Gospel Meetings-Shannon Hills 02 — Worth Ellis

Always one of mine, also one of mine, and we're going to sing it. I'm going to ask Mr. Worth Ellis, if he won't just come onto the platform. I want him to see out there how well you look tonight and how well you're singing on this grand and wonderful gospel hymn, Saved by the Blood of the Crucified One.

151. We're going to stand and sing this one because it's just one of those, as Albert Thompson says, you can't sing it sitting down. You've just got to be on your feet. And when you get to that chorus, I'd like to see you looking this way, with your eyes smiling as well as your mouth, and singing it right from your heart, this wonderful hymn.

All together now.

Excellent singing to begin our meeting.

And tonight, while you rest your voices, we're just delighted to have a group of fine Christian people who've come over from the Gospel Center in Durham to bring us a number and song. Ms. Margaret Greenhill, Ms. Dallas Jones, accompanied by Ms. Carolyn Wheeler.

It's a joy to have them bring us a number this time.

Our brother Joe Westmoreland, if he'll lead us in prayer at this time. Brother Westmoreland.

I pray that you may hear me tonight. No matter what path life may lead me, that the blood of this church comes to save me in my house from sin. Lord, may every person here tonight, without this Savior, consider the danger that they're in.

Consider the endless danger that we're all in today of being wiped out. And we pray tonight, Lord, that each one here without Christ will see the danger that there's in the presence of Trinity and the house of darkness all alone.

And how we thank thee tonight, Lord, that this blessed message can go forth, that this blessed Savior came between us. He laid down his life, all of his soul, all of his clothes, and spirit, all of his life together.

I thank you tonight. Lord, we thank you tonight. Lord, that through simple faith, through a simple ecstasy, we can come to him and have simple faith and trust in this living Savior who has gone through death.

We pray for any here who may be without him tonight, that thou wouldst express these things with him. And how we thank you, Lord, for the joy that he brings into our chosen church, and the freedom from past sins, and the freedom from the temptation of sin, and the salvation of the power of the Holy Spirit.

We pray thee to bless this meeting tonight, each and every one of you, and we pray that you take our brothers and sisters tonight with our hearts and joys, and that God may glorify us here tonight with some soul in a comfortable climate, for we ask thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

We've had a good day today. Our Sunday school attendance was back up to nearer what it ought to be there, 470, a nice increase over last week. We've had one of the finest young people's activities that I've ever seen today presented to us since I've been in the Assembly for over 20 years, as we had a two-hour program today from five to seven.

Had a wonderful crowd here, some visiting from other cities. And then tonight, to see the building well filled for this first evening service of the campaign is certainly delighting our hearts. We would like to announce that these services will continue in the will of the Lord each night this week at 745, except Saturday.

There will not be a service here Saturday night. And then next Lord's Day, our brother Ellis will be back for the 11 o 'clock Family Bible Hour, and in the will of the Lord for the evening service. Now, we're delighted to have some of our friends here tonight, and many of you visiting, and we hope you'll see fit to come back each night.

We would say another word to the Christians. Just keep working. We know you have. This is proof of it. And we hope you'll keep inviting your friends out. Monday night, particularly, we need your help.

It seems like down through the ages that Monday night has been kind of an off night in many meetings, and yet I find in business and in other activities there are less activities on Monday night than perhaps any other night in the week.

So perhaps if we double our efforts, Christians, between now and tomorrow night, we'll have another fine crowd, and many here who we do not believe knows the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our purpose is to win men and women and boys and girls to Christ in these meetings.

So we appreciate your help, your prayers. I know our brother Ellis says amen to that, and that's what's going to make a grand campaign throughout this next week. Now, we have a chorus we'll sing each night.

It's 492, if you don't already know it. We sang it this morning. We're going to make it the theme chorus of our meeting this week. It's our whole purpose. One of our purposes, I should say, not our whole purpose, but one purpose in being saved, and that is that we are saved, saved to tell others.

So shall we sing 492? Immediately after this, the fine duet from Durham.

Will bring us another number. We're saved, saved to tell others. Saved by God's power. Saved for others.

Just before we sing this, to me it's been a real joy to have the peace of God reign in my heart this week, especially since the world is in such turmoil and strife. And to me, this song that we're about to sing certainly is timely.

It's especially for a Christian to enjoy. And we trust that God might bless the words to your heart as well as ours.

Tenderly, He watches over you. He watches every step, every mile, like a water watching over me. He is with you every hour of the day. When you're joy and you're pain, when you lose and when you gain, He will change your power of ever watches and cares for every step, every mile.

Before time began, you were part of His plan. Let no fear cloud your brow. He will not forsake you, not His own. I wish I could say that Dallas and Margaret would be with us all week, but that isn't true.

They have busy schedules, too. And Dallas has just returned from Bristol, Virginia, Tennessee, where he led singing and was soloist for the big CBMC rally there. And I know he has a full schedule this week.

We might prevail on him to try to come back. But we do have other special music. Trula Martin, whom many of you have heard, fine soloist, is coming over on Tuesday evening. And then Dave Stallings from Durham will be here, perhaps with some others, but certainly he'll be here next Sunday night in the will of the Lord.

We have some of our own talent for Wednesday night of this week, I believe, and Thursday night. And we're designating Friday night as Youth Night. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't all be coming, but it means that in a special way we want to emphasize again our interest in our young people, and we trust that they, in turn, will emphasize their interest in being of benefit to the Assembly and to other young people by turning out as many as possible on Friday night.

Perhaps they'll also be providing music for us, but it will be Youth Night on Friday night. Now, that means we all come, too, but they're just going to see if they can't bring more than we do and be here in large numbers, we trust, and bring many of their unsaved young people with them on Friday night.

Now, we're going to sing by request, No. 509. It's just a chorus. We're going to give this duet a chance to bless our hearts again with one other number before the message. When you come all the way from Durham, we want to get as much from them as we can and trust that they, in turn, will get a blessing as they sing.

No. 509, To You Know Jesus.

We want to thank each one of you for that hearty singing tonight. We trust it will be that way each evening, and you'll be back with us tomorrow night, Lord willing. Now, you heard from our evangelist this morning.

Many of you, he was introduced to you, and again,.

We're not going to take away from his time to give a long, flowery introduction to a man we've learned to love who preaches the gospel because he loves the Lord Jesus, our brother Worth Ellis. And he'll be speaking to us just after Dallas and Margaret bring us another number in song.

The Universal Need for Salvation

So, let's go ahead and begin. Reading tonight from the third chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Romans chapter three.

Romans chapter three, reading from verse nine. Romans chapter three, beginning at verse nine. Shall we pray? We thank thee, our Heavenly Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners. We would acknowledge to thee before we read from thy book and seek to exalt thy Son that salvation is of the Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, our risen Head of the Church, the Father given the authority over all flesh. We claim afresh the promise from thy known lips our blessed Son of God. He that believeth on me as the scripture has said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

Grant it, Lord Jesus, for thine own glory and honor. Amen. What then are we better than they? No, in no wise, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher.

With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of ash is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all in the belief, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

I was saved sometime during the fall of the year, 1944, at the age of 27. As far as I can remember, I had never prayed in my life. I didn't know a single verse of scripture. Had not been inside of a church, if my memory serves me correctly, in eight years.

Did not believe there was a God, a heaven or a hell, or a Jesus Christ. I was personally convinced that anyone else that did was nothing but a silly fool. Just that ignorant of all of the eternal virtues of the word of God, about the needs of the Son of God who is seated with my Lord and Savior, and I've been rejoicing for 18 years now in the full assurance of the absolute and complete and eternal forgiveness of all sins, past, present and future.

And tonight, I would not stoop so low as to cast in a reflection upon your intelligence, but I'm going to treat you tonight just as if you are as ignorant as I were back in those days of spiritual fame.

And we're going to take you to kindergarten, and we're going to teach you tonight your ABCs by the mercy of God. And in doing so, I'm going to violate one of the first principles of good preaching. And when you're not a good preacher, you don't have to worry about violating the principles anyhow.

You just talk. And I'm going to lift out of its context three portions of Scripture, not new to many here. We read one of them here in the Roman Epistle, chapter 3, verse 23. All have sin. We're going to take the second one out of a verse of Scripture found in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, chapter 32, verse 23.

It reads as follows. Be sure your sin will find you out. We're going to take the last one out of 1 Corinthians 15, verse 3. Christ died for our sin. And my heart's desire and prayer to God tonight is this, that you'll not only learn your ABCs, but by the mercy of God, when you leave this building, you will have graduated into the full assurance of the acceptance of the forgiveness that's in our Lord Jesus Christ and the knowledge of peace with God.

Beginning With the First Principles

I believe all of us gathered here tonight will agree that one thing essential to learning is to begin at the beginning. Now, that might sound facetious, but it's true. Regardless how much one may know or how much knowledge one may acquire, we have to confess that there was a time when they knew very little and go a little further back and there was a time when they knew absolutely nothing.

And that's where you must begin in order to be saved. The most learned man the world has ever known may pick up his pen and may sit down or down to his typewriter and write a lengthy and a very weighted volume renowned the world around for its profundity.

It may contain 500 pages and 50 ,000 words, but when he completes his novel it may be a bestseller, may win him a Nobel Peace Prize, and may be filled with jewels of wisdom and wit and humor and pathos and drama that the world has never seen.

But when he lays down his pen after his laborious task, he will only have used 26 letters if he writes it in English and that's the alphabet. A, B, C, D, E, and so on. What I'm trying to impress upon your hearts at this time is this, that in the acquiring of knowledge regardless of whatever sphere you may be in, that there is a basic approach to the problem of understanding and to the problem of learning, and that simply is to begin at the beginning.

I am positively amazed at times at the intellect of some men that I am acquainted with by way of the newspaper. Whenever I see a man like Dr. Wernher von Braun pictured in the newspaper who is the present head of our space program, I would just love to have a sort of a seeing eye like Superman is supposed to have, slip up on him sometime when he's figuring out one of these mathematical problems and just watch the wheels in his head see how they run around.

I am simply overwhelmed with a sense of a man's intellect, and it's not hard to understand when you consider, and I say this in all honesty, that I can't this very day work very simple subtractions. You'll have to forgive me for my ignorance, but I can't do it.

It didn't take when I was in school, so I gave up, and I quit. But you take a man like Dr. von Braun can sit down with a pencil and take a piece of paper, and by mathematical equations can divide an atom.

He can turn his paper on the other side and take the same pencil and he can take that atom and blow it past the United States at one time. I think he's a pretty smart cookie. Now I say he's got brains.

Would you agree with me that he's a smart man, an intellectual, an intelligent man? If you go far enough back in the history of Dr. von Braun if he was born and raised in this country, and the name hardly permits me to think so, but if you were, you could go far enough back in his experience and there was a time in his life when he only knew ABC.

And if it'll make me feel any better, I can remind you of this. There was a time that Dr. von Braun and I both were in the first grade in school. The main difference is he went on and matriculated and I quituated.

Nevertheless, the fact still remains that regardless of how much sense a man may have and how much brain, how many brains, and how much intelligence he may sport, there was a time in his life when he had to begin at the beginning in the acquiring of knowledge as we have said.

There must be, first of all, a basic approach to the problem to begin at the beginning, and another principle is this, that also in the acquiring of knowledge there must be an orderly progression, that is a moving from point to point in an orderly manner in the acquiring of knowledge in any given field.

Step one, step two, step three. Now there's first of all A, then there's B, and then there's C. Now for you young people here tonight who are discouraged in school, it seems to me that I must have reached the fifth grade before I ever mastered my alphabet, and I thought that was quite an accomplishment.

But I had a school teacher who was very, very hard to get along with. You know how hard some school teachers are to get along with, don't you? She wanted to have her way and I wanted to have mine. That's where all the trouble came in.

Why, to me, I didn't understand why I couldn't start with a Z and work back up to the A. What difference does it make as long as you learn them all if you start in the middle? Who cares? You know them, don't you?

But patiently, laboriously, and very carefully, and very long suffering as I look back now as she used to sit down and she'd say, well, that may be the way you'd like to do it, but this is the way it's got to be done.

First the A, then the B, and then the C. Now that's not only true in connection with the knowledge of this, of material things or of secular knowledge, but these principles also apply to the obtaining of the knowledge of salvation.

God offers to you tonight, if you are here without the Lord Jesus Christ, I can testify on the authority of His infallible Word the forgiveness of all of your sins. If you'll bow your knees to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight and just simply by believing if this booklet here represented the entire record of every sin you've ever committed, if you will believe with all of your heart that in three hours of darkness God placed the record of all of your sins upon the spotless soul of His only begotten Son, and that the judgment of God fell upon His soul in your room instead when He bore your sins in His own body on the tree, you put your trust and confidence in that alone without any kind of reservation, mental or physical or any other kind, put your trust in that for the payment of all of your sins and receive Him by faith into your heart and life as a living person, God will give you eternal life.

But I'll tell you this, you've got to start at the beginning, and before you can know anything about the blessedness or the forgiveness of sins and the peace and joy that we have as Christians, you must remember this, first the A's, then the B's, and then the C's, and that brings us to the A's.

A: Every Person Has Sinned

Now, if you're ready to commence your education in spiritual things tonight, will you look at this verse that we read together from Romans chapter 3 and verse 23, and notice what the eternal Word of God says.

All have sinned. Now, if you're here tonight without the Lord Jesus Christ, I would like for you to try and memorize this portion of Scripture and take it home with you. All have sinned. This you must absolutely learn, first of all, before you can know anything else about this marvelous salvation of God.

From where you are sitting tonight, if you have never put your trust in the Lord Jesus as Savior, if you do not know that your sins are forgiven, I guarantee you that no matter how hard you struggle, no matter how hard you may try to figure it out, no matter how hard you may work at this business of trying to become a Christian, trying to work yourself up into an emotional condition where you feel like you're saved, I'm going to tell you this, and listen carefully.

You will not move one peg from where you're sitting in your spiritual education until you learn, first of all, this A, all have sinned. You take today the most learned theologian in our seminaries, and some of them are godly men, praise God for those wonderful men down at Dallas and all the fundamental schools.

These men are real theologians in the strictest scriptural sense of the Word who know the truths of God's eternal Word and can defend the faith. And I thank God for them. But Dr. Pentecostal has written a book this thick on things to come.

I'd just like to get lost and get drowned in it every day or two and just wallow around and swim and flounder around it and just let it flop all over me. I have the grandest time, and I must confess, I can't understand all of it.

I don't ever expect to. But I'll tell you one thing, if Dr. Pentecostal is here tonight, he can stand on this platform and tell you that the first thing he had to learn before he could write a book this thick on things to come was this, that he was a sinner.

He had to learn that first. Now, he didn't start off working down at Dallas Theological Seminary. He didn't write that book to begin with. But bless his heart, there was a time that he was just as ignorant as I was before I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

The natural man cannot perceive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him. The Bible says he cannot know them. Cannot know them. That is, if you are natural, unregenerate, unsaved, the first thing you've got to learn is this, that you are a sinner.

Now, notice this statement, all have sinned. And I would like to bring this to your attention at this particular time. This statement does not necessarily imply base or immoral conduct. When you read this verse of Scripture from the Bible, some people think you're talking of murders and drunkards and of harlots.

But that is not necessarily the truth. It's a simple statement of fact given to us by God Almighty that all have sinned. And remember this, let God be true and every man a liar. In Romans chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3, it is the act of sin that is primarily in view.

But I cannot help but be personally convinced that Paul overhead in his mind the fifth chapter of Romans when he speaks of a sin making its entrance into the universe through the one man, Adam. And as far as I'm personally concerned, this might be correctly read for all sin and are coming short as a result of having sinned, being born with the same sinful nature that Adam inherited by his transgression in the Garden of Eden.

And the great problem of sin here in the will of the Lord, we intend to go into that a little full in detail tomorrow night, the great problem of sin here is not so much the act of sin as it is the fact of sin, the presence of sin.

All sin that comes short of the glory of God. Now, I believe that the definition of this statement, and will help you to understand it, is found in the last phrase of the preceding verse. Tie the two together.

There is no difference, for all have sinned. The difference tonight, beloved sinners, is in the degree of sin, but not in the fact. He does not maintain that all are base, lewd, and immoral. He does not maintain that all have sinned to the same degree.

But what he is saying is this, that if you have sinned at all, you have missed the mark because God demands perfection, and perfection is to be had only through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The perfection that makes a man or a woman fit for heaven is not some spurious kind of sanctification by asceticism in keeping sin down to a minimum, by emotionalism. But the perfection that fits you for the presence of God is a robe of salvation placed upon you as a free gift from the lay or pierced hands of the Son of God, who purchased your eternal redemption upon the cross of Calvary.

And that's the perfection that you need. And all of us, the Bible says, have sinned in the day by day coming short of the glory. I like to believe also that the glory mentioned here is not so much such a kind of glory of God, not so much the glory of His person as it is His standard.

It reminds me of that verse somewhere in the Gospel of Luke where we read of many of the elders who trusted the Lord Jesus, who believed on Him, but because of the fear of the Pharisees, they would not confess Him because they loved the praise of man more than the praises of God.

And it's the very same word, praise, there that's glory here. And the praise there must of necessity be they loved the approval of the Sanhedrin more than they did the approval of God, and so they would not publicly confess the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.

And so all sin and are coming short of the approval of God. See, sinner, that's your trouble tonight, not that you're a drunkard and a robber and a thot, but it's that all the moral molteners of your entire being have been paralyzed by this thing called sin, and you're coming short of the approval of God.

You fail to meet the standard, and the standard is perfection, and the personification is Christ. And that's your trouble. Now, you've got to learn this. You're a sinner. And as a sinner, if you die on your sins, you'll be eternal loss, and that's the first word that we have got to learn of this alphabet that makes us fit for heaven is that all have sinned.

B: Sin Cannot Remain Hidden

Now, listen very carefully. Let me repeat this before we pass on to my first point, that the standard is God's glory or God's stamp of approval. Because you're a sinner by nature, you're daily falling short of measuring up to God's standard of approval.

Now, whether you've committed one sin or one thousand, it messes up the picture, and that makes you responsible to God, and the wages of sin is death. Now, the Bible says that all of us are sinners by nature.

We are sinners by choice. We are sinners by practice, and there is absolutely no sense whatever in your trying to conceal or hide your sin, while the second letter of our alphabet says, be sure your sin will find you out.

It's impossible, friends, to hide the fact that you're a sinner. It's impossible to hide from God. You may be here tonight as a married man. You might have been unfaithful to your wife. She may never find it out, but God knows it.

You may be a teenager here tonight who has done something disgraceful. You're living in sin, and you know it, and your heart condemns you, and the only thing that enables you to enjoy that filthy sin of yours from day to day is this one thought, well, mom and dad will never find it out, but almighty God sees you.

It's absolutely impossible to hide your sin. You cannot do it. Be sure your sin will find you out. I remember as a boy in grammar grade, must have been about the sixth or maybe the seventh, a little higher than grammar grade, I used to thrill at the story that we used to have in connection with Greek mythology, and the story had to do with the era of Grecian history when the Spartans were taught to endure pain, and it was a sign of bravery, and it was something that merited a sort of a badge of public recognition, if you could endure pain without letting anyone know that you were hearty.

Now, I remember this story when I was a boy in school. This little boy one day on his way to school over in Greece, he saw some kind of an animal that belonged to someone else, and the animal was of the rodent family, something like a large, overgrown rat.

And our story went on to say that he stole this animal, he hid it in the bosom of his cunic, and he went on the way to school, and there it was safely tucked away in his cunic with that little animal.

And as he sat down in his class that day, sometime during the day the little animal became very hungry, and the story goes that he began to gnaw away at the stomach of the little boy. But the little boy was a Spartan, and he wanted to be a soldier in the army of the emperor, and he said to himself, never will I let anyone know that I am hurting.

Besides, he had been guilty of stealing, and he could not let that be found out. And after a while, his teacher looked back and she saw this little boy with his head over upon his desk. Oh, the rascal, she said again, had gone to sleep on class.

The story goes that she went back and she spoke to him, and he would not listen. He would not be around. She took him by the hair of his head and shook him and raised him up, and she looked down into his sightless eyes, and he was lying quite cold in the icy jaws of death.

The story goes that she looked down into his bosom and saw this garment saturated with red fluid, and she opened it up quickly, and she looked, and out came this little animal all soaked in the blood of this little boy.

He had hidden this animal in his bosom, and when it had become hungry, it began to eat away, and finally it lured its way into his vital being, and he fell over dead. The Bible says the wages of sin is death.

Be sure your sin will find you out. You're talking to a man tonight, and I'm not going to talk about myself or my sin, but I have been down in the filth and the dredge and the mire of sin, and I can remember when every one of them started with some sort of a little tidbit or a morsel with just an idea for a gag, just something to celebrate, just something to do, and I took first one and then another of these, and I held them to my bosom, and I hid them from my mother.

I hid them from my wife, and I hid them from my children. But by the time I reached twenty-seven years old, of age, all of these things had lured their way into those animal's recess of my being, and I was absolutely paralyzed and bound with Satan's captive chain.

And I'll tell you tonight, my friend, that regardless of whatever it is you're hiding in your heart tonight, the Bible says be sure your sin will find you out. It'll be brought out in the open some day and might be splashed in the headlines of the newspaper, much to your heartache and to your embarrassment.

Listen to the eternal Word of God in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 7 and 8. Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. Now, notice in my study of the Scriptures that one translator puts it this way, Do not deceive yourself, for you're not fooling God.

Be not deceived, for God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to his flesh, that's not his meat, but it's those sensual desires, those evil propensities of his unregenerate heart.

He that sows to these and lives in the realm of the baser, loots out of his life, shall of his flesh reap corruption.

Corruption, sinner, corruption.

If you sow to your flesh. Now, he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting. And the way to sow to the flesh is just to go on like you're living, living your sin, rejecting Jesus Christ, and you're going to reap corruption.

Here in this life, an eternal damnation in the life to come. But sowing to the spirit is believing that Jesus died for your sins. For the Bible says the Spirit of God convinces you of sin, of righteousness, and of justice.

The Holy Spirit is the one who awakens you to see your need. He's the one who shows the all-sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ to take away all of your sins. He's the one that takes you by the hand and leads you to the place called Calvary and gives you to see that upon your cross the Savior died and took all your sins away.

And having been met with a deep sense of your need of a Savior, takes you by the hand away from the cross and not to the tomb of somebody, points your eyes to the Lord and gives you to see that the man who died on the cross to put your sins away.

There's a lot in heaven tonight to say to you. That's sowing to the spirit. And if you do, the Bible says you'll relive everlasting. Would you like to be saved? Be sure your sin will find you out. You know, the best illustrations I believe we have come from the Bible, and yet there are some that we get out of the newspaper.

Sin Exposed in the Newspaper and at Ai

And first of all, I'd like to give you one out of the newspaper and then again one out of the Word of God. I remember several years ago, I picked up the newspaper down home and I looked and I read a story.

Now, this story was very sad and very tragic, but it was not new. In a small city of ours, some 75 or 80 miles east of Durham, the employees of the leading bank of the city went in one morning to work and they couldn't get the door open to the office of the president.

And inside the office of the president, there was a man who was the outstanding civic leader of that entire city. He was a man to whom you would always go to the most liberal contributions to all terrible organizations at all drives.

He was a man upon whom you would call if you were in trouble. He was, Mr. Citizen, number one, the one to whom everyone looked up to as the most outstanding citizen of the entire community. They said, well, Mr. So-and-so must be sleeping a little late this morning.

But one hour passed and two and then three and they called home. He wasn't there. His wife said he left for work earlier this morning. And so finally they broke the door down and your guess is as good as mine, there was that noble, outstanding, number one citizen of one of our fairest cities with a revolver in his hand and a hole through his head.