter or television commentator laughing at me and laughing at you.

Especially when they find my mistakes and blow those things up. But I'm willing, oh God. I'm willing to run the risk with my lack of faith and my imperfections to say I'd rather do it for you than to turn and flee into the desert.

So I pray tonight that you give each one in this room the strength to take a step beyond the stretching point and that somehow as we move on through these next two days, something will happen in us to where we go back out into a world full of valleys, full of drunks, cocaine addicts. People who are killing for the sake of a $5 hit of cocaine, full of thieves and murderers, full of people who've turned their back on you.

Who spit in your face and are now reaping your wrath, and that we'll walk into that group of people as agents of love and healing. I want you to, with your eyes closed, and let's keep them closed for a moment, I would like for you... To consider the claim of Christ on your life, that he wants to make you an agent of healing.

And are you willing to say, yes, Lord, I will drink of the cup. Yes, Lord, I will lay hands on the sick, no matter how sick, out of obedience to you. Yes, Lord, I want to be part of a church that opens its doors to all hurting and dying people, everywhere.

I'm asking you tonight if you're willing to say just that much, just that little yes, Lord. That's the reason you've got to keep your eyes closed tonight because I don't want to put anybody on the spot. I'm not going to look at you. This is just between you and God.

But if you're willing to say that, would you just slip your hand up and hold it before God for a minute? Yes, Lord. I'm willing to go to the cross for the sake of Jesus and die if necessary. All of you can't do this. Some of you will be able to do it before the weekend is out. Some of you can do it tonight.

If you can, just before God, just raise your hand. That's all. Hold it there for a minute. Make sure that God sees it. Because if you hold it up, he'll take you to your heart. Through you, the kingdom will come on earth.

Now put your hand back down. Maybe we just start it by kind of voicing it with our mouth. So easy to sing the lines. So easy to let the words come from your lips. So many times we have hidden behind the hymns of this hymn book. The songs of the choruses.

So many times we have picked up the Bible and read the verses, and yet at the same time knowing that we really didn't mean it. Tonight we're going to sing it over again. And I ask you to be honest with God, there's more power in this room than there is in the Pentagon, than there is in the U.S. Department of Public Health.

There's more power in this room than there is in Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University. There's more power in this room than there is in the American Cancer Society. In all the armies and navies that march on this earth, there's more power in this room.

Because the name of Jesus on the lips of a believer is the most powerful thing in all the world. Two or three thousand of us here tonight. So if you sing it, sing it as a confession before him. We're going to go out from this mountaintop and we're going to be part of a kingdom that's coming.

All to Jesus. Trapped within decaying flesh and deadened nerves. And likewise deadened love and hope. While swirling crowds pressed close in joy at seeing Jesus near, the leper came. No fanfare here. No words for him. No touch. His bell rang out unclean. How could he dare raise his head?

He'd have seen no eyes, but only shoulders turned away and clothing gathered tightly in. Avoid the stench of death. He knelt at Jesus' feet. As others shrank away from him, he shrank within himself.

With muffled voice, numbed hope awoke. I know that if you will, he pleaded, you can make me clean. That if loomed big, would Jesus dare? Would Jesus risk disease and court rejection by the crowd who also needed him?

Would he take death upon himself for one? But Jesus said, "I will." And he reached through shame and filth and loneliness and touched the man with love, restored the life that sloughed away and gave him back the world.

As I have been sent, Jesus said, even so, send I you.