Few weeks ago down in Mexico, we were–were talking down there, and on the platform there was an old man came to the platform who was blind. I looked at him; his old wrinkled feet, and they were–probably never had a pair of shoes. Just, oh, the poor man, and he wanted to kneel down and take out his rosary, or prayer beads, and what they say, and so I raised him up, and through the interpreter I said, “No need of doing that.”
But when he put his arms around me, blind… And I thought, “You know, if my daddy would lived, he’d just have been about his age. And here I am with a pair of shoes on.” I looked down and they–they wouldn’t fit him, or I’d have give him my shoes. But to feel that poor man’s, holds his pride. And then to know after all of that, never maybe a good meal, no clothes hardly to wear, maybe a life that had a lot of burdens that only a–a man of…?… like he would know, then to be shut off in darkness where he couldn’t see.
Something inside of me begin to bleed, “Oh, God, that poor mortal, a man like I am, has a feeling, he loves, eat, drink, lives; he’s a man, and he is in this condition.” While praying for him, put my arms around him, his old hands laying across my shoulder, patting. I said, “Heavenly Father, if this would make me feel to see he’s like that what does it do to You?” In a few moments I heard him screaming and going on; he had received his sight.
Now what it is, is love. Love, my brethren, I realize I’m standing here this morning with a seventh grade education talking to scholars. But it no makes it–make any difference, of how much theology, and of how many ways we turn the Scriptures to make it fit our point, there’ll never nothing take the place of love: “Where there is tongues, they shall cease, where it’s prophecy it’ll–it’ll vanish, and where it knowledge, it’ll do the same thing, but love will endure forever.”
When Love Is Projected
Minneapolis, MN
56-0218B