Rock Music — Jack Hyles

I doubt if anything reveals the character of a nation or the character of any organization as does its music. It would not take one long sitting in the pews of the First Baptist Church of Hammond to find our position on music.

Those of you who have been here just today know the kind of music that we sing and in which we believe here at First Baptist Church. I've often said that the music of a group reveals the condition of the hearts of those in the group.

Somebody said, music makes us what we are. That's true, but it also reveals what we are. In the Bible it's unbelievable the influence that music had on the characters of the Bible and that influence is wielded today still in our generation.

When our Lord gave the first supper in the upper room, the Bible says when they had sung a hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives. Psalm 137 tells us that the Jews were strangers and pilgrims and that are still captives in Babylon.

They had a reputation for being good singers and loving and singing good music. The Babylonian people came and said, sing us a song. The Jewish people said, how can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

The Jews were known for their singing. When Moses and the Israelites crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, there was music involved as they sang a song of victory in Exodus 12, verses 1 -21. David composed a song upon hearing of the death of Jonathan and Saul in 2 Samuel 1, verses 17 -27.

Deborah and Barak sang a song after the great miraculous defeat of the forces of Sisera when the stars in their courses fought against the power of evil in Judges 5. Psalm 45 is a song used to celebrate a wedding.

The Psalms themselves are simply a compilation of songs used for the songbook of Israel. When God gave a baby to Samuel and Hannah, she sang in 1 Samuel 2, verses 1 -11. When Mary heard of the coming of the Christ child, she sang in Luke 1, verses 46 -55.

The Jews in their journey toward the temple for the feast days would sing. The Song of Solomon is a beautiful love song and the Bible certainly teaches the importance of music. Music not only has an important place in the Bible days, but it also has an important place today.

Back in the days before television, you folks that used to hear the radio programs, you know how music did. I've mentioned it to our people many times. Remember the program, The Shadow Knows? The Shadow Knows?

The Shadow Knows, and that morbid kind of music would come. Remember Inner Sanctum? And the morbid Inner Sanctum? And, uh, the music, remember McGee and Mollie? Stella Dallas? Memories, memories, dreams of love so true.

O 'er the seas of memories, I'm drifting back to you. Buy this tape, if you never buy tape, as long as you live, buy this tape. And now, the true life story of Stella Dallas. Will Stella's daughter, Lori, be happy with Dick?

Or will Lori find it more pleasant to return home to Stella, her mother? Stay tuned. Memories, memories, dreams of love so true. Henry? Henry Aldrich? Coming, Mother! Nobody home, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope.

Now, you're dating yourself and your life in any of these, but the honest, simple truth is, back in the days before television, the radio depended greatly on music. And that music is such an important part of our lives.

Take away the music from a wedding and see how sweet the wedding is. Take away the calls for I Love You Truly or the wedding march and see how, uh, empty the wedding ceremony would become. Take the music from our service tonight.

Take away the prelude. Take away the opening with the choir. Take away our congregational singing. Take away these young people singing. Take away this duet. Please, take away this duet. And, uh, take away the choir special.

And, and you'd be surprised. No, you wouldn't. But it'd be unbelievable, the different spirit of the service. Who hasn't cried on graduation day when they played the album honor, or as a band playing a stirring number came by in a parade?

Who hasn't thrilled as the flag was raised and the stars spangled banner? Well, some dirty beatnik hippie hasn't, but God pity his soul. He ought to go to Russia where he belongs. In one of my books, I tell about a man who was in my church in Texas.

He, he, he, he, he was manager of a cafeteria, Wyatt's Cafeteria in Dallas, Texas. And he said, preacher, I want to show you something. He took me down to the Wyatt's Cafeteria one day at noon. He said, now you watch.

Watch the organist. And he said, he told the organist, he said, play a waltz, please, if you would. And she played a waltz. And he said, now watch the people get their food. And I watched. It was amazing.

The folks would go through the line getting their food like this. Then he said, now, preacher, watch this. He said, play a march. And then they'd get it, don't you see? Now, if you don't believe music has an effect on you, here's what you do.

You go down, you, you turn your, your station, your radio on, W-A-I-T. That's still a station that has some halfway decent music. W-A-I-T, that's it, isn't it? In Chicago. And, or some good FM station, and, and listen to the classics maybe.

Or some good, real good love songs. And drive down the highway, and notice you'll drive about 45, 50 miles an hour. And then you turn your, your radio on some jerky, hippie kind of beatnik folk music or rock music.

And then notice in the rearview mirror that little twirling light behind the car. It's an unbelievable thing what music, the influence that music has on each of us. Dennis say, for example, that they can help alleviate the pain associated with the pulling of a tooth with good music.

I don't think that's true, let me say. Check the great soul winning churches in America. You'll find that a certain kind of music and a certain kind of church always go together. I don't care what you are.

Brother, your music will ruin your church unless you have the right kind of music. I don't care who you are, how good your preaching is. If you, if you have starchy, staid music, then you'll have a starchy, staid church before long.

Music, tranquil, all over this area, all over this area, and all across America. A gospel preacher gets up after the people have been tranquilized by highbrow music, so called. And there's no spirit, there's no will, there's no joy.

And of course, there's no power. The great soul winning churches. In many churches, a good, faithful gospel preacher stands after the audience has been ruined. Nothing can wake the people from their slumbering lethargy after an organist or soloist has sufficiently tranquilized them to a funeral dirge or the Volga boat song.

You're not going to have an Episcopalian song service and a Pentecostal invitation in the same service. By the way, mix a Baptist sermon in between. Nothing is deadening our churches any more than our music program.

And it's coming, I fear, in fact I know, from the music departments in our colleges. Some long-haired, effeminate sissy, and God pity him, in many of our colleges, stands up and teaches our preacher boys the kind of music that doesn't reach the heart, just reaches the head.

Doesn't do the job for God, doesn't warm the heart of the people, doesn't prepare the people for the sermon. And nothing is deadening our churches quite as much. We sing here at First Baptist, we sing the gospel song, the song of the joy, the light, and the thrill.

Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not talking about the rock and roll beat. I'm not for the jungle beat, whether it's across the street, in the village boutique, or in the church here, or at First Baptist Church of Hammond.

Or whether it's in Campus Crusade, or Youth for Christ, or in some church out at the edge of town. I'm not for the jungle beat, and I detest with a passion the putting of gospel words to the hippie kind of music.

Listen to me, I'll go a step further than that. I detest anybody looking like a hippie. Listen, you preachers tonight here, you got sideburns down to your Adam's apple. And before you, now listen, don't get mad now, you got a whole week to get mad in, and it'll get worse as the week goes along.

So you better just take this now like a good little boy, and some of our own folks too. Listen, listen, if you're a Christian, don't wear your hair and sing and act and dress like a bunch of heathen communists do.

As long as I'm, by the way, I love the classics. I love classical music. I doubt if a day ever passes without my listening to some classical music. But as long as I'm pastor of this church, not a classical number will be played on this organ for a prelude or an operatory.

I love anthems, but we don't use them here in First Baptist Church. We use gospel music that reaches the heart. The Bible speaks in Colossians 3 .16 about spiritual songs. And in Ephesians chapter 5, it's a very interesting thing to me, that it talks about being filled with the Spirit, and in the next verse it doesn't talk about preaching, it talks about being filled with the Spirit, and then it goes right to music, not to preaching.

I'm talking about Billy Sunday, Homer Rodeheaver, Dwight Moody, R .A. Torrey kind of music. I'm talking about at Calvary, at the cross, running in Buter Land, how firm a foundation, what a friend we have in Jesus, wonderful words of life, all hail the power of Jesus' name, and Jesus is coming again.

I'm talking about solid songs that have built the church and brought revival to our nation. Now, if music is so life-changing, and here's the sermon, if music is so life-changing and so atmosphere-determining, the communists are certainly not going to bypass it in their efforts to take over America.

The communists are master propagandists, something that affects the nation so much would certainly not be bypassed by people who are as brilliant as are our communist adversaries. In 1920, Lenin spoke at the third All-Russian Congress of Young Communist League, and here's what he said, and I quote, If we're going to spread our doctrine, we're going to have to rework the culture.

Did you hear that? Lenin said 50 years ago, If we're going to spread our doctrine, we'll have to rework their culture. This modern art we have didn't come from walks of Hatcher in Nacogdoches, Texas. It came from the heart of communism trying to destroy the culture and the art of our country.

Did you know why we have herky-jerky music and herky-jerky art? The kind of art you see on the average canvas is only the kind of music, the typical kind of music you hear in the average place. It's herky-jerky.

You get an egg and scramble the egg and get some ketchup and squirt the ketchup on it and throw some lemon juice through it, and you've got a network of art nowadays. You can sell it for something. God pity.

I feel like a tree or a sunset or a house or a meadow or a flower, but to say the least, it depicts the condition of our nation. In 1929, the Russians founded the Association of Proletarian Musicians just for one purpose.

That was to place communist influence on the music of the world. That means since 1929, or for 42 years, there has been in Soviet Russia a department, just like our Department of Interior, just like the Department of Commerce, just like the Department of Defense, there has been a department of music in Russia dedicated to affecting and hurting the music of the world in an effort to spread communism.

It means that for 40 years, there's been a department in Russia. The House Un-American Activities Committee, and let me go on record as saying I wish we had a dozen of them, called Sidney Finkelstein.

That's a real name. That sounds like a musician, doesn't it? Sidney Finkelstein. They called Sidney Finkelstein the cultural spokesman of the Communist Party. That's what the House Un-American Activities Committee said.

Finkelstein is the cultural spokesman of the Communist Party. Finkelstein said, quote, Break down the barriers in America between classical and popular music. That's what he said. Break down the barriers between classical and popular music.

It is no surprise, then, that barrier has been broken down. That means these fellows on television, these hideous talk shows. Now, I don't watch them myself. I just go to visit Dr. Billings occasionally, and they're always on his house.

But I go, and these idiots, these long-haired, stinking beatniks, these fellows dedicated to destroying America, singing their rock and their jerky music and their hippie music and their communist music and their dope music and their narcotic music, all of it, is nothing in the world but an effort by Soviet Russia to destroy America and our way of life.

Somebody take the fellow out who said that. I don't like it, and I don't plan to love it, and you'll answer to God for that. Don't be surprised. All of you don't go. Listen, one of our teenage boys can take care of that little fellow.

In fact, send one of our girls. Don't everybody leave. Don't feel bad. I've never preached this sermon yet. What folks didn't get up and walk out. Last time I preached it, I had seven walk out. My goal is eight tonight.

I'll tell you one thing. What you just saw is a perfect picture of why we need this kind of preaching. This is First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. This is one of the greatest churches in all the world.

And right here in our pews on a Sunday night, some idiot can get up and holler and scream, if you don't like it, you can lump it. I don't like it. I don't plan to lump it. I plan to fight it as long as I can.

And I want you preachers to get enough courage to go back home and do the same. Now, one reason I'm preaching on this tonight is to put some grit in the craw some of you pussyfoot and compromise and ear-tickling, back-scratching, penny-pinching, nickel-nipping, pink-tea-lemonade preachers, or you'll go home and cut loose and let her rip.

But you sound afraid my denominational secretary wouldn't like it and do what that boy said. Boy, whatever it was. But it said, like it or lump it. I am sick up to here of preachers letting dirty, rotten rock music ruin our churches and thereby ruin our nation.

I was in a certain house out in Munster a few years ago. In fact, it was when Lindsay Terry came to our church, I think. Some of us were looking for a house with a Terry. So we were in Munster, and I noticed they had some boys there in the house, and there was a picture of the Beatles.

And by the way, to my way of thinking, the Beatles have done more to destroy America than any four people I know, four or five, whatever it is. The Beatles, that is some kind of bug. I forget what it is, but I like to squash it.

But anyway, they had a picture of the Beatles. And I said, how nice. You have four boys, and the boys got their girlfriends together for a group picture. Isn't that nice? And the lady said, well, that's not the...

I said, I know what it is. I think that's just as sweet as pie. And I said, boys, each of you has a lovely girlfriend. I think they're very, very pretty. They're the Beatles all in one picture, you know.

And as I walked out of the house, they were still shaking their head, trying to convince me those were the Beatles, and I was trying to make them think that I thought they were the girlfriends of the boys.

Sidney Pinklestein said, let's replace the classics with the jungle beat. Now, here's the spokesman for communist culture. He said, let's replace the classics with the jungle beat. Now, listen to this.

Plato, who was not stupid, of course, said in his great writing, The Republic, I quote, the introduction of a new kind of music should be shunned as imperiling the whole state. Plato said that. Many generations ago, Plato begged the legislature to ban all music with an effeminate and licentious character because, quote, it will destroy our nation.

And ladies and gentlemen, look, these rock festivals, these dirty, lewd, sensual, vile, filthy, vulgar, satanic-inspired rock festivals will soon destroy and cause our nation to decay. And let me say this.

Every one of you young people, every one of you, and those too, sit around listening to a radio, some rock music, and some dirty radio station that plays this dirty, filthy rock music, bent on destroying America.

You're going to face God over every one of those sorry things you listen to. By the way, parents, you say, we don't do it in our house. Well, you've got to check all the earplugs, too. Don't you allow an earplug attached to a radio in your house.

Throw them away. You say, well, how's your getting me in trouble? I hope I do. I hope I get you to the place where you can't play one song, with the Rolling Stones or the Beatles or the Jefferson Airplanes or any of the rest of them.

I hope I get you in such hot water, you've got to be decent young folks. I hope I get you in such hot water, you've got to hear decent music and be decent kids and not be a part of a communist conspiracy bent to destroy our nation.

David Thoreau made this statement in his writing to Walden, quote, Music may be intoxicating. It has helped cause the destruction of the Greek and Roman empires, and it will sooner or later destroy America and England.

These were not excited reactionaries. These were men who knew what music could do to a society. The ancient legislators felt, listen to this, that they could not form a state without the help of a lyric poet and maybe even a dramatic poet employed as an officer of the state, like a secretary of state or secretary of war.

Scientists have experimented with dogs and have found that certain music played while dogs were eating causes them to lose their appetites or to increase the action of their salivary glands, which causes the dogs to eat more.

I know that's true because I can hear the Beatles and lose my appetite, not even a canine. Just as music will stir the appetite for food, music will also stir other appetites as well. There is a direct correlation between music and beastly living, immorality, indecency, dope addiction, LSD, filthy bodies, long hair, shaggy beards, dirty feet, and sandals on the feet.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say this. Now, somebody else may walk out on this one, but don't forget I'm shooting for eight. Now listen, I'll even go so far as to say the members of this church who wear long, shaggy hair do not listen to the best kind of music.

Now you can come after service and say I'm wrong, and I'll apologize to you. But I'll go so far as to say that the members of this church who do not wear, the men who wear long, shaggy hair, I'll go so far as to say that you in the last seven days have been listening to this dirty kind of music.

Now, by the way, this is where I'll always get some laughter and folks disbelieve me, but have you read that people have been experimenting with plants and that music even affects plants? I have a note placed on my pulpit tonight from a Moody student.

Brother Hiles, some junior high students in Frankfort, Illinois, did a science project concerning the effect, if any, music would have on the growth of a plant. Those plants that grew near classical music grew toward the music.

Those that grew next to rock music grew away from the music. Did you know a petunia's got more sense than you have? They've experimented on green beans, and they find that a green bean plant that grows right next to rock music played regularly will die, and a green bean plant that grows next to classical music will produce green beans almost as big as those grown in Texas.

Did you know that many of the nations of this world are spending millions of dollars tonight on government-sponsored projects trying to determine the effect that music has on plant life? A doctor's wife in Denver, Colorado, proved conclusively to those who saw her project that plant life would be affected adversely by rock music, and positively by the classics.

Now, two things. First, rock music is being used by the Communists to bring Communism into America. Now listen carefully. Consider the Beatles hit back in the USSR. Be honest now. Now I won't ask you the question.

One reason that our country is going toward rock music is that the Communists are using it. Capital Records says of this song, back in the USSR, this is the Beatles' biggest hit now, quote, It is the fastest-selling record in recording history.

I don't mean now the thing is sold in Russia. I mean your kids are listening to it, and you don't know about it. They're hearing, back in the USSR, that's back in Soviet Russia, here are the words, Been away so long, I hardly knew the place.

Gee, it's good to be back home. Leave it to tomorrow to unpack my case. Honey, disconnect the phone. That sounds like a wonderful song, doesn't it? I'm back in the USSR. You don't know how lucky you are, boy.

Back in the US, back in the US, back in the USSR. Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out. They leave the West behind. Moscow girls make me sing and shout. That Georgia's always on my mind. I'm back in the USSR.

You don't know how lucky you are, boys. Back in the USSR. Show me around your snow-peaked mountains, the way down south. Take me to your daddy's farm. Let me hear your, and I wouldn't pronounce the next word, ring out.

Come and keep your comrade warm. I'm back in the USSR. Boy, you don't know how lucky you are, boys. Back in the USSR. Now, that's the Beatles' latest hit. It is being sold in record stores to your boys and your girls and young people.

And if you buy it, God pity your wicked soul. And parents, if you let them listen to it, God pity your wicked souls. The fact that could be allowed in America is beyond comprehension. You're hearing a preacher tonight that's old-fashioned enough to believe that a man who is for the communist destruction of America and for revolution, all of you in the penitentiary are in Soviet Russia, one or the other.

I'm sick of our colleges opening the doors to a bunch of mangy, flea-bitten, hound dogs, so-called people, coming in and telling our young people they are bent on revolution. And worse than that, a bunch of television stations opening their cameras and pointing them to those shaggy, mangy, flea-bitten people and saying, tell us your plan.

God pity that kind of thing that's destroying our nation. We spend $70 million a year in America fighting the communism and atheism that Russia is trying to cram down our throats, and yet the outstanding record, as far as sales is concerned, is not back home again in Indiana, or back in Virginia where I was born, or the eyes of Texas are upon you, but back home again in the USSR.

If we had a Supreme Court that had an ounce of integrity and decency, they'd ban that kind of rot in our country. The honest, simple truth is that we're being choked to death by our so-called freedom.

Nobody has a right to be free enough to steal our freedom. Nobody has a right to use our freedom to destroy our freedom. They've got the idea that we're having peaceful coexistence with Soviet Russia.

Russia dedicated herself years ago, and that dedication is no longer, no less rigid and dedicated than it was before. She dedicated herself to destroy America and bring communism around the world. Paul Cantor of the Jefferson Airplanes, and by the way, that's the name of a singing group, Jefferson Airplanes.

I hope they crash. Paul Cantor of the Jefferson Airplanes said on the Les Crane Show, and I quote, the new rock music is intended to broaden the generation gap, alienate parents from their children, and prepare young people for revolution.

Did you hear that? This guy said it. He said it on the Les Crane Show. For all to see it, he gets up and says it. Now, the rock music, and he's from one of the groups, the rock music, he said, is dedicated to separate the parents, to broaden the generation gap, and to prepare young people for revolution.

The only people more guilty than he is are the folks that watch such shows as that. A lot of you thrive on turning on your television set and watching some of these heathen, infidel, communistic, atheistic traitors to American freedom.

If you'd turn the thing off, there'd be a lot of folks who wouldn't listen to it, and they'd get that rod off television sooner or later. Bobby Dylan is called with the Communist People World Publication as America's Greatest Poet.

Did I pronounce that right? Now, then, I'd ask you, because you'd think that I thought you knew too much. Bobby Dylan is called with the Communist People World Publication as, quote, America's Greatest Poet.

Look Magazine said that he is, quote, the unchallenged, he's unchallenged as a teen and college crowd absolute hipster. And here's one of his recordings. Are you listening? This is one of the recordings.

I mean, sold in our town. Sold in these record shops. Sold in these jewelry stores. Here, young people, don't you talk while I'm preaching on this. Now, you sit up and listen. You need this, and you're going to hear it tonight.

Don't you even move. In fact, quit breathing for a while. Bobby Dylan recorded these words. Come, mothers and fathers throughout the land. Don't criticize what you can't understand. Your sons and daughters are beyond your command.

Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand. For the times are changing. The line is drawn. The curse is cast. The slow one now will later be fast, as the present now will later be past.

The order is rapidly fading. The first one now will later be last. For the times are changing. Now, that's what Bobby Dylan sings, and that's what these kids... You don't hear these words. Now, I can't understand these words, but look, these folks know what the words are.

They have a language all their own. I'll say a few words about that after a while. If I found one of my children listening to that kind of stuff on the radio, I would tear the radio right to pieces immediately after I performed the funeral of my child.

You call me what you want to call me, but, brother, nobody that's dedicated to treason is going to sing in my living room if I know about it. The music of our nation is dedicated to revolution. Phil Ochoa is one of the heroes and darlings of the revolutionaries.

By the way, these songs are played on the Hammond station. Phil has one record called, and his records are selling for the millions. Phil has one called, I Ain't a Marchin' Anymore. That one is against the Vietnam War.

How do you like this for a song, one of his songs? Draft Dodger Rag. Our boys and girls are listening to it. This traitor, this Judas Iscariot, this Benedict Arnold is publicizing it. Now, I'll read you what this singer Phil Ochoa said, quote, The Viet Cong are right.

We should support Ho Chi Minh. Now, I dare you to go out here to one of these stores. I'm talking about the shopping center out at Woodmar. I dare you to go out there and look and see if you can find some of these records.

They'll be there, and others just like them. He's created popular lines such as, White Boots Marchin' in Yellow Land. We're fightin' in a war we lost before the war began. We're the White Boots Marchin' in Yellow Land.

And cop soldiers of the world. Here are some of the words. We rammed into your harbor and tied to your port. Our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short. So bring your daughters around to the port, for we're the cops of the world.

That's one of the nice songs they're singing. Here's one that's also been sung. The war's over. Here are the words. Serve your country in her suicide. Find a flag so you can wave goodbye. But just before the end, treason might be worth a try.

Those are words that come from one of his songs. The Lovin' Spoonful. That sounds like a wonderful spiritual group. The Lovin' Spoonful published an article entitled, Revolution 1969. Revolution 1969.

The second thing I want to say is, not only is rock music dedicated to destroying our country and bringing communism in, but rock music is also dedicated to the sale and use of drugs in America. And don't you like the ostrich, put your head in the sand and think all the drug users are out yonder in the high schools and the Episcopalian churches.

Brother, we've got them right here in these pews tonight. I know of at least three cases of people who come to our church rather often who have committed sex orgies, been found in indecent exposure. By the way, I'm going to tell you one thing.

There's one fellow I heard about. If I hear about it again, I'm going to expose him. I know of some homosexuals who come to this church. And I know of at least five young men in our church who have been caught peddling marijuana.

Now, I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I'm trying to help you. You better get out of that rotten kind of stuff. You're going to condemn your soul and your decency and everything that's right and holy. And let me say, you say, why preach about it here?

I'll tell you why. Because every young person who attends any public schedule has to face it day after day and week after week. Rock music is dedicated to the promoting and sale and use of drugs in America.

Listen to this. In the authentic biography of the Beatles, we're told that they started using drugs at the beginning of their career. That's in their biography. This means that every time you hear the Beatles, you're listening to some dope addicts.

We used to call them dope fiends where I came from. Every time you buy their record, you're paying for the dope for these fiends, and you're hooked up with a culture that is dedicated to the destruction of America, the propagation of LSD and narcotics.

And let me say this. I wouldn't buy a record. I wouldn't listen to them. I wouldn't watch them on television. I wouldn't hear them on the radio. Some long-haired men who are dedicated to destroying these young people whom we love and for whom we pray and whom we teach and for whom we work and whom we train.

And these are enemies of decency trying to destroy America. Some of you folks put your money in their coffers. God pity. You're a traitor too. The Beatles have a song entitled, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Get it? Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. LSD. L for Lucy. S in Sky. D in Diamonds. There's not a hippie in America that doesn't know that's what it's talking about. They have code words in their songs. You don't know it when you hear a song, but these code words are known by the hippie crowd.

These words have to do with certain narcotics. As they sing these songs, they're speaking about drugs. Ladies and gentlemen, there's a definite correlation between the rock music, the dirty body, the long hair, the festivals, the loose morals, the free love, the homosexual, the effeminate, the one-worldism, and communism.

There's a definite correlation. Gordon McClendon, a Texan who owns 13 radio stations across the country, by the way, used to own WNUS in Chicago, decided to take all the music off his radio stations that had anything to do with drugs or the use of drugs.

He was attacked and blasted even by the Newsweek magazine because he took them off his radio stations. You know one of the great things that's happened in America that I think is hurting us so much, and that is we've talked too much about this stupid generation gap.

I said to our people, there's nothing wrong with the generation gap that couldn't be cured by an old-fashioned razor strap. Here's one church where the young folks don't run it. We have a high school where the young folks haven't captured the dean or the principal.

And here's one church and one high school where we don't even have a student council. We're so old-fashioned, we believe that the head of the penitentiary ought to run it, and the inmates ought not to run the insane asylum, and the school students ought not to run the high school.

No association there between the high school students and insane. Did you know if I were a heathen, and I'm not, but if I were a heathen, I think my cultural taste would be above such garbage and rot as this kind of music.

If I didn't believe in God, I'd still find such trash disgusting. And if I were a Christian, I'd want to clean the dirt out from between my toes, cut my hair. In fact, I just wish I had some hair to cut.

But if I were a Christian, I'd believe in taking a bath. My culture says that good music ought to be played. My culture says when somebody's trying to destroy my nation, I think I'll do something about it.

My culture says that when somebody's trying to serve LSD and promote it by their singing, trying to serve it and promote it to my children, my culture says stand up and fight them. I was in New York State.

I told our people this. You preachers, I'll tell you this. I was in New York State preaching to a state convention of Baptists. Anybody here, was anybody there that night I preached? Anybody of you preachers here?

Okay, then you'll verify what I'm about to say. I'm glad you're here, brother. A group came out to sing at the state convention of Baptists. I won't tell you what group of Baptists. It was the church choir singing for the annual convention of the state Baptist group.

A beautiful auditorium, a very nice, refined pastor, and a lovely building. And the youth choir came out to sing for the state meeting. The first four fellows who came out had long hair. All the girls but one had miniskirts.

One boy came out, had his shirt open and his undershirt showing and a hair on his chest showing over his undershirt. And they came out and one guy got a guitar and began to beat on it like this. Now this isn't true.

The kids, the prelude for their song, or the introduction was... All of them. See, that... Watch out there, darling, you're going to drop off that seat if you wiggle like that very much. But that's what happened.

I mean, that's the way it started off. Did you stay after the service? They kept me to 115. That crowd gathered... They came out like that and sang a bunch of rock music in the state convention. And in my own timid, tactful way, I blew that thing higher than a kite.

I didn't have anybody to say amen then. And I was a stranger in a foreign land. I wanted to put my harp over the trees and not sing the Lord's song in a strange land. But I spent an hour and a half busting that wicked kind of stuff wide open in a fundamental church, a Bible preaching church.