She displayed something that was real.

59 Had a fellow that I hunted with, he was a great hunter, a good tracker, and he was a good man, good shot. But I… He was the meanest man I ever seen. He just wanted to be cruel just to be smart. Now, that's the trend of the American people. Just… If you're a preacher, they love to blow smoke in your face because you know you don't believe in it. And people in the—around where you live, if you preach against women wearing those little old dirty clothes, they'll just come right out before you just to show that they'll do it. They don't realize that they're devil-possessed.

63 So this fellow, being mean, just to act smart, he come and he'd shoot these little fawns (That's little baby deer.), just to be mean. And I'd get after him about it. He said, "Oh, Billy, you chicken-hearted preacher." Said, "You're a good hunter, but you're just too chicken-hearted." I said, "Bert, there's a lot difference in being a hunter and being a killer." See? I said, "Don't do that." Now, if the law permits you to kill a fawn, that's all right. There's nothing wrong with the size of the deer, but it's killing the whole bunch of them just to be mean. Be the same way to kill birds, chickens, or anything else just to be mean, that's cruel. Abraham killed a calf and fed it to God, and He eat it. That's exactly right. So there's nothing wrong in the little part of it. But he'd just kill the little fellows just because I was along. String them up, and sometimes cut the quarters off of them, throw the rest of it away just to be mean. And I said, "Bert, you're a good guy, but you're the—you're the meanest guy I ever knowed of." 

64 And one year when I went up there, he made himself a little whistle. And he could take that little whistle, and go just like a little baby deer crying for its mammy. Well, I thought, "Bert, you're not going to use that whistle, surely not." "Oh," he said, "go on, Billy." There's was about six inches of snow on the ground that morning, late in the season. Hard to hunt those white-tailed deer because they've been shot at, and they're scared and they're—they stay back in hide out. We hunted till about noon and hadn't even seen a track. Deer was scarce. I shall never forget it. And about noon, he was in front of me, and he set down in a little opening about the size of this auditorium. And he went back in his shirt. I… We usually pack some sandwiches, and some hot chocolate, and so forth. We'd drink and—and eat our sandwich, and then we'd take separate roads that go back where—back to the main camp in the afternoon. We hadn't seen no tracks, so hunting had been very bad that morning. And when he set down, he kept reaching back like this. He set his rifle down. He was feeling for something. I thought it was his lunch. And he pulled out that little whistle. I said, "Bert, you're not going to do that." "Oh," he said, "go on, preacher." And he took the little whistle in his mouth, and he blew it; and it sounded just like a little fawn crying for its mother. And to our surprise just across the opening about twenty yards, a great big, beautiful mother deer stood up, a doe. Why, I could see her big brown eyes, and the veins in her face, those great, big ears standing up. She was so pretty. And she stood up. Now, that's very unusual for a deer to do that that time of day. Bert looked back at me with them lizard-looking eyes, looked at me, kinda smiled, reached down for his rifle, real easy. I said… Motioned my head to him. He just laughed, looked again. And he blew the whistle again. 

65 That mother stepped right out in the opening. Now, if there's a hunter here, you know that's absolutely unusual for a deer, especially in hunting season after being shot at, there at noontime. They're hid down good under piles of brush, stand in thickets. They won't come out in the open. But what did she come out for? She was a mother. She wasn't playing church. She wasn't arguing her denomination. She was a mother at her heart. There was something in her. She heard a baby. It was in trouble. And she was a mother. She must get to it. She didn't think about fear. She wasn't putting that on like a lot of so-called Christians do. She was a real… There's something in her. She was borned a mother. Oh, if the church could only be that real. If the—if the members of the body of Christ could only be that real. It's love that pulled her out there, not to say to the other deers, "Hey, all the rest of you, deers, all you bucks and does over there. Look at me, how brave I am." No, no, wasn't that. She wouldn't have done it. She knowed better. Christians so-called don't. Just to play church and to play Christian… You got to be a Christian. That's what we need is to be a Christian. Then when they… She walked out there. I thought, "Oh, my." And I heard him pull that .30-06 shell up and put it in the chamber, and lock it down, raise his gun down (Oh, he was a dead shot.), those cross hairs laying across that loyal heart of that mother. 

66 I thought, "Bert, how can you do that? Why, in a second from now, you'll blow that loyal heart plumb through that deer." Why, he'd turn her fifteen feet in the air that close to her with that hundred and eighty grain bullet striking about a ton and a half at a—that distance. Why, he'd turn that little, about a eighty or ninety pound mother, why, he'd blow the heart plumb through her, when that mushroomed, it'd blow a hole that big around standing that close to her. I thought, "How can you blow that loyal heart out of that mother and her looking for her baby? She's not a hypocrite. She's a mother." And I seen that rifle level down. I turned my back. I couldn't watch it. It was too much. I just couldn't do it. I turned my back. I thought, "O God, don't let him do that." And I was just listening any minute to hear that big gun fire. And I waited for a few minutes; it didn't fire. And I looked around, and the gun barrel was going like this, shaking. And he threw the gun on the ground, turned around, and the big tears running down his cheeks, he grabbed me by the pants' leg. He said, "Billy, I've had enough of it. Lead me to that Jesus that you talk about." What was it? My sermon? No. He saw something real. He saw something that wasn't put on. He seen something that was genuine, what real love would do. That one, that sinner, there I turned him around on that snowbank there. And that mother walked away. And there on that snowbank… That mother deer done something to that sinner, that was more than all the church members he'd seen in his lifetime. She displayed something that was real. 

67 He said, "Billy, if God made that deer, and He made her a mother, and she's not afraid to die for the cause…" He said, "Tell Him, Billy, to make me a Christian like that, make me a Christian, much Christian as she is a mother."

58-0617 - Behold, I Stand At The Door And Knock