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[ Silence ] ♪ You'd me love ♪ ♪ You'd me in your service ♪ ♪ Drive me nearer ♪

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♪ Yeah, every day ♪ ♪ If I'm willing ♪ ♪ Lord to run on ♪ ♪ All the way ♪

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♪ If I'm faltering ♪ [MUSIC] Lord, don't be angry. [INAUDIBLE]

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Lord, just let me stay. [INAUDIBLE] You know that I'm willing. [INAUDIBLE]

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All the way. All the way. ♪ All the way ♪ ♪ Lord, I'm willing ♪

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♪ Lord, to run ♪ ♪ All the way ♪ ♪ If I should fall down, yeah Lord ♪ ♪ While I'm trying ♪

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♪ Lord, don't get angry ♪ ♪ Please let me sing ♪ ♪ For unwilling ♪ ♪ Lord to run ♪

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♪ Loveries step of the way ♪ ♪ Named by heartaches ♪ ♪ I've been scarred by my close loved ones ♪ ♪ Just a little bit of sunshine ♪

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♪ I'm a wreck ♪ ♪ I'm a wreck ♪ ♪ Now and then ♪ There are mountains in my life so hard to climb.

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But I promise, yes I did one day, that God, that I will keep on climbing. Yeah, give me but just a little. Let, let me stay.

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♪ Quiet willow ♪ ♪ Lord ♪ ♪ Toronto ♪ ♪ Library ♪

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♪ Step away ♪ - Amen. Amen. Amen.

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Amen. Amen. I'm willing to run all the way. I want to tell you, Dr. Rector did not stay down.

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Lord lifted him up. And he wrote that song. He wrote another song as he was driving one night. He said, "There is a hand I can see, leading me."

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I stand up for the right in the hardest of the fight, there's a hand I can see leading me. That was an awful night when he had to go home and he said scorn pain by heartaches, I'm scorned by loved ones. We got a whole lot of songwriting today but they're not coming out of personal experience. Dr. Rector said just a little sunshine, just now and then. And when you

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think about having no church in eight sure and he said that's a mountain in my life. My, my, my, my, my, my. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

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Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hallelujah. If you're lonely. Just let me stay.

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That's all he asks, "Just let me stay." Hallelujah, hallelujah. My, my, my, my, my, my, my. Hallelujah. [Chorus singing] That ought to be our testimony. Because not only W.I. Rector, but some of us here can say pain by heartache.

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Somebody here knows what it means to be scorned by loved ones. But we're determined to go on, as the old folks say, and see what the end's gonna be. And I'm a living believer that God's got something for us. We're at the moment of preaching, And I would like to ask Dr. L.B. Moss to present our speaker. Dr. Moss.

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Thank you very much, Brother President. But I really don't feel that I can adequately introduce the speaker of this hour. However, I have known him and have known of him even long before he came to the state of California. I first heard of Dr. J. Raymond Henderson when he was pastoring the great Wheat Street

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Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. And then when he was in the state of New York, I also heard about him. And the very first Sunday, shortly after the first Sunday, that he came to the great Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles,

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I heard about him. And from that time until this time, I have admired him and have had the greatest respect and love for him as a gentleman and also as a Christian minister.

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I've told my wife on many occasions of the humility Dr. Henderson and I'm referring now to 1945 I believe when we drove from Los Angeles to Detroit Michigan to the National Baptist Convention. There were two cars and I've told my wife on many occasions that our Dr. Henderson would

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ask us whether we were thirsty not offered to get water and the fact is he assumed almost the position of a humble servant. And I thought that was extraordinary for a man of his caliber and one in his position.

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Dr. Henderson is a great man in his own right. You heard our president say last night how extensively he has traveled, and that is true. And I know that he has learned much that he is able to tell us

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and to help everyone to whom may have the opportunity and privilege of hearing him as a result of his great experience. Now, Dr. Hennesson is a great gospel preacher

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and he's also an author. And I think that we are privileged to hear him and we commend our president for inviting him here. And so without any other attempt and introduction,

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or any preliminary remarks, I want to present to you and introduce to some the great Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles. And I think, Doctor, it would be fine if we all stand.

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- Amen. (organ music) [Bells ringing] President Hill, officers, members, and friends of this convention,

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I don't know anything that could be more pleasing to me at this time of my life than to have received the invitation to come and to deliver the message to you at this hour. When Jacob was a very old man,

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he apparently thought that God had just about given him everything he was going to get him. And then God blessed him again. And Jacob's response was, "Lord, thou hast just begun to show me thy favor." In other words, I thought that everything that was good had already happened to me.

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And sometimes I have thought that 1978 will be a great year for me. For it was in 1978 that Mount Olivet Baptist Church in New York City invited me there to deliver the message for the 100th anniversary of their church. [laughter]

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All the way to New York. [laughter] One message. [laughter]

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My wife accompanied me. [laughter] And oh, what an experience it was. [laughter]

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The only man left living who had had any relationship with the Church as a pastor during its history, and mine was in the capacity of assistant pastor. Two weeks ago, the LA District Association honored me in having me to come over and preach before them. And then along came Brother Hill.

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And that sort of put the icing on the cake. And he doesn't know, and I have no way to tell him what a tremendous pickup it was for my spirit for him to call me and invite me and my wife for this hour.

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I told him that when I looked at him in operation last night, I told my wife, I said, "The Convention may not need Brother Hill for president, but he needs somebody very much like him. [laughter] So, unless you're going to do much better, maybe it would be just as well to keep him.

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[laughter] I like to see a man who's president act like president. I'm very grateful to be here. And now, he said something else to me.

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He said, "That group that I'm head of, "is a good preaching group." He said, "They get a little noisy sometimes." It reminded me of what the late M.L. King, Jr. said.

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He said he was preaching at Sandy Ray's church in Brooklyn, and Sandy accused him of hooping. [laughter] And he said, "Brother Joe, I wasn't hooping." He said, "The people were hollering so loud, I had to holler to see what I was talking about."

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[laughter] So I don't mind the audience being a little noisy. All I'm asking of you is that don't drive me faster than I can go. [laughter]

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I want to talk with you on a theme that I hope will be appropriate. And I think when you come together at meetings of this sort, that if and when it's possible, you ought to try to be appropriate. You ought not to preach just an ordinary sermon that you preach anywhere,

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Sunday morning congregation. But see if you can visualize your audience and preach to them where they are and taking into account who they are. This is not always easy.

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Whether I do anything with it or not, I got the right text. And I got the right subject. In the third chapter of our Lord's Gospel by Mark, in the fourteenth verse you will find these words,

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"Jesus called twelve to be with him and to be sent forth to preach. That has a great deal to do with you, preachers, and you missionary workers. And in a certain way it has a great deal to do with all of us who are called by his name.

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And I want to talk with you on our magnificent calling, C-A-L-L-I-N-G, calling. The man who writes a book on homiletics says that it's always good, if possible, to make your message relevant. Make it say something to this generation and to the crowd that's in front of you. He also says that you ought to try to preach sermons that give the people the impression that you want them to do something about what you're talking.

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[Audience chatter] Don't just leave it hanging out there dangling in the air, but they leave there feeling that the man challenged us. Now, I don't believe that I'm going to measure up to that too well.

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But the thing that I want to do, I want to make every minister go back to his pulpit who has one, those who do not have them, when you get a chance to preach. I want you to feel glad that you were called. [Audience "Amens"]

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And if I can do that, I'll accomplish something. Now, of course, I cannot do that without rehearsing in your hearing. What a wonderful thing it is to have been called. >> Yes.

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>> All right. >> And I wonder if you have taken time to marshal the thing But I've tried to do it for this occasion. Jesus called twelve to be with him and to be sent out to preach.

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Oh, what a magnificent calling we have. You know the meaning of the word magnificent, of course. Something that is splendorous. Something that is wonderful.

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Something that is above and beyond the ordinary. Something that sort of grips you and picks you up and makes you feel to hear us something that is special. >> Yes, all right.

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>> That's what we're talking about. >> Yes, sir. >> I want to come immediately to the body of my message. >> Oh.

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>> A calling is magnificent. >> Yes, sir. >> In the first place, because of who expanded the call. >> Yes, sir.

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>> Yes, sir. >> Did you ever stop to think of the attitude that men take toward the President of the United States? >> Yes, sir.

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>> When he becomes President. >> Mm-hmm. >> Right. >> He can get anybody in this country.

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that he wants. He goes up to Harvard and he takes the head of the School of Law. He goes over to Yale and he takes the head of the Department of Economics. He goes over to General Motors, where the president makes over a million dollars a year

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and takes the president away, brings him down to Washington, and he's glad to serve for one dollar a year. Why? I went to New York during the time that L.B. Johnson was president, and I went to see Dr.

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Nabrit, the son of the late Dr. Nabrit of National Baptist Convention fame. I went to see him. Don't tell me to come on, because I-- just let me come on.

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[LAUGHTER] You know, you-- I have a sense of humor. And every now and then when I find out anything,

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it has burst out. I didn't know I was going to say that. [LAUGHTER] Seriously, I went to see him.

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And I said, Dr. Nabors, what are you doing here? He said, "Man, LBJ told me that I had to come and work for him as the representative in the United Nations." And he said, "I told him I couldn't come."

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And he said, "I'll come down and meet your faculty and the board of trustees and let them know that I need a man like you. And he said, what could I do?

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And now it is looked upon as a tremendous something-- Yes. True. True.

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True. Yes. --to have the president of the United States of America desire your service and say, come to Washington.

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I want you. I want to send you to the court of King James as an ambassador, or to Norway, or to Sweden, or what have you. Now, if men become excited and think

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that it is grand to work upon summons with the President of the United States. How much more? How much more should you and I be glad that he called us? Well, you see, he is not the President of the United States. He's the Lord of Lords. He's the king of kings.

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He's the one that is altogether lovely. And it's a call to a wonderful association. Isn't it good, as you look back over your life, to have had the opportunity to associate It was some great men and women.

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Isn't it good? A number of you sit right here today, and you are what you are because of the ones with whom you came along. And so it's magnificent because of who extended the call.

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And then in this magnificent in the second place because of the ones to whom the call was extended. He wasn't talking to a group of PhDs from Harvard. And I'm not laying down education.

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He wasn't talking to a group of politicians, nor men who were high up in the industrial world. He was talking to humble men, ordinary men, fishermen, men who were tax collectors. There wasn't one there who was a great, towering personality.

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All of them came from the ranks of the humble and ordinary. And that's the thing that makes the call magnificent. He called you one day. And you were way down in Mississippi.

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But he called you. And they never would have heard from you. If he hadn't called you. [laughter]

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Call me. Out of there. - There. [ Silence ]