What Is a Christian — Alan Redpath

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. By the way, I'd like to say I also thought that you did a great job last night. I wish teenagers in Britain were taught to sing like that. They're not. We don't have Christian choirs and music.

But we do have quite a lot of singing groups, and that's what I would call them, plus guitars, etc., and all the works. And, as a matter of fact, where I come from, you've probably never heard of it, it's northwest England, near the Lake District, a little place called Capenry.

We have a Bible school there, about 170 kids, and we hire a motorway restaurant. You know these restaurants that you have on freeways in this country, in the States. There's a restaurant on both sides of the road, and a bridge over it.

Well, that's what we do. And we take one of these restaurants about three times a year, and take the whole place. And we have about 800 teenagers, in the evening, teenage and young twenties, and we have a tremendous opportunity of reaching crowds of folks with the Gospel.

Are you going on tour this summer, by the way? You are? Good. Well, couldn't you possibly extend that a little bit, and come right over there, all expenses paid by you, of course, and we would just love to have you, and sing.

It would be a tremendous blessing. Those meetings go on from about 7 .30 till about 11 .00 each night, and I tell you, the teenagers are on the edge of their seats, listening. It's great. It would be wonderful to have you, if ever you could come.

Perhaps some of you are going to come to Catenary one day, and some of you may have been or may have heard it. Well now, for better or worse, you've got stuck with me for a couple of mornings, can't think why, but there we are, and so you'll soon know that all the good speakers don't come from England.

But however, I'm glad to be with you. I don't think I'm going to take too long. I trust not. And I just want to ask you to do one very difficult thing. Very difficult. And that is to forget the clichés, to forget your definitions, and to forget your background a moment, and ask yourself with me, what really is a Christian?

Defining a Christian from the Three Biblical Occurrences

I mean, what's it all about? What does it mean? Just forget every definition you've heard, and let's look at what the Bible says. Now, how many times do you think, I wonder if you'd like to guess, how many times do you think in the Bible the word Christian appears?

Could anybody have a snack at that? How many? One? Two? Three? Well now, we could keep going on that for a long time. Well, you can stop right now because you've hit it. Bit of good luck. It's three times.

Isn't it really amazing? I once asked a crowd of kids that question, and somebody said 500. Of course, that was a shot in the dark. But it's only three, and I think, I think, from those three occasions, you really get an amazing record of what it really means to be a Christian.

So I want you to just look at them a second with me, this morning that's all, and define our terms, really. And then when I come, the Lord willing, on Friday, we want to talk to you about what's involved in being a Christian.

But these definitions, here they are. The first one, the first one is in the 26th chapter of Acts, and it's verse 28. Here is Paul, who has been giving his testimony to King Agrippa and Festus, a governor.

And then he's interrupted and accused of having got religious mania. And then he faces Agrippa, and says, I'm just quoting from the Living Bible, King Agrippa knows about these things, I speak frankly, for I am sure these events are all familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner.

King Agrippa, do you believe the prophet? But I know you do. Agrippa interrupted him, with trivial proofs like these, you expect me to become a Christian? The authorized version puts it this way, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. As a matter of fact, I think you get this obviously from the Living Bible, you really don't know whether Agrippa was being sarcastic, or whether he meant it.

Whether he was saying, it wouldn't take much more to make me a Christian, or whether he was saying, as the Living Bible suggests, with such trivial proofs, you think you could make me, the greater Agrippa, a Christian?

Just a moment. Almost persuaded, whether he was real, or whether he was being funny, I don't know, but almost always means failure. So here was a man who was almost a Christian, and that means failure.

It's terrifically possible in many things in life to be almost there, but not quite. If I may take just a page out of the Diary of Memory, it goes back a year or two ago, when I used to play rugby football.

I would be playing it yet, but I want to go to heaven, but I'm not homesick, and that would finish it. But I recall an incident which really shook me. Rugby football, we call it. I expect you know a little bit about what it is.

It's a bit different from American football, but I'm not here to give a lecture on that, but I merely want to describe this incident. I was playing for one of our states in England, one of our counties, that is the equivalent of a state, I suppose, here, and we were playing in the final game of the season to decide which would be the champion state, county, in that year, and this was the final championship match, and everything was, of course, very exciting and thrilling, and we trained hard for it and so on.

It was actually two counties. One was Northumberland, and the other was Yorkshire, and that would test your geography. They're both in the north of England. Northumberland, you couldn't get further north than that unless you go right over into Scotland, and Yorkshire's just a bit further south.

But when you get a Northumberland team playing against Yorkshire, my word, the fur flies, and there's no quarter asked or expected. There were about 30 ,000 people at that game because a lot of everything depended upon the outcome of it as to who won, as to who was champion county.

It was being played in Yorkshire at the town, the city of Hope. Two minutes from the end of the game, Yorkshire were leading us by what we call a drop goal to nil. That was then four points to nothing, and we were being pushed right back on our goal line.

If this language sounds a bit strange, it doesn't really matter, but the ball came out of our forward line, the scrum, and the halfback got hold of it and threw it across to one of our three quarterbacks, and he cut right down the middle, and he got through, and just as he was getting about halfway, he passed out to his, what we call wing three quarter, who raced down the touch line, and the opposing fullback tried to cut him off and just tackled him at the corner flag, but he made the touchdown and scored what we call a try.

That meant Yorkshire four, Northumberland three. Now, in rugby union football, that try has to be converted. A different kind of experience, of course, to a Christian conversion, but it has to be converted, and that is done by taking the ball back at right angles from the place it was touched down, 25 yards, and then kicking it between the upright posts over the horizontal bar, and if you're successful in that, you add two more points, and if you don't, of course, you don't get anything.

I was terribly sorry for the fellow who had to take that kick, because, obviously, victory or defeat depended on it. Sorry for him more especially, because it happened in an evening. And 25 yards back, I put that ball down.

It was right away over here at the very edge of the field, really, where the touchdown had been scored, and the goal post right across here, and the angle seemed very narrow, and it was an awful long way.

And I put that ball down and aimed it very carefully at the center of the post, and then walked back six yards, and stood and watched it carefully. And I tell you, you could hear a pin drop. 30 ,000 people, 60 ,000 eyes.

All I could hear at that moment was my heart beating, and I thought, well, I can't stand here any longer, and then I was shuddered. So I went forward and gave the thing a terrific route, and it soared, it was a pretty good kick, it soared straight between those posts, and I heard the crowd roar, he's got it, it's a goal.

But you know, just as it came down, it veered slightly off course, and hit one of those upright posts, and came down on the wrong side. Thank you for your sympathy, I appreciate that. It's about 30 years late.

That evening, as we were returning by our special reserved train to Newcastle in Northumberland, Asked from Hart, that's what he's called, who was, for reasons I wouldn't like to go into here, was usually very talkative on a Saturday evening, that night he never stopped talking.

And presently he looked across at me, and he said to me, I'm putting this in evangelical language, he said to me, Why didn't you miss the rotten thing altogether? Why didn't you kick it among the crowd, in the grandstand, anything, anything, why didn't you fall on your back?

Anything, rather than miss it by half an inch. Almost meant failure. It was so near, but it wasn't. And it didn't matter whether I'd missed it by an inch, or by a mile. The result was just the same, defeat.

Almost not persuaded me to be a Christian. I'm so happy to be at TBI. So happy that you're here. Think of my own family, my own daughters, and what it would mean. In England we had a school like this, we don't.

Don't have a Christian school. But, may I say, you are in a great peril. I mean, some of you come from Christian homes. That's wonderful, great. But it's tremendously dangerous. Because you can cruise along on a sort of second-hand faith, which you've been taught since you were in a cradle, and you've been growing up with it, and you've sort of getting used to it, and you know the answers.

Nothing that any speaker could come and say would be anything new to you. You know it, you know exactly what it's expected to say. You know if it wasn't sound, you'd detect it, and you'd be critical of them and all that.

You know all the answers and all that you're supposed to know, because you've been taught that. Listen, listen, you can think this through, and you may not agree with me, but I'll tell you this. You never really believe a truth until you've doubted it.

Yes, that's it. You never really believe a truth until you've doubted it. Until in your mind you've raised a question. You've thought it through, you've prayed it through, and you've come to a personal conviction concerning it.

Many of you have come from Christian homes, and you've been brought up in a Christian school, and you've been brought up in a sort of cotton-wool situation, and you're almost persuaded. You know the truth intellectually, with your mind, you agree with it, but somehow you never, never really become a Christian.

Intellectual Belief Versus Wholehearted Commitment

You all know the very familiar story of that man in London walking over the tightrope over Niagara, and as he's about to do it, a small teenage boy is looking in the crowd in the front row and gazing at him.

London stops and says, Do you believe I can walk on this tightrope over Niagara? Sure, I do, sir. Do you believe I could carry you on my back on this tightrope over Niagara? Sure, I do. Well, he says, Come on, man, jump on my back, let's go.

And that boy fled for his life. Keep that in your mind a second. Come with me to a very weird sort of village that I've been in. It's in Kentucky. It's a little place called Viper. Strange name, Viper.

And there's a little grocer's store, there's not much else there. And one day that grocer was down in his cellar, he'd gone down a very sort of rickety ladder, went down to the bottom, removed the ladder, and he was in semi-darkness looking at his stock of goods.

And his boy upstairs came to the trapdoor entrance and looked in and said, Daddy. And his father came to the bottom of the ladder and looked up, and there he was, way up at the top, and said, Yes, son, what is it?

He said, Daddy, I want to come to you. So he held out his arms and said, All right, son, jump. Oh, but Daddy, I can't see you. No, son, I can see you. Jump. And the boy jumped and fell right into the arms of his father.

Now, see, Blondin's boy believed in Blondin, believed in all the facts about Blondin, but he didn't commit himself to Blondin. That grocer's boy believed all the facts about his father, believed in his father, and committed himself to his father.

What makes you a Christian is commitment, faith, F-A-I-T-H, forsaking all, I take Him. It's a step into the dark, onto a rock, and that rock is Christ. And the terrible thing is, I can go to a Christian school, I can come from a Christian home and a Christian background, know all the facts, and be brought up in a sort of cotton-wool situation, and never make that commitment.

Dangerous. Dangerous. Anybody here almost a Christian? Now let me look at the second example here. It's in Acts chapter 11 and verse 26. At Antioch, the disciples were first called Christians, we're told.

You see, that name was given to them, it was sort of a sarcasm, a sarcastic jeering sneer. They were so different, I don't mean peculiar, just different, they were so different that they hadn't any word in their vocabulary for Antioch which would describe these folks.

And so they invented a new name, and they called them Christians. And the word means belonging to Christ. There was something about them that could only be explained by the fact that they belonged to a risen Lord.

The Marks of an Obvious Christian

And I would call these people obvious Christians. I mean anywhere they went, anywhere, in any circumstances, any company, in any situation, they gave themselves away as belonging to Jesus. Now let me ask you this, if you are a Christian, what sort of a Christian are you?

I mean, if you're not almost a Christian. If you really are, then what sort of a Christian are you? Do you give your faith away? How long would it take if ever you're among unconverted people? Perhaps that's a...

I don't know what it is. Do you know, in one of those things we have in that restaurant, do you know some people were asked if they could bring their unconverted friends. And they said, unconverted friends, we haven't any.

What a tragedy! We haven't any. Brought up in a little circle, never getting out among people who are unsafe, just sheltered in a little group, and they haven't any unconverted friends. What a sad thing.

Tell me, do your unconverted friends know that you belong to Jesus? Do you give your faith away? You can't be neutral when you're around. You'll pardon the word of testimony. But you see, I would never, humanly speaking, if it hadn't been that I met, in the course of training to be an accountant, if I hadn't met an obvious Christian.

Meeting an Obvious Christian and Hearing the Gospel

Oh, as a kid I used to go to church, because I had to. I went to a school in Britain where there's a cathedral, and we attended that twice a Sunday, but it just meant an opportunity for me to have a sleep.

And for most of us too, we were born stiff of the whole procedure. But you know, when I left school, I went to an accountant's office in Newcastle to train to be what you call a chartered accountant, CPA in the States.

And I'd been there two years, with about 60 other fellows who were also training, and there was one of them who was absolutely different from everybody else. It would be very difficult for me to describe him, but we used to call him a sort of religious maniac.

You see, the thing about him was, he was horribly consistent. Office hours, nine till five? Well, he got there about quarter to, and stayed till half past that. At eleven o 'clock, when we wanted to go round the corner, we had something a bit stronger than coffee, well, he would never go.

And when we wanted two hours for lunch, he would only take three quarters of an hour. And then we stopped at four for a cup of tea, of course, and then we wanted to go home and play golf or something.

No, he stayed till half past five. He made us mad. And when we all got round in little groups, telling stories that were a bit questionable, we couldn't do it when he was around. Not that he stopped us, but they were out of place in his company.

We knew it. At eleven o 'clock, when we wanted to go round the corner, we had something a bit stronger than coffee, well, he would never go. And when we wanted two hours for lunch, he would only take three quarters of an hour.

And then we stopped at four for a cup of tea, of course, and then we wanted to go home and play golf or something. No, he stayed till half past five. He made us mad. And when we all got round in little groups, telling stories that were a bit questionable, we couldn't do it when he was around.

Not that he stopped us, but they were out of place in his company. We knew it. So we were really hopping mad with it. And one day, the senior partner of that firm said to me, I want you to go and audit a firm's books in a place that...

Oh, now, how can I... Well, I'll locate this by saying to you, right across the top of England there is the Roman Wall, the ancient boundary of the Roman Empire, built in A .D. 70. And it's still there, a bit of it's remaining.

And there was a village just by that Roman Wall, miles from anywhere, and in it there was a factory which made paint. And it was stuck up there because it smelt of all the pollution. And we had to go there.

And there was one little pub, you see, which had one bedroom for guests. And he said, you'll have to go there and work there for three weeks to do the job, and you'll have to stay in that pub. There's nowhere else you can stay.

And you're going to go with, and he mentioned the name of this queen religious maniac. And he said, I was to live in this fellow's company for three weeks, day and night. Hoof! The day before we went away, about a dozen of us fellows in the office, we got round drinking beer in Newcastle, and I vowed that in less than a week I'd knock religion out.

Now, you know, when English people get mean, oh, boy, we are mean. We are mean, we really are. And I thought, well, what an opportunity. So I went there, you know, determined that this was going to happen.

And the first night, there were two little beds in that room. I moved the bed to the other opposite side of the room, to be as far away as possible. And then when we went to bed about eleven o 'clock, this fellow knelt down to pray.

I didn't quite know what to do at that point. And so I thought to myself, I'd better do the same. So I knelt down, too. Do you know how long he was there? I timed him. I was watching him. Do you know how long he stayed there?

I'll tell you. Fifty-two minutes. Yeah. Exactly. That's what I thought. Fifty, and on a floor like this. No carpet. No rug. I had every ache it's possible to have. Oh, all over. I moved him, but I wasn't going to give in.

And at the end of fifty-two minutes, he stopped and got up. I stayed down an extra minute. And that impressed him, I hope. And then I got into bed. And I thought, well, I've made a pretty good show of that.

And then the lights went out, and I heard footsteps coming across the floor. And he sat down on the edge of my bed and he said, Reza, there you are. He said, do you ever think about anything seriously?

I'm afraid I was known as a sort of, you know, you know, sort of fellow who whips it all up. And I said, what do you mean? And then he said, Reza, he said, do you want to be saved? Ah, that's the diplomatic approach.

You read about it in Six Easy Lessons on Soul Winning. I let him have it, everything I could. I fired him. I'm not in the Salvation Army. I'm not so bad as most people. I don't live too rational. That's an always an usual argument.

And when he just let me get it all out of my system, he said to me, Reza, he said, do you know anything of victory over sin in your life? I was so glad it was dark because I went as red as anything. And I said, no.

He said, do you want to? I said, I'd give anything in the world to. And for 20 minutes he told me the story of Jesus. I suppose I must have heard it before, but it never registered. The story of a cross, of an empty cross, of an empty tomb, of a risen ascended Lord, and of the coming of his Holy Spirit to indwell my life to keep me every day and to strengthen me.

In 20 minutes he led me to know Christ. And I was born again. Well, can you imagine the reception I got when I went back to the office? I mean, I was going to knock sense into this fellow. He'd knock sanity into me.

And, you know, I was also frightened. Terribly frightened. Dead scared of him, to be identified with him among all that crowd. And I didn't make much of a show, but they did seem to detect there was something peculiar about me too.

But, you know, I went every week with this fellow to a Bible study at a brethren hall. I had a good beginning. And six months I went there. And, you know, you know, there were business people who were ministering the Word.

And I would hear them expound the Scripture. And verses like this hit me every now and again. No man can serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and serve the other.

You can't serve God and man. If any man loves father or mother more than me, he's not worthy of me. Whosoever shall save his life, lose it. Whosoever will lose his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it.

If any man would come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me. And indeed it didn't need somebody with a PhD degree to tell me that the kind of life that I was living and that kind of life were totally opposite.

I mean, then I only lived for rubber football, dance, show, girlfriend, etc., etc. And so I had a battle on my hands. And I fought that battle mentally for a while. And then I said to my friend, Well, you know, I've been thinking this business through.

A Saved Soul and a Wasted Life

And this kind of religion is too costly for me. You can't keep it. And he said to me, OK, that's your decision. But he said, You'll never be happy till you're right with God. I said, Don't be so ridiculous.

I've been happy for 21 years. Why not now? He said, Well, all right. I qualified as a seat, as a chance accountant. Went down to London, got a good job. Plenty of money. Wasn't married. Those two things are connected very often.

And I just had a great time. And you know, for about five years, five years. Oh my, I don't like even thinking of it. I just whipped it up. Dances, shows, girlfriend, drink. I'm amazed that somebody isn't jumping out of your seat at me and saying, Hi, you can't be a Christian just like that, can't you?

Oh, yes, you can. How do you know you're a Christian? I'll tell you, because I was downright miserable. I used to do all that, but I loved it. Then, after I'd been converted and born again and knew the Lord, and yet wasn't prepared to follow him, I tried it again.

When you try and get the best out of both worlds, you get nothing out of either. And I was downright dog miserable. Miserable. That fellow came down to see me in London, took me out to lunch, and we went out to lunch together.

Didn't talk to me about Jesus. Didn't talk to me about the Lord or salvation. Then, just as we went away, he shook hands with me and said, Well, it's been awfully good to see you again, but don't forget, will you, it's possible to have a saved soul and a wasted life.

Saved soul, wasted life. That was a crack. It penetrated my armor. That night, I remember, it was a Friday, when I had to go up to Newcastle on the night train to play football the next day. And every click of the wheels on the railway line, saved soul, wasted life.

All through the night. I never slept a wink. Saved soul, wasted life. Saved soul, wasted life. Saved soul, wasted life. Next afternoon, turning out, running on that field, every step I took, saved soul, wasted life.

Saved soul, wasted life. That night, I went to the team dance, and would you believe it, the orchestra were playing exactly the same tune. They jazzed it up. Saved soul, wasted life. Saved soul, wasted life.

And the next morning, waking up, wondering where on earth I'd been. Couldn't take it any longer. The Spirit of God had come upon me with such conviction that he broke me down. And I said, Lord Jesus, for six years, six years, I've had you.

But you've never had me. And from that day, he came right onto the throne. See, I've taken time to tell you that because of this. It was impossible to be neutral in the presence of an obvious person. A fellow who gave his faith away.

Not a minister, not a preacher, a businessman. Say, it may be, it may be that somebody here listening to me this morning is doing exactly what I was doing during those six years. You're trying to get the best out of both lands.

You know, you're whipping it up. At least when you can get out of school. And you're rearing to go When you can just be yourself and whip it up. And on the other hand, there's a nag, nag, nag in your conscience.

He that saveth his life shall lose it. He that loses his life for my sake and the gospel shall save it. And that voice gets louder and louder, or quieter and quieter, whether you obey or disobey. I wonder, I wonder which way the verdict's going.

I wonder. Each of you are going to come to a point when you reach the end of your rope and you come to a decision. Are you an obvious person? Not a phony. A person who's simply attending church and seeing and so on.

But is there something about your life that saveth on snacks of integrity? Just one more thing and I'll finish very quickly now. The third reference is in 1 Peter 3, verse 17, where he says, If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed on this behalf.

Suffering as a Christian and Swimming Against the Current

Suffer as a Christian. That doesn't sound too promising. Do you suffer as a Christian? Yes you do, but in a different way from other people. There's an added dimension to suffering. It's not physical suffering only, but it's an added dimension.

I'll illustrate to explain what I mean. Just before coming over to this country this time, well a month or two ago, I was having a little, a few days off. I was up in Scotland, a lovely country. And I was walking one day along the side of what the Scottish people call a loch, or a lake, with an estuary out into the ocean.

And I was walking along this road and I saw in this lake, a man up to his shoulders in water. And he was fishing. Letting out a long line and pulling it in and letting it out and pulling it in. And as he pulled it in, it bent nearly double and shook like anything.

I knew he must have a fish on the end of it. And I watched him. I don't know a thing about fishing, not a thing. But he let it out and pulled it in. And it went on for about half an hour until I got a bit tired of it all.

And I said, Excuse me sir, but what are you doing to that fish? And without looking around at me, but keeping on doing this, he said, I'm drowning it. Drowning a fish? I thought, what sort of a fool does he think I am?

And then he paused for a moment and he said, I am. You don't need to look like that. He said, I am. And he had his rod in one hand and the other hand he held out. And he said, I have a salmon on that line.

And it's that big. I never saw it, but knowing fishermen, I would come into about that. But I didn't see the thing, so I don't know. He said, it's a seawater salmon. And he said, I'm playing with it. I'm playing with it.

I'm letting it out, pulling it in, letting it out. If I pulled it right in now, it would snap my line and get out and go out to sea. He said, I'm pulling it in, playing with it, playing with it. And when I get it tired out, what I'm going to do is to turn its head downstream and water will get in its gills and it'll drown.

I thought, that's a tall story. So I went on my way to a little village there. And I saw a shop with some books and there's a book on fishing. But I thought, well no, I haven't lived in Scotland five years and I think I'm not going to spend money on that.

I found the public library where I got a look at the same book free. So I had a good look at it and I found exactly the truth. He wasn't telling me a lie. These salmon at that particular time in the year come in from the ocean against the tide for spawning.

They come in in masses, the spawning season. And that man had got in a slime salmon who was coming against the tide. And he caught it on the hook and he was turning it out, wearing it out until it was so tired it couldn't take any more.

And then he turned its head downstream and, say folks, any fool can swim with a stream. Any fool can swim with the stream. But it takes a man, a girl, with all the power of God in his life to swim against the stream today.

If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed. I don't mean to say that a Christian is negative. But I do mean to say he's taking positive action and has declared total warfare against sin.

And that means he's going against the current. Thank the Lord he doesn't have to fight the battle alone. For it's not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. Now that's all I wanted to say to you this morning from sharing with you.

Christ Is Adequate in Every Situation

But listen. What sort of a Christian are you? Almost? Obviously? Or shall I put it, an all-out Christian who's declared war, total war. And you're swimming against the current. Only you can answer that question, but you know, don't you?

You know. There's no dodging it. You know whether you're a phony, whether you're here at Prairie and you're just putting on a show, or whether God has really met you and said, and you're swimming against the current and you're enjoying the luxury of the sufficiency of the grace of God.

Can you just allow me just one little story to sum it all up? I was in Johannesburg a bit ago, and I met there a man who was a member of the South African government. And he told me that he'd bought, he'd bought just a couple of years previously, a Rolls Royce car.

Now we in England are conceited enough to believe that Rolls Royces are the best cars in the world. Of course, that's open to question, but they're certainly the most expensive. And this fellow was so, so thrilled with the performance of this car, that he went to the agent in Jo 'burg and said to him, What's the horsepower of this vehicle?

And the man said, sorry, I can't tell you. Rolls Royce never let us know. But he said, find out. Well, he was an important customer. So the agent sent a two-page telegram to London. Rolls Royce, 1971 model, V8 engine.

Cubic capacity, so much. Brake horsepower, so much. From zero to a hundred miles an hour in so many seconds. And went through all the specification of the thing, which presumably Rolls Royce knew because they manufactured it.

And after two pages of telegram, he put at the end, Please advise by return cable exact horsepower of vehicle. He got the answer in just about an hour and a half. One word, adequate. Typically English, snooty.

Listen, I have only one right to stand here and talk to you folks. Shall I tell you why? I have found for 40 years of my life that Jesus Christ is, and you don't need any more than that, adequate in suffering, adequate in temptation, adequate when the rug's been pulled out from under you, adequate in every situation.

That's the Savior I know. And I wouldn't exchange him for anything, anything, anything, or anyone you can give in all the world. You could take from my life, my home, my wife, my family, but you could never take Jesus.

Oh, it's so wonderful to know him. I trust all of you do too. Let's pray together.