Protection From Backslidding — Keith Daniel

Well, thank you for the word that you shared to us this morning, brother. It was precious. And thank you for the very lovely testimony. I do bless God for each one of you. It has been a wonderful joy to be here, and it's hard to believe that I've only got one more meeting tonight.

But I have been very grateful to be part of this fellowship and just to be part of you and get to know some of you. It's been very precious. Thank you for that. I don't know if this is loud enough, but if it is, forgive me if I drop my voice in my old age, but you perhaps will have to put it a little bit louder.

I don't know how many people here have come from far, but I believe there have been people who've travelled up to four hours. And some of them have done that twice, two days in a row. And it's been very thrilling to meet people here who've said these things.

And thank you for the sacrifice that so many of you have made to come so far to these meetings. I think quite a lot of them in their own churches today who have been travelling. But bless you for all those of you that have travelled from far.

I really appreciate that. My wife and I have received so many letters from America that we can't answer them. And I was sharing with people last night who have written to me and to my wife, who I know I didn't write back to.

But I do thank God for the wonderful love of the Christians of America. And I think there are quite a few of you here who receive our newsletter and become conscious of that, who've written to Jenny and asked for the little newsletter that you can pray for us.

And I bless God for those of you that do pray for us with all your hearts as you do. We're conscious of people's prayers from all over. And I do bless the Lord for the many, many people who write. We have hundreds of letters, you know, from America.

You must appreciate, I don't know how it's possible that so many people write. But I've said to my wife long ago, I know we'll never be able to keep up this correspondence. So I do thank God for the much fruit.

I think Mr. Keniston, Denny Keniston, has had such a vision for tapes to be spread. And I think that's where so many started writing. Other people too, from the Heart Christ Revival, and also the Men's Conference, and these tapes, and to see the wonderful way God met with people through messages that were brought just once.

And then I just left it there, but I didn't realize that God was going to take, especially this charity work, and spread over these tapes all over America and other countries. We've had letters from China, and I don't know how many countries that receive these tapes that have been spreading all over.

People have met with God, and I have spoken to a lot of you. It seems you've heard all of my messages. So I'll have to go and really work out some new messages. I cannot believe how many people have heard messages I've preached once.

And we've just got literally hundreds and hundreds of letters about one particular message. It has spread all over America, and all over Canada, and many other countries. So I do thank God for the tapes and the videos that it seems they use.

I don't know too much about videos, but I've seen people spreading those. And I do bless the Lord for all of you who have been praying for me since you've heard these tapes, and the messages that I've preached, and the few times I've been to America.

It's a wonderful ministry, the tape ministry. And I thank God for all of those of you who've in some ways had those tapes. And God bless you as you spread them also. My wife writes about 50 letters a week, you know, that's the best she can do.

And I try, I won't tell you how many I try to write, but I've said to the Lord I just cannot write to all these people. But I do thank you. I've had so many phone calls from America also. Now that's something that I really appreciate is the folks who've phoned from all over America, all to the other side of the world to say that somehow they got a tape, and that they've met with God.

I've been touched how God can use these messages again and again, over and over. I can't tell you how many of your ministers across this country phoned and said, I've lost everything. Everything I ever had is gone for years.

And I've so found a walk with God through this message. And I had to phone you just to say thank you. And I just want to thank those of you that have spread the tapes, because I know that it wasn't only one church that spread it in that Bible school of two years ago, but it seems people just take them and spread them on and on and on.

And I have become so aware that God just never lets a message once be preached. It goes on and on and on. I do pray for all the fruit of these tapes and all the messages that have been spreading. God will keep it under the blood of Christ.

God's Dealings With His People

I was conscious through the night that there was deep dealings with God here. And I know that it's not easy to stand up and testify and pour your heart out through things. But I believe with all my heart that many of you, as you knelt and sought God as I watched you and saw how the tears were flowing down your eyes, down your cheeks, I knew you were having dealings with God, that between you and God were very sacred.

And I believe with all my heart that your lives, by God's grace, as you sought God to change them, will be changed. And I think we need to pray for each other that whatever God has done will be kept under the blood of Christ over these nights and work out and on and on and on.

I know I preach differently. I know I preach a standard that I tremble more than anyone else who listens. But I do thank God that I know the fruit is there through his word and will never return unto him void.

So bless you for letting me be in your pulpit these few days. And I know that it will work out. I have no doubt it will work out. The things you've sorted out with God and asked God to do in your lives.

Prayer for Faithfulness and Spiritual Protection

I wonder if I can ask you just to bow for a moment in prayer, please. Father, thank thee for all these dear people. And I know they love thee. From the youngest boys here I see in their eyes and I ask them, is Christ in your heart?

Do you love him? And I do thank thee, Lord, for the love for God from this people that are gathered here. I thank thee for the oneness and the family atmosphere and the care and the compassion, the prayers for each other.

But above all for the example of the believers here. And there are so many so godly who are an example to the younger, so many of the younger examples already at their young age. And thank thee, Lord, for such a witness as this building and this people who gather and love Christ.

I can understand, Lord, it must bring great glory to thee in this area, having such a people. Oh, keep them true, Lord. Keep them faithful to thee. And keep them winning the world for Christ with their lives more than their words.

Oh, bless them now, Lord, and thank thee for these few nights of meetings that thou hast given me this great privilege to be. I know I'm nothing, Lord, thou dost not need to remind me. I know that I am the least of all thy servants, and I marvel at thy grace that thou hast kept me and allowed me into the purport of God so many times and so many places.

But I do bless thee, Lord, that I can ask thee to wash me now in the blood, fill me with the Holy Spirit, cleanse the atmosphere of this building with the blood of Christ, and hold us under the blood of Christ safe from all the powers of darkness.

And come stand now, Lord, in the purport of God with me, and take me up and speak to the depth of all of our hearts as only God can speak in mercy. Take this weak vessel, Lord, and glorify thy name. In Jesus Christ's name we ask these things.

Amen. I don't know if you need to turn to these three verses I'm going to read in the book of Proverbs, the book we took hold of the other night, concerning what makes a person rich in God's eyes, and who in God's eyes is so poor.

And I hope in your homes as you went home that night, there were many of you that started taking the riches that God wants you to have, and applying them to your lives, embracing them. And I hope it goes on in repercussions through the rest of your lives, in your home especially, until you are wealthy indeed of what things God holds out to you.

The Way of the Backslider

But in Proverbs 14, verse 12, we read these words, There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful. Oh my, that's tragic.

That's tragic. If you think you're enjoying life, but you're not. But outwardly, you're even trying to convince yourself you're happy with what you're about, with what you're doing. But down in the heart, there's sorrow.

It's possible, if a man tells a lie to someone else, it is tragic, but if he's lying to himself, you've got to go far to find a more tragic man. A man who can be laughing, but his heart is sorrowing. The end of that mirth is heaviness.

It always ends up with heaviness again. Who's he speaking about? The backslider. In heart. So find, so be filled with his own ways. The backslider. In heart. You'll find this word, backslider, spoken of so many times in the Old Testament, that it's tragic.

It's tragic how much backsliding went on with the people of God. It's tragic. No matter what God did, how much backsliding came about. And God speaks with grief about the backslider in heart again and again and again through the Old Testament, which is not written for them.

It was written for us, this side of Calvary, for God to speak to in his own way, to sow his grief and his dealings with such people. Every verse ever mentioned in the Old Testament was not just for us to know it happened, but for God to speak to our hearts.

Nothing was written for history, including these words about the backslider in heart. Those who in laughter can be sorrowful while they're laughing and everything they do ends up with heaviness. Heaviness, no matter how much they laugh while they're doing it, but they go back to it and that's the backslider.

Tragic. What is a backslider? Oh, the tragedy of the backslider. It's much more difficult for a man who is backslidden to find vital reality with God again. It's much more difficult for a man who is backslidden to ever find vital reality with God again than it is for an unsaved, godless, wicked person to find vital reality with God.

That's a staggering thought, but it's true. It is much more difficult for a man who is backslidden to ever find vital reality with God again than it is for an unsaved man in wickedness to find vital reality with God.

Deliberate Steps Toward Backsliding

But this is the greatest shock of all about the backslider. This is the greatest shock of all concerning a backslider. There are three things that have to be done to backslide. There are three things that have to be done consciously, carefully, deliberately, consistently to become a backslider.

To consciously backslide spiritually, there are three things that have to be done consciously, carefully. You can't just easily backslide. It's not easy to backslide. There's no such a thing as you suddenly find by mistake you're backslidden.

You know. You know when you're backsliding. And you have to consciously, carefully, deliberately, consistently do three things to consciously backslide spiritually. That's the tragedy of a backslider.

That's what makes it so tragic. Firstly, the first of the three things that you must do consciously, carefully, consistently. Firstly, if you enter into your day without soaking yourself in the word of God, you will backslide.

And yet, people do it. If you enter into your day without soaking yourself in the word of God, you will backslide. You will backslide. You will backslide. Don't doubt it. If you enter into your day without soaking yourself in the word of God, you will backslide.

The Word of God as the Source of Survival

I went to Bible school about thirty years ago. And in this particular Bible school, the emphasis was very much on the spiritual, not on the academic. The academic was there and revered across our land.

But somehow your spiritual walk was all they were concerned of. You got eighty, ninety, a hundred percent result in your examinations. It didn't impress anyone. If it didn't work out in your life, they were grieving over you and you knew it.

They wanted to see the result of all this reaching you academically, working or they wouldn't even accept you into their work. So you got the highest marks. Somehow they plunged us into preaching. It was a sort of Bible school that didn't allow you to sit down there and just take all lectures in.

From the day you arrive, they put you out and say, now go preach. They had this idea, you know, that the river of Jordan comes into the Galilee and Galilee still stays fresh and life-giving because it flows out.

The Dead Sea has everything coming in but nothing flowing out. That's why it's dead. So you've got to give out. Everything you take in. So right from almost the day we arrived at this Bible school, we were giving out.

Thrown into open air meetings, standing on the street corners. Should have seen a Presbyterian do that. To stand on the street corner was something for me to tremble about. But we were told to preach.

We were given opportunity in churches and schools and prisons. Anywhere. And I remember, time and again, all these opportunities were given to us. And it was lovely. I preached many, many, many times.

Then something happened to me one day at this Bible school. I came to a place where God really had me in a crisis. A crisis where I knew I had to have a personal Calvary. And I was in desperation corner with God.

I remember the spot, kneeling before God. When I walk there these days, through that same Bible school, I slow down past that room because it's sacred ground to me. With what God did, I never ever recovered from that day to this.

Of what God did to me on my knees. When I absolutely surrendered to God with my whole being. Oh, I was saved. I was preaching. But I came to a place here where I had a personal Calvary with God. And God was able to take control of me and anoint my life.

Well, the first time I ever preached after that moment with God was a few days later, about three days later. The first time, though I preached many, many times before, the first time was in a reformatory.

I think what you people would call a correctional school. I'm not sure. Where they send young boys that are too young to go to prison. Many of them murderers. Many of them have done terrible things. So, they're too young to go to the prison.

But there they put into these reformatories that we call. We had a very, very large one. One of the largest and perhaps the largest in our nation. Where boys of terrible backgrounds, of terrible things across their names were all put together.

I think more bad came in those reformatories than any good that could come to them through the years. It was a breeding for a life of criminal activity. But they sent young people to preach who had Christ in their hearts.

And here we were from the Bible school and we were told to go. And I had been going and had a little group of about ten young fellows, the younger ones. And I arrived there this day. And this fellow turned to me and said, Listen, I've got something difficult for you to do today.

But I want you to go not to these little fellows that I've been giving you. I want you to go to this one big cell. All of them I think are murderers. They're the older ones. But the fellow who was supposed to be speaking is not come.

You're going to have to go. Now I said, But I don't think I'm ready for that. I was just a young student at this Bible school. Hadn't had all that much experience. And I said, I don't think I'm ready for that, to be honest with you.

He said, No, you don't say no to me, young man. You go. God will help you. Well, I trembled as I thought of these fellows. This warder opened this big steel door. And then he socked me. He shut the door and was the other side.

I just heard this bang and heard this echoing of this big steel door. And I looked and he was the other side. He hadn't come in with me. So I turned around and there were facing me about 60 boys in a circle waiting to be preached to by a man who they had been expecting.

And they looked at this young fellow coming along and all they saw was fear. So they started laughing. Terrible when people start laughing at you when you preach, you know. I hadn't opened my mouth and they were laughing at me, roaring with laughter as they saw the fear in my eyes.

When that door shut without the warder, I was along with these fellows. Well, I stood there while they were laughing and I began to try and bring out to them about the gospel of Christ. But they laughed the louder.

So I said, Listen, there's a hell. How can you laugh at someone who comes to warn you of hell and judgment of God? Who tries to bring you to be saved for eternity. How can you laugh? There's a hell. There's a judgment coming.

Don't you know that? Anyway, one of the fellows grabbed with his arm another fellow and rolled him on the floor and held him down and screamed, Yeah, he's going to hell. If anybody's going to... They all started laughing as these boys started to romp on the floor now.

They were just screaming with laughter. Well, I tried to talk a bit more and then suddenly, I could never put into words. Suddenly, I became conscious that Jesus Christ came and stood beside me. I'd never known that before.

Suddenly, I became conscious of a boldness in my heart and a compassion. I wasn't in any way groaning and weeping over the humility of being laughed at. But there was something of a compassion to these boys laughing that I'd never felt in my life before that moment.

Suddenly, I saw these boys in their sin and I began to cry out. I find myself weeping and calling out to them in a way I never knew to speak before in my life. And I wept. But there was something of a consciousness of God that I'd never known, never ever experienced, never thought would ever happen to me.

It was like Christ took me up and spoke for the first time through me. I was just aware of God and I wept as I looked at these boys. Within about five or six minutes of speaking, conscious of God, for the first time conscious of anointing upon my life, I looked out in the whole room of boys.

There was not one that was not weeping within minutes. No more laughing. There was a sobbing. There was some that were sobbing so loud that I stopped preaching and I realized God had come. And then I said these words.

Those of you who have courage and it will take you more courage than anything you've done in your life. Those of you that have courage, I want you to come forward and kneel and in front of all of them, give your life to Christ.

It'll cost you in this place to do that. But do it in front of them. Those of you that are weak with no courage, who are cowards, you won't come to Christ. I know that. But I want any of you that have courage to come to Christ now.

In front of everyone. Six boys came forward. The rest sat looking. Tears flowing down their eyes, but they wouldn't come. The six boys knelt on their knees. Two of them couldn't pray. They just groaned like they were in agony.

Sobbing. Sobbing in agony of conviction of sin. The others I helped to pray. And those that couldn't pray, I just prayed for them. Well, I went back to the Bible school. And a few days later, the principal of this reformatory contacted our principal of the Bible school and said, there was a young fellow that came here and preached the other day from your Bible school.

And six of the boys responded when he preached and asked God to save them. And he said, I have never in my life, and I have been here for 20 something years with reformatory work, I have never ever seen such a transformation as these six boys.

These boys are the worst in the whole reformatory that came to God. Somehow the worst. Those are the feared the most in this whole reformatory came forward and prayed with that boy, that student. And the transformation in their life is so real that this whole reformatory has gone into silence.

There is a silence for them, the whole reformatory. I want you to bring that boy and I am giving him the whole reformatory to speak to. Well, I didn't know what happened. The principal came in my room and I was studying.

It wasn't lecture time. He said, get your Bible. You are going to preach. I got my Bible. We went into the car and he was driving to the reformatory. And he said, this principal is letting you have the whole reformatory.

It's hundreds of these boys. Well, I sat there and I thought for a while. I said, but sir, I don't have a message. So he looked at me, the principal, he says, that doesn't matter. God will give you one.

So we sat in silence. I thought, well, that doesn't sound too helpful to me. I don't have piles of messages. I am a young student. You haven't all done all that much preaching. Anyway, I didn't know what I was going to preach when he suddenly arrived there.

We got out the car and we met by some of the warders and the principal and some of the teachers. They stopped all the lessons. They stopped everything of the school. And they made me stand there and all I had was my Bible.

Well, I looked out at these boys and the same broken heart just suddenly came into my heart that I felt looking at those, I would say, 80 boys that first time, a few days before. And God said something to me that I shall never ever forget.

Turn to Isaiah 53. Just the Holy Spirit in my heart. You don't know what to preach, brother. Just turn to Isaiah 53. I guarantee you God will use it. I turned to Isaiah 53 and I read it. I didn't have a message.

I read Isaiah 53. And here and there I just put a little sentence in, a little sentence in here and there, but just Isaiah 53. A few minutes later I looked up at these boys and they were sobbing. I couldn't believe it when suddenly it was like wailing going across the whole place.

Just Isaiah 53. God whispered to my heart, you don't need a message. My Word is all you need. I learned it that day. I learned the power of the Word of God when God anoints His Word. You don't need wonderful illustrations.

You don't need great homiletical exegesis. You don't need to have training. You just need the Word of God and it needs to be brought in an anointed way. With a heart that's broken for the souls you're speaking to and suddenly those words become life.

Well, hundreds of them responded. Literally hundreds. I didn't know what to do nor did the principal of a Bible school. How do you pray with hundreds of people? We were taught to pray individually but here were hundreds.

Even of the staff, even the warders, weeping, sobbing. So I said, alright, let's all kneel and you pray this after me. And I prayed the sinner's prayer. Well, God helped me to get follow-up, to get Bibles, to get from all the Scripture Gift Mission boxes and I would order and phone and take along everything I could to just give to all these boys some follow-up while I was still there.

The Word Keeps Converts From Backsliding

Years went by. I'm talking about a number of years and then God did something peculiar. They started walking up to me in the streets. I'll never forget the first one. This young fellow with his wife and a baby.

And this fellow said to me, are you Keith Daniel? I said, yes. He said, you won't remember me. I was one of those six in the reformatory of the first that ever came to God when you preached. And I said, but that's wonderful.

And you're out of the reformatory now? Oh, yes. Many of them are out. Most of them are out now. And I said, are you still walking with God? He said, yes. I said, did you have your quiet time this morning?

He said, yes. I said, you've never backslidden? He said, no, no one backslid. I said, no one? No. Not one backslid of the whole reformatory. Everyone knows that. I'm surprised you don't know it. Everybody speaks about it everywhere.

Not one single person backslid. Everyone is following God to this day. I said, but can that be true? I haven't been near there for years, all these years and years. Oh, you see, we're inclined to say, if it isn't me, they're not going to make it.

We take our eyes off God who saved them, who knows how to keep them. I had to learn a lot of lessons, you know. I said to him, not one, not one in the whole school backslid. How can you be sure? He said, but everybody knows it.

We're all sure. Everybody knows there is not one. I know of not one that backslid. Every one of them is following God, sir. And then he looked at me in my surprise and he looked surprised at me. He said, do you know why no one backslid?

Do you know why not one is known to have backslid of all those hundreds? I said, you tell me. He said, because you stood up, sir, and you cried these words the last meeting before you left. You held up the Bible and you said this is your source of survival.

This is your source of survival. This, if the devil could keep you from, he would do anything for this is all he worries about. His greatest priority every day of your life to the day you die would be to somehow to keep you from this book, from soaking yourself in the word of God as the greatest priority of your life every day.

But if you somehow can keep the devil from keeping you from this book and if every day of your life you soak yourself in this book as your greatest priority every day of your life to the day you die, you will never backslide.

You said that, sir. And we believed it. Everyone believed it. And no one backslid. I was blessed, you know. That first fellow was one of then hundreds who came up to me in streets or phoned me or walked up in meetings and everyone said the same, no one's ever backslidden and they're not going to, sir.

Oh, I was blessed by that. I was blessed by that. In that same reformatory there was another incident that shook my heart. One day they let me into a certain cell, a ward, where there was probably about 50 boys.

But they said these boys were very, very problem boys. They had emotional, some of them bordering on mental problems. And they were, the most of them, murderers. Some had killed their fathers. Oh, the terrible things to have heard of what was going on in that particular place that special care was taken to them.

But they allowed some of the other boys who had been saved in the full meeting to be there and I was preaching and there was this young fellow. He was a very short fellow for his age. But he began to weep.

He began to weep so loud that I tried to go on preaching but in the end I knew I couldn't. He was sobbing, he was in pain. It was like he was in pain, like it was inflicting pain upon him to carry on preaching.

I had to stop. He was groaning and weeping. So I sat him down and I started to speak to him. And I found that he didn't understand one word of English. He spoke what we call Afrikaans. And it had come from a part of the country where there was no English heard.

And I said to this other young fellow there who was saved, well, ask him why was he weeping if he couldn't understand anything I was preaching. And so this fellow asked him and this boy said, that's why I'm weeping.

I don't know English. I can't understand English. I don't know anything. I don't know how to speak one word in English properly, he says. But every single word this man was preaching in English, I understood it as if it was my own language.

And he said, I knew it's God speaking to me. That's why I'm weeping. I knew God was speaking to me. Every word. Oh, brother, I don't know what you understand about tongues. I think that's about the closest I've come to understand what tongues is.

I don't understand a lot of other things. I wasn't speaking in another language. I was speaking in my language. And this boy understood in his own language every single word as if it was his language.

And he knew it was another language being spoken. Oh, God knows how to reach a heart that's in desperate darkness. Because he knows what to do. Even if it's another language being preached to him. Well, this boy came to Christ.

He was the only one in that meeting that came to Christ. He gave himself to God by the help of this other African boy that had been saved that was there to help him. Well, I gave him follow-up. The first thing I gave him was a nice Bible that I had my hands on.

And I told him, now soak yourself in the book now. Just make sure. Burn your bridges behind you now. Get on your knees. Open the Bible. Doesn't matter what the cost. Let them know you've made your stand for God here.

Well, they phoned me about a week later. And the principal led me down into this room and said, this boy needs to see you and you need someone to help you to interpret. And there sat this boy who couldn't understand English.

The last time I'd seen him, I'd given him a Bible. And his face was bleeding. And his body. And he was sitting there silently weeping all alone in that room. And I sat with him with his other boy who came with me to interpret.

And I said, what happened to him? Well, he did what you said, sir. He got on his knees with the Bible. And that's the last thing he should have done. Oh, I, I wish I had more wisdom those days, you know.

I used to make mistakes telling them to go and burn the bridge behind them, make their stand openly. I was wrong. I was wrong there. Well, this boy, it seems they had beaten, they kicked him. They kicked him as he was kneeling in his stomach.

And they kicked him on the floor. They hurt him so badly, it was terrible. They took the Bible and ripped it to pieces and threw it around the room like a ball, throwing it to each other and ripping it as he tried to stop them from weeping.

And they punched him down and kicked him again. Well, I looked at this boy and I said, well, what are we going to do now? He says, I want another Bible, sir. Can you believe that? That's all he wanted.

I want another Bible. So I looked at him and I said, all right, I'll get you a Bible. I went and got him a Bible. And then I said, you know, I don't think it's too wise to get on your knees again with the Bible in front of him.

Maybe you need to get under the blanket and take a torch. But don't invite persecution. I don't want to come and see you like this again. Somehow, don't bring it on you anymore. Try and do it without inviting persecution.

You don't need to do that to prove you're a Christian. Well, you know what the boy did? He went into the bathroom, into the toilet. You and I might think that's a stranger's place, but he spent hours in the toilet with the Word of God.

It was his only place of safety. And he soaked himself in the Word of God. He soaked himself in the Word of God daily. Every moment he could find it was the Word of God. And do you know, that boy never backs out.

To this day, he walks with God. I can't tell you who he became in my country. Between me and him. What God made of him. But that boy never ever backslid. Nothing could keep him from the Word of God, you see.

Nothing could keep him from the Word of God. And he never backslid. He was determined nothing would keep him from soaking himself in the Word of God no matter what the cost. Now tell me, what excuse do you give God that you don't soak yourself in the Word of God?

The one thing you know you will backslide for if you stop. What kept you from the Word of God? You were never persecuted for having a Bible along with God. What reason do you want to give God as to why you backslid if it is the reason you backslid?

And tell me, nothing would keep him from God, from God's Word. What reason do you want to give God as to why you neglected the Bible? And you knew it's the reason you backslid. What good reason can you give?

Nothing would stop him. I want another Bible. He spit with blood in his face. I want another Bible. The Word of God is your source of survival, beloved. Your source of survival. There are three things that have to be done to backslide.

Three things that have to be done consciously, carefully, deliberately, consistently to become a backslider. To consciously backslide spiritually firstly, if you enter into your day, if you enter into your day without soaking yourself in the Word of God, you will backslide.

You will backslide. You will backslide. If you enter into your day without soaking yourself in the Word of God, you will backslide. A young fellow of about twenty years of age lay dying with a tumor in the brain.

A Dust-Covered Bible and a Restored Soul

And he called for me. A message got through to me. His name was Richard Deom. I had known him in my unsaved days. In all our wickedness. He had been there. And now he lay dying. So I made my way to this boy's house.