# The Lord wants me to do this

Key Passage: Acts 9:6
Date: May 4, 2025

I am delighted to get to come to preach here, one of my favorite places to preach, and I preach somewhere different every Sunday. I can’t get over something. Last time I came, I noticed the congregation; the ladies were kind of wrinkle-looking and kind of frowning. The men had frowns on their faces, you know, and kind of ugly-looking.

But today it’s different. Everybody’s bright. The ladies are beautiful. The men are handsome. The teenagers, just sharp as they can be. I had some inserts put in my eyes.

Isaiah used to say to me when I read, “They have eyes to see, but they cannot see.” But now that’s not true anymore. I tell you, I couldn’t help noticing how sharp looking these teenagers are. I’m delighted they’re sitting up here in the front section. When I came in, I noticed how many good-looking, handsome, athletic, intelligent, strong, and robust young men there are in this front row. Barrel-chested, clean-cut, manly, muscular, and husky young men—y’all notice that? And then I couldn’t help notice too how many beautiful, charming, pretty, happy, attractive, sweet, lovely, darling, gorgeous, sharp, and exciting lovely trees are all growing all around.

It’s real easy to see some others. I’m just delighted, really I am. Now, you have an insert in your bulletin today, and if you didn’t get one, please, please get one. In the first part, A to Z, I was listening to John Phillips, a great Welsh preacher.

He said his teenage boy rebelled. He said he’d been a wonderful young man, but he just flat rebelled. He started acting like he was demon-possessed, and he ran away from home. They had to drive from Atlanta up to Indianapolis to get him. When they put him in the car, they had to take the handles off so he couldn’t get out. He was like a wild animal, frothing and kicking and cussing. He said, “Soon as I stop for gas, I’m going to run out in the woods and you’re not going to get me then.” They couldn’t understand what was happening to him. John said he told his wife, “Let’s go through our verse routine.” They listed A to Z.

We selected a verse that started with A: “All we like sheep have gone astray. We’ve turned everyone to his own way,” and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of Saul (Isaiah 53). B, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” C, “Call upon the Lord.” He went all the way down to Z. They memorized those verses. Many, many times when they get up in the morning and have their devotions, they run through those verses, and it does something for their marriage. He said when they started quoting those verses, around K, L, and M, all of a sudden the boy just calmed down. He said, “Mom, Dad, I don’t know what happened to me. I feel awful. I want to apologize to you.” Their boy was transformed. By the time they got home, they had a brand new boy. He said, “All I can explain is that boy must have gotten demon-possessed.” He said, “No scripture verses chase those demons out; they don’t like to hear that.” I made up my mind: I’m going to make me a list like that. Mary and I got together and put together our own list.

I’ve given you a sample, and I would like to ask you to give some thought to making your own list. Just put A to Z, find a verse that starts with A or has something to do with A, and go all the way down through Z, using your concordance. When you get that put together, read it over and over again until it becomes a memory to you. Then any time you feel depressed, any time you’re down, feel backslidden, or feel that the devil and the demons are around, just quote that out loud, and you’ll be amazed how miraculous.

That’s just something a little extra, okay? Now, tell the pastor these; you don’t give me any offering for that, okay? That’s just extra. On the other side, it’s blank, and it says “Signed.”

I want to challenge you to give some thought to something. I’m going to preach on Acts 9:6, where Paul the Apostle said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” I want you to think about maybe something that the Lord might like for you to do. He might want somebody to be a preacher. Maybe one of you young people, He may call you to be a missionary, or maybe want somebody to be, you know, an evangelist. Or maybe somebody—He wants you to take interest in getting a Sunday school class, or maybe driving a van or a bus to bring other people in, or trying to win a soul, or a hundred other things. Maybe He wants somebody to decide, “I’m going to take a bath every week whether I need it or not.” I’m going to brush my teeth regularly every day. I would like to challenge everybody to listen for the Lord to say something during the message that would lead you to something He would like for you to do, so that this will be a profitable service for everybody. I hope everybody will go home saying, “The Lord told me to do this,” and by the grace of God, we are going to do it. All of us would grow a notch. That will make the fellowship sweeter, make the song service better, make the sermons easier to listen to. It would be easier for us to obey about giving, and our prayer life would—we’d understand the Bible better.

Now, what I’d like for you to do is just either physically or mentally sign. You say, “Oh, what’s he going to put on?” I have no idea. Where? I don’t know. How much it’s going to cost? I don’t know. How long it’ll take? I don’t know.

If He called me to preach, I would say, “What kind of a salary am I going to get?” I don’t know. What kind of a church? I don’t know. Where’s it going to be? I don’t know. Is there going to be any insurance? I don’t know. Any pension involved? I have no idea. When I surrendered to preach, I didn’t know any of that. I just had to trust God. If I could get you to cooperate, this would be a meaningful service, from the smallest to the young person, to everybody going home having met with the Lord. We will have succeeded in the reason we came. So if you’ll turn to Acts chapter 9, I’ll read you a couple of verses of Scripture. God is working on something in this chapter, and He’s doing it without anybody knowing what He’s doing. Paul is going to be involved in it, and he has no thoughts or intentions of getting involved in anything except arresting Christians, putting them in jail, and maybe even killing some of them.

In Acts 9 and verse 1, “And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter…” This means he was being vocal; he was breathing out statements about if he could get his hands on someone, he would deal with him. He was angry at Christians. This is Paul the Apostle I’m talking about, and it says he was breathing out these threatenings and slaughters against the disciples of the Lord. So he went to the high priest. Notice the high priest didn’t come to him and say, “I want you to do that or this.” He went and said to the high priest, “Here’s what I have in mind,” and he got the approval of the high priest for what he had concocted in his own thinking because he hated these people. The Bible says that he desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any along the way—if he saw any Christians praying or reading a Bible, whether they were men or women, young people or children—it didn’t matter, that he might bring them bound or arrested to Jerusalem. As he journeyed near Damascus, suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven. I’m glad God was up there looking. The Bible says that the Lord is watching. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth, beholding the evil and the good, and God was watching. He knew what was going on in Paul’s life.

When this light shined and the voice came, he fell down to the earth and heard this voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He said, “Who art Thou, Lord?”

The Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.” It’s interesting. This is one of the “I Ams” that’s not listed in the seven “I Ams”: “I am the bread of life,” “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” “I am the light of the world.” There are seven of those in the book of John. This is an extra one: “I am Jesus.” This came out of Exodus 3, where the Lord told Moses, “Go tell them, I AM that I AM.” He says, “I AM,” which means not only Jesus—this is God speaking—“I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.” It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks and resist what I’m trying to get you to do. That’s true for you and me also. It’s really, really a bad thing when the Lord is trying to get my attention and I’m too busy thinking about what we’re going to have for dinner or what we’re going to do tomorrow when I go to work, or how I’m going to get that car fixed when I get home. You get your mind on all that stuff. The Lord’s not very happy about that. He wants you to come and give your mind to Him. This is the hour of attention. We come to worship and to think and meditate therein, day and night. It’s hard for you to resist and get your mind on something else. He says, “And trembling and astonished…” I wish that we could get back to the place where, when the Word of God is preached, it would cause trembling and astonishment. And he said, “Lord, what do You have me to do? Lord, what do You want me to do?” The Lord said, “Rise, get up and go.” Notice He didn’t tell him anything except, “Get up and get out there. I’ll show you.” The next verse says, “It shall be told thee what thou shalt do.”

He says, “Now, I want you to put your name on that piece of paper, a blank sheet.” Instead of a little five or seven, he said, “I want you to take an eight-and-a-half by fourteen sheet, blank on both sides, sign the bottom right-hand corner, and hand it to me, and let me fill it out for you.” What are you going to put on it? Don’t know. Where? Don’t know. When? Don’t know. How much? Don’t know. What did it cost me? I have no idea. How long will it last? No. Any retirement? Any insurance? We don’t know anything. The Lord says, “Trust me,” okay? It says, “It will be told you what you ought to do when you get there.” Remember now, this is Saul of Tarsus. Now we know him as Paul, the Apostle. All through the Bible, when a person comes in contact with God to get their name changed, everything changes. There’s a verse that says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” When Abram, from the heathen city of the Chaldeans, worshiping Kemos the god, met God, his name was changed to Abraham, which means he is now a man of God. Naomi meant “bitter” and fussy and contrarian, a hard-to-get-along-with wife. But her name was changed to Sarah, which means blessed one and happy person. Jacob, you conniving, cheating, lying guy—your name is going to be Israel, “Prince with God.” Naomi went over to Moab, and she was bitter when she came home. Somebody said, “Naomi, don’t call me that. Call me Mara.” Her name, Naomi, was a pleasant and happy person. Now it had been changed, but now she gets it back when she gets back home. Remember when the Jewish boys went down to Nebuchadnezzar, like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah? They didn’t want them to have those Christian names, so Nebuchadnezzar called Daniel Belteshazzar, and he called the boys Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Those are heathen names. Simon Peter in the New Testament—Simon means “little pebble,” little nothing. Nobody was going to change that to Peter, “Big solid rock foundation. We’re going to build a church on you.” I came to Jesus; there was nobody and nothing, and Jesus came in. Now God lives in me. I’m no longer a sinner; now I’m a saint. That’s what’s involved in some of this. Saul is no longer going to be Saul; he’s going to be Paul.

That’s different. Remember, as Saul, he was just about as religious as you can get. He was a zealous Jewish person, 100% into it. I’ll tell you where he got it: He went to school with Gamaliel. They say that Paul was very intelligent, and he spoke 17 different languages. Commentators say that young Jewish boys who had private tutors like Gamaliel had to memorize the Old Testament, and Saul had done that. He had read in the book of Joshua and in the book of Deuteronomy that the Lord said, “Go over into the land of Palestine, and you’re going to run into the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and all those different heathen people worshipping heathen gods, sacrificing their children to crocodiles and putting them on the lap of Kemos the god.” They would build a fire in there and let the little baby sit on his lap and burn to death. That has to stop. So, “Go kill everybody—men, women, babies, boys, and girls—and clean that out.” Paul had that kind of thinking built into him. He saw these Christian people who were not following Moses’ law but were going under grace. He thought, “We can’t have that; we’ve got to get rid of those.” He was doing something he thought was biblical, something he thought was right. He was just as honest and had integrity and character. All of a sudden, God saw all that going on in his heart, and He wanted to reroute all that energy. The Lord sees us, our abilities, our intelligence, our wisdom, and our sincerity. He says, “I want that person serving me. I want them teaching a class. I want them to be able to sing in a choir. I want them to be able to work as an usher.” He reached into my life. He reached down into General Motors on the assembly line to pick me off—a cursing, rebellious, wild young man, just out of my teens—and transformed me into a brand new creature and set me off to Bible college.

When the Lord spoke to him, he said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” I think a guy who says, “Lord,” means, “You are my Master and my Controller; everything You want is what I’m going to do. What do You want me to do?” Before that, in verse 5, he said, “Lord, who art Thou?” A man who didn’t know who it was wouldn’t say, “I’ll do anything You want me to do”—that would be foolish. He said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me?” and then, “Who art Thou?” If he didn’t know who it was, why would he call Him Lord? If he knew it was the Lord, why would he ask who it was? I think he got saved between the word “Thou” and the word “Lord.” I think he said, “Who art Thou?” It’s the Lord. There is instant conversion. Can you get saved that quick? I heard about a guy working on the roof who fell about three stories and hit the ground. The guy ran over and said, “Sam, Sam, you all right?” “Yeah, yeah, I think so.” He said, “Thank God. You’re saved then?” “Yes, I’m saved too.” “Well, you weren’t saved when we talked about this morning.” He said, “I wasn’t saved when I left the roof, but I was when I hit the ground.” Now, if you have to, you can.

Once Saul became Paul, he turned around and put as much zeal, excitement, and energy, plus 100 percent, into building churches. He went over to Galatia, converted a bunch of people to Christ, and built the church of Galatia; we have a book written to the Galatians. Then he went to Ephesus and wrote another book to the group of people he had organized there. Then he went to Philippi, down to Colossae, over to the Thessalonians, and then we have the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3. Paul filled Asia Minor with believers and local churches everywhere. Then he said, “Now I’m going down to Bethany,” which was another city around Ephesus and Colossae. “We’re going to start a church.” But the Bible says the Spirit suffered him not. The Lord said, “Don’t you do that, Paul.” “Yes, sir. What do You want me to do?” He said, “I gave you a dream the night before last about this Macedonian man.” Macedonia is not in Asia; it’s in Europe, Eastern Europe. A man was saying, “Come over here into Macedonia and help us.” Paul got his direction from the Lord.

There is something here for me. If I listen to the Lord over here in Asia and do a good job, then He has something over there in Macedonia that He is going to let me add to it. If I don’t do what I ought to do here, I’ll never know anything about that. You’ll never know anything about chapter two unless you do what the Lord wants in chapter one. If you say, “Well, I’m not aware about writing and saying, telling God I’m willing and ready to do anything He wants me to do,” okay, well, you cut off living a long, long time. You probably shorten your life by 30 or 40 years. Also, you’re not going to understand your Bible very well, and you’ll not be able to read about all the ways to have blessings and benefits of good health, plenty of finances, a nice house, a nice car, having your children turn out right, and being able to get your prayers answered. You’ll not know anything about those things because you just bombed out down here. You see, I have to go to kindergarten, and if I do all right there, they’ll put me up in the first grade. If I do all right in the first grade, they’ll promote me to the second grade. If I get up in the third grade and I fiddle and fool and fumble around, I may have to repeat that grade. I’m going to repeat it again. I know a lot of Christians just stay in the third grade the rest of their life. They don’t know anything about junior high, senior high, or postgraduate. They don’t know anything about physical, beneficial, emotional, spiritual, financial, material blessings. They dismiss all that. This is what this chapter is all about.

The Lord said, “Abraham.” Abraham said in Genesis chapter 22, “Here am I.” What does that mean? I wasn’t in the military, but I was pastor near Fort Knox, Kentucky, for 20 years. Those fellows there said when a private goes out on the land of the day, there’s a sergeant out there saying, “Attention!” About 100 of those guys will stand up, and they’ll be said, “Attention!” and those guys straighten up. All right. Then he says, “Forward march! Halt! Right flank!” What he says are orders. Then a major walks out and says, “Sergeant!” “Yes, sir!” What’s that mean? That means, “I have no idea what you’re getting ready to tell me to do, but I’ll do it.” He gets no vote. If you’re in the military, you understand authority. That’s what’s involved here. Abraham? “Yes, sir. I got something what you do?” Okay? He didn’t say, “What is it? I’ll decide.” He said, “Yes, sir, I’ll do it.” “Now, you’re really serious?” “Yes, sir.” “You mean it?” “Yeah.” “Why don’t you take your boy up on the hill and drive a knife in him and kill him, cut him up in pieces, set him on fire, and make a sacrifice like the Jews do for animals to pay for the sins of their…” “You really mean it?” “Yeah, yeah, I do.” So he loads up and goes up, and you know the beautiful story how the Lord sent around. The Lord said, “I was just testing you to make sure, because I have some big things ahead, and I want to be sure you were listening.” I don’t know what the Lord—He’s not going to ask me to sacrifice one of my boys or one of my girls. I have two of each. I’d really have a problem. But He’s not going to tell me anything like that. He just wants to know, “Tom?” “Yes, sir.” “You’ll do anything I want?” “Yes, sir, okay.” Now, the Lord said that burning bush in Exodus: “Moses?” “Yes, sir. Here am I, Lord.” He never did say, “What do You want? Where do You go?” No, he said, “Whatever it is, Lord.” The Lord said, “Okay, I want you to go down to Egypt and get about two and a half million people.” That says that as soon as Moses turned aside to see why the bush was burning, then the Lord spoke to him. He had sheep over here that were in need of a shepherd, and here’s a bush on fire. We have a secular issue and a spiritual issue. Moses has just heard, “Moses, Moses?” “Yes, sir. I got something what You want me to do?” Okay. As soon as he turned aside and said, “I hope you sheep will be all right.” This was a basic responsibility. I’m saying that my job is important, my family’s important, and everything about that’s important. But when God comes on the scene, I need to trust in the Lord, lean not to my own understanding, and He’ll direct my path. He says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things—all you sheep will be taken good care of.” The lions and the tigers won’t dare come near them if you give your attention to me. But if you give your attention to them, you’re not going to be able to fight off the lions and the giants. If I put secular before God… The Lord said to Moses, “Yes, sir, go to Egypt.” Okay, and down he went.

We got two and a half, three million people infected. Samuel! Samuel (1 Samuel 3): “Yes, sir, hear of my speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.” Because of the obedience of that little boy who had no idea he was going to be the greatest prophet Israel ever had, Israel is going to be a great nation under the control of Samuel the prophet. Isaiah! “Here am I, Lord, send me.” We have one of the greatest prophets who ever wrote in the Bible because he said, “Here I am, Lord.” I want to sign my paper and hand it to you. James and John, what are y’all doing? “We’re fishing. We make our livelihood that way.” “Come on, leave those. Follow me. I want to make you fishers of men.” Then Peter and Andrew, “Come on, get out of… follow me.” We have the disciples of Jesus who wrote books in the Bible to us because, “Lord…” Tom! I was working at General Motors in Wilmington, Delaware, and I had this big goal. I’m going to do such a good job in the upholstery department where I work that they’re going to make me a line foreman. They’re going to see my attributes, my talents, my abilities, my wisdom, and my delightful spirit, and they’re going to move me up to shop superintendent. Then they’ll really see some things about me, and they’ll think this guy would make a good plant superintendent. Once I got to be plant superintendent, we’d be turning out cars like they’ve never done before, making big money. They said, “We’re going to transfer him out to Detroit and put him on the 10th floor of the big GM building. We’re going to give him 10 secretaries and a $10 million salary every year.” Settled. Nothing could get in the way of that; that was my goal. The guy told me how to be saved, and I got saved. The Lord tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Now, Tom, that’s not what I have for you.” “Really?” “Yeah, I want you to quit your job at General Motors and sell your house. I want you to go to Bible College. Won’t you be a preacher?” “Yeah, but that wasn’t…” Never mind what you had in mind. God spoke to me just like He did Paul, and I did it. I said to the Lord, “Lord, You wouldn’t let me be a preacher or pastor of the church if I was divorced, would You?” He said, “No, but why would you ask me a thing like that, Tom?” I said, “If I go home and tell my wife what You said to me, she’s going to divorce me.” It sure is living. But when I got home, she was thinking the same way I was. We quit that job, sold that house, and went to Bible College. I went to a little old church up in Elkton, Maryland, with 35 people. It wasn’t long before we had 1,100, had a big school of 600, and we had 150 kids going off to Bible College and going on to be pastors and missionaries. We wouldn’t have any of that if I had stayed there. Then they moved me over to Louisville, and we had 1,200 over there, and they taught me in—I thought it was them, but the Lord was leading me. I said, “I don’t want to leave this; this is my baby here.” I said to the Lord, “Lord, I’m through with You. Must I go over here?” I heard Him say it, and I went. That 1,200 turned into 3,300 every Sunday within two years, and we had over 100 saved every Sunday and over 50 baptisms for two or three years in a row. The Lord knew that, and I didn’t. He told me, and then He gave—took that away from him and set me off down to where I am now. All three of my churches blossomed, all because… I am positive that if I hadn’t done what the Lord said in any one of those, I’d be in my grave right now. The Lord will… I’ll be 95 in August. I’m looking forward to 100. I have four invitations to preach on my 100th birthday. Every once in a while, the Lord says, “Tom, Tom,” and I say, “Here am I, Lord. What have You got now?” And boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Okay.

When I finished Bible college in Chattanooga at Tennessee Temple University, I had no idea what it was going to do. I knew I was supposed to preach, but I didn’t know if it was going to be as a missionary or an evangelist. On Tuesdays, we would have these special chapels where all the pastors would go, and the evangelists would go over there, and the evangelists, pastors, and missionaries would go, and all the music people would go. I knew for sure I wasn’t supposed to go to music, but I didn’t know about the others. As soon as I graduated, I went home to visit my mother. The guy who led me to Christ was pastoring the little church there, and I went down to have lunch with him. While we were having lunch, the phone rang, and he went in the bedroom to answer. He came back and smiled and said, “Tom, looks like you’re going out to pastor my church. I just now accepted an invitation in Oklahoma, and I’ll be going out there, and I’m going to arrange for you to come.” Bang! I was pastor of a church. The Lord showed me exactly what to do, but I had no idea what He was going to do. He just said, “Just trust me.” Okay.

I was preaching one day, and there was an old boy—just homely, quiet, and humble. A tremendous young fellow with a wife and two or three children. He came and said, “Brother Wallace, I don’t understand this, but I just feel this: I just feel like the Lord wants me to preach.” I said, “Really? Well, that’s wonderful.” He said, “Yeah, but it scared me. I don’t know about that.” I said, “Well, He’ll do this and this.” Okay. He came to me later. He said, “You know, I got a little group of people that want me to come preach to them. There’s only about a dozen of them, about 20 miles down the road.” He said, “What do you think?” “Well, go down there and give it a try.” So he did. Somebody heard about it, and they called him up into the Adirondack Mountains, right near the Finger Lakes section. He stayed up there 52 years, then retired and went down to Florida and died. That guy just heard the voice of the Lord and just did what He said, and his life was fulfilled. He didn’t have to pastor a big city church of 500 or 1,000. He was so happy with the little congregation that the Lord gave him.

The Lord told me to start a school up in Elkton, Maryland, in 1962. I said, “Lord, I don’t know about a school.” He said, “But I do. He said, if you just let me.” Okay, so we did. We started the school. That school graduated about 25 seniors this year. In 63 years, we’ve had over 1,500 graduates so far. I went down to Louisville, and they didn’t have a school, and I didn’t want my kids in the public school, so we started another school down there. They’re still graduating; they graduated this year too, and they’ve graduated 1,250 some already. Here are about 5,000 kids that have been affected and influenced because the Lord told me to do that. I didn’t know this about it, but He did, and He told me to do that. We started the bus ministry, and somebody said, “Boy, that bus ministry will just cost you everything! The kids will come in, and they’ll write all in your songbooks, and they’ll mark up the walls in the bathrooms, and they’ll just bust this stuff.” And then, “Bus kids!” I said, “No, no, those bus kids—sweet little kids—they just need to hear about Jesus.” We were struggling with money because the guys were right. They did write in their songbooks, and they did write on the wall.

This little lady, Mary Krause, had taught school for 35 years, and her husband Amos had a great big feed mill. He ground up corn and wheat for the farmers in the area. They came and joined our church. She said, “Brother Wallace, you can’t imagine how blessed I am to see all of these boys and girls coming in on the buses. We are just so thrilled that you were doing something to help them.” She said, “Amos and I want to do something about that here.” She handed me a check for $10,000 to help us with the bus ministry. I wrote a little book: It Pays to Have a Bus Ministry. It doesn’t pay in money, but it does pay when you start sending kids off to Bible College and onto the mission field. I flew into Acapulco, Mexico, for a Bible conference and landed at the Juan Alvarez airport. Juan Alvarez picked me up in a limousine and took me to the hotel. I said, “Juan, how did you get them to name the airport after you?” “Oh, not me. Not me, my grandfather, he was president of Mexico.” Juan was 15 years old when I preached in his church in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He came forward and said, “I would like to do that, whatever you’re talking about—getting saved, becoming a Christian.” We helped him get saved. He finished high school, went to Bible College, went to Spain, and he’s still over in Spain. He’s a grandfather now, and he has a great big church in Spain. He has these preachers’ conferences, and he has 25 or 30 other churches looking to him for direction. He’s been there for 40-some years. The Lord was doing that. I couldn’t even talk Spanish. So, okay.

We had a film named Charles Blankenship, who had a big business with earth movers and bulldozers. When we started that school, we got up to the high school level, and we needed a gymnasium, but we didn’t have it. We didn’t have the money to build it; we were putting all the money into everything. Charles said, “I’m going to retire, and we’ll sell my business.” He sold—he auctioned off all these bulldozers and big dump trucks and all this. He came and said, “Preacher, I want to build that gym for you.” He handed me a check for $95,000. That was several years ago, so we were able to build it and pay cash for it. The Lord told him to do it. The Lord told me to do that. The Lord has a way of doing what He’s going to do if I do what He wants me to do, if I’ll just sign the paper and trust Him. Remember Psalm 37: “Fret not because of evildoers, but trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Trust in Him, He says, and believe in Him. We always had faith promise offerings once we understood what it was all about.

I went to a church that had never heard of it, and we started it. I was teaching the people about it. We had a young fellow who came to one of our schools. He arrived at our place with a station wagon loaded up with rocking chairs, the kitchen sink, the mattress, and everything. He had his five kids in there with mom and dad—seven of them all together. He came and said, “Your bus director said if I would come down here, he’d help me find a job, help me find a house, and get me settled. I want to go to your school.” So we found a little house. I started calling people: “Can we borrow a bed off of you? Could you give us a couch? Do you have a stove?” Our people, God bless them, contributed enough, and we got them settled in. He arrived Saturday morning, and by Saturday night, we had their house furnished, and they moved in. He got there right in the middle of our Faith Promise Missionary Conference. The missionaries would say, “Now, what you want to do is get the mind of the Lord. You pray, ‘Lord, how much would You want me to give every week or every month?’ We’ll give you a card, and you put how much on there. You don’t need to sign your name; this is just between you and the Lord.” The Lord doesn’t want you to give what you have; He wants you to trust Him for what He’s going to send you. Robert was his name, and Robert said he understood. He wrote down $5, though he didn’t have five cents. We put him on a bus route and sent him down to the West End in Louisville, the crime-ridden section. He was down there the next week on Saturday morning, going down the street, and he said he was crying and praying, “Lord, tomorrow is Sunday, and I need to have $5. Lord, I don’t have five cents. I know You’re going to supply it because that preacher said You would.” He was looking for a $5 bill laying there. He said in a few minutes, a guy jumped out from behind a building as he went around the corner. The guy stuck a little pistol right in his face and said, “Buddy, look, I’m hurting real bad. I’ve been on drugs, and I’m tormented now. If you’ve got any money, you better get it out of your pocket and give it to me, or I’m getting ready to blow a hole right in the middle of your brain.” He said, “You’ve got to be kidding! Man, listen, I’ve been walking down the streets trying to find $5 for our Faith Promise Missionary offering for tomorrow.” The robber said, “What in the world is that?” He explained to him what a faith promise was. The robber was standing there, hurt and shaking. He said, “Hurry up with that story!” He told him, and the guy said, “Man, I have never heard anything like that in my life. Look, buddy, I just robbed a guy right down the road, and I got a few dollars. Here’s five dollars. Put that.”

If you’ll trust the Lord—now, I’m not going to guarantee He’ll send it by a robber. What would the Lord want me to do? What would the Lord want you to do? Maybe the Lord wants somebody here to teach a Sunday school class. If He brings that up, I’m not interested in trying to talk you into that. I’m not going to be involved in it; He’ll deal with me about what I’m doing. Maybe somebody here needs to join the choir and be regular, come to choir practice. Maybe somebody needs to start a bus route or a van, whatever it is you’re doing. Maybe somebody needs to adopt a kid that needs to go to Christian school and can’t afford it, and maybe you’ll pay the way through it, or maybe send them off to Bible College and let them become a D.L. Moody or a John Rice or a Jack Howells or a Paul Sisgar. One person could do that for some kid who has a call. All we’ve got to do is just write the check here. We’ve got probably a dozen people who could do that. Maybe somebody needs to take on the support of one of your missionaries and make a contribution every month to that missionary through your church program. Maybe God will put it in somebody’s heart to go out here and win a soul to Christ. I was in Indianapolis the first part of the week and preached at a big banquet on Tuesday night. I needed to drive home, and I knew if I waited until daylight, I preached that night and went to the hotel. I went over to a brand new Hampton Inn; it was a real comfortable place. I said, “Lord, now, I need to get home, but if I leave at daylight, I’m going to hit Louisville at traffic time. It’s going to take me an extra hour. That’ll get me to Nashville just at the wrong time; it’ll take me an hour and a half, two hours extra.” I woke up at 4 o’clock, and the Lord said, “Why don’t you get up and go right now? You’d miss both of those.” So, okay. I got up. I went down to the desk, and there was Tyler.

Tyler was normally in the back room asleep because nobody checks out at 4 o’clock; they check out at 6:30, 7, 8 o’clock. He was really going to be busy in a couple of hours, but he was there. I said, “Tyler, I’m going to check out.” “Boy, you’re leaving early.” I said, “Yeah. I want to give you something. I have this little booklet; it says Heaven and Happiness. It’s 21 pages, and it’ll tell you how to go to heaven and how you can be happy for sure.” On the back of it is a little QR code. If you’ll put your phone on it, I’ll come on there and smile and tell you exactly what to do. After you’ve done it, read through the book. By the way, I’m going to bring those books tonight, and I’ll give everybody who wants one a free copy of the book I gave to Tyler. I’ll have them on the back table for you. I said, “Tyler, if you’ll read that in the next couple hours you have and listen to that… By the way, are you going to heaven with me?” He said, “No, I’d like to, but I have no idea how to do it. I would like to do it, but I don’t know how.” I said, “Would you let me pray for you?” He said, “Well, sure.” So I prayed for him. Then I said, “Tyler, why don’t you pray? Ask the Lord to come into your heart.” Tyler prayed. He just grinned his head off and took my book. I didn’t do that; I had prayed before I left, “Lord, if You have anybody out there You want me to talk to, put them in my pathway today.”

I was coming out of Midway, got on the plane, and sat down. I was the first one on the plane because of my age; I was crippled up for about five weeks and started using a wheelchair. I found out if you take a wheelchair, you can get on first. You don’t have to pay the $25 to be among the first 15 on Southwest. It only costs you a $5 tip, and you get 20 minutes to win the guy to the Lord on the way down there. I got on the plane, sat down, and there was a woman sitting in my seat, against the window. I was on the aisle; that’s where I always sit. I said, “Woman, how did you get on here? I didn’t see you get on.” She said, “I came in here from Los Angeles, and they wouldn’t let me get on.” I said, “Well, you have six flights from Los Angeles to Nashville. Why didn’t you catch a direct flight?” She said, “They were all full, and they wouldn’t have sent me up here.” Oh, I said, “What?” She said, “You know, just about three weeks ago my husband died, and it was the most horrible experience I’ve ever had. I got so upset, I got sick and had to go to the hospital, and it was just awful and terrible.” She just dumped on me. I said, “Lady, it sounds to me like you need Jesus to help you with all these troubles you have.” She said, “I sure do need Him. I wish I knew how I could find Him.” I said, “Well, for 75 years, I’ve been helping people get that settled.” I led her to Christ. She thanked me 15 times before we got to Nashville. When we got to Nashville, it was Mary’s birthday.

I said, “Take me over to The Cheesecake Factory, and I’ll buy you a dinner for your birthday.” We got over there, and this beautiful young woman came and said, “Could I take your order?” Her name was Sue. I said, “Sue, do you know what happened to me?” She said, “What?” I told her the story. She started crying. She said, “I sure wish I could get that settled. I’d give anything if I could be a Christian.” They are out there like that if I am ready to say, “Here am I, Lord. You’ve got somebody out there.” I’m not going out there and do it because I… No, no, no. My body is the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in me. I’m not my own; I’ve been bought with a price, so I’m supposed to do what I’m told. I got to put my name on the paper and say, “Lord, put on there what You want.” Maybe He wants you to take a bath, brush your teeth, use some deodorant. He may tell you something sensible like that, okay? He may want somebody here to give up beer drinking. He may want somebody here to quit smoking and killing yourself. He may want somebody here to get free of pornography.

He may be asking somebody here to get baptized because you don’t consider that very important since you got saved. That’s a big, big step. That’s kindergarten on the way to first grade. If you’re ignoring that, you’re not going to go past that until you do it and take care of it. Maybe He’s talking to somebody about moving your church letter and becoming a member of this good church and getting under the preaching of this real good preacher you’ve got. Maybe He wants you to spruce up your prayer life a little bit because it’s on the weak side. Maybe He wants you to increase your Bible study because He said, “Meditate day and night.” Maybe you take 15 minutes or an hour, and we feel pretty good about that, but He said day and night. Maybe He wants you to become a three-times-a-week attendee instead of dropping in on Sunday morning and ignoring Sunday night and Wednesday night. Maybe He’s talking to somebody who wants to get their temper under control. Maybe He wants you to really work on becoming honest. Maybe He wants somebody to develop some integrity and character. Maybe He wants to talk to somebody about dressing modestly. Maybe He wants to talk to somebody who ought to maybe get their negative attitude turned around into a positive and become a good testimony for Christ. On and on and on and on. Maybe He brought something up I never even thought about. I tried to think of things here, but He knows stuff I don’t know. If He’s talking to you about it, would you really like to cooperate? Would you let God be God instead of you? That’s what it amounts to. If you’ll just say, “Lord, whatever You want me to do, if You’ll make it clear.” I’m not interested in talking anybody into anything for your good or your benefit. I want to talk you into something for God’s glory, because you really will benefit.

I went to a meeting up in Maine, and it’s the only time I’ve ever preached on that text right there. I preached, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” I told the congregation, “Before I preach, I want you to decide ahead of time: whatever the Lord tells you to do, you will do it.” You don’t tell me; you don’t tell anybody else, just you and God. I had a multimillionaire sitting out in the second row. He had just built a 7,000-seat auditorium for a missionary friend of mine; he paid for it. He was in the egg business and decided to get out of it. I called up one day and asked the guy, “Is Jack still in the egg business?” “No, he’s got cows now. He has 350,000 cows in Idaho and Montana, milks some twice a day.” The guy said he just bought another big farm. He was sitting out there. I said, “Now, if the Lord tells you to do something…” I preached, and when I got through, I said, “If the Lord has told you to do something and you’re willing to do it, would you get up out of your seat, come and get on your knees, and talk it over with the Lord?” I said, “Don’t tell me and don’t tell anyone. Just talk to the Lord and get the details from Him.” He was the first guy who got up out of his seat and came and got down on his knees. I said, “Man, I’d give my leg or my arm to know what the Lord told him!” I came home and forgot all about it. About 10 days later, I got a call. The secretary said, “Brother Wallace, Jack wants to know what your mailing address is.” I gave him the address. For the next few days, I ran as hard as I could to the mailbox. Finally, there was a letter from him with a check for $5,000. I guess the Lord told him to do it. I never contacted him about it. But I was preparing this…

The Lord said, “Now, Tom, make sure your motive’s right. Why do you want to preach to these people?” I said, “Lord, I talked to the Lord about an hour, making sure my motive is right. I do not want anything. I do not need anything.” Okay, so forget that. But if the Lord wants you to live longer by giving up your liquor, or live longer by getting rid of your anger, I will have done you a favor by telling God He can. I feel like the Lord has spoken to me, and I hope He’s spoken to you. Let’s stand together with heads bowed and eyes closed, and let me pray. Lord, I know You want us to be more than we are. You’re not satisfied with us leveling out and saying we’re as good as the next one. We’re just as good as the rest of them around here. Lord, we know You don’t measure us by the rest of them. We measure by You and Your level, and we’re so far short of that. We know, Lord, You’ve got some little things that You want to talk to some of us about and help us, that we make our minds up right now that we’re going to let You have Your way. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. They’re going to play through a verse of the invitation song. As the music starts, if you’d like to talk with the Lord about whatever’s going on in your heart, would you want to come and find you a little place? Or maybe way down here, you might want to just sit down in your seat and do your praying right there. But you say, “I just want to talk with the Lord about this because He is impressing me with something. I need to move my membership. I need to get baptized. I need to straighten out my prayer life. I need to be a little more faithful to my church and not be just a visitor once in a while.” Would you do what the Lord wants you to do? Our Father, would You help us? Help us as they play, Lord, that You will tell us, “I want you,” and speak to each one of us. We pray, Lord, You’ll help everybody this morning, and we ask it in Your name. Keep your heads bowed, if you will. While the pianist is playing and people are coming, we’ll have prayer. We will not meddle in what you’re talking to the Lord about unless you need counsel and say so. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? Arise and go, and it shall be told thee.” Leave your place and come down, and it will be told you in detail what I want you to do. While these are praying, would you join us as the songleader comes to lead us in another verse of the invitation song? Number 300, if you need it in your hymnal, we’re just going to sing this song, “Have Thine Own Way.”

Original File: Brother Tom Wallace ＂The Lord wants me to do this＂ - Sunday AM 05⧸4⧸2025 [XxY63LlDtrQ]