In this sermon, the preacher discusses the transformation of a man named Solitars into the Apostle Paul. Solitars experienced a moment of humiliation where he realized that a person's worth is determined by the presence of God within them. This realization led to his emancipation and rebirth as Paul the Apostle. The preacher then delves into the argument presented in 2 Corinthians 5:14-17, explaining that the love of Christ compels believers to live exclusively for Jesus Christ. The sermon emphasizes the concept of spiritual regeneration and the purpose of Christ's death for the ungodly, which is to enable them to partake in the divine nature.

In the second chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians, in chapter five. Two Corinthians in chapter five. And we shall commence initially with a statement contained in the seventeenth verse of that fifth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away, behold all things are become new. You will understand at once from the first word with which that verse begins that we have commenced with the conclusion of an argument. Therefore if any man be in Christ. And the moment you see therefore you recognize the fact that there has been a thread of thought, an accumulating weight of evidence that brings one relentlessly to a certain conclusion. As somebody has once said, if there is a therefore then you must ask what the therefore is therefore. Wherefore the therefore. But I have deliberately chosen to introduce you to the conclusion of the argument that we may work backwards essentially, and to discover the implications of the argument. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And that statement is qualified by the little word if. If any man be in Christ, he is. A categorical statement of fact, a new creation. All things are passed away, behold all things are become new. If a man is in Christ that is a fact. It isn't a hope, it isn't wishful thinking, it isn't even just in the realm of probability, it is a categorical statement of fact that if a man is in Christ he is literally a new creation. If he's in Christ. It is not true if he is not in Christ. It is not true of you tonight if you are not in Christ, but if you are in Christ you have become a new creation. Now this is a verse that I'm quite certain is familiar to most of you, but I believe that we need to examine in closer detail what is involved in being in Christ. An expression that is constantly used in the New Testament. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ. But what if a man is not in Christ? We shall largely come to understand what it means to be in Christ only against the background of what is involved of not being in Christ. If a man is not in Christ, where is he? How would you describe the man who is not in Christ? The answer is given to us very clearly in the first epistles of the Corinthians and in the 15th chapter. 1 Corinthians and chapter 15. In the 21st verse of that chapter, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Verse 22, For as in Adam all die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive. So there in that one verse that diametrically opposed the one to the other are the two possibilities. A man who is not in Christ is still in Adam. These are the only two possibilities. A man is either in Christ or he is still in Adam. And I'm going to ask your attention for the first few moments as we examine the characteristics of a man who is still in Adam. First of all we are told that in Adam all die. In the 5th chapter of the epistle of Paul to the Romans and the 12th verse we are told that as by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men. And there is absolutely no exception to this rule. In Adam all die. Better still, in Adam are all dead. And that throws us right back to the fall of man into sin and what happened when Adam believed the devil's lie and died by faith. In a lie. And to understand what happened in Adam when he repudiated the basic principles of his own humanity, we need to understand something of the nature of his humanity. And although we shall not discuss that in great detail this evening, we recognize this first fundamental principle of man's humanity. That God created man to be inhabited by God, for God. The purpose of God in man's creation is declared fairly and squarely for us in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, let us make man in our own image, and in the likeness of God made he is. And we all fully understand that when God made man in his own likeness this was not a physical likeness, but that man was created in such a way that an invisible God could become visible in terms of his humanity. But that man in himself did not have what it takes to produce any adequate image of the nature of God. But that man was created in such a way that God in man, indwelling him by the divine light, would become the origin of his own image, as the electricity is itself the origin of the effect that we call light. We may say that these lamps produce light, but of course they don't. We could throw the mask to switch and they would hang uselessly from the ceiling and this room would be plunged into darkness. It would be as dark inside as it is in the night outside. The electricity is the cause of its own effect. The lamp is the vehicle, the lamp is the medium through which the invisible electricity makes itself visible in terms of light. And that's the simplest illustration that I know of God's purpose in man. For no man has seen God at any time. But it was the purpose of God in creating man that he, the invisible God, should be the cause of his own effect in man, light, the glory of which we heard this morning. What happened in Adam when he fell into sin was that he believed the devil's lie about the basic nature of his own humanity. For Satan came to man and said, you can be man in your own right and you do not need God to be man. You can be God-like without God conscious. And so a lamp tried to be the cause of its own effect and produce light without electricity. Could you imagine what would happen if it were possible for these lamps suddenly to repudiate the basic principle of their own function? Could you imagine what could happen if I could somehow speak to those lamps and they could hear what I was saying and act on the impulse of it and say, stupid lamp, whoever persuaded you that you needed electricity. You can be a lamp in your own right, you don't need to throw your own big chest out and demonstrate your own self-sufficiency. God! Those in the lamp could hear me and believe me and act on the assumption that it was true and insist on being the origin of its own image, the cause of its own effect. What would happen to those lamps? Plunged into darkness, they'd still be lamps. Now basically that's what happened when man fell into sin. He repudiated that attitude of dependence that released the divine life in terms of his humanity. He ceased to be in the image of God his maker. He forfeited what it takes to be man. God created man to be God-like, and something happened called the fall of man into sin by virtue of which man forfeited what it takes to be God-like. God! For it takes God to be a man, as God intended man to be, and that is why it takes Christ to be a Christian. For a Christ, for a Christ in a Christian puts God back into the man. That's what's involved in conversion. That's what's involved in what we call spiritual regeneration. The moment Christ comes to indwell, the Christian God is back in the man. The life of God in the soul of man. And that's why we're told in the fifth chapter of the epistle of Paul to the Romans in verse six that when we were yet without strength, in other words without what it takes, in due time Christ died for the un-God-like. And the moment you recognize the fact that Christ died for the un-God-like when they didn't have what it takes to be God-like, you recognize that once the purpose of his dying for the un-God-like who didn't have what it takes to be God-like, why did he do it? That the un-God-like who don't have what it takes to be God-like might have what it takes to be God-like. That by the exceeding great and precious promises they might become again partakers of the divine nature. Simply that according to his divine power they might have all that pertains to life and God's life. So we have to recognize from the very beginning that God's purpose in redemption is the restoration of man to his true humanity. Not just to get guilty men from hell to heaven. Christ died to make man, man again. As God intended man to be. That's why a man in Christ is a new creation. But in Adam the first thing we know about a man is this. He is spiritually destitute. Ephesians 4, 18, he is alienated from the life of God. He is severed from that divine nature which in man must exclusively be the origin of the divine image. God himself. A man in Adam is spiritually dead. Though surviving physically his spiritual destitution. Physically alive, soulishly active, spiritually dead. Capable of behavior because it does not need God for a man to behave any more than it needs God for a dog to behave. The fact that you do or do not know God does not determine whether or whether you cannot behave. It simply determines how you're going to behave. The first thing about a man in Adam is that he's spiritually dead. Utterly, totally destitute of that divine content that could ever allow him or enable him to implement the function of his creation to bear the image of the invisible God, to receive his glory. Now what's the second thing we know about a man who is in Adam? That by his fall into sin he not only forfeited the divine content for which he was created, God himself, but that in his spiritual destitution that alienated him from the life of God, his soul was invaded by an alien principle hostile to God, not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It is a principle that is described in the Bible as the flesh. It has its origin in Satan himself. It is not to be confused with the physical body, for there is nothing intrinsically sinful about that wonderful human body with which God has been pleased to clothe you. There may be something very sinful about the way you use that body, but there is nothing very sinful at all in the body itself. But you see, there was a satanic principle, an evil sin principle, that invaded the human soul, that prostituted man's humanity, abused and misused him, so that instead of his members, this body becoming the instrument for righteousness under the divine sovereignty of an indwelling, almighty Creator God, his members became the instruments for unrighteousness. True righteousness has its origin exclusively in God. Unrighteousness has its origin exclusively in Satan. He that committeth sin is of the dead. It's this principle of which Paul speaks in the second chapter of the epistles of the Ephesians, and you happy quickened who were dead. Entrespas isn't sin. Paul is writing to dead men who have been raised from the dead, but he is referring them back to their previous walk before the new principle of human behavior had been introduced by that spiritual resurrection or restoration of divine life that you and I call spiritual regeneration, or in simpler language, the new birth. You were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, this godless society of godless men, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversational behavior in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and whereby nature, the children of God, in which at one time you walked habitually, you were following the course and fashion of this world, you were under the sway of the tendency of this present age following the prince of the power of the air. You were obedient to him and you were under his control, this demon spirit that still constantly works in the sons of disobedience. This is the principle that is elsewhere described as sin. Sin not to be confused with sins. Sins which are the acts that derive from sin as the principle, the fruit that stems from the root, sin. It's this word that Paul uses in his epistle to the Romans in chapter 7, seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and verse 15. I do not understand my own actions. I am baffled, bewildered. I do not practice or accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I loathe, which my moral instinct condemns. Verse 16. If I do habitually what is contrary to my desire, that means that I acknowledge and agree that the law is good, morally excellent, and that I take sides with it. However, it is no longer I who does the deed, but the sin principle which is at home in me and has possession of me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. This principle that has prostituted my humanity and made me an enemy of God my maker. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out. For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am ever doing. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it. It is not myself that acts, but the sin principle which dwells within me, fixed and operating in my soul. Souls under sin. So we discover that the man Adam is not only destitute of divine life, he's spiritually dead, but he is dominated by an alien principle that makes him the enemy of God, because it is itself hostile to God, not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It is lawless, and that is why the outworking of this principle is lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. A defiant, pig-headed, stubborn, hostile attitude to God that repudiates man's basic humanity. God created man to be inhabited by God for God. God himself in man exclusively to be the origin of his own, the cause in man of his own effect. Exclusively the origin of all true righteousness. Spiritually dead, dominated by and walking after the flesh. What's the third thing that we know about a man in Adam? It's this, that if nothing happens to change the situation, he will die physically as he was born physically. Spiritually dead. The Lord Jesus speaking to the Pharisees in the 8th chapter of John's Gospel. John's Gospel in chapter 8, and verse 23. And he said unto them, you are from beneath. You stem from this godless society of a fallen race, the seed of a fallen animal. I am from above. Ye are of this world. I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sin. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin. Unless you enter into a unique relationship with me, you will die as you were born. In your sin. Spiritually dead. Yet in your soul to survive the disintegration of your body, and in its mortality to stand at last morally responsible before the God who made you in the humanity that you have robbed him of. A man in Adam, spiritually dead, dominated by and walking after the flesh. And if nothing happens to change, to die in his sin. Now that's the program on the one hand. This is characteristic of the man who is still in Adam. This is the characteristic of any man or woman or boy or girl, no matter what family in which you may have been born, no matter how much you may have been tutored mentally in the facts of the Christian faith. This is the condition tonight in which you still are, if there has not taken place in the infinite mercy of God that spiritual resurrection whereby God on God's terms has restored to you that divine content that makes you man again. As God intended man to be. A body that has become the temple of the living God. Now, would you turn back to that verse, the 22nd or the 15th of 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians and chapter 15, verse 21. Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. By one man death, by another man resurrection. We know who the first man was, his name was Adam. And in him all are dead. Who is the second man? Christ. And all in him, which is the correct word order, all in him shall be made alive. I want you to notice in the same chapter, verse 45, that the Lord Jesus is described as the last or the second Adam. Verse 45 of chapter 15, so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul. And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Verse 47, the first man is of the earth, the second man is of the Lord from heaven. I want you to notice that there have only been on earth at any time two men who function as God created man to function. Only two. The first was the first Adam, who in his innocency and before he believed the devil's lie and acted on the lie he believed, implemented that purpose for which he was created. He enjoyed and he shared and he declared the glory of God. This was Adam in his innocence. And God walked with him in the garden in the cool of the day. He enjoyed in his innocency unbroken fellowship with God his maker. And enjoyed the smile of God his maker. In the very image and likeness of God his maker. This was the first Adam. And he died. And since the first Adam fell into sin there has only been one other man who ever fulfilled the function for which man was created. Only one other man ever walked this earth of whom the Father looking down from heaven can say, this is my beloved son. Who was tempted in all points like as you are and yet without sin. Who though God did not consider to be robbery to claim this equality, but in his own free volition, though he need never have done it. Deliberately as God made himself nothing. Took upon himself the form and fashion of a man. Deliberately subjected himself to those limitations which he as God had imposed upon man as his own creation. And demonstrated for thirty-three years on earth the principle of divine living. By virtue of his relationship to the Father. The Father that dwelleth in me. He doeth the work. I want you to know said the Lord Jesus that for every step I take and for every word I speak and for everything I do and for all that I am the Father himself is the origin of his own image and the source of his own activity. And without my Father I can do nothing. This was the perfection of his manhood. I want you to understand that when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world he did not come to be for a man and he did not come to regenerate man. When the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world he came to be the second man. Man as he as God had intended man to be. Man as he as God had created man to be. And that is why if ever you and I want to know how to behave as a Christian. A redeemed sinner restored to his true humanity to function on earth on the way to heaven as God intended man to function. We've got to examine very, very, very closely the life of the Lord Jesus himself. As we were so ably reminded this morning. As the living Father hath sent me and I live by the Father. He that eateth me shall live by me. The second man. And for 33 years on earth the Lord Jesus demonstrated that utter dependence of man upon God. That is the divine principle of God-like work. Why? Would you turn back now to the fifth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians? To Corinthians in chapter 5 and verse 14. And the examination that we have already made is an essential background against which alone we can begin to understand the argument that leads to the conclusion of the 17th verse. For the love of Christ constrains because we thus judge that if one man, man understood, if one died for all there was only one good reason for it. Then we're all dead. There could be only one possible justification for the fact that this man, the man of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Word, God in Christ. There can only be one possible justification for the fact that he, one man, died for all men. What is it? All were dead. All without exception. For in Adam all died. It is important maybe at this juncture that we should clarify our thinking in this particular respect. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world he did not come to save guilty men from future death. When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world as perfect man he came to raise dead men from death. The consequence of your sin is not the possibility that one day you will die in consequence of your sin. The consequence of sin is that you and I without exception were born dead in Adam. The gospel is not a deliverance from a future impending threat. The good news of the gospel is an invitation to dead men to be raised from the dead and live as the first man Adam in life believed a lie and died by faith and the like so dead men may believe the truth and live by truth. This is the gospel. I want you to see this evening as never before may be that your conversion, your spiritual regeneration is nothing less than a spiritual resurrection. The restoration of life to the lifeless when Jesus Christ came as the sinless second man that ever was to lay down his life upon the cross it was to kill death dead and bring life, life, immortality to life. I want you to know this that if one day you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your redeemer you were raised from the dead. That's why Paul writing to the Ephesians says you have to be quickened so we're dead. He's writing to resurrected men and a Christian is nothing less than a resurrected man woman boy or girl who was dead but is alive again and if Jesus Christ the one man died for all men it was only for this good reason that all men were dead and he saves us out of death into life. Jesus said I am come that you might have what you don't have life and that you might have it more abundantly. He came to switch the lamp for in him was life who was in the beginning with God and was God and by whom all things were made. The word in him was life and this life that was in him was the light of man and he that hath a son hath life. What should you therefore anticipate of the redeemed sinner who has been reconciled to God on the basis of his atoning vicarious sacrifice and has been restored to life which life is the light of man. You should see the glory a restored image God like. Anything less than this is not enough. Anything less than this involved in conversion is a shabby imitation of the real thing. It's a parody of what God was at when he sent his son into the world. A quickening spirit who raises the dead. If one died for all then were all dead. That's the first fundamental statement of fact. The next in verse 15 and that he died for all. That they which live and that is not all. He died for all because all were dead. That of the all who were dead they which live who have been raised from the dead who by believing the truth have stepped out of independence back into dependence, out of death into life, darkness into light. That they who live this great company of redeemed sinners out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue who have called upon the name of the Lord have claimed mercy though they never deserved it. The mercy that grace provides. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's great. That they which live should not live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again. In other words he emphatically declared is this. That the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for all men who were dead was designed in God's eternal economy to introduce to those who through his death have been restored to life an entirely new principle of behavior. They are no longer to live to and for themselves. They are now to live to and for him who died and who rose again. That of course is why you read in the 8th chapter of the epistles of the Romans in verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Why not? Because judgment has already fallen upon their savior substitute. Because the sinless savior died. My sinful soul is counted free and God the just is satisfied to look on him condemned. And pardon me, but is that all? No. There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. But this is the characteristic of a man who is in Christ Jesus and who has been acquitted by faith. Who walks no longer after the flesh to and for himself. But he walks after the spirit to and for him who was dead but who rose again from the dead. In other words my dear Christian friend tonight you were redeemed through the shed blood of Christ that your total personality might be monopolized by the divine spirit. Re-establishing the Christ rule in the area of your thinking, your mind, in the area of all your attitudes and affections, your emotions. Re-establishing thereby the Christ rule in the area of your will that you exercise once more under a God-tutored mind and God-controlled emotions until your whole humanity becomes once more that human vehicle that declares the divine glory. So that you can say to me to live now is Christ. I become re-inhabited by God, for God, Jesus Christ in me as the father within him. I see it now. This is the gospel. This is what it's all about. I was in Adam dominated by the flesh on the way to hell to die only in my sin. But in the infinite mercy of God he sent the second man in all his sinlessness to have imputed to him my guilt that there might be imputed to me his righteousness and not only imputed but divinely imparted for the living Christ who died for me rose again to live in me. And now he becomes the fulcrum, he becomes the pivot, he becomes the center about which my total behavior patterns must be orientated. Christ in me. The only hope of glory. Christ in me. The origin of his own image. Now to be the cause of his own effects. Is that what happened when you were converted? Is this what you understood by your decision to receive Christ as redeemer? That from the moment of your repurchase by Christ for God your total humanity would become utterly available to his unquestioned monopoly? Is that what you meant when you registered your decision for Jesus Christ? If not, then you weren't ready to become a Christian. All you were ready for was to escape hell and get to heaven. That isn't the object of the exercise. It is that from the moment of your resurrection out of death into life you should henceforth live exclusively to and for Jesus Christ so that he might declare himself in terms of your humanity. Now you'll get the sense of the 16th verse. And we're almost there. In a moment the truth will filter out. It's a little bit confusing in the King James's version, but let me read it to you first. Out of that, verse 16, Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. A little bit confusing that, isn't it? Now I'd like to read that same verse to you from the Amplified New Testament that you'll find extremely helpful. Consequently, in the light of all that I've been saying to you, that a man in Adam is dead spiritually, that a man in Adam is dominated by the flesh and walks after the flesh, his behavior patterns, prostituted by the devil himself, to die only in his sin unless a spiritual resurrection takes place. But because Christ died, the second man, a man in Christ is spiritually alive. He is now re-inhabited by and dominated by the Holy Spirit, so that he may live in the power of the endless life of the Risen Lord. Consequently, consequentially, says the Apostle, for this good reason, on the basis of this unchallengeable argument, from now on, we estimate and regard no one from a purely human point of view. In terms of natural standards of value. Says Paul the Apostle, in the light of all that we have come now to understand about a man who is in Christ, all those standards of value by which in the past we evaluated a man's worth have gone by the board. Now, says Paul the Apostle, I recognize that the worth of a man is no more nor less than the measure in which his total personality is dominated by the Christ who died for him and who rose again to live in him. That is the sole, exclusive, legitimate measure by which a man's true worth may be evaluated. How much of Christ is revealed through him? That's all. So that if I were to come into a church to which I was a stranger, and were naughty enough, I might nudge you when I saw some affluent looking gentleman come in through the door and say, how much is he worth? And if you were caught off your guard, you would say, if he's worth a dollar, he's worth a million. And I would say to you, I'm sorry, you have misunderstood me. I didn't ask you how much money he had got in the bank. I asked you how much he was worth. Because a man can have all the money in all the banks in all the world, and so far as God is concerned, be worth nothing. Got that? You might tell me of the pastor you've called to your pulpit, and I would say to you, what's he worth? You might begin to elaborate upon the degrees that he had accumulated by his scholarship. And a man has the right, and sometimes the duty, to accumulate degrees. But that won't determine his worth. Any man who can learn facts and get the right answer, any man who can earn by his memory so many marks out of a hundred, can attain to any kind of degree, whether it be that of an engineer, or a doctor, or a parson. But your spiritual worth will not be determined by your academic capacity to memorize facts, and commit them to paper, and get so many marks out of a hundred, and satisfy your examiners. You can have all that and be worth nothing, so far as God is concerned. How much are you worth? I want to tell you tonight that if you are a redeemed sinner who has claimed cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ, you are worth no more nor less than the degree to which Jesus Christ is given expression in terms of your personality, your behavior, the measure in which you have entered into his glory. How much are you worth? No, he said, even though we once did estimate Christ from a human viewpoint, and as a man among men, yet now we have such knowledge of him that we know him no longer in terms of the flesh, according to these carnal standards of measure. Says Paul the Apostle, there was a time when I was just Saul of Tarsus, and in common with my fellow men I made a reasonable and intelligent evaluation of the man called Jesus, and according to the best evidence that I had, to which all my colleagues gave their mutual consent, Jesus Christ was the illegitimate child of a lying, faithless woman, who not only professed by virtue of her hallucinations to have deceived an angel, but betrayed the man whom she professed her love. That's the best I knew, and it's what I believed, because everybody believed it, and some still do in the twentieth century. And on the basis of this standard of measurement, how much socially was Jesus Christ worth? Nothing. In terms of education and scholarship, he had no more than would qualify him to stand at a carpenter's bench and be just a common craftsman. Compared with those who were of my class of scholarship, how much was he worth? For I was promoted above many of my equals in the Jewish religion. I was the bright-eyed boy of my class. He was worth nothing. Now, how much was he worth, ecclesiastically? Repudiated by the highest theological authorities of my day. Come on! He had no home to live in, a fanatical rabble-rouser and a troublemaker. He even had to borrow a coin for one of his illustrations. He was an incorrigible scrounger. He lived on other people. He borrowed their donkers. He was borrowed from start to finish. He was born in a borrowed tomb. He was crucified on a borrowed cross and buried in a borrowed grave. How much was Jesus Christ worth by all normal, reasonable, intelligent standards? Do you blame Saul of Tarsus? Had you been one of his contemporaries in his position? This man of doubtful birth, by all popular consensus. A bankrupt from the start, repudiated by everybody that really counted. Socially, ecclesiastically, scholastically, would you blame him? I wonder today, with these qualifications, how many churches would call Jesus Christ to their pastorate? How many mission boards would dispatch him to the mission field? How many would invite him to become chairman of their building committee? I wonder what approval Jesus Christ would receive today. He was worth by all human standards. Now, Saul of Tarsus said, I once estimated Jesus Christ as a man among men. A man in one blinding encounter on the road to demand. He looked into the face of a man and saw the glory of God. And was dazzled by the sight. Thrown to his face in utter humiliation. Looked into the face of a man and he saw all there was of God to be seen. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And in that awful moment of humiliation, there was revealed to Saul of Tarsus the true worth of a man. He discovered that a man is only worth as much as can be seen of God in him. And he was emancipated. Saul of Tarsus died and Paul the Apostle was born. He was delivered from the hollow art of living in a fool's paradise of faulty values. A world of artificial standards anchored to a cloud and blown by every wind effect. He found reality in God. In the face of Jesus Christ.