And now here for us today the name of a very dear friend of mine, John Piper, who is the

evangelical's name whose ministry has touched the work with it. John has been a good friend of his.

His name is Justin Taylor.

He's the vice president of the book Division of Crossway Books,

and has been handling, working a lot of the details with John on this trip.

Justin, I want you to stand, and we want to give you a welcome today here to our

All right my dear buddy John How about coming over here and standing by me?

If you don't mind, I need to give you a little background of how we met because when he was just one year old,

I carried him on my shoulder and helped burp him.

Now that goes back quite a ways, but he does go back.

Oh, this is just like putting my arms around my own son.

I knew his daddy in the 70s when I was 16 years of age.

His daddy's name is William Samuel Hoddle Piper.

And I had the privilege of knowing him and being with him at Bob Jones University.

And in my junior year, he asked me if I would join him in holding tent meetings.

Did you remember that?

I don't remember it, but I'll take your word for it.

Across Alabama.

Well, I went with him, and my job was to be the tentkeeper. I was a night guard or the night watchman and then my job was to loosen the ropes when it was raining and to tighten the ropes when the wind was

blowing so that the rain wouldn't cause the canvas to rip and the wind wouldn't cause

them to flip away.

Then during the daytime, it came about time for the kids meeting.

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