Red Light of Hell — Percy Ray

The Rich Man, Lazarus, and the Reality of Hell

There was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. There was a certain beggar named Black, which was laid at his gate full of swords, and desiring to be fed, when the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, moreover the dogs came and licked his sword.

It came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angel into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And hell, he lifted up his eyes, being entombed, to see if Abraham were far off and Lazarus in his bosom.

He cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that they dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this way. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivest thou good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted.

Thou art tormented. And beside all of this, between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot, neither can they pass to us that would come from thence.

And he said, I pray thee therefore, Father, that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have moans from the prophets, let them hear them.

He said, Nay, Father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. He said unto him, If they hear not moans from the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, for one rose from the dead.

Beginning with the 19th verse, if correctly read, to verse 31 of the 16th chapter of the book of Luke. We wait in your presence. We vow in your presence to acknowledge our sins. We confess our sins of lust, and pride, and theft, and foolish jesting, evil thoughts, idle talk, ugly walk, or anything else, dear God, that you've seen in us that's amiss.

We're sorry of it. We're ashamed of it. Thou hast said in thy word that thy hand is not shut, that it cannot save. The ear is not dead, that it cannot hear. But that our sins have separated between us and you, and he didn't wear your face.

Oh God, we don't want you to be hidden from us tonight. We want you to hear our prayers tonight. We're praying for these lost souls in this odd time. Dear God, we want you to save those, our father, who are here tonight.

Some of the children of our own church members are lost. They're in the age of accountability. No doubt they're going to be saved tonight. Our father, there's scores of others, no doubt, in this mass crowd tonight, who need Christ as a Savior.

We pray, Heavenly Father, this will be the night when your poor message will wear a vacuum over this place, remove all of the demonic forces and satanic powers, and fill it with the power of the Holy Ghost, your God.

We pray, Heavenly Father, tonight in the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will come in sin-killing and soul-saving and in convicting and converting power tonight until people will know that you're God.

Father, we pray that no lost soul will leave out of these four walls tonight without being saved. God, take thy servant, loose his tongue and illuminate his mind. Give him holy option for this hour. We pray, our father, that the Spirit of God shall have full sway through this service.

May we hear the cry of newborn babes before the night's dawn. O God, for Jesus' sake, help us tonight, O God. We'll be grateful to you for it when you do it. Lord Jesus, hear us while we pray. In Jesus' name we beg it.

Amen. ...into the fire that never shall be quenched. For the worm doth not and the fowl is not quenched. And if thou and I offend thee, pluck it out. It's better to be there unto the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

...doth not. And where the fowl is not quenched, say unto them on the right hand, depart from me. He cursed it into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.

These shall go away into everlasting punishment. Those are the words of Jesus Christ, not of some preacher. Not of some disciple but Jesus. I've come to you, my friends, tonight to talk to you about hell.

Hell as a Literal and Unavoidable Reality

I believe in a literal hell. We're living in a day when a lot of people want to escape the thought and the idea of hell. And it's so modernized and liberalized till the average congregation thinks of hell as some summer resort where they can put on their bathing suit and go swimming and never get blistered.

Hell's a still thing. The hell it's always been except it's being enlarged. The book of Isaiah tells us that hell is being enlarged. That's the only difference now than what it used to be. It is that it's larger.

We stop to realize, my friends, you say, well I don't believe in hell. Well, don't change it. They didn't believe there was coming a flood in Noah's day but they got drownded just the same. They didn't believe fire and brimstone would come down and rain on Sodom and Gomorrah and burn them up.

But they got burned up just the same. That 250 that stood out on the hillside and laughed at God and didn't believe God could do anything and God split the earth from underneath them and they went to hell in their shirt tails for them and you helped hit them.

I want you to know because you don't believe in hell doesn't change the fact of hell. My beloved, if there's a heaven, there has to be a hell. If there's a God, there's a hell. If there's a Jesus Christ, there's a hell.

If there's a Holy Spirit, there's a hell. If there's a human soul, there's a hell. If there's a hereafter, there's a hell. And I want you to realize, my friends, Jesus had more to say about hell than all of the disciples and the prophets put together.

Jesus spoke 13 times about hell to heaven's one. Every time he spoke one time about hell, he spoke 13 times about hell. Why so much about hell? For the same reason you're driving down a highway. And you should drive down the road if there's no broken pavement or no bridge out and it's a long, straight, smooth road.

You see no signs of separation. You see the number of the road. Or that there's a sign there saying there's a side road coming in. You get on down that highway and there's red flags and red lights and a flagman says, Slow down 40 miles an hour.

Slow to 20 miles an hour. Slow to 10 miles. Bridge out. Broken pavement. Now why all of those signs? Why the red flags? Why the flashing lights? Why the flagman? Because there's a broken place out there.

And it means if you run into it, your life will be gone. And your machine that you're driving will be wrecked. So my friends didn't even need to put no flashing lights and red flags and flagmen on a smooth road where there's no pits.

So as a result, it wasn't going to hurt anybody if they went to heaven. But Jesus didn't want you to go to hell. And so he put out flags. He put out signs. He put out warnings. 13 times to heaven's one.

Jesus, God's own son, said there's a hell you must go. There's a hell to escape. Jesus said it's a place where the fire's not quenched and where the worms dine off. He said if your hand's keeping you from getting saved, you better lose the hand.

If your eye's keeping you from getting saved, you better get your eye plucked out. It's better to go to heaven with one eye than to go to hell with both of them where the fire's not quenched and the worms dine off.

If your foot's keeping you from getting saved, you better cut it off. It's better my faith to go to heaven, than to go to hell with both these where the worms dine off and where the fire's not quenched.

Rejecting the No-Hell Doctrine

We're living in a day where a lot of people are saying there's no hell. Judge Rutherford and his crowd going across the country putting out the no hell doctrine. Seven-day Adventists are preaching the no hell doctrine.

Old Herbert Armstrong from Arizona and out west is preaching no hell. I'll tell you one thing. I believe Jesus Christ in preference to Judge Rutherford, crowd Jehovah witness. I believe Jesus Christ for I believe Herbert Armstrong.

I believe Jesus Christ for I believe any seven-day Advent preacher or doodling of any kind. I want you to know, my friends, if there's no hell, you can throw the Bible away. If there's no hell, there's no Jesus.

If there's no hell, there's no God. The same Bible that tells you about, God tells you about hell. The same Bible that tells you about Jesus tells you about hell. The same Bible that tells you about the Holy Spirit tells you about hell.

The same Bible that tells you about a man having a soul tells you about hell. The same Bible that tells you, my friends, about the hereafter tells you about hell. Listen to me. You're living in the face of one who used to be an infidel.

I didn't believe any of it. Until I could believe there's a hell, I wouldn't believe any of it. If there's no hell, throw the Bible away. Kill off preachers and burn the churches down. What are you running around praying and preaching for?

If there's no hell, ain't no need of bothering anybody with preaching tongues. If there's no hell, there's no need of preaching. If there's no hell, there's no need of a Bible. If there's no hell, there's no need of a religion.

Because you won't need it if there's no hell. But if there is a Christ and there is a Holy Spirit, there is a heaven, there is a God, there is a human soul, there is a hereafter, then you must face the fact that the same Bible that told you that told you about hell.

As many times in the Bible it speaks of hell as there are chapters in the Bible. There's as many warnings in the Bible about hell as there is chapters in the Bible. So I'm telling you, my friends, you say, well, preacher, I just don't believe in hell.

That don't change it. That don't change because you don't believe. You say, well, I'm just, I just don't believe I love in God. I great love in God and sin is but in hell. What's he going to do with you if he don't put you in hell?

Where else could he put you? Now, let's get that straight. When your loved one dies, your mother, your dad, your child, your companion dies, did you love them? You say, yes, I loved them. Would you have kept them long if you could?

Yes, you'd have spent all you had. You did probably try to keep them there. But when they died, there was nothing else to do but to carry them to the graveyard or have them cremated. Now, why don't you just put them in your living room or the couch?

Call the man from the funeral home, dress up the corpse, and put them in the living room or put them in the guest bedroom or the bed. You say, well, then, file up our living quarters. All right, so take a speaking spiritual corpse to heaven, file up the living quarters of God.

In a deep, long gullet. I'll tell you, my friends, that for God cannot, God has no other alternate. It's not the will of God that any man should perish. God willed the death of no man. If you wind up in hell, it's your fault, not God's fault.

My friends, I want you to realize before God tonight that God didn't will you to go to hell. He willed you to be saved and send his son to do it. But if you're so stiff-necked and hard-headed, you just go and go to hell, don't blame nobody, don't holler, God don't love.

What else could he do with you? Hell's God's graveyard for the spiritual corpse of sinners. He couldn't take in heaven and ruin the living quarters of him and his children. So what else could he do but put you in hell?

That don't mean God doesn't love you because he put the soul, cast the soul in hell because it died without Jesus. He has no alternate. If he'd let God have his way, you wouldn't have went to hell. My friends, you'd have been saved because if God has his way, he'd come to seek and to save that which is lost here and come to send it to hell.

He'd come to save it. But if you won't let him save it, then, my friends, it has to go to hell. Ain't nowhere else for it to go. So I'm saying to you tonight, my friends, you say, well, I just don't believe in hell.

You'll believe it in a split-second after you get there. There was a man who lived every day as if there was no hell. He had his fine linen and purple. He had something, dined and wined and danced and so on and everything, but he died in hell.

He lifted up his eyes and my friends, you keep this one thing in mind, when he got to hell, he had his eyes. When he got to hell, he had his vocal cords. When he got to hell, he had his tongue. When he got to hell, he had his knowledge.

When he got to hell, he had his memory. When he got to hell, he had a body. When he got to hell, he knew who was who. He saw Lazarus fall off in Abraham's bosom. When he got to hell, he was conscious of his brothers down in his father's house coming to hell after.

Because of his in-front, he was sad and living high, but died and in hell, he lifted up his eyes. And I want you to realize, my friends, just cause you laugh off hell, just cause you laugh off God, just cause you laugh off Jesus, ain't going to keep you out of hell either.

Go ahead and there you'll find your way. Go ahead and wine and dine and dance and so on. But I've got one thing to say to you, my friends, that one of these days, you'll wake up in hell. Whether you breathe in hell or whether you don't, you're going to hell anyway.

My friends, you're not breathing hell. You can breathe. My friends, it's sulfuric acid, it won't kill you. But if you drink it, it'll eat you up. You can breathe the strychnine, it won't kill you. But if you take it, it'll kill you.

So you can breathe, there's no hell. But it'll still be hell, just the same. I want you to realize, tonight there is a hell. Whether you breathe in it, whether you have an Armstrong piece in it, whether a 70th Adventist or Jehovah's Witness breathe in it, or whether they don't, don't change it.

My friends, the infidels have lived and laughed at God. They're in hell and God's still here. We've still got God to deal with. In spite of the infidels and atheists, magnostic, God's still here. They live and die and go on to hell, but God remains the issue.

So you just remember, my friends, there's a hell out there in front of you. Don't ever let anybody teach you. God said it's there. The Word declares it. And my friends, it's there. Hell is a reality. Hell isn't any myth.

Hell isn't any scarecrow. Hell isn't any mystic thing. Hell is a reality. He said, I don't believe it. Make sure you get down your breath. This man didn't believe it either until he got there, but he believed it.

And if it's bad enough, he didn't want his brothers to come. If it's bad enough, he needed somebody to water his birds' tongue. You hear me tonight, friends, when you think there isn't any hell, you know there are no hellers.

It's a bunch of crooks that are living like the devil and they want to believe there's no hell to license them in their sins. That's what it is. And they're hoping they're in hell because they know they're born in hell if there is one.

So they're trying to brainwash themselves into believing there's no hell so they can go on living in it. And my friends, he said the wicked shall be turned into hell. God said that. And he has the power to turn you into hell if he wants to.

It ain't nothing you can do about it. You just keep that in mind. We stop the real life tonight. I want to talk to you tonight about the red light of hell. The red light of hell. It opens to every man.

The World, Satan, Sin, and Human Accountability

And every man shall decide which way he'll go. Now we come to think about it together tonight. First of all, my friends, we're born into the world. You hear? That proves that. That you've been born in the world.

And so we don't have to argue the fact that we're born in the world. But here's what I want you to realize. We're born in the world and according to John 5, 19, it lies in the hand of the evil one. And we stop the real life that, my friends, because it lies in the hand of the evil one, according to Romans 3, 19, it shall pass its guilty before God.

And according to 1 John 2, 17, it will pass away. This world lies in the hand of the evil one. You're born into the world in the hand of the evil one. It makes its guilty before God. And it's a place that's not permanent.

This is not your permanent address. This is your temporary course. And, my friends, you're not going to stay here always. Please, go on. Yes, for reasons stripped forth. Then you're going somewhere or you're going to hell or heaven.

We're born in the world and it lies in the hand of the evil one which makes its guilty before God because according to Ephesians 2, 2, Satan is the prince of this world. He's the prince of this world.

And because he's the prince of this world, my friends, the next thing we see is that 2 Corinthians 4, 4 tells us that he blinds the minds of the unbelieving. He blinds the minds of the unbelieving. Not the eyes, but he defiles your mind.

He stagnates your mind. He confuses your mind. He mixes up your mind. To keep you from seeing the truth. Then you're born in the world, you come into contact with Satan which is the prince of the world, and he blinds your mind.

And then he starts telling you lies. John 8, 44 tells us that he's a liar and he's the father of lies. He's a murderer and the father of the murderers. The devil starts lying to you. You come in the world, you're born in the world, you come in contact with Satan which is the prince of this world, he blinds your minds and then he tells you a bunch of lies.

What's some of the lies? One of the lies is he tells you as good as the church members. You don't need to be saved. I want to tell you tonight, if you haven't been washed in the blood of the Lamb, you're good for nothing but hell.

That's all you're good for. I want you to know, God's word said there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none good but one and that's God. And your goodness in the sight of God is nothing more than filthy rags.

That's all it is. Let it make God hold his nose and gag you if he looks at your filthy righteousness. He said unless your life exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, he shall in no case, under no circumstances, enter into heaven.

And there was lot more righteous than any of you. And yet Jesus said they had to have more than that which is the righteousness of Christ and give it unto them or they don't enter into the kingdom of God.

Now you watch. My friends, he said well, you're just as good as the princes, you're good as the church members. You don't need to be saved. He lies to you. I don't care how good you are, you're a sinner by nature, you're a sinner by practice.

Therefore, you are guilty before God. Then the devil said, why? You can't afford to be saved. There's too many crooked preachers. And I grant you there's some crooked preachers, but they ain't going to keep you out of hell.

Some of those preachers are crooked, they ain't going to keep you from going to hell. Preachers, I know some preachers are crooked, they'll have to screw me popping on them when they're dead. But they ain't going to keep you from going to hell, I'll tell you that now.

And I want you to realize tonight, you say well, I'm better than the hypocrites. I'm better than a lot of the church members. Well, God fear you, if you're not better than some of them, I know of you ought to go to hell.

I'll tell you that for sure. I want you to realize, my friends, we come into this world, and we go around the world, and come in contact, see, and Satan tells us a bunch of lies. He says you're better than the hypocrites, and God will honor that.

He won't honor nothing but Jesus Christ and the shed blood of the Son of God. You just keep that in mind. You say, well, preacher, I just don't want to be in that church with them hypocrites. Well, God bless you so much, I've got news for you.

I want you to know one thing, you're already in there with them. Hypocrites is going to hell, and if you're a lost sinner, you're going to hell, and the devil's your both of your poppers. If you're a hypocrite, you're the child of the devil, and if you're a lost sinner, you're the child of the devil, headed to the same place, put you in a sack, and shake you up, and pull you out, and I couldn't tell who to pull out first.

You were the hypocrite. You say, well, now, preacher, I'll tell you right now, there's so many hypocrites in the church, I just, the devil said, why, you're better than hypocrites, and there's no need to get me in there with them.

You listen to me, my friends, I'm not going to have you say, well, that ain't no lie, there's too many hypocrites in the church. I'll say amen, and I'll tell you, there's a lot of hypocrites in the church.

I'm not going to tell you there's not. Yes, we've got a lot of hypocrites to my disappointment, in the church. I remember one time, I tried to get a man whose wife and children were members of the church, and I tried to get him to become a Christian, and he said, you've got too many hypocrites in the church.

Just clean them out, I'll get saved and get in. And what we did, so we had a church cleaned, turned out 136, and had 26 left. I drove by and told him what we'd done. He said, call the 26 men. I called the name of the 26, he said, 25 of them as good as God ever let the sun shine on, but that fella, is one of the worst things you had in there.

And I said, oh no, you're just trying to alibi now. He said, alright, give me 30 days, if he don't go bad, I'll join, like I said, I'll get right with God. Last three weeks, I heard that fella was into some immoral stuff, was a disgrace to society.

So I went down the road, and that fella seen me going down the road, he flagged me down, I pulled over the side, he told me to stop the car, and said, I told you, I told you. I said, what'd you tell me?

He said, I told you you had a hypocrite in the church. Oh, so and so, I guess you heard what he's on, he didn't check. He is a hypocrite. I was like a little boy that can't run or ride and have nothing to say.

He's telling the truth. He stopped me and I'd lost some time, and I speeded up, going on down to Highway, and there's an old buzzard sitting down there taking on a racket. I thought, well, he'll probably forget that.

Speeded up, and just about the time I got there, that old buzzard decided to fly, and he come up and hit my windshield, busted buzzard all over me. I kind of got buzzard on my mind. Drove on down the road, and I got thinking about the buzzards, the vultures, you know, these old big black birds, hunt something dead.

They're very innocent, purely a type of a fowl. You ought to watch them hunting something dead. They're not going to hunt nothing alive, they're hunting something dead. Something rotten. You find a dead snake or a dead bird, and they'll fly down and eat it.

You find a big old dead cow or a dead horse, you love them. And if he's good and mellow, they still won't eat him. Cockers, and they go all over the community and kill all the birds. Come on, I'll find one of them and have a picnic dinner.

The minute you see that buzzard come back to have a buzzard in that area, it's with him. They'll start circling, and they'll fly down in on that old cocker, and they'll have them all over the town eating up that dead cocker.

They'll eat until they can't stand no more. Then they'll fly up on a dead limb on a tree, on a fence post, and stand there and sit down until they vomit and go back and eat them some more. We got a bunch of hypocrites in the church, but I hate when the community find out I was a buzzard or a hunk of bone.

Just let some ordinary church member go bad, just some ordinary, won't be much about it, but you let a deacon or some school teacher or superintendent or preacher go bad, then the community will go down there and watch and say, hey, come here, you heard about that preacher?

You heard about that deacon? Ha ha, we don't claim to be nothing, we wouldn't do nothing like that. That's the way of them married deacons, that's the way of them preachers, that's the way of them Sunday school teachers.

And they'll go watch them and see all that sin in their life, then they'll fly down and go down to town and sit down on a nail tag or a window seal and wait on there and spit that back a juice and everybody comes down and says, hey, hey, heard about the preacher?

Heard about the deacon? Heard about them good church members digging a ditch. Almost until you find your good big juice and you feel something falling up and everybody comes down straight. Some big dealers rotting us in the church.

Transform, go ahead. One thing, fella, don't forget what I'm fixing to say. If you're waiting for all the hypocrites to get out of church to get saved, you as well as get a fan in your hand and a somersault and get ready to spit hell, you're headed there.

There has been a church without a hypocrite in it and for your information there never will be. Jesus selected twelve and he got one cook and when we take in three or four hunnids we'll probably get some gaffers.

My friend, there will never be a church without a hypocrite in it. Never has been, is, now, and never will be. So if you're waiting for the hypocrites to get out, get saved, you're as sure as hell as you in this church house tonight.

Just remember that. I decided how long you're going with them. It's fair enough to put up with them 75 or 80 years, much less put up with them through hell. You realize Psalms 51, 5 said in the Nicodemus, I shaped me in sin that my mother could see me.

Yes, sir. We're born in sin, shaped in iniquity. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not want the book of Job said. And so as for yourself, he tells us in the word of God that we come into this world with a sin nature and by nature we're the children of wrath, even as others.

We've all sinned. We've all borne it. We've shaped in it. At the time of the war he said we go forth in our infancy life. Little bitty babies life. Yes, ma 'am. You don't breathe it. Wait till some blizzard this night and I'll tickle as long as that stick hanging off in the drip of the hat.

The wind buzzing around the corners like something blowing in a jug. Real cold blizzard on. You've heard it. Screaming yelling like he's going in a spasm with a crack colic. Your wife rams her elbow in your ribs and say get up John get the ride on see what's the matter with you.

Turned right on and went kicking his little heels laughing. Wasn't nothing out of him. He was alive. You want a congregation like this to get to screaming like he's going into a spasm. Get up and start out with him and go to the gookoo and laughing at you.

He's alive. That's what's the matter with him. Soon as you get here you're out, out, out. Your young ones are going to die. Sin makes a remnant. Born in the world come in contact Satan. Satan calls us to sin and as a result we've all sinned.

And sin when it's finished, sin when it's finished. Ephesians 2 said in a certain time the intelligence of the child will depend on the environment in which they're brought up in and what they've been taught from infancy.

I want you to know my friends when they're big enough to know right from wrong and know there's a hell and know there's a heaven and know that the sinner if they die after that without being saved they'll go to hell if they're not but 6 years old they'll go to hell.

Until then they're taken care of by the grace of God. But after that they're not. So we're born in the world come in contact Satan. Satan calls us to sin. Sin brings forth death. Now when we come to the age of accountability when we come to the point where we realize right from wrong without God I'm lost.

Then the road splits. The road splits. There's a highway that opens to man and there's a roadway that opens to man. And there's a man standing in the forks of the road to decide which way he goes. The preacher won't decide.

God won't decide. Law and law and the guardian won't decide. The one that decides that thing is you. You're a free world agent. You're standing right here in the middle of the road. You can go to heaven or you can go to hell.

You take your choice. You have a right of choice. Nobody can keep you from doing it. Nobody can make you go to hell. Nobody can make you go to heaven. You make your own decision about the thing. So as a result your Father Word has come and contacted Satan.

Satan calls sin. Sin brings forth death. And thank God we can get life through the Lord Jesus Christ and wind up in heaven. But if you don't take life to the Lord Jesus Christ then you're headed on the downward road.

And so my friends there you are. Here you came to the world. You swore to the world and Satan is the prince of this world and you got to contact him. He calls you to sin. Sin brings forth death and then you're facing death.

You can go to life through Jesus Christ or you can go to death through your own way. That's your decision. Now then right here is the red light of hell. Right there. What was right bud? No sir. That's right.

I said I did the end. I thought I was going to speak on the red light figure of hell. What is it? The shed blood of Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ. If you go beyond the blood of Jesus Christ you're going to hell.

If you pass up the cross of Christ you're going to hell. The cross. The cross my friend. The cross is the red light of hell. You ignore the cross. You run by the cross. You trample the blood of Jesus on your feet.

I don't care if you're a preacher. I don't care if you're a deacon. I don't care if you're a church member. I don't care how good you live. If you've rejected Jesus Christ. If you've not accepted the shed blood of Jesus as a sacrifice for your sin.

If you're not accepted as atoning death you're lost tonight. You're on your road to hell tonight. So as a result the cross of Christ. The shed blood of the son of God. It's the red light of the cross.

Now watch it. We all travel this road this far together. Now then we can go either way. We can let Jesus die in our stead. Through him we'll have life and heaven. But if we reject his death his sacrifice and refuse him then we're headed to hell.

Now you go down here to the cross. Run a red light. Stop light. Sometimes the law don't see you. But if the law catches you they'll tear you to judgment. Tear you down before the court. Cause you run a red light.

Stop light. Alright watch. After death you free. The mountain country that little boy come to school and they They had a professor, that had made, had the school to make some rules. They hadn't been able to keep a teacher at that school because the mountain boys were rough, they wouldn't stay with them.

The Cross as the Red Light of Judgment

A young man about ninety, a town young fellow who really fell out of pride for the school, they said they'd throw you down the mountainside the first day. Couldn't get nobody else, and finally agreed to let him go.

He got down to the rough mountain boys, looked at him and laughed, how they'd leave you to run. So when, whoops, look, time came for everybody to come in from, to begin the classes, he said, now I'm your new teacher, and we'll need some rules to go by.

They said, yeah, make some rules. He said, I don't make them. You make them. One of them said, thou shalt not fight. Another said, thou shalt not curse. Another said, thou shalt not cheat. He went on and wrote them down.

He said, now if we have rules, we'll have to have penalties for broken. They agreed to that. Sure. Penalty for cheating. Five licks on the back. Penalty for cursing. Three licks on the back. Penalty for playing hooky.

Five licks on the back. Plus the penalty for stealing. Oh, that's a mean thing. Twenty-five licks on the back of our school. Now then, you've made the rules, you've made the penalty. You want me to go a good man and enforce your laws, or you want me to let him go?