Mr. Goodall's Company

Good Morning. Happy Sabbath. You know while Gilbert sharing with you the challenge we have with our parking limitations here it occurred to me that we could easily solve that if we would all get motorcycles and so I just have you consider if you really love Jesus and if you would like to make a sacrifice…I’m serious we could do it. You’ve seen the streets there in Japan and Korea, Taiwan, that’s how they deal with the problems there is they just they all drive scooters and bicycles.

Matthew, Chapter 1, Verse 18. Matthew 1, Verse 18, a familiar passage, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows, after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband being a just man not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph Son of David do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit and she will bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of by the prophet saying, behold a virgin will be with child and bear a son and they’ll call his name Emanuel which is translated God with us. That’s Isaiah 7:14 that Matthew was quoting from of course. You know you could spend a lot of time talking some of the miracles connected with the birth of Christ, if time permits and I may not use that time.

There are literally hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that are there to help God’s people recognize Christ when he came the first time, but because the people were not studying the Bible because they were oblivious to some of these prophecies when Jesus came the first time his own people were not ready for him. You know one mistake they made back then we’re repeating now…there are two kinds of prophecies in the Old Testament, some in the New, the ones in the Old Testament, one group of prophecies deals with Christ coming the first time quietly as a sacrifice, teacher, minister, savior. Then there are the prophecies that dealt with his coming at the end of the plan of salvation we think of as the Second Coming coming as a conquering king. The religious leaders at the time of Christ inverted those two categories. They expected Jesus to come the first time as a conquering king and to maybe come another time secretly or they didn’t know what to do with those prophecies where it talked about him coming and the suffering servant to die. Well you know now and when he came the first time and he was meek and lowly, he’d heal somebody he’d say don’t make a fuss don’t stir things up. They said this can’t be him we’re waiting for him to flex his muscles, sit on the throne of David, over throw the Roman Pagans; once again Israel will be the world empire. They were looking for a Messiah that was going to come as the conquering king based on prophecies in the Old Testament that’s going to happen, but that’s the future isn’t it?

Well, they switched them around and his own people were not ready for him because they did not understand the prophecies and the sequence. It is very important for you and I to not only know that Jesus is coming, but I go to great lengths in my seminars to tell people how he’s coming because the church is doing the same thing now. They’re taking the prophecies that talk about him coming quietly, they’re applying them to the second coming and now much of the Christian church is expecting Jesus to sneak back to rapture quietly and secretly away his faithful and you’ll read about it the next day in the papers. We need to know something about he’s coming in order to be prepared. You know one thing I think we often miss Christ’s very coming and his life and so many of these symbols associated with it were to help us realize the emphasis about Jesus was in the word. Where was he born, what was the town? Bethlehem. Do you know what Bethlehem means? House of bread. Christ came in the house of bread. Where was he placed after he was born? In a manger. What’s a manger? It’s not a cradle. I used to think growing up manager was the Biblical word for a cradle. It was a place where you fed animals; it was a trough for feeding grain. Here he was born in the house of bread, he was placed in a vessel for eating, he is the bread of life. All of these things were to help us realize how important it is for you and I to eat the bread. Jesus said except you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life. He came because he wanted to come and be in us to give us to strength and life.

Now I’m going to do something and I’m venturing on new territory here that I have not done before. I want to tell you a story. You know Christ when he came he illustrated the gospel in stories. You think in pictures. They’ve discovered that in these programs that help people improve their memories what they do is use visual association to help people remember and if I give you a series of words right now, unless you’ve got a photographic memory, you’re going to forget it. If I tell you a story with pictures you’re very likely to remember it because most of us while I’m talking right now you’ve got a moving panorama on a screen somewhere inside your mind that is creating images as I speak. Am I right? Of course some of those images might have nothing to do with what I’m saying because you’re distracted right now, but you’ve got images there nonetheless. And so we think in pictures.

There was a man, his name was Mr. Ernest Goodall and he was a very unusual man, tall, striking in appearance, a good man, an honest man, brilliant man, hardworking man, family man. He worked in Detroit in the automotive business but he was frustrated because in his years working with the car manufacturing industry he just was irritated by the shoddy workmanship. He knew that they could make better cars than they were making. They were charging too much and giving the people too little. After awhile he decided he wanted to do something about it. He stayed awake late at nights for months scribbling and drawing and he came up with a plan for a car that would be unlike any car that had ever been purchased in North America. He showed the plans to his son, just as King David had done with Solomon with the temple, he said I think we can build a car like this and I want you to help me. Well his son, who of course was called Ernest, Jr., looked very much like his father, his father looked a little bit like Jimmy Stewart. They decided to build this car even before they built they knew what they were going to call it, it was going to be the Goodall Wonder because there would be no other car like it. And so Mr. Goodall, Sr. and his son Jr. worked for six years in all of their spare time in their garage, they had to expand to accommodate all the parts, to develop this car that was designed to be the best car the world had ever seen. Well for one thing, they worked almost the whole year just on the carburetor.

Now it wasn’t his first choice that they needed to use an internal combustion engine because he thought that wasn’t very efficient and he was hoping to get away from fossil fuels, but nonetheless they developed a carburetor that was extremely fuel efficient and yet still managed to get every single BTU possible out of its explosion so that it was high power and incredible economy, very rare combination in a car. Everything about the car was extremely practical. He used a synthetic material on the outside, it was sort of a cross between a plastic and a rubber where you could bang a dent in the side and it would pop right back out of it again. The color instead of being painted on the exterior was molded right into the very material that composed the car so a scratch would not show you just buffed it out and there it was looking like new again. Everything about the car was made to be as versatile and practical as possible, a lot of safety features because he was very, very encouraged and interested in safety. He loved people. For six years they worked together father and son in their garage every spare moment developing this prototype for the Goodall Wonder and after they had all the bolts tightened in position and they’d gone over the wiring again and again and again and double checked compression and all the tires and the brakes the father said I think we’re ready to take it for the first test drive and he handed the keys to the son. Well, Ernest, Jr. said, “No dad you’re the one that came up with the plans,” and he handed them back to his father. And he said, “No son I want to you to have the privilege of being the first one to pull it out of the garage and take it around the block.” You know they had an unusual relationship, they really loved each other the father and the son constantly trying to out give each other. People who knew them said that their love relationship was so strong it almost was a third person in itself.

Well, the son humbly took the keys from his father. They turn the motor, it purred because the balancing in the engine was so perfect. No vibration at all, you could barely tell it was running, you could set a glass of water right on the engine and rev it and it wouldn’t even wiggle. I mean they had taken everything they had learned in the years and generations of the automotive industry and put all that technology, the best of every model that was on the market, into this one car. Took it around the block, it operated flawlessly. Eventually they brought it to some investors that were amazed at the Goodall Wonder. He received the financing to build a fantastic factory and begin to manufacture these cars and it wasn’t very long before the sales for the Goodall Wonder began to out strap the big three in Detroit. Well for one thing, they offered a hundred thousand mile unconditional money back guarantee on every model. That impressed people. If you were unsatisfied you got your money back. They were very economical as far as price. He didn’t want to make a big profit.

He wanted to get a good car out there for people to use. He wanted things to be made well that they last as long as possible. When he built this factory he incorporated even the best technology in that. He cared a lot about people. He knew in order for them to produce well they needed to be happy, lots of ventilation, skylights and windows everywhere. In the middle of the factory was an atrium so during their breaks and there lunch hour they could walk among the gardens in the middle of this big enormous Goodall Factory. He gave all of his employees part ownership. Matter of fact, he made all of the employees owners so that he gave seventy-five percent of the ownership of the factory to the employees. That motivated them to make a good car. Every morning just before they would go to work they’d gather in this beautiful assembly area and Mr. Goodall, Sr. would speak to all the employees, tell them pertinent news and things that were happening, how the sales were exploding, how many happy customers were out there, it was always very encouraging, testimonies about folks who loved the car. Pretty soon cities began to buy the Goodall Wonder for their ambulance, police cars. They were so dependable, powerful, economical. The other car companies were having terrible problems trying to keep up with the Goodall Wonder.

Well it kept on going like this and the company continued to grow and to swell. Mr. Goodall, Sr. spent a lot of time in the office. He loved research and development. He spent all of his time tinkering in research and development he liked to create. Ernest, Jr. he would go from one employee to the next and after they perfected one area of manufacturing he didn’t want them to get bored and so he would rotate through the different parts of the factory learning every aspect of the car so after a period of time every single employee was an expert in the whole automobile. When someone made a mistake quality control kept any defects from ever getting out the door. It was just very stringent quality standards and Ernest, Jr. would not chide people that weren’t doing well he’d retrain them or find some area where maybe they worked a little people. Some of the people who had mundane jobs where they just needed to solder parts together all day long, they had a library and they’d give people headphones so they could learn Spanish while they were working. Everything he did in the factory was designed to make people productive and to challenge themselves. Matter of fact there were a number of companies that offered Mr. Goodall robots that could do the work better then the employees and he would only buy those robots if it was a job that might endanger one of the employees, it was a dangerous. But in every other respect, it was possible to use a person he used a person. He didn’t want robots to do all thinking.

He believe that were challenged by using there minds and there hands and that’s the way God made us. Well, the company began to explode with growth and he had to hire more and more staff around him to manage things. Ernest, Jr. spent a lot of time walking the floor working with the employees. Mr. Goodall, Sr. he was off and in the upper offices in the research and development tinkering. Of course, he’d speak to the people every morning through the big video screen in the assembly area. Gradually he surrounded himself with some executives to take care of the marketing and the finances in this growing business. People began to send in requests and asked Mr. Goodall to run for president. They though if you could do with this country what you’ve done with the factory all our problems would be solved. Everybody loved him. Sales were soaring, things looked great, he was making millions. But a little bit of unrest began develop because Mr. Goodall had hired a man to serve as his treasurer, a very striking handsome individual. His name was Snidely Ebenezer, he would have looked a little better if he hadn’t had that goatee, but he had a goatee. Snidely began to appeal to Mr. Goodall he said, “You know you can make a lot more on these cars if you charged a little more. People are buying them. Supply and demand. We’re having trouble getting them out because your research and development and your quality control is so stringent we can’t keep up with the demand, charge more.” He said, “No, they’re not worth anymore. We want to make sure getting a fair price.” And it started to irritate Snidely that Mr. Goodall wasn’t listening to his suggestions. Well gradually over time he began to spread sentiments of doubt among the other executives.

He said, “You know we’re not really getting all of the benefits we really deserve and we don’t need him to gather us with the other employees in the morning so that he could address us, we’re the executives. How come we don’t have expense accounts like some of these other corporations? We ought to have more freedoms. He gives us the stock, but he also gives that to the employees. He could charge twice as much. He’s making millions and he’s giving it away to charities.” He really resented that Mr. Goodall was so generous with everybody else and he wasn’t giving the executives more raises. Little by little over a period of time Snidely began to sow seeds of distrust regarding the mental stability of Mr. Goodall. You know he’s spending an awful lot of time in research and development pouring over some plan that people say is impossible. I think that maybe he’s been staying up too late he’s not thinking clearly. The whole company could be in danger if he’s the one at the helm. Little by little he began to drop subtle suggestions and questions and doubts and insinuations about Mr. Goodall’s administrative skills. He’s a good inventor, but he should not be in charge of this company. The whole thing is going to get taken over; it’s going to go belly up. We need somebody shrewd that’s up to date.

He was able to ferment so much dissatisfaction that when Mr. Goodall went over to Japan, special meeting to present some plans he was working on, Snidely Ebenezer gathered the employees for the morning meeting, he said it’s understood that Mr. Goodall, Sr. has lost his mind, the whole company is in danger of being taken over. The only thing we can do to save the company is if you use your shares with my shares we will vote in somebody new as a C.O. who could be trusted. Well, Snidely had it set where would one of the other executives would recommend to nominate him and he was a good looking fellow, smooth talker and so one of the executives said, “I nominate Snidely Ebenezer.” Another executive said, “I second the nomination.” Pretty soon everybody got so excited that before they knew what had happened they all voted in a knew C.O. and voted out Mr. Goodall as owner and operator and president of his own company. He came back with his son Ernest, Jr. and found what had happened and he was devastated. What really hurt him is he had never done anything to hurt anybody; everybody had been treated so fairly, everybody was so much better off. He had helped provide housing and loans for all the employees and education, he even had childcare in the facility so working mothers could eat with their children and see them during breaks. I mean he really had done a perfect job in leading the company, but the law is the law. He had been voted out.

Some of the employees realized what had happened and they really regretted when he began to pack up his office and Mr. Goodall and his son pulled out, left this big massive factory that had turned into a country of its own and they moved to Japan. Well he got involved in this special project he had been working on for years over there in Japan he tried to preoccupy himself. Mr. Goodall had a lot of friends that still worked at the factory and they communicated with him and told him what the state of things was and it began to start spiraling down you see because Snidely wasn’t a very good administrator and he was very selfish in his methods of operating the company. Snidely began to vote bigger expense accounts for all of the executives. He wanted to make sure that they had all the benefits that the other car companies had, fewer hours, more money. They built special penthouse offices and they lined their boardrooms with luxurious paneling and they started charging much more for the car in order to keep up with demand quality control began to slip. He began to use inferior materials to save money. Everything Snidely did was to make more money, mostly for himself. He had been promising the employees how much better off they would be, but instead he cut their wages.

Well, that caused problems some union leaders came in and said that they needed to form a confederacy and they needed to work together and form a union so that they could fight management, before they had been happy with Mr. Goodall’s management. Now they needed a union so that they could strike for better wages and the problems got worse and worse. Because of the shoddy workmanship pretty soon there were several government recalls for defective Goodall Wonders. That cost a lot of money. Striking workers cost more money. A number of workers had to be laid off as the orders began to drop. Soon you could see news cameras and striking workers marching around the factory and there were riots and fights and unrest. The media began to call it Goodall Blunder instead of the Goodall Wonder. And all this time Mr. Goodall and his son Ernest back in Japan were hearing these reports and what grieved them more than anything was they were being blamed, there named was attached to the whole fiasco. All the promises he had made about a dependable car and fair prices, all the advertising now was being contradicted by the management of Snidely. Well, the company continue to spiral down until it got so bad that they were in bankruptcy. Snidely was working desperately now realizing he was going to lose his empire that he had taken over. He was trying to find maybe one of the big three to buy the company but they wouldn’t even touch because it was in such bad financial distress he was hemorrhaging financially.

All these recalls from the bad workmanship, Mr. Goodall heard word that pretty soon the company was going to close and he sent a message to the executive offices that said I have a plan where I can save the company and I am going to send my son, I’m very involved right now in this secret project in research and development and I personally cannot come, but I’m going to send Ernest, Jr. He’ll be bringing a billion dollars, which was what he had left of his stock in the company. He had cashed it in when he left. He’s going to bring a billion dollars and he’s willing if you agree on certain terms to buy the company out of bankruptcy and restore it to its former glory.

Well, Snidely was willing to grasp at anything he not only wanted the money, all this time Snidely had been looking for an opportunity to vent his anger on Ernest, Jr., you see I failed to mention that during the times when the father was working in research and development whenever he’d come up with a knew model of the Goodall Wonder or some new aspect he’d invite Ernest in, his son, he’d show him what the development was, he’d say how do you like it, what do you think? And Snidely often stood by the door hoping that he could go in and be involved in making these creation decisions and he was never invited in and that really irked him and so he wanted to find some way to not only get the billion dollars from Ernest, Jr., but you know he had connections with the underworld (that’s a pun) and he thought while he’s here and his father’s not with him and he doesn’t’ have the security surrounding him, I’m going to take care of Ernest, Jr. He also hated Mr. Goodall because now everybody in the factory was saying, we never had these problems when Mr. Goodall was in charge, back in the time when Mr. Goodall was in charge there were never any recalls, everybody was happy back then. Snidely hated Mr. Goodall, he wanted to hurt him and he knew how much Mr. Goodall loved Ernest, Jr. so he thought while he’s here, after we get the money, I’m going to take care of Ernest, Jr. I’m going to get even with Mr. Goodall. Well he sent his thugs to the airport to be Ernest right when he got off the plane.

Mr. Goodall had sent several messages, he used fax machines, he used mail, he used Fed Ex, he used e-mail, he used all the possible methods of communication to let everybody know what airport he was coming to and when he would be arriving, but the thugs made a big blunder. You see everybody in the executive offices of the Goodall Wonder now were wearing silk suits and driving fancy cars and living high on the hog. They thought young man, Ernest, Jr. is bringing a billion dollars, he no doubt is going to be flying first class wearing a silk suit. Now this international flight, some of you have been on these planes like this, first class gets off a different gangway then coach and they were all waiting at the first class. In the meantime, a middle aged man in his early thirties got off the coach wearing a cotton shirt, denim pants and tennis shoes carrying a…it was a big brief case, a big brown briefcase it had a billion dollars in it. They never expected him to go there. He walked out to the curb, caught a cab and slipped right through their fingers.

Well, as he rode along with the cab driver he noticed it was a Goodall Wonder cab and Ernest, Jr. says, how do you like your cab? He says, well this one’s holding up pretty good. They made this one before Mr. Goodall left town and it’s doing just fine, but all the new cabs are falling apart. He could see in his rearview mirror tears falling down the cheeks of Ernest, Jr. when he talked about the terrible condition of the new automobiles. He said, where are you going? He said, I want to go to the housing area by the Goodall Wonder Factory and the cab driver said, you mean the Goodall Blunder? And again, tears began to dribble down the cheeks of Ernest, Jr. While he let him off in the area there was a housing development in the neighborhood around the factory and he went from home to home and he visited a number of the families that had been laid off since the bankruptcy and the strikes were in effect and he opened his briefcase and he said, I know these are hard times now, but I’d like to offer you stock in a new company. He said these are ownership certificates in a new company.

My father has invented a car. It’s called the Goodall Wiz. He’s been working on it in Japan. And they said, this is worthless. We know about your father’s companies, we never heard about the Goodall Wiz. He said, listen to me. My father has invented an electric motor that runs on permanent magnets. Everybody said it couldn’t be done, but it’s a perpetual magnet motor. Once you start it, it keeps spinning and it never stops, it doesn’t use any fuel, it uses gravitational permanent magnets. It’s going to revolutionize the world. The motor never wears out. He’s designed this whole prototype there in Japan, getting ready to release it. It’s going to be called the Goodall Wiz. It’s going to change the world, get rid of petroleum fuels. It’s got tires that have a gel in them they never go flat. If it gets a little hole the gel seals the little hole in the tire. Every car is different. They’ve got a painting department where the fenders are all painted different iridescent colors so no matter where you buy your car they’re all as different as fingerprint and there’s no two that are the same. They are all signature cars. It’s going to completely take over the market. Some people looked at those certificates and they said, thank you. They believed Ernest, Jr. He said, just wait this is going to be worth quite a bit if you hang onto it. Others said, well we know what’s happened to the Goodall factory now, the Goodall name is mud, I doubt this is worth anything. I never heard about this car and they didn’t believe Ernest, Jr. They tore theirs up and threw them in the garbage can.

While he spent three days visiting the workers some of them said, this is a nice certificate and I believe that’ll help someday, but what’s going to help feed my family now? He had brought some cash along for cases like that and he pulled out some hundred-dollar bills and some thousand-dollar packages and gave them to some of the families for their immediate needs. After that he went towards the gates by the security entrance to the Goodall factory empire and he told the guard, he said, I’m Ernest, Jr. I have an appointment with Snidely Ebenezer. The security man looked at this young gentleman wearing his cotton shirt and his denim pants and he said, you’ve got to be kidding me, who do you think I am, a fool? Workers were now striking around the gates; one of them recognized them because I think I mentioned that Ernest looked an awful like his father. Some people said that he was just a chip off the old block. They said you must be Ernest, Jr. I remember what the father looked like and the striking workers began to vent fury on the son and started throwing rocks at him.

Well, just about the time word came from the front desk, that’s him let him in and the security officer opened the gate and he let Ernest, Jr. in. Well, he went up to the executive offices and he had to pass through the factory and he saw a lot of the equipment that was sitting idyll now. The workers all had this gloomy pall on their expression. He saw some of the cars that were on the assembly line and he instantly, you know he had worked in quality control, he saw the flaws that they were allowing to get out the doors and he thought it’s no wonder that everybody’s mad at my father. He wanted to do something to improve his father’s name. Well, before he ever got to the executive offices he received a message from Snidely. He said, this isn’t a good place to meet, you can see the press is outside and word is going to circulate and soon they are going to find out about the meeting and there is a lot of crowds out there. He said, I’ve arranged for us to meet at a secret warehouse and he provided a car for Ernest, Jr. to ride in and he went to this warehouse in this shady part of town and he was escorted inside. The door was shut and locked behind him. Snidely showed up with some of the other executives and some of the underworld people and they said, now that we’ve got you to yourself we’ve got a little document we want you to sign and then we’ll talk about the money, that billion dollars to get the company out of bankruptcy. And Ernest, Jr. said, well what’s this document?

He said this document, if you sign it, is going to admit that you and your father knew about all the flaws in the design of the Goodall Wonder and you are fully responsible for the bankruptcy of the company. And Ernest, Jr. said, I can’t sign that. And they said, you better sign it. He said I can’t sign it. It’s not true you’re responsible. Well, pretty soon they grabbed him. They handcuffed his hands together. They handcuffed his feet together. They put a chain on the feet cuffs and attached it to a concrete block and they were going to use that in a little bit. And they began to beat him and they said, you either sign the document or we’re going to beat you to death. Now what they didn’t know was that Mr. Goodall, Sr. knew that Snidely could not be trusted.

He was concerned about the safety of his son and on the pull strap, you know how these suitcases have a handle you can get up and you pull it with wheels, you know Mr. Goodall was a billionaire, he had one of his research and development technicians put a 360 degree lens and a microphone in the handle and he was watching everything that was happening. It’s pretty amazing, it could happen. Well, now his son is in there and they’re beginning to beat on Ernest, Jr. and tell him to sign the document. And he said, I can’t sign that document. And so they started torturing him and it got worse and worse and worse because he absolutely refused. He didn’t want to do anything that would bring shame to his father’s name, he loved his father and even if he died he wouldn’t do anything that would dishonor his father. But what really broke Mr. Goodall’s heart is he was watching on a video screen, not to mention he was making a recording of the whole thing, he was watching on a video screen as these thugs were mercilessly beating his son and when he heard Ernest, Jr. in his delirium cry out, father, father, it broke his heart because though there was a microphone for him to hear and a lens for him to see he could not speak to his son.

While they were beating him one of them opened up the briefcase and they saw all the certificates with these bonds for the new Goodall Wiz and they thought this is worthless, how is this going to redeem the company, there wasn’t a billion dollars in cash in there. They didn’t understand that the new invention that he had just developed in Japan, they kicked it over and now they really got angry and they continued to beat him until his blood was flowing. Some of the blood splattered on the bonds for the Goodall Wiz. After they beat him and they realized they weren’t going to get him to sign the document Snidely took a knife and plunged it into the chest of Ernest, Jr. Well, they let down the chain where he was suspended, you know he was on this chain hoist, they took his body late that night, they brought it to a dark bridge there by a river. The concrete block still attached to his feet and they threw him overboard. Then they went back to the Goodall factory, went up to the executive suites and began to celebrate that at least Ernest, Jr. was gone.

They could blame him for the whole scandal. Maybe they could find somebody else to bail them out and they started to celebrate that they had finally gotten even with Mr. Goodall. I should also mention that Snidely thought if I can’t get him to sign since he’s dead now I’ll forge his signature. It’s all Mr. Goodall’s fault that the company went bad. Well, while they were celebrating somebody stuck there head into the plush executive office and said, have you heard Ernest, Jr. was found badly beaten, barely alive by the banks of the river? Well, they couldn’t believe that. Evidently when they threw him off the bridge that cold night the river was frozen solid and he just landed on the ice below. It’s a very interesting story. A taxicab, or a police car that was driving across the bridge, it was one of the Goodall Wonder cars, but it was one of the later models, it broke down right there on the bridge. The officer was out there kicking the car and he heard moans coming from the frozen river below and he looked over the edge and he saw this gentleman was in terrible distress and he called for an ambulance, it was a Goodall ambulance. And they came to the scene; they drug him from the sides of the river. His hands had suffered frostbite and his feet also from the restricted circulation of the handcuffs. They took him to the hospital, he had lost a lot of blood and broken bones and was cut in his side and was badly injured. After they stabilized him his father had sent word and him airlifted in a special medical jet back to Japan.

Well, now Snidely and his crew barricaded themselves inside the executive office. They knew they were in for it and some of the executives were getting ready to commit hairy carry (?) and a message began to roll in on the fax machine. It was from Mr. Goodall. He said, of course you know that I know everything that you’ve done to my son. I’ve got it all on tape and I intend to prosecute. Snidely’s in big trouble. There’s no hope for him. Some of you have been deceived, he knew better. Here’s my ultimatum, I’m coming back with a new car. I will redeem the Goodall Company and the good name of the car with this car that lasts forever. In the interim, if you don’t turnaround that company and start making the best cars that were ever made, just the way I designed them and operating the factory the way that I gave instructions, you will share the fate of Snidely.

I’m coming back before the statute of limitations expires and I’ve got a videotape of all the crimes. He also through teleconferencing spoke to all the employees in the factory that morning on his video screen and explained some of you didn’t know what had happened, you didn’t know what Snidely was up to, you were deceived, but I’m coming back. Ernest is alive, he’s going to fine, his hands have been injured, but other than that he’ll be okay. And we are going to introduce a new car and if you vote with me, if you work with me to make the best car possible, if you work to overthrow the management of Snidely and you welcome us when we come back I’ll be giving you all stock and you will all receive one of these Goodall Wiz cars that last forever and you will not be prosecuted for what you did to my son because indirectly everybody in the factory was a contributor

Now, do you understand the parable? For God so loved the world that he sent his son. That whoever believed him might not perish. There’s a great controversy that’s going on between and Christ and the devil. Anything bad that happens, the devil says it’s God’s fault. And yet God sent his son to redeem the world that we might all live. The Bible says that God became a man to show us how to live. To show us how to make Goodall Wonders, quality control. He came as our example. He came to show us what the father is like. Christ was a perfect reflection of the father. And then finally he came to redeem the company. He came to redeem his father’s name. He came to redeem you and me. God dwelt on earth as one of us and through all eternity he’s willing to dwell with us. Not in a factory, but in a glorious city that he’s prepared.

If you’d like to be a worker in that factory, if you’d like to work side by side with a God who loves you that much, I invite you to reach for your hymnals. Our closing song today is going to be “Come Oh Come Emanuel.” And if that’s your prayer please stand with me as we close with this song.

There has been a hostile takeover of Mr. Goodall’s factory. Amen. And he’s in another country doing a little research and development and he’s prepared some Goodall Wiz automobiles for all of us to drive. But first you’ve got to do your best taking care of the Goodall Wonder if you want trade it in on a Goodall Wiz, right? Also, you need to be willing to work following his management procedure and not that of Snidely Ebenezer. There’s only two managers, you’ve got to choose which one you follow. He’s coming back and he’s going to take control of the company and he gave his son that we might all be redeemed.

If it’s your desire this morning to follow the management policies of Mr. Goodall, God the Father, would you please bow your heads with me as we close? Loving Lord we want to thank you for the story today and the many in the Bible that tell us about how much you love us in that you gave your son and how much it must grieve you that your name has been disgraced in this world. You made everything good, good, very good and through the cunning of the enemy your name has been tarnished. We’re so thankful for your sending your son Jesus who is the express image of the Father to bring glory to your name. Furthermore, Lord I pray that each of us when we say, our Father which art in heaven hallowed it be thy name can understand we also are to do that same work of glorifying your name by showing that it is possible to live a Godly life and build a Goodall Wonder. Lord I pray that the principles that we learned today in this story that we find in you word will be also acted out in our lives. Thank you Lord for this time of year when we think about the gift that you sent when you sent your son and help us not quickly forget that when he came the first time most of the world was un prepared, most of the church was unprepared because they were unacquainted with the scriptures. Lord I pray that we’ll not repeat that mistake when you come again. Bless us Lord to be ready to meet your son and you in peace we ask in Jesus name, Amen.