I want you to open your Bibles,
first of all, to Romans 10. Now, I feel a challenge and I feel a very deep responsibility to try in this day to speak to
the issues to speak to the issues. Somebody asked me recently if
I thought that we would in our time see a genuine visitation
of the Spirit of God, real conviction of sin, and a real turning to
Christ. I don't know. I really don't
know. I'm pessimistic. I do know this. We're not seeing it now. We're
not seeing it now. I believe that pieces are falling
together in my understanding. I don't think I'm wrong. I may
be wrong, but I don't think that I am. I travel all over this country
and I preach in a lot of places. And I read a lot of things about
religion today. And I've studied the scriptures. And I've spent a lot of time
writing these commentaries from the 21 epistles in the New Testament. And I don't think I'm wrong.
I believe America today America today is much like Israel of
old. I think we're claiming something
we don't have. I think we're claiming to be
something that we're not. I think religion in general is
laying a claim to a blessing that they've never enjoyed, and
that is that God is our Father And we're children of the heavenly
King. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I think we're
like Israel of old. Now, Israel believed in God.
Israel believed in God. You look at Romans 10. This is
a solemn scripture. Romans 10.1, Paul the apostle
speaking. And he says, my heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel, Israel, is that they might be
saved, that they might be saved. Now, if he'd have said that to
Israel, he said it to the church, he said it to believers, he said
it to knowledgeable people who knew something about God in the
Scripture, writing to the church, brethren. If he had said that
to those Jews, they would have said, saved us? We are saved. We be not born of fornication.
God is our Father. And he said, I want Israel. That
Israel, they were the religious people of their day. They were
the protectors of Scripture. They were the scribes and Pharisees
and lawyers and Sadducees. They were the people who were
carrying out the ordinances. and the rituals and the ceremonies
that God had given them, but they didn't know the living God.
They didn't know Christ. He said of them, you call me
Lord with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. Our Lord
Jesus Christ gathered about him. These are people that built huge
temples and huge synagogues. These are men who wore the robes
of religion, like if you were in Italy tonight, and you'd see
all the priests and nuns walking about with their white hooded
uniforms, and the men with their long robes and their sashes,
and going about all the religion, and we've got religion everywhere,
and these Jews would stand on the street corner and read the
prophet Isaiah and read David and read read Daniel and read
Jeremiah, and stand on the street corner and lift their hands to
heaven, holy hands, and pray to God. They did that regularly.
With regularity they did that. They weren't ashamed. They fasted. One Pharisee said twice a week.
They gave tithes of all they possessed. They helped out the
poor. They gave alms to the poor. They
were people who defended and fought for the law of God. They
said, we're not unjust, we're not adulterous, we're not extortionists,
we're not like the Gentile dogs. These were religious people.
These were energetic, zealous, enthusiastic, religious people
who believed in God, who believed in a Messiah. They believed in
a Messiah. They asked John the Baptist,
are you that prophet we're looking for? Even the woman of Samaria. Even the woman of Samaria, who
had had five husbands and was living with a man who was not
her husband, she said, the Christ is coming. I'm looking for the
Christ. He's going to tell us all things
we need to know. Everybody believed in God. Everybody
believed the Scriptures. Everybody went to the synagogue.
Everybody contended for the law. Everybody kept the holy days. Everybody! And Paul said, I want
these people to be saved. I'm praying to God these people
might be saved. And that's my generation. Everybody
believes the Bible. I'll bet you that 32,000 people
in Ashton, I'd wager that you wouldn't find 200 that didn't
believe this Bible is the Word of God. I'd almost take a 10 to 1 bet
that you wouldn't find 20 people in Ashton, Kentucky who didn't
believe in God. I would lay you odds that you
wouldn't find 15 people in Ashton, Kentucky who doesn't believe
Jesus Christ died on the cross. That's a fact. And most of them
are church members. And they call, they sing, Oh,
how I love Jesus, and they sing the old rugged cross, they have
these church meetings, they've built churches. That little community
where I was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night of this past
week had six churches within a ten-minute drive from that
town. Six churches. And they're not over 175 people
in the town. We are religious. And the Apostle
Paul was talking about the same kind of people that we are living
among today. They are super, hyper-religious. But they're not Satan. And I
know I sound like a radical and a fanatic and call me what you
will. But the Apostle Paul said in
verse 2, I bear them record. I know them. I was one of them.
I was one of them. And the reason I know so much
about my generation, I was one of them. And Tom, you was one
of them. You was a Mormon. A Mormon deacon
and elder and priest. You didn't know God. David, you
was one of them. When you walked in my study that
day, you didn't know anything about substitution. But you was
religious as all get out. Go right around the room here,
Gerald, you was one of them. You know them. Richard, you was
one of them. Ed is one of them. Zealous, religious, major profession,
been baptized, joined the church, working for Jesus, and didn't
even know him. He said in verse 2, I bear them
record, I know them, I'm one of them, that they have a zeal
for God. I think our zeal today is not
so much for God as it is for ourselves. Our competitive religious
spirit. We want to have a bigger church
than the one down the road. We want to have more in Sunday
school than they do. We want a bigger mansion and glory than
the man next door. We don't want to go to hell.
We want to go to heaven. We're not interested in Christ or salvation
from sin, but we're so interested in heaven. They have a zeal for God. They're
enthusiastic about God. But then we don't. He says, but
it's not according to knowledge. is not according to spiritual
understanding. They haven't been taught of God.
Knowledge is being taught. If a man is knowledgeable, Ron,
he's been taught. And the scripture says, Everyone
that is taught of the Father comes to me. If he's taught of
God, he'll come to me. We've been taught of soul winners,
we've been taught of Bible teachers, we've been taught of covetous
preachers, we've been taught by Bible experts, we've been
taught in this day by everybody but the Spirit of God. And we've
been taught the mechanics of religion. We've been taught the
rules of religion. We've been taught all the holy
days. We've been taught the ordinances. We've been taught church government.
We've been taught everything but how the Lord God can be just
and justify a sinner. How he can stay God and justify
folks like us. They've got knowledge, but it's
false knowledge. Or verse 3 says they're ignorant. They're ignorant. What are they
ignorant of? They're ignorant of God's righteousness. Now, my friend, what is God's
righteousness? I'm not talking about His essential
righteousness. I'm not talking about that in
Himself God is immaculately, infinitely, eternally holy. I'm talking about a righteousness,
a holiness that Almighty God has purposed Almighty God has
planned, Almighty God in the person of his Son has purchased
and accomplished in its entirety, which God by his grace gives
to sinners when he saves them. It enables his law to be totally
honored and his justice to be fully satisfied. And that ungodly
sinner that he found on the dunghill and in the cesspool, it enables
God to lift that sinner and wash him and adorn him and so clothe
him that he'd be fit company for the eternal royal trinity.
Fit company for God without God compromising his character. without
God compromising. And this world doesn't know anything
about that. This religious world doesn't know anything about that.
When I was growing up, I was in church, and you were too.
And I was in a preacher's school for three years and pastored
a church. And I heard nothing about just
and justified. I heard nothing about really
justification. I heard nothing about redemption.
I heard nothing about God's eternal purpose in Christ to redeem the
people. I just like the rest, I've accepted
Jesus and walked down the aisle, believe what they told me to
believe, that I've been taught all my life. But one day I met
the king. One day I met the king. Christ
said to that group, he said, you don't know me and you don't
know my father. This is sad. They're going about,
listen to it. They're ignorant of God's provided,
God-purchased holiness, without which no man will see the Lord.
And they're going about with much ado and much activity. They're going about. They're
going here and going there and going yonder and going to the
meeting and going down now and going to the altar, going to
the pool, going to the creek, going to the table, going to
the confessional, going, going, going. to establish a righteousness. They're going about, they're
going about, much ado about nothing. God doesn't ask you to provide
a righteousness, God commands you to receive one. God doesn't
ask you to produce anything to bring to Him or to lay before
Him. Almighty God commands you to
bow down in the dust with empty hands and naked soul and look
to Christ and Christ alone. That's the most difficult thing
any sinner, especially religious sinner, ever tried to do. I have
on the back of the bulletin today one of the greatest articles
ever written. by anybody. It's one that you
ought to put on your bulletin board, stick on your refrigerator,
put in the back of your bulletin, in the glove compartment of your
car, you ought to read it a hundred times. It talks about what I'm talking
about. Christ is the mystery of the Scripture. The Word of God says they didn't
know him. If the leaders of this world had known him, they wouldn't
have crucified him. Old Nicodemus came close, but he missed it.
He said, no, we know you're a teacher come from God. No, he's the Son
of God. He came close. The centurion
came close. He said when Christ died on the
cross, surely this man was the Son of God. Oh no, he is the
Son of God. He ain't was nothing. He is. He's not dead. He's alive. Folks
have come close, but the only way to fully see the glory of
God in the person of Christ is by divine revelation. God, who
commanded life, one day this old earth was encased in darkness,
encased in darkness, and the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the water, no form, without form or void, And God said, let
there be light. And this whole, whole globe was
bathed in light, in light. And in the same manner, he hath
enlightened us and shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And you don't see that at an
altar. You don't see that when you come up out of the water.
You don't see that while you're cramming the bread and the wine
in your mouth. You don't see that while you're
studying to argue. You don't see that while you're
going through the motions of religion. You only see that as
the Spirit of God gives you eyes to see it, the glory of God and
the faith. Christ is a mystery. Oh, I know
who Jesus is. No, you don't either. If you
did, you'd love Him. If you did, you'd adore Him.
If you did, you'd bow to Him. If you did, you'd never get tired
of hearing about Him. If you did, you'd give your life
to Him. No, you don't know who He is.
He's a mystery. And grace is the mystery of Christ. Everything He does, He does free
of charge. free of charge. That's the mystery of Christ.
You can't buy it, you can't earn it, you can't marry it, you can't
deserve it, it's free. That's the mystery. And believing
is the most wonderful thing in the world. Believing. Not believing
in your faith. Not believing in your preacher.
Not believing in your denomination. Not believing in your strength
or works, but just resting on Christ. Believing Him. Believing Him. Not about Him. Him. That was Abraham's whole
righteousness. He believed God. He believed
God. And nobody could convince him
otherwise. And no circumstance could change his mind. And no
environment or no situation or no trial could stop him from
believing God. He marched through this land
and never owned one spot of ground. You know that? Never did. He
lived in tents because he was looking for a city. He was looking
for a city. And nobody changed that old man's
mind. Nobody. He'd kiss one son goodbye, put
a bottle of water on his shoulder and watch him walk in the wilderness
because God said so. Boy, I wish I believed God like
that. He'd take another son up on the mountain on the one he
had left. and wrap him up or tie him to an altar and raise
a sharp knife over his heart and start to plunge that knife
into his heart because God said do it. That's faith. That's not this little silly
wishy-washy stuff that we got today. That's faith. That's believing God. He believed
that if he killed Isaac, God would raise him from the dead.
That's what he believed, right there on the spot. Somebody said,
what you going to tell? What you going to tell Sarah?
I ain't going to have to tell her nothing. I'm going to take
this boy back home with me. That's right. You believe God.
And I tell you, that's the most wonderful thing. That's something
you can't do. I hear these preachers saying, that's up to you. God's
done all He can do, and that's up to you. Then you're in sad
shape. It's up to you. Because you can't believe like
that. That's the gift of God. You can't
believe like that. You can believe some recipe some
preacher hands you. You can believe A, B, C, all
of sin, believe on Jesus and confess him. You can believe
the Roman road and you can believe the four steps, but you can't
believe God without divine aid. That's the gift of God. And our
generation bypassed that. They haven't asked God for faith.
They've tried to produce it. They're going about to establish
their own righteousness, their own standing, their own acceptance.
Listen, he said believing is the most wonderful thing in the
world. Put anything of your own to it and you spoil it. I don't
care what. Christ will not so much as look
at it at all for believing if you add anything to it. You won't
have it, they spoil it. When you believe and come to
Christ, you must leave behind your own righteousness and bring
nothing, nothing but your sin. You got that. You haven't got
any righteousness, but you sure got some sin. All he says is leave behind what
you don't have and bring what you do. You don't have any righteousness. Drag those old filthy rags to
the Lord. He doesn't want them. Somebody
says, give your heart to Jesus. No, he doesn't want that old
stony hard heart. He's going to give you a new
heart. Bring nothing but your sins. Leave behind all your holiness. Leave behind all your sanctification. Leave behind all your duties.
Leave behind all your humblings. And bring nothing but your wants
and your miseries. Or else Christ is not fit for
you, and you're not fit for Christ. I say to you, if any man be circumcised,
Christ profits in nothing. Now, you see, that was hitting
the Jew right where he lived. Because there's one thing that
they defended above all things, that's circumcision. That circumcision
of the male child distinguished him as being a child of Jew and
a child of God and a part of the Abraham covenant. And Paul said to him, if a man
be circumcised, and he meant by that not for purposes of hygiene
or purposes of something else, but if he be circumcised for
any religious purpose, Christ profits you nothing. If you gave
your offering tonight in order to gain any favor with God, then
Christ profits you nothing. If you came to church today,
now believe me, I'm telling you the truth. You see, this is where
Paul shot down the Jew, and this is where I'm going to make some
attempt to shoot down the religious folks of my generation. It's
Christ, Christ, Christ. plus nothing, leave your holiness,
leave your sanctification, leave your duties, leave your humblings,
leave everything and come to Christ just as you are with your
wants and miseries and sins, or else he's not fit for you
and you're not fit for him. Christ will profit you nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Christ will be a pure
Redeemer. and a pure mediator, and you'll
be an undone sinner, undone, undone. Or Christ and you will
never agree. He'll not share his glory with anyone or anything. It is
the hardest thing in the world. I said this in a message three
or four weeks ago. I never heard another man say
it until I read this man right here. It's the hardest thing
in the world to take Christ alone for your wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. You say, well, I trust Christ
alone. Really? Really? Do you? Christ alone? What about when you get up tomorrow
and you go through some religious exercise, you feel a little more
saved than you do the day that you don't? Be on a mountain one day and
in a valley the next day wondering if you lost or saved. I thought
it was Christ alone. I didn't know feelings had anything
to do with it. I didn't know church membership had anything
to do with it. I didn't know reading the Bible had anything
to do with it. I didn't know my prayers had anything to do
with it. I thought it was Christ alone. Christ alone now. Trust
Christ alone. Rest in Christ alone. Stand in Christ alone.
Not stand on Christ and keep a foot over here just in case,
you know. But a fellow told me one time, he said, I want you
baptized. And I said, all right. He said,
I don't want to be baptized in that place. I said, why not? He said, I want to be baptized
in running water, in a creek. In a creek, he said. I said,
why are you going to be baptized in a creek, running water? He
said, well, you know, I don't think there's anything to this,
but they said it washes his sins down the stream. Now he said,
I don't think there's anything to that, but just in case. That's
the truth, though. I prove he's my daughter, she's
my daughter. She wouldn't lie. You think. It is the hardest thing in the
world to take Christ alone in it for righteousness. To acknowledge
Christ alone, join anything to him, anything of your own, and
you un-Christ him. I wouldn't do that, would you? Whatever comes in when you go
to God for acceptance besides Christ, you can call it an antichrist. Bid it be gone. Make only Christ's
righteousness triumphant. Everything else is Babylon, and
it must fall if Christ stands. Christ alone. Christ alone. Oh,
how serious that is. Here's another scripture I want
you to turn to for a moment. Isaiah chapter 28. Now the Lord
speaks this to Israel, and like I say, I think Israel is our
counterpart. I believe that we've moved right
into that same religious deadness, that same religious presumption.
I think we're taking for granted the most vital, important thing
to us in this whole world, and that's the salvation of ourselves,
our relationship with God. We're at ease in Zion. We're
saying like that Laodicean church, we're rich and increased with
goods and have need of nothing, nothing! And God said, you don't
know that you're naked, miserable, poor and blind. You don't know. And he says here in Isaiah 58,
or 28, I beg your pardon, Isaiah 28. And back here, you read the
early part of this chapter. He talks about Samaria, the capital,
the crown, the pride of Ephraim. He said, the Assyrians are going
to trot it underfoot. He said, I've sent you prophets,
but you won't hear them. And he said, I've sent you men
with stammering lips and another tongue, verse 12, to whom he
said, this is the rest wherewith you may cause the weary to rest. Here is my rest. Here is my rest,
here is the refreshing, but they wouldn't hear either. They wouldn't
hear. The voice cried, but they wouldn't
hear. The voice cried, what shall I
cry? All flesh is grass, and the glory
of man as the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower
faded, because the Spirit of God bloweth on it. What shall
I cry? Behold your God! Behold your
God. Look unto me, and be ye saved. For I am God, and there is none
else." They wouldn't hear either. They wouldn't hear. They were
having too good a time. They liked to hear those prophets
say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. They liked to hear
those prophets, those covetous, greedy prophets, who shear the
sheep, and wear the wool, and eat the fat, and don't feed the
flock. They'd rather hear them. The
prophets lie, God said, and my people love to have it that way.
They'd rather hear them. But he said this, the word of
the Lord, verse 13, was unto them precept upon precept, precept
upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, hear a little
and bear a little, that they might go and fall backward and
be broken and snared and taken. Wherefore, hear the word of the
Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people, this religious people
in America. That's what you can read right
there, same thing. Religious, tied up in it, wrapped up in
it, sold out to it, enthusiastic, zealous in it. We have a refuge,
we have a covenant. We have peace, we're saved and
secure and separated and set apart and waiting on a second
coming. But he said, you listen to me
now. Verse 15, because you have said, you said it, God didn't
say it. We're not thus saith in the Lord
today, we're saying we said it. We think, we believe, we say
it. You have said we have a covenant
with death. We're not afraid to die. We're
not afraid to die. Do you know anybody that's afraid
to die? Do you know anybody that's trembling
at the approaching death? Do you know anybody that's plumb
scared because it's appointed unto me and wants to die, and
after that the judgment? We're not afraid to die. And
with Sheol, the place of the dead, even hell, are we at agreement? You know anybody that's going
to hell? Now come on, you know anybody in this place? The Jews
didn't have anybody going to hell. These are all children
of God. We be not sinners, they said.
We be not Gentile dogs. We be not born of fornication. God is our Father. We have Abraham
and Moses and Jacob and Isaac. We're alright. You know anybody
that's not alright? You know anybody in this land
of ours, in this city of ours, in this religious city of ours
who really is afraid he's going to hell? And what's this? This is brazen.
When the overflowing scourge, you know what a scourge is? It's
a plague. A scourge is like a flood. That
tidal wave, it just sweeps down and takes everything in its path. It just covers from bottom to
top and from end to end. Just when the overflowing, flooding
scourge of wrath, God's wrath, shall pass through, it shall
not come unto us. Why are you saying that? Why
do you folks claim that? Because we have a refuge. We
have a storm shelter. We have a hiding place. God says
it's a refuge of lies. Under falsehood have you hid
yourself. In verse 17, listen to this.
Because God said judgment, this judgment of God, this overflowing
scourge of judgment, This examination, this test, this trying of men. He said, the sea gave up the
dead, and death and hell gave up the dead, and they all stood
before God, great and small, and the books were opened. The
books were opened. It's the part of the man who
wants to die, and then the judgment, and the books were opened. God's
book. What kind of judgment? What kind
of trial? Well, he describes it. He said,
judgment will I lay to the lion, and righteousness to the plummet.
Now, there are not a lot of folks here tonight who know what a
lion and a plummet is. I don't know a great deal about
it, but I have used a lion and I have watched men use the plummet.
And what I think the best illustration of it is a stonemason or a brickmason
who is building a wall. And he uses both. He uses a plummet
over here for his corner. He doesn't just put that wall
up and sight the corner. That corner would be like this,
you know, or leaning out or in or something. But he puts his
place up here where he's going, the place from which he's coming,
and he hangs that plummet. It's a line with a weight on
the bottom of it, like a cone, and it hangs straight down. It's
never batteries. It's a straight, it's straighter
than straight. It's straighter than any man's
eye. And that's how straight God's eye is. It's not variation,
no giving, nothing straight. And that man lays that wall,
he puts a line across here. And that's not guess that either.
That's working with the plummet and the line, and it's perfectly
straight so that his wall and his rocks will be perfectly straight.
And what God's saying here, He says, when God tried me and when
I judged men, it's not guesswork. It's not guesswork. It's not,
it's no leniency. And it's no human error. Your
thoughts are going to be measured by His thoughts. Your holiness
is going to be measured by God's perfect, immaculate, infinite
holiness to the line, right to the line. And we've all seen
Him come short of the line. There's not a one of us here
up to the line. There's not a one of us here
up to the point. No man. Not in anything we've
ever done. And God said, your righteousness
is going to be measured by His perfect righteousness, and your
love by His perfect love, and your goodness by His perfect
goodness. No guesswork, no leniency, no
room for error. Perfection! Godly perfection. And He said it won't do, and
the hail is going to sweep away, verse 17, your refuge of lies. And the waters, instead of being
a comfortable hiding place, the waters of judgment are going
to seek out every little cranny and nook and hole and crack and
opening in your false hiding place and rout you out to face
God at the judgment. Oh, verse 18 in that covenant
with death. It will be disannulled and that
agreement with hell won't stand when that overflowing scourge
of God's exact, exact, straight, uncompromising holiness and righteousness
shall pass through. It will stomp you down. It will
stomp you down. From the time it goes forth,
it'll take you. From morning by morning, it'll
pass over. Day and night, it'll be a vexation
only to understand the report of it. Just to hear about it
now, much less be in it. Or just to hear about it. It'll
be a vexation just to hear about it. Troublesome. I'll tell you why.
You're being too short. Your bed's too short. You can't
stretch out on it. Your cover's too narrow. You
can't wrap yourself in it. No protection. You're just a
naked prey for God's arrow of judgment. It's the naked part. How'd you
like to think that a flood was coming? And you're standing out
there in an open place, not even a step to stand on, not even
a tree to climb, not even a rock to get on, not anything to hide
behind, not even a building to stand and wait on it, but a vexation
just to hear the report of it. No hiding place. So I'll go get
in a hole. Well, that won't do. So I'll
get behind a wall, and I see that won't do. There's no place
to go. And it'll take me, it'll take me. Well, isn't there no
hope? Yeah, there's a hope. Verse 16,
right in the middle of all this, the Lord God says, Thus saith
the Lord God, I lay in Zion, I lay in the kingdom, the church,
I lay in the shepherd's fold for a foundation. Now, there
is a foundation. There is a refuge. Walk of ages,
cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee. Let me hide myself in
thee. There's a foundation and it's
a stone. It's a stone. It's a stone, it's
durable. Wood, rocks and other materials
we have give way, but a stone, a stone is durable. It will stand
forever, this rock of ages. And it's a tried stone. The Father
tried it and found it suitable. This is my son, whom I'm well
pleased. And the devils tried him, and he stood. And the Lord tried him, and he
found no fault in him. And Satan himself came and found
nothing in him. And people tried him and found
no fault. And Old Testament believers have
tried him and found him a resting place, a covert, a hiding place
from the stuff. They died in hope. And some here
have tried him. He's a triad stone, and he's
a precious cornerstone. He's precious to the Father.
He's precious to the angels. He's precious to every believer.
He's a precious stone. And not only that, but he is
a sure foundation, a certain foundation, a sure foundation. And he that believeth on him
will never make haste, never be ashamed, and never be confounded.
Somebody said this one time, receive Christ's righteousness
alone in your heart. believe Christ's blood alone,
rest in Christ alone, for all that God requires and all that
the law demands and all that eternity holds, rest in Christ
alone, for he is the sum and substance of the gospel. When
we can say ourselves in all duties, in all distresses, in all situations,
in all circumstances, for now and eternity. It's nothing but
Christ for me, nothing but Christ for my wisdom, for my righteousness,
for my sanctification, for my redemption, not my professions
or my works or my deeds, but Christ alone. For He is my peace. He is my hope. He is my life. He is my all. Can you say that?
Well, I'll tell you this, he that believeth on him shall never
be ashamed. Never be ashamed. Can you believe? Can you believe? May God give
you the faith to believe in Christ. Our Father What a blessing, what a blessing
to have revealed to us the refuge, the rock, that's your foundation,
Christ the Lord. What a rest for our souls to
know that we can flee to Him, that whosoever will may take
the water of life freely. If any man thirsts, Christ said,
let him come to me, and out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water. Everyone that's weary and heavy
laden, Christ said, come to me, and I'll give you rest. Just as I am without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am poor, wretched,
blind, Sight, riches, healing of the mind, all I need in Christ
to find, Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am and waiting not
to rid my soul of one dark blot, to Thee whose blood can cleanse
each spot, Lamb of God, I come, I come. Grant, Lord, the understanding
and the will and the desire to come to Christ. To all who've
heard this message tonight, and to some who will hear it in later
days, we pray for Christ's sake. Amen.