In this sermon, the speaker shares two personal stories to illustrate the importance of belief and commitment. The first story is about a football game where the speaker successfully kicks a goal, but a gust of wind causes the ball to miss. This is used as a metaphor for how the enemy (Satan) deceives and exhausts people, offering them glamorous but ultimately destructive things. However, the risen Lord offers abundant life as an alternative. The second story is about a man fishing in a lock, but when asked what he is doing with the fish, he simply replies "and round." This story is used to emphasize the need for belief and commitment to God, rather than being caught up in meaningless pursuits.

Life More Abundant When Jesus Enthroned By Alan Redpath On this opening evening of this series of young people's meetings, as Mr Samuel has said, we want to deal with some foundation truth. And so I would remind you of those tremendous words of our Lord contained in the 10th chapter of John and the 10th verse. The thief cometh to steal, to kill, to destroy. But I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. I am come, said Jesus, that you might have life, but that you have it more abundantly. You know that verse introduces us to a tremendous fact of spiritual conflict and spiritual battle that's going on today for the possession of every life in this tent. The thief who would steal, kill, destroy. The Lord Jesus Christ, who hath come that you might have life, then. The thief who would steal, kill, destroy. The Lord Jesus Christ, who hath come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. And that verse somehow seems to me to strike right home to the key spiritual issue that confronts every one of us here this evening. Two great powers seeking to possess every one of us. The law that we might have life. The powers of darkness that they might steal, and kill, and destroy. Satan bent on spiritual murder. The Lord Jesus Christ bent on your spiritual deliverance. And one or other of these powers is going to master your life completely one day. And it's our great concern, my great concern, that in every one of our lives there may be no mistake whatsoever, but that we're discovering the joy, and the freedom, and the liberty, and liberty of the mastery of Jesus Christ. Let's consider just for a second this basic offer of our Lord, I am come that you might have life. Oh, but some of you may say, I am come that you might have life. Oh, but some of you may say to me, I don't understand that, I already have got life. Here I am sitting in this tent this evening, and I'm very much alive. Oh, but wait a moment, what does Jesus mean by life? A little later on in the New Testament, you remember the Apostle John said, he that hath the Son of God hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now the issue about which Christ is speaking centers not around physical life, or mental life, but spiritual life. You see a man walking along the street in Keswick, and you say that man's alive, what do you mean? Well, you mean he's got physical life, or else he couldn't walk. You see somebody else sitting at his office desk, and you might say of that person, there's a live man. What do you mean by that? Well, you mean that intellectually he's on top. See, he's on top of his job. Emotionally he's alive. But neither of those men have come to live in the sense of this, that Christ is presenting us with, until they've come to know him, and to be reiterated to God through him. He that hath the Son of God hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now you know this is awfully unpopular, but sometimes truth is unpopular. And one of the great secrets of getting into real life and victory is facing some unpleasant reality. And the fact of the matter is this, you know, that if you haven't really come to Jesus Christ and know him personally, well there's one third of you not alive. Now, some people say the Christians thought a fellow who isn't all there. Well now with every respect it's the person who isn't a Christian who isn't all there. Because one third of him is still dead. He has physical life and mental life, but until he's come to God through faith in Jesus Christ, he's one third dead. The deepest part of him has never come to life. It's but a capacity. Oh, but you say, how did that happen? Well, you know, of course, the Bible tells us that it happened a long, long time ago. When from the very beginning of human history the man whom God created in his own image, that he might worship him and serve him, the man to whom God gave perfect freedom and perfect liberty, but only under the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of the God who created it. That man decided he'd try an experiment. He'd try to run the world and run his own life without the God who made it. And this led to disaster. This led to the loss of life, to the loss of spiritual life. For God's offer of life was entirely dependent upon man's submission to God's sovereignty. But from the very beginning of things the human race rebelled against the sovereignty of God and from that day it passed out of life into death in the spiritual sense of the word. And you and I are all born like that. We're all involved in that drastic rebellion. And as a matter of fact, let's say it very quietly to ourselves, but honestly, every one of us here has given personal assent to it too. There's not one of us who isn't accepting to that. Not one of us who at one time or other in our life hadn't rebelled against the authority of God and decided to try and run our own lives and preferred it that way. You see, from the very day we're born there's something instinctive in us that hates God's authority and loves our own way. Hates the whole principle of submission and loves our own determined way of life. You check that in your own mind, check it with the smallest child that you've ever seen, that little baby. That little baby that when comes into the world her mother says, my what an angel, but it isn't long before she discovers there's something other than an angel come around the place. And the moment that child has ability to choose between right and wrong, have you ever met a boy or a girl who has automatically chosen right? Of course, I know that modern education says let the child express itself. Have you ever been in a home where they've tried it? It's absolute chaos, complete and absolute chaos. I'm terribly sorry to say this to any teachers who may be here and to grieve you in any way at all. But you know, that is never the spiritual principle. This of course is modern philosophy. You see, you see, modern psychology has indoctrinated this generation to believe that self, that you and I, self, are basically good. And all we need is education and refinement and civilization and so on, and we'll gradually become perfect. The fact of the matter is that self is essentially and basically bad. And the only way in which a man or a girl, a fellow or a girl, may realize themselves is by total surrender to Jesus Christ, in order that they might begin to live. Now you see, you only begin to live when you come to know Jesus Christ personally. Now you say to me, but listen, if I was born like that, and there's something in me that's anti-God, and I'm prepared to admit that that's perfectly true, I don't see why I should be blamed like that. After all, if I've got a bad temper, look at my father, he's got a worse one. And if I'm awfully mean and touchy and jealous, well look at my folks, they're all like that in the family. This is hereditary, can't help it, we were brought up like that, see? It's been in our household, you don't know me, you say, and don't know my family. I don't see why I should be responsible for that, why I should be blamed for it, my dear fellow and girl. God doesn't blame you for it one little bit. He doesn't hold you responsible for it, but I'll tell you what he does do, he holds you responsible for staying like it. Oh yes, he holds you responsible for remaining in that condition, because Jesus said, I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. He that hath the Son hath life. Now my great question to you to begin with tonight is, have you really stepped into life? How do I begin to live? Well of course you know the favorite text of so many people, which is quoted by millions of people, but not always, but very frequently misunderstood and misquoted, John 3, 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now don't get away with this idea, that everlasting life means it sort of goes on forever. Well of course it does, but that isn't the real meaning of the word at all. It hasn't to do in the sense of duration, but it has to do in the sense of quality. Everlasting life, eternal life, the life of the ages, is not simply something that's going to go on forever. As a matter of fact, whether you have Christ or not, you will go on forever. There's part of you that just goes on. This little body will one day be put in the tomb, and put in a coffin, and well it'll be good to get rid of it, but you'll go on. You'll go on, you see. And when the Lord Jesus, when John says, he that believeth on the Son of God, hath everlasting life, he's speaking about a quality of life which Christ imparts to the man who comes to him. Well then the text simply says that I may have this on the basis of belief. Oh yes, but what does it mean to believe? Let me explain to you what it does mean and what it doesn't mean by using two simple illustrations. One of them perhaps you'll know, the other one you probably won't know. There's a man once called Blondin, heard of him? Great expert on tightrope walking. And one day he was going to give an exhibition of tightrope walking over Niagara Falls. And he gathered a huge crowd to watch him do it. And mind you, if you've ever been there, it would be an absolute disaster if he slipped. Like one day I was sitting behind a pilot in an airplane way far from here, and I said to him, excuse me sir, have you ever had an accident? And he looked down at me and he said, we only have one accident. I asked him no more questions from that point on. Well you see, it was a bit like that. And here is Blondin setting out on his tightrope to walk over Niagara with a colossal drop on either side of him, when suddenly in the front of the crowd he noticed a little boy about nine or ten years of age absolutely gaping at him in hero worship. So he looked at this boy and said, son, do you believe I can walk on this tightrope over Niagara? Sure sir, of course I do. Son, do you believe I could carry you on my back on this tightrope over Niagara? Yes sir. All right, come jump on my back. And that little boy turned and ran for his life, absolutely terrifying. He believed in Blondin all right. But my other little story, which perhaps you won't know, concerns a little village in Kentucky, in one part of the state, a very poor state. And this particular part of it is very, very poor. And the little village has a name that is incredible, but it really deserves it. If you saw it, you'd agree with it. The name of it is Viper. It's a little village called Viper. And in Viper there's a little grocer's store, a little grocer's shop. And there there's one man who has a little place there. And one day he was way down in the basement counting his stock. Semi-dark. Gone from the ground floor, way down, removed a rickety ladder and gone into the darkness to check what he had down there, when suddenly he heard from above him, Daddy. And so he walked along the darkness of the basement and looked up and there was his little boy gazing down at him through the hole. And he looked up and said, yes, son, Daddy, I want to come to you. Oh, all right, son. And he held out his arms in the darkness and said, all right, son, jump. Oh, but Daddy, I can't see you. No, son, but I can see you. Jump. And the little boy jumped and he landed right in the arms of his father. Now look, the first boy believed in Bondon. The second boy believed in his daddy. The first boy believed all he'd ever heard about London. The second boy believed all he had ever heard about his daddy. But the first boy refused to believe onto Bondon. And the second boy believed onto his daddy and committed himself to his daddy and fell right into his arms. The late Dr. Campbell Morgan says that faith is volitional surrender in answer to intellectual conviction. That's rather a astounding statement, but it's awfully true. Volitional surrender in answer to intellectual conviction. And if I may just put that very simply to you, it just simply means this, that to believe in Jesus Christ and the sense of being related to God by faith in him does not mean simply that I believe all about him in the sense that I believe historic facts in the Bible. It doesn't mean simply that I believe in him as a person who lives, but it does mean that I so have recognized his authority as Lord and Master that I have committed my life completely to him and I am his. This is faith. Faith is not a statement, it's a step. Not a statement of doctrine. What a statement that was from my good friend George Duncan today when he said that some people are as sound as the devil. Well that's true. The devil's a first-class fundamentalist. He believes everything you ought to believe. He's too much of a fool to be anything else. Not such a fool to be anything else. He believes it all, absolutely everything he should believe, but he's a devil and he's in hell. And you may have intellectual conviction about certain truths and you may believe your Bible from Genesis to Revelation, but until there's come a point in your life when you have committed that life in totality to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you haven't begun to live. Have you got life? I'm so afraid of some people who get awfully near to this but don't quite get there. May I illustrate a moment? Years ago I used to play rugger. Played for Northumberland, against Yorkshire, several times, and against other counties around here. I remember on one season I suppose, oh am I not getting old, it must be before you were thought of some of you, but I remember years ago playing a championship match between Northumberland and Yorkshire, and it was the final match of the county championship of that season. It was a very important game, we were playing at Howell, and everything depended on who won this match as to who was the champion county. What a battle it was. Just about two minutes before the end of the game, Yorkshire were leading by one drop goal, which at that time was four points, to nil. Just before the last whistle, one of our three kids got hold of that ball and dashed through the opposition and scored a way out at the corner flag. Yorkshire four, Northumberland three. Now you all know, and I imagine in this enlightened country, that when you play rugby football, a try has to be converted. And this is done by bringing the ball back 25 yards at right angles from the place where it has been scored, and it has to be put between the upright bars over the horizontal. Well you know that day, I shall never forget to this day, it rings in my mind, it's registered. I remember the ball being brought back and placed down on the ground, and I remember the silence that fell upon that great crowd that day, for everything depended on that kick. If the try was converted, Northumberland came back to Newcastle victorious. If we missed it, we went back beaten. I was awfully sorry for the fellow having to take the kick, especially if it happened to be me. And I remember I walked back about 10 yards from that ball, and I looked at it, and I was a way over by the touchline, and the goal was over here, and the angle seemed impossible. And you could have heard it, the only thing I could hear was my heart beating. And I was conscious of all those eyes being glued on me. And I ran up those 10 yards, and I gave that ball a terrific root, and it soared right up into the air over the top of that horizontal bar between the upright. And I heard all that crowd yell, he's got it, it's a goal! But do you know as that ball began to come down, a little gust of wind got hold of it. And you know, it just slightly deflected its course, and it hit one of the upright bars, and it came down on the wrong side. Well, I'm sure you're really sorry for me, but that's good news. Do you know when we went back to Newcastle from Hull that evening, there was a fellow on our team, we had our own private coach, and on Saturday evenings, for reasons which I needn't enter into, he was a little talkative. And on this particular evening, you know, he got very talkative, and he looked at me, and he said to me, he crossed the train there, and said, and I'm putting this in evangelical language, he said to me, I wish you'd missed the rotten thing altogether. If only you'd turned round and kicked it into the grandstand on Saturday evenings. Fancy getting so near that you actually hit the goalpost! You see, if you think about it, it didn't make one scrap of difference. I could have turned round and kicked it in the opposite direction, or I could have done exactly what I did. In either case, we went back to Newcastle a beaten team. Also very near, but not quite. I'm glad you have a good laugh at the story, but I'm concerned that you think about the Prince, and here tonight, I am convinced there are hundreds of young people in this tent, many of whom perhaps are very, very near, but not quite. I am come that you might have life! Have you got life? Church membership, baptism, confirmation, whatever it is, religion, but no life. Intellectual conviction of certain truths, but no surrender of your will to the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. And believe me, life doesn't come until God has captured not only your intellect and your emotion, but your will. And to be a Christian marks the end of a regime in your life where the puppet king of self has been on the throne, and it marks the beginning of a new regime when the Lord Jesus Christ steps upon the throne of your heart. That happens. I am come that you might have life. But Jesus said also, I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. And if there's anything for which Keswick stands, it is abundant life. It is possible to have life, but not abundantly. Like a little boy of whom I heard a little while ago from my good friend Lawrence Love, a little boy who one night fell out of his bed and his mother rushed up to see what had happened to him, and he said, I'm so sorry, mummy, but I think I must have gone to sleep just too near where I got in. And I wonder if there aren't some Christians like that, and some folks here in this tent, some young people like that tonight. Oh, you have life. There was a day in your life when you made, in quotes, a decision. When you decided for Christ. I don't want to enter into controversy, but that's a phrase I don't like because I don't find it in the Bible. When you made your decision. But listen, it isn't decision that decides your destiny, it's direction. And what happened following that decision? Has your life been directed and turned around and started on a new course, or hasn't it? For if it hasn't, then that decision is not valid in the New Testament sense of the word. Has your profession of faith been followed by a life that is being transformed until day by day it's less like yourself and more like our wonderful Lord? What is abundant life? You remember the Lord Jesus said elsewhere in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel, when he spoke to that woman of Samaria, he that drinketh of this water shall thirst again. And he spoke to her of a well from which she was drawing to satisfy her thirst. You go on drinking for something outside yourself, and you'll never find satisfaction. But he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. For the water that I shall give him shall be within him a fountain springing up, bubbling up into everlasting life. A little later on in the same Gospel, in the seventh chapter, he says this. If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. For he that believeth in me, out of his inner man shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Holy Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. Here is life, and here is abundant life. Here is an overflow. Here is a surplus. Here is a victorious life. Here is life that's fresh and invigorating, that comes from within. For the moment I am born again of the Spirit of God, the moment I come to Christ, I have him in my heart, and I have all that is of the Lord Jesus. But you see, I know no abundant life until there comes a moment in my life when he has all there is of me. I wonder if that's taken place. I wonder if there's been a moment when there's been a total commitment of your heart and life to the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. Not that I would suggest to you that you could be a Christian by receiving Christ as your Saviour, and then later on, when it suits you, crowning him as your Lord. I don't think the New Testament teaches that. To this end, Christ both died and rose, that he might be Lord. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord thou shalt be saved. And I am sure there is no experience of salvation that is genuine in the New Testament sense of the word, which isn't supported by a total commitment of your life to the sovereignty of Christ there and then. Ah, but you see, there's no finality to that experience. And there comes a time very often in the young Christian's life when God begins to put his finger upon this habit and that habit and say, this is not my will for you, this is my will for you, that's not my friendship that I desire for your life, it's this. This is not my place that I want you to work, it's this. And the Holy Spirit begins to deal with us and speak to us. And at any moment in my Christian life and in yours, I may resist the sovereignty of the Lord. I may reject what he says. And at that moment, though I shall never lose the life that came when I received him into my heart, I shall lose fellowship with him and I shall never enter into abundant life. Let me just illustrate. We have a little child at home, she's ten. Like most little children, she's got quite a strong wonk power. You know, not so much willpower, but wonk power. And I remember one morning a little while ago now, she came into breakfast a little late, and not in a very good humor. She got out of bed the wrong side. And she was a little difficult to handle that morning. Well, we believe that there's a particular part of her anatomy designed for the administration of justice. And so we duly administered justice. And she retired into her bedroom, howling her head off. Not howling because the particular part of anatomy was sore, but howling because her pride had been hurt. Howling because of resentment and anger and temper. And she went away and howled. Well, when she'd gone away, my wife and I prayed together, because we felt now this is sad, and this must be culprit, and the Lord must speak to her about this. Oh, about half an hour later, the noise of howling ceased, and there was a little cry saying, Mommy, Daddy. And so we went in, and there were tears of repentance. I'm not saying to you that this hasn't happened again, but I am saying at that moment there were tears of repentance and thought. She put her arm around our neck and said, Daddy, Mommy, I'm awfully sorry. Now, you know, in that half hour, was she still our child? Oh, certainly. As a matter of fact, we loved her probably more than ever at that time, because we were concerned for her more than ever. But what had happened? She hadn't lost her relationship to us. She was still just as precious, but I'll tell you what had happened. She'd lost her fellowship. And there was a break in fellowship between her and her parents, which was restored at the moment of sorrow. And you know, as a Christian, you may have life, and then at one point you may say no to the Lord Jesus. You may reject his sovereignty and refuse his control, and that ends the possibility of abundant life and victorious life. And at that time you have not lost your relationship, but you have certainly lost your fellowship. And then your Bible grows dull, and your prayer life goes to pieces, and your devotion life falls completely apart, and your whole Christian experience becomes uninteresting, and you begin to say, I haven't time to pray. That absolute nonsense costs you time to pray. But the whole trouble is that when you do seek the Lord in prayer and round the word, when you do, he begins to speak to you about that one thing in your life where you're resisting, and you know that you cannot pray as long as you resist, and you cannot read your Bible as long as you resist the sovereignty of God, and therefore perhaps in some of your lives you've stopped praying. And you're still Christians, but oh, there's no joy. And the thrill of victory isn't there, and the reality of the indwelling Christ isn't there, just theory, doctrine, you know, shibboleth. You can use the language and sing the choruses, but he isn't precious to you and real to you. The song has gone out of your heart, and the rage has gone out of your face. Have you come to Keswick like that? Why, I remind you tonight that Jesus said, I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. The thief has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But he's come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. You know, years ago now, I was spending a holiday in Scotland, and walking one day up the side of one of Scotland's lovely lochs, seawater lochs, and I did so, I noticed a man in the middle of the loch up to his waist fishing. He was letting out the line, pulling it in, letting it out, and pulling it in, and as he pulled it in, do you know, he bent it double. And I knew there must be something at the other end of the line, so I got very impressed, and stood and watched, but nothing happened, he just went on letting it out, pulling it in. So, guessing what was taking place, I said to him, excuse me, sir, but what are you doing with that fish? And without looking round at me, but just going on doing this, he said, and drowned. And I looked at him, and I thought to myself, what does he think I am? Good night, the thing's a sheer impossibility. I didn't say anything, but I just stood a moment, feeling a little bit crestfallen, when he suddenly turned to me, and he said, you needn't look at me like that, he said, I am. He said, I've got a great big salmon on the end of that line, and he held on to one hand, you know, letting it out, he said, if I pulled that salmon in now, it would snap my line, it's too heavy for me, it's too strong for me, and if I tried to pull it in, it would break my line, but I'll tell you what I'm doing, I'm playing with it, I'm playing with it, and I'm tiring it out, and I'm exhausting it, because it's only a live salmon that at the spawning season can come in here, and swim against the current, and I'm just playing with it, and playing with it, till it's so tired, that I can turn its head downstream, and it'll get water in its gills, and it'll drown. I looked up a book on fishing, and found he was telling me the truth, that's the thing that staggered me most, it was true, only at that time, at that spawning season, do those great seawater salmon come in there, and they swim against the stream, but oh, do you see what that man had to do, he had to play with it, he had to tire it out, and eventually turn its head downstream, and drown it. My dear fellow Christian, if you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ tonight, any of you, let me say this, that Satan is bent on spiritual murder, the thief has come to steal, to kill, to destroy, you belong to God, you're his by right, by creation, you're his by redemption, you're not your own, you're bought with a price, by creation, you're his by redemption, you're not your own, you're bought with a price, and Jesus has come to live in your heart, if you've received him, that he might have life, and have it more abundantly, but Satan is on the attack, and he'll do anything to keep you back from victory, back from abundant life, back from the life of deliverance from sin. I don't think that the average Christian troubles Satan very much, to sufficiently lower the standards of Christian living, New Testament living, not to cause any due unconcern to the powers of darkness, but if I speak tonight to some young people who are just sick of the way they've been living, just tired of defeat, and fed up with compromise, and knowing that their Christian life are not getting anywhere, and they've lost their fellowship with the Lord, and the radiance of their lives, and you long to get back into victory, and blessing, and power, I tell you, Satan's on your track to steal, to kill, and to destroy, and he'll play with you, and he'll deceive you, and he'll exhaust you, and he'll put the glamour on everything that he offers you, and he'll refuse to show you the hideousness of it, and the fatality of it, until he's tried to drown you by turning your head downstream. But against that enemy there stands the risen Lord who offers to you tonight life more abundant. Is that the life you want? May I just give one simple further illustration, then I close. Years ago I was speaking at a Youth for Christ meeting at that delightful Midland resort, Stoke-on-Trent, and I remember after the meeting I met a man who was in the Salvation Army, and I've never forgotten that man, what a radiant testimony, his face just glowed, and he told me the story of his conversion. Do you know he couldn't read or write, neither could his wife, but one day he went out to a street meeting, and there in the open air he received Christ into his heart the Saturday night, and the next morning he went off to the holiness meeting, and he came back for lunch absolutely miserable, and his wife said to him, what on earth's the matter with you, I thought you got converted last night. Yes, he said, I did, but you know, he said, everybody at that meeting this morning had a great big red jersey on but me, and I felt so out of place. Oh, she said, that's simple, I'll knit you one, so she knitted him a colossal red jersey, for he's a very big man, and he went out the next Sunday morning with this great red jersey and so proud of it, but you know he came back just as unhappy. Now, she said, what's gone wrong with you this time? Oh, he said, everybody else in that meeting had great white letters written on their jersey that I couldn't read, and I hadn't anything in my jersey, looked all wrong. Oh, she said, I don't know what to do about that, I can't read or write, but you know, she sat the next morning at her window, and she looked across the road, and she saw a man suddenly arrive outside a shop with a ladder, and he got up the ladder and climbed to the top of the shop, and he began to paint a sign over the shop window, and she thought, I know what I'll do, I'll copy everything that man's writing onto my husband's jersey, and you know she did, and he went out the next Sunday morning to that Salvation Army meeting, and he came back absolutely thrilled, and you know, he said, my dear, they all said to me, I got the best jersey of anybody. Do you know what he had written on it? This business is now under new management. I want you just in the last two minutes, three minutes, to answer this simple question. I wonder, I wonder who's managing your life tonight. It is possible to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but dominated by the flesh. It is possible for you to have Christ, but Christ not to have you. It is possible for you to have forgiveness of your sins, but to have no deliverance from sin. Do you want life more abundant? The life that counts, the life that wins. Well, that life may be yours this evening, by the very, very simple act of bringing every part of your life under the total authority, by the ending of every controversy in your heart with him, by stopping arguing with God, by letting the Lord Jesus have you. Are you prepared to face that? That's basically the fundamental he wants to give you tonight, the abundant life that overflows through you in blessing to others. That life can be yours right now, but it means you come to Calvary and it means your resistance to the will of God is ended. It means your battle with the Lord is stopped, your arguments with God are finished, and it means you come to him with humble, wholehearted, complete submission. Are you prepared to face that? Shall we bow together in prayer?