Paris Reidhead preaches about the importance of acknowledging our need for redemption and testifying to the work of Christ in our lives. He emphasizes the need to recognize ourselves as our own greatest enemy, in need of deliverance from our sinful nature. Reidhead highlights the significance of Christ's sacrifice in redeeming us from the world's influences and the attacks of the enemy, urging believers to share their testimonies of victory over self, the world, and the devil as a demonstration of God's redeeming grace.

Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So By Paris Reidhead* As our hearts have been carried by this message in song to the testimony of David “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation; whom then shall I fear?” so we are carried again to His Word in Psalm 107 which portion we have just recently read. (Psa. 27:1) You are familiar with it. I trust the spirit of it has confirmed to your hearts this that has been brought afresh to you. Psalm 107 and the 2nd verse. This is a second in a series of messages on the Communion of the Saints. We spoke last Lord’s Day evening on Church Union: Ecumenism in the Light of the Scripture. There was in some degree a negative quality to that consideration, because we sought to see, to understand what is happening in this field of Church Union in America today. Last Lord’s Day morning, the theme was The Communion of Saints. Following that, it became increasingly heavy upon my heart that the Lord wanted me to share with you a further development of this truth. And so, in due course, whether in immediate series or not, I shall seek to do that. Today is the second in this series. We are desirous of remembering that the word, translated Communion can be better understood by us in English at least by its synonyms, sharing, fellowship, participation, distribution. The Greek word is koinonia. Down in Georgia there is a group that have established the koinonia, they have established this fellowship, this place of meeting. Now we are continuing to think about that, but this time directly from the 2nd verse of the l07th Psalm: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy...” Obviously that which is said is of great importance to us, because it has reference to three things that we can, or should, or do have in common. The first of these is an enemy. “Whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.” It is singular, enemy. But I suppose that we would do well to see it in three aspects. First is the closest to us. Second would be next in proximity. And the third aspect of this enmity to you, to me, is more extended, and yet it is equally personal in some respects at least. Your greatest enemy is yourself. My greatest enemy, myself. It is because of what we were in relation to God that we were under the sentence of death. The soul that sinneth, it shall die, was the Word which came. But at the same time that they heard this Word and consented to the Law, they immediately proceeded to sin. The human heart seems to be incurably bad. It is a heart filled with rebellion and treason. It has its manifestation, as we have said in the past, in anarchy. We are described by the writer of Romans in the 8th Chapter as being enemies toward God. All of this has produced a character which God has appraised in these words, wherein He has said, The heart (that is your heart, and my heart) is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Then He proceeds to tell us why He has made this statement. Who can know it? How did I come to this conviction? said He. I, the Lord, search the heart. It is extremely difficult for us to come to this place where we take sides with God against ourselves. That is why there are not more people in the church. That is why there are not more Christians, more people being converted to Christ, because our Lord has established the threshold into deliverance and life on the basis of our recognizing that we are our own greatest enemy. And because people are unwilling to do this, they have spurned Him and rejected Him, and are indifferent to Him. This is not the wrong place to begin if you want to establish a cult. Then you do as the advertisements in the magazine said. You write about the tremendous powers within you, and you describe the great accomplishments that can come by tapping the unconscious and the resources of human personality that have not been exploited or developed. This is the foundation of establishing a cult. Tell man how wonderful he is, what great potentialities he has, and what he can do, and then God and religion, Christ and faith become little props upon which a great man leans, little tools that a great man uses. This perhaps is one of the distinguishing features between Biblical Christianity and cults. Christianity begins with man bankrupt. It is very difficult for us to file for spiritual bankruptcy man helpless, man at the end of himself, and his own worst enemy. He has sinned. He has rebelled. He has betrayed, and he has no god but his own whim, his own fancy, his own desire, and his own appetite. What a terrible place to begin, if you are expecting to have popular support and response. Who wants to be told such a thing as that. Who wants to be told, as God does in all candor and honesty, that from the top of our heads to the sole of our feet in His eyes we are wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores. This is no way to win friends and influence people. And yet this is the very place that God begins. And this is the reason there are so few that go on, because He cuts the ground right out from under us. You see, the Lord Jesus came to save that which was lost. Everyone is lost, but everyone does not know it. And the only ones that can have any participation in or benefit from His death are the lost ones, and if He cannot bring us to the place where we realize our lostness, then He cannot save us. This is the kind of people He came to save. And so, what we do you see is ignore God’s Word, turn our backs and faces from it, establish our own standards. You know everyone would be ten feet high if they could make their own ruler. It would not be hard at all. Just make a short foot, about 6 inches, and measure yourself according to your own standard, and you meet the scale, you are all right. But when we have to take God’s 10 foot rule of His commandments, and stand up against that it is strange how it grips us and breaks us. No wonder there has been such an effort on the part of the enemy to outlaw the preaching of the Law, because by taking this from the proper proclamation of the Gospel why we have disarmed the Holy Ghost of the means He has of preparing us for grace. And, of course, we can only trace this strategy back to an enemy of souls that wants to keep us in blindness and so destroy us. But the first light that brings light is the light which uncovers the human heart and show us that it is full of dead men’s bones. It is filled with iniquity. God’s great work is not saving people, but slaying people. It is much harder to slay than to save. Oh, it takes a look at the Lord Jesus to bring one out of death into life, but the ten-tooth saw of God’s Word has to cut and tear through the thick skin of our sophistication in order to get us to the place where He can divide soul and spirit and show us what we are. But our worst enemy is ourselves. Ingrained attitudes. We are taught from the earliest childhood these various mechanisms by which we adjust to a society organized against God, and controlled by His arch enemy. And so in home, in school, in play, in every association, we are conditioned to cover what we are. Perhaps we could say that most of the rules of so-called civilized society are the rules whereby we acquire a facade and certain practices which make it possible for us to live together. You may have, at some time, read or have had access to a volume, published in England ten years ago, called Nottingham’s Millions. It was a devastating book. It described a condition where in China certain scientists had unleashed bacteria which destroyed chlorophyll and everything living and green was by this creeping plague destroyed. Well, in England, for it was sent there, Nottingham came up with a scheme in which he said that they would choose one million people and would take them into a restricted area, and all the food that would be there would be preserved for this one million. The rest would not know what was happening. The million would not be told of their choice. They would simply be kidnapped and taken in by the government, but all food, all resources would be gathered in so that the million could survive. In five years the plague would run itself out. There was food enough to keep a million but no more. All the rest would have to die. And the startling thing about this particular book was the description that the author gave of the complete destruction of all moral restraint when it was decided by the government that it would be preferable to allow the people to destroy themselves by their own brutality then to try and enforce law to protect life which would only aggravate their ultimate destruction. And when you stop to think that only 22 thousand policemen, 23, whatever it is, or 24, in New York City hold in leash in chains 8 million people, all of whom have the capacity of the brutality of a Hitler or of a Mussolini, or of any of the men across the years and the centuries that have made their names synonymous with brutality, ... May I say that whenever you sense that, whenever you see that, whenever you know that, you realize that your heart is capable of equal sin. This is the strange thing. When you actually come to see yourself, you discover that there is no sin anyone has ever committed, and no extent of sin anyone has ever reached of which you were not potentially capable. Then you consent to what I am saying; that you are your own worst enemy. And David certainly saw this, for he described himself as having been conceived in iniquity and born in sin, and sinning from his birth. He saw himself as altogether sinful. And so when he testifies, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy,” David is not just thinking of certain soldiers that have set upon his capture. He is thinking of his greatest enemy, I am sure. For he makes it explicitly clear elsewhere in his hymns of praise. He has seen his heart. Now, have you seen your heart? Have you? I do not believe that anyone can share a testimony of redemption until they have shared in the revelation of their need. And this is the reason why it is so extremely important that the church should be made up of people of a similar attitude toward themselves, that have discovered what they are, and have seen themselves. And certainly if God could make one group of people come on their face, broken, crushed, hopeless, helpless, at the end of themselves, and another group come in the upstairs window and walk through, stiff and upright, and proud and haughty, the two would never have anything in common. One group has been brought in. The other group has strode in. One has come with nothing. The other one has come with everything. What have they in common? And so in sharing in church life, in the communion of saints, the one thing that begins it all is the fact that we had communion as sinners, whether up and out or down and out. We have seen ourselves. We have seen the capacity for evil resident in our hearts. But you see it was not only that enemy - enmity. David had another. He had an encounter with this. For he discovered that he not only had the flesh, himself, but he also had the world. And so we find that there is another enemy. This Bible says that the god of this world. We would like to think, at least some many would, that Jesus Christ is the governing God of the world today. He is the one in Whom all authority in Heaven and earth resides, and one day He shall control the world and all that is in it. But you see man was given control of the world, and man deliberately turned that control over to Satan. And our Lord Jesus, referring to Satan, said, “When the prince of this world cometh he hath nothing in Me.” (John 14:30) When Satan said to Him in that time of temptation, If you bow down and serve me I will give you all the nations of the world, he was actually making a bonafided proposition. It was within his power to give the nations of the world to Christ in a superficial kind of submission. This was his power, because he was the god of this world. Now this world’s attitudes, this world’s axioms, this worlds principles, and its policies of operation are to be traced back to the one who originated sin and the one who now is called the god of this world. And so we discover that the world system is based upon selfishness, self-seeking, self-gratification. If you would trace the history of those who have come often to power or to great influence you will find that it is at the expense of others. I met some months ago a man that had completely changed his profession. He had been rising as an executive in one area of achievement, but he saw that the future was going to be achieved by stepping on the necks of his fellows, that this was the procedure, in that particular profession, in that particular business, and so something within him revolted. He knew that if he were to refuse to go on in the procedures that had been established life would become intolerable for him, so he left what he was doing, completely changed, and went to a manual craft, and to his own manual labor. For he said, “Only thereby could he in the light of the kind of training he had keep his integrity.” He discovered that there was at least at that time a certain incompatibility between his trying to be a Christian and serve the Lord Jesus Christ and follow the procedures that were being used in the particular profession that he had chosen without Christ. And so he was growing his living, and using his hands in manual craft in order that he might live consistent with himself. Now this was the world, his world in which he found no compatibility. And we find that David had encounters with the world, with deep pressures upon him, temptations. In fact we discover that, because of his own flesh and the world, the world and the flesh teaming up together against this man who was a friend of God, that he sinned. He sinned with the double sin of adultery and murder. The consequence of this was that the sword did not depart from David’s house and his own son Absalom revolted against him and was slain, his heart being broken because he remembered that it was his crimes that had ruined his family. Realizing this, we recognize that we too are called to live in the world. And I believe that David, looking back upon the hold the world had had upon him, its premises, its attitudes, its axioms, its rules, all these things by which men governed themselves in the day in which he lived, he was thinking of the redemption that had taken him out from the hand of this second aspect of the enemy that he confronted. But then there was the 3rd. You are likewise facing this 3rd enemy, and that is Satan. We find it in the New Testament given, in these words, The world, the flesh, and the devil. And so you will discover that just as Satan controls the world, it is also that he has myriad of emissaries that work for him. You see some of us are rather amused and greatly troubled when we find people talk so dogmatically upon such subjects as demons and satanic power in relation to Christians. Four or five years on the mission field would cause some of the people that are so certain of their ground to reconsider. And when I find some that are so dogmatic, the only thing I can say is, Now just where did you arrive at these opinions. And, if they tell me... I have never had anyone that has been so certain ever having expressed, having been on a mission field, where we were with people that worshipped evil spirits by name, sacrificed knowingly and deliberately to Satan. And we have evidence there of the power of the enemy, unquestioned, unquestionable. I talked with Dr. Bloss of the Sudan Medical Service, a Cambridge graduate, and we had certain phenomena that had taken place in our area. You might be interested in it. It was a Totomistic tribe. They were divided in clans, and this was the hippo clan. Just a little ways from where we resided on the Nile River, there had come one of the witch doctors of the hippo clan to this area who was troubled that the clan had gone into shall we say, just sort of had its sun set on its importance. So there was a time of seeking demon power and influence and guidance, and he went down to the Nile River, did this priest, with a great company of the clan followers, and he called, and a cow hippo with a little calf came out, followed him into the village. He made a sacrifice of the milk from the cow hippo, and then walked back with his arm over the head. And I said, Dr. Bloss, does this...., because it was utterly contrary to the nature of the behemoth, this terrible beast, the hippopotamus. And I said, “Dr. Bloss, do you believe it?” He said, “Of course I believe it.” “But,” he said, “one thing, don’t ever ask me that question when I get back to Cambridge, because I will utterly deny it.” He said, Out there they have lived behind their walls and their ivory tower, and they do not know anything, and the least thing I can afford is to be thought a fool by my medical colleagues. But, he said, if they were where I am they would feel like I do about it. But since there is no possibility of their coming I just do not want to discuss the matter with them. Well that is in Africa. That is out on the mission field. But, you say, is there anything about it here? I was down in Dallas, Texas, at the Scofield Memorial Church, and I was asked by the Pastor to give a dissertation on fetishism in East Africa. When I had finished I had lunch with a company, and the Pastor saw to it that Dr. so-and-so, a psychiatrist in the congregation, was seated next to me, and in the course of the conversation, he said, “Well, I would have you to understand that as a scientist I must explain a great many of the conditions for which we find only a term to categorize rather than to define it. From my own conviction I have to explain it on the basis of submission to demon influence and to satanic power.” This was the psychiatrist; this was a man who was seeking to help people. Now the Bible makes it abundantly clear that there is an arch enemy that is opposed to you and all that is precious and real to you. But this is exactly what David is saying. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Now let us turn just a moment. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed. I might have spoken about the nature of the opposition, and then the nature of the redemption, but I am choosing not to talk about the redemption. I want you to see the Redeemer. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed. The redemption is in a Person, do you see? The redemption is in a Person. It is not something He says, but it is something that He has become. Now how can Jehovah, for this is the word, how can Jehovah become redemption? Oh, it is not difficult to understand. The reason He can redeem us from the flesh, what we are, from the world where we live, and from the devil who would control the world and use the flesh is because something happened in Him. And this that happened is that Jehovah became flesh and dwelt among us. David looked for his day, and David knew this time was coming, for he said, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit upon My throne until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool.” (Psa. 110:1) And the reason David could here explain, Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed, was because by view of prophecy and in the mind and will of God revealed to his heart he anticipated the coming of his Lord. And we know that it was in the fullness of time that God sent forth His son made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, under its sentence, under its hold, under its sway, under its power and this redemption is in a Person. It is not something. It is not something that He sends; it is something He has become, He is redemption, “Jehovah is my light and my salvation,” said David in Psalm 27. Now what is the mystery here? The eternal Son, God who has ever been Son, by whom all things were made, in the fullness of time consented to lay aside that which had been His portion from eternity past, His glory, and He humbled Himself to be joined to one cell in the body of the vessel that He had chosen, Mary, and she gave - giving her body to the Father, clothed Him with human personality, and that which was born of her was Emanuel, God come in the flesh, Jehovah. Jehovah now has been manifest in the flesh and the angels said to Joseph, “Call His Name Jesus, for Jehovah-Savior shall save His people from their sins.” (Matt. 1:21) And thus it was that He took upon Himself your form and likeness. He was hungry. He knew what it was to be weary. He knew what it was to be lonely. One of the most pathetic Scriptures is the Scripture which describes our Lord Jesus in the garden there on the side of the Mt of Olives, and it says, “And His disciples went unto their place, and He abode in the garden alone.” (Luke 22:39) Can you see Him? They have been talking together, the torches have been flickering, they burn low, and the light diminishes, and one after another they get up and leave the Lord, until they have all slipped off alone to their homes. And the Lord Jesus has had no one invite Him, no one say, Come to my home, and no one say, Share with me. He has known loneliness. He knew fatigue. He knew weariness. He knew hunger and thirst. He knew temptation and awful pressure. In fact, He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. And of Him the Father said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17) And thus we find that in the fullness of time when He has completed His ministry in the revelation of the Father, what happens. The Lord Jesus, looking down across the years, sees you. He sees you as your own worst enemy. He sees you under the control of the world. He sees you as subject of Satan. He sees you in bondage. And He desires to redeem you. And the only possible way that He can redeem you is to identify Himself with you. And so He reaches down across the years to where you are, and He draws you to Himself so that in the eyes of the Father He stands there before the Father as you. He has identified Himself with your failure. He has identified Himself with your rebellion. He has identified Himself with your sin, with your treason, with your uncleanness, with all you have ever said, all you have ever done, and all you are. And thus the Lord Jesus now has taken His holiness, His spotless purity, and in a sense before His Father’s eyes, He has shrouded this with your sin, and He stands before the Father as you, and He gives Himself up. What? He gives Himself up to that which wicked men can do, for there were men that hated Him, men that betrayed Him, men that railed upon Him, men that buffeted Him, and expressed thereby the attitude they had toward God, which was your attitude and mine. And then we find the world, under its governments turned upon Him. We find that the Sanhedrin sought to destroy Him, and Rome would not protect Him. And thus He had happen to Him all the world could do, and finally we find described in Psalm 31 and 38 the awful picture, and Psalm 22 as well, as our Lord Jesus is there darkness covers it. Have you ever wondered why it was dark at noontime? Well it is not hard to seek, because all the hosts of hell from the realms and regions of darkness came up to shroud the scene, because here is God now laden with sin, and because He has identified Himself with me He is vulnerable, and Satan who is hate says to the Lord Jesus who is love, God who is love, Now I will destroy you. And love looks, and stares Him in the eye and says, Hate, do all you can. And Light says to darkness, Do your worst, And Life says to death, Let’s try your power. And truth says to the lie; Finish it now if you are able. And when there is nothing more that Satan can do, that men can do, the world can do, nothing more that even God can do because of sin, He pours out the fullness of His wrath against me and you in our sin and uncleanness, when the cup has been drunk to its last bitter dregs, our Lord Jesus, looking back at the arms of the enemy, hanging limp, the quiver empty, the sword dulled, and God’s Cup of Wrath emptied, drained of its last bitter drop, our Lord Jesus says, It is finished. Redemption is paid for. And He died. He gave up the ghost, and in the grave, bound, chained as it were, But the 3rd day, that God life which could not die returned to His body, and He was raised from the dead. And in His resurrection triumph He testifies that the power and penalty of sin is fully paid and that redemption is fully procured. And thus we can be redeemed from the hand of the enemy, redeemed from the tyranny of our own trait and temperament and disposition, and nature. We can be redeemed from the world with all its hold and power, and we can be redeemed from the enemy with all its subtlety and strength. Oh, the marvel of it. The wonder of it. The glory of it, that He has redeemed us. Now, this redemption is complete. I have told you so many times. I tell you again because our hearts need be constantly refreshed. There are four words in the New Testament translated “Redeemed,” and they tell the story, and they put it in its dimension, and its perspective. The first little word translated redeemed is, agorazo and it means to go right down in the market place where the slaves were held, and there make the transaction. And our Lord Jesus came where we were held and the question was raised, What will it cost Me to redeem you and to redeem him, and to redeem her. And the answer that came was this, You must give yourself. And He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us in the market place. Then there is that little word, exagorazo which means to lead out of the market place. And He gave Himself for us that He might buy us out of the place of sin and bondage. And He redeemed us from ourselves. And this word exagorazo to buy out of the market place testifies to the fact that He did not want to leave us there in habits and attitudes and traits and disposition. Then there is that lovely word Loose, lusis, lutroo to loose us from our sin. He gave Himself for us that He might break the bondage, break the hold, break the strands that bound us to the world, set us free, that you can walk back in the world and not be subject to it any longer. Oh, the marvel of it, wonder of it. He gave Himself for us that He might loose us. And then there is that lovely word. He gave Himself for us that He might permanently set us free. Permanently set us free so that the enemy of self and the world and the devil would have no force to bring us back into bondage. And if we go back into bondage it is not because force intrinsic in the defeated enemy, but because willingness in our apostatizing hearts. There is no need for it. He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us. Oh, see it. Now, we have seen the opposition. We have seen the Redeemer. Now let us look at the testimony: Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. It begins by the acknowledgement of need. I suppose that no one has ever come to savingly know Christ until under some circumstance, with someone, somewhere, they have testified to their need. This is the hardest part. People that have been in churches for years to have to come to the place where they will say, I have never been born again. I do not have life. This acknowledgment of need is the place of beginning. But, if you are in Christ, you came there. In my own case the Pastor drew me into the membership of the church by securing an acknowledgment of the doctrines, that I agreed with what the church taught. And I agreed with what the church taught because the church had taught it, and taught it well. But I had not experienced what was in the teaching. And so, because I could say, Yes, at the proper time with the proper emphasis there was no hesitation about taking me into the church membership. But there had to come a time. And Oh, I’ll never forget the awful struggle when down at that Camp Meeting there in South St. Paul, Minnesota, where Paul Rees, and John Brasher, and Joseph Owens preached, and I began to realize that something was wrong. First I said I’m only half saved. And then I said, Well maybe there are two kinds of Christian. The kind he is talking about and my kind. And I’ll never forget that afternoon when I went out playing over in the Cudahy Packing Company yard I was disobeying the rules, told not to play on the box cars, and I did. Went over, playing follow the leader, and I happened to be the leader, and I came down the side of the box car, ran around the end, stumbled, flew across, lodged with my arm caught between the ties, and almost under the rail, tried to get up and was pinched so that I couldn’t, and just then a loaded boxcar with meat products came past. It was being shunted down to be part of the train. And I pulled my head as far as I could get, and I couldn’t get it farther than 6 inches away from that rumbling wheel on the track. You know, that moment I knew I was lost. I knew that if I died as I was I would be forever in Hell. If God did not have one, He would have to make one to take care of me. It was a terrible thing to have to, after being a couple of years in the church, and a professing Christian, to have to realize under such stringent and dangerous circumstances I had nothing but words. This is the case. How about you? Have you come to the place where you in desperation have had the first testimony, I am lost, as did the publican, the sinner, undoubtedly a Jew, undoubtedly one that had gone through ritual all of his life, had to say, God, be merciful to me a sinner. This is the hardest testimony to make, but my friend, if you are ever in Christ it is because you have said with God what God said about you. That is the first testimony. Let the redeemed of the Lord say about themselves what God says. This is the hardest part. But if you can simply say, I am lost, and know it and mean it, you are on the way to being saved. Because this is the kind of people He saves. Then what about Christ. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. O yes, you believe Jesus was the Savior of the world, but that is too big. He did not come to save the world. God loved the world, and gave His Son to save sinners, confessed sinners, the lost, and He cannot save the world. He can die for sinners that live in the world, and sinners who are willing to take their place with God in sides against themselves, and are willing to come to Christ and see him dying for them, can be saved. But He did not die to save the world; He died to save men out of the world. And this we have to understand. And so then you have to see that it was not just the world He died for, but it was you. It was you. He was on your cross dying your death, in your stead. He died as you. You were dying that day when He died. Have you seen that? Have you received Him? Then let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Christ died for me, died for sinners, but I am the sinner that is here at the Cross. He died for me. Then after you have testified to the fact that He died for you, then you can testify to the fact that He saved you. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in thine heart that hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. It is made unto the sinner. It is made unto the Savior, and it is made to salvation, because salvation is Christ coming into your heart to bring life. You see He is our life. He does not send it. He is it. And when He comes in He tells you. You can say, Christ has come in to redeem. He has come in to deliver. He has come in to save me. And I know it. And this is how we are in the church. That is why when people are invited to meet the elders, what do we ask of them for church membership? We want to hear them say, we want to hear them say, Yes, I was lost and God showed me. And I saw Christ as my Savior and received Him. And He came into my heart, and I know I have been born again. I have the witness of the Spirit. Does it stop there? No. No. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. What is the enemy? God was not the enemy. He redeemed us out from under His righteous Law, but the enemy is yourself. Now are you testifying to the fact that you are that? Oh, how people hate to say, In me there is nothing but sin. Are you prepared to say that? I know I am altogether sinful. O Christian friend, if we can stop defending ourselves and realize what God said about us is just as true after we are forgiven as it was before. Come to the place, In me and my flesh there is no good thing. Take the Cross. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom He hath redeemed from the tyranny of His own disposition and trait and nature. Can you testify to this? Can you declare this? Is this part of your ministry? Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Have you come to know that victory over yourself? And then of the world, its hold, its grip, its power. Has He brought victory and deliverance? He can, you know. Even though He has provided it, still held by entertainment, still held by activity, still held by these things. Are you still in bondage, childish bondage to these things that decay and corrupt and pass away? Oh, that you would come to know His delivering love that sets you free. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He has redeemed from the world. And what about the oppression of the enemy, and depression of the enemy and all the subtle attacks. Have you come to know the armor? Have you put on the whole armor of God, the panoply of God? Have you begun to know His deliverance, His delivering love? This is part of redemption. For He died not only to save us from what we have done, but He has died to save us from our enemies, from the world, the flesh and the devil. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. And this is sharing, testifying not to what we are but to what He is, not to what we have done but to what He has done. Not to what we have brought in, but to what He has brought us. A true sharing, a true koinonia, a true fellowship is letting the redeemed of the Lord say so whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Do you have something to share? Do you have something to give? Do you have testimony? This is the koinonia, this is the sharing that He expected to be between Christians. But listen. You say, No, I do not. I do not know the joy of sins forgiven. I do not know pardon. I do not know peace with God. Oh, but I want; to. Well then let us begin at the right place. Let us share the fact and everyone that is in Christ has done it. I am a sinner, I need the Lord. Can you start there? I need Him. That is all. You bring your need just as you are. You bring your corruption. You bring your uncleanness. You bring your world of need and He furnishes everything else. Forgiveness, pardon, cleansing, life. That is all He asks. Just come. But you have to begin some place. And that is, acknowledge your need. There is no better time in all the world to do it than this morning, and no better place than right here. This is where we start, sharing. We start on the level of our need, and His provision, and His willingness to meet it. This is koinonia, this is sharing. We have all done it that are in Christ. Why cannot you? You have to do it some time. Why not now. Whatever your need it. Shall we bow in prayer. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed we give this invitation. The whole message has been an invitation. It has been an invitation for everyone who is outside of Christ. You see that He loved you and died for you. You may go out of it here unsaved. You may go out carrying the load of your guilt and your sin. The fact that you know that you have come short of the glory of God and that if you die as you are God will have to make an appropriate place for you because you are not fit, right, for heaven. But you do not have to. If you go out that way it is because you choose to. You see the Lord Jesus loves you so much He is standing right at your door, the door of your heart. And Hoffman pictures that door with no lock or knob on the outside. It is on the inside. And if you will just open it He will come in. And all you have to say, Lord, I’ve need. I’m lost. Come in today, come in to stay. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus. This is how you begin, by acknowledging your need and inviting Him in, because He brings everything when He comes. Dear Christian, if you are here and you are under the tyranny of yourself, He died to deliver you from yourself. He died to save us from the tyranny of trait and disposition. Can you say so can you testify that He has delivered you from habit and attitude, and trait and disposition? He died to. Let the redeemed of the Lord testify to His redemption. But you cannot if it is not real. And the world, have you been delivered from its hold and grip and power. He died to set you free from it that you could walk in it and not be enticed by it and blinded by it. And the enemy, Satan and all the strategy and power would seek to destroy and hurt and hinder. Oh, but there is a panoply. There is an armor, there is a deliverance. There is victory. It all begins with our need. Are you prepared to acknowledge your need? This is the point of beginning. And every step we take in appropriating His redeeming grace. It begins with need. So right now, in this closing moment, what is your need? For pardon from past sins, past guilt? Take it. He died to redeem you from that. Victory over your own personality? He died to set you free. Over the world? Over the devil? Whatever it is. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. Whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. Father, we are here a company of people now that are together but strangely alone because no two of us are in the same place or the same response or attitude to what has been said and what has been heard. Thou knowest our hearts. We do know that the Lord Jesus with all of His infinite mercy and grace and love stands ready to receive us if we will come just as we are, bringing to Him our need, He furnishes everything else. He does not ask us to get ready, just asks us to open the door. He is ready. He has made a banquet feast and He has provided, and He will bring all that is needed if we will just invite Him in. May it be done today. Now deal with every heart, meet everyone that is before Thee, and should there be those that have special need as we trust there are we hope that they will make it known before they leave and will seek prayer and counsel. Now, dear friend, we are not dismissing you to go without offering you some further word of counselor encouragement or prayer. If you would like to while we... Now let us stand for the benediction. “The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be the glory now and forever. Amen.” (Heb. 13:20,21) * Reference such as: Delivered at The Gospel Tabernacle Church, New York City on Sunday Morning, March 11, 1962 by Paris W. Reidhead, Pastor. ©PRBTMI 1962