A few years ago, there was a girl who went off to college, and with a lot of her colleagues there, she become a very little smart aleck, from her old country teaching that she'd had as a mother in a country home. And one day she decided, some two years later to visit her mother again. She wrote her a telegram and told her she would arrive on such-and-such a train, to meet her at the station. However, she brought another little smart aleck with her. And she'd become a smart aleck herself. And she brought another one with her, that was kind of one of the modern-day's sophistications, know-it-all, teen-annie.
And when she arrived at the station, when she started to get off of the train, she looked and there stood her mother, looking with all that was in her to see where her daughter was. And when the girl that was with her... mother saw her with her face all scared, and her hands all burned, and she looked terrible, old, and looked horrible. And the girl that was with the little Mary, said to her, "Wonder who that old wretched looking thing is?"
And the girl was ashamed of her mother. She said, "I don't know. I don't know who she is."
And her mother, when she seen her daughter, run to her and throwed her arms around her, started to kissing her.
She pushed away, said, "I don't know you. You've got the wrong person," because she didn't want to be affiliated with such a person that someone else would laugh at and make fun of.
There happened to be a man, a conductor of the train, standing by. He grabbed that young woman by the shoulder. He said, "Shame on you, you miserable thing. I remember the case very well."
And the people gathered to hear what had taken place. He held the girl right out, and he said, "This young girl, when she wasn't six months old, was in her little crib in the upstairs. And her precious mother, the most beautiful woman I ever saw," said the old conductor. Said, "The house caught fire while her mother was hanging clothes. And the neighbors all run, screaming, they seen that the mother never noticed it. It was on the porch side of the house. And the blazes had got well ahold, and it was gone into the air."
And said, "They couldn't hold that frantic mother. Her baby was upstairs." And said, "All of them cried, 'You can't pierce those--those blazes.'" But she grabbed the sheet that was in her hand from hanging them up, and it was a wet sheet. And she threw it around her, and through the blazes she went, and upstairs, not thinking about her own danger. Then when she got there, she knew she couldn't wrap the sheet around herself to go back. But to save the beauty of her daughter that was to follow her, she wrapped the baby in the sheet, and run through the blazes, with her bare face and hands and arms. And it burnt the meat off of her body, and shrunk her cheeks to her bones, and marred her, burnt her hair off, and the--the--all to the bones on her finger."
Said, "She become ugly, that you might become pretty. She forfeited her beauty; she forfeited everything that she had, that she might save you. And then you stand and be ashamed of that precious mother?"
Brother, when I see God, the God of heaven, forfeited His throne, His beauty, and all that He was to be borned on top of a manure pile, be wrapped in swaddling's cloth, to be made fun of by His signs and His wonders, to be called a devil; should I be ashamed of Him? No, sir. Let the classic world do what they want to do. To me He's the super Sign. The Holy Ghost in me screams out. It might make me act funny and be a crazy man to this world, but I cannot deny Him Who done so much for me. He took my place in death. He took my place at Calvary. He done all these things. He condescended from heaven, from the pearly white thrones to become a man; to taste my suffering, to go through my temptation, to know how to be the right kind of a mediator in me, to lead me and to guide me to Eternal Life. And through His poverty, I am made rich. Through His death I'm given Life, Eternal Life.
Don't deny Him. Don't be ashamed of Him. Don't be ashamed of Him. But embrace Him and say, "Yes, my dear Lord, give to me like they did on the day of Pentecost. Lord, give to me the Holy Ghost. Pour It into my heart. I don't care what the teenagers say. I don't care what the world says; I'm not looking to them. I'm looking to You." What is it, joining church? No, the super Sign, Immanuel, God with us.
Let us pray. In the audience of the people this morning, is there some here that would like to say, "To me, I'm ashamed of my life. I'm not ashamed of Him. I'm ashamed of my life to offer to Him Who was made ugly, and despised by the world?"
"A Man of sorrow, acquainted with grief. We all hid our faces from Him," said the prophet. "He was despised and rejected. Yet we did esteem Him stricken and smitten of God. Yet He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquity; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with His stripes we were healed."
Would you be ashamed of Him? If you are, come to the altar and repent of your sins. If you're not ashamed of Him, and you're ashamed of your life that you've presented to Him, such an awful thing. You been ashamed many times before the boss, before your women friend, before your man friend, before your girlfriend or boyfriend. You've been ashamed of Him, Immanuel dwelling in you. Raise your hands and say, "God, forgive me for being ashamed."
Our Lord and our God, we humbly and most graciously ask You to accept our apology this morning for all of our shortcomings, for all of us at times are guilty. We are guilty for standing for Truth. We are guilty. When they want to call us some evil name, like, oh, "holy-roller," or some evil thing that is not so, yet sometimes we back off like Peter and warm ourself at the enemy's fire. Forgive us, Lord.
The new year's approaching us. May we start from this very hour, and see the super Sign of God among us, God living with us, dwelling in us, performing, doing exactly the way He did. And the evening Lights are here.
Forgive us of our shortcomings. Forgive our sins.
59-1227M A Super Sign Paf 118-132
Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
(Mark 8:38)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
(Rom 1:16)
