is going to be a tremendous time this morning, because my knees have been applauding me ever since I got up. By the way, that choir tonight is for people like Jerry Strader and others who are gifted in music. You know that Paul said that some people want to sing in the choir the worst way, and that's the way they do. And Jerry sang a song in the choir for a long time, and one weekend he was sick. And several people came by and complimented the choir director on having the organ tuned. Shortly before my father left, my dad left in 87. He wanted to make it to 90, because had he made it to 90, that would have been even 100. But he fell short by three years. He was 97. I visited with him nine days before he left. Actually, we had a long time of prayer. And he asked God to take him home. I didn't ask God to take him home, but he did. And I said amen to Dad's prayer. But not too long before he left, he sent me this bit of information, and I'll share it with you. How do I know my youth has been spent? Because my got-up-and-go got up and went. But in spite of all that, I'm able to grin when I think of where my get-up-and-go has been. Old age is golden, I've heard it said, and sometimes I wonder as I go to bed. My ears are in the drawer, my teeth in the cup, my eyes on the table until I wake up. Air asleep dims my eyes, I say to myself, is there anything else I should lay on the shelf? And I'm happy to say, as I close the door, that my friends are the same as in days of yore. When I was young, my slippers were red. I could kick my heels right over my head. When I grew older, my slippers were blue, but I could still dance the whole night through. Now I'm old, my slippers are black, I walk to the corner and puff my way back. The reason I know my youth is all spent, because mine get up and go, got up and went. But I really don't mind when I think with a grin of all the places my getup has been. Since I've retired from life's competition, I busy myself with complete repetition. I get up each morning, dust off my wits, pick up the paper, and read your bits. If my name is not there, I think I'm not dead, so I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. Well, I'm not retired. And if you see me doing that, it'll be I'll be adjusting my hearing aid, see? And if I turn it up a little bit, then I'll want to be sure that I hear what I say. And then my daughter, I have two hearing aids. My daughter's a real doll, a real sweetheart. She said, Daddy, why don't you wear both your hearing aids? I said, well, honey, I don't want to hear everything. On October 2, we're going to have a one-day conference. Reverend James White will be our speaker, so you have a flyer on that. Keep that date in mind. The day before, we'll have a rally, and you have the place here, Metropolitan Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. We'd love to have you. It'll be a time of real, real refreshment. I'll share with you this morning a little bit on old waste places. If you would be so kind to turn in your book to Isaiah 58. Our main passage would be from 6 to 12, but I'll start in the outset here in Isaiah 58. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet. Tell my people their transgression, the house of Jacob their sin. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of me the ordinance of justice. They take delight in approaching God. Why have we fasted, they say, and you've not seen? And why have we afflicted our souls and you've not noticed? In fact, in the day of your fast, you find pleasure and exploit all your laborers. Indeed, you fast for strife and debate. to strike with a fist of wickedness. You were not fast, as you do this day, to make your voice heard on high. Is it a fast that I have chosen for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush and to spread out sackcloth with ashes? And you call this a fast and acceptable day of the Lord? Now verse six. Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free. that you break every yoke. It is not to spare your bread for the hungry that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out. When you see the naked, that you cover him and hide not your face from your own flesh. Then your light shall break forth like the morning. Your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you. The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer. You will cry, and he will say, here I am. If you take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul in drought and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. Those from you shall build the old waste places. You shall raise up the foundation of many generations. And you should be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in. I heard Doss speak on this topic a number of years ago. Many of us work in churches. We work in very warm atmospheres. But actually, as time goes along, we're going to find that the cutting edge is going to be outside of the church building. And one of Gene's prayer lists that he sends out, a bit of information, Go west, young man. If you want to reach unreached people, head for Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Montana, where less than one-fourth of the residents in some sections do not belong to any religious group. Idaho and Utah are exceptions because of the Mormons predominantly. Other places where there's lack of church groups is Michigan, Maine, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia. Maryland, Delaware, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Florida. However, I'm sure that you and I are in contact with people who really need help. I was converted in 1940. I watched my mother pass away, and shortly thereafter I was in Uncle Sam's Yacht Club. I feel like a boot, however. I was only in four years, and Captain Downing has 24 years under his belt, so I don't want to act too nautical around Captain Jim, of course. I was a witnessing Christian. Three of us joined from university there in Birmingham, and we witnessed there in boot camp, three of us did. One of the fellows that I witnessed, too, was transported aboard to Crescent City. Crescent City was a transport, 6,000 troops. We were back in hole number six. One of these old boys that I shared my faith with was on a working party up in hole number two. And Navigator Ships Company, a fellow that was attached to the ship, was in charge of a working party up there, and evidently he had witnessed this fellow. I was C6. I was back in hole number six. This fellow came back and he said, Crawford, I met one of your kind today. You really ought to go see him. One of my kind, you know, witnessing Christian. I didn't want to see anybody. And so next day he came back and he said, Hey, Crawford, you got to go see this guy, man. He's one of your kind. So to protect my testimony with him, I staggered up there. And I met this fellow. His name was Gale Buckles. And we fellowshiped, or I should say he fellowshiped mostly because He could quote scripture. And I said, Buckles, are you a pastor? He said, no. I said, well, are you studying for the ministry? He said, no. I said, you going to be a pastor, a minister, a missionary when you get out of the Navy? Perhaps not. I said, where in the world did you learn scripture? He said, well, there's a group out in Honolulu called the Navigators. And he gave me the address. And of course, one of my first liberties, I made my way out to the Navigators' home. As I was catching a boat to go ashore, there were thousands and thousands and thousands of white hats, just a sea of white hats. And it dawned upon me right then that the whole world is lost. And it's quite different from my little home church in Alabama. And this is where it really is. And so my first few weeks in the Navy, impressed upon me where the ministry really, really was in old waste places. And so this is what Isaiah is talking about. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations in Isaiah 58, 12. Back in November, I had the privilege of going back to New Zealand and to Australia. We worked our way down from Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, down to Hobart, and then over on the eastern side of the Tasman. I was speaking at a NAV rally in the city of Christchurch. Tall, handsome chap, mid-forties, maybe fifty, hollered at me across the room, Hey, John! I went over there, and he said, My, I hadn't seen you in twenty years. Ross Miller here. I said, Well, Ross, where in the world have I been? We joked a bit. And he said, No, he said, Twenty years ago, He says, you were preaching at Massey Conference. He says, you were preaching on James chapter 4. And he commenced to tell me what I said. I'd, of course, forgotten about the conference, much less about the message. So I checked up on the story. It seemed that Ross Miller lived in Wellington. He was flying in on our real big ships that we have down there. They have two motors now, and airplanes in the ceiling. He sat by a navigator, and this navigator witnessed to him and got his name and address and phone number. As time went on, he was flying into Wellington again, and he sat by another navigator, and this fellow witnessed to him. And the second chap went home and told his roommate, he said, hey, man, had a good chance to witness today. Sit by an old boy named Ross Miller and got to share my faith with him, share my testimony with him. And his roommate said, you've got to be kidding. He said, no. And so he said, that's the same fellow I witnessed her. And so he had his phone number. He called Ross, invited Ross to conference. Ross came. Ross heard the message. Joe Simmons spotted him and got alongside. Joe's very sensitive to people. And he gave Ross the gospel and shared his faith. And Ross accepted Christ. Ross is now a family man, school teacher, teaches in a Christian school. and of course, ensuring his faith. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations. Romans 9, 26. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said, ye are not my people, they shall be called the children of the living God. 2 Timothy 2, 9. Wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even in the bonds, but the word of God is not bound. An old waste place is a place that's spiritually dry. It doesn't have to be Wellington, New Zealand. It doesn't have to be India. It can be where you are and where I am. An old waste place builder is a rare commodity, just like foundation builders, and generation builders, and breech repairers, and restorers of pasted dwellings. But we're primarily talking about foundation builders, people who produce people like in Isaiah 58.12. And we're talking about people who are being produced. And these particular people, what kind of people are they? Well, they're just ordinary people. They're people like you and me. You know, it's ordinary people that have little babies. It isn't just the governor and the mayor and university presidents that have children. Laborers have children, and bricklayers have children, and computer operators have children. And so people are put on the earth by just ordinary people having children, have a mother and a father. And every child that's ever been born has both a mother and a father. They may not occupy that position, but they do. They have to, to get here. And so it is with foundation builders. They're just ordinary people. This is the reason why we call this the Key Men's Invitational. And I have about seven or eight fellows that we get together with. and we plan this conference. And the reason we don't send out brochures and say, come one, come all, is because it's not my ministry. It's ministry of fellows that are key to something. A key man is not a person who's memorized 108 verses or 60 verses or 500 verses. Sometimes a key man may be a new Christian, but he's key to another person. You're key to your neighbor. your key to your children because a key is a little metal gimmick, plastic gimmick that unlocks something. Like you'd have a small key and you unlock a castle and go in. Your key to this door and you open the door and you come in this big room. We don't carry the big room around on our shoulder, we just carry a key and it unlocks it. And so what we're looking for is key people, people who want to be used in the lives of other people one at a time. One at a time. One at a time. Old waste place builders. In case you think this means anything, it doesn't. Well, it does, too. My arm was sweaty. I was there in 58-6. Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness. Proverb 522 says, his own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. One of the members of my family was an alcoholic, is an alcoholic. And this member of my family was helden with cords of sins of alcohol. And I would visit this family member and A lot of times I would be treated rather harshly without notice why I would be pounced upon verbally. And then in God's good grace, 10 years ago, God saved this woman and he dried her up. She's still an alcoholic, but she's what you call a dry alcoholic. But before the nicotine were broken, She was bound. You know, some sportsmen like to fish in some of the little streams with the little fish with a one-ounce test leader. That's to make it sporting, you know. And so you can take a one-ounce test leader and just snap it just like that. I mean, you've got to be really careful. Any kind of sizable fish are tall or snag, and you'll break it. But you can take a one-ounce leader and wrap it around my wrist. And I could be yakking here and telling some story, and you could just be wrapping, wrapping. It wouldn't be long until that little one-ounce leader would become a little rope, about as big as a sash cord. And then he would become a hauser, big enough to tie up a ship. And there'd be no way that I could be broken from this. His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself, And he should be holding with the cords of his sins. Always place builders are people who are trying to help people be broken from the cords of their sins. And in doing so, of course, we have to become involved with their life. Joshua 1 7. Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee. Turn not from it from the right hand to the left. that thou mayest prosper whatsoever thou goest. Gene mentioned that and gave me this great compliment a while ago about being on the straight and narrow. You know, it didn't take me but about 45 minutes to get the vision. My ship pulled into San Francisco and we had a center where we were coming and going over on Grand Avenue over in Oakland side. One day I was coming off Liberty and I had my Bible, my notebook, and I was going up the stairway, the ladder there, and Doss was coming down. And he said, Johnny, I was hoping I could see you. You got a little time. Of course, all I had was time. And so I said, sure. And so we went out by the lake. And we sat by Lake Mary. And we lay down there in the grass. And he said, what's the Lord been sharing with you? So I shared where I was in my quiet time and where I was in my reading. He was, oh, so tender. And so we just had a delightful time, and we prayed there. And before we left, he said, Johnny, what do you have on your heart after the conflict? I said, oh, I don't know, Doss, really. Perhaps go back to Alabama and go back to college and become a Southern Baptist preacher. He said, well, I think you'd make a good one. He said, you thought of anything else? And I said, well, yes, I thought of youth work. You know, Doss, if you don't get them young, you don't get them. Marvel at the wisdom that I used to share with Doris. But he didn't, he didn't say anything. He said, well, that's good. He said, hey, by the way, John, he said, you know, he said, if you raise up one disciple. He said, you know, he could be in youth work and you could be a pastor and be two places at one time. So we chatted a bit and mission work come up and I I told him I was open to the mission field. He said, well, you know, Johnny said if you raise up two disciples, one could be a pastor, one could be in youth working, one could be a missionary. And then just as though he thought of it for the first time, he said, you know what, Johnny? If you never figure out just what you ought to do, you can spend your whole life raising up disciples. And I'd never figured out what I was supposed to do. And so I spent my entire life raising up the scientists. And by the way, I just praise God for the fellows who've been raised in my home who are pastors of churches. In fact, we were in Auckland in the fall and winter, and Peter Reynolds. Peter Reynolds was a shepherd. When we went to Hamilton, New Zealand, a little city of 8,000. We started having rallies in one of the businessmen's homes. And Peter showed up. And I got acquainted with him. He was 21 years old. He had finished high school, but he didn't have his university entrance. And so he was a shepherd, and I was intrigued. So he took me out where he worked. He said, you and Helen come out, and I'll show you how the dogs work. And that's always so fascinating to me, how with hand motions and whistles, he could make those dogs do what he wanted them to do. You know, get in behind, and a header dog, and a hunt away, and what have you. One little dog go, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip. And all he did was just chase along the heels and keep them going. And the other one would bring them around. It's fascinating. We got Peter in the word. And one day, in talking to him, I said, Peter, have you ever thought about getting a university entrance? So he got his university interest at night school. Then he went to Lincoln University and graduated with an agriculture degree. Then God called him to the ministry and he came over to the States and got four years of theological training. He went back to Auckland and he's been working there as an evaluer. And last year he was able to quit his job and I was with him the other day and now then he has a little church, you see. A shepherd. A shepherd. Of course, you don't have to go in that type of ministry. One of our other fellas, young fella, Bill Pawley. You know, fellas, it's good to have a wife that prays. I just praise God for my wife. When I was going to be married, I checked in with Dawson. I'm 10 years older than Helen, and so I thought that would be a problem. And they were both in Dawson's office. I mentioned that, and he looked. He said, no, that wouldn't be a problem. He said, John, he said, son, you need help, boy. And he says, Helen can help you. She was sitting right there. I reminded her of that last week. She was a little embarrassed. Well, she has. She's helped me in so many ways. I can't spell, you know, but the biggest thing she's helped me is My wife spends time with God, see? I mean, when we have a problem, I'll wake up during the night and feel over to her side, and she'll be gone, see? And so I'll make some excuse to get up to go to the bathroom, and I'll find her out there in the living room with her dressing gown that zips all the way up, you know, and she'll be with a blanket over, mumbling and crying and calling on God. One day she said, Daddy, I think you ought to have Bill Pawley come up and be with us. Bill Pawley was a young contractor in Vicago, the most southern city in the world, colder than Pharaoh's heart. And I said, well, honey, Bill has a business down there, and his family's there, and he's doing well, and that's a dry hole. And my, we don't want to take Bill out of that, do we? He said, Daddy? I said, yes, honey. We don't have Bill come up. He won't make it. OK. We'll have him come up. You know, leading of God. Straight away. I didn't even pray. And old Bill came up. And of course, he became a disciple. And he's now married with three children, general contractor and property owner. And Bill is our nav rep now. Finances himself, you know. And Bill keeps things going in the city. The city's about 125,000 now. These are now real. Always place builders. You see? Always place builders. First fellow, I was always problem with soul winning. I still am. I just don't win very many souls. I'm sorry about that. I just don't. But once in a while, the Lord gives me a fellow. I was burdened when I first went aboard a ship. I cried out to God for a soul. Well, I learned something one time. We came back from the South Pacific, and for the two and a half years there, close to the front, God gave unusual victory. I'd go for six weeks at a time, virtually with no bad thoughts, just marvel at how a baby, it's kind of like a baby, you know, a little old baby come along there, a little child, one year old, and he sits down and sits on his bottom, and you think, oh, good night, he's gonna break his back. You know, but he won't. But if you felt like that, you'd go to hospital. Well, that's the way of babing Christ is. And God just covered around me. And I live with sodomites, you know, just like everybody else, I guess. But we got back to the States, and I learned when new men would come aboard to take them to chapel. Now, we didn't get all that much at chapel. We really did. We got a good talk sometimes here. But if they wanted to go to church, then they might be interested in me talking to them. So to and from church, I would share my faith with them and share the gospel. And in God's good time, took three kids to chapel. That night, we had the duty, had the deck watch, and I had the deck watch. One of these young fellas named Jack Yates. Jack came around about 11 o'clock, And he said, Crawford, how do you get saved? Well, I thought, hey, witnessing opportunity. So the felon had taught me, very carefully, the fact of sin, the penalty of sin, the penalty must be paid. It's paid by Christ. It's a free gift which you must accept. And we have those verses in the fact of sin, Romans 3, 23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. 6, 2, and 3, the wages of Santa's death. So I worked him into conversation. And I told Jack, I said, well, Jack, first thing you have to realize that you're a sinner. He said, well, I realize that. Otherwise, I wouldn't be talking to you. And the reason was, of course, board ship, as you fellows know, military men, in a small ship particularly. If you're a Christian, you're the deacon, or the elder, or the vicar. Some other word that's not quite as complimentary. So I gave him my testimony and gave the gospel. About 30 minutes later, he come back and he said, Crawford, I'm saved. I said, wonderful, Yates, what happened? He said, well, I was up on the folks of the ship. He said, I told God whatever it was to be a Christian, whatever it was to invite Jesus into my heart, I wanted to do it. And I believe he heard me. I said, Yates, I'm sure he heard you. Take the duty just a moment. I got something for you. Dash down to my locker. and got to beginning with Christ. And so I started memorizing scripture. So each morning, we would have our quiet time in the door, the uptakes, where the boiler room, you know, in the warm air would come out. In San Francisco, it's cold most all the time in there in the morning. And so we would stand there, and I taught him how to pray with his eyes open. And of course, we had a cup of coffee in our hands, as if we were standing there chatting. Because if you close your eyes, see, when you pray, you run into something. Or people think you kind of, you know, what you doing with your eyes closed, you know? And so, old Yates grew. Fortunately, Yates was a wrestler and a weightlifter. And of course, he didn't get much slack, you know, from his testimony. The last I heard of Yates, he had gone back to Kentucky, gone to seminary, was riding a mule. up in those hills of Kentucky preaching the gospel to those rum-runners from whence he came. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places. Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer to pass the dwelling. And fellas, sometime when I see you again, I will share with you my next four pages of notes. Today I'll give you the introduction. It's been a pleasure to be with you. I praise God for every one of you. Let's pray. Father, we know that every one of us here can be used with God. Lord, you know and Lord, we know how weak we are and how far short we come. But Lord, we want to be as bricks in the hand of a bricklayer, as mortar on a plasterer's trowel, as putty in the hands of a glazer. So our Father, we pray that you will take us, prepare us, and use us. And Lord, I want to thank you for the men that are here today and the men that they're in touch with. And I want to thank you for the love that they have for each other and for you. And I thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you.