REAL OR UNREAL?

^[p. 446] REAL OR UNREAL?

John 12: 4 - 6; Acts 8: 9 - 24; Luke 10: 38 - 42; John 11: 20 - 27

I have learned by observation and report that most of my hearers are christians, and it is only right that I should preach to them according to all I know them to be. Scripture supports this principle of preaching to christians. Paul wrote to the Romans. He had in mind to visit them and to preach the gospel to them also. He had never been there. If he went to Rome as he intended (he did so, or rather he was taken there as a prisoner), he would, as having access to the meeting room of the brethren, preach to them. If they needed to have a gospel letter, they certainly needed a gospel preaching.

Then again, another fact arises as to the people of God as assembled as we are here now. That is that there are camp followers. Scripture says that, as Israel went out of Egypt, a large number of a mixture, a mixed multitude, went with them. In Exodus we are told that they went with the people. In Numbers we are told that they lusted, and that they caused the people to weep, so that these mixed people, this mixed multitude, needed to be converted. Israel represented, in the Exodus, those that were the people of God. Typically they were the people of God, but the mixed multitude were not the people of God. So it is today that a mixed multitude are among nominal christians and even among those whom we know to be genuine christians, among the dear brethren here tonight. A mixed multitude is usually present, whether few or many, and the principles of christianity require that we should take this into account. I address those here tonight, not accusing any who may belong to the mixed multitude, nondescript christians, having no attachment — unattached people, therefore having no sense of obligation to anything, perhaps not even to ^[p. 447] God. They may speak, or boast even, of their independence and the freedom of choice which they think belongs to independence. They are targets of the devil. They have really no protection against him, and this is a very solemn matter, because they are quite unaware of their exposure and the consequences of that exposure. In keeping along with the people of God they retain their independence. They are immune to the rules, the government of the house of God. The apostle’s remark: “That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3: 15) has no reference to them, in their minds. They may come to meetings like this and retain all that independency. In the mind of heaven they are just camp followers. Not that heaven resents their presence, nor is there any evidence that it resented the presence of the camp followers in the wilderness, but it certainly resented their lusting, and their provocation of Israel to weep and to complain.

In the wilderness the presence of God was understood and was there in the midst of the people. A godly father might look out of the door of his tent and see the divine fire, the symbol of the divine presence there and return to his rest comfortably, his children, as it were, with him in bed. The divine protection is there, but we suppose some of them are not with them. Some of them hiked off in the wilderness with other persons of their age. What they can see in the wilderness is very little, but still children are wayward and restless and like to escape parental domination, and any father who missed one of his boys would say he is not under the protection of that pillar. Some beast may kill him. Some devil may get hold of you. You have gone out among the camp followers. You are not taken into account in the camps. The camps were governed by the pillar of the cloud. When it moved, they moved, but there is nothing said of the camp followers in regard ^[p. 448] to that. They are independent. They are people who have shown that everything is optional, even to going out and exposing themselves to the wolves, the lions, or the wild beasts.

The Lord Jesus was among the wild beasts in the wilderness. None of them overcame Him, but they did overcome a young man such as I was speaking of, but now you are here where there are no wolves or lions. You are amongst the people of God, the camp of God, to whom the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud refer. And so every parent lies down comfortably, if all his children are with him in the tent, and he sees they are under the divine fire and protection. They are in salvation. They are where God is.

And so it is that everyone who is not in the fellowship is among the camp followers. When the people are numbered, six hundred thousand, twenty years old and upward, no camp follower is numbered. You have selected that and God leaves you there, but in christianity, as I was saying, we are all concerned about you. All of us who belong to the camp want you in. As Moses said to one wilderness child, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good”. That is what we say to any camp follower here. Israelites are not children of the wilderness. They are children of God. They are going to heaven, to this Canaan, and this meeting is for you, but, as I was saying, I am speaking to the Lord’s people, because they need help from the gospel, as well as the camp followers. For the camp followers the word is, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. Unless you come under the law of God in the camp, wisdom is not yours. The fear of God is a part of the testimony, to proclaim the beginning of wisdom, but the saints themselves need the gospel. I need it, I am sure. I love to listen to the gospel as it is preached. It is always fragrant and always instructive, and it always appeals to the heart as well as to the conscience. It is a peculiar matter with God, the glad ^[p. 449] tidings of God concerning His Son, the great theme above, and the Holy Spirit coming down here in power shows that it should be heard, that everyone should hear, and that the speaking should be intelligible.

And so, in considering the dear brethren here, it is for the moment to say that certain ones such as I have described may be amongst us, numbered amongst us. These three persons of whom I have read were nominally not camp followers. They were not a mixed multitude. Judas was an apostle. Simon was a convert nominally and consorted with the great evangelist, Philip. He was not a sceptic. And then Martha was known to the saints. She invited the Lord Jesus into her house. She is not a camp follower. She is an interested person, and she has a sister who is a real lover of Christ, and not only a lover of Christ, but one who loved to listen to what Christ said, so that Martha belongs to the real ones.

Now Judas was an outstanding person in the profession, and so it is that one may be a preacher today, not a camp follower. I am not speaking to them now, but to persons who take up their position as christians and are recognized as christians. Judas was an apostle. He was an outstanding christian from the ordinary point of view, but he was a thief. Think of a man passing muster amongst the most outstanding of the servants of God, and yet he was a thief. He needed the gospel more than anybody, and yet he could preach it. May I not venture to say that Judas had converts. I believe he worked miracles. He was one that had immediate access to Christ. He was committed to the bag. He kept the money.

Now why am I speaking like this? Because of the possibility of persons — I am not accusing anybody, nor have I one single person especially in mind — but we may be among the front ranks of the converts of a servant of God and yet be lost. Take that word into your heart. Paul says, “Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway”, 1 Corinthians 9: 27.

^[p. 450] I do not think Paul ever thought he would be a castaway. He says, “For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”, 2 Timothy 1: 12. He committed his soul to Jesus. Jesus spoke to him from heaven when he was an out-and-out persecutor of the saints, and he says to the Lord, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Acts 9: 6: That is how he began. Is there anyone in here who is not a persecutor like Paul, but who would speak evil of the Lord’s people? The Lord would say to you tonight, “Why persecutest thou me?” You are persecuting Christ in speaking of the Lord’s people, traducing them. But now, as speaking of the reality of his conversion, how real it was! — he says, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”. Paul, as a convert, would come out triumphant in that day. “That day” is a familiar term. It is the day of divine discrimination, the day, if I might say, in the valley of decision. Are we all ready for it? Are we sure that we have committed to Him what He will keep against that day? Paul knew that. He had no question about it, but he is speaking about others. He has said elsewhere, “These things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes”, 1 Corinthians 4: 6. “Lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway”. And that word ‘castaway’ means that you will never see God, will never see Christ, but will exist with the devil and his angels. Surely there is no love in us christians to have persons in our midst claiming to be christians, nominally christians, and yet not that — it is no love at all not to warn them. Our kindness is questionable. Why should it be left in that way? Let us tell them, and that is what we are doing now.

Well now. Judas was a preacher. He was reckoned among the brethren and among the apostles. Many of you are saying, ‘I would like to ask questions about Judas. Why did the Lord ever take him on?’ If you were to ask the Lord, He might say, ‘Ask me something about yourself’. A man said to the Lord once, “Lord, are there few that be saved?” The Lord says, ‘That is no question for you. You see whether you are saved’. There is not time enough to answer these questions. The time should be occupied with getting people saved. He says, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate”, because there is a wide gate. If you ask such questions, you may be just going in the wide gate, down the broad way to destruction. Don’t ask why Judas became an apostle. Ask yourself the question, ‘Am I going to be like Judas, doing something among the people of God, and yet a castaway?’ God is impressing us with the reality of things and the danger we are talking about, getting into the broad way and never getting out of it. It leads you to the lake of fire. Do not say to me, ‘Do not use that word, the lake of fire’. It is a good word, a warning word for the light-hearted people who are glib enough in talking about certain things, and yet they are neglecting their own precious souls. You are neglecting the matter of forgiveness of sins without which you will never see God. If you die, you will die in your sins, and you will be raised, too, in your sins, and you will be sent to eternal damnation in your sins. You will be suffering then, and you will never be without it.

Well, now. Judas was a thief. I do not need to go over the history of Judas. I suppose you all know that he was lost, and yet he was not really a hater of Christ. You may say, ‘Well, I have respect for the Lord Jesus and for the saints’. I have no doubt Judas did. Judas was remorseful when he found that his thirty pieces of silver led to the Lord being crucified. He was sorry for it. Hatred of Christ was not his sin. His sin was that he was a thief. The Lord said he was a devil; but when the actual concrete thing comes to light, he is ^[p. 452] a thief. He has his eye on money. I am warning you people about money. There are great opportunities now of earning big salaries, and the devil would use that to allure you to get big salaries and to use the salary to make much of yourself in the world. Lust! Judas was a lustful man. He was a luster after money, and that brought him into eternal perdition. He was so fond of money that he sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. He did not hate the Lord. He was remorseful when he found that his wretched conduct led to the Lord being crucified, and he killed himself. What an awful thing sin is in people. It is the product of lust. Lust, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. It brought forth death for him. He hanged himself by his own hand. Let us not trifle with these things. Young people, do not be lustful. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world”. Judas was a characteristically lustful man, and he lusted after money, but he slew himself with remorse. He was never saved. He never will be. He is one of the most solemn characters in the Scriptures.

Well, now, Simon, about whom I read in Acts, had money. He was not lustful after it. He already had it, maybe from his magic arts. Palm readers and the like make money. They get money for what they do. Anyway, he had money. His lust was the lust for power. He wanted to be a great man, and he was. The devil made him a great man, but it is wonderful to see that a preacher of the gospel came into the town and preached the gospel, and Simon became a convert. He believed Philip. Scripture says that. It says, “To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptised, both men ^[p. 453] and women. Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptised, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done”. Well, surely he is the outstanding convert in this campaign of Philip’s. That is what most people would say. The newspapers would maybe take account of him, this man whose name was great. He was “the great power of God” in the community and, if you please, he is converted. Surely he is becoming the talk of the town. Simon is converted. Not only is he converted, but he is baptised. Not only is he baptised, but he is wondering at the things that are being done by the Spirit of God in Philip. Can there be a question about him? That is what most people would say. Many people would make a thousand times more of Simon’s confession than the confession of the others. Well, he is consorting with Philip. He is at Philip’s preachings, and he is wondering at what is happening. Surely he is a saved man, but is he? Does the fact that you consort with the Lord’s people, attend the meetings, and profess to enjoy what is said prove that you are a christian? It does not. God alone knows what the motives are behind your attendance at the meetings of the christians. You are making a point of it that you are in every way like them. What they are enjoying, you are enjoying. You cannot make any money at that, but he is hoping to. He has been a great man, and he hopes to be one again in another way. He says, ‘This is greater than the thing I have had, and maybe I will get into it’. Well, the other christians did not get the Holy Spirit, and Simon would say, ‘Well, they are not much different from me’. Nobody is talking about the Holy Spirit. It is a question of listening to Philip and rejoicing in the light that came from the gospel so far. Jerusalem had an eye on that. If you are attending meetings and behaving as a christian and you are not a child of God, Jerusalem has an eye on you, and is going to send someone — the Spirit of God.

^[p. 454] Peter and John came down from Jerusalem. Heaven is attentive to this matter. Samaria had heard the word of God, but that does not mean that everybody in Samaria had heard the word of God, nor does it mean that everyone in this town has believed, but Simon had. Jerusalem did not hear about Simon. I am not saying that — the scripture does not say so. They are concerned about the work of God in Samaria, and they send out two men, Peter and John, to see about this matter of the Holy Spirit. If you have not got the Holy Spirit, you will be exposed when John and Peter come down. Those who are really subject to the gospel will get the Holy Spirit. That is what the scripture says, that God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. You may not get it automatically as you believe, but you will get it. You should not be without it. Peter and John come down, and they pray there. It is a question now of the Holy Spirit. He had not come on any of them. This is a serious matter. Philip would be praying constantly about this matter. Why are these converts not getting the Spirit, and why is not this great man, Simon? What a fine preacher he will be when he gets the Spirit. The most spiritual of us may fail to discern you. You are among the people of God perhaps for other motives than genuine ones. Peter and John, when they came down, “prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for he was not yet fallen upon any of them, only they were baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit”. Well, what about Simon? Did he get the Holy Spirit? Well, now, listen to the next verse, “But Simon, having seen that by the laying on of the hands of the apostles the Holy Spirit was given, offered them money, saying, Give to me also this power, that on whomsoever I may lay hands he may receive the Holy Spirit”. He did not ask for the Holy Spirit in the ordinary sense of the word. He was concerned in the bottom of his heart all the time about power to give the Spirit to other people. ‘What a great thing this would be’, he says in his heart. That is to say, he has the lust for power in his heart — power to make himself great in this world. That is what he had in mind — the desire to give the Holy Spirit to other people. Think of the distortion, the darkness in his mind. Peter says, “Thy money go with thee to destruction”. It is a most solemn thing that he should be imposing upon the people of God, careful to be just like them, and yet when Jerusalem comes in in prayer, there is a real uprising of evil in his case. The rest of the saints apparently get the Holy Spirit. It is in the saints. It belongs to believers. It is a certainty that those who believe in the Lord Jesus and get forgiveness will get the Holy Spirit. It is your portion. God gives the Holy Spirit, it says, to those who believe. Simon wants to be a great man. He is lustful for power, and he is hoping that he will get it on these lines among these christians. He is consorting with Philip. He is behaving as one of them, but Peter says, “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money”. You are using that; you are attempting to get the power to give the Holy Spirit like that — and it is abominable to heaven. “Thy money perish with thee”. He might say to Peter and John, ‘I will give you money. You need it for travelling’. Peter had been using money. It was the Lord’s money. Barnabas had been putting his money, donations, at Peter’s feet, and he had been using it for service, but not that money. “Thy money perish with thee”. That is a most solemn thing. It shows the awfulness and the reality of God’s operations among His people when anybody assumes to be one of His people who is not and is governed by other motives.

Well now, there is a considerable difference between this man and Judas. There is no hope for Judas at all. There is no evidence that the disciples of the Lord even prayed for him. He is a son of perdition, and there is ^[p. 456] no hope for him, but there is hope for Simon. Peter says, “Thy money perish with thee”. Let us just say, I would like to be fair to everybody, there is a question now and there is hope. So it says Peter tells him his money is to go with him to perdition, because it is defiled money. It is a terrible thing he is thinking of. He says, “Because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money”. It is an insult to God, an apostate idea. And then he goes on to say, “Repent”. If there is anybody here within the range of what I am saying, there is hope for you, bad as your case is. I would say now to you in grace, ‘There is hope for you’. I am far from saying that a man like Simon is a lost soul, that he will never be saved. Peter says to him, “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee”. He is not a devil. He is not called a devil. He is a lustful man and wants power. But still Peter says, ‘Repent. There is hope for you’. And that is what I would say to anybody here tonight, that the real way out of that terrible condition is repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You will be brought into the christian circle and get the benefit of it. Peter said, “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. Then answered Simon, and said, Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me”. That is all. That is where Simon is left, and I cannot tell you whether Simon was ever converted, but I can tell you that there is hope for him. He says to Peter, “Pray ye to the Lord for me”, and the Spirit of God says no more. It is a questionable case. He disappears from the pages of the Bible at this point. Whether he will appear again as one of the saved in the future who can tell? Let us hope he will. I speak of it thus so that, if there is anyone ^[p. 457] who is exercised here, there is hope for you on the line of repentance.

Well now, there is only just a moment for Martha. You can see how she is with the people of God. She is not like Judas or Simon. She has a sister and a brother whom Jesus loved, and John tells us that he loved her too. John tells us that. Luke does not. If we were just to read Luke, we would have to say that Martha’s case is also questionable. If there are any here like her, you cannot afford to risk John coming in to tell the final tale.

Martha criticised the Lord, and yet she received Him into her house and closed the door, and said in effect, ‘Lord, You are not right’. “Dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?” She is impeaching the Lord Jesus, and the Lord says, “Martha, Martha, thou are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful”. He did not say, ‘You are insulting Me after inviting Me into your house’. He says, “Thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful”, and I would say to any sister here tonight who is given to criticism of the brethren, ‘Do not forget the beam that is in your own eye’. I would say to anyone in that category, ‘Be careful whom you are dyeing with a questionable reputation’. People will say they are not sure whether she has gone to be with the Lord, but John comes in to save the position and tells us that the Lord loved her, and that He loved Mary and Lazarus, and he tells us that when the Lord Jesus came to Bethany after Lazarus had died. You know, when death takes place in a family, it stirs us all up. It is intended to. Did the Lord have in His mind that Martha might be saved through the death of Lazarus? Did He allow Lazarus to die? He stayed away two days that Lazarus might die. Was it not to save Martha? How far the Lord goes, how much pains He takes with us to take away that stigma of positive unbelief of heart. The Lord knew better. He knew that Martha ^[p. 458] had something, and He stayed away two days for Lazarus to die. How many husbands have been taken that wives might be saved, and the loss of a wife so that the husband might be saved, the loss of parents that children might be saved.

So the Lord had been to Bethany before, and He came to Bethany in His own time, and Martha is the first to go to meet Him. There is hope for her now. When she heard that Jesus was coming into the village, she went out to meet Him. John is delighted to tell us about this sister. She is no longer in question. In his next chapter he says she was one of those that served when the Lord Jesus came there the second time, six days after this. Now she comes, and she meets the Lord. What does she say now? She does not say to the Lord, ‘You are letting Mary sit there when she should be helping me’, but there is a little bit of criticism yet in her. It is a habit. How long the habit of criticism takes to die. It is an antichristian habit. And so she says to the Lord, “If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died”. Why did she not say, ‘Lord, I am glad You are here’. Well, the Lord took the blame. It is John’s account of things. I want everybody here who may be under question through criticism, or the like, to learn how the matter worked out. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee”. What does all that mean? That means that the Lord Jesus is just the same in her mind — a man who would pray to God and God would answer him. It is a poor thing if that is your estimate of Christ. You are in a dangerous way. But the Lord is ready to help her when He answers this sceptical remark of hers. “Lord”, she says, “... I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee”. You think that is very pious, but it is not pious. It is infidelity. Our hearts are full of infidelity. ‘You can just pray to God and God will do it’. The Lord can do it Himself. He is God. “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”. If you do not believe in His deity, you will die in your sins. She did not believe in His deity so far. She said, ‘You are a pious man’. Well, the Lord says to her, “Thy brother shall rise again”. That is what was dearest to her heart, that her brother should rise again. But undoubtedly what was to become dearest to her heart was that the Person who raised her brother was the Son of God, that He is God Himself. This knowledge eclipses all. Let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he believes that I am He, that he believes and knows Me. Is there anyone here that does not hold dearest in his soul the deity of Christ. If so, he will die in his sins. John’s whole story here is to bring out that He is more than a pious man. He is God Himself. So the Lord says to her, “Thy brother shall rise again”. That would touch our hearts. She needed to know that He was before her, and every one of us here needs to know that Jesus is our God. He is “declared to be the Son of God with power”, Romans 1: 4. Let us not be ignorant about this, without the great thought of the Lord Jesus in our souls, for our enjoyment and salvation and deliverance, for our everlasting pleasure in heaven. So He says to Martha, “Thy brother shall rise again”, and Martha says to Him, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day”. She is just an orthodox person. The Lord is dealing with her as to her faith in Christ. “If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”, is what He says. Get into this truth, the truth of the Son of God. Martha says, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day”. It is a mere orthodox truth. The truth is that christians will rise before the last day. The dead in Christ shall rise first, and those that are here shall be changed, but the rest of the dead shall remain for a thousand years after that, and that will be the last day. If you want to be assured now in your soul of God and Christ, get the truth of the Son of God. Martha did not ^[p. 460] have it yet, but she is going to get it. So the Lord says to her, “I am the resurrection and the life”. This is light to her soul. “I am the resurrection, and the life”. “I am the resurrection”, not I will raise people, but “I am the resurrection”. He is the resurrection Himself. There is no resurrection without Him, nothing but hell. This is important, infinitely important if we are to be in salvation. So He says to her, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”. This is you, Martha. You are not up to this yet, but you are coming to it. So the Lord says, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. You say, ‘I don’t quite understand that’. I often said that myself, but I think I understand it now. The Lord is not always concerned to teach us just by the rule of 1, 2, 3 or a, b, c. Martha is now taking in light. The Lord knew it. She was a good case in spite of her scepticism. She is no Judas, she is no Simon. She is a good case. So the Lord says to her. “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. First he says, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”, and then, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. That is the first word she gets. The Lord is clinching the truth in her soul. “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”. That goes back to Abraham, to David. They lived and believed. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness”. “Though he were dead, yet shall he live”. That is the first truth. He got faith before he died. “Though he were dead, yet shall he live”. Get into that class, the class of people that, although they die, they shall live. Most of us that are here, if we die, we shall yet live. Then the next statement which the Lord makes is, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. That is another class. That is a class of people that will never die. You say, ‘I don’t know about that’. I am trying to get you to know about it and believe it. If the Lord Jesus were to come tonight, most of the people ^[p. 461] in this hall would never die. Living and believing in Him, we never die. If He came tonight, we would never die. What a glorious thought that is. If the Lord Jesus came now, I would not die. Preaching in here to you, I would never die. It is a matter of history. It is a matter of time. But myriads will be in that class. When the Lord Jesus descends from heaven with a shout, the dead in Christ shall rise first. They will come out of their graves first, before we are changed, and then we which are alive and remain will be changed. That is part of the gospel, that there are people that will never die. There are many of the people here tonight that will never die. If the Lord came now, none of us christians would die. That is a glorious thought. I hope you will always keep it in your hearts. But if you do die, the first statement covers you. You shall be raised because you have believed.

Well now, the Lord simply clinches this matter of a soul here. He says to Martha in verse 26, “Believest thou this?” What I have been reading — do we believe it? That is the challenge. The gospel always comes round to that — the question of faith. On the principle of faith to faith, do we believe? Well, she says to the Lord, “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world”, and when she said that she went her way. She is a changed woman. It is a finished matter. There are discrepancies later, but it is a finished matter with her. “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ” is her confession. It is one of the great confessions of faith in the Scriptures. Face this matter. I would urge each one here to come to the decision that she came to and make a confession clearly and definitely. “I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world”.