There was an elderly couple sitting over here, and they were looking at me. I knew they recognized me. Finally, he got up and came to me and said, “You’re Mack Lyon, aren’t you?”

I could hardly deny that, so I said, “Yes.”

And he said, “We’re Baptist people. We live in Clinton, Oklahoma. We always watch your Program. Really appreciate it.”

And about that time, somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around and looked, and here’s a big tall fella—big as John [Phillis] is, and about John’s build. [John Phillis is the preacher for the Northeast church of Christ where Brother Lyon held the Gospel Meeting, which included this Bible class lesson.] He was in a navy blue suit and a red necktie and a white shirt, and I knew he was on business somewhere, and I turned around and looked at him, and he said, “You’re Mack Lyon, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He said, “I am in what you would call the ‘House of Representatives’ in Oklahoma, but I live in California.” (They have a different name for it out there.) And he started talking to me, and he said, “I go around on Sundays, wherever I can get some church to let me come in, and I talk about the moral conditions of our country and the need to return to the New Testament way of living. Would you like to know,” he said, “where I get the source of my information?”

And I said, “Yes, I might use it myself, you know.”

He said, “Your secretary sends it to me every week!”

I got a telephone call one day from a man who said, “I’m a Senator in the state of Alabama. Is there any way that I can get a copy of your sermons that you have on Sunday—every one of them every week?”

I said, “Well, sure! We’d be glad to put you on the mailing list and send you one every week.”

There are others that request those same things. By the way, some preachers do that. I don’t know why, but they do.

So, we put him on the mailing list. But he went on to say the reason he wanted those transcripts was that, people on the floor of the Senate in Alabama were always quoting Mack Lyon from TV. And he said, “I want to be as up-to-date as they are, and I want to know what they’re talking about. So, send me a copy [every week].” I have no idea whether the man is a member of the church [of Christ], or not.

But what I’m saying is that people, from little children to the Baptist people in Clinton, Oklahoma, to the man in the Legislature out in California, or the Senate in Alabama, or wherever, there are people who listen, and they listen carefully!

A Baptist preacher called me from California, and he said, “Brother Mack! Don’t give up! You’re making an impact!” (I don’t know why he thought I might give up.) He said, “We appointed elders in our church today! And you’re going to see more and more of that in Southern Baptist churches!” And he says, “Because of what you’re preaching on TV.”

And I found that to be true. The biggest Baptist church in Edmond, Oklahoma, appointed elders in their congregation. Furthermore, the biggest Baptist church in Edmond, Oklahoma, now baptizes for the remission of sins !

I have had a number of telephone calls from men and women, who have said something to this effect: “We have a music minister who wants us to go back to a cappella congregational singing.” One of them said, “I’m meeting with a lot of opposition.” But he’s still doing it [leading a cappella singing]. He said, “One Sunday night a month we have congregational a cappella singing, and it’s because of you folks on the SEARCH Program. You’re showing the people how they can do it. It can be done.”

I had a professor in music over at OU [Oklahoma University], not that much of that [teaching] “took,” but I was in the class. He said, “You can never have good congregational singing, because so many people sing off key, or they don’t have the voice for music.” But he didn’t ever hear the Edmond church sing. And he’s not heard us sing [here at the Northeast congregation]. We can sing, and we’re sending a message with our music.

Another person called and said, “Our Music Minister is new here, and he wants us to go to a cappella music. He doesn’t like the drums and the horns and all that’s going on with the new kind of church music. He wants us to go to a cappella congregational singing, like you do on the SEARCH Program . He’s meeting some opposition, but we will sing one song in each service without the instruments.” So, you see, while some of us are going in that direction, there are some of the others who are coming back.

Now, I’m not boasting. I’m just simply telling you that there are people who are listening. And you, and I and others who help in this work are putting out some sound doctrine. If we don’t do it, we silence God. God doesn’t have a voice in things.