Redemption Summarized — Paris Reidhead

Galatians 4:4-6 as a Summary of Redemption

I guess all of us have a favorite Christmas passage, and hardly a year goes by but what I have the privilege, somewhere, of speaking to a company of people near Christmas, and the theme invariably has been, in the last few years at least, Galatians 4, 4 -6.

By the way, how many of you thought, how many of you were here last evening, let's see your hand, oh that's marvelous. Now all of you have your cards with Titus 2, 11 -14, would you show them to me, there's one, bless the Lord, another.

What I suggested was that you write them on a little 3x5 card and put a band around your visor on your car or put it up somewhere in the kitchen or in the home so that you memorize Titus 2, 11 -14. Well I'm suggesting the same thing again tonight, that you memorize Galatians 4, 4 -6.

This is what I call one of the key scriptures, a summary scripture, it's extremely important to have it in your memory. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Now last night the scripture, Titus 2, 11 -14, was the grace of God that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, teaching us the denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.

We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar, a purchased people, zealous of good works.

Discipleship and the Purpose of Grace

We saw on Sunday morning, you that were together with us in the park, that he gave command, but he said, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, literally make disciples of all nations, and teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

A disciple of Christ is a person who has made a commitment to the Son of God to observe and to keep all things whatsoever he has commanded, and those satisfied with less, ignoring what he has commanded, have very good grounds for questioning whether or not they are indeed his disciples.

Last night we saw that the great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, gave himself for us to save us from hell and to take us to heaven when we die. Is that what you read? Well, is there anything wrong with that?

No, but that's a byproduct of God's grace and not the prime purpose of his grace. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify unto himself a purchased people, zealous of good works.

Now, of course, if he's successful in doing that, he will save us from hell and take us to heaven when we die. But there are, I'm afraid, a great many people, like I was for some several years, believing that because I had tipped my hat to Jesus and acknowledged that what the Bible says about him is so, that I had a hell insurance policy, and there wasn't anything I could do that would really interfere with that.

And then God began to drag me into the word by the loving ministry of a very godly seventh and eighth grade teacher who prayed me out of death into life. Now, this text gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity.

Sin as Bondage, Blindness, and Slavery

The word redeem is there. In the text tonight, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, to redeem them. Here we have this word a second time.

It must be a very, very important word, and it behooves us to understand it. Now, in the first place, to redeem us, redeem us for pure gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity, purify unto himself a peculiar people.

We have to understand sin. We have to understand the condition of the sinner. Probably one of the best pictures of the sinner in the Bible is Samson. Samson was made for fellowship with God, made to be a servant of God, a judge over Israel.

Great blessing, great endowment. God fitted him in every way for that which he wanted him to do. But you see, Samson had what you and I have. He had the power of choice, and he made the choice. You made it at the age of accountability when you chose, like all that had preceded you, to be the God in your own life.

For the Scripture says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and sin is the committal of the will to the principle and practice of being God in our lives, of doing what we want to do, choosing how to be happy.

Now, Samson, made for fellowship with God, made a choice. The choice was that he would consort with the most beautiful woman among the Philistines, and the result of that choice, a very wrong choice, was, as you know, they found out the secret of his strength.

Then they put bands around him, bands that they couldn't break, and we could well say, of our own experience and of many we know, that sin is binding. Oh, how many of the people you grew up with in school right here are bound by habits and attitudes and practices.

Some of them have even lost their lives as they have been brought into bondage to all of the things that we call sin. Well, such were we. We were with them. Sin is always binding, and when they had put thongs around Samson that he couldn't break, you know the next thing they did.

They heated a poker, hot, red-hot, and they burned out his eyes so that he couldn't see, and we could infer from that that sin is also blinding. The scripture says that God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them.

Sin is binding, and sin is blinding. Then the next thing they did to Samson was take down into the marketplace, and there was a weary skeletal old ox with a leather harness around it and fastened to the end of a sweep.

There was a big hollow trunk of a tree set in the ground, and there was a long wooden sweep, and then there was another log fastened to that that went down. It was shaped at the end, and they would put the flax seed or the cotton seed into that hollow log, and then the ox would pull the log around, and it would crush the seed, and the oil would come out of a little spigot in the hole there and would be caught in either a bucket or a jar, and they were crushing oil.

Well, they took Samson who'd been made to be the servant of God, the judge of Israel. They shortened the leather, and they fitted the collar, and they put Samson into the harness of an ox, and here was the judge of Israel pulling that long sweep around again and again and again as he crushed the oil for the Philistines.

We can infer from that that sin is always grinding. It's so interesting, isn't it, that verse in 1 John 2 when it says, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.

Isn't it foolish to sell what you can never lose, to buy what you can never hold? And people sell their eternal destiny and souls for something they're going to hate in just a little while, for it's going to pass away, and the desire thereof, the lust thereof.

Well, there's Samson. He's a prisoner of his own choice. He's the captive of his own decisions. He's bound by his own lust and appetites. He's there grinding, blinded, bound, and such were we, and such were we.

He was a slave. He'd become a slave, and such were we. We're told that you who were dead in trespasses and sins, who walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince and the power of the air, that same spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom we all had our manner of life in times past, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, slaves of sin.

Creation, the Image of God, and Human Need

And the Lord Jesus, who made us, for all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. We were made to be the objects of God's love. God, from eternity past, had longed for someone like himself, to whom he could reveal himself and show himself, and with whom he could share himself.

God his father longed for children. The eternal bridegroom longed for a bride. The elder brother wanted brethren. And so, in the fullness of time, God made man. In his image, in his likeness, he'd made other creatures.

He'd made cherubim. He'd made seraphim. I don't know what, how, or who they are. I only know this, the only being said to be made in the image of God is man, and the only being that is said that God loves is man.

And he loved us with an everlasting love, but he gave to us the power of choice. Mother Eve chose Father Adam with him. And ever since then, when we've come up, when anyone's come to the age of accountability, they've agreed to that choice.

And so everyone you meet, outside of Christ, is a slave, dead in their trespasses and sins. And the eternal Son, the loving Son, who'd been sent by the loving Father, who loved the world and gave his Son, in the fullness of time sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.

For the law declared the soul that sinneth, it shall surely die. And it had found that we had sinned. The law was the schoolmaster to show us that we had failed. It was to cause us to understand that we deserved God's wrath and condemnation.

And so the lawgiver, the one who inscribed the tables of stone on Sinai's mountain, the lawgiver became a law keeper so that he could redeem the lawbreakers, you and me. Now this word, redeem, he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity.

We are told elsewhere, he was made to be sin for us, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He gave himself for us that he might redeem us. There are four words translated by the one little English word, redeem.

And those four words tell a story. They tell us a lot about this redemption that our Lord Jesus was sent to accomplish. Now I'm not a Greek scholar. My education, I'm afraid, never was as complete as I thought it should have been.

Oh, I studied Greek, but I guess really if you were to analyze it, I'm like a friend of mine. He said, I know a little Greek and I know a little Hebrew. The little Greek runs a restaurant and the little Hebrew runs a clothing store.

And I think that I would probably qualify there, but there were four words that I memorized years ago and I want to use them as I pronounce them in my lack of finesse in pronouncing Greek, but I just want you to get the feel for them.

Redemption as Purchase and Release

The first word translated redeem is the little Greek word agarazo. And agarazo means to buy in the marketplace. Look, let's look at Samson and put ourselves there in that harness, bound, blind, grinding.

And the Lord Jesus came down where you were, where I was. And he said to the one who had become our owner, the God of this world, what will it cost me to redeem? And the answer was, you must put yourself in his place.

And so we are said, he was made to be what we were, that we might be made to be the righteousness of God in him. He came right into the marketplace where the price was that he should vindicate the holiness of God and satisfy the law of God and uphold the justice of God and his condemnation upon sinners.

And so identify himself with us that he could satisfy the Lord's demands, he could redeem us. The word redeems means to buy in the marketplace. He gave himself for us that he might buy us right there, not some distant place, right there.

We are told that those three hours of darkness was when the eternal Son of God had so identified with us that he was there in our place and in our stead, dying our death, that hell came around and for three hours the sun was blotted out as the blackness of the nether regions just focused around Calvary.

We have that described in the Psalms where we are told he was buffeted, he was bruised, that his heart fainted. It was as though every arrow in the quiver of hell was loosed at the Son of God. Every spear was thrown at the Son of God.

He was buffeted, he was bruised so that the text says that he barely resembled a human being when those three hours were over. His heart was poured out in the midst of him like wax, the psalmist exclaimed.

And when there was nothing else that God could do to sinners because of their sin, and there was nothing else that hell could do to the eternal Son of God, when hell had exhausted all of its weapons and all of its power and when God's law was vindicated and upheld, the Lord Jesus cried, it is finished.

And he gave up the ghost. He'd come into the marketplace to buy us, to redeem us. There's another word translated redeemed, and it has added to agarazo the little prefix X. It would be pronounced ex-agarazo, which means to buy out of the marketplace.

Purchased in but bought out of. That one which had been thus redeemed was no longer to remain there in the harness, no longer to remain there in that shameful and ignominious slavery, but was to be bought out of the marketplace.

Can you see the buyer taking that one purchase, leading them out of the marketplace? That's what the word redeemed, ex-agarazo, means. He didn't intend for you to remain in the habits and attitudes and dispositions and practices that had characterized your life without him.

He gave himself for you to buy you out of the marketplace. And then there is a third word also translated by the little English word redeem, and it is the word lutru. And lutru means to loose. He gave himself for us that he might loose us from all iniquity, loose us from all those habits and attitudes and dispositions and trades and practices, all those things which had marked our life of slavery.

You can see him as here comes the slave led out of the marketplace, still has thongs around the wrist and chains around the ankle with all the marks and scars and rags and tatters, brands that had marked him as possession of an evil owner, and so he's loosed.

Loosed from that which his hands would do. Loosed from that where his feet would take him. Loosed, set free, redeemed. He gave himself for us that he might loose us from all iniquity and purify us unto himself of peculiar people zealous of good works.

That's the third word. Agorazo, ex-agorazo, lutru. And then there's a fourth word translated redeem. It's a wonderful word. They take lutru and they put a prefix on it, apolutrosu, which means to permanently set free so that it can never be forced back into bondage again.

Never. That's what redeem means. Permanently set free and all the powers of hell can't force the redeemed one back into his, oh, he can do it by his choice, but he can't be forced. No force outside of himself can make that one go back into the bondage from which he's been redeemed.

If he does it, he did it because he chose to do it and not because he had to do it. Don't let anyone ever tell you that they had to. If they did, they chose to. They didn't have to because he gave himself for us that apolutrosu, we might be permanently set free, never to be forced back into bondage again.

Adoption as Sons and Access to the Father

So in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that are under the law. That, ah, here it is, that we might receive the adoption of sons. There's the marvel of it all.

Once had been the bond slaves of iniquity walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince and the power of the air, and now we've been redeemed. We are to receive the adoption of sons.

That's our normal place now. We're placed into his family. We are to be the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ with all of the privileges that that affords. My mind goes back to something I read years ago.

A little boy was born in East London and like all the children of London during the time of Queen Victoria, she was ever and always on their tongues, in their minds, before them. The rumors about her, everything that was said, reminded all the children of London that they had a mother in the palace, Queen Victoria.

And one day the little fellow, about 11, decided that he was going to go see his queen. And he asked, where is the queen live? And he was directed one place and another until finally he came to the gates of the palace.

And does the queen live here? Yes. Well, he said, I've come from clear down, and he told what part of Cockney East London he'd come from, and I've come to see my queen. And he started to go through and the guard that was there in the big bearskin hat said, Sonny, get away.

Don't make me hit you. Don't make me be mean and cruel to you, but you can't go in there. But I've got to go in there. I've got to see my queen. I've come to see her. She's my queen. I have a right to see her.

Well, after a while he'd been pushed away two or three times. He snuck around the corner and he got ready to dash in. And he'd been anticipated by the guard who knew little boys from East London. And he just put his foot out and the little lad went for his face, ailing over it.

And he picked him up crying and said, Sonny, you can't go in there. And as the little boy went out, tears streaming down his cheek, frustrated in his failure to get to see his queen, a gentleman walked down the sidewalk, came toward the gate, and he said, Son, what's the matter?

And he, without even looking up, said, Well, I came to see my queen. I live so-and-so. And he told the district. But I can't get in there because those those big men with the guns there, they won't let me in.

I can't see my queen. Well, he said, Sonny, I think the queen might like to see you. Just take my hand. He said, Well, can you? I think I can get in. And so as he came to, they said, Watch out. They're, they're tough.

They'll knock you down. Oh, I don't think so. And then these soldiers snapped to attention and saluted, held their guns up. Then they got, did they know you? Yes, I think they know me. And they went to the door and they opened the door.

He said, They let you in? Yes, they let me in. And they walked through and here were all the servants standing at attention. And then he walked up the stairs. Little boy said, You know your way around here, don't you, mister?

Yes, I know my way around. And then he came and he knocked on the door. And the boy said, Who is it? And he said, It's me, mother. She said, Come in. And the door opened. And he went in and said, Mother, here's one of your subjects that's walked all the way from down by the Thames up here to see his queen.

Oh, she said, Come, sonny. You see, it all depends upon who opens the door for you. And so in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law that the door might be open for us and that we might come into the family of God as sons born into his family and call Almighty God Father.

Oh, yes. But notice the most interesting thing in this text. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent in the fullness of time to redeem them that were under the law that they might receive the adoption of sons.

And since we are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Friend, how do you find out that you're born of God? How do you find out that you're a child of God?

A Personal Testimony of False Assurance

I am afraid that with many it is as it was with me. My dear pastor, who loved the Lord, but who didn't understand Galatians 4, 4 to 6, said to me on a Sunday in Little Heron Methodist Church in North Minneapolis, he said, calling me by the family nickname, Sonny, would you like to become a member of the church next Sunday?

And I thought he was kidding. I knew I wasn't ready to become a member of anybody's church. But he had a different idea. Well, he said, wouldn't you? I said, I don't think, I'm not sure I'm a Christian, Mr. Thomason.

Oh, he said, I'm surprised. Your mother is the president of the ladies' aid, and your father is the chairman of the official board. Oh, I said, I know that. And you're not sure you're a Christian? I didn't know his reason.

But I don't see where he got the connection that I was a Christian. Oh, he said, let me ask you some questions. He said, don't you believe the Bible is the word of God? Well, I've been taught it all my life.

Why shouldn't I believe it? Of course I did. I believe 2 and 2 was 4. I didn't have any problem with that. They said the Bible was the word of God. I believe that. And they said, don't you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God?

Well, sure. Why shouldn't I? They taught me everything else. Why they taught me that. And he said, don't you believe he died on the cross and was buried and raised again the third day? Well, certainly we repeated the Apostles' Creed every day, every Sunday.

And I, sure, I believe that. And he said, you know you're a sinner. Well, right there is where I took the Fifth Amendment. I didn't know about it, but I took it. Because I didn't know what he knew. And I tell you, I wasn't going to tell him anything.

So I looked down at my toes and I scuffed the back of my heel with my toe of my other foot and hemmed and hawed a little. And I was thinking at the time I chased Arthur Jackson down the alley behind the Johnsons with a split 2 by 4 with a spike through the end of it, just running as fast as my fat legs would take me so that I could put that spike right through Arthur's head.

I wanted to kill him. I had murder in my heart. The only reason Arthur lived to see the morning was because he could run faster than I could. That's all. It came within two inches of hitting him. And boy, when he saw that thing go by, he took off like a scared rabbit.

And I never did catch up with him. But I was a murderer. And then I remember the time I'd gone into Bloomquist Groceries, because everybody's told how neat it was. That was the word when I was a boy. How neat it was to steal.

I guess we called it swipe then. I said, boy, you go into Bloomquist, he's never watching and you can swipe. Well, I didn't want to be behind anybody, did I? And so I got backed up to the, my folks traded there.

I backed up to the candy. He had it on a low counter. And I reached behind me and I got a package of gum. But with luck would have it, every stick dribbled out before I got the package in my pocket. So when I got out, all I had was the empty package over five sticks and no gum in it.

Well, I was a thief and I disobeyed my parents and I'd lied and I dishonored my parents. And he said, you're a Christian because you believed a half a dozen things. I knew better than that. But he said, well, wouldn't you like to accept him and live for him and go to heaven when you die?

Put three questions in one. One, uh-huh, did it. Uh-huh. Well, just as I thought, everything is fine. So the next Sunday he called me down and he said, put his arm around me and he said, oh, it's so marvelous to have the children of our families come into the church.

And I talked with him and he called me by my name then, Paris. I've talked with Paris. You don't get into the membership of the church with a family nickname, you know, unless you're president of the United States and they call you Jimmy.

But he wouldn't call me Sonny. So they just got me down. I went down and knelt at the altar because that's where we took communion. And I looked out under my arm to see how many were impressed with what was happening to me.

And back there on the side was George Jackson, Arthur's older brother. George could do everything better than I could. He could certainly run a lot faster, he could hit a ball a lot farther, and he could climb a tree higher, and he could swear longer without repeating himself.

Everything that was important, George could do better than I could. But I got into church before he did. And so he's looking at me and I'm looking out under my arm. And he saw me and I knew he saw me.

And how do you take advantage of an opportunity like that, once in a lifetime opportunity? Well, I did the only American thing to do. I stuck my tongue out at him. George went like this, I'll get you when church is over.

That was a chance I'd have to take. I hoped he'd forget, but I had done it. I got into church before he did because his father didn't go to church and my father was the chairman of the official board.

Conviction, the Word, and Genuine Conversion

And the next day I went to school and I went to dear Elsie Bourne and I said, Miss Bourne, I got good news for you. And she said, what's that? And I said, I joined the church yesterday. And she looked at me and her eyes widened and tears came to the corner of her eyes and they chased one another down along her nose and her lip began to tremble.

And I said, what's the matter, Miss Bourne? She said, did I hear you say you joined the church yesterday? I said, yeah, I thought you'd be happy. Well, Sonny, I'm not at all sure that you were ready to join the church.

Oh, yes, I was. I knew the answer to all the questions. And she said, Sonny, I'm afraid there's a lot more to being a child of God than knowing the answer to some questions. She said, what is it? My preacher didn't say anything else.

What is it? She said, Sonny, when a person becomes a child of God, Jesus comes into their heart and they know it because he tells them. And I'm going to pray that he'll come into your heart and that you'll know it, not because your preacher told you, but because he told you.

Well, that changed things. From that time on, every day or two or once a week, something like that, Miss Bourne would say, you know, back then they couldn't preach the gospel in schools, but we had smart teachers.

They knew that they couldn't preach, but they could answer questions if somebody asked them. And so she'd say, listen, if you stay in after recess, I have something to show you if you ask me. And so at recess, I'd say, Miss Bourne, do you have something to show me?

And she'd say, yes, I do. And she'd open her little God's New Testament, and there would be the day and there would be my initials, SR, because I was Sonny Reed. I still am. If I called her tonight down in Farmington, New Mexico, she'd say, oh, Sonny.

I love her. She can call me anything she wants, as long as she stays here and loves and keeps witnessing for the Lord. She's been working with the Navajos now for nearly 40 years. But she would read the verse, and she'd have me read it, and then she'd read it, and then I'd explain it, and then she'd explain it.

It was like a dagger. She believed the word of God was the sword of the Spirit. And so she'd hone it in prayer, and she'd oil it with tears until it was sharp. And then when I stopped at recess, she'd put that little old dagger in there.

She'd work it around, wiggle it around, in and out, in and out. And then when she got it clear and tight, she'd nip the end of it over. I was like a pincushion for that, gear closed. She's just putting the word into me every which way, because she believed that the word divides between the soul and the spirit.

Well, that summer, at an old Red Rock Holiness camp meeting, they said, you can go if you want to. And I wanted to, because Lottie Barkey was going to go, and she was in my mother's class. And I thought it would be real nice to be where Lottie was for a whole week, for two weeks.

And so we went, and I had to go to church three times a day. Can you imagine? Cruel and inhuman punishment. Well, you think that was bad? Yeah, I had to wear a suit to church, and I was only about 12.

And it was a Cheviot suit. You know what a Cheviot is? It's made out of horsehair and barbed wire, just for the purpose of mutilating little children, is what it is. And I put that Cheviot suit on, and I heard them one day say, my, isn't he neat?

He takes that off as soon as the church was over. I did, because I didn't want to be worn to a frazzle. It was killing me. It wasn't neat at all. It was just, it hurt. Well, I sat there most of the time.

I wasn't thinking about what the preacher said. I was thinking about how long I had to sit there in that Iron Maiden and be punctured to death. But finally, after about a week, the Spirit of God got to me, and I said, well, maybe I'm not the kind of a Christian he's talking about, but I'm my own kind of a Christian.

I'm all right. But about three days later, I came to the conclusion, well, I'm just a semi-Christian so far, but I'll get there. And then about Wednesday of the second week, I knew that if I died, and God didn't have a hell, he was going to have to make one for me, because if I went to heaven the way I was, I'd ruin the place before the week was out.

I was lost. Oh, I was lost. And it was on Friday night. Paul Reese was preaching, and I can recall his behavior. I don't know what he preached about. I just know it didn't make any difference where I sat those last three days.

It was terrible. I was under conviction. Sometimes I said, well, I'm going to fool those fellows. I'll sit right in the front seat. We had a big auditorium seating about 1 ,200 people, and there were only about 400 or 500 most of the time.

And in the daytime services, maybe only 150. So I'd sit right down here. And do you know what those speakers would do? They would just go like this and wiggle their fingers right under my nose and tell everybody there all about me.

The next time I said, I'm going to sit way in the back. So they'd read halfway across the auditorium, put their finger under my nose, and tell them what they forgot to tell them in the morning. It was awful.

Because there wasn't anybody in those meetings but me, and everything that was said was about me. It just was terrible. Finally, on Friday night, Paul Reese preached. The place was pretty well filled because he came for the last weekend.

And he stopped, and he was singing, Just As I Am. And he said, now friends, for the last three nights, I have not slept well at all. I've awakened, and on my heart has been a heavy burden, I think, from the Lord.

For somebody here, a young man, probably only 12 or 13, but he came believing, because he was a church member, that he was a child of God. But he's discovered, since he's been here, that he's lost. And he's been ashamed or afraid or unwilling to make his need known.

And he's here somewhere. Now, I've got to get some sleep. Wherever he is, won't you pray that he'll come tonight? Friends, look down the aisle. If you see somebody holding onto the bench in front of them with both hands, that's probably him.

Well, I dropped that bench. It was over hot. I didn't want anybody to see me. But he had me spotted, and the people around me were looking at me. They knew who he meant. So they started to sing, and I went.

And I knelt way over here in the straw. And a lot of people came to the altar. And they had three quartets there, and they parceled the people out. And I got the bass of the third quartet. Now, that's pretty low on the totem pole, when you get the last man of the poorest college quartet.

And there I was. He was with me. He said, what'd you come for, son? I said, to be saved. He said, from what? I said, I didn't know I had a choice from sin. He said, why? I said, I'm lost. He said, that's good.

He said, I said, maybe it seems good to you, but it's not good to me. Why do you say it's good? Because, he said, the only kind of people God saves are lost people. If he can't get them to see how lost they are, he'll never be able to get them saved.

Well, I said, I'm lost. He said, now this is what I want you to do. I want you to go down over there, and I want you to dig up out of your life every sin you can remember. And I want you to pile it up here in front of you on the straw.

Just bring it out. Put it down. Put it down. Pile it up. And then when you get it all that you can remember, say, Lord, if there are any more you bring to my mind afterwards, I'll put them on the top of the pile.