My Sin Is Ever Before Me — Leonard Ravenhill

Psalm 51: Confession and Cleansing

OK, we're going to take some thoughts on the 51st psalm. Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me surely, blot out my transgressions. Wash me surely from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shaken in iniquity and in sin, did my mother conceive me. Thou desirest truth in the inward part, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness with the bones which thou hast broken, and rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. O God, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.".

I suppose at some time, many of you, at least if you know much about music, you've been thrilled if you watch Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, or some other thing that he did. But not only is he one of the world's supreme conductors, he also is a, in his own right, a concert pianist, and a very brilliant pianist.

A friend of his was over in Europe, and when he came back he went to see Mr. Bernstein in his apartment there in New York. And the man was flourishing a piece of paper, and he said, Leonard I want you to play this piece of music to me.

I bodged in Europe, it's over 200 years of old, of age. It was written by one of the great masters, and I want you to play it. Well then Bernstein said, I'm sorry I can't do that. He said, you can. There's not a piece of music in the world that you can't play.

But he said, I can't play that. I've never seen it before. But you can sight read it, you can play it. He said, I can't. He said, this music was composed by one of the greatest composers in Europe. He composed it up at one of those giant organs in a great cathedral.

Well that's just the point. This manuscript is 200 years of age. It was, it was written 2 ,000 miles away from here. I can't get down at the piano and translate all the cadences. If I sat up there, at the side of that man while he made that massive organ make that building tremble.

If I'd seen all the cadences he put in it, the expressions, then I could feel with the man I might somehow, I might somehow be able to translate it. But I'm handicapped. To the same degree, this scripture here that I read tonight, was written hundreds, thousands of years ago.

In your book, whatever version or perversion you have, it's on paper, it's printed in black ink, and yet it wasn't written like that. It's punctuated in good English because some of the greatest masters got this old King James Version together and it's immaculate in its interpretation.

In the version that we have again, it's punctuated with periods and with commas. But actually this is not written in ink, it's written in blood. It's not punctuated with commas and periods, it's punctuated with groans and sobs and tears.

It's a very wonderful psalm. It's a monologue. There's nobody in it, not even Bathsheba is mentioned. This man is loaded with guilt, he's tormented. Every time he hears the cry of a baby, he remembers the baby that was birthed to Bathsheba.

Every time he looks out of his castle, he sees a soldier standing there. And he says, my sin is there before me. And you see when there's real conviction of sin, a man is as honest and as deliberate as this man was.

This wasn't some emotional decision he made in a meeting while the organ was whimpering and somebody was singing. He's come face to face with the offspring of his lust, his desires. And notice what he says, have mercy upon me.

He isn't praying for the sins of Israel, that they might be forgiven for all the wicked, vile things that they've done, for failing God, for destroying enemies. He says, have mercy upon me, O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me solely from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin.

I acknowledge my transgression, my sin is there before me. You know, most of us are experts at confessing other people's sins. The holdup of revival is in somebody else. Where I've acted, the holdup of revival is in me, is in you as a person.

But listen how he, how he says this again. Have mercy upon me, O God. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. He uses three different words for sin here. In the first verse, he talks about transgressions.

In the second verse, he talks about iniquity. In the second verse, he talks about sin. He has three different words for sin. He has three different words for cleansing. There are three major prayers in this amazing psalm.

Conviction of Sin and the Holiness of God

The first is a prayer, a prayer of a penitent, heartbroken, crushed man. A man haunted with guilt. A man lashed with a tormenting conscience that burns more fiercely than its scorpion. I've been bitten with scorpions more than once, they're terrible things.

And yet there's something there, the conviction, which is totally unknown to our generation. We don't know anything about conviction of sin. We've lost sight of the awesomeness of sin because we've lost sight of the holiness of God.

See, this man is conscious, he's borne down, there's no help anywhere else. Have mercy upon me, O God. You remember the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy says, God is rich in mercy. And the only reason you and I are here tonight is because of the mercy of God.

One hymn writer says, I have long withstood his grace, long provoked him to his face, would not hearken to his call, grieved him by a thousand falls. Depth of mercy, can there be mercy still reserved for me?

Can my God his wrath forbear, me the chief of sinners spare? As you were singing tonight, I'll sing with a glittering crown on my brow. I was singing with Jesus staggering up the hill with a cross on his back.

His back wasn't bowed because of a cross, his heart was broken because he was carrying a billion sins up there to the cross. Your sins, the sin of the whole world, was upon him at that moment. And he's going there to that terrible crucifixion.

You see Paul here, pardon me, Paul here reminds me of a statement he made in his epistle. One of the greatest statements he made, though he made hundreds, and he says, if any man, being Christ, any man, anywhere, at any time, whether he's a Jew, or a Greek, or a barbarian, an intellectual, an ignoramus, a king, or a commoner, a prince, or a prostitute, if any man being Christ, he is a new creation.

You see we're living in a day of the most shabby, cheap interpretation of salvation the world has ever known. A very famous preacher said a while ago, talking to a more famous author, that the moral desolation of America, or England, the moral desolation and the spiritual stagnation is due to one thing, and that one thing is we've lost sight of the rapture.

That's nonsense. All those men who have been guilty, those horrible sins are being flashed on every newspaper in the world. Not by guilty men in jail, but by possessing Christians, by spiritual men. God help us.

And the world mocks at them. They become a standing joke, they tell me, in clubs. All over the country, men who are supposed to walk in holiness, guided by the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, energized with the Holy Spirit, and they have done more to damage the Pentecostal testimony than all the liberals and ridicule, and opposition in the world.

But it is also the fact that some of my dearest friends I know in this world, are spirit-filled and tongue-speaking people. They know God intimately. They fast, they weep, they pray. But Paul has no despair in his message.

Christian Victory Through Tribulation

Time and again the fellows have called me on the phone and said, what do you do about the situation now? The world is falling apart. These popic giants are falling. What are you going to do? I don't know if you ever, ever read a poem by, what was it, F. F. W. H., F. W. H. Myers, F. W. H. Myers, St. Paul.

How many have read it? You haven't read it? You won't find it, it's not in print. Oh, one lady has, good. It's a fabulous thing. But one phrase in that thing comes to me almost every day. He says this, God will forgive thee all that thy despair.

There is no despair in the vocabulary of the Christian. Jesus didn't promise us a life without difficulties, he promised us a life without defeats. That we can be more than conquerors through him that loved us.

A few days ago we lived, we listened to a tape by a woman, I forget it, was it, is it Margaret Rose? Pardon? Darlene Rose. I'd like to meet that Darlene, Darlene, Darling Darlene. She was three years in a, in a, in a brutal camp in, down in the South Seas, in the Japanese invasion.

The women were raped, they were tortured, they had the rottenest food, they were fed worms, worms were fed, they had to eat everything that came, and if, and this is repulsive, well why would you like to do it?

She said if you vomited, an officer stood over you and made you gather up that vomit and, and eat your own vomit. There was every considerable indecency, and yet her faith never wavered. She came out it strong, she came out, she didn't say why me.

You see when you do that's a sign of your weakness. How many believers today can say with Paul, I glory in tribulation? Not you glory when you get a new car, you glory when you go to a full gospel business banquet or something.

That's why they call them full business, full gospel, they're always eating. But well listen, how many of us glory in tribulation, in necessities? It's so easy to give God what you don't have, isn't it?

I hesitate to ask people to sing, well the whole realm of nature mine, dear God you won't even give him his own day. Some of the preachers were preaching this morning, they were talking about in the mission field.

This afternoon they were at the TV watching the infield and the outfield. And as soon as this gets open it's football, they'll be talking about the sheep in the morning, and they'll be watching the goats in, no, no they were watching the what, the rams in the afternoon.

Before you offer to give God the whole realm of nature, try giving him an extra hour of prayer every morning before you get up. Prove it, you don't convince God with your, your very charming words. You've got to put it into practice.

David's Sin, Bathsheba, and the Law of Sowing and Reaping

But go back again here. Here is a man on one hand, he's got the stain of murder. What did he do? Well I'll tell you what he did. Read the story carefully, and it's in what, 2nd Samuel 11. And when you read the story you discover this, that all every battle that David fought, he won, until he got messed up with Bathsheba.

After that he lost every battle. When his baby was born he cried, he prayed, he fasted, he wept all night, but that didn't save, it didn't save the baby. Every battle was lost after he got involved with that woman.

What happened? He took another man's wife and committed adultery, and then he killed her husband to cover that. What happened? What he sold he reaped. He came home to his castle one night, and as he went in there was a body.

And he says, whose is the body? Turn it over. It's my son. Who killed him? His other son said, I killed my brother because he violated my sister. He sold adultery, reaped adultery. He sold murder, he reaped murder.

You know some of the strangest things happen in our days. When I was a boy, if anybody was gay, you meant they were frivolous, you know, joyful, never had a burden in their life. Now the vilest, rottenest, filthiest, dirtiest sin in the country is called gay.

In God's name, what's gay about it? I'm not for seizures. I read when a man said, if you were to take a man and sit him on a red hot, on a hot stove, it's not more painful than the agonies of AIDS. Suddenly they're discovering that sin is a very, very painful thing.

And once whoever a man sows, that he reaps. So David is, has condemnation on him, he has guilt on him. And he, if he'd known it, he might have sung, other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on thee.

But he knew that God is a God of mercy. Do you remember later he wrote to him, what did he write? A psalm? He says, he lifted me up from a pit. He not only lifted him up, he set him up. He put me on a rock.

He not only lifted him up and set him up, he tuned him up. Because he said, he put a new song in my mouth. And Paul says, if any man anywhere, he may be the most twisted man you know, he may be the vilest, the dirtiest, the most polluted, the most rebellious, he may have sinned against men and against God.

And yet if Jesus Christ comes into his life in a moment, he's changed. His hideous record, his hideous record is cast away into the sea of God's forgetfulness. I remember a teacher telling us in Sunday school in England, that's quite a few years since I was in Sunday school.

She talked about a man who couldn't keep quiet like these precious fellows here. Give them some chewing gum. Now I guess, how many of you have been in jail? Have you been in jail? What's the amen for, that you're out or you've been in?

You see, that's why they're so happy. You've been sitting in a stuffy pew all your life. Putting a measly dollar in the offering and singing, Jesus loves me, let the world go to hell, he loves me. These guys have been what, from a horrible pit?

Fetters, he broke every fetter. He drives up the lust, he drives up the greed, he drives up the hatred. Well this guy was always rejoicing. They got a new pastor in the church, and they told him, be careful, be careful, there's one man, and if you're sinning about redemption, he'll shout hallelujah, oh blow the place up.

So this young guy out of seminary went around to see this fellow. No, he said, oh the man's coming to see you tomorrow afternoon. So the man came, and he happened to have a college friend with him, this, this young preacher.

So he said to this very disorderly kind of rebel, you know, he said, listen, I want you to go in my office here, and I may be half an hour. Anything you want to read, read it. And be quiet, because my friend's not used to your enthusiasm.

Well they'd been sitting about 20 minutes, and this fellow exploded. You know, I believe in the exposition of the scripture when it's explosive. We need more than exposition, we need explosion. We're living in the most critical hour in American history, world history.

So anyhow, this guy suddenly exploded, shouted hallelujah. So the starchy preacher went, said, my friend, what are you shouting about? What are you reading? Oh, he says, I'm reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Well he said, I've read it a hundred. And you're praising the Lord, reading the Encyclopedia Britannica? He said, yes. He said, why? He said, I've just been reading about the ocean. It's about six miles deep across, uh, somewhere outside of the Philippines, whatever that is, he said.

And then there's another place where they can't fathom the depths of the ocean. Hallelujah! He said, for what? He said, because Jesus cast my sins beyond the depth of the sea, and if the devil tries to get them, he'll get drowned.

Maybe his theology wasn't very good, but boy, it's true. You see, him that cometh unto me, it doesn't say him that cometh with a checkbook, him that cometh with a degree. Listen here, you preacher boys, if you don't know, I'll tell you something, unction does not come with decrees or diplomas.

It comes by a close, intimate walk with God. You know, we're living in a tragic hour. This week I was reading about one of the greatest men in history, and particularly Scottish history, a man by the name of John Knox.

He was born in 1505. That's before I was born. 1505. He became one of the great men. Do you know why? Because like all great men God has used, he had a patmos. He had to flee out of Scotland for 14 years.

He was a prisoner in Holland, and it was there God revealed himself to him. You ask God to reveal himself to and he starts manipulating to get you on your own, and you scream, oh Lord, take this away, don't, don't do this.

He was answering your prayer, you talk too much. All of us do, I do anyhow. Anyhow, 1505. But one historian said the day that John Knox was born, Scotland was born again. You know what he meant? I think you do.

But Knox became one of the most outstanding preachers in the history of Scotland that, uh, I'm trying to make my connections here. The largest house in England is not Buckingham Palace, it's Blenheim Palace.

Winston Churchill's grandfather, Randolph Churchill, lived in it. It's nice. I'm sure you wouldn't like to clean it, ladies, with your vacuum cleaner. It had 365 rooms. I think it's Tillet for the summer.

Some American evangelists will rent it, I'm sure. 365 rooms. But it was the name Randolph. In the time of John, John Knox, there was a British ambassador to Scotland because the nations were divided. And the ambassador was called Randolph.

And Randolph said this, the reason the Reformation lived, it lived because John Knox lived. This is what he says. When John Knox addressed an audience of people, he was more powerful than 500 trumpets.

You see, we say, we teach, Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We're heavy on the way, we're heavy on the truth, we're not so heavy on the life. But he's life. Jesus did not come into the world.

Jesus did not come, shut up a minute. Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live. All men are not bad in the sense we think of them as jailbirds.

And yet, you know, the brilliant boys, the boys from the best universities did that, what they do, in the stock market they were, in the trading. These clever boys, these boys with degrees, these boys studied in universities in other countries.

And yet there's corruption in them. And the apostates, let me go back a minute there, and say what, what this man say? He said when John, when John Knox talked to a congregation, it vibrated with life.

They spelt life then L-F-Y. I was reading that over and over again this morning about two o 'clock. He had life. Our nation is dead in trespasses and in sin, and theology isn't going to save it. Rallies are not going to save it.

We need a prophet in every pulpit today. Why do we graduate men? Just because they got big heads and shrunken hearts. We need men alive to carry life. He came that we might have life. So here is a man sin-stained.

Here is a man crying, have mercy upon me O God. According to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. And thank God he doesn't say, listen, you sinned a year too long. You just over, overdid the sins.

I can only forgive a thousand sins for each person, and so you guys have ten thousand. He didn't say that. He said, if any man be in Christ. Jesus says, come unto me all ye that labor and the heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.

And it's wonderful, he takes us just as we are. There was a man came from Ireland, a number of, oh no, I'll change that. The great revival of 1859, there was an outstanding character in Scotland by the name of North.

What was his first name? Thank you. Who said Brownlow? Good for you. Brownlow North. His grandfather was Lord North. In fact his grandfather had a picture, you know, in these big homes they have pictures of the Lordship doing this, and he has a staff of honor in his hand.

It's given to him when he receives his knighthood, or when he receives the position of being the Lord of that particular group. So this lady came and looked at the picture and said, that's Lord North.

And you see the staff in his hand, that's a North Pole. Wasn't quite right. But Brownlow North became incredibly wicked. He had access to society. He stained the path with corruption. He stained it with blood.

He stained it with every perverted thing you can imagine. And then like lots of men did at that time, and still do, he went to Gay Paris, he went to Paris. And there he went from bad to worse to worse, until even the vilest men rejected him.

His people in Scotland heard, they cut funds off, they weren't going to let this man live in this state. But he went down and down and down in corruption. He got marvelously saved and became one of the outstanding preachers in the 59 revival.

They put a sign over the street in Scotland, Brownlow North will be preaching. And they mentioned the auditorium. So as a man went in, he wrote on a piece of paper, and he said, give this to Brownlow North.

Because when he starts preaching tonight, I'm going to expose him to these people. He's a fraud. He's a leper, a moral leper. He's a diabolical personality. He has debts he'll never pay. He's left women in distress.

He has a track record a devil would blush to own. I'm going to expose him. So they gave this slip of paper, and Brownlow North let the preliminaries go. And then he stood up, and he says, I have a notice here from an old friend.

And he says, I remember you in Paris. And he said, he's given me a catalog of my sins, and I know them without him telling me. But he doesn't know this, that when I left him in Paris, I sank further, I fell through the bottom.

There wasn't a man on God's earth as corrupt. And one day I stood by the river Seine, and I was just going to jump in, and suddenly I was stopped. Do you wonder, his favorite hymn was, in loving kindness, Jesus came, my soul in mercy to reclaim.

And from the depths of sin and shame, in love he lifted me. From sinking sands he lifted me. With tender hands he lifted me. From shades of night to planes of light, oh praise the Lord he lifted me. And here is this man now testifying.

You see, a man with an experience is never at the mercy of an argument. Some of you poor guys, all you have is theology. But listen, you were as bad in the sight of God as the worst man down the road.

You were dead. You rebelled against him, you don't have to do outward sin. What do you do to go to hell? Nothing, just go. It takes no effort, it takes no courage to be a sinner. I don't know a sin that's profitable, do you?

Holiness, Sanctification, and the Indwelling Christ

So there's one end of the scale. You get this man, he's a ball of corruption, he's vile, he's polluting every sense of the word. At the other end of the scale, you have a man entirely different. When I tell the story of a man explosive, when I sat in the Methodist Church, a cross was bleakly from us.

There was a big fellow there, the biggest man I think I've ever seen. He had a hand like a shovel. He's an amazing guy. And his favorite hymn, it was great when our, when our own pastor was there, he knew what would happen.

It was just like putting a match to a, to gunpowder. The preacher would say, we're going to sing the hymn 325, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died he for me, me who caused his pain?

For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God shouldst die for me? Then the next stanza is, long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin, and nature's night, thy night diffused a quickening gray.

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light, my chains fell off. But that was too much for that old boy across the aisle. Every time he exploded, my chains fell off. And he waved his hands, and the visiting pastor almost passed out.

But you see he'd been lifted from a horrible pit. Well he's like the other fellow. Now here's a young man. He had a very godly mother. And I'll tell you what, you women had better put extra work in with those children.

Don't buy those stupid TVs. Let your TV be the babysitter. One of the greatest women in history was Mrs. Wesley. She had 17 children. That's not why she was great. Most of them had 15 and 16. But one day she got a copy of one of the greatest books ever written.

Written in the 1500s by a Scotsman, Henry Scougal. And he has a book called The Life of God in the Soul of Man, which is the best book outside of the Bible I think. She got a copy and she gave a copy to Charles.

Charles gave it to his brother John. John passed it back to Charles. Charles was going through the university. And there sitting in the window, reading another book was a young man. And this enthusiastic young preacher, Charles Wesley said, hey George, you need to read this.

It's super. In the present edition which you can buy, it's a good brother of the front, sales addition. And on the front it says this, I did not know until I got this book what real Christianity was. Signed by who?

George Whitefield. George Whitefield. The man that set America on fire. George Whitefield. Like Charles Wesley, like John Wesley, a gentleman and a scholar. Men who already knew the Greek New Testament, they could tell you the Hebrew.

And yet they were dead. They were not alive in Jesus Christ. And remember what John Wesley said? It was about a quarter to nine on the 24th of May 1738, while somebody was reading a preface to the epistle to the Romans.

He wasn't even reading the book. He was reading, he was reading Luther's introduction of the book. And John Wesley says, I felt my heart strangely warmed. Somebody said he had an epileptic fit. Well if he had, I hope a lot of you have tonight.

He became a new creation. Christ lived in him. He became the spark plug, if you like, again of the West, of the Revival. John Wesley, Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield. But listen, these were men of impeccable morality.

They didn't smoke or swear. They didn't drink. They were very good men. They passed off in English society as being the supreme model. You know people make excuse without sin today. Even, even godly people so-called.

That even a gentleman wouldn't do fifty years ago. Never mind preachers. A young man came to my office last night. I hadn't seen him for weeks. He'd been on a tour through the schools. And he said, Brother Lane, when I got back my mail was this height, he said.

That's what you call evangelistically speaking. I had a stack of letters so high. So he brought some. Here is a girl, I'm 15 years of age. I've just met a young man. I believe I love him with all my heart.

I believe he loves me. And I consider marrying him. But I don't like to tell him. I've already, she's 15 years of age. I've already had sex with five other men before I knew him. She says, of course I love the Lord and I have dear Christian parents.

But where in God's name have they been? Listen, mother, your influence may be greater than mine on your children. Everybody knows Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Do you know at nine years of age his mother used to bring him round the fire before he went to bed and read, there's a book called, was it Joseph Alleyne's Alarm?

Alarm to the Unconverted. Written about 1634. It's one of the greatest books ever written. Can you imagine a nine-year-old child sitting there while his mother read that to him? What do you youngsters do?

You say, I'll go in the other room, look at Channel 5. Or some other thing. The church needs to be improved drastically, but our homes need to get, I don't want to get the Bible back in school just, I want to get the Bible back in the home.

I don't want to get prayer back just in the school, I want to get prayer back in the home. I thank God for a home where the Bible was read, and where my daddy prayed for us before we went to school. This man prays the prayer of a sinner, have mercy upon me O God.

In other words, nothing in my hands I bring. There's nothing you can barter to get salvation from the Lord. You can bring your virtues, thank God you're not as other men are. I thank God I'm not as other men are.

These precious fellows have been saved, they gave us some hideous memories. You can't erase the memory. It's like knocking the nail in the table. There's a boy did that in a dining room table. When daddy came in he said, oh look at the nail.

And he said, well daddy, he pulled it out. Well daddy said, now take the hole out of the table. And you've had memories that may be haunt you a long time. But listen, sometimes we all seem to keep us humble.

We remember the pit. This man says, the Lord lifted me up out of the horrible pit. Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me. Well if you have carnality within you, you can't praise the Lord.

There must be purity of heart. Nonsense this business, you'll be carnal till you die. There's no such biblical teaching that teach, men teach it, the carnal Christian. There's no such thing as a carnal Christian.

If a man is carnal, what's it say? To be carnally minded is what? Sickness, weakness, death. You can't have carnality and be alive in Christ. All that is within me, praise his holy name. Except one little black spot in there, which is where the devil holds stronghold.

Prayer, Idols, and the Work of the Holy Spirit

Knock on your life. Anybody got a quarter? Have you got a quarter? No quarters, they all went in the offering. Oh look, my good enemy's coming. Thank you. Yeah, I'll give you it back. Oh thank you. Anybody else want a lonely one?

Not far from my home in England, there's a town called Huddersfield. Outside of the town of Huddersfield, there's a another small town called Marsden. And a young man went there, I read his story recently, and he went there about more than a hundred years ago.

And he bought up all the land, and he started building, building mills and other things. And he bought up every bit of territory, except right in the middle of all this, these houses, these mills and things that he built, there was a Quaker.

Those dear old Quakers, we don't have any anymore. We've lots of people quaking, particularly when the stock market goes down. Anyhow, one day Sir John Marsden, Sir John Marsden was in a place, they were giving some honour.

And he said, well I, I own all this countryside. He was a multi-multi-millionaire, he was a sterling millionaire. And he was boasting about this. Then one friend said, a fellow said, just a minute, what about that farm right in the middle of all your territory, that old Quaker?

He won't sell that. He said he will when I go see him this week. No he won't. He was born there, his father was born there, his grandfather was born there. That old house is more than 200 years of age, he won't sell it.

He will when I make an offer. So instead of having these things, they had sovereigns, solid gold, worth about $10 each. And he goes along and he sees John, John sees the other old John outside in the garden.

He says, John, they all was thee and thou, you know it. I want to make thee an offer. I want to buy thy house. No, no, no, he said. And he made him various offers, he said, no, no, no. Finally he said, look, I'll get golden sovereigns and I'll put them side by side, right along the front of the house, down the hedge, round the back, up the side, and then I'll cover all the ground that's yours, I'll cover it with golden sovereigns.

You'd never spend that money. You'll have vast wealth. Now you, you, you'll sell it. No, no. He won't sell it for all of, he won't sell it for golden sovereigns. Yes, yes, I knew you, I knew you would.

No, wait a minute. He said, don't lay them side by side, stand them up like this. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Stand them side by side. Oh, I can't do that. Well, you can't buy my property, by the hedges.

Good catch. Are you going to tell me that Jesus didn't die for something more than to forgive our lousy sins? Let me read to you. See what it says here in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, verse 21 says what?

Isn't this you? Come on now, put yourself in this. And you were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. You didn't have to do the wicked works, you were enemies in your mind. You've denied God the right, you didn't keep his Sabbath, you didn't keep his commandments.