Marks of a True Jesus Person — Winkie Pratney

The Marks of a True Jesus Person and the Conditions of Salvation

A Winky Prattney is entitled, The Marks of a True Jesus Person. The last session we're going to talk about causes the seed to fell on good ground and the essential conditions of salvation. Christian life is a religion where young people have the opportunity of sitting in a church once or twice a week, listening to a good sermon so they can make it to heaven and stay out of hell.

Now if after three sessions you still believe that, you've got rocks in your head. I had a motivation I've used for a number of times about witnessing. If you were ever along one day and you see a guy fishing in a waste paper basket, and you come up and you kindly ask, what are you doing?

What do you think I'm doing, what does it look like? I'm fishing. You ask him kindly, have you caught anything? He looks at you and he says, no, but, I have found out what the problem is. I know what the problem is.

You say to yourself, I know what the problem is. He says, I've been using the wrong reel and the wrong bait. But I've just got some new bait and a different reel, and I'm still catching him now. Fishing in an empty waste paper basket.

As you walk away from that dude, you do know three things, two things at least, about him. Number one, that there's something very wrong with that dude. And number two, that he's still fishing in the wrong place.

And any discussion of genuine witnessing must also involve those two questions. If you have been fishing and you haven't caught anything, then first have a look at yourself. And secondly, have a look where you're fishing.

Genuine Christianity Is a Transformed Life

We want to talk first of all then about the Christian, because as we said, genuine Christianity is not something you do, it's something you live. Christianity is not simply a number of things that you have to get out of the way in order to be accepted by the Lord.

The Bible has never taught salvation by works, never has and never will. But the Bible does teach that a Christian is a certain kind of person who is radically different from other kinds of people in the world.

The Parable of the Sower and the Prepared Ground

Would you please turn in your Bible to the book of Luke, Luke chapter 8. Jesus is very kind to us in this parable, because he doesn't just leave us by telling us that some people didn't make it and some did, he tells us why.

And that's the lovely thing about the Bible, God is always very practical, he never gives us things to tickle our ears, but to change our hearts and make us different. And in the Bible we are told, what are the conditions of a ground bringing forth good fruit, good seed.

Now understand, in this parable the sower is the same, in each case, it's the same sower. There's not a word said about the person who sows the seed. Also there's nothing wrong with the seed, the seed in each case is good seed.

The thing that differs in each case is that the ground is different, the ground is not prepared. And so as we talk about true evangelism and true Christianity today, we do need to say a few things on how to prepare the ground so that the seed will grow properly.

Pre-Evangelism and the Danger of False Conversion

In your witnessing you will probably find every now and then, you may find at least, somebody who is open and receptive to the gospel. The man whose heart is broken over his sins, who really feels wrong about what he's done and hates what he's done, who comes to you and says, this is exactly what I really need to do.

If I know my heart has been broken, I have hurt God, I've hurt others, I'm a failure, I'm a washout, I really need to change my life, then you will not need to do a great deal of what I'm going to tell you.

You can simply take that young person, that man or that woman, and kindly point them to the Savior. From that point on it will be a simple thing, if you really hate what you've done, just simply tell that to God, hopefully honest with him, and then surrender your love up to him.

Let him come into your life and change you. But most people that I have met on the streets are not like that. You may be totally different. You may rush out, you may come into houses, and every place you ever knock on the door, and every place you've ever done any witnessing in, why for goodness sake, you probably have a whole bunch of people, you come to them and you say, hello, here I am and I'm a Christian, and I've come to tell you all about Jesus, and I understand you're really hungry and you're searching for God, and I've got this tract here that will tell you all about how to give your life to Christ.

You may find people all over the place that say, oh wow, this is what I've been always looking for all my life, if only somebody had come earlier and fall on their knees and give their life to Christ.

You may find a large number of people like that. But I confess to you that I have not found a great deal of people who do things like that from door to door. As a matter of fact, not only from door to door, but almost anywhere, you can go to the average kid today, you can say that kind of thing to him, he'll say, oh really, well thank you very much, I do appreciate that.

Now you see, what we need to do then is how to break up the soil. We need to learn how to furrow up the ground, so that the ground which is rocky or hard or weedy will be prepared for the gospel, and that when the seed is sown, it will take root and bring forth fruit.

We need to do, if you like, pre-evangelism. And I say this to you this afternoon, that God would rather have you do a good job of breaking up the ground, and leave a man convicted, but still unwilling to surrender to Jesus, but leave him convicted, than to push him through to a phony repentance and a phony faith, so that he says, I believe in Jesus and signs on the dotted line, and when you come back he's the same man as he was before.

So I say to you, it is better to leave a man in conviction, but unconversion, if he will not surrender, than to push him through just to collect scalps on your belt. And it's so easy to go out and witness things, and leave there going wrong motives, to come back and say, how many of you win?

Well I won 15, how many of you were more than me? I remember once, they were asking how many decisions were made during the day, and people were putting their hands up, and said, how many decisions did you have?

I had five decisions, praise the Lord, you're going to do the same. And there was David sitting there beside me, and David said to me, I had 15 decisions today, 14 were against Christ, and one was for him.

Taking the Roof Off a False Sense of Security

Francis Schaeffer calls pre-evangelism, taking the roof off. He says, here's a man, and he's safe and sheltered inside this house. He's safe inside that house. Now, the house he's talking about, of course, is not the physical house he's living in, but the house he has built to shield himself from the gospel.

You come up to this man and say, do you want to be saved? He'll probably laugh in your face, because he doesn't think he's lost. So you need to spend enough time with that man until he really sees he's lost, before the word saved means anything to him.

Now what does the word lost mean to a person, who's sitting down, you know, in a chair watching television and enjoying himself? You say, hey, I want to tell you how to be saved, and he says, oh, really?

So there is a song that was given in the World Congress of Evangelism, and it's called How Lost Can a Man Be, and they gave this Christian song to a group of kids, and they asked them to shoot slides on the theme, How Lost Can a Man Be, and first of all the kids went out, and they shot an old wino, you know, down in the slums, How Lost Can a Man Be, you know.

And then they shot a kid with a needle in his arm, overdosing, you know, How Lost Can a Man Be. And then they got clever. The next round when they shot him, they shot a guy smiling with a big old sports car, How Lost Can a Man Be.

They saw two kids, happy with each other, and they put them, How Lost Can a Man Be. Maybe that's a bit closer to the truth. You see, it is possible to be lost, and still be fun. Jesus said, there's two roads, a broad road and a narrow road, and he said, the pleasures of sin, in effect, are for a season, so there is some fun in sin.

Listen, when I was living selfishly, I used to have an awful lot of fun, but it's kind of a cotton candy. Have you had that cotton candy? We call it candy floss in New Zealand. You know, Lauren Cunningham was telling me about this one time, she says, I get, I get, that's exactly how I felt.

You feel this, you know, and it's only thirty-five cents, it's a huge thing, it's, oh boy, I really jipped him out of this, you know. And you, you take a bite on that thing, constantly, and you think, the first time I bit it, I thought I missed it.

It disappears. The devil's like that, and his fun is like that. There's a pleasure in sin, but it only lasts a little while, and the end of that way, there's a way of death. God's way, sometimes costly, but the end of the way is life.

Life of the life, then. Now, we must then take the roof off, people, if they're hard, we must learn to use the gospel. First of all, we must learn to use the law as a, as a way of taking the roof off.

In Shakespeare, they come to a man who is safe in his little house, and I pull the roof off. And the wind whistles in, see. And then I pull one wall down, and the wind goes, and then I pull another wall down.

And then I tear all his clothes off, and he's standing there, dark and naked and unclothed and scared skinny, and then I talk to him about the gospel. Do you see, that's what we need to do. People today have forgotten what, they don't believe in sin anymore, they don't believe in wrong anymore, they just simply live like that.

And it's high time we learned how to take the roof off. Now, in the Bible, it tells us what happened. It tells us that those by the wayside are those that hear, then comes the devil and takes the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.

Conscience, the Moral Law, and Human Selfishness

I want you to look in the book of Corinthians, keeping your finger in this place, and see why it is important for us to pray before we speak to people. Second Corinthians, chapter four, verse two, we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by demonstrating the truth we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

Now, you have one friend who is with you when you talk to the lost man, and it's his conscience. Conscience is part of the facet of the human spirit, comes from the word sciento, to know and con with, so it's to know alongside of with.

And conscience is God's link with the law that men ought not to be selfish, which is written on every heart. Now understand this, when you go out speaking to people, people understand in the depths of their hearts that they ought not to be selfish.

The word sin has lost its meaning today, but the word selfishness has not. So I use the word selfishness more than I use the word sin. It is one and the same word. In essence, sin is selfishness. It is living to please and serve yourself first instead of God.

It is refusing to treat God as if he really was God. And then remember we said, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. That's selfishness. That's the essence of sin.

Now there's a funny thing about selfishness, and that is this, no matter what country or what language people speak, what color, what creed, what religion, all of them know that you ought not to be selfish.

Even the people who are selfish know that they oughtn't to be selfish. And P .S. Lewis brings out one of his little books called Mere Christianity, he says, you've all heard kids arguing, and their arguments go something like this, give me a piece of your orange, I gave you a piece of mine.

You know, little kids, see. Or another one's like this, that's not fair, I had this chair first. That's mine. And he said, the interesting thing about this is, these are little kids, nobody's ever told them what fair is, but they just know that it's not good to be selfish.

And when they say, I had that first, they are both appealing to a law that both of them intuitively understand, but neither of them have really been taught. I gave you a piece of mine, give me a piece of yours.

That's only fair. And that rule of fairness, or, if you like, moral law, is written on every heart, and every man you speak to knows that he ought not to be selfish. But the Bible tells us that when we go out and we speak the truth to people and say this, you ought not to be selfish, God can speak right to their consciences and say, that's right.

So when I speak to a man who is lost, I can say to him, listen, the trouble with you is that you're selfish. And the Holy Spirit says, yes. Do you remember when you lied, when you stole, when you cheated, when you were immoral?

In the back of this guy's head. And I'm saying selfish, and the Holy Spirit is saying immorality. And he says, oh, and I have never met a sinner who has done anything except these three things when I've accused him of selfishness.

Number one, I've said, well, no, not always. Meaning I give candy to babies sometimes, help little old ladies across the room and the road and various other things. I'm not selfish all the time. Sometimes I do things for other people too.

And the next question you ask is, why? And I say, well, because I like doing it. And then you say, why? Well, that's what I like to do. Oh, really? Well, that's selfishness. And you see, if there's no other standard of right and wrong other than what you like to do, you could take that same little baby that you fed candy to and cut it in half, if that's what you like to do.

And that would be equally true. And you could take that little old lady that you're helping across the road and take a handbag off her and beat her to death with her own handbag. And it would be no different.

You see, you must have some better guidelines than just that which you feel like doing. If everybody does their own thing, here's a philosophy that sounds beautiful, do your own thing as long as you don't hurt anybody.

And I say, Amen. That's what the Bible teaches, providing you put God in. Do your own thing as long as you don't hurt God and others. And that's just what Jesus said. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your brother as you love yourself.

And then when you find a kid who says, that's my philosophy, say, why don't you live it then? That's hypocritical. If you really loved God, then you wouldn't hurt him. If you really didn't want to hurt people, then you'd acknowledge the God who holds your being together.

You're not thankful, you'd never thank him, he holds your whole life together, he gives you your next heartbeat. And you'll hurt him. The next thing a kid will say is, well, well, um, well, nobody's perfect, by which they mean, as long as you're a human being, you're going to be selfish.

That's not what the Bible says. We have a new theology today and I want to talk about it in a little while. It has been propagated by various preachers and teachers. Here is the new theology in the parables of Peanuts, I think probably sums it up in popular form.

And it goes something like this. Man is sinful because he is man, because he is man. And being a man is being equivalent to being a sinner. But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says man is sinful because he has chosen to be, because the Lord Jesus Christ became a man.

Human Guilt, Christ’s Sinlessness, and False Theology

And this is what the new theology says. Man is finite and sin is anything that comes short of being infinite. And only God is infinite. Therefore, man is sinful because he's not infinite. So everybody in heaven will still be sinful because they'll always be finite.

There's only one infinite being and that's God. So everybody will always be sinners because they are finite. But that's not what the Bible says sin is. The Bible says that man has been given a real choice and he's made a real space-time choice to hurt God.

He's chosen to be selfish and that's why he is guilty. Not because of what he is, but what he has chosen to be. And I have heard preached so long and so often, man is guilty because he is man. I really believe a lot of people believe it.

But the Bible doesn't. Now let me show you the logical consequences of this thinking. Some of you may have seen the tablets of peanuts in the Yorma of Charlie Brown. Here's Samuel Taylor Coleridge, quoted, I believe and hold it as a fundamental article of Christianity that I'm a fallen creature, that I myself am capable of moral evil, but not by myself capable of moral good, that an evil ground existed in my will previously to any given act or assignable moment of time in my consciousness.

I am born a child of wrath. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, some of you know how he wrote some of his lovely poems under the addiction to opium. And of course, if you believe that man is sinful because he is man, then you'll never change your life, because who can?

Whose life can ever be changed? Who will ever cease to be finite? The answer is nobody. But read the Lord Jesus, who was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Great is the mystery of godliness, the Bible says.

God was manifest in the flesh, and he did not give in to sin. Don't you dare tell me that sin equals being a man. The Lord Jesus Christ became fully human, and he did not give in to sin. And this thinking carries over, and I want you to show, to see, just see this on the side.

If man is sinful because he is man, then the new theologians do this. Adam made all men sinful, and they had no choice in that. Matter of fact, the new theologians would go earlier and say God made Adam sinful.

God is the one who's responsible for evil. He made Adam sin. He invented evil. Adam was finite, so Adam was created sinful, and no man will ever be infinite, so no man will ever really be clean. But since all of us, God is angry with man because he is finite.

He got as angry with you because of who you are, and not what you've chosen to be. He's angry with you whether you've done anything or not, he's just angry with you. But Christ has done a beautiful thing, see, he didn't want his father to be angry with him.

So what he did is he come and he died for all men, and this is their thinking. Man will never be clean. So Christ has died to save all men. And now I want to read the results of the new theologians. Under the paragraph or the passage, which is called Good News of a Great Joy, they say this, Christianity is not, nor has ever been, the bad news of a cosmic penal system bent on selling fire insurance for eternity.

I say right on, all right, that's fine. It is instead the good news that any and all penalties against man have been dropped. And I say no way. That there will certainly be no fire for anyone, but only great joy for all, and that men may begin even now to live in this joy by living towards the future.

The only fire that will ever exist for any of us is the fire we talked about in the last chapter, the hell recognized or unrecognized, that most certainly exists within us now, inasmuch as we attempt to live our lives on any other basis than the assurance of Christianity's good news.

Let me explain that for you, because that sounds kind of cunning, doesn't it? What it means is this, God has forgiven all men and all men are saved, whatever they've done and whoever they are, they are already now saved.

However, if they don't believe that, they'll go through hell on earth, because they won't know about it. Of course, when they die, they'll suddenly realize how foolish they were. And they'll have a miserable time down here on earth, not knowing that they're assured of salvation.

So the Christian's task then is to go out and tell men that they have been saved. That's exactly what it says. Now let's move on. The Christian message assures all of us that no less than God himself loves us and will always love us without qualification, and that finally nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Read on, friends. Then he quotes a number of new theologians, and then he says, the joyful good news of Christianity then is that God's salvation falls freely upon all men, that nothing can finally separate any of us from this great joy, that God is not only the source from whom everyone comes, but he is also the ultimate goal of everyone.

Then he quotes another scripture, and then he goes on and he says, both the Christian and the non-Christian, all are destined to eternal life with God. But there is a difference. The Christian knows it.

And then here is the new witness then, good friends. The job of the Christian then, the wise guy who knows this, is to simply acquaint the others with the same knowledge, that God has already secured their salvation, that men begin now to, can enjoy their salvation by abandoning their shaky little foundations that are driving them crazy, and basing firm footholds on Christ alone, meaning, Christ did it all, I'm already saved, see, I'll never be any cleaner than I am anyway, because I'm only human.

From the point of the view, and then he quotes Brunner, a new existential theologian, from the point of view of the Christian, non-Christians are people who think they are perishing on a stormy sea, but in reality they are not in a sea where one can drown, but in shallow water where it is impossible to drown, only they do not know it.

And then he goes on trying to, and then he says this, the existence of an actual hell is incomprehensible, inadmissible, and revolting. It is impossible to be reconciled to the thought that God could have created the world and man if he foresaw hell, that he could have predetermined it for the sake of justice, or that he tolerates it as a special diabolical realm of being side by side with his own kingdom.

A God who deliberately allows the existence of eternal torment is not God at all, but more like the devil. Hell is a fairy tale. There is not a shadow of reality about it. It is borrowed from our everyday existence with its rewards and punishments.

The idea of an eternal hell is one of the most hideous and contemptible products of the triumphant herd mind. From the point of view of God, there cannot be any hell. To admit hell would be to deny God.

Spiritual Blindness and the Need for Prayer

The Bible tells us something then about the truth. There is somebody who is against the Christian. You'll read it right here in Corinthians. If our gospel be hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost, and whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Satan has no fear of light. He can block a man's sight. You stand before a man, lay out the truth, and unless you pray and bind the forces of hell, Satan can snatch that truth away. So you must win a war before you go out.

It is one of the few wars that must be won on your knees before you actually go out. When you stand in front of a door, you ask that God will bind the powers of the enemy. So when you say something, you will penetrate right through the spiritual darkness in the mind and light up on the inside of his mind.

And you see, Christianity first and foremost gets hold of the mind in order that the heart may surrender. Paul talked about throwing out nets to capture people, capturing every thought and bring it into captivity to Christ.

So, that's the other thing the guy can do. He can say nobody's perfect, or he can say to you, well, you're selfish too. And that's the only three things I've ever heard anybody say. The interesting thing is, not very many of them say, well, I love being selfish.

The Ten Commandments and Moral Accountability

If you find somebody like that, you say, do you believe that happiness can come to the world by everybody being selfish? And if he says, of course it can. You say, all right, fine. You sit down here, and I'll sit down here.

Now, we both believe that by being as selfish as possible and pleasing ourselves where we can, then we'll bring happiness to the world. He says, yeah, that's true. If he says that, I doubt it as much as he would.

All right, you have a girlfriend, and I don't have one. I take your girlfriend. Now, you're unhappy. Well, we have to have a law that says you can't take. I mean, you can be selfish, but you can't take the other one's girlfriend.

All right, fine. Put it down. God has one, too. He says, don't commit adultery. And then you have a car, and I don't have a car. So I take your car. Now, you're unhappy. So we have to have a law that says don't take people's cars.

God has one, too. Don't covet and don't steal. And eventually, you'll come up with the Ten Commandments, which just happen to be given. My friend Tony Salona has done you a beautiful illustration last night.

Christian Obedience and Loving God

I'm going to steal it off him and use it. He talked about, he said, how many of you, if, say you were given, say somebody really loved you and cared about you, wanted to enjoy yourself, and they gave you a big car that could go 500 miles an hour.

He created this beautiful car, he taught you how to drive it, and then he put this gigantic freeway there. Big, broad, seven-lane freeway, you know, wide, stretching in all directions. How fast would you drive the car?

Top speed. And it's really exciting. You really enjoy this. 500 miles an hour, boom. Who keeps you hurt? There's nobody on the freeway. Keep yourself. Now, there's a lot of people that are made based down on the sidelines, too, and they're watching you driving up and down 500 miles an hour.

They think, wow, that looks cool. So he gives them cars, too. They're all on the freeway. Now, what do you got to do? Make sure that everybody can still be happy and still get fun. How fast can you drive now?

Well, you may not always be able to drive 500 miles an hour, because there's more people now. Now, which is more fun, to drive 500 miles an hour for five seconds, or 60 miles an hour for 70 years? Well, probably 500 miles an hour for seven seconds, but it doesn't last very long.

One side of the road. Wouldn't you be frightened to drive? You've got to stay one side of the road. What else would you have to do? You'd have to make sure that you just didn't stop right in the middle of the thing.

Some guy's driving along 60 miles. Bang! Right on the back of your seat. You have to have some guidelines, right? So did God. What do you think he did? Maybe some guidelines. Now, what say you met some nut who insisted on driving on the wrong side of the road at 500 miles an hour, or just went and parked his car right in the middle of the freeway standing sideways?

What would you have to do with that guy? You'd have to get him off that freeway. What do you think God does? People insist on breaking his heart and breaking his guidelines. Now, it's very simple. If you were God, what would you do?

You'd want people to enjoy themselves, but you've got to have guidelines within you which they work. Now, the man who says that, I hope that when they bump into some people from this crusade, they don't bump into some people they can say number three and be right.

They'd better not. Because in the Bible, a Christian is given up his selfishness. Guy says, you're selfish too. I say, oh really? Who am I to be selfish? You're just doing this because you like it. I said, I'd do it even if I didn't like it.

Why are you just doing it because you need this crutch to get you to heaven? I said, I'd be happy in hell. God sent me there. Well, why are you doing it then? Because I love God and I love you, and that's why I'm here.

But that you can't do. Do you see that? The kid comes to you and he says, yes, I'm selfish, but you're just doing the things that you enjoy too. I say, well, I sure enjoy it, but if I didn't enjoy it, I'd still do it.

I must do that which is best. I know who God is. I know the great cost of being cut off from him. And that's why I'm here. I care about you. I really do. Kid says, I don't care about God. I said, yeah, but he cares about you.

God Seeking Sinners and the Cost of Discipleship

That's why I'm here. Do you see this? Of course the sinner doesn't care about God, but God cares about him. Because the whole story of the Bible is not man looking for God, but God looking for man. In the very opening chapter, when man breaks God's law, then God comes brokenhearted and says, Adam, Adam, where are you?

And Adam says, I heard your voice in the garden and was afraid and I hid myself. And that's the whole point of the Bible. God is out looking for man. And you see, you have elected to join him in a search and redeem mission here.

Come together, we're standing with God and God is out seeking sinners and we're going up as his ambassadors. You say, hello, I'm a representative from the big three. And Ernie, this is probably not what Bob will tell you, but I represent them and we're out looking for you.

Now of course the sinner will be scared because he's always scared of people that remind him of what he's supposed to be like. Think about yourself. Think how many excuses you made to stay away from God.

I don't know how many I made. I laugh at some of the excuses of skeptics I've met, because I've thought up a hundred more cunning ones as a Christian, see. And really if they're looking up, well, you know, haven't got time for God really.

I say, how much more time will it take you to, I can't do, I can't serve God, I've got to work, I've got to do my homework. How much more time will it take you to do your homework for yourself than it will take you to do your homework for God?

Oh, I can't serve God, I have this big family. How much more time will it take you to raise a family for Jesus Christ than it will take you to raise a family for yourself? He's not interested in having parts of your time, he wants you and the reason why you live.

And it won't cost you a cent more time than it would simply cost you everything you've got, that's all. A young man who had been working in a, in an office, life was totally transformed by Jesus. Ross came to him and said, son, I'm deeply impressed by the change in your life.

He said, I'd give everything I had to have what you have. Kid looked at him and said, sir, that's what it cost me, everything I had. Ah, but the price. The price is nothing compared to the pearl. Find that pearl, tell everything you've got.

The joy, joy, of loving God, the God, the great God who put us together. Now, you ought to be able to deal with those very simply, but if a person says, right, I'm selfish, you've got to see and tell them how much selfishness has hurt God.

God’s Grief Over Sin

And hurt himself. Now sometimes people, most sinners I know never even think about God, they never even think he could be hurt. The Bible is filled with the fact that God is hurt. But a lot of sinners do think about themselves being hurt, and that's why sometimes God awakens them about their own lives first.

He shows them, what about yourself? You've hurt yourself, you've hurt others, and then if you feel you've been hurt, do you think how much you've hurt God? And I want you to notice it's about hurt. Grief is proportional to how much we know a person, and how much we have trusted them and looked up to them, and invested faith in them.

In other words, if somebody comes up to you and says, hi Bob, you know, and you don't know them, you just go, oh well, he's got a chip on his shoulder or something. But what if it's somebody you looked up to, you love, you trusted, and that person says, hi kink, and means it, see?

That hurts it. Now you girls, you always hurt more than guys. I know that. I can ask a guy, you know, I can say to a guy in the resort, come up here, said something about him, and this guy, he's forgotten.

But a girl, something rotten to a girl, see? Five years later, that's the girl that says something, I remember seeing. You girls know how easy it is to be hurt, and I want you to think of how much God can be hurt, because there's nobody in the universe who knows you better than he knows you.

He knows you, and he trusts you more than anybody else in the universe. He's put all this trust in you. There's a beautiful story in the Bible. God says, I made a little vineyard, I cleaned all the rocks out of it, I fenced it off so no animals would get in, and then I took the best vine I could find, and I planted that beautiful vine, and then I watered it, and I washed it, and I kept it, and I dressed it, and I looked at it and it brought forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.