Transcription
Some people think that the road to hell is paved with ice and downhill all the way. And we've gotten the impression that, uh, maybe even a few will be saved, but the Bible calls them a great multitude that no one can number. So it is my purpose tonight to try and show that it is hot, hard to be lost; in fact, that it is harder to be lost than it is to be saved. And God has made it that way. And I have eight major reasons why I believe it is harder to be lost than to be saved.
A um, classic text on the subject is Second Peter 3:9, where we are told the Lord is longsuffering toward us—some of us still like the King James—um, he's longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So we don't have to debate whether we are Calvinist or Armenian; uh, God wants everyone saved. He's not trying to see how many people he can keep out of Heaven; he's trying to see how many he can get in. And he has never held it against us that we were born on the wrong planet.
Now, um, I have had, um, some experiences with people who had tried to be lost. I went to visit a lady in Glendale, California, one time when we were working in Los Angeles, White Memorial Medical Center and church. She was rather intimidating to me. She was, um, probably in her 80s, but she was a very distinguished-looking—I would call her a handsome lady—um, she was the executive type, and, uh, I was a little preacher trying to make a call. And so I tried to be dignified, and finally I said, um, "Well, is there anything I can do for you before I leave?" And she says, "Yes, would you help get me out of the church?" She said, "I, uh, can't stand the church," but she said, "I grew up in a missionary home, missionary parents overseas. I have gone to church all my life. I have tried to get rid of it. I can't. It's a habit. Um, I even go to prayer meeting, and I hate it." She said, "Um, I am a slave to this religion that I grew up with, and I don't know what to do. Please help me get out of the church and out of the faith. Help me to forget the whole business." And I, uh, assured her that this didn't happen to be part of my job description. But as I thought of her and visited with her, I was, uh, reminded again that it is very difficult to walk away from God, from faith, from church, even if the experience has been less than it should have been.
I didn't tell you last night about the rest of the story on Alice Cooper. Does anyone remember throwing up last night? Alice Cooper, one of the most debauched, degraded rock stars that ever lived, today he is a born-again Christian, teaching a Sunday School in Arizona. I have a picture of him here. I told the story of Alice Cooper over in Palm Springs a while back after the service. The pastor came and showed me the picture of him with Alice Cooper on the golf course—they play golf together—and, uh, told me that Alice Cooper was the son of a Baptist preacher. Evidently he had an overdose of religion and, uh, went overboard for a while, see, but he's back. And when I tell this, people take courage, and there's always a line of people waiting after the service to, uh, see the picture. You know, I know who the former Alice Cooper fans were then, see. They say, "Can I see the picture?" And they look at it. I say, "Yeah, yeah, that's him, that's him." But if God can do that for a poor, debauched rock star, then, uh, we can take courage, can't we? So it's difficult, even if he had an overdose, even if some of us had an overdose of the wrong kind of emphasis, still hard to walk away from. And, uh, God has these great mountains—I'm going to call them—on the road to perdition that I would have to get across if I wanted to be lost. I have to get across these big mountains. So it isn't just a slip and slide your way downhill all the way; not at all. The first four mountains I'd like to address have to do with people who are raised in the Christian environment, Christian culture; maybe the last four would have more to do with the worldwide impact. Take a look and see if these aren't mountains that you would have to cross if you choose to walk away.
Number one, the great mountain of the Bible. The Bible, 1 Peter 1:25: "The word of God which liveth and abideth"—how long? Forever. The Bible, a silent witness, still today, that there's something bigger than humankind at work. People have tried for a long time to get rid of the Bible, to ridicule the Bible, to destroy the Bible. Today there are more Bibles than ever—every color, size, version. If you don't have one, you can go to the Bible society and get one for free. Bibles everywhere. Someone wanted to get rid of the Bible; they'd have a monumental task, wouldn't they? Probably impossible. It may not be the best red, but it's still the best seller. Explain that. Explain that. There's something going on, and all by itself it is a witness to, uh, a higher power, if you please. My brother and I went to hold some public meetings in Sacramento, California, one time. We, uh, wanted to rent an auditorium, which was part of a sort of a double auditorium in this building—one on this side and one on that side with entrances that sort of face each other in front. And we found out that this one over here was available on the nights that we wanted it, and we said, uh, "That's good, we'll we'll take that." They said, "You can't have it." We said, "Why?" They said, "Some of those nights they have a dance in the other auditorium, and if people were coming out of the dance or going into the dance and seeing other people coming and going with their Bibles, it would ruin the dance." And these were not some sort of legalistic church member; these were secular people who realized that the Bible is a silent witness. Very interesting. We were disappointed, but we were also encouraged about the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. Two people check into a motel for a lost weekend. The Gideons have been there first, I dare say. They have to get that Bible in the drawer somewhere else, don't you think? Silent witness, probing our consciences, helping us to remember. The Bible, a great mountain.
Number two, of the mountains that we'd have to cross if we wanted to be lost, would be gospel sermons. Gospel sermon, 1 Corinthians 1:21: "God has chosen the foolishness of preaching." Interesting. Some of us really find it foolish. You don't know how lonely it is up here, and we feel really foolish sometimes to get up and try to say something when there are people out there that know a lot more than we do. But he's chosen that as one of his methods of getting the good news across. Of course, the context of Corinthians is the foolishness of preaching the cross, and, uh, that was foolish in those days. It was the first time in the history of gods that anyone had had a God that was crucified, or had gone to the gas chamber, we would say, or to the electric chair, to to proclaim a god like this was really foolish. And then the foolishness of preaching itself. But how some of us have been impacted with this method of God. I grew up on the sawdust trail, and, uh, I heard the prophecies in the history. I heard the blood on the moon and the beasts, and I saw the, uh, images and all the rest of it. But on the Sabbath afternoon they always, always had a meeting that was more of the inspirational type. Those are the ones I remember most, the inspirational type, where your heart was tugged at by the Holy Spirit. I remember a sermon called "The Man Who Was Sold But Could Not Be Bought." Guess who that was? Joseph. It made an impact on me. I remember our sermon, "Jesus From Nazareth Is Passing By," in the story of blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, who sat by the roadside in darkness. And then one day he heard a tumult, and he said, "What's happening? What's going on?" They said, "Jesus from Nazareth is passing by." Oh, he had heard about that. He had heard about Jesus and what he could do and what he had done, how he had compassion on people. He began to cry out. You remember? "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me!" And he continued to cry out because he didn't want Jesus from Nazareth to pass him by. I understand that Jesus from Nazareth had been passing by here at Forest Lake, and I don't want him to pass me by. Do you? So we can cry out with blind Bartimaeus, "Have mercy on me!" Jesus heard it; he went to him, and he said, "What do you want me to do?" "Oh, Lord," he said, "that I might receive my sight!" And Jesus gave him his sight. A story I can never forget, a sermon that stayed with me. And if I wanted to be lost, somehow I'd have to get rid of that. No, "Jesus from Nazareth is passing by." Have mercy! I remember another one. I was a teenager at camp meeting, California, Santa Cruz. H.M.S. Richards, Senior, talked to the youth that day. His subject: "Jesus, My Savior, Lord, and Friend." Very simple, three parts, touched my heart. I was just ready for it; I needed it that day. "Jesus, My Savior, Lord, and Friend." I can't forget it; it stayed with me. You probably have sermons like that in your mind, in your memory, that would be very difficult to walk away from. Gospel sermons.
Here's one: our better judgment. Number three, our better judgment. Isaiah 1:18 says, "Come now, and let us reason together." Now, sometimes we waste our time; we get together as intellectuals. In fact, every institution has a group of intellectuals who are really smart, and, uh, they like to get together and polish off a few intellectual ordures, you know, and, uh, they will talk about everything except Jesus, everything except the cross. And, uh, yet this is talking about our sins. Isaiah 1:18: "Come, let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Which brings you to the great news of Jesus and the cross and salvation and the blood of Christ. So, uh, let's come and reason together. Use our better judgment, use our heads. Better judgment concerning life, concerning the reality and the certainty of God, and numbering our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. I'll never forget the impact on me when my mother died. She took sick one day and died the next. She was 91 years old. We were there the last four hours, and, uh, we watched the monitor, and we held her hand, and we understood the monitor would go flat, and we cried, and we shouted in her ear that we loved her, hoping she would still hear, and then she was gone. And the suddenness of the whole thing had a tremendous impact on me. We cried; we looked out the window. But the thing that really got to me was the wonder and mystery of life, of life. I guess it was the suddenness of it all that did it, and I I have been thinking about it ever since. The wonder and mystery of life proves that the certainty of God and eternity are 100% sure—not 50/50, 100% sure. Why? Well, we have a lot of smart people; we've had tremendous wonders in the realm of science and invention, but no one has even come close to being able to produce a kernel of corn or a leaf or a blade of grass. Yet today we were out at the Cypress Gardens—first time I've been there—and my, it's beautiful. As we walked through the gardens, I stopped and I looked at one of those big leaves waving in the breeze, and I thought about it: life. This is life here. Then I got a little tiny leaf and put my fingers on it: a little tiny leaf, life. The gardens are full of life. We can't make it; we can't produce it. It was screaming at me the reality and the certainty of God. We can analyze life; we can play around with it; we can transplant it, but we can't produce it—not even a kernel of corn. We can take the kernel of corn and we can take it into the chem lab and we can dissect it and analyze it and tell exactly the elements that are in it and in what proportion, but the same chemist cannot take those same elements out of the chem lab and put them together in the same proportion and have a kernel of corn with life that will produce hundreds of other kernels of corn. We can't do it, which means that, uh, I have as many proofs that God is 100% certain and all that comes with him as I have hearts beating in this auditorium right now. I used to have problems with people who'd come along to me, and they'd say, "Preacher, I'm having trouble believing there's a God," and I would tell them, "Well, I, you know, I grew up, I'm a second, third, fourth generation, I, uh, all of these things, I I have taken for granted. I never struggled with that one. Why don't you read C.S. Lewis or Francis Schaeffer or some of the other great apologists?" But I don't do that anymore—not since my mother died. When someone comes to me and says, "I'm having trouble believing there's a God," I say, as nicely as I can, "You fool!" And I've got good company. This book says it: "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." Why? You have to be a fool because I tell them now, "Just do me a favor, go home and look in the mirror—that's all—and tell me what's keeping that going—not you." I had labored under this delusion that I was keeping me going, you know. I eat and I sleep and I breathe and I get some exercise. No, no, no. Someone else is keeping this heartbeat going. 100% certain. God is is real. So I don't have to sit around wondering about that one, the big one. Better judgment, thinking life through.
Number four, a great mountain that looms up on the way to perdition: the prayers of others. Do you believe in those? The prayers of others. Jesus said it to Peter, Luke 22: "Peter, Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you." How would you like to hear Jesus say to you, "I have prayed for you"? And he has. John 17 is his prayer for you and all of his disciples, his followers. "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." Peter went for a rough ride that night, but Jesus' prayers were there for him already. And he has made it possible that our prayers before God's throne make a difference in terms of other people's lives. I believe that I can pray here for someone 10,000 miles away there, and they not even know it, and it'll make a difference. We were in our midweek prayer meeting in Colorado one time in the church. We were trying to analyze and dissect prayer. We studied the subject; we looked at everything on it; we began to get into real deep weeds. We said, "You know, does it make a difference if someone prays? Well, suppose someone doesn't have anyone praying for them, and suppose someone has a lot of people praying for them, and is it fair, and is it going to make any difference?" And someone said one night, "Why don't we try it?" What a novel idea! So we began to think through, "How should we try it?" Well, he said, "Let's let's do an impossible case. Let's, uh, let's pick out an impossible case and pray for a month for that situation, and we'll pray at home every day, and every Wednesday night we'll pray for that situation." And I, uh, already had an impossible case. I had been there that day. I went to visit some people who had given up the faith in God. They had been missionaries, but they had had some kind of raw deal they felt in the mission field. They came back and left the church and left the faith and left God and were living in bitterness. Well, I made the mistake of going to their door. When they found out who I was, they cussed me out; they really let me have it. And, uh, after they had yelled at me and told me never to come there again, they said, "And don't pray either." Well, sir, that's one thing they had no control over. I told this to the prayer meeting group. They said, "Yeah, we know about them. They are the impossible case we're looking for." So we began praying for this family. The first week, um, their house burned down. And I went back—it came out of the newspaper—I went back to the prayer meeting group. I said, "What are what are some of you praying?" Following week came out that a big piece of equipment—he was in the heavy equipment business—had been stolen. Everything went wrong that month. And that family, the last weekend of the month, this family walked into the church, and you should have seen the midweek prayers. You could have pushed them off the pew with a straw; their mouths were open. They followed them down the aisle. They came to me afterwards. He said, "We better do more praying." Yeah, we better do more praying. I had a week of spiritual devotion at Loma Linda Medical School one time, and before the week I decided to take a little survey to find out if they had been converted because I was very interested in the subject of conversion. So I had about 20, 22 questions that I asked them to fill out with simply yes or no answers. The first question was, "Have you been converted?" Yes or no. Number two was, "Are you sure?" And then we went on down the list with the key questions concerning conversion. I wanted to find out more about that subject and that experience and how it works, and, uh, some interesting things showed up, including this one: every one of those who knew that they had been converted knew that someone was praying for that for them at that time. Everyone. And I was impressed. When I was a student in college, we had a project one time in a Bible class to do a study, research on prayer, and, uh, I did a careful research, and among other things I found a statement from the inspired pen that the prayers of our loved ones who are asleep in the grave are still effective before God's throne in our behalf. I was overwhelmed, especially when my father and mother were asleep, to think about their prayers still good for me before God's throne. So let's not sell short the great mountain of prayer, the prayers of loved ones, the prayers of Jesus.
Number five, the great mountain looming up would be conscience. Conscience, really. John 8:9: They dragged the woman to Jesus. She figured it was all over for her. They picked up the stones; they were going to heave huge stones at her. Then there was the the writing in the sand, and one by one the people went away until she was alone. It says they went away because they were convicted by their conscience. Their conscience. Even the heathen, according to Romans the 2nd chapter, have something called conscience. C.S. Lewis gives this as one of the big proofs of the existence of God—that even in heathen, dark cultures they have a certain moral standard or morality that gives evidence that there's something more than just human at work. My conscience. When I was four years old, I told my father a lie. When my kids were four years old, I used to wonder if they knew what a lie was, let alone tell one. I told my father a lie, and for seven years it bothered my conscience. I can still remember the night I went into his room when I was 11 and asked him to forgive me for the lie I told him at age four. What was that? Someone says the Holy Spirit is your conscience. No, no, but the Holy Spirit works through our conscience. And if you have a conscience that's alive and well, thank God, hang on to it, thank yeah, and thank him for it. Conscience. I'd have to get past that if I wanted to be lost someday.
Number six, a great mountain: the troubles, the bumps and bruises of life. You know, it says in Proverbs 13:15 that the way of the transgressor is what? Is hard. The way of the transgressor is hard. Watch the people who are trying to be lost; watch the people who are trying to get away from God and faith and Bible and religion and church. Look at the lines on their faces; look at the people stumbling over themselves trying to find fun—Las Vegas, Monte Carlo, gay Paree—um, take a look—people trying to get away and to stay away from God, and yet the bumps and bruises of life come on. And, uh, how can people survive if they don't have faith? You know, if the devil had wanted me, he could have had me a long time ago if he just left me alone. But he was too stupid to leave me alone. He's not very bright; he kept getting after me and driving me to my knees. And that's the way it often works. The devil does his thing; he's trying to get us not only lost but get us in the gutter as well, and in the process he meets himself coming back because it drives us to our knees. The bumps and bruises of a sinful world and the enemy and all of his cohorts trying to make it hard for us. The way of the transgressor is hard. It's hard to walk away from God. My folks were holding meetings downtown in San Francisco years ago in the War Memorial Auditorium, and into the meetings one night came a sailor. And this sailor sat in the back row and listened, and then he came forward and he said to my dad and my uncle after the meeting, he said, "I I got to come back. I've been trying to get away from God, from faith, from Bible, from church." He said, "I have had an overdose of religion. I wanted to forget it all." He said, "I joined the Navy. I, uh, have tried to learn how to smoke and drink and carouse like the sailors do. I have tried, tried to learn their language." He said, "It's not working. It's too hard. I don't have any happiness or joy or peace." He said, "I'm coming back. It's too hard." Found out that he was the son of our general conference president at that time, and he came back. I told this in my church one time. After the service the organist came to me. He said, "I got one for you." He said, "I did the same thing. I had an overdose of legalistic religion. I wanted out, so I joined the Navy to get away from it all." He said, "I hadn't been in the Navy very long, and the commanding officer called me into his office one day. He said, 'Luke, um, why are you in the Navy?' 'Oh, uh, trying to help the milit—yeah, right.' He said, 'Uh, tell me the truth, Luke, why did you join the Navy?' 'Well, I, uh, I want to see the world.' 'Yeah, right. Now, level with me, Luke, why are you in the Navy? You're running away from something, aren't you?'" And Luke began to get sweaty palms about that time, but the commanding officer continued to probe until Luke admitted he's trying to get away from God and faith and religion and church. And the commanding officer said, "I thought so. Now," he said, "um, I have tried to do the same thing years ago, and it looks like I have succeeded, but I've been miserable ever since. And it so happens that I tried to get away from the same church that you are trying to get away from, and it's probably too much and too long for me, but you're not going to get away with it." He says, "I, your commanding officer, I'm commanding you to go to church next Sabbath. What's more," he said, "I'm commanding you to go to Friday night young people's meeting. You're not going to end up miserable like I have been." And as Luke stood there, he said to himself, "If God can follow me into the military and do this, I surrender." He said, "I give up. I can't make it; I can't do it." Yeah. And when I heard the story, I took courage. It's a lot of trouble to get away even from something that was less than it should have been.
Number seven, the the great mountain: the Holy Spirit. John 16:8: "When he has come, he will convict the world"—this isn't just Christian cultures, the world—"of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." The Holy Spirit follows people everywhere, works when we are sleeping, goes to every nation, kindred, tongue, the recesses of heathenism, the darkness, wherever it is, the Holy Spirit convicting the world. The Holy Spirit who can get through the hide of a whale into the mind of a runaway, the Holy Spirit who has spoken of as a still, small voice in Isaiah 30, saying, "This is the way." The Holy Spirit, the great comforter, the one who does not leave us as easily as some of us have thought he did, who stays with us and continues to work with us. How can you get past the Holy Spirit? Some have tried and found it was impossible, and they couldn't make it on the road to perdition.
Number eight, a great mountain that looms up greater and higher than any other mountain. You find this one in Luke 23:33 and 34: "And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him." There they crucified him. And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them." How can you get past Mount Calvary? That's a big one. And the idea has permeated even heathenism, even though it's been distorted, the thought that someone needs to die in order to pay for someone else's transgression has even gotten through into heathenism. And there are some people today who are saying, "Well, yeah, a heathen idea. Let's get rid of the cross. We didn't need the cross anyway." But the Bible still says that this is what the gospel is—that Christ died for our sins according to the scripture. I do not believe that the cross was simply a martyrdom or that Jesus made the mistake of going out into the streets of Chicago after midnight and got himself killed. No, I believe that he came on purpose to die for me and that he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities. The cross, Jesus taking my place, Jesus taking your place. How can we get past Mount Calvary? These are great mountains that loom up. If you wanted to be lost, you'd have to fight God; you'd have to fight Jesus; you'd have to fight the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere; you have to fight two-thirds of the angel, angels, the majority of the angels in the universe; you'd have to fight the prayers of your friends. And you can probably think of other things you'd have to get over and if you want it to be lost. But if you're going to be saved, all you have to do is fight the devil, who pleaded for mercy in the presence of Jesus, and one-third, minority of the angels who were nothing in the presence of Jesus. That's why I'd like to remind you that it is harder to be lost than it is to be saved. Oh, someone said, "You mean it's easy to be saved?" No, I don't want to give that impression because we have a great battle called the battle with self and surrender, but it's still harder to be lost. He was a young fellow in Los Angeles; his name was Floyd. He, um, was the son of a drunkard. His mother was a member of our church. As he got into his high school years, he began to run around with the wrong company; began to drink. He'd come in late at night, 2:00 in the morning, come into the little trailer where he lived, find his mother praying for him. His mother's prayers made a difference, and finally he decided he better go to a Christian school instead of public school. So he asked the friend who had shown interest in him as a poor boy to fly him up in a private airplane from Southern California to Laurelwood Academy in Oregon so he could go to school at a Christian high school, boarding school. His friend who had given him a ride on the airplane a time or two was happy to do it. So Floyd arrived at at Laurelwood Academy with $15 in his pocket and asked to be able to go to
School. Well, they worked it out, gave him some work to do, and uh, he went to school. I happened to be the pastor and a teacher there that year, and Floyd was in one of my Bible classes. I uh used to like to tell stories. In fact, when you're teaching in high school years, you have to tell a story; you have to stand on your head to keep their attention. And uh, so I would tell stories whenever I could, stories about HMS Richards, founder of the Voice of Prophecy radio program, who was my hero. He's been my mentor for a long time. I had some interesting stories I had collected of things that had happened. He was a very colorful man, and he was a Godly Man. And uh, these stories made an impression on Floyd, and he wondered if ever he would be able to meet this preacher, this international radio preacher.
Well, uh, I was teaching and preaching righteousness by faith for the first time that year. It had gotten into my heart, and I couldn't keep quiet. And the students got excited about it, and it was exciting to see their response. But some of the administration got nervous about it, and the Deans got nervous. They figured that if faith is where it's at, and uh, maybe works are not that important anymore, that the kids would probably burn down the dormitories by the time school was out that year, and that this was a threat to the rules and regulations. And so they jinxed me with the administration; the administration jinxed me with the uh denominational headquarters in Portland. And uh, uh, I was finished at the end of that one year. And they divided a little District over in the mountains to make one small enough so I wouldn't do any more damage. I had one Church of 40 members and one Church of 13 members up in the mountains.
Well, it was the shortest past I ever had. That we were there one week, my uh first sermon was my last sermon, and we found ourselves down in the middle of Los Angeles at the White Memorial Medical Center and church instead. God had some other plans. Floyd heard about it, and Floyd says, "If they're going to treat my teacher like that, I'm not going back to laurawood." So he quit. He was discouraged, and he joined the army, and he began to drink, began to drink a lot. Then he found himself overseas in Soul Korea, and his drinking got worse. And one night he went out on Friday night; he got drunk; he ended up in a sewage ditch off the main street, down in the muck, on his face. He woke up the next morning; one shoe was missing; he had this goo all over him. He crawled out of that sewage ditch; he went up on the street, over to the curb. Life was too discouraging for him; he'd had enough; he wanted out. He looked, and he saw these huge diesel buses which filled Soul Korea downtown, big square fronts on them. He had it all figured out: he could jump in front of one of those buses, and it'll all be over. And he was just ready to jump, and there was a hand on his shoulder, and a man said, "What are you doing, son?" "Oh," he said, "I uh, I just watching the buses here." The man said, "U you want to take a walk with me?" "Well, okay." So they began walking down the street. As they walked along, this tall man with a French beret and thick glasses began to tell him about what he knew of Korean culture and pointed out a few things. He was an American visiting. As they walked along, um, the man said to Floyd, "Why don't you go to church with me?" "Church," he said, "You mean I've been in that ditch two nights?" He figured it was Sunday. "No, no," says uh, "this is Saturday. You want to go to church with me?" "How can I?" "Come on." As they approached a mission compound, the local were out there looking for their guest preacher from America who was supposed to have the service, and he wasn't there yet. They came out down the street and they found this man with Floyd approaching. As they came to the compound, the man said to these people there at the church, "This is my friend, friend Floyd. He's going to go to church with me." And he treated him like a prince, like his own son. They went into church, and suddenly Floyd realized that he had just met HMS Richards of the Voice of Prophecy, and he listened to him preach for the first time. And he said, "If God can follow me into the military and into and through a sewage ditch and get me out, I've got to turn my life over to him." And he did, and he came home and studied for the ministry and became a pastor.
Listen, neighbor, God has made it just as hard as possible for anyone to be lost. And if you have any history or relative who's gone through some of these, you know what it's all about, aren't you thankful that it's true that the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance? Shall we pray? Dear Father in Heaven, it's been good to look toward Heaven together. We thank you for being with us. We thank you that Jesus of Nazareth has come. Have mercy on us, we pray, as we make big decisions to stay with you and to know you and to pull away from anything that was not the right emphasis in our past. Bring the backsliders back, we pray, and help all of us good people to fall on our faces too and realize how much we need you and a relationship with with you day by day. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.