Evidences of the New Birth - Part 2 — Paris Reidhead

The Purpose and Historical Setting of John's Writings

Last Sunday we noticed particularly the fact that this letter was written expressly to answer the question, how can we know who is truly a child of God? Now you remember the Gospel of John was written so that we might have eternal life.

It was a testimony that John gave that would have the effect of enabling people to understand and to believe. By the way, it's important to understand also when the Gospel of John was written and when the first epistle of John was written.

I think it helps. The first of the Gospels that was written was that of Mark and then Matthew and Luke. John did not write at that time. John was the last of the apostles. He lived longer than any of the others.

They all died martyrs' deaths and John himself was martyred. He was sentenced to be killed and the method used was gruesome and ugly by being placed into a cauldron of boiling oil and it was done. And he was placed into a cauldron of boiling oil.

But as God had been with the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace and brought them out without even the smell of smoke, He also brought John out without damage or injury. And Roman law, the basis of our law, said that you could not punish a person for the same crime twice.

And so because he had been punished, they didn't like him any better than they had before, but they couldn't punish him again. He'd already been executed. The fact that God had sovereignly and supernaturally preserved his life meant that Roman law had no hold upon him.

They carried out the execution. But they didn't like him any better than they had before and so he was exiled to the island of Patmos from which he made one or two brief trips. The year 85 is the year that's generally ascribed as the date for the Gospel of John.

85 A .D. Now, our Lord, according to that calendar, was born in 4 B .C. There was an error in the computation of the calendar. So really he was crucified at about 30 A .D. at the age of 33, nearly 34.

But there was that discrepancy in the calendar as we calculated. At the time there wasn't any A .D. or B .C. so there wasn't any problem. It's only with us. So in calculating where it would have been that John did this, wrote this gospel, it would be according to our calendar about 85 A .D.

And the epistle to John was written after that. So now we're talking about the third generation of believers. The first generation were those that believed at the day of Pentecost and through the preaching.

And then we would have a second generation 20 years later and then a third generation. So we're at that point when he writes his gospel. And in the middle or beginning of the fourth generation when he writes his epistle.

Well, you know that, we've heard it said, haven't you, shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. The grandfather makes the money, the son doesn't handle it too well, and the grandson is back in shirt sleeves earning it all over again.

Unless it's put in trust and managed by a professional. And even sometimes that doesn't always work out all too well. But we also have spiritual declension in one generation. They say that first it's a movement and then it's a monument.

And then it disintegrates. Someone has said the thing that should happen with church buildings is that they should self-destruct every 50 years. That if they did that, then the heirs of that particular testimony would have to rebuild it the way the grandfathers did.

Well, be that as it may, some problems had arisen that were really very serious. Because there were some people that had come into the church that gave little or no evidence of the new birth. And so there was a gradual, steady declension in the spiritual quality of life.

Because there had already come in some of the heresies that would have plagued the church in days to come. You see, most of the persecution was over about 65 A .D. So now there have been some 30 or 35 years of relative peace.

And it's very easy for the grandchildren to forget the kind of suffering that the grandparents had when they trusted in Christ at the hazard of their lives. Now, John is writing a letter. And the purpose of the letter seems to be to answer the question, How can we tell who really has been born of God?

How can we tell? What are the evidences? How will we know? Many, many centuries later, someone made the statement, Everybody talking about heaven ain't going there. And that was true then, too. In fact, it was so true that in one place we hear, The Lord knoweth them that are his.

But let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. Have you ever heard anyone say, Now, I know that if anybody in this world is a Christian, that person is indeed a Christian. Have you ever heard that?

Well, that's quite marvelous, you know. That's really remarkable. The Scripture said, The Lord knoweth them that are his. I didn't know that he gave to us the privilege of, you know, sitting. I heard it said about one man, You know, he's so egotistical, God sits on his right hand.

Well, apparently he thinks God does. For a person to say, Now, I know that person is, if anybody is, he is. No. No one in this universe has the right to say that except God. Because it says, The Lord knoweth them that are his.

The Lord knows, and you know about yourself,. But that's about the whole company that you know about, is you. Not anybody else. Not your husband, or your children, or your wife, or neighbors. You don't know about them.

The Lord knoweth them that are his,. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. And the evidence that we're his, to us and others, Is that we depart from iniquity. Our attitude towards sin.

Examining the Evidence of the New Birth

Paul, writing to the church at Corinth some 40 years prior to this epistle, In that second letter, chapter 13 and verse 5, Said, examine yourself whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you, not your own selves, That Christ be in you, except you be reprobate.

In other words, the evidence that one is in Christ, Is the fact that Christ is in them. You see, salvation is not a scheme. Salvation is not a plan. Salvation is not an it. Salvation is not a structure of logic.

It is not a system of theology. It is not a selection of scripture verses. It is not a decision. Salvation is a person. It's so hard for us to grasp. We think that salvation is an it. He's got it. But it's not an it.

And it's not a legal transaction. There are legal aspects to it. Salvation is a person. Now, David knew that. Back in the 27th Psalm, He said, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Now, let's go back.

The Lord is my salvation. The Lord salvation is. The Lord equals sign salvation. Now, when I was a young Bible school student, I knew more than I'll ever know again if I lived to be 500. I'm glad to say that I'm acquiring ignorance at a ready, steady rate.

But I knew very well that if I'd have had a chance, I could have set David straight on that. We wouldn't have said it that way at all. The Lord is my salvation. I would have said, The Lord gives salvation.

The Lord provides salvation. The Lord offers salvation. But everybody knew that the Lord was something. The salvation was something from the Lord. Like an insurance policy is from the company. It's not the company.

It's something from the company. And salvation was, in my mind at that time, something from the Lord. But years went on and light began to dawn. I began to replace my assumptions with some insights from Scripture.

And I realized that when the Scripture says, When Christ, who is our life. It didn't say life is from Christ. It says, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear. You see the difference? It's Christ, our life.

Life is in the Son. He that hath the Son hath life. Well, why? Because the Son is our life. So salvation is a person. And he that hath the Son. I remember years ago when I was a member of a Baptist church down south.

The Danger of Decisionism Without Transformation

One of the deacons in that particular church. The deacons would meet the people who were invited. And they were there. Sit down with them. They had a snapboard with a card on it. And say, What did you come for?

Well, I came to be saved. Would be one response or whatever. I came to be saved, let's say. Do you know your sinner? Sure. Do you know Jesus Christ died for sinners? Sure. Do you want to accept Him and be baptized?

Okay. What's your name? What's your address? What's your telephone number? Now, if you go up that door, they'll help you get ready for baptism. And just that fast. They came down. Ten minutes later, they were in the Baptist church.

And one of the deacons talked to a pastor friend of mine who'd been on the radio. And he'd been saying something like I'm saying at the moment. And this man said, Can I see you? I'd like to have lunch with you.

He said, You know, I'm a deacon at such-and-such church. And yesterday, I had somebody come. He said he came to be saved. And I gave him that verse. He that hath the Son hath life. And I asked him if he believed it.

And he said yes. So I wrote saved down. And after I got all the information and was about to send him up to be baptized, I said, Now, do you have any questions? He said, Yes, I have a question. I believe that verse you said.

He that hath the Son hath life. But what I want to know is how do you get the Son? And he said, You know what I told him? I said, Well, that's one of the things that the pastor will take care of in his after-baptism class.

So you just go right ahead. I said, Did I do right? My pastor said, Did I do right? I'm kind of worried about it. What's happened? Well, I heard R .G. Lee down at Spartanburg, South Carolina back in 19, talking to all the Southern Baptist preachers.

And he said, In my estimation based on 40 years of close observation, I'm convinced that no more than 1 out of 10 of our people know anything experientially about the new birth. And those preachers, now he said, Brethren, I may be in error, but if I am, it's that I put it too high.

It's probably far less than 1 out of 10 when you get right down to the hard facts. Well, I had people ask me, Do you think? I said, Look, I don't know where R .G. Lee has been. I don't know who he's seen.

I have no responsibility to verify his statistics. But I turned to a book where Andrew Blackwood from Princeton said based on his experience throughout the evangelical churches of America, he was convinced that no more than 1 out of 10 knew anything experientially about the new birth.

And I was talking with A .W. Tozer about it. And he said, Based on my experience for these past 40 years in the ministry, I'm convinced that it's probably somewhat less than 1 out of 10. Well, I'm not a research theologian.

My concern is not on the accuracy of R .G. Lee or Andrew Blackwood or A .W. Tozer. I'm citing it because there's a problem in today's world, in today's church world. I'm citing it because you are going to have opportunity before we meet here next Sunday at the same time, to talk with someone who says, I'm not sure that I'm a child of God.

You're going to have to respond to it. And you're either going to have to respond by saying, Hey, we go to the same church. We are interested in the same thing. We attend the same Bible study. What do you mean?

If anybody in this world is a Christian, you remember who knows? The Lord knows them that are here. Now, if that person comes to you and says, I'm not sure, what are you going to do? So what we've been saying is, you bring them up against the x-ray machine.

Not this week, but the week before, a dear friend of mine who has been extremely ill and has had months of difficulty went to a doctor, a friend of mine again, and had x-rays. And we were sitting there and we were looking at these x-rays of his knee.

And I was astonished at how plainly we could see into the knee and could see the bones and a clear outline of them and could see the shadow of the tendon. We could see it all. Well, that's what the Word of God is.

It divides between the soul and the spirit. It's an x-ray machine. And you have to bring people to the x-ray. You don't want to just get a thump and a bump and a pill and say, oh, you're alright. No, that's not enough.

That's not enough. He's looking into it and took six different pictures to try to find out what could be the problem with that knee. And so with someone that doesn't, it says, I'm not sure. Don't presume.

Don't assume the sovereign prerogatives of the triune God. Bring them to the machine. Stand them up in front of the machine. Turn the power on in prayer. Get them there to examine themselves in the light of that which divides between the soul and the spirit.

Distinguishing the Soul From the Spirit

You know the difference between the soul and the spirit? Many things are soulishly delightful. I love to see the flowers, the tulips, first the daffodils, and then the tulips, and the azaleas. My soul is nourished and fed, but not my spirit.

My soul is blessed by music. Not soul music either. I'm talking about music that nourishes my soul. But I remember being in a church in Greenville, South Carolina, and the lady wasn't there on Sunday morning, and I was there Sunday at noon for dinner.

I said, where were you today? She said, well, I was to an all-night sing last night. And I said, oh, Brother Edenhead, it was wonderful. My soul was so blessed. And I said, I'm sure it was. But she didn't say my spirit was enlightened.

Why, she said, Pastor So-and-So was on the platform. He sponsored the all-night sing. And his soul was just going and going and said, oh, he was just so happy. His soul was blessed too. I said, I'm sure of it.

There's nothing wrong with soul blessing as long as you don't confuse it with your spirit. Because the part of a man that knows the things of a man is the spirit of man that is in him. Not the soul. The soul is the response to the beautiful.

The soul is the response to all of that which is delighting and satisfying or frightening or different responses. But the spirit. That's the part of a man that knows the things of a man. And so it's the spirit.

God is spirit. And they that worship Him must worship Him in soul. No. In spirit. Well, what about soul worship? Is there anything wrong with it? There's nothing wrong as long as you know what it is. Just don't confuse it.

Just don't confuse it with spirit. That's all. Recognize the difference. Enjoy that which is permitted to be enjoyed that's going to refresh your soul. But realize that it's not your spirit. It's the part of you that knows who you are and where you are and what you are.

That's the part of a man that knows the things of a man is the spirit of man that's in him. And that's the part that God the Holy Spirit quickens in this miracle of the new birth. And that's the part to which God speaks with that which we call the witness of the Spirit to the Spirit.

Now, the same part of you that knows you're here and not somewhere else, that knows that you're married or unmarried as the case may be, that knows that you're employed or you're unemployed or that you're retired or that knows your status, that part of you that knows, that's the part that God the Holy Spirit quickens at the new birth and to whom He witnesses by enabling you to know with the knowing that transcends the necessity for proof.

Now, if I were to say to you, are you married? And you say, well, now let me think. I know I've got a lot of papers in my lockbox. I've got my birth certificate. But I wonder if I have a wedding license or a marriage certificate.

If you have to go through that process to answer the question, we've got problems. Or you've got problems. And because I asked it, I've got to share your problem. So the part of you that knows is the human spirit.

So when God the Spirit of God brings life, when Christ comes to quicken and make you alive, you know it. Not because your eyes see, the eyes of your flesh see. Not because your ears hear. Not because your tongue tastes or your hands feel.

All of the faculties that are represented by these senses of hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, and they're after all functions of the human spirit through the body. That same human spirit that use your tongue and your mouth to taste, your finger to feel, your eyes to see, your ears to hear, that's the part of you that the Spirit of God quickens.

And so we talk about taste and see that the Lord is good. What? Well, it's the spiritual function. I heard the Lord say unto me, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. I felt His touch. What are we doing?

We're just, if you please, applying spiritual, physical experience to spiritual reality. Because the part of a man that knows what he feels, what he hears, what he sees, what he tastes, that's the part the Spirit of God touches when He brings life.

The Instability of Merely Deductive Assurance

And how do you know that you're born of God? Because the preacher says, now look, you say you believe, you believe, you believe, you believe, and you believe. Now you add up all those beliefs, what does it mean?

It means you're saved. Friend, if the assurance of salvation is something you have deduced from something you have done, you're standing on muscage, spiritual muscage. It's pretty, pretty soft and trembling.

Or on quicksand with a thin truss. Well, you say it's so slow the other way. Yeah, I know it's slow. But sometime you ought to read Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress.

And John Bunyan tells how that over a period of about seven years, three different times well-meaning evangelists came to him and led him to a decision which in a few days issued into nothing but chaff and shallowness and deadness.

Because John Bunyan found himself back in his drink, back in his cursing, back in what he was because of the kind of life he'd lived prior to this. And John Bunyan, this tinker, this ne 'er-do-well, this drunkard, this debauched man of Bedford spent seven years grasping, groping because people had come to him and were going to fix him up.

Well, they fixed him all right. But God in His tender patience and love unfixed him till he came to the point that he met the Lord in a vital, dynamic, experiential reality. And out of that grew Pilgrim's Progress.

And many of the elements that he introduces in Pilgrim's Progress were in a sense biographical from his own experience. So, what do we have? We have the fact that, yes, there are. I was in Pittsburgh at the great North Side Alliance Missionary Conference.

We got to our room about ten o 'clock, my room about ten o 'clock, and we were still there at three. And Merv had told of his pilgrimage and his experience. He told of being in the great Des Moines campaign when there were 4 ,500 decisions.

And he said, I got on the train. I had an airplane ticket. I turned it in and took a train. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I got in my bedroom. I had my meal served in my drawing room. I stayed right there until I got to California.

He said, the first two days, I suppose I spent most of the time on my knees sobbing before the Lord, crying out to God that somehow out of 4 ,500 decisions there would be some one person that had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he went ahead and told how he'd expressed his concerns to some of the outstanding speakers of that day and time. And he was the Lord now. And they said, Merv, you're doing a great job. You're doing terrific.

What are you worried about? And he said, Parris, he said, I know how to do it. He said, you know, I know how to do it. And he told about going to a great midwestern city for a citywide meeting put on by a layman's group.

And first night, and he said, I'm going to go and I'm going to preach. And I'm going to let God give the increase. And I'll only give an opportunity and I'll put it on biblical terms. First night, one lady came.

Second night, two people. After the second meeting, the committee met and said, Merv, we don't know what's happened to you, but you're not the Merv Rozell we engaged for this campaign. Something's taking place.

And he told them, and he said, well, we don't care what you're thinking is. It's ours we're concerned about. This is going to be a successful meeting. Now, you've got tomorrow night, and unless you can fill the front of this church and the aisles with people responding to the invitation, we're going to have a rare plane ticket and we'll got somebody standing in the wings that will do it for us.

But that's the only chance you've got tomorrow night. We're going to be successful. We're successful in our businesses. We're successful in our churches. And we're going to be successful in this meeting.

And if you don't give it to us, we'll get somebody who will. So he said, I went back. I spent time in prayer and I cried out to God. And I go out there and said, this is not my fault. This is the world I live in.

And so he said, you know what I did. The next night I did as I had done before. I gave put the on. He said they filled the front. They went two-thirds down the aisles. And when they came in, my soul was as dead as a rock.

My spirit was as heavy as lead. And the committee was ecstatic. That's it. We knew you could do it, Merv. And he said, God wasn't anywhere around me. And he said, Per, something died in my heart that night and I'll never be the same.

And he's sitting there on my bed back against the wall tears streaming down his cheeks. Well, I said, Merv, we all know that it's only two or three percent. Now, he said, ten years after the meeting in Rochester, Henry Ward Beecher sent a committee up to Rochester and they found that 85 of the people who made decisions were living for Christ ten years after.

Moody, who'd been influenced by Henry Drummond and changed from the methods he used at the beginning to bringing people and assuring them were saved, had a nervous breakdown or nearly did. He had to give up the ministry when he found only 20 of his converts were standing.

Billy Sundy came close to a heart attack when he discovered only 10 of his were standing after a year. And I said, well. But he said, Per, I said, well, it's two or three percent. No, no, no. Not two or three percent.

He said, I went into the hotel room with so-and-so's name you know and he said, we looked at each other and we started to sob and we fell at the bed and we just lay there. We couldn't do anything. Because we'd both learned that week that it's only one-half of one percent who make first-time decisions for Christ in America that give any evidence of regeneration a year later.

So what's happened? The community of the unconverted has been filled with people who've said, I tried it and it doesn't work. Well, what's the alternative? Oh, I don't think it's hopeless. You say it's hopeless?

No, it's not hopeless. You know why that Scotch surf when he had an opportunity to take a name, took the name Livingstone and gave it to his grandson David? Because he was a devout man. And he believed that being born of God is as much a miracle as going out into the field and taking a gray piece of granite and talking to it until it becomes living, quick and throbbing flesh.

Livingstone. It's a miracle. You sung it! It took a miracle to put the world in place. It took a miracle, but when He saved my soul, cleansed and made me whole, it was a miracle of love and grace. See, salvation is a person.

Walking in the Light as Evidence of New Birth

Now, that person that's been born of God, that person that's partaken of the divine life, that person into whom Christ has come, we found in 1 John, the first evidence is in 6. Because that one who's been born of God is going to walk in the light.

If we say in verse 6, we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another. When you've been born of God, God is going to change your walk.

Oh, you may fall into sin, but walking is controlled falling, and falling is uncontrolled walking. I didn't say you couldn't fall into sin. I said you wouldn't have a controlled fall. You wouldn't walk in it.

See, there's a difference between a fall and a walk. That's the first evidence. Now, the second evidence that we have is in chapter 2, verses 3, 4, and 5. So when you have someone who says, I'm not sure, bring them up to the x-ray machine.

Bring them up to 1 John 1, verses 6 and 7. And say, look at this. How do you walk? And then take them over to Ephesians 4, 17, through chapter 5 of Ephesians. And let them read what the walk is. Now, here's the second evidence.

Keeping God's Commandments as Evidence of Knowing Him

Number 2, next to verse 3, and then check verses 4 and 5. And hereby we do know that we know Him. How? Well, I signed a card. I went forward in a meeting. I made a profession of faith. I was baptized as a child.

How do we know that we know Him? If we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him. And keepeth not His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But whoso keepeth His word, and Him verily is the love of God perfected, hereby know we that we are in Him.

There it is. How do we know we know Him? We keep His commandments. What's the commandment? Thou shalt not. From Sinai, thundered, inscribed in stone, that God might thus indicate it's imperishable and unchangeable.

His commandments. And not only the ten, but every imperative given by the Holy Ghost is part of that commandment. Hereby we know we know Him if we keep His commandments. Thou shalt not. A commandment to the sinner.

But what is it to the saint? Well, what's happened to this person? What do they have? Well, they've been awakened. They've been convicted. They've been brought to repentance. They've been given saving faith.

They have the witness of the Spirit. They are new creation. Christ is in them. So what happens? They have a new heart. What's the new heart? The old heart was, I'll do what I want to do. It was a heart set to do evil.

I'll please Me. But we've repented of the decision so to live. And we've said from now on we're going to please Him. We have a new heart. That's why the Scripture says, make to yourselves new hearts. In repentance so we do.

And it's been confirmed by the coming of Christ in saving love and power. So what do we have then? A new attitude toward the law. I delight to do Thy will, O God, was what the Lord Jesus said about the will of the Father.

And when you've been born of God, then that's what happens to you. You want to please God. You delight to please God. And nothing gives you greater grief than when you displease God. And you have pretty good evidences to the genuineness of His work by what happens in your heart when you know you displease Him.

Some people can sin without compunction, without feeling. But when something happens in the heart of a child of God that's been truly born of God, they found no pleasure in it. Even though at the moment there may have seemed to have been pleasure subsequent to the moment, then there's a sense of great grief.

You see, the commandment to the sinner, Thou shalt not, becomes a promise to the saint. Thou shalt not. A lot of differences in how it's said. One is, don't. Because if you do, you'll die. And the other is, you've been made alive, you don't have to anymore.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Why? Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear foe. Why? Because you've got a new heart, a new nature, a new spirit, and a new person living in your life who's going to enable you to keep His law.

He's given you a love for His commandments and now by His presence, He's given the ability to keep His commandments. So if we say we know Him and we keep not His commandments, we're liars. And the truth is not in us.

For whoso keepeth His word and Him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in Him. How do we know? How do we know that we're in Him? By how we walk. By how we want to walk. How we purpose to walk.

Does that mean to say that if you should sometimes stumble, be overtaken in a fault, and fall into sin, that that doesn't mean that you were... No, it doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that at all.

What happens when you do in your own heart, when you stumble into the darkness and fall into sin, then the evidence of the genuineness of the work is the attitude in your heart toward yourself. David cried out and said, Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.

By the way, all evil is done in His sight and all sin is against God. So, how do we walk? What's our attitude toward the law? And somebody says to you, I'm not sure I'm saved. Don't go back and try to rehearse and say, now let's go back and do a spiritual biography.

Say, well, I don't know when I'm saved. What difference does it make? Who cares when? That's not important when. I couldn't give that for when. What I want to know is that. You see the difference? The when isn't as important as the that.

You may not know when, but if you do know that, the when isn't significant. If you've got a when and you don't have a that, then the when doesn't mean anything. But if you've got a that and you don't know the when, then the when doesn't mean anything.

Because it's the that you love God. That you purpose to please God. That you want to walk in the light. That you want to keep His commandments. These are the evidences. This is when the x-ray begins to go.

This is one view. One view of the heart. How do you walk? That's the foot x-ray. Then the heart x-ray. What's your attitude toward the law? Well, now you see we're getting down to some tools. What I want to do is to give you some tools.

Why? Because you're the one that's meeting people. I meet some and I talk to them this way, but I can only meet one, two a week. You know, something like that. Some weeks none. But you, you're meeting people, so now the group of us out, we're going to make an impact.

We'll be a ripple that comes from this because somebody says, I'm not sure, and you say, well, that's a terribly important question. Let's go to the Word and find out what the Word says. And you bring them in and they read it for themselves.

Oh, do you see what a difference it makes? They read it. They're turning on the switch on the x-ray machine. And you're just showing them where the switch is and telling them where to stand. And then they come up and they put the switch on.

Oh, that's okay. I think you understand what I'm trying to convey. Let's bow in prayer. Father, that I may know Him in the fellowship of His suffering, in the power of His resurrection, be made conformable unto His death.

That was the cry of Thy servant Paul. He didn't say, I want to know about Him. He didn't say, I want to gather information from others about Him. That I may know Him. This, our Father, is the cry of our hearts.

This is the desire of our hearts. Not only to know that we passed from death to life, but to know that we are entered into all that He provided by His death for us. And so, Father, we're praying that somehow because we're here, Thou art here, because Thy Spirit is speaking to our hearts, because Thy Word is being applied to us, that we're going to be able, Thou wilt minister to us, and then through us to others.

Should it be someone here that discovers that they have a problem, give them the courage, Lord, to acknowledge it and face it. Father, we want to know the worst about ourselves while there's still time enough to do something about it.