"Billy" Sunday, the Man and His Message / With his own words which have won thousands for Christ

by William T. Ellis

Who can commit it? Any man or woman who says "No" to Jesus Christ. You may even defend the Bible. You may be the best man or woman, morally, in the world. Your name may be synonymous with virtue and purity, but let God try to get into your heart, let him try to get you to walk down the aisle and publicly acknowledge Jesus Christ, and your heart and lips are sealed like a bank vault, and God hasn't been able to pull you to your feet. And God won't keep on begging you to do it.

Something may say to you, "I ought to be a Christian." This is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. God spoke in three dispensations. First, through the old Mosaic law. Then Jesus Christ came upon this earth and lived and the Jews and Gentiles conspired to kill him. Then the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost and God is speaking through the Holy Spirit today. The Holy Spirit is pressing you to be a Christian. It takes the combined efforts of the Trinity to keep you out of hell—God the Father to provide the plan of salvation, the Holy Spirit to convict, Jesus Christ to redeem you through his blood, and your acceptance and repentance to save you. Sin is no trifle.

Representative of the Trinity

The only representative of the Trinity in the world today is the Holy Ghost. Jesus has been here, but he is not here now—that is, in flesh and blood. The Holy Ghost is here now. When he leaves the world, good-bye.

There was an old saint of God, now in glory. He was holding meetings one time and a young man came down the aisle and went so far as to ask him to pray for him. He said: "Let's settle it now," but the young man refused and told him to pray for him. Years afterwards, in Philadelphia, the old saint was in a hotel waiting for his card to be taken up to the man he wanted to see. He looked in the bar-room door. There was a young man ordering a drink. The two saw each other's reflections in the French plate behind the bar, and the young man came out and said: "How do you do?" The old man spoke to him.

The young fellow said: "I suppose you don't remember me?" and the old saint had to admit that he did not.

The young fellow asked him if he remembered the meeting eleven years before in New York when a young man came down the aisle and asked him to pray for him. He said he was the young man. The old saint said: "From what I have just seen I would suppose that you did not settle it."

The young fellow said: "I did not and I never expect to. I believe there is a hell and I'm going there as fast as I can go."

The old man begged him to keep still, but he said: "It is true. If Jesus Christ would come through that door now I would spit in his face."

The old man said: "Don't talk that way. I would not stand to have you talk about my wife that way, and I will not stand it to have you talk about Christ that way." The young fellow said it was all true. The old fellow said: "Maybe it is all true, but I do not like to hear it." The young fellow said it was true, and that if he had a Bible he would tear it up. With a string of oaths he went to the bar, took two or three drinks and went out the door.