that excuse is perfectly absurd. "Why is my excuse absurd?" Because God
whom I am chief." I remember one Sunday morning in my church, one of the deacons walked down the aisle to a man of about thirtyfive years of age, who was standing up. My deacon turned to him and said, "Are you a Christian?" "No," he said, "I am not." "Why not become one now?" He replied, "I am too great a sinner to be saved." My deacon said, "Thank God." Then he turned to me and said "Come here, Brother Torrey. Here is a man who is too great a sinner to be saved, thank God." The man stood in amazement, wondering what it all meant. But I understood, and I went down and said, "Is that true?" He said, "Yes, I am too great a sinner to be saved." I said, "Let me show you what God says," and I opened the Bible at 1 Timothy i. 15: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." "Well" he said, "I am chief." He was a hardened sinner; he had run away, from his wife, and gone up to the NorthWest; had gone in for gambling, had laid down 35,000 dollars just a week before, and was it desperate man. "Well," he said, "I am chief." I said, "It means you, then." I said, "Will you accept Jesus Christ right now?" and he said, "I will," and he dropped down on his knees and accepted Christ then and there. He stayed with us about two weeks, and went up to the NorthWest, and came back again, and every night was in the meeting leading others to Christ, sent for his wife, set up a new home, and was so happy that he adopted a little child out of the orphan asylum to make his home complete. He was "too great a sinner to be saved," but he was saved in five minutes. 5. Another man says, "My excuse is different. I cannot hold out." Well, that excuse is perfectly absurd. "Why is my excuse absurd?" Because God does not ask you to hold out. Holding out is not your business. That is the business of the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Jude, verse 24: "He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." Ah, men and women, there is not a man who is able to hold out in his own strength. But, thank God, there is not a man or woman so weak that Jesus Christ cannot keep him or her. A man in New York one night was on the verge of delirium tremens. He had had it again and again. He had committed 139 forgeries, all against one man. He went to the Cremorne Mission, and heard Jerry M'Auley tell how the Lord Jesus Christ had saved him; and when Jerry said, "If there is any one wants to be saved tonight, let them come to the front," he went up the aisle, and said, "Pray for me." Jerry said, "Pray for yourself," but he did not know how to pray; he had forgotten how; the man had gone away down through drink, and was an outcast. Jerry said, "Pray for yourself." And Sam Hadley cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and before he got up he was a transformed man. Some years after I was in Washington, presiding at a conference. Mr. Wanamaker, then PostmasterGeneral of the United States of America, was there, and he said to me, "I want you to come round to my house to dinner," and I went round. And when I was ushered into the