Jerry Leachman spoke at our BCC Breakfast at The Country Club of Birmingham.

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Richard: I’m going to introduce our speaker in kind of an unusual way. I’m going to tell you my history with Jerry Leachman.  I consider Jerry to be a good friend today. We don’t get to see each other that often because he lives in Colorado, but we literally go back 50 years. I did the math on this. It was February of 1971, and I was a junior in high school and I went to a ski trip up in North Carolina with Young Life. I think we had maybe an extra day off or something, but it was a real quick trip up there and they brought in two speakers who played football at the University of Alabama. I remember Ken Deaton and this guy, Jerry Leachman. And the one thing I remember about that talk is that Jerry just had a real way with words, a real unusual way of speaking, and then I say that in a very positive manner, and I never forgot it. But we didn’t meet or anything, but I just heard him speak. That was ’71. Fast forward about 12 years. I was back here in Birmingham working. I worked as a volunteer leader with Young Life and Jerry did as well. He and his wife, Holly and we both were married to Hollys, I got to know him, but not really well. We were laughing the other night about a skit that I was in with John Bradford, but I knew Jerry then and he was coaching football here with the local high school, and then the next thing I know, Jerry was gone. I heard that Jerry and Holly had moved to Washington. And so, I kind of concluded, I probably won’t ever see him again. And go forward about 20 years later to 2002, 2003. I get an invitation from Luther Strange to come up to The Club on a Saturday morning to hear Brit Hume and Fred Barnes, who were big deals with Fox News at the time. They were going to come up and share their testimony. And I was fans of both of them, and I thought, I’d love to hear that. So I go, they get up and share, and I didn’t realize, the keynote speaker that morning was Jerry Leachman. I hadn’t seen him in 20 years. And Jerry had had a real impact on these men’s lives. He had just really a flourishing ministry in Washington with the people in the news business. He did some chaplaincy work with the Washington Redskins. God had really blessed his work up in Washington DC, and I had no idea where he’d been.

And so afterwards I chatted with him for just a minute. I remember telling Luther, we have to get him to Birmingham to speak at these Breakfasts that we have at the Birmingham Country Club. And so, we were able to get him down and it was the fall of 2004, and Jerry, I went back yesterday and looked at all the CDs that we have of the talks you’ve given. The first talk he gave in 2004 was “Making your Life Count.” And it was very powerful, and we’ve had him come down ever since. I think he’s probably spoken 13 or 14 times. He hadn’t been here in the last three or four years. We had COVID, he’s had some health issues that I think he’s probably going to share with you, but we were just thrilled to be able to get him back in Birmingham. And I think that the fact this place was really sold out, I think is an indication of the real following he has. And if you haven’t heard him speak, and I’m sure a number of you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. The way I like to describe Jerry is he knows how to speak into men’s lives, so, with that, Jerry, come on up.

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Jerry: Morning, men. He was just trying to tell me when to end the talk and shut up. We’ll just see how that works out. You know, Richard thinks he’s an encourager. I don’t. Right before I got up here, he said, look, don’t try to be overly intellectual or funny, just be yourself, Jerry.

You know, I’m not supposed to be here. I just had a quadruple bypass at the Texas Heart Institute. And they told me, cancel everything till January. And I said, yeah, right. But, this is the only one I kept beause I wanted to come back here and see all my homeboys. It’s just great to see you guys. It’s great to be in the south. I grew up in Alabama. I live in Colorado, but Alabama is my home. And I just can’t tell you what it means for me to be here. You know, I want to do something now just to kind of shake it up and get it going a little bit. When travel was on, I still travel to Washington once a month and there are different people that I meet with there. Some are journalists, some are just groups, but one of them is in a place called Middleburg. I don’t know if you know about Middleburg, Virginia. The Mellon steel magnate family from Pittsburgh has an estate there and they basically built the stone church and so they have estates in Middleburg, kind of, not so much houses. They all think they’re from England and they ride English style horses. Brit Hume calls it the biggest tweed coat competition in America in Middleburg. And we started a men’s group out there. There wasn’t anything for men to meet, never had been as far as we knew. And, we did it at a retreat ground that Glen Youngkin the guy that just got the governorship of Virginia. You probably followed that on TV. Glenn’s a follower of Jesus. He loves Christ. He’s not ashamed. He’s what I call a witnessing Christian. He’s not ashamed to mention the name of Christ. And I teach my guys that. Put Jesus on the scoreboard, say the name, say it, don’t say the good Lord or any of that, say it, Jesus.

He said, if My Name be lifted up, I’ll draw all men to Myself; but you’ve got to get him on the scoreboard guys.

And, anyway, this thing before COVID was just, we got up to a hundred guys and it was about to just kind of explode and then travel was off, but during the time, I think I did it two years before COVID hit, two or three, flying back every month. There was this big Italian guy. And I mean, he was right out of The Godfather, and he would always sit in that table right over there. And he’d always come in a little late. I noticed some men would kind of look at him like that when he walked in. Top button was open, gold chain, big guy, black thick Italian hair. And he sat there for a year and he never spoke to me. He just did like that when he was listening to me. And then when it was over, he’d leave. Well, the May talk, we adjourned for summer. He comes up to me. Now, you know, when you speak, a lot of people that will come by and say, hi, or that meant something to me, or, you know, they, they just want to just give you a greeting and a word, and he was off to the side, and he waited until everybody was through. And then he came up and you know, Italian people, I think it’s called an erogenous zone or something, but there’s a distance where people, if they get inside that, you’re uncomfortable. And some people habitually do that. And you feel their little spit hitting your lips. It’s gross and Italians do it. And he came up and he was inside the zone, but I wasn’t going to mess with Vito. His name’s Vito Germani. How you doing? And I thought I was talking to Don Corleone. Well no, he was talking to me. He said, “here’s the deal.” He always goes “here’s the deal.” “I’ve been sitting under your teaching for nine months. I’m a Catholic from New Jersey. This has completely changed my life. I mean, completely. It’s changed my family’s life. I go home and tell them the things I learned from you. Now, I want you to know if I can ever do anything for you,” I mean, I’m really stiffening up, looking back, and he did like that, and he said, “I mean anything.”

And then he just nodded, I thought anything. He said, “I said anything”.

“Well, I don’t like Joey. How about Joey?”

“How about Joey just moves to Florida next week?”

“Where’s Joey?”

“He’s in Florida. Okay?”

So, the next September, when we started again, I started what I call the Vito greeting. Now it’s a tradition. The men would rebel and they wouldn’t listen to my talk unless we didn’t do the Vito greeting because Christ rebuked people for the lack of hospitality. When I came to your house, you didn’t anoint my head with oil. You didn’t wash my feet. That sounds pretty Italian right there doesn’t it? And I tell you, these Italians, they do mean business.

When I was with the Redskins, the biggest frustration we had back in that day is we could never beat the Giants. They were actually good back then. And we just couldn’t beat them. We were always chasing the Giants. One day, I went to a funeral up in New York City, but it was in Brooklyn. It was across the river and there was Manhattan. And it was an Italian funeral, you know, in one of those Mafia cemeteries where they had the things above, you know, the crypts above ground, stuff like that.

And then I realized why we couldn’t beat the Giants. They’re really from New Jersey, the Meadowlands is in New Jersey, it’s not in New York. And I read this gravestone in New Jersey in the Italian cemetery and carved right in the marble it said, “What are you looking at?” I thought, these guys are just tougher than we are. Anyway, Vito would come up with this greeting and he would say, “Hey, who’s better than you, huh?” And I love this greeting. I think it’s such a people building greeting. And then they get in an argument about it. “Only you.” “No, no, you.” “No, only you!” And they do that. I want to take a minute and let you guys show each other some hospitality Vito Italian style. Get up, shake hands with guys around you, give me some good accents, some good attitude. Hey, who’s better than you. And get in a fight about it. Let’s go. 60 seconds.

[Crowd noise and chatter]

All right guys. Good job! Capiche! I’m going to read the Bible to you quite a lot this morning. Don’t you love the Bible. It sheds so much light on all the commentaries floating around out there. And I would title the name of this talk, “A Second Touch”. I’ve been praying on the floor in the shape of a cross. My mentor told me to get on the floor and put my head right down on the floor and get in the shape of a cross. And that’s the way I pray. Some of you should be hitting the floor in the shape of a cross. It’s a good place to be. And I’ve been praying, and hundreds of people are praying for every man, everybody who can hear this message today, because it’s a message I’ve been told by God to give you. And it’s a message from a dead man.

Five years ago, I had a heart attack and I died. When I went to Colorado, my new cardiologist was reading my medical report. And you said, you experienced sudden death. I’d never read the report. I said, what’s that mean? He said, uh, you died suddenly. Oh, well, yeah. I made a C in chemistry. I’m with you. You know, I thought I was doing pretty good that day. I’d had a physical two weeks before and they said, man, you’re getting older, but you’re still kind of like a Marine in your core and everything, and you’re in great shape for your age. Then, two weeks later, I thought I was having a heart attack and I mean; I didn’t know I was having a heart attack. I thought I had like indigestion or something. I call Holly, go, hey, where are the Tums? She told me. She was teaching a group of women at Arlington, and she said the Holy Spirit literally told her, you get home right now. And she stopped in the middle of her message to all these women, just came running through the door, saw me slumped over the dining room table and dialed 911. I’m a guy. I wasn’t going to dial 911. I was just going to be fine.

My generation; shut up, suck it up. Don’t quit. Keep going. You’ll be fine. Anybody ever heard that in your lifetime? Like, every day? Yeah. She called 911. Paramedics came in and he said, do you feel like have a dagger going in your heart or an elephant sitting on top of you? I said, a dagger. And they put me in the ambulance. I was hooked up to everything. And then I couldn’t see. And people say, did the Holy Spirit speak to you when you were in the ambulance? It did. But it was kind of weird. It didn’t sound like what you thought from the Bible it might sound like or something. I heard the voice of the Lord say, “Calm your spirit.” And I literally, my other side of my brain said, “That’s it? Calm my spirit? But I obeyed. And I just calmed myself. And what I was trying to come to terms with was, I can’t believe this. I’ve been talking about this to people all over the world for so many years. And I’m up to bat today. It was hard to change gears and come to terms with that. And then, when I got into the emergency room, there is a doctor named Dr. Geloo, and he’s an airborne ranger. He’s the man on the east coast. He didn’t even work at this hospital. He was over there training the other surgeons. But when he saw me come out of that ambulance, he knew exactly who I was and what my deal was by looking. And he began to disrobe. A lot of other doctors said, man, Geloo’s going to work on this guy. And I probably had five docs in there. Plus, all the staff, probably 10 people in there working on me. Because I prayed in the ambulance, God, would you give me favor when I get to the hospital?

And I don’t know what that means, but I’ll take your favor any way it comes. And I couldn’t say, but I could hear, I remember hearing one doctor said to the other doctor, this man has no anxiety. Cause you got everything hooked up to you. And then, before I knew it, I wasn’t here anymore. I wasn’t in this land. Some people call this the land of the living. I call it the land of the dying because we’re all going to die. And I’m going to talk to you about death today, heaven. And I’m going to talk to you about hell, because this was the message given to me. I was in the presence of Christ and I was not in this realm anymore. That’s when I went straight-line, and I was led over to look down a solid black crevasse that was endless. And I was told, you are now on the edge of eternity. You’re looking over the edge of eternity and that’s hell. The interesting thing about it, when I was in wherever I was, I wasn’t in the heaven part where you stay and rejoice forever. I was somewhere in transition. And it wasn’t my day to go all the way to the heaven where we’re going to rejoice forever. I was brought there for a brief reason.

And here’s the message that Jesus told me to tell people still here in the land of the dying. You can’t get this part wrong. You can’t get this part wrong.

You can’t get this part wrong. And I thought, everybody in the world’s going to be right here where I am one day. And you know what? I was alone. Holly wasn’t with me. I’ve known some of you guys since I was young; you weren’t with me. Dr. Barker, my teacher in the Bible, he wasn’t, nobody was with me. It was just me. Now what if it was just me without Christ? I’d be in hell. Somebody said to me, not too long ago, well, I don’t believe in hell. I said, well, you won’t be there three seconds before you entirely change your mind. You can’t get this wrong guys.

Now these prayers that you’ve prayed in the past to accept Jesus, if there’s no true repentance, if there’s no desire to change teams, change jerseys, they don’t take. Christianity is not something we do. It’s someone we become.

My heart went out again and they told me you’re down to days and I was rushed to the Texas Heart Institute two months ago. When they went in, they thought it’d be a double bypass and the whole thing was a train wreck. It was a quadruple bypass. And I was just a few hours away from crossing the line again. Now I’ll tell you at this point in my life, just not a whole lot upsets me. I mean, if you die and come back. Somebody said when we sold our house in DC, what are your fears? Moving to Colorado? I said, fears. I died and came back. I mean, what you got?

I want to read a scripture to you that that Jesus taught. Many scholars think this was a literal story because he uses a proper name in here. All the other parables, there was a man, there was a woman. This one, he names the guy, and many scholars said, they think this was a literal story, not a parable. It’s in Luke 16. It says, “Now there was a rich man. He habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at the gate, covered with sores, longing to be fed with the crumbs that were falling from the rich man’s table. Besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died was carried away by the angels to heaven, and the rich man also died and he was buried. In hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.” Jesus spoke about hell more than anybody in the Bible.

Don’t be disappointed that you came here to hear a message from God rather than to be just entertained. I’m funny and you all know I could do standup comedy for an hour, but this right here ain’t funny. I’m telling you this because I love you, men. I love this place. I love Richard and Richard, your Dad is not here anymore. I’m going to step up. I’m proud of you. That’s from your dad.

This guy dies and wakes up in hell. And he says, being in torment, he saw the Abraham far away Lazarus in his bosom. He cried out and said, father Abraham have mercy on me. Send Lazarus that he may dip his finger in water and cool off my tongue for I am in agony at this flame. He still thinks he can boss this poor guy around. But Abraham said, child, remember, in your life, you received your good things and likewise, Lazarus, bad things. But now he’s being comforted here. You’re in agony, besides, all this between us and you, there’s a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able. None can cross that line from there to us. He said, I beg you father, that you send him to my father’s house for I have five brothers that they may warn him so that they will also not have to come to this place of torment. But Abraham said, no, they have Moses and the prophets, that’s the Bible. He said, no, but if they say someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to them, they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, the holy scriptures, they won’t be persuaded if someone rises from the dead.

You know, in this story, there’s something terrifying in it for me. I had a woman who spoke seven languages in Washington. And I asked her to do a word study for me because she loved doing stuff like that. She’d lived in Israel for years and I said, Jesus used two words, “lost” and “perish”. Would you do a word study for me? I’m not quite sure the difference. And she did. Lost means you’re still alive. The clock is still running. You still have time to get this right. Now, you need to understand, what I’m talking to you about today is a second touch for all of you. If some of you men have never meant business for Christ, I want you to do it now. I’ll beg you to do it. I’ll get on my knees right there. Some of you men have professed Christ most of your life, you need a second touch.

When I hit my mid-fifties, I had kind of an existential crisis. Like, you know, I’m going to be a lifer in the ministry. It’s too late for me to start another career. I don’t even have a resume. And I was going up to visit a guy I’d been mentoring in Baltimore on Young Life staff and I remember praying on I-95. I said, Lord, you know that guy in the Bible, you touched him. And then he could see, but he said, everything kind of looks like trees. And you touched him again and then he could really see, clearly. I need a second touch. I’m in, I’m all in for as much as I could be. But if you would just touch me again and let me know that there really is a Jesus. If there’s not, I’ve wasted my life, that this is real.

And that’s what I prayed. When I got to Johns Hopkins, they rolled Dave Meeks out, the Young Life guy. I was his Paul. He was my younger Timothy. They said, he’s about to shut down. You need to take his last word. So I had a yellow notebook pad and a pen. I thought he’d say, well, look out for Tracy and the kids. And could you, you know, all that. When they rolled him out, his head was kind of down and his eyes are closed. And I asked the staff, could you just leave us alone? And they said, yeah. And he looked up at me. I said, Dave, do you have anything to tell me? There’s a saying in Russia. And I don’t know the English word for it, but it’s when somebody looks through your eyes, into your soul. Have you ever had anybody look at you and go, my gosh, they’re looking right into my soul?

It was that look from his wheelchair. And he said, “Jerry, it’s all real. Jesus, Heaven. It’s real.”

I said, have you had any communication with the other side? He did his head just like that. That’s the last thing he ever said. I got my second touch. I’m here to offer you guys a second touch from the Lord. Those of you that have been walking with Christ and you’re starting to coast. Oh no, you need to cross the finish line with your rear end on fire. Really? Most men, when they die and I’ve done a lot of funerals, all they die with are souvenirs and trophies. That’s it.

When I walked in, we went to practice at Alabama yesterday and they had all of Mal Moore’s rings and watches he’d gotten in his whole lifetime and there must have been a hundred rings and watches for seasons and championships and this, that, and the other, souvenirs and trophies. But I’ll tell you this. The last time I was with Mal, we huddled up in his office and prayed down Jesus on his heart and he began to weep. He died with more than just souvenirs and trophies. What’s your legacy going to be?

Here’s another thought: were you trying to scare us? Yeah. Hell yeah. Hell scares the hell out of me. You’re weak. Yeah, that’s right. I sometimes I have guys try to make a hero out of me, and I got a lot of cards from people before my operation this year and they said, you got this Leachman, you’re a tough guy. I got what? Quadruple bypass, it’s like, you’re standing there looking at birds flying around and you look that way, wham, a locomotive just hit you. I got nothing. I was completely at the mercy of God. The prayers of God’s people and the prayers of my family.

The second scripture I want to read to you today. Jesus said this. Be aware, be on your guard against every form of greed. Be on your guard against every form of greed for not even when one has an abundance, does his life consist of his possessions. And he said a parable. There was a land of a rich man who was very productive, and he began reasoning to himself saying, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll tear down my barns. I’ll build larger ones. And then I’ll save myself, so you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, thou fool. Now, why did I just raise my voice here? Because in the original language, that word is so strong, it borders on a curse word. Thou fool. It was like that. Fool. Living for this temporary crap.

By the way, I was flat broke when I was in the presence of the Lord. I didn’t have anything. I didn’t have a house in Colorado. I didn’t have nothing; just me standing there naked in front of God. He said, this very night, your soul will be required of you. And now who will own what you have. So it is with the man who stores up treasure for himself in heaven but is not rich in the things of God.

Check your heart for a second touch today, guys. You may be professing Christ, but you’re not showing up. I was taught this: chase after Christ and men will chase after you. How many of you are chasing after Christ? I’m not talking about showing up at church; chasing after Christ.

You know, Fred Barnes called me one time and he said, I need to talk to you. And we had lunch on a beautiful sidewalk cafe in Washington. And he said, I once heard you say, if you chase after Christ, men will chase after you. I said, yeah, that’s true. He said, well, I’ve seen that in your life. And he said, please don’t be offended, but I’m rich and famous. You’re not. I said, well, he said, nobody chases after me. I said, well, Fred, go back to the axiom. Are you chasing after Christ? And he began to cry and he said, no, I’ve gone to church all my life, but I don’t chase after Christ. I really don’t.

Some of you are going to be touched today. You’re going to humble yourself today. And the Holy Spirit’s going to put his hand on your head. So, you chasing after Christ? You mean business? Are you going to chase him with or without anybody? What kind of man are you? What kind of friend are you? It’s not what kind of Christian are you? It’s what kind of friend are you to Christ? He chased after you. Fred said, I’m too far gone to learn how to talk about the Gospel like you do. Could I have a minister introducing you to every journalist in Washington? I said, Fred, that would work. It’s a team sport. It’s not golf, Christianity football. Everybody’s got their position to play. That’s how we had a revival, basically at Fox News. Brit went to church all his life, but he didn’t come alive for Christ until he got in that group because Fred drug him in.

And I remember telling them, put Christ on the scoreboard. Even if you’re on national or international TV, don’t force it like a jerk. But if it’s appropriate, put Him on the scoreboard. After Tiger Woods had his catastrophe, they Peggy Noonan, Brit and all those guys were on a panel. What’s Tiger’s next move? And everybody said, and Brit was last. He said, Tiger needs to give his life to Jesus Christ. There’s no concept of grace and mercy in Buddhism. And all hell rained down on him. I was out in California going to the Rose Bowl with my son. We got money out of savings because I said, they’ll never get back in the championship in my lifetime. Well, who knew, but we were playing golf with buddies I speak to out there, their men’s group, and my phone rang and it was Brit. I picked it up. He said, well, I’m the player on the field. You’re the coach. You told me to put Jesus on the scoreboard. Now all hell’s breaking loose. What’s the next play coach? I said, Brit, I’m backed up on a par three. I cannot talk to you. And you don’t even want to know what came through the phone line after that. I said, Brit, what’s Roger Aile think about it? He thinks it’s funny.

I said, I got one thing to say to him. Do you think you’re going to regret being courageous for Christ on judgment day? And he was silent. He said, no. Maybe I finally got one thing right in my life, putting Christ on the scoreboard. And he does it now every chance he gets, unashamed. Are you ashamed of the Lord?

Now I want to turn the page here and finish with this. Jesus finished that parable, so it is he who is not rich in the things of God. How do you become rich in the things of God, fruit in your life?

You know, the first fruit in your life, the stewardship. Every man I’ve counseled stops growing when you get to this issue of stewardship. Whose stuff is it? Is it your stuff? Or is it God’s stuff? And they’ll get stuck right there, which proves they’re just going to die with trophies and souvenirs. Once you realize all your stuff is God’s, your life will change. You’ll have a spirit of generosity. You’ll even have an attitude; I can’t believe I get to give like this. People will try to thank you. Go, no, you don’t get it. I can’t even believe I have money to give like this, it’s my privilege. What did Christ give for me? Stewardship. It’s not yours. To achieve stewardship you have to choose. You have to achieve meekness. Men don’t like that word. What’s it rhyme with? Weakness. Nope. Meekness is the great racehorse, Secretariat. They called it Big Red. This thing was a giant. Its heart weighed 38 pounds. Won the triple crown. The third leg, it was running away. Had the track been another quarter mile, it would have run even further away. But that horse was meek. You know why? It let a little 135-pound jockey ride it, guide it. Take the bit, guys, like Secretariat. Take the bit and let Jesus guide you around the track. That’s meekness.

You’ll never achieve the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life if you don’t achieve meekness.

There are three forms of fruit. One is from within. Your thinking changes, the way you see things change, your affections change. They change. You didn’t just pray a prayer to receive Jesus and you’re the same. No, those don’t take, sorry. You may need to pray another one but put the jersey on and get out on the field for Christ. Hit somebody.

You know, when I knew I was changed? I got back from the Young Life ranch in Colorado, back to Alabama, football season. There I was at the ATO house, partying. This girl got drunk. You know how some people; you can just look at them and tell they have pedigree. They came from a fine family. She had that look and she started taking her clothes off on the stage, and she got down to a bra and her underwear. And I began to grieve. Now the year before, I’d go hurry up before the president gets in here and stops this. I began to grieve. I thought that’s somebody’s little baby. They baptized her. Everybody came over to the house after church and had balloons on the mailbox. Uh, I began to see women as mothers, sisters, and children. I had changed. I walked out of the ATO house and just went back to the Atorm and just went to bed.

That was a fruit inside me. Now I had a beer and a cigarette in my hand. If you just looked at me, you’d go, he’s the same, but I wasn’t. I changed inside. First things. Your attitude from within. The second kind of fruit is your habits change. I stopped cheating in school. I was a great, I was a world-class cheater. I didn’t even think of it as a sin. I just thought who’s stupid. Who’s dumb. I can outsmart the professors. And my Bible leader said, that’s stealing. I said, what? You know? So, I stopped cheating. I stopped looking at dirty stuff. Didn’t have the Internet back then, but you could still get dirty stuff, but I stopped it because I began to view women differently.

Now I’m going to tell you something. I began to pray. My whole life is centered around prayer now. James five says this and I want you to get this. “The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah, a man of like passions prayed and it stopped raining for three days. He prayed again. It started raining.” Like passions. So, I’m glad they put that in there. We tend to deify these prophets, but James one says, if you lack anything, pray, ask the Lord. But if you’re double-minded, a double-minded man should not expect anything from the Lord.

Now, may I say this to you as your coach this morning, those of you that have secrets, the Bible permits us to have a private life, but not a secret life. Those of you that have secrets, see, here’s the deal. When I think of those naked girls in the pornography, I think of my granddaughter who’s at Colorado State University as a sophomore. She’s beautiful. All my granddaughters are beautiful. I think of Holly, I think every woman I love, and I thought that could be them. Those girls in these images, that’s somebody’s daughter, and somebody’s granddaughter. Is it okay for me for my grand-kids to be in that pornography thing? Hell no. Go ahead. Write me down for cussing. I don’t care. I mean that literally. No. Jesus said whatever measure you give will be the measure you get.

So I’ve given up my sex life so I can pray powerful prayers that God will answer. James says, don’t let the double-minded man think he’s going to receive anything.

I hope you get a second touch.

Let me close with a couple of thoughts for you. The last kind of fruit is where you begin to have an impact on others. I remember when I started having a prayer list, it was my teammates in my freshmen class. One of them, Lanny Norris is sitting right there. He roomed with a guy named Robin Parkhouse, who we were scared of. He was on the Alabama team, but we were scared of him. I had all my teammates in my prayer book and he walked into my room one day and he said, what’s that? I said, that’s my prayer list. My small group leader said I needed to start praying for all my teammates.

He said, who’s number one. I said, you. He is the most broken, humble man of God that I have ever known these days. It’s like our whole freshmen class, Johnny Musso, Lanny Norris, they have all come to Christ. We have an email link. It’s basically a prayer chain thing. And we tell each other, we love each other. That just wouldn’t have happened when we were 19 years old.

But I wanted to close by letting you know, I think this is my legacy, and I’m red hot about this. I don’t have secrets so I can have power in my prayer. I love my blood more than my secrets. Are you sharing Christ with your blood? Like for real, are you purifying yourself so your prayers will have power for your blood? I say that, I pray this every morning. First thing, when I wake up, I spin out of bed, my knees hit the floor and I tell the Lord, good morning. The last thing at night, when I get in bed, I lay my head over and bless Holly and lay my hand on her head. I pray when I was, have eye contact with people, I’ve been praying for a lot of while I’ve been given the talk when I see you, I just pray and I was taught to do this by my mentor when I get eye contact with people. I pray for my kids and grand-kids every day by name in slow motion. I don’t just say kids and grand-kids, on the floor. I pray they’d have a grateful heart, a fear of the Lord, hunger and thirst after righteousness, a hedge of protection around them, that they would not notice illicit suitors, illicit seeders would not know them, pray that they would have wisdom and hearts full of the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ and that God would put godly people in their path. Every day, I think it’s the most important thing I do.

I’m going to close with a prayer. I wasn’t able to teach a comprehensive lesson in this brief amount of time on this topic, but I think we could all use a second touch guys. All hell may break loose in this world. And if you don’t mean business for Christ, you’re going to get rolled like dice, promise, I promise you.

I’m going to lead you in a prayer. And I want you to think only about yourself right now and your blood, and you granddads, I’m going to tell you this, if your children aren’t leading your blood to Christ, your grand-babies, you step over them. E.V. Hill said that to his congregation and a grandmother came up to him, said I have 17 grand-babies and I don’t know if any of them know Christ. Two years later, she came up to E.V. Hill and said, Dr. Hill, I’ve got 16 on the roll for Heaven, and I’m working on the last one.

Lord, we come to you in prayer. I’m praying for every man in here.  I don’t care if there’s a pastor of the church in here. We need a second touch. We need a revival in all of us. If there are men in here who have never proclaimed Christ, I pray you will just burden them terribly to start with their blood, discipling their blood, sharing the Gospel with their blood. You don’t have to know a lot; just share what you know. The woman at the well, she didn’t know anything, and she started a revival in her village. All she said was I think I’ve found the Messiah. Anybody want to check him out? That’s all she knew to say. He used her. Lord, I pray for strong conviction of the Holy Spirit, that you would just fear in our hearts of getting this wrong. If there’s somebody here who prayed one of those, I went to summer camp, or I was at a church service, and I prayed for Jesus to come in my life, but no real fruit, I pray they would just pray that prayer again, but this time, mean business. Put your jersey on and get out on the field. Get with some guys chasing after Christ.  Lord, make us all uncomfortable today. Make us all just have compulsion to make sure we get this part right because we can’t get this wrong. In the name of Christ, Amen.

I hope I made that clear to you guys. Do you think I did?