But such an admission brought me face to face with a grave difficulty, for this Bible set a standard of righteousness that I had not attained, and judged all short of its standard to be sin. Remembering that God knows every secret thought you have ever entertained, just measure yourself alongside the standard: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." (Matt. 22:37).

    Confronted with such a standard, can you claim to have lived up to it throughout your life, to have put God first in everything? Just read it again: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." If you can, there is no need for you to read the rest of these pages, for however vital he interest they hold for those of us who has fallen short of God's standard, they can be of no moment to you.

    But think hard - reconsider, for God says in Romans 3:23: "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." And in verse 11 "There is none righteous, no, not one." All have failed to reach God's standard.

    After addressing a meeting on one occasion, a young man asked me, "Do you think it fair of God to set the standard of holiness so high that we cannot reach it, and then judge us for falling short?" I replied, "God has not set an arbitrary standard of holiness as the King sets an arbitrary standard of height for his Life Guards. A man may have all the other qualifications, but if he is an inch too short he is disqualified. God has not really set a standard at all; He IS the standard. He is holiness in the absolute - holiness Personified - and to preserve His own character, He must maintain that absolute standard in all His dealings with  man, irrespective of the tremendous problems it creates for both Him and us."

   My conscience and my common sense compelled me to admit I had fallen short, as far as I was concerned, of God's standard of absolute holiness and that therefore I was a sinner in His sight.

    Quick on my admission of having sinned came God's condemnation in Ezekiel 18:4: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

    Thus, as far as God's standard was concerned, I was lost, and as God's standard was the only one by which I was to be judged in Eternity, I was hopelessly lost. I began to see that it didn't matter at all what I thought, or what my friends told me; the judgment would be on what God has said, not what my friends said. Moreover, because in His judgment we had all sinned, there was no use in looking to my fellows for help, for they were under the same condemnation as myself.

    But this same Bible told me of One, Jesus Christ, Who claimed to be the Son of God.

    He, too, saw that men were lost, that they had forfeited their lives to sin; so He said to His Father, "Father, I have not forfeited my life; I am pure, sinless, spotless; My life is My own; let Me give My pure life in place of man's sinful life, that he may go free." And God said, "Go." Christ tells us in John 3:16 that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." If Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then we have indeed the assurance of salvation; but the difficulty faces us: Is Jesus Christ really the Son of God?

    He could be only one of three - the Son of God, or a deceiver, or an honest man Himself under an hallucination. But when we find Him meeting some of the cleverest men of His day who were purposely sent to catch Him in His words, and so silencing them that they durst not ask Him any more questions (Matt. 22:46), and ourselves considering even from an intellectual standpoint the wisdom of His statements, we may dismiss the last of these suppositions absolutely. Then was His wisdom so great that He was using it to deceive the people? Have you ever heard of a young man associating with swindlers and rogues and because of that association becoming ennobled, pure and honest? No! You admit you have not heard of such a case; but I know a young man who, by the reception of Christ into his life, has been lifted from the basest desires to the noblest manhood, and I simply can't believe that the reception of a deceiver into one's life could so transform it for good.

    The other day I heard a man say, "I owe it to Jesus Christ that I can walk down the street with my head held erect and my shoulders squared to the world. I owe it to Him that I can look a pure woman in the face and grip an honest man by the hand."

    I call to witness the opinion of the whole civilized world that Jesus Christ was at least a good man. If so, then an honest man, and if honest He must have been what He claimed to be, the Son of God, sent to lay down His sinless life in place of your sinful life and mine.

    Full-orbed humanity

    Crowned with Deity.

    Ecce homo, Behold the man

    Ecce Deus, Behold thy God.

    Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

    Hail incarnate Deity.

    At His feet we humbly fall

    Crown Him, Crown Him Lord of all.