Brethren Moderators, Ladies and Gentlemen:

     I am here to answer the speech which Elder West has just made in the affirmative of the proposition. I want to say, to begin with, that inasmuch as he has commented somewhat on his definitions, the outline of the proposition, I want to make some comment relative to the contents of his proposition. I want to open my affirmative argument-I mean my negative argument-against which you have just heard by quoting Acts iv. 12: "Neither is there salvation in any other." Well, these conditions that he is talking about is some others. "For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Now, all of these things that he has been quoting to you-I believe every word of it, and certainly, there is reward in keeping the commandments of God; but how do you keep them? How do you keep them? I will admit it is the children of God. The last chapter in the Book says, "Blessed are they that do His commandments." They are blessed to do them. There is not any degree of activity on their part and over their initiative, but they are blessed to do what? It is a blessing to do them. They have to be blessed or they cannot do them. So, I want you to keep that in mind.

     Now, the word "salvation," if I make no mistake, occurs in the Bible approximately 150 times, but nowhere does either "time" or "conditional" occur in connection with it. Now, I want to say, beloved friends, that I want to feed him out of his own spoon a little bit, but I hope to do It in a nice way that pertains to this proposition. He is affirming a proposition that expresses a difference between us on mainly one word that does not occur in the Bible one time. And so, I am going to be by his "conditional" just like he was by "predestination." It just means "conditional." It just means "conditional." It means "conditional."

     I am just as backward a pupil as you were. It just means "conditional." But I want to say, let him call it whatever he may, but it takes a special blessing of God for him to preach the gospel, as well as for me to hear it, and he knows that. I don't believe he will deny that. The blessings of God must attend, and that is what we believe. That is what we crave, and that is what does our souls good. To go out seemingly on the limb of near blasphemy and say that we are able to keep them because of a certain activity that is delivered over to us after regeneration, we don't believe it. We don't believe the Bible teaches it, and I am going to say, right here, that the so-called "conditional" time salvation was what divided the churches all over this land and country, and not the doctrine of absolute predestination of all things. The people who believe in conditional time salvation, because we could not, and because we did not see as they saw, they saw fit to run in and put up bars here and there against us because we couldn't and we didn't want to be guilty of doing that, so they just split up against absolute predestination. The word "conditional" does not occur in the Bible. I want you to remember that.

     Salvation and mercies are synonymous: Psalm cxix. 41: "Let thy mercies come also unto me, 0 Lord, even thy salvation, according to thy word." The word "save" occurs in the Bible 187 times. The word "saved" occurs in the Bible 38 times.

     MODERATOR, CAYCE (interrupting): You made a mistake in your reading.

     ELDER RHODES: I will read it over. The word "save" in the first instance, and the word "saved" in the last instance. "Savest," three times; and "saveth," five times; and I want to say, beloved friends, in connection with all of these words it is nowhere mentioned such a word as "conditional." It is just another case of just "predestination." It just means "conditional." I would like to know where he is going to get his proof. He said I didn't get any proof relative to the other proposition because I didn't find it worded in so many words. Now, on the same basis I intend to lay this foundation and answer his argument, and I want to know where he is going to get his proof.

     I ask the question here, first, have you been circumcised? Do you keep the law of Moses? Do you keep the Sabbath Day? Have we not been freed from that yoke, and yet that is a Scriptural requirement, it is not? I am glad that the Lord Jesus Christ raised from us that yoke, because Peter said, "Why tempt ye God to place a yoke upon the disciples that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear?" They could not keep them, and yet, I say, my brother, it does not mean what you have set forth. I ask you this question because it is for information: I ask you, do you mean that within your initiative at all times you can do just like you are commanded to do in this thing that you call "conditional time salvation?" Can you always live as you want to live? Can you always do the things which are required of you? If so, why not go on to perfection and join the Holy Rollers and be done with it? If I could live just like I wanted to, brethren, I would never sin. I would never transgress the law or commandments. I would live in the holy presence of Almighty God without any offense or any conscience of sin if I could do that. But what does the Apostle Paul say concerning this? He said-I believe first I will quote the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the fifteenth chapter of St. John: "Without me ye can do nothing." "Without me, ye can do nothing." Can you perform conditions without Him? And if you do perform conditions, if you do them with Him, isn't He your salvation? I don't want any other salvation except the salvation of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That is all I want, and I say, my beloved friends, that if we can do nothing without Him, then how in the name of sense are we active in regeneration or after regeneration to do these things?

     Now, he quotes Psalm: lxxxix. 32. This argument I have already made, and it will answer everything that he has made or can make; it will answer every argument that he can make, everyone of them. He cannot possibly get an argument between the lids of the Scripture from the first of Genesis to the last of Revelation, in this argument he is trying to make.

     Yes, I believe there is a reward in keeping the commandments. You are not as well informed on what I believe as you thought you were. You didn't think I believed it. I do believe it, if I am not deceived, and God knows if I don't believe it I hope He will enable me to believe it. Yes, sir, there is a reward in preaching the gospel. Not in dollars and cents, because if I am a preacher at all I would be a millionaire if it were in dollars and cents; but there is a reward on the inside that we feel and that we realize; but can you, my brother, preach the gospel without the Lord? Jesus is our Saviour from first to last. He cannot preach the gospel, and neither can you hear it, my brethren, without the Lord enabled you to. You simply cannot do it. "Without me, ye can do nothing." How much would it take to do something? "Ye can do nothing." I want to emphasize that: "Without me, ye can do nothing," and the Apostle Paul says, "We can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us." That does not mean that we can make 40 worlds like this one and set them up in a better state than this, but it means that we can do all things that is God's blessed will and pleasure through the leadership of His Holy Spirit. That is what he is talking about.

     He said that I was sweating blood. Well, I have on the same clothes that I wore yesterday. I don't see any stain on them, and I don't feel any.

     He said, "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things above." That is right. But without Him, "ye can do nothing." If "without Him ye can do nothing," when He is not with you and enables you thus to do, can you do it? The Apostle Paul tells us something about this when he says that "to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not." Are you better than the Apostle Paul? Can you find out how to do the good things without Him? That is what I am talking about. Are you beyond the Apostle Paul? I say, my friends, that the apostle said one thing that I want to remind him of right here. He said, "Though we or an angel from heaven, preach any other doctrine unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." Did the Apostle Paul preach that you could do this thing? Did he preach that he could do them? He said, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me." And yet, he said "to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not." I suppose this performance that you are talking of is good. If it were evil, the Apostle Paul might have said that he could find how to do it, but he said it was good, and he said in another place, "When I would do good, evil is present with me, and the evil that I would not, that I do, and the good that I would, I do not." "Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Was he your brother? Why would the Apostle Paul be the "wretched man I am" if we were active in these things? Why would he say, "When I would do good, evil is present with me, 0 wretched man that I am?" I can adopt that language, brethren and sisters, in my very soul, every day of my life. Yes, I would like to be found always walking in every commandment and adhering to every comforting phase of the gospel of God our Saviour. But I say, my friends, I have already showed that it takes the blessing of heaven and immortal glory to preach the gospel. It takes the same blessing for you to hear the gospel. I want to just appeal to your experience a little bit. Can you always preach just as good at one time as you can at another? I will venture to say there is not a minister in this house but what would answer me that they cannot always do it. What is the reason why? I say, individually speaking, I have gotten up at times when I couldn't think of a line for a text or a subject that would be worth a thing in the world; and one time I was in a strange place and wanted to preach a big sermon. You know, that is the ambition of all preachers. They all want to preach a good sermon. When I saw that I couldn't do that, I said, "Brethren, I guess I will have to just tell you my experience," and I reached for that; but it was gone. I couldn't even do that. "Without me, ye can do nothing." This is the language of the Saviour. I say that it will stare you in the face in this doctrine when you stand before the judgment bar: "Without me, ye can do nothing." I say, brethren and sisters, it means exactly what it says. Yes, in everyone of these reward texts that he spoke of, I say in keeping them there is a great reward; and when it comes to washing your face, that is something, too, isn't it? Isn't it something? "Without me, ye can do nothing." There are many men who have washed their faces, and possibly never will after today. There are many men who will be struck paralytically every day. I say that it is in Him that we live, and move, and walk, and have our being; and if you didn't have your being and couldn't live and move and walk, would you wash your face?

     Without faith, it is impossible to please God. He doesn't believe that any stronger than I do. I don't believe in injecting the words "conditional time salvation" in the Bible is by faith of Jesus Christ. "Therefore, whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." That is what I believe it is.

     Keeping the gospel in memory. I have already answered that.

      Saved by the gospel. Yes, God's people are saved by the gospel. That is exactly what I hope the Lord will bless me to do here in this discussion. That is exactly what I hope the Lord will bless me to do in this discussion, and I hope that He will bless you to receive the instruction.

     What do I preach the gospel for? I preach the gospel for the benefit, the comfort, the instruction, and the consolation of God's people, in order that they might hear, understand, believe, and walk in the way that the Lord has set forth in His kingdom. That is what I preach for. I say that he quoted the wrong text-Romans x. 1 to 15. He got on the wrong foot. That is about the heart's desire and prayer to God that Israel shall be saved, and he said they go about to establish their own righteousness and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. I say, my brother, that in your advocacy of "conditional time salvation," it is not in all of the Bible. Whose is it? It is yours. That is righteousness that belongs to you and you "have not submitted yourself unto the righteousness of God, which is by faith." If they were active in this, why did Paul pray that they might receive him? That answers his question.

     Shall confess. "If thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Yes, sir, the believing and confessing is only an evidence of the fact that they are the children of God and born of the Spirit, and they will be saved from the gaping tomb and from every instrument or weapon that might be formed against them. "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that rises up against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn." "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." He makes it a condition to call upon the name of the Lord. And yet, the Scripture right following it says, "How can they call upon him in whom they have not believed?" Did you ever find a place in your life, my brother, when the belief and understanding of the Scriptures, that you come to a place where you cannot see as clear as you did-is there ever a moment of seeming unbelief in your heart and in your mind? To you, does it ever seem that way? I am dishing it out of my honest heart. It is so with me. You know, John the Baptist got into that kind of fix one time. What did he say? When the Lord was baptized the one who sent him to preach said, "On whomsoever thou shalt see the Holy Ghost descending in bodily shape like a dove." He witnessed that, and said this: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." What did he say when he was cast into prison? He sent his disciples and said, "Art thou He that should come or do we look for another?" Of course, I have to be shown them again and again. If I were active like you tell me I ought to be, and that I could be, and as you claim you are-if I were active, my brethren, I want to say that I would be looking in that glass of faith clearly as the sun shines from day to day and from time to time. But, we cannot. The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. I have that experience. Galatians v. 17 says, "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that ye would." Is he talking to the children of God? Is that talking in time? Is it talking to them concerning time when he said that you cannot do the things that you would do? Why do you place a yoke upon your people to do the things that the Apostle Paul says that you cannot do?

     He says that I would say there is no blessing in obedience. I have already corrected him on that: "He that doeth wrong shall suffer for the wrong." Do you ever do wrong? If you are active, my brother, why do you do wrong? If you can do these things that he is talking about, why do you ever do wrong? You ought to be as perfect and sanctified as the Holy Roller-and he was a nice gentleman, too, that I debated with in Florida. You should just go on and be perfect. Yes, sir, and if you were, you would never die.

     Reward for their labor. Yes, that is right.

     Now, I have a few arguments. I have answered everything he said. I have a few negative arguments which I want to get to.

     Galatians v. 1 to 18: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ made us free," not wherewith performing conditions will make us free, but wherewith Christ has made us free. That is what we stand for, and that is what we believe in. "And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Can you not see the yoke? It is a rough one, brethren and sisters. It is a rough one, because the yoke of Jesus-in the last verses of Matthew x., I believe it is-either x. or xi.-Jesus said: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Not that you shall find a job; not that you are going to find something to do in order to rest. Do we work to rest? Is not performing conditions work? I say it is. Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden." This message is to you if you are laboring under the yoke that he has placed upon you. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He didn't say, "I will offer it to you." He didn't say, "I will leave it conditionally for you to have if you do this, that, or the other." But he said, "I will give you rest." He never offered any rest at all. No, sir; but it is a different rest. And now, He says in the next clause of it, about the yoke, you will find it different to that. Let us see. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Why? Because the Lord gives it to you. That is why. I want to tell you now, that He gives you the yoke, and it is an easy yoke. How easy is it? It frees you from your work and from any performance that you are supposed to be active in as human beings after regeneration. I want to say, if God enabled you to walk in His footsteps in gospel obedience, it is a blessing, and "Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city," and so on. I want to tell you, my friends, that they are blessed that walk in these things. You cannot get around it to save your life. Show us the word "conditional" or "time salvation," if you please. I want to say, in reply, that I am going to hold him to the one word. Don't you dare open a dictionary at all, because predestination just means predestination. Conditional just means conditional, and it is not in the Bible one time.

     Time expired.