and in whose spirit there is no vile. When I get silenced, my bones waxed old, my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned into the drape of summer. Sheila, I acknowledge my skin and disease, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions, unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sins. Selah. By the way, you will not forget the meaning of the little Hebrew expression, Selah. I suppose to use it colloquialism, it simply means, what do you think of that? What do you think of that? And is that wonderful? Thou forgave us the iniquity of my sins. What do you think of that? For this shall every one that is godly, pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest this end. Glory in the floods of great waters, they shall not come thine unto thee. Thou art my hiding place. Thou prognost me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with tongues of deliverance. And what do you think of that? May the Lord just add his blessing for the reading of his own precious word. And have been much in prayer and thought about this morning. And I've come to a conclusion, and it's simply this, that I don't want to preach. I mean, that's an awful thing to do, isn't it? That's a conjure conclusion like that. But I don't want it. What I want to do this morning, if you would permit me, I want to try and share with you what the Christian faith really means to me. I don't wish to take the word of God and expand its great truth. I don't wish to take a portion of the scripture and point out to you what God is saying to us in that portion, but I want to try and share with you what Jesus Christ really means to me. Maybe if I can do that, there may be someone here who will say, I will love Christ to me and that in me as well. And so I have done what I must really do. I have come to alliterate what I want to say to me. And there are four little things that I want to say that the Christian faith means to me. First of all, it means then, that I shall never be lost. Now, can I say that again? It is so simple, and yet it is so profound. It is the truth that brought the very Christ of God from heaven to earth, but men and women should not be lost. The Christian faith means to me, first, that I shall never be lost. The second thing the Christian faith means to me is that if I shall never belong, neither shall I be like it. Won't it not the psalmist, he said, the young lions shall lack and suffer hunger, but they that speak the Lord shall never lack any good thing. I shall never lack the fact which is necessary for life at its core. I have found and will continue to find in Jesus' Son. The third thing I want to share with you is that if I will never be lost, then I little will be lacking. I will never be loveless. Now you can tell by the somewhat haggard look on my face that I've been married to many years. Thirty-eight years, it is, that this period when I asked a girl to marry her, I had her go work night to know, I thought she'd say no, and that would give me time to say no. And I'd ask her the second time, and she'd say no, and she'd say a little bit, about a bit. And she must say yes on the third time. Because this is what he wants, he said yes the first time, and then I was in trouble. But people had to cry after thirty-eight years To sum up really what marriage means to me, I think I would say it means this. It means the thrill of knowing that someone wants it, that they want it. And is it grand to know that Jesus Christ wants it? That we need not feel odd luck. There is someone who cares. There is not a moment in time or in eternity where he has not will not fail. The third thing I want to say, maybe as little can't go much with the last one or the fourth thing, I shall not be lost, I shall not go acting, I shall not be loveless, but I shall not be lonely. Well, to the psalmist long ago, Cron, oh, leave me not, and forsake me not, And I have a Savior who says, I will never leave me, nor forsake me. First of all, to know Jesus Christ means to me that I shall never be lost. It's an awful thing to be lost, is it not? I was just a weird little tanker. Can't you remember how old maybe five were six when I was first lost? I'm not speaking about being hurtfully about love, but I'm speaking about just being wrong. We shifted down from the place where we were living to another house. Mother never even told us, boys, the address. But being boys, it wasn't long before we got her into mother's teeth. And I can see her now, she didn't stand any higher than that. Just a wee dot of a woman was my mother. And I can see her now, as she said, boys. We're going out. And off we went to do some shopping, and we turned ourselves in Mr. Woolworth's store. He has a shop in Adler. Wow. I was in Woolworth's very long, before I was at the toy counter. You know, I was just big enough on the nose to come to the top. And there, the tin horse, when he had bought a train for six foot, Boy, God's not saying that was your money. But poor. And there I got occupied with the table, with the poor. And like most boys, it wasn't long before I said, Mom, can I have that? And there was no reply. And looking around, I looked. Mother wasn't there. She thought I was following, and she'd gone on in the other parts of the store. Now you'll have a job to believe this. But it's true, I've always been blessed with a good air of love. And I opened my mouth before. And I was saying, And I'll tell you this, that over the years, well over fifty years the past, children still remember the awful feeling of the wee lad being lost. occupied with the tasteful, with the little things that will attract for just a few moments until I break them, and being separated from the person who bestowed upon me her love, who provided all I needed, as she provided for her boy. Friend, I remember as a man, not as a boy, the awful feeling of knowing that I was lost. Look to God, look to good, look to heaven, look to any aspirations that I had for myself, suddenly realizing before God that as a man I stood condemned, that the words of God was true, although I knew not the word of God, that all had sinned and come short of the glory of God. Oh, never let us forget this, that God dares to tell us that if we are separated from Christ, then we are lost. Lost. There was a story told of a wee boy who was crossing London Bridge. Of course, it's no longer in London now, is it? You bought it and put it up in... Where was it? Somewhere, away in the desert in America. You took it down, tone by tone. But there's a story told of a little boy who was walking across London Bridge. And he was looking this way, and he was looking that way, and he was looking the other way, and a big English bobby saw him. He came over and said, Grant, are you lost? He looked up and in his real cockney voice he said, No, I ain't lost, Governor. But I don't know where the mother and father have got to. Oh. Silly, isn't it? Silly. Until I ask this question. Where's God in your life? Oh, let's face it up. You and I sing day by day as we move and listen, that there is one who cares, that there is one who counts, and he is our savior. Or have we to say, I don't know where God is in my life. I begin every day with my wife and family. I begin every day with my husband and children, with my mother, my father. But as far as God is concerned, I don't know anything about him. He's not real to me. And surely that is the proof that as far as God is concerned, we are lost. Yet the wonder, then, that the Christian faith tells me that I need not belong. For down from his glory ever-living story, my Lord and Savior, even Jesus, was in death. And when I opened my Bible and I read again the glorious words of the nineteenth chapter of Luke, this is what I read. The son of man came to teach and to say that which was was lost. I know that we're using so many little stories this morning, but years ago I was travelling down from Norwich on the East Coast of England. I was due to commence a series of services the very next day in our own county town. If you can tell by my dialect, at least really I'm the only one without a dialect here, but I come from the West Country of England. And I was due to commence a series of services the next night in the County of Georgia. And so I traveled down through the night, for I wanted just a few hours home and a wife and children. As we drove down the JV-Eleven road towards London, and we came in the early hours of the morning into London, I looked around and somehow I'd taken the wrong turn. I didn't know where to go. And as I was driving, I suddenly saw, by the side of the road, a fellow walking, and I pulled up and said, quite silly, could you put me right for a stand? I knew that stand for town of stand was on my way home, and I knew the way from there. She looked and said, I'm going that way, can I have a lift? Jump up. I'll be jumped. Straight down here, round to the left, round to the left, round to the right, up over the hill, round to the left, right. I was driving and looking. And suddenly we came to some light. And before you could say Jack Robinson, he'd opened the door and he'd jumped out, he'd said, Good morning. Look. Suddenly I looked and there was an English policeman. And I said, Sir, can you put me right? I'm trying to get the change. Change, he said. Well, you know we're near it. Well, where am I? He said, well, then nothing maybe to you and let you live in London. Well, he said, you're at the elephant and powerful. I couldn't have been farther away from him. All I know is this, that I dropped him very near his home. I was lost. And I listened to the advice of a man who said he knew the well. The tragedy was this. He might have known the way, but he had told me the way. We are living in a day, are we not, when there are hundreds, a thousand different voices saying, This is the way, this is the way. God knew that, and God knew that there were men and women in those days that were on top that were deceiving men and women. They were telling them that this was the way, and that was the way, that men were lost. Jesus came not just to tell us the way, but to be the way. He came where we were. Let there be His name. He came where we were. that he might in his mercy show us the way to God and bring the way to God. For him that way meant eloquent love. For him that way meant daring the punishment of that which has risen from God and meant that we would be lost in time and in eternity. And I thank God that there came a time in my life. when by faith I placed my hand in his. By faith I asked him to be my Savior and my Lord and to show me the way. And oh, hallelujah, none of the ransom never knew how deep were the waters crossed or how dark the night that the Lord passed through ere he found the sheep that was lost. But praise God the sheep knew that it was found. And I know I didn't know. But dare I say that the Christian faith means not only that one need never be lost, but it means that one need never be lacking. Need never be lacking. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. There are men and women maybe in this service, this very one. And you have said to yourself many a time, Look, I should be a Christian. I know I should allow the Lord Jesus to be my Savior. I know I should bow my knee with repentance in my heart towards God and in facing Jesus Christ. Trust him. If you know this tomorrow, I've come across so many men and women. They call me they're Christians, and I look at their life, and if anything for that, which I would call a Christian, they show no sign of being found. And above all else, I don't wish to be a hypocrite. Well, if there's one thing God doesn't wish you to be a hypocrite either. If there is one thing I'm certain of, that there is enough in Jesus Christ not only to save us, but keep us, that there's enough in Jesus Christ not only to find us when we're alone, but minister to our needs day by day, thou shalt not let. I sometimes get somewhat upset when I hear men and women talk and such a friend. They say, well, I'm not going to be a Christian. Look at those hypocrites. It doesn't mean anything really, does it? I remember when I came to, when in the city of Glasgow, I was walking down Argyle Street with a good Baptist minister friend of mine. And as we walked down Argyle Street, I will never forget it, he said to me, oh, just a moment, sir, there's one of my, I think he called him parishioners. I'm not very up in these things, but something like that anyway. And we stopped in front of a gentleman. And I thought, now I'm going to have a lesson in the partial work. I'm going to see a lesson. And so I listened. You shouldn't listen to other people's conversations, really, did you? But I did. And the good Baptist Minister of Fame said to this man, calling him by name, he said, We haven't seen you alone in church lately. No, said a man. I'm not going there anymore. I'm not going there. How's that? He said, I had too many hypocrites there. And just like that. Just like that. My friend said, Well, don't let that keep you away. We can do with another one. You see what I mean? Do you not think that the most hypocritical thing is to say that I'm not going to trust the Lord because I don't think I can do that. when you know deep within your heart that you couldn't keep it, if you were the greatest saint in the world. But Christ can keep you. Thou art my hiding place. Not there is a hiding place, but thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Oh, I thank God in Jesus Christ there is one who lives. If there was a burden in our worship this morning, it was surely dead. But the one who worshiped is the Christ who lives. Blessed be it then. And that one, as I have said night by night, is available for every one of us in the service. And I thank God there came a time in my own personal experience when I grabbed my knee and I said, Lord, I'm lost. I didn't use those words. I didn't know those phraseologies, for I never mean to torture, tackle, and transform the life. But I know this. I bowed my knee, and I said, God, I'm a sinner, save me. I acknowledge that I was lost. I want to say this, that I have a savior who not only has, saved me, but has preserved me. One has not lacked anything that one has found necessary to live out one's experience for Jesus Christ. Oh, he's a wonderful thing, a wonderful thing. Friend, I don't like speaking of prayer. I am not unmindful, but when again and again and again in the epistle to the Romans, in that great eighth chapter we hear, or the great sixth chapter, we hear, I, I, I am not unmindful of the fact that Paul sums it up and says, O wretched man, that I am. But I'm trying to share it with you, what Christ means to me. And I thank God there came a time when I bowed my knee. And if you think it's easy to be a Christian, then there's one thing you can say. You have never tried it. God does not say that it's easy to live for him. And he says, all that you need It sounded him to live out that experience. I soon found out it was not easy to live for the Lord. I had to go back to the boxing boot of a fairground and tell a crowd of fellows with whom I'd been fighting for years that there was going to be a change for I trusted Christ. And hallelujah, he kept us. He kept us. May I say something more? that not only knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not be lost, knowing Jesus Christ means that I shall not wax, for not only do he joy upon the cross for me, but was raised again because of my justification, and gives to those that trust him his Holy Spirit, that in the words that were sung, I live, yet not I, Christ liveth in me. Praise God, I shall not be loveless. Know that there's someone who is. Someone who is there. My good friend, forgotten his name, but my good friend, brought me last evening two letters from home. You know, I've been here a week and I haven't had a letter from home. I was getting just a bit anxious, but it brought me two last night. And I wouldn't tell you how many times I've read them since they arrived. I could tell every word that's in them. But no, there's someone who says, I thank God I have a letter. I thank God that it comes from heaven. I thank God that it tells me of one who is interested in me, could not be more interested. And every thing that I want to know of heaven, every thing I want to know of him, every... I say, isn't that it? When my wife writes to me, she tells me about the children. She tells me about the grandchildren. She tells me about the garden. She tells me about the house. She reminded me in this one that I promised to paint it and hadn't done it. You know, I mean, that's the sort of thing. I get a God who tells me about his home. He tells me about himself. He tells me about his family and what a family. He tells me of the things that happen on life's journey. He tells me he cares. It's some thirty-two years that I've been serving Lord in this and maybe some thirty in more other countries I preach the gospel. I don't know if I come across anything more bitter. I have to be careful in what I say, but in general terms, I don't know if I come across anything more bitter than when I come across a person who's desperately lonely. Desperately lonely. And isn't it a fact there are some like that? There are some separated from friends, from loved ones. Some who in the years have left their mark upon and they're lonely and always the biggest condemnation to the church of God that we are lonely men and women to be lonely. Every church should surely have a visiting program that if there are lonely souls at least there's someone who knocks the door and says, I dare. Yet in its deepest sense, in its deepest sense, to know Jesus Christ means one has never left. I've known what it means to have the loneliness of faith. Since I came to know Christ, I've never known what it means to have the loneliness of faith. The Lord Jesus knew something of loneliness, didn't he, that we might be delivered for him. If ever there was a person who knew loneliness, it was the Savior. When you open your Bible and you think of him, as he thought to speak to his disciples of the reason that he came into this world, why, one of them he had to say to him, Get thee behind me, Satan. That one turned and rebuked him. The Lord told of going to Calvary, of suffering for men and women, and that man Peter rebuked him. Jesus had to say, Get thee behind me, Satan. How lonely was Christ without a person who fully understood him? Only once did the Lord Jesus in thirty-three and a half years have an intelligent conversation with anyone as to the real purpose of his coming into this scene. And on that occasion God had to lift the ledge of eternity and summon a prophet and a patriarch to speak of the deceit that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. There on the banks of transfiguration was the only time in thirty-three years that Jesus Christ talked to anyone intelligently about the real purpose of his coming into this age. He knew loneliness. And because he knows what loneliness means, Praise God he can deliver us for a minute. That's the thing that counts, isn't it? How many of you, dear souls, when someone has been speaking to you, have read that you don't understand? You haven't been there. But he's been there. Hallelujah. He's been there. To know Christ means that I shall never be lost. I shall never be lacking. I shall never be loathless. I shall never be loathless. There's a loneliness that one shudders to speak of, that I think this morning we need to speak of it, don't you? There is an eternal loneliness, the loneliness of that which the Bible calls has. I've heard so many men, and maybe in their countries I've been speaking to them of the Savior. Sometimes in the dear upon their lips they will say, ha ha, well, if I'm going to hell, I'll have plenty of company. My friend, would you remember there's no company in hell. This is the great tragedy of an eternity without Christ. Not only is there the loneliness of no Savior, there's a loneliness of no one really. It was said to Judas, he went to his own place. His own place. There is no cup to him the caverns of the lost. But there is cup to his glory. All the wonder and all. Do you know when I open my Bible to the last chapter of that wonderful book? I'm sorry that yes, the last book of that wonderful Bible. I get thrilled. Just thrilled. I open the first chapter of the book of the Revelation. And I hear one man praising God unto him who loved us and loosed us from our sins. Suddenly I find out that my God too is a one man. And so I find there are four that are referred to as living creatures. And there's one after they make a quarter. And they sing unto him who loved it. And by God too big for four. And I see suddenly there are four and twenty elders. So it starts with one, it continues with four. Now there are twenty for four and twenty elders. I suppose that's a junior choir, is it there? by the choir singing unto him who loves us. And he's too big for that. And I suddenly come across the fact that there are thousands on ten thousand and thousands of thousands singing worthy of the land. But he's too big for that. Before I come to the end of the fifth chapter, it's not one and it's not four and it's not twenty-four and it's not twenty-eight and it's not ten thousand times ten thousand. It's all creation, crying, worthy, worthy. Oh, friends, the wonder is this, that for those that love the Lord Jesus, there's no loneliness in the world. to be with the host of the day. How about you? I told you I didn't want to preach this morning. I just wanted in some small measure to share with you. But to know Christ is real. To know the Lord Jesus is vital. But he is the only one who will grant that we shall be never lost, laughing, loveless or lonely. And of course the great question is this, how can I know it? How can I come to that person? How can I receive him? And the answer is so clear. So we think with the children, sometimes don't we, a little children's course, as simple as can be. as clear as ABC. Christ came to save his life he gave to rescue you and me. Well, let's take that ABC, shall we? You will pardon me for speaking to you, though I was speaking to a Sunday school class. Let's take that ABC. Is there someone this morning that wants to know that Savior, that Savior that will grant that they shall never be lost, or lacking, or loveless? or lonely? And here is the ABC of it all. Abandon sin. Believe in Christ. And confess the Lord. Abandon sin. For let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy, and unto our God, and he will abundantly pardon. This is what God wants us to do. My Bible uses the word repentance toward God. Repent! Speaking with my dear friend, Jacob Maurer, last evening, and dear Ben Allen, he reminded ourselves of the words of your great mood. When asked what repentance was, he said, Repentance is not saying I've sinned. Repentance is not saying I'm sorry I've sinned. Double-winged Phelan said that, and Judas said that. But Repentance is hating your sin long enough to give it up. There's the first A of touching the Lord, to abandon that which will separate us from God. To believe, ah, that's it. To believe. Oh, to trust one life tale. He'll sit it down to believe on the Lord. If a person believes on someone, then he believes what that person says. It is useless for me to come to you and say, you know, sir, I believe you. And if I accept what you say and act upon it, Is it wonderful to know that the Lord Jesus has told us why he came? The Lord Jesus has told us why on Calvary's cross he would die. The Lord Jesus has told us the way of salvation. Telling it, he asked that you and I shall touch him. We shall believe on him, to believe his word. And for rest are all of us. It is not just to believe intellectually. It's wonderful to believe intellectually. I did not commit intellectual suicide when I trusted Christ. But it's more than that. Much more than that. The devil believes he fears and trembles. But to believe on Christ for salvation is to trust one's life to him. You say, Lord, take me. Take me as I am. My only plea Christ died for me. Or take me as I am. But not only to abandon sin. Not only to believe in Christ. But to confess him. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth. Jesus is Lord. I like that don't you? How authorize version. Oh, I love it. You know the Bible. How authorize version says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. The rabbi says if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus is Lord. For that's what it means to confess the Lord Jesus, doesn't it? Jesus is Lord. Tomorrow morning when I go to my business, Jesus is Lord. there's something in my business that is not what it should be, I'll confess Jesus as Lord, the Lord of my business. In my house, the confession is Lord. If Jesus Christ is confessing as Lord, I tell you something, my brother, you won't quarrel with your wife. Madam, you won't quarrel with your husband. You children, if you confess Jesus as Lord, you'll remember that he said, children, obey your parents in the Lord. Of course, you will not forget, will you, that Ephesians six and one is hollow. When my daughter was just a little girl, I remember once someone saying to me, How can it? I said, Oh, she's wonderful. Wonderful. She said, Well, I found out the answer for Ephesians six and one. Children obey your parents. His parents provoke not your children to wrath. There are two ways to it. And if Jesus is Lord, that's what we'll do, isn't it? It affects our business, it affects our family life, it affects our school life, it affects our political, social life. If Jesus is Lord, oh, this is the way of salvation, A, B, C, to ascend and sin, to believe in Christ, and to go to confession, to live out that love for him. Friend, if you've never done that, Would you do that with one? Yes, certainly Solomon, isn't it? But will you do that with one? Could I ask you to sing with me just two verses of a hymn? Number two hundred and thirty-six. Just two verses of a hymn. Only a step. Only a step to Jesus. Then why not take it now? Come and thy sin confessing. Thou shalt receive a blessing. Do not reject the mercy he freely offers thee. The first and the last verse of two, three, six.