Psalm twenty-three, twenty-third psalm. I'm going to ask you to read or recite it with me. Let's join in going through this lovely psalm. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not walk. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside him filled waters. He restores my soul. He leadeth me to the kind of righteousness for his main faith. may though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for thou art with me thy rod and thy trap may comfort me thou declare at the table before me in the presence of my enemy Thou anointest my days with oil, my cup turns over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. It would be so nice just to spend the evening thinking about this wonderful shepherd. That seems to be allotted to my brother, Mr. Gunn. He's been telling us some nice things about the Lord Jesus. It seems to be my responsibility to tell you such bad things about ourselves. And I'm at it again tonight. I want to talk to you about our need for restoration. He restores my soul. In the Hebrew language, we have a little different grammatical forms and syntax than we have in English. And the verbs, the verbs in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, can be expressed in what we call the long paint. We have no way of saying that in English. If I say the Lord restores my soul, I may mean that he does it at the present. He is now doing it. Or I may mean that this is the character of the person who does it. He is a soul-restorer. Or I may mean that he does it and does it and does it and does it. And that's exactly what he's saying here. He restores and keeps on restoring my soul. Do you think you need this? Do you think you need restoring? I do. Now the sad part about restoration. Or the sad part about departure from God, which necessitates restoration, is that it is so easy for you and I to be away from God and not know it ourselves. Let me say a little bit at the beginning about departure. Do you like alliterations? I don't. And here's one you can have. I got it from somebody. I got it too late to be original. I beg, borrowed, and sold, and everything I had. I got this from somebody, probably a Canadian, and it is this. Departures. It's cause, course, and cure. There are three nails hanging on. What's the cause of departure? How could a person ever get away from one who loved him like the Lord loved us? How could anybody ever turn his back on this wonderful shepherd who stays by us through thick and thin and ultimately is going to see us in his own presence and in his own home forever? How could anybody get away from the Lord like this? But we do. What is the call? Well, first of all, we've got to remember that there was more involved than simply the Lord and myself. I have some enemies. You have, too. We heard about Amalek, a type of the flesh. We have Egypt, a type of the world. And perhaps Pharaoh, a type of the devil. There are several types of the world, several types of the devil, several types of the flesh. In the Bible, we have these three enemies anyway, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Somebody said we have an external enemy, the world, an internal enemy, the flesh, an infernal enemy, the devil, but thank God no eternal enemy. They're all going to be obliterated one of these days, and the Lord's going to take us home. But in his sovereign and wise ways, he has seen fit to leave us vulnerable to these enemies for our education and for other purposes for the while that we're left here on this earth. When I was a young fellow, I had fond hope that as I got older, All the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil were gradually weakened out. In case there are any young people here who think that, let me tell you, it's a vain hope. It just doesn't work that way. They never give up. They never give up. I will have war with Amalek from generation to generation, the Lord said. The world takes its various forms one after another. When it fails to attract us in one way, there's always another way. I was in Kansas City many years ago talking to Mr. C.W. Ross, the man who was a great help to me. And he said, John, you know, there are a lot of people who mistake old age for spirituality. He said, we have a friend. He said, it's never proper to ask a lady's age or weight. But he said, there are not very many men that could balance her on the teeter-totter. And this lady said to me, Brother Ross, I can understand young people going to a dance. Why, that's the last place in the world I'd want to be. He said, imagine that two-ton truck on a dance floor. Of course, the world had no attraction for the dance. But I'll tell you, she loved nice things. She was suffering from better homes and gardens. The dance? Well, I'm sure the world never wasted its charms in that direction at all. There's something else that'll get you. When you're young, it's one thing. When you're older, it's another. Satan appeared in so many different forms. And when he came to tempt our blessed Lord, He found no response from him. It says he departed from him from now on for a season. I hope you won't be discouraged by this, but you just well face it, the world and the flesh and the devil are set to spoil your fellowship with God. Now, Satan knows that he'll never see you alone. He's smarter than a lot of Christians. There are Christians you think that they might get lost. The devil knows better than that. He knows that there's such a thing as eternal security, so he is not trying to get a Christian lost. But he's certainly doing everything he can to spoil that Christian for God, spoil God's enjoyment in that believer, and to spoil that believer's enjoyment in God. And he works at it. I wouldn't say that he works at it personally, because we ascribe sometimes to the devil things that belong only to God. The devil is not omniscient. He doesn't know everything. And he is not omnipresent. He can't be everywhere at once. And he is not omnipotent. He does not have all power. Now, it's true that the devil personally supervised the temptation of Job and Peter. But Job and Peter were pretty important men. I'm sure he'd never waste his time on me personally or you either. But he's got plenty of henchmen to do the work for him. And he's going to get at you one way or another. Whatever you do, brother, don't ever think you stand. Because if you think you stand... Take he, lest you fall. Nobody is invulnerable. Mr. A.M. O'Brien is telling me one time that there was a man who left a certain city. He said, I knew the man. He was a man who was regarded as an elder among the Lord's people. He was a capable man teaching the Bible class. And he fell into moral evil. And he couldn't face the shame of it. And he left this Canadian city and went to a wooded island in British Columbia and worked in a lumber camp on this island, lost himself among those strong, silent men in a lumber camp. And before a year had passed, another man had broken down morally. And he happened to know that this man had gone there, and because misery loved company, he too went to this island. And Mr. O'Brien told me there were no less than seven or eight men who had formerly been useful men for God in various companies of the Lord's people. buried themselves out there in the lumber camps on that wooded island. Departure from God always begins in the heart. Nobody ever got up on a fine morning and said, What a lovely day to go out and get ripped, roaring, drunk, and ruin my testimony for God. I know Christians going to do that. And yet Christians have gotten drunk by easy steps. What Christian who is now seated here enjoying this conference, what Christian is afraid that before this time next year he or she will break down morally or doctrinally? Why, it could happen to anybody, but not to me. But it could. It could. It begins in the heart. When I was a boy, my dad taught us a wonderful lesson. He taught us many wonderful lessons. Don't you believe what Mr. Gunn says about he's having the most wonderful father in the world? He just had the most wonderful one in Canada. My dad taught us some wonderful lessons. One day he came home, we've had a bad storm, and he said, boys, I want you to walk up the street with me here. I want to show you a tree that blew down. He said, we saw it on the way home school. Well, he said, I want to show it to you again. Well, all right. So we went with a block from where we lived. He came to this huge maple tree, I suppose, three inches to three foot through. And we walked around, looked at it. He said, no, boys, have you any idea why that tree blew down? Well, he said, here are trees all around that didn't blow down. Some of them smaller, some of them apparently weaker. Why did this one blow down? Well, we didn't have any idea, of course. Well, he said, come around here and I'll show you. So we went around to the stump of the tree and saw where this tree had fallen over, and there was a ring of wood about two inches thick all the way around it, and the whole heart of this tree was rotted out. And I said, boys, trees fall for the same reason that men fall, because they got rotten hearts. He said, the thing for you to do is to keep the rot out of your heart. We had both professed to be saved at this time, my brother and myself. So he said, if you'll get alone with the Lord every day and let him search for it, he'll keep that rottenness out of your heart. Envy is rottenness with the bone. You got any envy in your heart? Well, are you sure? Have you looked lately? Have you let him look? You might find some. Envy is rottenness to the bone. It wrought your heart out. Now, envy is not jealousy. Jealousy is not bad. God's name is jealous, capital J. Jealousy is a good thing, if it doesn't get out of hand, of course. Jealousy is loving a person and wanting that person for yourself. And anyone who really loves a person will have to admit that deep down in heart he certainly does not want to share that person with someone else. God is jealous of his people. There's nothing wrong with that. But envy, you can't excuse under any consideration. Envy is that wretched feeling of being disturbed because somebody else is useful. Somebody else is doing well. Somebody else is going ahead. That's a wicked thing. It rocks out men's hearts. Evil thoughts is another kind of a rock on the inside. I could tell you some terrible things that have happened to men, men who were apparently good men, too. And after these things happened to these men, then they told some others that they had encouraged secret desires, secret imaginations. They had secretly, in their own heart, gone over some of these lustful things, which they had not dared to commit, but which they had enjoyed thinking about. And then the opportunity and the temptation came at the same time. We want to pray God that the opportunity to commit a sin and the temptation to commit a sin don't coincide in your experience. Because if it does, you may go down under it. If, on the other hand, that man, and this has happened to many men, women too, if that person had confessed that when he detected in his heart the desire toward wrong, if he had corrected that by self-examination, confession, and self-judgment, That could all have been avoided. All departure begins in the heart. You can think of many biblical illustrations of this. A man doesn't become unhealthy overnight. We have a Christian young fellow out our way whose job is the direction of a health gene. He insulted me by asking me if I wouldn't like to come down. So I swallowed my pride and went down. And I got dressed up in a, well, some kind of a pair of shorts and things, you know, ready for this job. And he walked out and he looked at me and he said, Oh, brother. Well, that's my name, of course. I'm his brother. But the way he said it, oh, brother. What did he mean? He said, I thought you said you used to teach women. I said, I did. I thought you said you used to play basketball. I said, I did. He said, what have you been doing the last twenty years? You see, the neglect of health rules. The neglect of physical care will cause you the bodes in the wrong places, will cause you to say, will cause you to age, the neglect of your physique. Of course it will happen anyway, sooner or later. You can postpone it. That's about all you can do. Do you know that no Christian ever needs to get old spiritually? They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. A Christian can be fat and flourishing and healthy. As long as God leaves him here on this earth, no Christian ever needs to degenerate. But you're going to have to work at it, brother and sister. There are a few health rules. You know them. When I went to school, he studied hygiene. Kids don't even know what that is now. They've got some other fancy name for it. When I went to school, we studied hygiene. We learned that we need good food. Well, so does the Christians. And you know where to find it, don't you? We feed on Christ. Not just the Bible. You can read the Bible and not get any food. But you feed on Christ. Christ is the manna, forest in the wilderness. Christ is the old corn of the land, forest when we get into the heavens. It's always Christ. He feeds our soul. Somebody said to one of David's sons, Why art thou so lean from day to day, being the king's son? You never say that to a beggar. Nobody ever says, What's the matter with you, boy? He looks skinny. Why, if you see him sitting on the street selling pencils, you know why he's skinny. But the king's son, what excuses are for a king's son being lean from day to day? What excuses are for us being without this good food except that we're just too lazy to dig it out for ourselves? Well, like the lady who said to me, I nearly starved between conferences. I think she would. There's no reason for a Christian to do that. We ought to be learning how to feed. through the Word of God feed on Christ. Another health rule is fresh air. What do you breathe? The breath of heaven for a Christian is prayer. Oh, it's wonderful to get out of the smoke-filled world in which we live and get a clean breath of heaven. I think it's wonderful even to get away from other Christians and get a clean breath of heaven sometimes. But you, we need to do it. We need to get into His presence and breathe deeply of the breath of heaven. And breathe deeply, too, you know. Most of us have about two-thirds of the bottom of our lungs that never get ventilated. It's the deep breathing that really invigorates you. And prayer ought to be like that. We need exercise. Some of us are like the Dead Sea, always taking in, but we never give anything out. Some of us know so much, we've never done anything about it. If what you've learned could get lowered about a foot, then it could be carried out through your fingers and toes. Whatsoever he says unto you, do it! John chapter two says, we're not doing what the Lord has given us to do. I've heard Christians get together and pray and pray and pray about souls, and there wasn't a bellwinger in a bunch, and every single one of them had a good finger they could have used. There wasn't a person in the crowd going among their neighbors trying to spread the gospel. They just prayed about it. Let's exercise. You stand and breathe deeply all your life and your muscles actified. Let's get them to work. Elimination is a mighty important thing. You want to stay healthy. You know, God put one of the organs of your body all over the outside of you, your skin. I heard about a person who was going to appear in some kind of a display or show or something. This was back before they had discovered these things, and they painted the outside of that person, the skin of that person, and in thirty minutes that person was dead. They had shut off the pores of the body. And some of us have got things that ought to be eliminated. and we're not doing anything about it. God has given us a very complete system of elimination for our body. We take good care. He's given us the same thing spiritually. We don't do a thing about it. How long has it been since you had a good session, alone with the Lord, and you really let him search you out? You really got a good inside spiritual physics. You were honest enough with the Lord to let him point out to you the things that are right, and you confess them and judge them, and then shut them off. When did it happen last? Well, you know all the health rules. We get away from the Lord simply because we neglect. Now the course of departure, I said, is very insidious. You remember Samson. When he got away from the Lord, in the sixteenth chapter of Judges, down about the twentieth verse, it said, He whist not that his strength was departed. He thought, I'll just get up and shake myself like I always do. But it didn't work. The woman knew it, but Transon didn't. She wasn't even a child of God. He claimed to be one of the Lord's own. He had been a Nazarite. He didn't know as much about his condition as that ungodly heathen, besides. You remember in the seventh chapter of Hosea, that wonderful treatise on Ephraim? And Ephraim is a good picture of the backslider. A wonderful part of it is that Ephraim got restored. At the last, Ephraim says, what have I to do with idols anymore? I've seen him. That's what it takes. But before Ephraim got back to God, it says, there were gray hairs here and there upon him, and he knew it not. Everybody else knows you got gray hair, but you, spiritually speaking. The Christians may already be talking about your decline. They may be doing it in the wicked way, a gossipy way, or they may be doing it in the kind and brotherly and sisterly way. They may be saying, what's come over, dear brother, so-and-so? What's the matter with our sisters? What's happened? I had the sad responsibility. I hope I did it as a son to a father and not as rebuking an elder. I had a sad responsibility one time of telling a man this. He was trying to get me to line up with a certain party, trying to get me to take sides in the division of God's people. And I said, no, brother, you're no advertisement for what you're advocating at all. I said, I remember the time when you warned the hearts of God's people. I remember the time when you fed it. But I said, we've been riding in this car together now for four hours, and I have repeatedly tried to get a conversation going about the Lord Jesus Christ, and you haven't said one nice thing about it in four hours. And that man sat there and tears came to his eyes and dripped off his nose, and he never said a word after that. Never tried to get me to line up with this thing. Was I cruel? I had to say something to it. There was a man who had gray hairs upon him, and they showed all over. And he didn't know it. The course of departure from God is insidious. It's gradual. It begins from the heart. Then it proceeds to the light. Now this course may run a number of directions. There is such a thing as moral decline. Not many of God's people break down morals. Then there is such a thing as doctrinal decline, but not too many of them break down doctrinally. First Corinthians five tells us what we have to do with a man who breaks down morally. Paul writes to Timothy and tells us what has to be done about a man who breaks down as to doctrine. Or to take another view of the thing, in Corinthians you have the carnality of words, while in Galatians you have the carnality of legality. One's as bad as the other. The Galatians were just as far away from God as the Corinthians. The Galatians were filled with their own efforts. I've got to keep myself saved. I've got to do this. I've got to keep the law. I've got to, and everything they did was because they had to. They were away from God. The Corinthians were giving rain to the left. There was drunkenness and all sorts of things among them. The Corinthians were away from God. Departure from God will take the particular course that the world uses to attract you, or that the devil uses as a bait and a snare for you, or that your flesh is especially susceptible to. But its course will be gradual, and it will be always doubtful. Sometimes the devil wants to compromise. You remember the children of Israel were slaves in Egypt. And they began to cry out to God, and they wanted to be right. And so Pharaoh said, Well, that's not a bad idea. You men go just a little ways away. But don't take your children, don't take your cattle. You see, this will help you. Well, they didn't get back to God until he made a clean break and left it every hook. Not one hook would be left behind. You do not arrest the decline of the soul. by simply patching up a little there and a little here and just picking up a little thing here and there. You don't get back to God until you face the whole thing. The brothers of Joseph were never restored to Joseph until Joseph brought the whole thing out into the light. He even had to put some of his own brothers in jail in order to do it. But he had to drag the whole thing out into the light. I know there are difficulties in the local assembly that sometimes are better handled simply as a waiting and quietly leaving in the hands of God. But ordinarily, ordinarily, in the assembly or in the individual's life, You never arrest the course of departure from God till you get the whole wicked thing out into the life. What about the cure? Well, let me tell you that, first of all, the Lord himself has to do something about restoration. We just read together here, He restores my soul. You couldn't save yourself, and you're not going to restore yourself. There are many Christians who think I can get back to the Lord anytime I get good and ready. Just as many unsaved people have thought, I can get saved anytime I get good and ready. It's not true. You can make a profession. And you can make a profession of restoration too, but you're not going to get back to God until the Lord does it himself. It's not that he's unwilling. It's simply that he has a way of his own of doing it. In the twenty-second chapter of Luke, the Lord Jesus said to Peter, Simon, Simon, Satan has desired thee. that he might sift thee as weep. But I have prayed for thee. I have prayed for thee. Not I will. I have. This is the wonderful thing about the work of our advocate. This is the wonderful thing about the intercessory work of Christ. He's praying for us before the temptation even comes. He's praying for us before we fall. As a high priest, he's interceding for us to keep us in the presence of God. I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. It doesn't say that his faith didn't waver. It doesn't say that his love didn't fail, and it doesn't say that his hope didn't fail. But Peter eventually was brought back. His faith never completely failed. Why? Because he's made out of better stuff? No. Because the Lord is praying for us. Restoration, then, is first of all a work of our advocate, our blessed Lord Jesus. If any man sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. People who believe in the falling away doctrine think that when we say and we lose our advocate, well, that's when we need it. That's exactly when we have it. He's there for us. Thank God for that. But the Holy Spirit has a part in this also. I believe that the work of the Holy Spirit is that of withholding joy. and withholding food and teaching and guidance in all of his wonderful ministrations to us. He withholds those so to get us back to himself. Remember what the thirty-second Psalm says, day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. One brother used to say, God put his hand on top of David's head and he pushed and he pushed and he pushed until David bent at the knee. That's exactly what the Spirit of God does. Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. And then is when he came to God in confession. Have you been unhappy? Have you been conscious that something is not wrong and not right, that something's wrong in your life? Why don't you get into the presence of God and ask him what it is? I remember a lady came to some meetings I was holding many years ago in eastern Colorado, and she said, John, what in the world do you do when you know something's wrong and you're not right with the Lord, but you can't think of anything? that you're done with displeasing. I said, well, I'd ask him. He ought to know. She said, there was a thought of that. Of course, she went home, and the next night she came to the meeting with a face like a full moon. She just looked so happy. Well, I knew something was straightened out, you know, because the night before, she... It's like she'd swallowed the pickle without ever chewing it. And she came up to me and said, it's all settled now. She said, I went home last night, and as soon as I could, I got along with the Lord, and I said, Lord, whatever this is, show it to me, and I'll confess it. It's just like that. It came to me as clear as anything. Well, of course, that's what grieves the Holy Spirit of God. And she said, I just confessed it immediately, and I said, now, Lord, I can't do anything about it tonight. But tomorrow morning, I'll straighten that thing out. And she said, I went home and got the best night's sleep I've had in a long time. By the simple expediency of just saying, Lord, what is it that's greed do? What is it? Just between it. Many years ago, I spent some time with a dear brother of the name of Will Thomas. He was a Welsh singer and evangelist, and I loved him greatly. His wife and my wife were both Kansas teachers and good friends. And Will Thomas was a man, I think, who had learned this little truth. One of his favorite songs, I've often heard him sing it, accompanying himself on the concertina. One of his favorite songs was Nothing Between My Soul and the Savior. Not of this world's delusive child. Nothing between. Nothing. But you say this is such a small thing. It's the little foxes that spoil the vine. Don't you ever forget that. It doesn't take very much. And the longer you go on with God, and the closer you learn to live to him, the less it will take to spoil your fellowship. Relationship can never be spoiled, can never be touched. But fellowship... how easily disturbed it is, when two have been the very closest of friends. Like some people can slight me, and it just rolls off like water off a duck's back. I say, well, what else would you expect out of character like that? But when a dear friend does it, when one with whom I've enjoyed close and happy fellowship does something like that, it hurts. And if you have sold yourself to the Lord to be his love slave, if you have said, Lord, I want to belong to thee and to thee alone, don't be surprised if he's jealous over these little things that come into your life and spoil that communion with himself. Because he wants it far more than you do, brother and sister. He says, let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy voice. That's reason enough to want to spend time with the Lord because he desires it. He wants it. He wants us for himself. Now the Spirit of God then withholds joy from us and convicts us of the thing that's wrong. Shows us perhaps through the word. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word? If you don't know what's wrong, get into the presence of God and say, Now, Lord, show me what you read. And as I read it, filter this wonderful washing water through my soul and cleanse my mind, cleanse my heart, and cleanse my way. You do it. Peter said, I shall never wash my feet. And the Lord said, well, I don't. We're not going to have any fellowship together. So he said, well, wash me all over then, because he did want the fellowship of the Lord, didn't he? And Peter did get restored after this. Peter did come back to the Lord. He did get his feet washed in the spiritual thing. Peter did want the presence of the Lord. If you want it, the Holy Spirit of God is glad to work in cooperation with the Lord Jesus and restore you. But you have a responsibility, too. I'm not in favor of any Christian trying to do God's work for it. But I'm not in favor of any Christian expecting God to do his work for it. And I don't think you are either. There are some things that God expects you and me to do, and you can pray about them from now on, and nothing's going to happen unless you do what God asks you to do. I remember leading fellows of the Lord many years ago. I had the sad responsibility of taking his funeral a couple of years ago, but it had been twenty-five years before that that I had the joy of leading that man to Christ. And I met him one day, and I said, Glenn, you ever get this matter settled yet? No, he said, I just came from my mother-in-law's place. She was a lovely Christian. He said, I just told her I wouldn't be surprised if it had hit me any day. I said, what had hit you? He said, I don't know. Well, I said, nothing's going to hit you. I hope. I said, Glenn, you like to play checkers, don't you? Yeah. Well, I said, you and I are playing checkers, and... And you move. And then I move. And then you move. He says, you're moved. I said, yeah, that's the way he plays that game. Suppose I don't move. Well, he says, I figure you're mad. Well, suppose I don't want to move. Well, he said, there's no other way of playing checkers. I said, that's exactly what we're up against now. The Lord Jesus has already done all that he can do. And he says, as many as received it, to them gave him the right to become the children of God, even to them to believe on his name. When you move, God will move his next move. Well, that's all he needed. This little parish that he was in. He saw then that it was his move. Now, the same thing is true in restoration. You simply cannot get back to God without confession. And confession is not saying a fancy little prayer about, oh Lord, we have done that which we ought not to have done, we have neglected to do that which we should have done, and a whole lot of other malarkey like that. That's the way we pray. We say all kinds of things except saying what really happened. Some of you have heard about Sandy Broadfoot. I remember him with these little mutton shop whiskers. He was the dear man of God and a very clever man with illustrations. He told us one time that he'd been away from home. He lived on a farm close to a little town, and he raised a few turkeys there. He was busy preaching all the time, but he kept a few turkeys on the place, and he was pretty proud of his turkey. Some of them were prized turkeys. And he had a boy who was just growing up and learning to throw rocks, and he explained to him one day that turkeys can't stand very much, and he said, I don't want you throwing any rocks at my turkeys. So he promised he wouldn't. But while his father was away preaching, the old gobbler came by, and when he went into a strap, that was too much of a temptation for the boy and all, and he just let him have it. And he caught him broadside of the head, and the gobbler fell over dead, and it was his dad's pride gobbler. Well, he was heartbroken, and he had four or five days. to stew in his own juice till his dad got home, you know, and when his father came home, the mother slipped around, you know how mothers are, tender-hearted, didn't want her boy to get the trouncing, and she slipped around and told Mr. Broadfoot what had happened. So he didn't say a word. All the other children came to say hello to him and to welcome him home, but Eerskin stood back in the corner. And then, after a while, came to the table. Erskine didn't think he's hungry. So his mother insisted that he sit down. And he sat eating with his head down, didn't eat very much, which is unusual for a boy. So then, after a while, it was time to go to bed, and the other children came and told Dad goodnight, and off they went, and then he didn't know what to do. Never go into bed without telling his father goodnight when he was at home. And so his father saw him in his dilemma, and he said, come here, Erskine. And he dragged his feet across to his father. He said, what's the matter? I've been bad. Well, he said, I'm sorry to hear that. What did you do? I disobeyed you. Well, what did you do? I did what you told me not to do. Well, of course that's what you do when you disobeyed. What did you do? I did wrong. Yes, I know it was wrong. If you disobeyed your father, it was wrong. What did you do? I did something awful bad. Yes, it was bad. What did you do? I killed a turkey. And he said, before he got the last syllable of turkey out of his mouth, I had it in my arm. And I was glad to forgive him. The poor boy had been punished enough. I was only waiting for a chance to forgive him. And then he stopped and looked down at me and some of the rest, and he said, why don't you tell God you killed the turkey? Why all this beating around the bush about the thing? Why all this blaming everybody else like Adam did Eve? Why don't you say I was wrong? Is that enough? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I Corinthians chapter eleven says, if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Now I submit to you that judging ourselves is a step further than confession. Let me tell you why I think this. Confessing a sin may not involve the root of that thing, which is self. According to Romans chapter six, I have been crucified with Christ. According to Galatians, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. But you see, I forget, and you do too, though we've been crucified with Christ, and we begin to act in the flesh. That's when we get away from God. Now the judgment of self would mean that not only do I say I did this thing wrong, but the reason I did it wrong was because I gave way to the flesh within me. Let me show you how this would have worked. In the twelfth chapter of Genesis, Abraham told a lie. He denied his wife. I'm sure Abraham confessed that as a sin. Of course, it was only half a lie because his wife was half-existent. But he did not tell the truth. But in the twentieth chapter of Genesis, he told the same lie to another man. Why? I think because his restoration was incomplete. I think that Abraham confessed the sin but didn't judge himself. I know that's true anyway, in our case, and I can assure you, brother and sister, that you will never get over these things that you continually confess until you get at the root of the thing and judge the reason behind it. Now, the thing that Abraham did was to tell a lie. The reason why Abraham told a lie was that he was afraid he didn't trust God. His unbelief was the source of his lie. You see it? I do something that I shouldn't do. Why do I do it? I'm hard to live with. I'm hard to get along with. Why am I hard to get along with? Because I'm proud. Only by pride come of contagion. A man who can't work when these values are proud men. And if he would judge that pride, which is the root of that contagion spirit, he gets right now. Why are some men so boorish in their own home and hard to get along with, hard to live with? Back of their wrong treatment of their wives and children is something in their makeup. You can't excuse it on the grounds of psychology and say, well, the poor fellow can't tell that he inherited from any painting. Let's get down to the root of the thing. The trouble is that that man has got something in there that he hasn't judged. Perhaps he's disappointed. He, being a very educated, intellectual type of person, finds out that he's married to a kind of a dumb doll, and he was attracted to her when he was twenty-one, and now at fifty he feels... Oh, brother. The main word she knows is duh. And so he takes it out on her. After all, he picks her out. After all, that was his choice. After all, she's given her life to him. After all, she's born in children and stood by him all these years. He ought to judge that as a sin. and mistreating his family because he has some kind of a disappointment in himself. That's a categorical case, or rather an imaginary case. But I can tell you some that aren't imaginary. I could tell you some of my own life that are not imaginary, but I'm not going to. None of your business. And you could tell some in your life too that are not imaginary. And if you get into the presence of God, drag these things out into the light, say, Lord, I want to be honest. Show me what it is that's causing me to repeatedly do this same thing. Why should I be always falling? Why should I live on a spiritual elevator? This isn't God's plan for me. Show me, Lord, why? When He shows you why, be honest enough to judge it. Then there's a third thing. You not only confess it and judge it, but He says, in the book of Proverbs, I think it's the twenty-eighth chapter, He says, Whoso confesses, and what's the next word? Forsaken, then. I shall find mercy. I remember doing something that I shouldn't hurting my wife's feelings. The Lord's given me a wonderful wife and I've given her a bad time. A lot of our married life. Shortly after we were married, I had done something to hurt her feelings. I had done the same thing three times. Thinking I was funny, you know. And I went to her and I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did that. She said, well, if you're real sorry, you quit it. And she was absolutely right. And that's true in your relationship with the Lord. If you're real sorry about it, you quit it. Confess and forsake it. But they excuse it. Do you know what that verse means that says, make no provision for the flesh to fulfill unless there are? Do you think that that means don't buy a quarter whiskey on your way home? I don't think it has anything to do with that. Some people think that if they make provision for the flesh, that they allow a way to do some wicked thing. I think making provision for the flesh is just simply excusing that rotten nature that we have within us and saying, well, I guess there'll never be any difference. You know, we're just sinners, and we'll probably just go on doing wrong. What a low estimate of God's salvation. I don't mean by this that there's any such thing as sinless perfection, but certainly the Lord never intended for us to repeatedly do the same thing. Live that kind of a low life. Somebody said to me today, I don't believe in this higher life stuff, and I don't believe in lower life either. This higher life stuff says, oh, I've reached the plain, come up on Gula land with me, brother. Everything's lovely, lovely, lovely up here, big hypocrite. But then there's that lower life that says, well, let's get down into the mud here. That's where we belong. We're all slimy anyway, and they're satisfied to stay there. Now, someplace in between those extremes must be the teaching that the Lord intended for us to get from the six, seven, and eight chapters of Romans. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Lord Jesus living at the right hand of God is my source and supply, and he's all that I need to keep me. Why don't I draw from here? But I'd like to suggest too, brethren, sister, that if you want to go on for God, you owe something to the individual, the people whom you have hired. Restoration of the Lord includes restitution to the person heart. We had a man in Colorado Springs many years ago. He's gone home to be with the Lord now, and I'm sure you won't mind my telling this if he knows about it, because I know that he knows now that it wasn't for good. He was a man with a bad temper and a wife who encouraged him in it. And he came to me time after time. I couldn't tell you how many times he came to me and just blew up in my face. Without any introduction at all, he'd come up and knock on my door, and when I'd open the door, he let me have it. Full glass, full barrels. And I'd try to quiet him down. I didn't want the neighbors to hear him. And he'd just rattle it off, and I'd say to him, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, you said so-and-so, didn't you? No, I didn't. Yeah, but you did. I wasn't even in town. Oh, you weren't, huh? Well, he'd leave. He'd never say, I'm sorry, or anything, he'd just leave. First time he did this, I didn't, I just wondered if I was fit to go to the meeting and face the fellow. We were only a small company then. But when I got to the meeting, much to my surprise, he stuck out his head and shook his head and left a five-dollar bill in my hand. Well, I bruised easy, but I healed quick. I said, thank you, brother. And I went home and I told my wife what he did. Well, she said that was probably his way of saying that he was sorry. And you know what happened? The next time that that fellow had one of those fuzzles and cut loose on me, The next time we went to a meeting, five dollars. He never raised his price. I got to where I thought some of his blowups were way more than that. Some maybe not as much, you know. I didn't say that to make you laugh. I know it's funny, but it isn't funny, is it? It's a terrible thing. Just think of that man never once. Never was saying, Brother, I'm sorry, and I'm ashamed. Not one. I won't tell you his nationality. Apparently it was easier for him to give five dollars than those simple words, which I would have rather had. I'll tell you that truthfully. I would rather have had him say, Brother, I'm sorry. Can you say it? But you see, sometimes it takes more than words. You said some words from somebody else. You hurt that Christian because you gossiped about him. You confess that gossip to God, then you go to that Christian. that you repeated that gossip to and tell them that it wasn't so. Or if it was so, that you had no business telling it. Oh, he said, I couldn't do that. That'd be awful. I couldn't do that. Well, if you did it at a time or two, it'd cure you. You're out in heaven. You're not going to keep on doing a thing when you go around and straighten it up afterwards. Get tiresome. There'd be a fine thing if you and I get tired of some of our wretched habits, some of our wretched ways. Yes, it's a good thing to straighten these things out if you're a fellow Christian. Now, when you've done that, what do you do? A man said to me, John, I'm miserable over something that I did wrong forty years ago. I said, why? Well, he said, I don't know why. He said, I've confessed it. I've confessed it a hundred times. I said, you sinned the last ninety-nine times you confessed it. That was unbelief. He says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And when you went back to the Lord about that, the second and the third and the hundredth time, you showed you didn't believe it. Tears came down his cheeks, and I left the room to leave him alone with the Lord. And after a while he came out and he said, John, I believe this thing is settled once and for all. He said, I never realized. I thought it was humility on my part. I never realized this was unbelief to go on worrying about the thing that I've done. Why do you say, I made such a mess for my life, I'll never be any good to God again. Don't you believe it? I don't think God ever used anybody until he smashed him first. No light ever got out of Gideon's pitchers until they're smashed. I can tell you that. Peter was never any good for God until he was smashed. And the Lord said, when thy light converted, go fall in the hole and pull it in after you. He didn't say anything of the kind. He said, strengthen your bread. That's the kind of people that can help their bread. I can tell you about these things because I'm not pretending that I haven't been through this thing myself. I'm ashamed of my record, but I can tell you something. The Lord is the most patient person you could ever think about. He restores again and again and again my soul. Brother John was just saying tonight, isn't it wonderful that the Lord took Mark back into useful service After twenty years, if there's somebody here who would like to get back to the Lord tonight in heart and in life, will you just try this? I can tell you from experience, to always find him more than ready.