“You ain’t goin’ nowhere ... son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” These were the “wise” words of Jim Denny, manager of the “Grand Ole Opry,” as he fired Elvis Presley after his first performance on September 25, 1954. How could Denny have been more wrong? The amazing popularity of Elvis Presley, even after his death, is mind boggling. Has there ever been an entertainer who has had such enduring popularity? Elvis has his fans among grandmothers and teenagers, and everyone in between. He is the “King of Rock & Roll.”

            I was living in Memphis, his hometown, at the time Elvis “died.” (Surveys show that a sizable minority of people believe that Elvis is still around. I don’t believe he is.) When Elvis was living, people often went to his Graceland estate, to try to catch a glimpse of him. They also wrote messages on the walls outside, in the hope that he would read them. Showing my brother some of the sights around Memphis one afternoon, we stopped at Graceland. We amused ourselves by reading the messages written on the walls. Most professed undying love and devotion to Elvis, or some such sentiment. There was one message that really caught my eye however, because it was decidedly different from the others.

            This unusual message was perhaps more caring, and indicative of more real love than the other messages. The message was short and simple. It merely said, “Elvis, obey Acts 2:38.” I don’t know that he ever read the message. But the universal gospel of deliverance preached by Peter and the other apostles on Pentecost almost 2,000 years ago is a gospel message that has no less urgency and applicability today than it did when first given. When Peter said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38), he really did mean it. “Every one of you” meant every one of them, and every one of us (including Elvis).

            For those who obey Acts 2:38, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:8).