Faith in Action — Major Ian Thomas

Thank you very much. Quite a lot of what you've heard is true, but I won't take time now to tell you what is and what isn't. I'm glad to be here and to have this opportunity of sharing with you. I don't normally like folk chewing while I'm talking, but I do realize what these biscuits were like.

If you just happen to have taken a bite before I spoke, I realize it'll take you some time before your mouth is empty. There's a process that the old divines would have described as the awakening of the soul, which we've largely ignored in recent days.

Awakening of the Soul Before Spiritual Regeneration

It's a process that precedes what otherwise is called spiritual regeneration. The one, in a sense, is the prelude, the preliminary, and may be essential to the other, but shouldn't be confused. The awakening of the soul will lead a man to spiritual regeneration, but doesn't consist in itself of spiritual regeneration.

The problem arises when we do confuse the two and credit a man whose soul has been awakened with being spiritually regenerate. Because an awakened soul will do many things that may be typical of a regenerate man.

Because an awakened soul will normally begin to imitate. He'll begin to do the things that he thinks he ought to do, and he may appear to give very genuine response, and he may be very good at imitating the things that he feels he ought to do, and there won't be any insincerity about what he's doing.

But if you credit him at that stage with being spiritually regenerate, then, of course, you're encouraging him to try to live a life that he doesn't have. That can only lead to a sense of frustration and disillusion, and it'll leave him maybe jettisoned for many months or even years on the roadside.

Because if anybody thereafter approaches him and asks him whether he is converted or whether he's accepted Christ as saviour or whether he's a Christian, or he'll say, yes, I tried that, it doesn't work.

The Blind Man in John 9

So I thought, this morning, we'd examine a story that is found in 9th of John's Gospel, which is a simple illustration of this principle at work. Chapter 9, verse 1. As Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth, and his disciples asked him one of their typically stupid questions.

The disciples were just like you and I are, pretty thick-headed in terms of spiritual truth. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.

And we all, by natural birth, as the fallen seed of a fallen man, Adam, begin at a very grave disadvantage. And so we should never be harsh upon the disciples, but just be realist. Recognizing that the behaviour of the disciples, by and large, throughout the records given to us in the Gospels, was the behaviour of those who didn't really know what it was all about.

There was no challenge to their sincerity and love and personal devotion to Jesus Christ. They wanted to follow him. They were willing to sacrifice. They'd all forsaken everything they ever had to follow him.

But they really hadn't a clue what it was all about. Master, who did sin? This man? Or his parents? That he was born blind. In other words, his blindness at birth, they said, will either be because he sinned before he was born, or somebody else since he was born.

Which isn't a very intelligent question. A man can hardly sin before he's born. He can be born a sinner. But he can't sin before he's born. Who did sin? This man? Or his parents? That, as a consequence of sinning, he was born blind.

Well, maybe they didn't think when they were asking. But Jesus answered, quite naturally, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents. That, as a consequence, he was born blind. But the works of God should be made manifest in him.

You're going to see God at work. And this individual is going to be the individual in whose life you're going to see God at work. I'm going to give you a demonstration of God at work. It happens to be in a man born blind.

Christ as the Sent One and Light of the World

I must work the works of him that sent me. Some of us were discussing this last evening. I appreciate that some of you men weren't at either of the meetings last evening. But again and again, you'll see that the characteristic of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth, as utter man, though he was always, at the same time, utter God, the characteristics that he displayed were the characteristics of a sent one.

As my Father hath sent me, I'm going to send you. And the responsibility of the sent one is to be available to, submissive to, obedient to the sender. Quite obviously. The sent one comes with all the authority and has a call upon all the resources of the sender.

If you're an executive in business and you send somebody, what do you expect them to do? Fulfill the purpose which you've sent them. And you expect them to have the right to call upon all the authority of the one who's sent them.

And the Lord Jesus said, I must work the works of him that sent me. That's my business. And in presenting my humanity to my Father, you're going to see my Father as God at work in me as man. And I want you to watch very carefully because this is how I'm going to send you.

And later on the world has got to see me at work as God in you as man. As you now are going to watch my Father as God at work in me as man. Just as simple as that. You're going to see God at work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.

If I may take the liberty of referring back again for those of you who were there last evening, remember, light is the invisible having been received by the medium created for that purpose and the invisible working through that medium and becoming visible.

Light. And no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten of the Father, Jesus Christ, in his utter manhood, indwelt by the invisible Father, made the invisible Father visible. He that has seen me has seen the Father.

The Healing and Testimony of the Man Born Blind

Light. That's just the background. When he had thus spoken, verse 6, he spat on the ground. And he made clear the spittle and anointed the eyes of the blind man with a clay and said unto him, Go wash in the pool of Siloam which is by interpretation sent.

He went his way therefore and washed and came see. Those are the bare facts of the incident. And the neighbors therefore, the inquisitive, nosy neighbors, neighbors are always inquisitive. You know that.

You're a neighbor. And they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he. Others said, He's like him. And there was quite a discussion about the subject.

And he just quietly interrupted and said, I am he. If you must know, I am he. I can see. Therefore said they unto him, How are thine eyes opened? How has this happened? He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine eyes and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam and wash.

And I went and washed and I received sight. That's all. That's my story. A man that is called Jesus. Oh, you mean, you mean the Messiah? No, he said, I didn't say anything about the Messiah. Jesus, you mean the Christ of God, the promised seed of faithful Abraham, you know, whom all the families of the world should be blessed.

The Savior? No, no, no. I didn't say anything about Abraham or the seed of Abraham. Don't know anything about it. Or the Savior of the world. Don't even know whether the world needs a Savior. All I know is this, that a man called Jesus.

Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I don't know. I don't know where he came from. And I know where he's gone. All I know is that a man called Jesus suddenly broke into my life. He told me to go and do something and I did it.

Awakening Is Not Yet Conversion

And when I came back, I could see. A man called Jesus. Was he a theologian? No. Was he a Christian? No. Was he saved? No. He just had his eyes open, that's all. Who was blind? Of course, there's a verse that has been taken from this chapter, which is the 25th.

One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see. Which is a very beautiful statement. That has been often used as an illustration of spiritual new birth. And of course, it presents us with a very wonderful and a lovely illustration of new birth.

Because it's perfectly true that the natural man or the animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. He is spiritually, intellectually, morally incompetent to grasp spiritual truth. That's why the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus, who was the third richest man in Jerusalem at the time, it's reputed.

Member of the Sanhedrin, one of the most cultured men, most educated men, scholarly men. One of the leading theologians and philosophers of his day. And the Lord Jesus Christ said to him, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

Not just in a physical sense, but he can't see it. As a teacher might say to the boy, can't you see that? He does the equation on the way, he says, can't you see that? And the boy says, no, I can't see that.

Well, he doesn't mean he can't see it, he means he just can't see it, that's all. And the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, he just can't see it. Their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them.

Because they are spiritually discerned and he is spiritually destitute. He's got to be born again and have restored to him the Holy Spirit of God. Who will enlighten his understanding, light in Jesus Christ, revealing the glory of God in his wonderful face.

So it is absolutely true that spiritual new birth or spiritual regeneration, the restoring to a man of God the Holy Spirit, who by his gracious presence, re-imparts to that man the divine nature, the divine life, it is perfectly true that it's just like physically having your eyes open.

One moment you can hear all about the sun and hear all about color, and hear all about light and hear all about trees, and only have the vaguest possible idea what the person's talking about, until suddenly your eyes are open.

And then what has been a vague word impression suddenly becomes reality. That's true. And I don't quarrel with anybody who likes to use that sentence out of this particular story to illustrate, but it isn't strictly accurate in the particular context from which it's derived, because at this stage of the proceedings, however much the man may have experienced the healing power of Jesus Christ to give him physical sight, whereas previously he had been physically born from birth, he wasn't a Christian.

He didn't even know who Jesus Christ was. He was impressed with Jesus Christ, the man called Jesus. But that's where the awakening of the soul begins. It begins with the man called Jesus, because it's the man that makes the invisible God visible.

It's the man who first interprets God to man. He was unaware of the fact, of course, that this perfect and utter man was wholly and perfectly and utterly filled with God. He didn't know that. He met the man, the man called Jesus.

Personal Conversion Through Meeting Jesus

That's how I got converted. Up to the age of 12, I'd never heard the gospel. I was taken to church every Sunday, but it was the kind of church where I never heard the gospel. We went every Sunday morning.

That was respectable. It was a good religious practice for a respectable Church of England family. It just happened to be one of those churches where the simplicity of faith in Christ as the Redeemer, who died that our sins might be forgiven and rose again from the dead, according to the Scriptures, that guilty men might be reconciled to a holy God on the grounds of redemption and be re-inhabited by God by the process of spiritual regeneration.

I never heard that. I never heard of being converted or being saved or being redeemed. That just wasn't talked about. So that I might just as well have been born in the heart of Africa, for all I knew was a boy born in the city of London, what it meant to be a Christian.

Fortunately, one of the families that we knew that went to the same church had also a son of 13 years of age, who one year previously had received Christ as his Savior. He didn't go to the same school that I went to, but we chummed up and I quite liked him.

He was different. I didn't know why he was different. I couldn't have told you that he was different because Jesus Christ had come to live in his life and was now coloring his behavior. I didn't know that.

I simply liked him, that's all. But I was struck that there was something different. But that for me was the man called Jesus, the first interpretation to me of God. He could have told me why it was he was different.

Of course he could. Maybe he did, but I didn't understand what he was talking about. But I met the man called Jesus and he suggested one day that I went along to Bible class. I'd never been to Sunday school in my life.

And so he took me along to a Bible class and there I met some other folk just like him and the leaders, and they all had the same peculiar characteristics. And now I met the man called Jesus. And then a few weeks later they suggested I went to a boys camp, about 150, with young businessmen and university students, all of them born again, lively Christians.

And we had a wonderful time, heaps of fun. But again I was faced with the same peculiarity. Here were people who talked about God as though they knew him. And as I listened in that big marquee, night by night in those first few evenings, I began to be aware.

It wasn't until the third night that a man speaking from John's Gospel, chapter 10, spoke of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.

My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life and nobody shall ever pluck them out of my hand. And I didn't tell anybody the night I was converted. I simply in my heart thanked Jesus Christ.

The Church as Christ Visible in His People

And now I had discovered the secret that had made the man what they were, different. But my first contact with God was through the man, the man called Jesus. It's a very simple process. That's why the church was never designed to be a sort of building where people come to be preached at by a professional.

That plays its part because there is the pastoral calling, there's the teacher calling, the evangelist calling, of course. But that was never intended to be the functioning witnessing church. The Church of Jesus Christ is a fellowship of redeemed sinners indwelt by the deity of Jesus Christ.

So that wherever those men are, at the desk, at the office, behind the counter, in the engineering shop, teaching at school, in their class, at the desk, in all that they are and do in terms of character, behavior, they should be making the invisible Lord Jesus visible.

So that your workmates and business associates and fellow executives and school chums and fellow collegians and faculty and neighbors become to them inexplicably aware of God and are impressed with God.

Initially they're first impressed with you and they don't know what it is that makes you different. That's all. It takes quite a time for them to discover that sometimes. But that's where the awakening begins that creates within them a hunger after God which they wouldn't define as a hunger after God.

Initially maybe they just say I wish I could be as poised and as panic-proof and I'd never be going around with as surreal a state of mind as he is. I don't know what the secret of that man's life is.

Doesn't yet. But the very question that's been aroused in his heart is the beginning of the awakening of his soul. He's met the man called Jesus. Jesus clothed with the man. That's all. We've, as you've heard, brought over a great number of young people from the continent of Europe, from Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, about 50 ,000 young folk from all over the British Isles.

Testimony, Forgiveness, and the Witness of Changed Lives

And we've had some very wonderful experiences with them. I remember one boy. He came in 1949. He was just about 16 years of age. German boy. And I remember the day he came into my study and his soul had been awakened.

He'd met the man called Jesus in that particular fellowship and so he wanted to know the Lord Jesus Christ who had clothed himself with these men. And he got down on his knees and he said, Lord Jesus, thank you for dying for me.

Thank you for your precious blood that was shed to cleanse my heart from sin and thank you for being willing to come and live your life in me and through me. Thank you very much. And so Hubertus Harbi, whom we call Hubi, came to Christ.

It was only a few months later that he was taken ill with Hodgkin's disease. Sentence of death, humanly speaking. The doctors, when I visited him in Germany then he died. Unafraid. Radiantly happy. He said, if I die tomorrow.

Told me this several times, just like stepping out of one room to another. If he wants to keep me alive, he'll keep me alive just as long as he wants me alive and when he wants me home, I'll go. It's alright.

He was only a kid, 20, 21 years of age. But he was absolutely radiant for the Lord. He spent many, many, many months in my home and assisted me in our German speaking program. He couldn't do normal physical work.

He was very often bed ridden. But I remember one Sunday morning as we were going to our morning service at the close of which we have a very simple form of communion service, because we're completely interdenominational.

A Belgian boy who was with us was just going in and I thought he was a Christian. He'd been with us a week or two. And so I said, Jean, I hope that you'll feel very free to stay with us for our simple form of family worship and the breaking of bread and the communion service.

He said, I can't do that. He's not a Christian. Well, I didn't have time to talk to him, but Hubie, the German boy, came by a little while later and I just tapped him on the arm and said, Hubie, we must pray very specially for Jean.

He'll be returning to Belgium very soon. He's discovered that he's not really born again. He's not a Christian. That afternoon Hubie came to me with a big sort of joyful grin from ear to ear and he said, I just had a wonderful talk with Jean and I believe it's been a real blessing and then he added this.

He said, I'm so thankful to God because I've prayed for so long that God would make me a blessing to a Belgian boy. And then he added this. You see, he said, it was a Belgian who shot my father dead, the man called Jesus.

I want to repay the Belgian nation. They killed my father. We had a little group of French boys brought over by an English school teacher who had deliberately gone to Paris to teach in a school to be the man called Jesus in that school to reach French boys.

One of the boys in that small group was a boy born in Poland of Jewish parents. He was then of French nationality. All his family except his mother and one younger brother had been murdered. Most in the gas chambers.

The father finally, only a day or two before France was finally overrun by the American invading armies in that particular district. And the French Gestapo had captured him just a few days before and killed him.

His mother, he told me while he was with us, this French boy, was filled with bitterness. She hated God, the world. She hated the Germans. She hated the French. She hated life itself. God, he said, in my home is never to be mentioned.

There's nothing but cold, hard bitterness and he had been converted just a few weeks before before this French party arrived. His name was Georg Arnim, son of a family of Arnim, which is an old aristocratic family in Germany.

And he was a wonderful boy with an infectious sort of smile. He was about 14 years of age and he had come to Christ very simply. This group of French kids was sharing the same dormitory of German kids.

We had a very strange situation. Different nationalities mixed together. But in this particular instance, the French youngsters wouldn't even look at the Germans, let alone talk to them. Even in the garden, they'd just turn their heads to one side.

We weren't accustomed to that. This particular night, the German boy, George, looking across, saw the English schoolmaster conducting a little quiet time before the kids turned in, just reading the Word of God and praying just like a little family group.

And he noticed that the Jewish boy, Jacques, was strangely moved. And noticing that, and although he was fully aware of the reaction of the one to the other, he got up and he tiptoed across the room and he just dropped down on his knees in front of that Jewish boy and just held out his hands with his own infectious smile.

And the Jewish boy took his hands in his and then he just melted into tears and went to bed and wept himself to sleep. I didn't know anything about this until the next day when I happened to bump into Jacques in the garden.

I said, how old are you, Jacques? He said, I'm fourteen. I said, Jacques, when I was twelve I received Jesus Christ as my Saviour. And he looked up instantly and broke in and he said, I received Jesus Christ as my Saviour last night.

I said, that's a wonderful thing, tell me all about it. And we went into my study and they were like fingers because they had my life. That's what unites them and makes them one. And makes each one submissive to my head in perfect unity as a corporate whole.

You see, there's an English finger and there's a French finger and there's a Jewish finger and before I could say any more he broke in and pointing at my four fingers and said, there's a German finger.

I said, that's right. And they've become one man, the man called Jesus. Now, if you're in your private activity or in your home or amongst your friends if your life isn't making the invisible Lord Jesus Christ visible those around you, humanly speaking will never meet the man called Jesus.

Orthodoxy Without the Life of Christ

This is the high office and privilege that God has given to you and to me. That's why it isn't just our theological soundness our evangelical orthodoxy we can be as fundamental as the devil is himself because there's no greater believer than the devil.

He believes everything. He believes the Bible from the Catholic heart. We can believe it as much as he does. There was never a devil that saw Jesus Christ but didn't recognize him at once to be the Son of God.

What hast thou to do with us Jesus, Son of the living God? We can be all of that and be as unethical discourteous, rude proud, conceited blunt in our behavior patterns as the most godless and that's the tragedy of it and folk are not impressed.

Nobody's going to be impressed with your theology if it doesn't demonstrate a theocracy in your life. Nobody's going to be impressed with the soundness of your dogmas if there's no evidence of deity in your actions.

The Pharisees, Religious Formalism, and Spiritual Blindness

Nobody's going to be impressed with your Christianity if they've never had cause to meet Christ in what you are. It begins with the man called Jesus. He had seen that aforetime was blind and it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.

Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, same story he put clay upon mine eyes and I washed and do see. Therefore said some of the Pharisees this man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.

Others said how can a man that is a sinner do such miracles and there was a division among them. They began to quarrel. They weren't particularly interested whether a man was healed or not healed whether he was any of the better or the worse for this encounter, this personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

They weren't particularly interested whether he was happier or more miserable because to those who simply made religion their business it doesn't really matter what happens to men. They are simply the merchandise, the stock in trade and there's nothing cruel, harder or more cruel than mere religion without God.

And I think after a moment's pause looking at these men the professionals with their cold religion in so many words he said well whatever you may call yourselves and maybe I'm not in a position to judge he is a prophet.

There's an awakening of his soul. He may not know much about who Jesus Christ was or the purpose which he came but there was something that told him that this man was a prophet. The Jews did not believe concerning him that he had been blind and received his sight until they called the parents of him that had received his sight.

And they asked them saying is this your son who you say was born blind how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said we know that this is our son and that he was born blind. What means he now seeth?

We know not. Or who hath opened his eyes? We know not. He's of age. Ask him and he shall speak for himself. If Jesus was Christ he should be put out of the synagogue lock, stock and barrel. No matter how overwhelming the evidence no matter that this would be ecclesiastically inconvenient.

It's for their business. So they said no matter how overwhelming the evidence anybody who dares to identify this fanatical street preacher Jesus with God's Christ must be put out of the synagogue at once and this must be suppressed.

Hardly honest intellectually. But unfortunately it wasn't confined to that particular era or generation. There are countless people in the world today who are not prepared to be honest. And no matter how overwhelming the evidence may be that the Lord Jesus was the incarnate word of God who came to this world to restore man to his true humanity it must be repudiated at once because it is either ecclesiastically inconvenient bad for business it may be intellectually inconvenient I'd lose face because of the stand I've taken in the past on the basis of my own inflated self-estimate of my own opinions of my own worth it may be morally inconvenient because it's going to change the things I do and the company I keep.

It may be socially inconvenient because I shall lose caste and therefore no matter how much the heart may be convinced of the truth it must be repudiated. Now that was the behavior and that was the attitude of the Pharisees and the parents of this man knew it and so they kept their mouths shut because they weren't prepared to risk their ecclesiastical acceptance they weren't prepared to risk their social standing even for their own son in identifying themselves with the only man who'd ever cared to give him sight.

Therefore said his parents he is of age, ask him. And then again called they the man that was blind and said give God the praise. They knew all the phraseology. We know that this man is a sinner and he answered and said whether he be a sinner or not I know not doesn't sound like a good convinced conservative evangelical.

One thing I know whereas I was blind now I see that I do know I know this that you never cared whether I was blind nor whether I could see. He did for me what none of you ever cared to do or could do.

Call him what you like. One thing I know whereas I was blind now I see. Then said they to him again what did he to thee. How opened he thine eyes. Now they had asked that question before and I think this man had a real sense of humor.

He said I told you already and you did not hear me. Wherefore would you hear it again. Would you like to be his disciples. That was a real red rag to a bull. They reviled him and said thou art his disciples.

We are Moses' disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses as for this fellow. We know not from whence he is. And quietly the man answered and said why. Here is a marvelous thing. You folk who know everything.

You're the last word and you know not from whence he is. And yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God here is not sinners. But if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth his will him he heareth.

You ought to know this. This is your business. Since the world began. Was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God he could do nothing. The man called Jesus a prophet from God.

Something's happening in the heart of this man. His soul's awakening. He's not converted yet. He's preaching. Even if he were of God he could do nothing. He was preaching preaching. Jesus didn't know what he was preaching.

Even Pharisees thought he was preaching. They answered and said to him verse 34. Thou wast altogether born in sins. Dost thou teach us. You gonna preach to us. We're the preachers not you. And they cast him out best day's work they ever did.

God’s Timing Rather Than Humanly Manufactured Results

Now I want you to notice this. How much has Jesus Christ interfered. Didn't he barge in and push everybody and say what are you talking to this man like this. For if only we'd learn this if only we'd learn this God's never in a hurry.

We're in a hurry. We must get results. We must have some statistics on paper. Because after all the financial returns will be directly related to the statistics we render this worldly concept has permeated the church today.

You can't present statistics in terms of results. How many heads. How many decisions. How many rededications. As a man said to me a little while ago in a Christian center he said. Ever since we got our hammer and organ we've doubled our turnover at the altar call.

Wonderful. Isn't it. Good technique. And then quite unwittingly on another occasion the same man. And he was sufficiently ignorant to fail to grasp the significance of it he says. Do you know he says the financial response to my prayer letter is always directly related to the number of decisions that I can record in that particular month he'd already paid for his hammer and organ because his turnover had doubled.

Isn't it pathetic. He couldn't see through it. May God deliver us from this unholy haste to be successful. On human terms of reference Christ didn't take the slightest interest apparently in what was going on.

He was very interested but he was just waiting for the man to awaken. How many there are who've been almost irreparably damaged by the unholy zeal. This guided zeal the zeal not according to knowledge on the part of people who have been precipitated by the go go go challenge that unless we get about God's business God's bank God never asked us to be man sized for God mobilizing ourselves.

The Man’s Confession of Faith in the Son of God

He does wait for the opportunity to be God sized in man. That's quite a different thing. Jesus heard that they had cast him out and when he had found him not till then he said to him simple question. Does thou believe on the son of God.

He answered and said who is he. Lord never heard of him that I might believe on him if he's a friend of yours he's a friend of mine. If you can recommend him to me that's what I want. Wasn't very difficult to lead that man to a saving knowledge.

He was a ripened soul waiting to be plucked that life makes upon other men and women and boys and girls. So that when you talk to somebody about the Lord Jesus as the redeemer and the savior somebody may out of a totally ignorant background as I came as a boy of twelve out of a totally ignorant background I say if he's the one who makes you what you are if he's a friend of yours he's a friend of mine.

Tell me more about him. It isn't preaching that does that. It isn't sermons that do that in terms of our humanity that does that. And that isn't the byproduct of tuition and schooling. That is the byproduct of heart relationship.

That's why the greatest service that you can render to mankind is not your skills your dedication your enthusiasm your gift your personality your energy. It's your own personal individual relationship to Jesus Christ.

Who is he Lord. That I might believe on him. And Jesus said unto him thou hast both seen him. It is he that talketh with thee. And you can almost imagine the hush in heaven a silence that you could have cut every angel standing on tiptoe.

What's he going to say to that. Because this was the crucial moment. He said Lord that was his conversion. He bowed his head and said Lord. I never understood this before. Now I understand what it is that made the man the man called Jesus.

It was Jesus that made the man. And I know now who Jesus is. He's the son of God the Lord from heaven God himself. What a wonderful discovery. What a wonderful thing it is that it's possible wonderfully possible.

We don't deserve this. We no more deserve the life of the Lord Jesus in us than we deserve the death of Christ for us. But isn't it thrilling and a wonderful thing that boys and girls and men and women around us can make a wonderful discovery in terms of our humanity and say.