The Lordship of Christ in the Local Church — Rolfe Barnard

Christ’s Authority in the Local Church

I believe that everything that is to be done in carrying out the marching orders of Christ Jesus is to be done on the authority of a local church. And thus I go out, I'm a member of the Salem Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Where I go people have a perfect right to write that congregation and say, what about this fellow? He's preaching up in our section. And that's how we got those letters that were written in the New Testament, somebody inquired, they'd write back and say, he's all right, he's all wrong.

I believe in that. While I'm the guest of this congregation, I am utterly under the authority of this congregation. I would do anything you asked me to do, if I couldn't, I would resign from the agreement of ministering to you for a week.

I believe in that. I believe a man cannot get to heaven unless he's under the Lordship of Christ in a local church. I may ought to repeat that. Everybody believes that Jesus is Lord, floating around in the sky.

But the Lordship of Christ is exercised first in the church. Whatever else may be said about this generation of church people, you folks included, we're a bunch of spiritual outlaws. We know nothing about salvation because we know nothing about the discipline, the authority, the rule, the Lordship of Christ as it's expressed in the local church.

You've never been baptized, whether it's sprinkled or immersed, unless you were baptized into the authority of Christ as it's exercised in a local church. That's what baptism is. Most of you folks have never been baptized because you do that which is right in your own sight.

I believe that our congregations are to have Ichabod written over them, the Lord at the party. Our God may be gracious, and I pray to that end and praise to that end, that the Lord might be merciful, and once again, he would exercise authority in the church.

Of course, about half of this congregation, if the Lord started doing that next Sunday morning, they'd have to take half the members of this church out before God would kill them. He would. Just like he did Ananias and Sapphira.

I'd love to see that happen, wouldn't you? I wouldn't want to get killed and stuff, but I'd love to see about half of you folks. You know what would happen? The folks in this town would get off the fence of religion and they'd be the far against Jesus Christ, and that would be good, wouldn't it?

Repentance and the Discipline of the Church

I believe our only hope is to return to the discipline of the Lord in the local church. I'm going to try to preach on that tomorrow night. I don't think the task is hopeless, but I think it is, unless from the pulpit and the pew we'll quit reading the Bible and quit walking as Baptists and you Presbyterians, we're as guilty as we can be.

You Presbyterians don't pay no attention to the Bible, you just pay attention to the Westminster Confession of Faith. It's a fairly good little Westminster Confession of Faith, because you don't believe it, but I can pick it to full of holes, there won't be enough to cover nakedness, because it's not the book.

Us Baptists, we ain't got none. We did have the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, but we threw it out the window. We just do as we please. I do not believe that a church is a church unless of it can be set where two or three are gathered together in my name, means under my authority, doing what I tell them to do.

That's where the rope comes in. Then I call ourselves a church, and all of us, and we're Orthodox, and we're not liberal, and we're not neo-Orthodox, and we're not modernists, and we're not this, and we're not members of that, anywhere for the hill of beans, when we're not under Christ, the great head of the church, under his authority, as brothers and sisters meeting together.

I do not ask you to believe what I say while I'm your guest. I simply ask you to hear. I believe that's the way revival will come, if it comes. I believe I must be under such totalitarian discipline that we never dreamed of.

The Cost of Christian Service

Last fall, I was up in the Lewisburg, I believe it is, area, Williamsport and around, and Pastor took me out to some place where the New Tribes Mission Board, something like that, have a training camp.

Don't you ever go there. And anybody who wants to be a missionary, that's an evangelist, that's a Christian, and feel that the Commander-in-Chief has told them that his place to represent him is over there in the New Tribes, where they've never had the gospels.

That's it. Well, the young people say, that's where the Lord's told me to go, and so they come there to that training school, and for two years, they learn to live on acorns and berries and sleep on the naked ground.

And they make them forage to get anything to eat. They have to find it in the woods somewhere. And they, for two years there, learn to live like they'll have to live, see, if they get over where they say the Lord's told them to go.

Do you get it? Isn't it nice, our little gospel now, that the Lord only calls some of his people to that sort of stuff. Now, isn't that a bunch of sassafras? Huh? No. That's for all his people. Isn't that right?

Endure hard to be good soldiers. We don't know anything about it. We're going to have to learn. We're going to have to keep having our aching hearts sob as we watch a world tear itself to pieces. We can't get close enough to it to say halt.

Privilege and Responsibility Before God

I ran across a statement in my reading sometime since that challenged me and introduces me to the text of the evening, Matthew chapter 4. Matthew chapter 4. And while you're turning to it, those of you who desire to, some man said, and it struck me and I copied it down, who have had the blessed privilege of a nation Israel.

Even God took their election away from them and turned the gospel to the Gentiles. They talk much about privilege. To face the demand God brings to everyone who's been privileged to hear his voice. That's exactly a perfect portraiture of what we call churches today.

Few people would not get offended if I mentioned the word election in a Presbyterian church. Many Baptist churches would get a club and go to fighting if you use that word, I know. But you're supposed to believe in it.

But you just believe in half of it. You believe in the privilege but not the responsibility. Any person who's ever dared to say he's one of the only people between the eternities that'll ever hear from God.

Hear my voice, nobody else does. But brother, to hear from him that speaketh from heaven brings responsibility that have crushed the strongest shoulders of any human being except for the grace of God.

Our churches now are going out of business and they ought to. Because they're repeating the same sin of Israel. You Presbyterians talk about, oh I'm one of God's elect by his grace, hallelujah. But you've never put your arm around your next door neighbor and wept until the tears made a puddle at your feet.

You know nothing about the demand of God. We've formed a generation of young people in our churches and spoken peace to them when God hasn't done anything and they're not here tonight and they're not in anybody's house of God most any time.

But Papa and Mama and everybody's told them they're Christians and they haven't the slightest conception that privilege brings responsibility. That to hear God speak to the spirit, that's salvation. That his last word is not I save, but his last word is I claim.

That a God of holy love bought us to possess us, to own us. That's what happened on Calvary. And that it's silly to talk about being a child of God unless it can be said of us, you're not your own. You don't belong to you.

You can't be a spiritual outlaw. You can't do that which is right in your own sight. And where there's a therefore in the Bible, you need to pause and find out what it's there for. For those who heard the glorious gospel story, privilege facing a demand.

Jesus’ Message: The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand

When my Lord began his public ministry as God's prophet to prepare the way for his work as a priest and king, he faced with a tremendous privilege, tremendous demand. Chapter 4, the preceding verses, our Lord has been dealing with the tempter in the wilderness.

And when the devil, in verse 11, leadeth him, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast and the borders of Zebulon and Nephthilim.

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, the land of Zebulon and the land of Nephthilim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light.

And to them which sat in the region and shatter of death, light is sprung up. Yes, and people in darkness now, God's going to turn the light on. Yes, and people in the shatter of death, God's going to turn the light on.

From that time, Jesus began to preach. Yes, the light turned in the darkness. Yes, the wonderful privilege. Yes, the voice that speaketh from heaven. Yes, the gospel pronouncement. From that time, Jesus began to preach.

And what was his message? To say, repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand. I'm not a pastor. A pastor has to be a general practitioner. All of our churches ask the pastor now to do what the New Testament says takes five men to do.

And that's the reason he has a hard time. No man living can do what is asked of the pastor today. Because we don't pay attention to the Bible. There are five gifted men with offices and takes the ministry of all five to make a ministry out of you.

One man can't do it. One man can't do it. He gave some apostles, and I thought the twelve, that's apostles, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Paul, and those fellows. He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers.

And those five men doing what God gave them to do with the gift God gives them, they can make ministers out of you. They can make ministers out of you. I come back, they all are blamed mostly for the condition of our churches on us preachers.

That's a little hard for us to take. But we just haven't expounded the truth in our day. We've copied from men and the Puritans who were so gratefully used of God in their day. They're going to ruin all of us because we're still copying them.

But they're dead, and they were a million miles away from the Bible truth about the ministry. I was saying today to somebody that a certain church, I was hopeful that it would get a certain man to be its evangelist and send them forth.

You do that for your missionaries. Well, there's no difference between being a missionary and an evangelist. And every congregation ought to have missionaries and evangelists, and you pay the bill, send them forth.

Ephesians 4 says every church ought to have apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Isn't that right? That's scriptural. I don't think we pay attention to that because we've been following men all of our lives, and we're not paying attention.

So he asked the poor old pastor to be the apostle, and the prophet, and the evangelist, and the pastor, and the teacher. Is that right? Just can't do it, brother Bob. Just can't be done. Can't be done.

I claim to be an evangelist, an evangelist in the New Testament, planted churches, and corrected churches that were already planted. We do not have the job now of planting churches. Some evangelists, we call them missionaries, have had that blessed privilege over on what we call the foreign field.

That's silly now, foreign field. Now, won't somebody tell me where we could find a heathen land any worse off than this heathen land of America? That term, foreign missionaries, that's silly. It's just missions, just being the Great Commission.

And the Lord says, well, I'll let you represent me here, and I'll send you over there. That's all right, isn't it? And all of them are to go out, sent by a church. You believe that, don't you? And sent by, that means they're under your authority, and that means you support them.

Is that right? Now, evangelists, today we don't have many of them. They've helped to get us in the mess we've got. I wouldn't let the average evangelist preach to my chickens, I'll be honest with you.

I'm an enemy of what's called evangelism and have been these many, many, many decades. But I do believe that the Great Commission was given to the church, don't you? And I think it's about time we start paying a little attention to it, don't you?

At least I'm talking to you about it. Evangelists, they've just got one message. I've got the one sermon I haven't had in 43 years. I went preaching. As soon as the Lord seen me, just like you did, only mine was public and yours was one by one.

Amen? Ain't no such thing as being a Christian unless you're a preacher, a proclaimer of the gospel. But I've been a public preacher, as they call it, all the days of my Christian experience, if I am a Christian.

The past 36 years of my 43 years in the ministry, I've been what is called an evangelist. I've just had one sermon. It has three points. Sometimes I preach on point one, sometimes point two, sometimes point three.

The Evangelist’s Message: Repent

Every sermon ought to have three points. We had an old colored fellow down in the South that preached on blind Bartimeas. And he said, brothers and sisters, I have three things to say about this man Bartimeas.

He said Bartimeas was blind, number one. He said in the second place he was blind in both eyes. And he said in the third place he couldn't see a leg. Now, that's pretty good preaching. Just keep saying the same thing.

But the evangelist just says one thing. He don't preach on the second coming. He don't preach on the Holy Spirit. He don't preach on Federal Council Church of Christ. He ain't got one thing, and that's repent.

He's everlastingly to be calling somebody to repentance, i .e., them calling a church to repentance. That's in the Bible, the book of Revelation. The risen Lord said if you don't repent, you're going to take the candle stick away.

Kids need to repent. Walking under the traditions of man and not the teaching of the Word of God. Amen? Now, it's not popular. The last 20 years of my life I've preached a quail of a lot to young preachers.

And I just got one message. Repent. The gospel you preach is the gospel of a little teeny weeny bit of Jesus that couldn't transform a flea if you did trust him. Repent and do good works and preach the Jesus of the Bible.

That's not very popular. And sometimes I have the privilege of preaching to men who admittedly are not in saving relationship with Christ. So I just got one message. Repent. In ways that would cause a death if he weren't a devil.

It is true. That's the announcement. That's the grandest thing I ever heard. That God has come down here to wreck the powers of hell. And is burning brands from the power of Satan and put them in the kingdom of God, which is the rule of God.

That's a tremendous announcement. Anybody ever heard that? That's privilege, brother. Facing a demand. Announcement. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The rule of God is at hand. God's in vain down here to defeat his enemies.

And he's going to keep working at the top, the Bible says, to every one of his enemies that made his footstool. And everything is brought under subjection to his authority. Hallelujah. That's wonderful.

The Gospel as the Rule of God in Christ

That's good news. I have a way of saying over and over again. Try to get somebody to listen to me. The first time you ever hear the gospel as gospel, you'll be saved. That is good news to you. That Jesus came down here to establish the rule of God.

You say, oh, I sure need somebody to rule over me. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have somebody that got the strength of God in his right hand to take me. Put a song in my heart. Establish my feet on the rock.

Give me the life of the spirit. All the way to heaven, songs in the night. Lead me to the desired heaven. That'll become good news to you. You'll close with it just like that. I've had the expression, used to have the expression that the south was the bible belt.

It may have been once before I was born. But I've heard it said, but gospel heard now. Most people have never heard the gospel as gospel. They've heard the gospel. But it wasn't gospel. It wasn't good news.

If I ever got to the place. They told me about somebody that hung on a bloody cross under the stroke of the anger of almighty God. Wrath against sin. And that he had to deal with the awful curse of God laid upon him.

And that he did that. If that ever strikes me as being very good news. I'll close with it just like that. If it ever comes and tells me that that's why. Form and change. That'll never let go. Until I am utterly conformed to the very image of the son of God's love and holiness.

If that's ever good news to me. I'll close with it like that. When he began his ministry as a preacher. He brought the good news of the gospel. What is it? The kingdom of God's here. That's it. The rule of God is here.

The king of God in Christ. That's the gospel. That's the gospel. And be born of the spirit of the powers of the age to come. And may enter the sphere of Christ's rule. And the realm of his powers of the age to come.

That's the gospel. And the salvation needs to be translated the scripture says. From the ruins of the rule of God. Go into peace. The spirit of antichrist blows hard everywhere. One wonders what a day will bring forth.

This rules our homes, our churches, our schools, our government, our society. Reach out and you can cut the spirit of lawlessness for the knife. Now it's sick. From under the rule of the powers of hell.

Put under the present rule and blessed rule of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's the gospel story. And with this story and this announcement and this proclamation my Lord brought it to man. Repent. What for?

I'm here. The kingdom of God's here. The rule of God's here. The demand of the gospel. That's it. Repent. Repent. Repent. How does one receive the life and obtain the righteousness? Find the life of the spirit.

Faith, Confession, and Submission to Christ

The life of the future age. Thou shalt confess with thy mouth. This is law. Romans 10. Believe in thine heart that God hath raised him. From the dead thou shalt be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the Philippian jailer. And thou shalt be saved. We could have filled a whole library full of things said John. But these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the son of God. In his name.

Are those empty words? Or are they just verses to be quoted? To confess him as Lord. Does that mean just to take him, take his name and say Jesus is Lord? Or to have a creed? To rule. That's a demand.

It's your duty. Responsibility to do what God demands that he do. Optional. That man does not have a choice. He'll obey this demand. He just has some kind of a choice as to when you'll be brought under the sovereign rule of Jesus Christ.

Whether you like it or not. By the grace of God. You could be brought to a willing commitment of yourself. To the blessed rule of the son of God in your life. You'd receive a pardon. And be made a member of the family of God.

Hallelujah. But you don't have to. But you do have to bow to the rule of Christ now. Or then. Let me briefly, and I'll copy it down so I can finish in a moment or two. A few minutes. Four things. About this surrender.

Resolute Surrender to Christ

This bowing. This acceptance. Of the sword. Of the rule of Jesus Christ. It is a resolute surrender. You've got to mean business, brother. It's a once for all. Resolute commitment. In Luke 9 I read, and it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man said unto Jesus, Lord, I'll follow thee with us whoever thou goest.

And the Lord said unto him, foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests. But the son of man hath not wherewith to lay his head. You've got to mean business now, and you say you're going to follow me.

I've got nowhere to go except to a cross. He said to another, follow me. But the man said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bring my father. The Lord said unto him, let the dead bury the dead. But go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

The man also said, Lord, I'll follow thee, but let me first go bid them farewell. But you're at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

My dear friends, the old man, that's Rothbard, becomes a new man only by receiving a new master. The true line of freedom is positive obedience. Its condition is of positive authority. We can answer the revelation of God in Christ's voice or resolve or committal.

Radical Surrender and Costly Grace

Do, in the second place, it must be a radical surrender. I read in the word of God, and from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of God suffereth violence. And the violence taketh by force.

I read in the word of God, the law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the kingdom of God, that's the gospel, that's Christ, is preached. And every man presses into it. You'll never get in any other way.

I read in the gospel where the Lord says, strive, agonize to enter in at the S-T-R-E-I-T, straight gate. For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in and shall not be able. I read in the word of God, this thing's so serious that if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.

Better to go to hell with one eye, to heaven with one eye, than to hell with two. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it out with your foot. This thing's radical, brother. This thing's radical. I read in the Bible where my Lord says, think not that I am come to send peace on earth.

I came to send, not to send peace for the soul. Dietrich Bonhoeffer compares the cheap grace that's peopled our churches today full of folks that know nothing of commitment to the redemptive program of Christ and love for his glorious person.

He compares the cheap grace that's enabled us to say we're Christians, but not disciples. We're Christians, but not missionaries. We're Christians, but not involved in that selling. And then he has this to say about true grace.

He says it's costly. True grace is the treasure hid in the field that'll make a man sell everything he's got and buy the field so he can get the treasure. True grace is the pearl of great price that a merchant will go sell everything he's got and go purchase the pearl of great price.

True grace is the kingly rule of Christ for whose sake a man will pluck out his eye which causes him to stumble. True grace is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple will leave his nets and follow him.

There's one thing you can put it down. The spirit of Antichrist might be hot now, and you'll live to see the day when you're going to have to get off the fence. It ain't going to be popular much longer in this country to be a Christian.

And I'm glad to see it's coming. Anything except this fence straggling, saved but not committed, saved but not under his discipline. It's got to be a radical surrender. It's going to be a costly surrender.

Surrender That Costs Everything

It'll cost some of you your home, your business. That's why it would cost the rich young ruler. He'd have to sell everything he had and give it to the poor to go to hell. Maybe that would be what you have to do if that's your controversy with God.

It may cost you your loved ones. Our Lord said, think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a man's foe shall be there of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. I'm pretty strict in it.

It may cost you and it will your very life. My Lord said, he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. There's one thing I know, you can't be saved without dying. You're going to have to die.

What does it mean, take up your cross? It means exactly what it said, D-I-E, die. Surrender. The Lord said, I say unto you, whosoever shall confess me before man, him shall the son of man also confess and confess and testify.

A difference, you know. Him also will I confess before the angels of God. Confession is always true. Testimony may not be. But he that denieth me before man shall be denied before the angels of God. He said, whosoever thou showest forth shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation.

Of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a human being, born a rebel against the law of God and the rule of God.

So are you. I'm headed right smack toward six feet of earth and a grave. So are you. I'm headed right smack toward the judgment. When all over the heaven and the earth try to flee away, they find no place to hide.

God help us. God says you're in my destiny. It is decided by bowing or rejecting to the sweet rule of Jesus Christ in this life. Bowing to him who hung naked on a tree between two thieves on a hill called Golgotha nearly 2 ,000 years ago.

One day he'll appear as the son of man in glory to bring final full salvation to the sons of the kingdom and to bring a just condemnation to the sons of damnation. Today the throne is not a throne of judgment.

It's a throne of mercy. The proclamation of a pardon is still proclaimed. For every rebel on your shotgun, the son willingly bow to his rule. The grace of God is precious. I think that it simply means that the debt's already due, condemned already.

Guilt of rebellion against the rule of God in Christ. Judgment is held back and the good news is proclaimed. They tell the story of the king whose subjects rebelled against him. And he sent his army out, put the rebellion down, crushed it.

Most of the rebels threw their weapons down, bowed to the sovereign rule of the king. But some fled to the swamps and others fled to the mountains. Kept their weapons and stayed in rebellion against the rule of their king.

And the king caused a giant candle to be built. And had it placed upon the tallest steeple on his castle. And then he had them lighted. And then he sent messengers all over his kingdom, who were to go in loud voice, Harrow!

Proclaim as long as the candle burns! And lay it down to the rule of the king. Will be granted a pardon. That's the grace of God. That's the glorious provision of the gospel. Hallelujah! For such a gospel.

The Call to Repentance and Mercy

The question is, have you thrown your shotgun down? Are you still in rebellion? Let us stand. I want us to sing our song, brother king, pass me not, oh gentle savior. Hear my humble cries, number 707.

While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. At worst, the scripture in the Old Testament, I think I know what it means. It says, my people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Breaks my heart.

This is not the day of God's power. This is the day when God seems to have hidden from us. This is the day when we hear our gray-haired fathers and mothers tell us about way back yonder the spirit came.

We don't see much of it now. Seems like God's angry with us. My heart goes out to anybody still under the rule of sin. I don't guess you'll ever be willing for Christ to rule you. Because we have so little of the manifest power of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't that heartbreaking? I'm under God, glad I'm as old as I am. If I was 21 years old and infidel like I was living in this outfit today, I expect I'd go right slapdap to hell. The spirit spoke to men more than it does now, brother Mack.

That's the God's truth. I can't explain that. But if you're here tonight locked in God's cell down in condemnation row, condemned already under the righteous judgment of a thrice holy God, you shut up in that cell.

The door's locked. You don't have the key. You can't get out. You'll never bow to my Lord unless the grace of God comes to your spirit. That's right. You're too proud to bow to my Lord. I am too. Nothing but the conquering grace of God ever make a rebel like me or you bow to the Lord Jesus.

Well, I wish we could have the spirit of God one more time, don't you? Split men, conquer their rebellion, pierce their wicked spirits, crush their stubborn will, make them cry out, O God, have mercy on me.

Don't have much of that today. Move you down there in that cell. You could try, Lord, while you're passing by. Unlocking the door of somebody else's cell. Don't pass me by. Have mercy on me. Stop at my cell door.

You got the key. God raised you and put you on the throne. Made you a sovereign and a savior to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins. Lord, hear my prayer. Amen. While we sing it, you could sing it as a prayer if you have need.

Let us sing it, Brother King. God bless you. When the demands of the living Lord and the Lord of life are honestly faced, you'll face the fact that each day will demand another repentance. Each day will demand another exercise of surrender.

Daily Repentance and Christian Self-Examination

That's right, dear ones. You face the absolute demands of Jesus Christ and the self-complacency and familiarity of what passes for Christianity. They'll go out the window pretty soon. You can't face the great demander with his great demand.

Take up your cross how often? That'll make you understand why John Wesley says my tears need to be wept over. My repentance needs to be repented of. My prayers need to be prayed for. That's the reason.

The only evidence of you've been born from above is repentance and faith, and it's a daily repentance and faith. That's the reason we can't have prayer meetings anymore. That's the reason we don't have confession meetings anymore.

That's the reason we do not confess our faults one to another that you may be healed. We don't confess our fault. We haven't got any. You have, but I haven't, you know. Now we talk about them. I wonder what happens in our congregations if we buy a survival and start paying a little tenure.

It tells us to confess your faults. Oh, what a healing ministry. Healing of wounded, broken spirits. Instead of gossiping about your faults, we confess them one to another. Amen. I wonder if you couldn't get next to your children if they found out you was a sinner that needed to repent every day.

You're so good and pious and religious that you can't even get your kids to Jesus. They don't even think you're a human being. I wonder if it wouldn't be good if we'd come down off our religious high horse and admit that we're wretched sinners desperately in need of a Savior.

I don't want to say I'm vile, but He's precious. Amen. I bet if the unchaste people around us found out that we're what we are instead of what we claim to be, we'd claim to be the nicest sort of folks that there ever were if we just admit we're sinners ruined by the fall.

Amen. We need the Lord, don't we? I need Him today as much as I ever needed. You can't win your neighbors to Christ because you're subluminal religious. I wish you'd lose your religion because Christendom is for sinners, isn't it?

For sinners like me. Amen. Let me at thy throne of mercy find the sweet relief. Can you go a day without this?