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  # Philippians 3:20 -- "Our citizenship is in heaven."
  # Ephesians 2:19 -- "Fellow citizens with the saints."

    A little man, so we are told, stands in the presence of the representatives of the greatest political power on earth at that time. He is afflicted in his body; his friends are absent; they have stripped him for the lash, when he asserts himself, and asks, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and he uncondemned?" When the Centurion hears this he goes to the Chief Captain, and says, "This man is a Roman; better be careful what you do." At once the Captain is much interested and he goes to the prisoner and asks him, "Art thou a Roman?" And I can see that little man straighten himself up, and, looking his questioner in the eye, he replies, "I am." The Captain says, "With a great price obtained I this freedom." But the prisoner shouts it out, "I was free born," and as a freeman he goes forth after receiving due apologies.

    An Englishman was taken captive by Theodore of Abyssinia, and after a few months' imprisonment he managed in some way to get word to England that he was detained a prisoner in the Capitol of Abyssinia, by Theodore the King. Immediately the British Empire was at work -- a work that meant business. Ships were summoned, an army was at once gathered, and under the command of Lord Wollesly they set out for Abyssinia. Arriving in due time, they marched towards the Capital and demanded the surrender at once of the captive Englishman, and he was freed, because he was a citizen of England.

    An Austrian came to the United States. In due time he took out his papers and became a full-fledged American citizen. After some years he went back to Austria, and was apprehended by the authorities, and put into prison for evading military duty. He pleaded that he owed none; that he was an American citizen. He got word to the American Consul that he was detained, and the Consul demanded that he be set at liberty. When the Austrian Government was aware the Consul had taken the case in hand, it sent the prisoner on board an Austrian man-of-war in the harbor. The American Consul at once sent word to Captain Ingraham, commanding an American sloop of war in the harbor, that an American citizen was unlawfully detained, in spite of his demand, and was on the Austrian man-of-war in the harbor. Captain Ingraham at once cleared his decks for action, and sent word to the Commander of the Austrian man-of-war, "Put that American on my decks by one o'clock, or I will blow you out of the water." At one o'clock he was there, all because he was an American citizen; because he could say, "I am an American."

    But here is something greater by far: Here is a man who is held by the powers that be; he is in durance vile; a prisoner in the Roman prison, but he knows that freedom is not far of'. He is writing to the Church, he looks down through the ages; he takes in all the children of God in all the years to come. He yokes himself up with them all. He looks beyond prisons, and earthly powers, beyond shipwrecks to which he had been no stranger, and stripes, and he says, aye, I think he stopped and praised God for awhile, as he wrote it, "our citizenship is in heaven." And that is not all. It is not mere emotion, a mere stirring of the feelings, but it stays with him. He is writing to the Ephesian Church, and he says it again, "We are fellow citizens with the saints" -- saints of all ages. That takes us in you and me down here in the Twentieth Century -- "our citizenship is in heaven," We are "fellow citizens with the saints."

    I like to read after Paul. There is a place where he talks about the commonwealth of Israel. He says that once we "were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us ... and came and preached peace to you which were afar off. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone ... in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit."

    This Commonwealth to which Paul and you and I belong, is no fancy picture. It is real, as real as the place where you live. It has territory, the Universe. It has a Capital, a King, Chief Magistrate, Citizens, and future destiny.
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    Let me call your attention to the territory. It takes in all the universe as God Himself knows it. It is all ours. As citizens it belongs to us. I can prove it by the Word, and so can you if you will take time to look it up. When I was a boy I lived in Philadelphia, my native city. Once a year my father would take me to Trenton, N. J., for a visit with his folks who lived there. It was the event of my boyhood days -- to go on the boat up the Delaware River, on the steamer Edwin Forrest, to Trenton. I would talk about it before I started, and for weeks after I got back. It was a big thing to that boy. Since then I have been from the Atlantic to the Pacific States, I have traveled and preached from the plains of Texas to the snows of Ontario. And the United States looks small to me. My vision has so enlarged. I am told that it is twenty-five thousand miles around the earth, and I take it for granted it is so, but it is too small for me. I am headed, as a citizen of heaven, for bigger things. Some of these days I am going to travel as fast as light can travel, one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second, and I am going to explore the territory of our God; for it is all yours and mine. I am going to Saturn and Jupiter; take a small journey to Uranus, then along the Milky Way to the Pleiades; go all the millions and millions of miles through space, and look on the works of Him who made all things by His Word. "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." I am going to listen to the music of the spheres, for the planets "go singing as they shine, the hand that made us is divine. "Wheresoever in His rich creation Sweet music breathes, in wave or bird or soul, 'Tis but the faint and far reverberation Of that great tune to which the planets roll."

    By the good grace of God some day then, in the eternal day of God in which we will live, I am going to explore the City of our God, the Capital City of the Universe. I was in Washington, the Capital of the United States. Having some time on my hands, I took a ride in a sight-seeing auto, With a guide who told us all about the various places as we passed them. He said, "This is the Capitol Building. It took so many years to build it, cost so much money. The Senate and the House of Representatives do business, make laws for you and me to keep. This is the White House where the President lives. When he is in Washington, the flag is always over the building. When he is absent, the flag is lowered. When Congress is in session, the flag is always over the Capitol. Now we are in the Dupont Circle. There is more wealth represented here than in any place on the globe. Here, we are now looking at the home of the late President Woodrow Wilson. Yonder is the Smithsonian Institute. That tall shaft is the Washington Monument, and there is the old Ford Theater where Abraham Lincoln Was assassinated. Just across the street is the house in which he died." And then I remember, to prove that Washington was the richest place in all the world, he said, "Why, the leaves on the trees all have greenbacks, and the birds all have bills, and even the horses have checks." Then we went over to Arlington, the city of the dead, where lie many boys who laid down their lives during the Civil war. There I saw the grave and monument of my old commanders, Philip Sheridan and General Wright. But one of these days when the saints are all home, I am going to have an angel, one of those appointed to minister to the heirs of salvation, take me through the City and point out to me all the places of interest. I expect to ride along the boulevards of the City and have him tell me, "There is the mansion of Abraham, the man who took God at His Word and asked no questions. There is the home of Daniel, who slept all night though lions growled, and enemies were wishing for his death. Yonder is the home. of the Hebrew children, the boys who would not bow the knee to the golden image. That tall home there is where John Wesley lives, though he is seldom home, as he still keeps on the go, looking around and talking to the redeemed he won for God, and talking over the victories God gave them through grace down there where you once lived. In that row over there that is so resplendent with the glory of God is where the martyrs live, and yonder is the home of Calvin, not far from where John Knox, that great man of prayer, lives." And then I expect he will take me to the home of some saint I never heard tell of down here, and he will tell me as I look on the beautiful Home in which they now live, "Their names were never in the papers; the folks did not know much about them. They never wrote reports, but God knew them. They were doing His will so quietly, and so effectively. They lived in basements and on back streets, down there, but God had them always in mind, and up here all heaven knows them. When they came the angels were looking for them and sang their welcome home." I expect to find a wonderful City there. The Lamb is the light of the place. He is the temple. There are no graveyards on the hillsides. The river of life flows through the City, and the tree of life is easy of access to all the saints. Their employment is doing the will of God even as do the angels.

    The Head of the Commonwealth is God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He has all the qualifications that are necessary for a King. Washington was the Father of his country worthy of much honor, but he was an aristocrat, the richest man of his day. Lincoln was the typical American. He was the grandest Man that ever filled the chair at Washington. He was wise, patient, humble, had the vision as no other man of his day had, but something he lacked. Woodrow Wilson was a great president. He had the courage of his convictions. Men failed to understand him, but he kept right on. And today we are seeing that he was right, but he lacked some things. But our God, the Head of the Government, is lacking in nothing. He is omniscient, He sees all things, knows all things; His eyes are ever upon His children. He is omnipresent, ever with them, right alongside, when He is needed. He discerns all needs and supplies all necessities. He is omnipotent, has all power, and it is at the disposal of His children as they look to Him. He said once, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." And He said to His children, "Ye shall have power above all the power of the enemy." His infinite goodness desires only the happiness of His elect, and His boundless love is ever manifested.
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    The government is administered by the Son, and He has all the qualifications needed. He is Divine and Human: He is both God and Man, He is the God-Man, He is the Man Job prayed for when he cried, "Oh, for a daysman who may lay hands upon us both." Jesus Christ in His Deity laid hold of 'God, in His Humanity He laid bold of man and made them at-one. He is the Mediator, and "ever lives above for us to intercede, His all redeeming love, His precious blood to plead, His blood atoned for all the race, and sprinkles now the throne of grace."

    The Holy Spirit is the Agent. He represents the Father and the Son; makes us to know our rights; bears witness to our citizenship; acquaints us with our privileges; tells us that the handwriting of ordinances that was against us is now taken out of the way. There is peace through the blood. Minding Him we have victory; and all that are spiritually-minded mind Him. Citizens are all holy beings. Without holiness it is impossible to please Him, and without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and all who have repented of their sins, and have accepted of Jesus Christ as their Savior from all sin. Here, character is the basis of citizenship -- not rank, not money, not birth, not reputation, but character -- what you ARE in His sight.

    The Government is a theocracy. God is the King and this is God's ideal of Government. When Israel demanded a king and Samuel went down on his face and wept, God said to him, "Getup from off thy face. They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected ME." We talk about making the world safe for democracy, and boast of our republican form of government, but God's plan as shown in His dealings with His chosen people was a theocracy. He will be King, or nothing; He will be all, or not at all. The Psalmist said, "Thou art My Sun, my Shield, My exceeding great Reward." To whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, his servants we are.

    The Government is a government of law, and this law we find recorded in His Word. Dr. Elliott tells me of a five foot bookshelf that is the thing that should be in every home. With all due respect to the late President of Harvard, I beg leave to say that long before he thought of his books which he commended so highly, God gave us sixty-six books, all of them only two inches, and they are ahead of anything and all the books the doctor ever commended to the American people. Obey the law and live. Disobey and die! Aye, Jesus summed it up in the Scripture, "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. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And then just before He 'went up to be at home forever He gave a new commandment, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you." This is the commandment, this is the law, just love. He left us an Example that we should walk in His footsteps, and love as He loved, even unto death.

    The mutual relationship is worthy of our notice: The citizens are all one in Christ. Under the Dispensation of the Holy Ghost there is neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, but ye are all one in Christ Jesus -- not Jew, not Gentile, but just one. This does away with the color line, the bread line; there will be none when the church lives the Book. There will be no distinctions such as man makes now. "One army of the living God before His throne we bow, Part of the host have crossed the flood, and part are crossing now." George Whitefield, while preaching, one time, in Philadelphia, cried aloud, ."Gabriel, have you any Methodists in heaven?" And back comes the answer, "None." "Any Presbyterians in heaven?" "None." "Any Baptists in heaven?" "None." "Gabriel, who have you there?" "All who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Baptists in hell, Methodists in hell, Presbyterians in hell, but no sectarian lines in heaven -- all one in Christ Jesus. Perfect freedom in that city. Each one does exactly as he pleases, and pleases only to do the will of the king. His folks here are the same, peculiar, unworldly, seeking only to know the will of God and to do it.

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  # John 17:19 -- "For their sakes."

    Know a blue-eyed, curly-headed little fellow, about two years of age, who can talk quite glibly, and if you will tell him to do something he will at once say, "Why?" If you tell him you are going down to the city he will say, "Why?" If you propose to do something, he will say, "Why?" His mother and some other folks have gotten so accustomed to hearing that boy say Why, that when they see him at the window they naturally think, "Why?" He stands as an interrogation point, and that is the way we stand before many of the dealings of God with us. There are some things which we would most intensely like to know. There are some things we seek to understand and, standing before them, we ask, "Why?" And God leaves us to the teachings of the past, and to the blessed Holy Spirit, to draw the inferences, and learn the lesson, and get the discipline. And I say to you, there is a discipline in suffering.

    When the ground is broken up by the plow, and the harrow is run over it, then the farmer goes along with a big heavy roller, and crushes it still further, and then the drag goes over it again. Suppose the ground should ask the question, Why? All it has to do is to wait and, bye and bye, the seed that is sown in that crushed, powdered ground will spring up. The rain will fall upon it; the sunshine will nourish it, and there will be waving fields of grain. And beyond that there will be the threshing, then the granary, then the flour mill, then the white bread on the fable, then the men and women growing from the sustenance derived from it. Wait awhile, and you can get the answer. Angelo went into a quarry, and saw an immense block of marble. He had it removed to his studio. He took the hammer, and the chisel, and began to shape it, here and there; he kept on working year after year, and after awhile, we find an answer to the Why? There was an angel in the stone, but it took the discipline of the hammer and the chisel to bring it out.

    Some years ago I was at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and by the courtesy of a friend I was admitted to the Steel Works. I remember the process by which those cannon, and the armour for the battleships was turned off. First, the ore is taken out of the ground, and there it lays, a big pile on the ground. Then they take it over to the furnace, and it comes out pig-iron in fiery molten matter. Then they take it to the Bessemer and, after the fiery testings, it comes out in ingots of steel. Then the ingot is put under a former, and an immense hammer weighing tons is dropped on it and it is beaten into half its former size. But it is of finer fiber and is ready to become armour for battleships, and when placed there, we know WHY the testings and fiery trials. We get the answer by waiting.

    So we stand before the mysteries of life and ask ourselves the question, Why? Listen there is a discipline in suffering. Please remember when you take your Bible and read it, the "Son of God was made perfect through sufferings." It declares here in the Word, that here, in this world, He "learned obedience by the things which he suffered." Only as I stand before the Word of God can I understand the mysteries that come into our lives. Reason fails me; rationalism, explains nothing to the satisfaction of my soul. But I look back over the past, and I see the Second Person in the Godhead -- the Jehovah -- step out of the Council chambers of eternity and declare, "Lo, I come ... to do thy will, O God." As I see Him, I remember that the evangelical prophet had said, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Love was the explanation of it all.

    Wait a moment! Let us go back and look at a picture in the Old Testament, away back in the early ages of the race. I see an old man about to die. He was surrounded by idolaters, and his righteous soul was vexed by their idolatrous practices. He has one boy -- the seed of the promises. He calls his old and faithful servant to his side, and tells him to put his hand under his thigh, and makes him swear that he will not take a wife for his son from the daughters of the land, but that he will go back to his own country and take a wife for him from his own kindred. The servant promises him concerning the matter, and departs, with camels and presents of gold and silver, for the far country. He trusts God and commits the end of his coming to Him. A girl comes out with her water pot on her head, and he makes known his errand. She invites him to her father's house. She has never seen the man, but God has sent that man. And while he was on the way, God was talking to that girl, hundreds of miles away, and preparing her for the message, so when the question was asked her, 'Wilt thou go with this man?" she says, "I will go." And love was the explanation of it all.
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    Down in the city of Philadelphia a woman lay dying. Her husband was a drunkard. He seldom came home without being under the influence of liquor. As the wife lay there dying, the daughter stood by her side. The mother said, "Mary, never leave your father; be faithful to him. I do believe the day will come when God will save him." The mother died; the father kept on with his cups. When he would come home with the filth and mire on him, Mary was true to her promise to her mother. She would wash him and place him in bed; she loved and cared for him. He would say to her sometimes, when he had sober hours, "Mary, how can you do this?" And the answer invariably was, "Father, because I love you." For years she stayed and ministered to that drunken father, until at last he yielded to the ministrations of love and, led by the Holy Spirit to the God of his sainted wife, he was saved. But that daughter went down to death, her health wrecked by her devotion to her father. She was a most devoted Christian character, made "perfect through sufferings." Love was the explanation.

    Down in the South, there was a man in prison. He was guilty of using money belonging to the banks with which he was connected. He was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the penitentiary. He had once owned millions of dollars, lived in palatial style, moved in the first circles of society, but now he is sent off to prison. But, hear it, there was one person who never forsook him, and that was the wife of his younger manhood. She went from one influential person to another, trying to secure for him' a pardon. While others turned against him, she stayed by. He was in prison, clad in the striped garments of a convict, but she never failed him. At last she secured the pardon, and he was a free man. Love explained it all.

    So, I can give a reason for all the mysteries connected with the atonement. I can tell you why the Son of God left Heaven, I can tell you why He suffered. It was because He loved you and me. He did it all for our sakes. Let us examine the life of Christ. I see Him stand in the carpenter shop; I see Him down at Nazareth, subject to His parents. I see Him pushing the plane, driving the nail; I see Him handling the saw. I see Him with hands that are callused and rough, and I want to know the explanation. He was the Son of God. The tallest archangels bowed in His presence. He left it all -- all the glory He had with the Father -- and came and worked in a carpenter shop. The explanation is: for our sakes. He loved us so. Thirty years in subjection to His parents; thirty years down there in the carpenter shop, getting disciplined for future service. Thirty years to get ready for three years of service that ends on the Cross. Why? According to the Word it was for our sakes. I see Him as He goes to the Jordan; I see Him in the wilderness, forty days and forty nights in the wilderness to be tested and tried. The first Adam was placed in a garden, midst perfect surroundings, with but one law, that of perfect obedience. He sold out. The second Adam we find not in perfect surroundings, not in a garden, but in a wilderness, on a mountain top, the roaring of the lion, the growling of the wolf, the enemy to test and tempt; and He bore it all, and came forth more than conqueror, for our sakes, to be an example unto us. Spurgeon says the devil does not have to take us up to a high mountain and show us all the kingdoms of the world; all he has to do with us is to take us to our back doorsteps, and many will not withstand the temptation.

    God help us to get the lesson here for us! Back of His purity, back of His integrity, back of His Christhood, was the discipline of suffering. A great many would serve God, if they could go to Heaven on flowery beds of ease with the applause of the multitude. God wants some folks who will reproduce Jesus Christ in the Twentieth, Century. God wants some folks who will hold still in the furnace. God wants some folks who will hold still in the lions' den, and exemplify His Son. We are to reproduce Him. I want you to get the thought that everything that Jesus met in His life we will meet in ours, and He is our example in order to teach us that we are to learn obedience through suffering.

    Another thought right here: He was rejected of men. He came to His own, and His own received Him not. His own brethren did not believe on Him. One evening at George Street Mission there was a woman at the altar, and all at once she stopped praying and said, "Well, if I do get sanctified, no one will have any confidence in me." God bless you! We want the will of God whether anyone has confidence in us or not. That is not the question. The one supreme question is, "Will we go with God?"
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    For our sakes the Son of God came into the world. For our sakes He was rejected of men. For our sakes He withstood that awful testing in the wilderness. His own brethren did not believe on Him but for our sakes He kept right on. Tradition reads that Jesus was at the carpenter shop one day, and the sun was shining through the window. He stood there with His arms outstretched, and Mary His mother, looking upon the wall beyond Him saw the shadow of the cross. And, shuddering at the thought, she quietly kept it in her heart. The shadow of the cross was on His pathway from the cradle to Calvary. Jesus says in the Word, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." Everything that Jesus met you will meet, if you are going with Him. The carnal mind crucified Jesus, and it will crucify you. This world is no friend to Him, and it is none to you. He said, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you." Thank God, we do not have to seek the friendship with the world. I like that hymn: "Friendship with Jesus, Fellowship Divine."

    And I surely like that interpretation of the Psalmist which says (read the margin) "the friendship of the Lord is with them that fear him." Why? Because I am traveling the way that He took, and what He met, you and I are to meet. The world, the flesh, and the devil, the gods that the worldling meets and worships, are no friends to grace; and, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit, and the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, we are now more than conquerors.

    Let us go a little farther and note the discipline of His everyday life. Now, mark you, Jesus as a Man needed the discipline that came through suffering. God's Word says "He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." He was made "perfect through sufferings." It behooved Him to be made in all points like His brethren, that He might know how to succor us when we are tempted. He did not go outside the Word of God. He did not go outside the will of God. The enemy said, "Turn these stones into bread." And He said, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He would not make bread to satisfy His own hunger. He could have done it. But when five thousand people were hungry, He made bread enough to satisfy them all. He never could have done it, if He had made bread for Himself. He knew the pangs of hunger; they came to Him on the mount where He was tested, and He knew how to sympathize with hungry folks. He would make no bread for Himself, but He would for others.

    What of prayer? As a man He needed to pray, but He never forgot His mission in His own needs. He went up into that mountain to pray, and stayed there all night long. But out there on the Sea of Galilee, rowing mightily to get to land, were the disciples, and the winds were all contrary. Jesus had been up there in the mountain praying, getting ready for tomorrow" sorrow and battle, but He knew all about the little craft on the stormy sea, and the gloom around them.. And He came walking on the sea, stepped on the little bark, and said, "Peace be still." He needed to spend all night in prayer, but He never forgot the disciples in that storm. And in the midst of the storms that come to us, day by day, remember that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father praying for us. Again and again He has come to our little bark and said, "Peace be still." Do you know anything about it? I see Him again, in the hinder part of the ship, and He is asleep. As a man He needed to sleep. For your sake, down there sleeping. But while He is there getting His needed rest as a man, the prince of the power of the air is busy, and the waters of the sea are storm swept. The disciples are alarmed and cry out, "Master, carest thou not that we perish?" To be sure He cares! And He rose up and rebuked the storm, and again said, "Peace be still," and there was a great calm. The Christ was indeed on board, and there never yet was a storm that He could not still. There never was a devil let loose that He could not defeat. Hallelujah! The discipline of suffering will be such a blessing to you that you will thank God for storm's. There is nothing like water for making a rainbow. We have been through some storms that we would almost be willing to go through again to see how our God can quiet storms. Why did He go through that storm on Galilee? For us, for our sakes, to teach us that all we have to do when storms come is just to let HIM manage them. He has never failed. He has dried our tears, filled our mouths with laughter, and spread a table for us in the presence of our enemies. I am glad that He taught us there is a discipline in suffering. I am glad that He went through it for us, for our sakes. Love brought Him down our poor souls to redeem. Do you know what will take us through? Love for Him.
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    Another thought here. In the garden He sweat great drops of blood. I often think of Him going to the garden with Peter, James and John. They went part of the way, and then sat down, and were soon asleep. But He went a stone's throw farther than all the rest. There all alone I see Him before the Father. I see the cup pressed to His lips. I see Him drink the very dregs, and I hear Him say, "All right, Father, even as thou wilt." He is suffering now in agony of soul, and HE did it all for us, for our sakes. "Yes, Father, I separated myself, I left the courts of Heaven, I left the worship of the angels, I left the music of the choirs of the skies, I left the atmosphere of the city, and came down here, taking on myself their nature, for their sakes. Father, the birds we made have nests, and the foxes have holes, but I have nothing but love, Love." He goes down into the garden, and bears your burden and mine. He does it for us. Say, was that all? No; the angels came and ministered unto Him. When did the angels come before? Back there on the mountain, amid the growling of the beasts, after He had resisted the enemy, the angels came. When did they come to Him in the garden? After He had sweat great drops of blood. When will they come to us? When we have stood, when we have had the discipline of suffering. Oh, just to have Him come when other folks leave you, when people sneer, when the iron is driven into your soul, when your heart is heavy, When your cheeks are wet with tears, when the darkness settles down upon you -- to have Him come and minister unto you. He will come. Angels ministered to Him, but He will come Himself and minister unto you. Do you know, my beloved ones, what it means to have Him. come when other folks have left, to have Him whisper to you that you are not alone and never will be, for He has come to stay. Shall we go up to a hill lone and gray, in a land far away, and look on the three crosses? You and I are interested in that middle cross. You remember that when He was twelve years old that He said to His mother, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" His whole life was a journey to the cross. I see Him struggling up that hill beneath a cross. I see Him nailed thereon. I hear Him cry, "It is finished." The race is run. The battles are fought. He bows His head and gives up the ghost. We go down to His tomb, but the angels say, "He is not here: for he is risen. Hallelujah! There are many folks who do not understand us, but you can afford to be misunderstood. God will vindicate you. Some folks say that you will not be vindicated in this life. Well, you and I know of one man God did vindicate. There was Job. He lost everything but His trust in God. His three friends came to him and said, "Job, if you had not done something you would never have been in this plight. All this has come on you because you are a sinner. But Job held on, took another step out in the dark, and shouted so loud and long that it still reverberates along the centuries, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." But after awhile God said to those three wise men, "You did not talk of me as my friend Job did. Now you had better get him to pray for you, that your sins may be forgiven." That was vindication. And more than that, Job had twice as much religion as he had before, and twice as many cattle. Do you want twice as much as you had before? Are you willing to go the way that Job did to get it? Are you willing to be ostracized, have betrayal, rejection? Some folks would say because Job was sick that he was backslidden. But Job knew better, and, best of all, God knew. We learn obedience by the things we suffer. What return have you made? How do you manifest your love? I like that hymn: "I gave my life for thee, My precious blood I shed, That thou might'st ransomed be, And quickened from the dead. I gave my life for thee, What hast thou given for Me?"

    What has your love led you to do? Has it led you to sacrifice for God? Do you wonder that you have been called upon to suffer? It is discipline that is necessary for you. You will get through it, bye and bye; God will not let you there one moment longer than it takes Him to see Himself in you. Some one is watching you, and it may be that for their sakes you are permitted to be tested. Do you want Bible for that? "We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men." We are surrounded by an innumerable company of witnesses, who are watching us. Remember, that if you suffer with Him, you shall reign with Him also.

    Down in a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, there stood an old man and his wife. On a cot lies their only son, dying a soldier's death. When that boy came into their lives they said, "Now we have a boy of our own." And as he grew in years they would say, "He will be the prop of our old age," and the mother would stoop down and kiss him. Then the war came. He enlisted, was wounded in action, and came down to death's door. They wired for the parents, and when they came they saw he was soon to pass over. As they stood there, the old father said, "Mother, take my hand and say it with me, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.'" The mother accompanied him that far, and her voice quivered and stopped. The old man grasped the hand a little tighter, and said, "Come, mother, say it with me." She took another look at the boy and said, "Father, I will. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'" Grace triumphed. Oh, there is a discipline in suffering, but glory to the Name of Christ; He will call us through no darker rooms than He went through before.

    A boy was carrying a lot of boxes, and someone thought he had too large a load, and said to him, "Is not that load too heavy for a boy like you?" But the little fellow said, "My Father knows how much I can carry." He knows how much you can carry, and He will take the heaviest end of it.

    If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.

    "Bye and bye when the morning comes,
    When all the saints of God are gathered home,
    We will tell the story how we overcome,
    And we'll understand it better bye and bye."

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  # Matthew 19:22 -- "He went away sorrowful"

    He went away sorrowful." To live twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years of life and miss the thought of God is my idea of total failure. The Psalmist said, "What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou hast made him lower than the angels for a little While." And there never was a human being created but to start from the very inception of that life -- and I go back farther than that, from the very foundation of the world -- God had a plan for that life; there was the thought of God for that whole life.

    I am not much given to visions, not much given to impressions, but in the Word of God we get the vision of Jesus and we can get the program of our lives. We can and may know the thought of God for us. Jesus said, "The Spirit shall take the things of God and show them unto you, He shall guide you into all truth."

    In the very beginning of this discourse I want to bring before your mind two men, each of whom had a vision of Jesus, each of whom met the Lord, and He gave to each the program for their lives. One was honest; one was sincere. He was on his way to Damascus when he met the Lord, and the Lord threw him to the ground, and said, "Why persecutest thou me?" He said, "Who art thou Lord?" And the Lord answered. "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." He was led inside the city, and God said to a man who lived near enough to Him to hear Him talk: "I want you to go and call on this man I have met just a few miles out of the city and (mark you) I have showed him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." At the very beginning of his Christian life, the Lord meets him with a program for his future. Now, beloved, in that program were apostleship, ambassadorship, stones, stripes, perils among false brethren, among lions, in prisons, and, at the last, to give up his life just as the Master gave it. Amen, Lord! Prisons, Amen! Shipwrecks, Amen! Stripes, Amen! Perils among false brethren, Ostracism, Amen! Death, Amen! I believe he took in the whole program and, voluntarily, this man abandoned himself to all the will of God.

    Let me tell you of another man, one who came running to Jesus. He was a hungry man looking for the Master, with a question upon his lips the answer to which meant all the thought of God to him, and for him, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And from the lips of Him who spake as man never spake came this answer: "Go sell that which thou hast and come follow Me and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." He looks at the program, just as the other man did. He saw it clearly. As he got it from the lips of Jesus, so this man gets the program of his life from Jesus. He had propounded a question that was pregnant with eternal issues, but he stands there and fails to meet the conditions, and went away sorrowful, failing to take the program that divine wisdom, that the infinite God, marked out for him.

    God has a program for you and me. God gives us His thought in His Word, and just as much as it meant to those two men it means to us today. It means obedience; it means separation; it means abandonment, and it also means reward. The program of Jesus Christ means life, not only from the cradle to the grave, but it reaches out through eternity, as long as God shall live. I am glad for such a program. I am glad for the will of God made known to us. I am glad for the whole Bible made known to us. I believe it from beginning to end as the Word of God. I am glad for the MAN of Calvary who got down on His knees in the garden and drained the whole cup, who prayed, "Father, not my will but thine be done." He made it possible for us to take the whole program. There is a program in this world for your life and mine. This man of our text "went away." What did that mean? Away from Jesus, away from God's thought, away from the program ordained from the foundation of the world for him, away into the night, away into the darkness, away to misery, away to death. One of the saddest things in the Word to me is the record made after Judas betrayed Jesus and went away -- "it was night." Oh, the darkness of the soul that turns down the program of God, and goes away, Away! Never mind if the enemy says, "There are the prisons, there are the stones, there are the stripes, there are the perils among false brethren; there is the ostracism; there is the death, the block, the axe. If is it God's will for you, take it, and count it a privilege to take it and keep step with God Almighty Every step you have a battle you shall have the victory, and for every victory there is reward, a crown of eternal life. The old devil told the truth for once when he said Job did not serve God for naught. Thank God, we do not serve Him for naught. We have the peace that passeth understanding; and today we are marching forward not on corduroy roads (every old soldier will understand this), not on sinking sands, not on slippery pathways, but on a rock of adamantine -- the Word of God -- marching forward with the sweep of conquest, looking forward to the eternal day. Oh, thank God for the privilege of having a part in the program, for the privilege of suffering with Him, of getting into the dark places Thank God for the privilege of knowing that whether you suffer, or bear, or are in the dark, you are foreordained to victory! There is a program for every child of God.
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    On the surface of our text we see free moral agency. He went away. He might have stayed with Jesus as the other man did. He might have stayed and listened as did others of the disciples. He might have had the privilege of walking with God. He was at the crucial period of his career. He had come to the parting of the ways. One way leads up, and up, and ever up, an ever-ascending plane, and the other down, and down, into the darkness that is eternal. But he chose deliberately to go away.

    You are a sovereign. You came from the hand and heart and brain of God, a king, clothed with kingly powers. You are sent out to step like a conqueror. You are sent out to have the victory over the flesh, the world, and the devil. These are the gods of the worldling, but in the conflict every day you may enlarge your caliber, make your fiber stronger. You are sent out every day to increase in size mentally, morally, and spiritually, though the path leads through blazing, red-hot plowshares, and devils howling on every side. You are sent out to walk in the footsteps of Jesus 'Christ. You are sent out not only to be a conqueror, but more than a conqueror. You are sent out that you might have the privilege of waving a palm, and decking your crown with stars, putting it down at the feet of Jesus, that you might have the privilege of putting stars in His crown and making it radiant throughout eternal ages.

    Hear it young man, young woman! You can go away; you can go away into the darkness like the man of our text; you can enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; but, if you do, it is to crucify the Son of God afresh and to grieve the Holy Spirit.

    We are living in the midst of eternal verities. We are dealing with moral certainties. We are either believing on Christ, are either following and walking with Jesus, or we are going away from Him. We are accepting the program or we are rejecting it. This young man turned his back on Jesus, refused to walk in the light, and said, "No" to God. He said, "Go thy way for this time," and it proved to be for all time, for we never hear of him again. My friend, if you are weak, if you are defeated, it is because you have said "No" to God, rejecting His program for your life. It is because you knew the price and refused to pay it. He might have paid the price. He might have abandoned himself to God, and let other things go. He might have said, "Thy will for me."

    Beloved, what you are doing? How about the program of Jesus for you? Paul wrote to a young man and said, "Fulfil thy ministry." Have you fulfilled up to date God's program for you? Either you are either doing it, or you are grieving the heart of God. You are either doing it, or you are adding to the burden of Jesus. You have the thought of God for you, and you know what He is asking you to do. Are you doing it? Stop, look, listen! It is important that you should obey God. You have not the peace, the joy, the victory, in your soul. You are missing God's program for you. No matter what may occur; you can be a victor. Yoked up with God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you can defeat all the powers that hell and the devil can array against you. He that is for you is more than all that can be against you. Stop your trembling and get to believing God. Faith is the victory. God bless you, look up! God's people are a conquering people when they measure up to God's thought for them. I remember there was a time when God came to me and talked to me and I said, "Lord, you do not seem to be leading anybody else that way; you are not asking anyone else to walk that way." Thank God, I never, any more, question Divine leadings; it is enough for me to know that it is God. I never hesitate any more. I am saying Amen! Whether He ever asks any other man in the universe to do what he asks of me, I am accepting the whole program. Uncomplainingly? Banish the Word! I am accepting it joyfully. All I want to know is, is it His will? But I am afraid of the programs of men. I do not like to go to conventions where men have put me on the program. I like committees that pray and ask Divine direction as to meetings and preachers. I sometimes question the wisdom of men, but I like the program of God.

    God puts it before every man. It will come to each one. I dare you, I challenge you. Ask God, "What wilt thou have me do?" Mean it from your heart, and in due time you will hear from Him. Jesus was walking along one day and He saw a man sitting at the receipt of custom, and all that He said to that man was just two words, "Follow Me." And he arose, left all, and followed Jesus in the way. Customs, good-bye; Roman office, good-bye;. shekels, good-bye. That is what it means -- separation. Go every step of the way. I was honest. I joined the Masons when I was a young man. I had not been converted very long when they made me a preacher that is, they gave me a license to do the work to which God called me. I knew before I was saved that if ever I got religion, I would have to preach. I did not know the secret of that until many years after I had been preaching, and then, one day, my mother told me that before I was born my parents had given me, their first baby, to God for the ministry. After I was made a Mason they made me Chaplain of the Lodge, and one day a good Christian friend of mine said to me, "You cannot utter the name of Jesus in a Masonic Lodge." I said to myself, "I'll show you better than that." So the next Lodge night, when I as chaplain dismissed the lodge I used the Apostolic benediction: "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, abide with you now and forever. Amen." I had no sooner got through than the Senior Warden, who was in the East that night in the absence of the Master, said to me, "Kulp, keep your Jesus to yourself." I at once told him that when it came to a question of choice between Masonry and my religion, Masonry could go. That fellow was wrong and I was right. I had a perfect right to keep a good conscience, but I was only a youngster and it meant something for me. But 'God helped me. He will help anyone who will go all the way with Him, even though it leads outside the orders to which so many ministers belong. No one says to me, "You do not know what you are talking about." I know, and they know it. God says that separation is the price of victory.
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    Brother, the price of victory is separation. If you are going with God, He will test you before you go very far. He will allow you to be tested. Obedience, then separation. "You say you will follow Me?" "Yes, Lord. Customs, good-bye; World good-bye, Fashions good-bye, world's politics good-bye." O beloved, if you are going with God, you will come clear out of Egypt. Go with the people of God; pay any price, and you will have victory no matter where you live, no matter what people say; you will have victory, for it is the heritage of those who go with God. If you have not victory, there is a reason. You are not meeting the thought of God for you. I declare unto you, that you may have all the salvation that you want; you may be a temple of the Holy Ghost; you may have communion with God all the time. He will walk with you and dwell in you.

    I went into a brother's room and he brought out a record. He gave me a piece called "Old Time Religion." Then he played "God be with you till we meet again." And I said, "Give me that Old-time Religion again; I like that. I am not seeking something new. I am standing in the way, and inquiring for the old paths, and have rest for my soul. I want you to know that I am tremendously, completely, abundantly satisfied." But "how about young men who are In the glow of health?" I am in the glow of health; I stand as straight as any of you, and I can walk as fast. I am in the glow of health and salvation suits me abundantly. I like the program and am measuring up to it. If you choose the world, you may have it, but it means away from Jesus. You may go with the world or you may go with Jesus, but you cannot go with both at the same time. Please bear that in mind. The program of Jesus means separation from the world, and separation unto God. Are you so separated this very hour?

    He went away sorrowful, for he was very rich. He had his eyes on the things of this world, he had his eyes on position, he had his eyes on popularity. The devil is a master painter, and he can make the world look very attractive to you; but, if you go that way, you will miss the thought of the Christ. A man who is called of God to preach the Gospel does not need anything else but fellowship with the Triune God through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Now, do not misinterpret me. You say, "Brother Kulp, what do you mean?" I mean that you do not have to join a lodge to get along, that you do not have to sacrifice your political convictions to get along Onetime a committee was looking for a preacher and they asked some preachers about a man named Kulp. Well, those preachers said a lot of good things about him -- he could do this and that, and the other, but--. Did you ever do anything of that kind? Did you ever say a lot of nice things about some brother, and then look down your nose and say, But? What do you suppose the but was? It was this "But he is a third-party prohibitionist." My, oh my! Was not that awful in a preacher? I had voted a third-party prohibition ticket for thirty years and would do the same thing over again.

    If you are in the program of Jesus you will not have to seek human assistance. You do not have to lean on the arm of flesh. It is vain to put your trust in princes, or bishops, or general superintendents. You take the program of God, and everything that He offers you means a promise goes with it that He will see you through. God help the men and women who are standing around waiting' for a job. If you are in God's program He has work for you as long as you are able to do it, and then at the end, He will give you your last appointment where all the brethren are true, and the Church is eternally triumphant.

    O beloved, it means so much as to whether we go with God or not. If we abandon ourselves to Jesus, He gives us the Holy Ghost. If any man has not the Spirit of Jesus he is none of His. If you abandon yourself to Him, He will take control. Your wife will not be in control. The bishop will not be in control. Your friends are not in control. The Holy Ghost is. They that are after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit. When you have Him, you are just as sweet at home as you are when you are away from home, and in company. You are just as nice to your wife when you are all alone as you are when there are folks around. You are as good in the dark as you are in the light. You are walking abandoned to the Holy Ghost and you have the best company that there is in the world.

    There was a young girl stepped off a ferry boat and a young dude stepped up to her and said, "Miss, may I have your company?" She said, "No, Sir." Not satisfied with this rebuff, he asked her again, and she said, "No, Sir; I have company." "May I ask who your company is? I seen one." And she said, "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost." "Too good company for me," he said, and then left her. God bless you, we are never left alone, and never lonely when we are with Him. I have heard folks say that they feel just as good when they do not feel good as when they do feel good, and just as happy when they do not feel happy as when they do feel happy. Do you know what I mean?

    Out in Kansas a cyclone came along, and wrecked houses and barns and everything in its path. Picked up trees, and everything generally was badly wrecked. It picked up a cradle in which was a baby asleep, and it carried cradle, baby and all, over the fields for half a mile and set it down gently, and the baby never awoke. What was the reason? The cradle was in the center of the cyclone, and in the center there is a calm. Oh, get into the center of His will and be at rest! The devil may start up a tempest; he may set the Galilean sea to rocking and roaring; but he ought to know by this time that He who rides upon the storm can say "Peace be still," and there will be a great calm. Oh, thank God, when He says "Peace," there is calm, and rest! If we are in God's program we have His mind and we are at rest; we are humble. Self-effacement does not hurt us. We can sit in a congregation as well as on a platform, and we can enjoy the sermon just as much. If we have the mind of Jesus we are humble. Our Master was obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
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    One day a brother went into an auction store. The auctioneer was selling a painting. He was standing behind it, almost out of sight, and telling the merits of the picture and the reputation of the artist. The brother got a lesson from this. I want to hold Jesus forth so He will be seen. Brother, are you living so much like Jesus that folks think of Jesus when they see you? That does away with lightness; that does away with trifling. Oh, it means so much to walk with Jesus, and this is God's program for us. When Paul got into the program of Jesus, it was a great thing to look down the years and see what there was awaiting him, and say, "Yes, Jesus! Yes, Jesus!" In the time of Bloody Mary, there were three men condemned to the fire. To make it worse the executioner came to them and said to the first martyr, "You will burn Monday." To the second one he said, "You will burn Tuesday." To the third one he said, "You will burn Wednesday." When Monday came the first one went out to the stake with head, hands and heart uplifted, and he was praising the Lord. But the man who was to be burnt on Wednesday said, "Oh, I can't burn! I can't burn!" Tuesday came, and the second one was led out to the stake, and he went praising God and shouted when they started the fires. But the one who was to burn Wednesday kept saying, "Oh, I can't burn! I can't burn!" But when Wednesday came he came out from his cell shouting, "I can burn! I can burn!" And he passed away in a chariot of fire, shouting the praises of One who never will leave us alone. I heard Bishop Foss say as he told this, "I do not think he ever felt the fire." Beloved, do not be afraid of the whole program. He who walked with the three in the furnace is still the same, and ever mindful of His own. He will be with you everywhere you ought to be, to the admiration of the angels and the astonishment of hell. Do not talk about the days gone by. Our God is the same, and His Word is good everywhere. You do not have to have someone else's experience; you can have one as good as anyone, in any age, if you will mind God.

    We not only get under Christ's burdens when we are in His program, but we joy in His joy. If you are a preacher, you can shout because some other brother is having a big revival. When you see another brother in honor preferred. you can rejoice because God has such men. You will not think that you are the whole thing; you will know God has some folks. It may be seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You will rejoice in anything that makes God glad.

    Some of the old theologians say that the rich man who lifted up his eyes in hell was this young man who went away sorrowful. I do not know, but we do know that he never was worth reporting afterward. We never hear tell of him. The other man went away to shipwrecks. He was on the bosom of the Mediterranean fourteen days and nights; no light, all storm and darkness. It was night when some One stood by him and said, "Fear not, Paul; I will not only save thee, but I have given to thee all them' that sail with thee." The one went out into the darkness and was heard of no more. The other sat in jail with bleeding back. He and his companion began to sing and God did hear and said to an angel, "Go down there and shake that old jail where Paul and Silas are singing and let my servants come forth." Again we find this old man coming forth from a prison -- old, not because of years, but made old by the hardships he had been through. He is covered with the slime and mire of the Mamertine jail, but he walks along the Appian Way with the tread and the air of a conqueror. He has fought a good fight. He has finished the course. He has kept the faith. There is a stir among the angels above and the choir-lofts of Heaven are emptied as they hasten to the battlements of the Celestial City to welcome home this man who kept God's program, for they have heard that Paul is coming Home today. Glory be to Heaven's King!

    Which way are you going? You can take the program, if you will. Lord, I will go. If it means to sell my farm, I will go. If it means give up all my plans for the future, I will do it. Thy will for me. Smash every plan. Let all my ambitions lie in ashes at my feet. Amen! I will not only sing, "Where He leads I'll follow," but I am now following even to the end. Some folks are like a man in one of my meetings where God had called me. He came and said to me, "If I were to die tonight, I would go to hell. I am a member of the church, but I have no power at the family altar. We go through the motions, but no fire falls." Beloved, have you a family altar? Are you living where fire falls from heaven on your souls when you pray? Are you so completely in the will of God that you would not be more so if you moved an inch either way? No chafing there, nothing irksome there. But with the Psalmist you can say, "I delight to do thy will, O God." Get God's program for you and live in the victory.

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  # Isaiah 6:1 -- "I saw the Lord."

    In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

    Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

    And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

    And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

    Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.

    Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:

    And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged.

    Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. Isaiah 6:1-8.

    I believe, firmly, that every soul really converted gets a vision of God, that is brought about by the Holy Spirit, for every really converted person is regenerated -- born of the Spirit.

    I admit that man can see God in nature. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Every planet has been running on schedule time ever since worlds rolled from the fingers of Omnipotence -- never one for one moment a second behind time. I think that it was General Mitchell who said, 'The undevout astronomer is mad." And he further said, "If at any time any planet should be one half a minute behind time consternation would be found in all the observatories because men would fear that the arms of the Infinite had, grown weary." You can see God in nature. We have the seasons, and the day, and the night in accordance with the divine plan.

    We can see God not only in nature, we can see God in history: "His footsteps down the centuries beat one eternal rhyme." It may be only here and there that you can see His imprints, but we know that God is moving. Nations have their judgments in this world. Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. God has been calling the nations to account. The historian has yet to record the history of any nation that has been true to God. God's own chosen people went away from Him and served other gods, built groves on every mountain top, worshiped idols before whom they bowed, forgetting the living God. They had their judgment, they had their captivity, and at last they were so lost that men today speak of them as "the lost tribes," and the rest of them are scattered and peeled, and dwelling as strangers in the midst of almost every nation that has a name.

    You can see God in nature; you can see God in history; you can see God in His providences. Every need of man has been supplied; God has made provision for us. God made wool on the back of the sheep, so that you and I may be clothed; God put enough wood in the forests and enough stones in the ground so that you and I might have homes, every family a dwelling place. He placed the oil so that we could have light and heat; He placed the coal that we might be comfortable with heat and stand the ravages of the zero weather. God placed the gold and silver, that you and I might have the wherewithal to purchase the things that are necessary to our welfare. The providences of God made provision for every son and daughter of Adam. Men have cornered oil. A few men own the coal mines, and the gold mines. Five thousand people in the United States own the great majority of the wealth, but it is all contrary to the will of God. God said that the earth was His, and He made provision in His providences for you and me, and you can read it as you would read . the pages of history. I do not wonder that God has said in His Word, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God?"
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    You can see God not only in nature, in history, and in His providences, but you can see God in His Word. I believe that an unsaved man with ordinary common sense, and intelligence, can see God in His Word. It gives us the mind of God, gives us the thought of God; shows us the heart of God. I get my ideas of my Christ from the Word. I do not have to read Sheldon in order to find out what God would do; I take down that old Bible and find what He did do, and I know lie is the same, yesterday and forever. If a blind man were lying by the roadside, and Christ passed by, and that blind beggar should cry after Him, I know that my Christ would stop and help him, though on His way to make another world. I know the heart of God by the teaching of that Book.

    We can see God in nature, in history, in providences, in the Word, and we can see God in Christ. Now we are getting a revelation of the character of God. You cannot find forgiveness in nature; nature NEVER forgives. It took the incarnation of love to teach us that God would forgive. Philip said, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." And Jesus said (I imagine His heart was almost breaking. He had been with them three years, and such a question as that from those who had walked with Him, and seen His miracles), "Sayest thou unto me, Show us the Father? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father also." God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God commendeth His love toward us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

    Every person needs to get a vision of God. You can never be what God wants you to be until you have seen the King. You can never get the thought that God wants to fill you with until you get a vision of Himself, and He withholds it from no man. You are never equipped for service, never effective for service, until you have had the vision. You will never be in God's hands, plastic and passive, until you have had the vision. Men have talked about the first heaven and the second heaven, and the third heaven to which the Apostle was lifted, but it took a man who had a vision to get a better thought of God. He lay down by the side of an old oak, pillowed his head on a stone, and had the sands of Arabia for his couch, had the blue sky for his covering; but while he slept he saw a ladder, the topmost round hard by the throne of Infinite love, and the lowest round where he could put his foot on it, am he saw the angels ascending and descending upon it. And when he awoke in the morning, the man knew as he never had known before that heaven was not very far off. Say, beloved, that ladder was a type of Jesus Christ, and He brings heaven not only near man, but puts it inside of him.

    Listen, beloved, men are only effective for service as they get the vision. God wanted a man and He showed him a bush on fire. This man had a staff in his hands; he was attending to his flocks. God never gives visions to lazy folks. This man said, "I will go and see what this means;" and, when he came near, God spoke and said, "Moses (God knows our names) take thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground." And then He gave him the message, "I want you to go and talk for Me." You have to get the vision of the King before you can talk effectively.

    Step down through the centuries! See Elijah discouraged! There are good people who get discouraged. This man had been on the mountain top; this man had brought fire from heaven; then again had unsealed the fountains of the skies, as before he had sealed them. This man became discouraged, but God does not forget discouraged folks. Some folks will not hunt them up, but God does, and I am glad that He did. And He finds him where? Hidden away in a cave. Yesterday he bids defiance to eight hundred false prophets; yesterday he commands the skies, and the fire falls; but today he is off, hid In a cave, and God hunts him up. "Elijah, what is the matter? What doest thou here?" "Well, Lord, there is not anybody else but me; the rest of Thy people have gone off after idols. No one is left but me." Did you ever get where you thought you were the only one left, your church the only church in all the land? It is wonderful how God will waken such folks up. "Elijah, i have seven thousand that have not bowed the knee to Baal." This man now gets the vision. A discouraged man, but God says to him, "You have been true; you have been faithful; you have met much opposition. Come, anoint that man to be king of Israel, then take a journey through the land of Israel and the chariots of fire shall come rumbling along the ridges of the worlds and I will have them stop and bring you home." Oh, thank God, He will send the chariots of fire to the one who gets discouraged and who wants to be true. Glory be to heaven's King, He never forgets us! Our hearts may be breaking; our friends may fail us; and our own brethren may misunderstand us, but God knows, and He will never forget us. Paul had the vision, and he never got over it, and I want my hearers to know that the soul that has had the vision will never get over it. There was a man who was sent to a barren rocky isle, a banished prisoner. He was banished to an island where Rome sent her thugs and anarchists, and her felons, but this man was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and he heard a voice behind him and it called him by name, "John." Oh, a few years before that was the sweetest voice in all the world to him. He had been thrilled by it again and again; but there came a time when he saw his Lord defying gravitation and going up to where out of sight the angelic escort met Him and sang, "Be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. He never thought that he would hear that voice again on earth, but let me tell you, when you are banished, when you are far off from your folks, when you are all alone, the Christ of the Mediatorial throne, will walk the same land where you walk, and He will say, "John," oh, so tenderly. And John turned and saw his Lord. I am so glad that God gave him that revelation; I have been feeding on it ever since I found out about it.
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    With the vision of God comes the abasement of self. I have seen folks at the altar again and again, and they never get anywhere. Why? Because they are not willing to die to themselves. Along with the vision of God comes the death of self. Oh, here it is, right in this vision, "I am undone ... I am a man of unclean lips." Not only Isaiah, "What is your name?" "My name's Jacob." Oh, names in those days meant something. What is your name? Jacob. What does that mean? Supplanter, Deceiver. Oh, this fellow is coming down, -- I deceived my old father, i deceived my brother, I deceived my father-in-law. He is getting somewhere. That is the trouble; they do not like to make the confession, do not like to acknowledge even to God how mean they are, but He knows all about them. Brother, I never knew how mean I was until God let the light on me. Ah, when the vision comes you will feel the self-abasement, -- "I am the chief of sinners, I am less than the least of all saints." I wish people would get today where Jacob did. when he got his name changed, -- make the confession and hold on. I remember when I would hear the old-fashioned Methodists sing:

    "Come, O thou traveler unknown,
    Whom still I hold but cannot see;
    My company before is gone,
    And I am left alone with Thee;
    With Thee all night I mean to stay,
    And wrestle till the break of day."

    I have heard that Jacob limped always after the wrestling. And if folks today would get the experience, wrestling till victory came, they never would be the same. Folks would know them by their walk. Self-abasement comes after you get the vision. Paul had ancestry, -- Hebrew of the Hebrews -- but after the vision, he was less than the least of all God's people. When a person gets the vision, and the victory, he feels so unworthy that he never would force himself into a position where he ought not to be. Will you please get that? And this also, that God will get you where He wants you, no matter how small you feel. Amen! He got this man there. Isaiah saw Him on the throne, and the Triune God is on the throne today. I am as confident of victory for the cause of Christ as I am that I am alive.

    Now I want you to get it, that after the confession came the fire, and not before it. "I am a man of unclean lips; I am undone." He saw himself as God saw him, after the 'confession. Say, beloved, have you the fire? If not, Why? I remember once in a meeting where I was, a brother came to the altar and he prayed "O God, I have been secretary of the Y. M. C. A. for a number of years." I can see him yet as he knelt there and uttered those words. He never got anywhere. That was not a confession, that was a boast, and boasting never gets one anywhere. One never gets the fire until they go to the bottom, and confess "My name is Jacob," "I am a man of unclean lips; I am undone," "Lord, I am no good, I cannot talk. There is Aaron, he is a talker, but I am slow of speech. Send Aaron, Lord" -- send somebody else. God will show you your heart and you will shrink, but when your heart is cleansed, God will give you fire. It takes a clean heart to be a hot heart. We have hot heads today, but what God wants us to have and what the world needs today is men with hot hearts. Here a live coal from off the altar touches his lips -- "thy iniquity is forgiven," -- only after he made the confession. God help us now to see it!

    After the fire, cheerful obedience. He heard God say, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" And he said, "Here am I, Lord; send me." He did not ask where. See? Some time ago a church wrote me and asked me to send them a pastor. Please recommend us a man. You know men you know our church; you know the kind of a man that we need. So I wrote them, "There is Bro. _____, a bright young man, has a capable wife, a good preacher; write him." I also wrote and told him it was "a good church, good people, etc.," and he wrote that Beard, "How much salary do you pay? Have you a parsonage? Have you stoves, furniture? What is the prospect of support?" They wrote him that they did not want him. Do you wonder? Oh, after you have made the confession, and received the fire, you will not ask where. It will be, "Here I am; anywhere you say go, I will go." I heard a young girl at the altar, and she was boohooing at a great rate. I asked, "What is the matter?" She said through her tears, "Oh, God wants me in Africa." I said, "Well, if you know what God wants, and where He wants you, what is the good of crying? Go." I heard a young woman in Kansas praying at the altar, and her prayer was, "O God, why don't you call some girl to Africa whose mother does not need her as my mother needs me?" I heard a man testify once that when he was seeking the blessing God said, "Africa," and he said, "No." But he wanted the blessing, and he said, "Yes, Lord, Africa." He has never heard God say, "Africa," once since. I believe if it had been God who was saying "Africa," He would have sent him there. The devil can say Africa, too. God bless you, when you get the vision and the fire you will be glad to labor anywhere that He calls you, and do it cheerfully. It was after the fiery furnace that God promoted the Hebrew children. It was after the lions' den that Daniel was promoted in the confidence of the king.
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    The great need today is a vision of God -- Not as a third blessing, -- it comes to every one who wants to go with God. It is not to be sought. Just live where God wants you to live, and He will attend to the rest. I know a young woman who received the fire, and for two whole years God let her wash dishes, sweep the kitchen, make bread, and then when she had proved her consecration, and lived up to it -- "kitchen," if God said kitchen -- then He said, "Now go and preach my Word," and whenever that young woman does preach God blesses her, and often gives her souls. There is a world perishing, -- a hundred thousand souls going to eternity without God every day, a world perishing, a church indifferent, and the devil wise to do evil. You know what the churches are doing today. I just read in the "Methodist," of which Dr. Munhall is the editor, that the leading denomination in the United States is credited with but a fraction of one half of one per cent increase. Property to the value of four hundred and fifty million, a payroll of thirty-two million a year, over one million members, and only one half of one per cent increase according to their own statistics. The churches today are preaching the gospel of do, do, do, running to social service, and neglecting the salvation of souls. Everything today is along the line of humanitarian effort and social lines. The world will never be won for God that way; it is not His way. "Go preach the Gospel saith the Lord." The call is for men and women who are abandoned to His will and who are responding, "Here am I; send me." Read the text again, "In the year that King Uzziah died." He knew when he got the blessing. He knew when the live coal touched his lips. Beloved, has the fire fallen on you? Have you received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? Have you been so cleansed that you are a habitation of God through the Spirit? Well, Preacher, I do not feel. It does not come by feeling. We are not going by feeling. The first term applied to the followers of Jesus Christ was "Believers," and we are the children of Abraham, and he believed God. He was the Father of the faithful, and the first time the word believe is mentioned in the Bible it is in connection with his name. He believed God and it counted. God counts faith. He does today. Lord, increase our faith!

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  # Psalm 23:6 -- "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."

    Wonderful poem dictated by the Holy Spirit! I do not wonder at the praise lavished upon it by a brother who today is in the presence of the King. I linger on his words while my heart is stirred by their aptness and beauty. He says, "One of the things that we never get tired of is this Shepherd Psalm. More people read that poem than any poem ever written. More people know that poem than any poem that was ever written. Dr. McClure was not the first man, nor the last that, dying, limped his way through the poem of the Shepherd's Psalm. People have read that Psalm or repeated it with the rain of many tears dashing in their faces; people have loved that poem and have repeated it with the wildest winds of trouble that ever blew, blowing upon them; people have put that poem under their tired heads for a sleeping pillow; people have leaned on that poem for a staff better than alpen stock when they climbed the wicked winter mountains; people have had that poem when their way was dark and arduous. Oh, hearts, this is God's own pastoral! Some long since poet, he of the harp and the shepherd's voice, and the shining eyes and bounding steps, he saw it and felt it, and then did like all poets do -- said the thing he saw and felt, and that is the "Shepherd Psalm." And now, hearken, O child of God, the man who gave us the beautiful description of this Psalm one time after this said, "I am the saddest man in the world." The winds were blowing on his face as he went down to the valley, but thank God, this man, too gentle and Christ like to harm others, felt the blows that sin in others bring; but he had the attendance of God's own goodness and mercy, until the gates opened and he saw the glory of which he had often spake, and realized the blessedness of being in the presence of the Bishop and Shepherd of his soul.

    Out yonder by the side of the brook, whose waters refresh him, I see a man of God; and the birds of the air by divine appointment wait upon him. Ravens are his servants, bringing him food from afar. Morning and evening the Providence of God sets his table, and God's winged messengers place on it bread and meat.

    Again I see him lying under a juniper tree sleeping as only a worn and weary man, discouraged, can sleep, when an angel touches him and says, "Arise and eat," and before him was a cake, broken on the coals, and a cruse of water. First the birds of the air, then the angels from heaven, but all caring for one man of God.

    Out yonder near a city in Samaria, I see another man; his enemies are closing fast around him. There are legions of them, all intent upon His destruction, and to human eyes that destruction is certain and sure. But when God opens the eyes of that man's servant he sees above the head of his enemies on all hilltops round about, horses of fire and chariots of fire, a part of God's celestial army, an advance guard from the skies to help, aye, to deliver one man of God. In fact, that is the designation of this man. He is not known by the string of letters after his name, but friends and enemies know him as "the man of God." The schools do not confer this title; it comes first from the skies when God looks down and says of a converted, redeemed soul, "He is mine." Thank God, all may be known as such who will meet the conditions.

    Yonder in the jail, yes, in the inner prison, in Jerusalem, I see a sleeping apostle, at Easter time. Herod intends to behead him to please the Jews. Man proposes but God disposes, and in the darkness of the night an angel arouses him from his slumbers, leads him out of the cell, out of the prison, out through the gates of the city and bids him go on his way. Man is immortal till his work is done, and evidently God has more for this man to do.

    But two of these men are prophets, and the other one is an apostle; they are eminent men of God, but will God care for His children, His followers today as He did then? Have we any such evidences as will show a divine interest in man, now, as we see in these instances in the past? Is there present care, present deliverance, present attendance, for God's children now? Aye, to be sure there is. The visits of the ravens to the prophet by the side of the brook, of the angel to the sleeping man under the juniper tree, are only expressions of God's goodness given for our encouragement, object lessons from the past, lessons from the King's kindergarten of days gone by. Some time ago a friend said to a good old saint who was on the western slope, "How are you today?" And the reply was, "I am resting in God's easy chair." Oh, tell me where is that? "Romans 8:28: All things work together for good to them that love God. Philippians 4:19: My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus my Lord." Fine piece of furniture to add to your belongings and it is free.
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    Oh, yes, today we have, as children of God attendants every day who wait upon us. Many professing Christians today are like Moses: they pray "Show me thy glory," when it is the last thing they are fit to see. God answered that prayer, but not as Moses asked. He just put him in a cleft of the rock, and made His goodness pass before him, and eighteen hundred years afterward when he was unencumbered with a body, he showed him on the summit of Mount Tabor, His glory; and when Peter, James and John, in the body, saw the same glory, they were so overcome that they knew not what they said. God knew what was best for Moses, so He passed before him in the cleft of the rock, and proclaimed, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands." But today far beyond the privilege that Moses enjoyed we are hid in the rock that was cleft on Calvary, and not for one day, but for three hundred and sixty-five days in every year, the goodness and mercy of the Lord passes before us. The Christians of the Twentieth Century are living on the tallest mount of the ages, nearer God in point of privilege than any age in the past. Go back to that time when just one man was privileged to see these things and tell the multitude? Go back to that time when Israel followed the cloud by day and the fire by night? Go back to that day when three men only go up in the Mount with Jesus? Nay, nay, nay; I prefer this blessed, Holy Ghost dispensation when every man can commune with God and when goodness and the mercy of God are to be seen every day. "Oh," someone says, "I wish I could see them!" Open your eyes, yes, the eyes of your soul. There is an old proverb, "Seeing is believing." I want to give you something better that is founded on God's Word. Get it, will you; let it burn into your very soul, "Believing is seeing. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. Blessed are they who having not seen with their mortal eyes yet have believed. Faith and trust are the eyes of the soul. Use them and be glad. You will see far down the future, and say with the sweet singer of Israel, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Some folks testify, "Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." I am glad of that. No doubt it is true, but it is the privilege of you and every child of God to say, "shall follow me all the days of my life." The meaning and the experience are like this: they shall be my attendants -- God's goodness and mercy -- all the way.

    Let us examine this privilege. Goodness supplies all our need, is the treasurer of God's storehouse. Do not talk today about ravens to feed a man, angels to do his baking and cooking, the heavens to drop manna right on the pathway six days out of seven. Why, the believer today has as a constant attendant the goodness of God, goodness that in the years gone by has been feeding, warming, clothing, enriching, redeeming the millions of God's children. Why, I am ashamed that I haven't trusted more. Just to think for one moment! When the world's oppressed millions of God's own children needed a land in which they could grow to the stature of free men, goodness gave then, a continent; when the wood was giving out, and the timber was growing scant, goodness uncovered the coal mines that man might be warmed and cheered; when the great monsters of the deep decreased, and as humanity increased and homes were multiplied, that these homes might be illuminated, goodness uncovered the reservoirs of oil, and we have it in wonderful supply. Goodness is love in action, and goodness waits on man. Believe it? Aye, I can and do believe anything that magnifies the goodness of God. Ever since Christ was lifted up on Calvary's cross that man might be raised to a throne, I have been a believer in the text: Goodness shall attend me all the days of my life. Some time ago I saw an engraving. It represented several scenes in the life of man, as the artist saw them. First a little child -- standing on life's pathway. The path ran near a precipice, but between the child and the danger was a guardian angel. In another scene was a youth embarked on the stormy waters of life. Here and there were the rocks, but the angel still guided the boat and the youth was safe. There was still another scene. It was of an old man drawing very near to the eternal shore, peaceful, serene and triumphant, and still the angel pilot was there. When Admiral Farragut was dying in Chicago, at a hotel, he wanted his pastor, or some man of God, to pray with him, and his wife sent for the preacher. A servant in the hotel who was a Romanist sent for the priest and the priest came in a hurry. It would have been" sent all over the world that in his dying hours the hero of Mobile Bay had called for a priest. The priest approached the bedside and began with the services of the church, but the Admiral shook his head, again and again. His wife, seeing something was wrong, drew near and asked what was the matter, and the dying Admiral said, "I want my own pilot. I want my own pilot." Thank God, we can have, clear down to the end, goodness and mercy until faith is lost in sight, and we look on the King in His beauty and are inhabitants of the land that is now afar off. Oh, it is true, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him." They say in England that if a man walks, he is poor; if he sometimes calls a hack, he is better off; if he has a footman, he is rich; and if he has two footmen he has a great inheritance. Judging by that every child of God has a great inheritance, for two of God's servants goodness and mercy are always with him. Paul wrote to Timothy of an inexhaustible supply in Christ Jesus, for who can measure the riches of the grace of God as manifested in the gift of His Son to be our Savior? Think of it! goodness by your side all the time, in his hand the key to a never-failing storehouse. and in your possession the promise, "Every need shall be supplied!" Ask largely that your joy may be filled. Some one who evidently knew puts the Christian's privilege in verse:
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    "I have a never-failing bank,
    A more than golden store;
    No earthly hank is half so rich
    How then can I be poor!

    'Tis when my stock is spent and gone,
    And I'm not worth a groat,
    I'm glad to hasten to my bank,
    And beg a little note.

    Sometimes my banker smiling says,
    'Why don't you oftener come!
    And when you draw a little note,
    Why not a larger sum!

    Why live so niggardly and poor?
    My bank contains a plenty.
    Why come and take a one-pound note?
    When you might have a twenty.

    Nay, twenty thousand ten times told
    Is but a trifling sum,
    To what my Father has laid up
    For me in God's own Son.

    Sure then my Banker is so rich
    I have no need to borrow.
    But live upon my notes today,
    And draw again tomorrow."

    But we must not pass by mercy for mercy does not pass us by. Mercy blots out all our sins. I remember when I went to the altar a poor penitent sinner, and the burden of my prayer was, "Lord, have mercy on me!" Mercy is the first thing a sinner, conscious of his guilt, applies for. At the battle of Bull Run a wounded soldier as he laid on the field cried, "God have mercy on my soul!" It seemed to be contagious; for here and there among the wounded, the cry was taken up, "Have mercy on me, O 'God." The Psalmist declares, "Thou art plenteous in mercy O God." But who counts the mercies? Who recognizes mercy as an attendant upon the believer? And yet we are the recipients of continual mercy. A benevolent person gave Rowland Hill a hundred pound note to dispense to a poor minister. It was too much to send all at once, so Mr. Hill put a five-pound note in a letter and also these words, "There is more to follow." In a few days he sent another letter, same amount and same words, and so until the hundred pounds were all sent. So God sends us one mercy after another and with every blessing comes the promise, "More to .follow." "I forgive your sins, but there is more to follow. I adopt you into my family, but there is more to follow. I sanctify you, but there is more to follow. I make you more than conqueror, in the very hour of death, but there is more to follow. I receive you unto myself in heaven, but there is more to follow."

    "When we've been there ten thousand years,
    Bright shining as the sun;
    We've no less days to sing God's praise
    Than when we first begun."
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    Still always more to follow. Mercy and goodness not only follow us here, but they assure us of a home hereafter. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The Psalmist said, "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. A day in thy courts is better than a thousand." God's worst, smallest, is better than the devil's best. Better have the lowest place in God's economy of grace than to sit on the devil's throne. Any place in God's Church is better than we deserve. When the poor prodigal made up his mind to come back to his father's house, he was so mindful of his unworthiness that he determined to ask, "Make me as one of thy hired servants, for I am not worthy to be called thy son." Paul speaking of this great privilege says, "But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he has loved us, Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, hath quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Beloved, are you sitting together in heavenly places in Christ? Are you singing as your present experience:

    "I am dwelling on the mountain,
    Where I ever would abide;
    For I've tasted life's pure water
    And my soul is satisfied.

    There's no thirsting for life's pleasures,
    Nor adornment rich and gay,
    For I've found a richer treasure,
    One that fadeth not away."

    "Oh, the blessed privilege of the children of God, sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, dwelling in the House of the Lord! An old saint said one time, "Why, I live there." We do not have to wait until we die to sit there, to live there.' 'Tis heaven below, my Redeemer to know." "NOW are we the sons of God." To the Christian this world is just the ante room to .heaven, and death is just the corridor to the more beautiful part of the Father's house. Bye and bye we shall go through it, and with the mortal changed to immortality, with this earthy changed to the heavenly, with eye undimmed, seeing no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face

    "Knowing as we are known,
    How shall I love that Word,
    And oft repeat before the throne
    Forever with the Lord!"

    And that forever means, Home forever, trials all past, death and the grave past, inside the city of our God and Home forever, cruel partings past, our loved ones with us for ever.

    "No chilling winds nor poisonous breath,
    Shall reach that healthful shore; .
    Sickness and sighing, pain and death,
    Are felt and feared no more."

    I have imagined a Christian dying; no, not dying, that is a misnomer. I have imagined the homegoing of the Christian. Friends are weeping all around. Heart strings are snapping. Farewells are being said. Every breath is watched as the last, but I see that pilgrim step out of the house of clay, and mount upwards to the city of our God. I hear him as he shouts, "Old body farewell, earth farewell," and as the songs of the redeemed fall on his ear, with goodness and mercy his constant attendants still by his side, he enters in through the gates into the city of our God. And all the angels strike their harps of gold, and all the prophets shout, and all the redeemed sing, as our Christ rises from His throne to greet his last trophy from earth and says to him in tones that thrill the Church triumphant, and makes all the bells of heaven ring for joy, "Enter thou into the joys of thy Lord and sit down on His throne."

    "Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing,
    My great Redeemer's praise,
    The glories of my God and king,
    The Triumphs of His grace.

    Angels assist our mighty joys,
    Strike all your harps of gold,
    But when you raise your highest notes,
    His love can ne'er be told."

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  # Romans 10:15 -- "It is written."

    I have very little regard for that method of using the Bible that will permit one to open it at random, put the finger on the verse, and then take it as a message from God. It lacks common sense. One might as well go in a drug store, shut your eyes and reach out your hand and place it on a bottle, and then take it as a remedy from God, and expect to get well. God says in the Word, "Search the Scriptures ... for they are they which testify for Me." The disciples at Berea were more noble than those at Thessalonica, because they searched the Word as to whether these things were so. A knowledge of the Word can be obtained only by a faithful, systematic study of the Book. Suppose you lived in that age and state of the world in which human nature is found unenlightened by the revelation made in the Word. Just fancy yourself back there in the darkness of heathenism; the paths of virtue and safety obscured; your Maker hidden from your view; your origin, your future, your destination, unknown; the way to the tomb, your inevitable course, haunted with specters of doubt and dismay; your heart turning hither and thither, asking for light and direction, but finding only darkness and uncertainty. In the midst of this gloom, suppose the heavens opened and there descended to you a messenger bringing to you a book which informed you of your origin and destiny, which revealed to you the true God, and told you that He loved you, -- a book which made the path of every virtuous excellence plain before you, and disclosed to you a title, an eternal title to immortality. With what transportation you would receive it! The book which he gives you, you would press to your lips, hold to your heart, you would drop on it tears of excessive joy. As the messenger returns to the skies, you would follow him with benedictions until he vanished from your view, and the precious volume you would carry to your home with joy and exultation. You would call in your friends, your neighbors, all your loved ones, and you would tell them of the gift God had sent to you; and were the wealth of the world offered to you in exchange for it, you would clasp it to your heart and declare it to be above all price. Take away the Scriptures and what is your condition but that of unenlightened nature? Think of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and their important contents; and what is their value less than if brought to you immediately and directly from the skies? All the Scriptures are of God, and to you is the Word of this salvation sent. Yet who today regards them at their value? For the love and kindness of God in giving us the Word, no gratitude is too much, nor too excessive. But because we have always been in the enjoyment of it, its light and comfort are familiar to our minds; we be hold it as we do the sun in the heavens, unmindful of the majesty and benignity of its Author, and almost unconscious of the importance of its beams. When one thinks of the inspiration of the Scriptures, of their completeness, and of their end and uses, unless you are ungrateful to your Maker and unjust to yourselves, you would be like the Psalmist, -- as glad of God's Word as one that findeth great spoils. Hear him as he says, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee." Oh, how men professing to be called of God do miss it when they resort to hymn books, and literature, to get a text or a subject, when they are to preach!

    Preaching is not a profession, -- it is a calling, and men are to preach for eternal results. This morning, while in prayer at the family altar, I asked God, when I was no longer a blessing, to take me out of the world and home to heaven. The ministry is to preach the Word, and win souls; and the preacher who does not do it, no matter how many letters are with his name in his weekly advertisements and bulletins, he is missing the teaching of the Word, and the call of God; and had better go to judgment from a land of darkness, than from a pulpit where he has been a miserable failure before God, the angels and the host of the redeemed. Would to God that every preacher would feel with Paul the burden of the ministry, and the value of souls, and could get a vision of the eternal results that follow! All men need this Book in life; they need it in the dying hour. They need the Christ it tells of, the One whom; men are to preach, if they meet the thought of God. A Southern Christian woman was dying, and in her delirium she imagined that she was riding in her carriage with her faithful servant in the carriage seat. "Is David driving?" she asked. "There is no danger if David is driving." "No, no, Missus," replied the weeping Negro at her side, "Poor Dave can't drive now, de Lord has hold on de lines." And he spoke the truth for all ages. The Lord of life holds the lines, and guides the saints through the gate of death into the Paradise of God. Rabelais, when dying, said, "I am going to meet the great Perhaps." Poor fellow, when the child of God comes to the end, taught by the Word, he exclaims with the dying Horace Bushnell, "Well, now we are all going home together, and I say the Lord be with you -- and in grace -- and peace -- and love -- and that is the way I have come along home." Thank God for a faith built on the Word -- thank God for the word, "It is written."
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    The exhortations of the Spirit are here for our admonition, exhortation, and instruction in righteousness. "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches," -- and that is just as appropriate to the church and the world today as it was when first uttered. Jesus is not only the Savior of men, but He is the great Example; not example merely, and yet His life is teaching us the way to God, heaven, and victory. When He was assailed in the wilderness He was well equipped for the conflict. He was acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures, the Old Testament, that you and I have today; and to each suggestion of the tempter He never offered an argument, -- He merely replied with a portion of the Word of God. He was able to say at once to the enemy, "It is written," because He knew what was written. He knew what was in the Word, and by it He repelled effectively every assault of Satan. When Paul wanted to enforce an argument he would write, "For the Scripture saith," and to the old prophets, "Thus saith the Lord," was the rock from which they could not be moved. Paul writes to his son in the Gospel, "Give thyself to reading," knowing well that no one was equipped for the Christian life unless acquainted with the Word. During the late war, and also over in the Philippines, some of our men were armed with the old Springfield rifle, while others had the Krag Jorgensen. The Springfield was effective at half a mile while the Krag Jorgensen was effective at a mile or two miles. The Spaniards were armed with the Mowzer, and had a decided advantage over our men who were armed with Springfields. Our Government, knowing this, made a decided effort to arm all our soldiers with the K. J. rifle. They wanted them at their best and able to contend with any foe. The Bible is the best weapon for the Christian. It is an arsenal full of weapons. It has the Sword of the Spirit, -- the weapon that Jesus used in the wilderness, the dynamite of the Holy Ghost; and it is the duty of every child of God to be well acquainted with the Word. It fits him for any battlefield, any enemy that hell may inspire. It comforts in every hour of trial, and strengthens in moments of weakness. When we have such a book at our command, I do not wonder that the late Oswald Chambers said, "It is a crime to be weak." It enables the believer to say in the confidence born of the Word, when hell assails; "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; for though I fall yet shall I rise again." The Word of God was the weapon of Jesus Christ. He might have called on His Father for a legion of angels, and they would have been given to Him but, instead, for your encouragement and mine, He used the Word. It was the weapon of the Apostles. They preached Jesus. The great Apostle to the Gentiles said, "For I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to the Greeks foolishness and to the Jews a stumbling block, but to them which are saved Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Such were the victories they achieved that their enemies said, "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." An illiterate man who was called of God to preach one time went among his fellows and used this for a text, and his divisions were something like this, "The world is wrong side up. It needs to be turned upside down. Third. We are the fellows to do it." God blessed him? Of course He did. He takes the weak things to confound the mighty. There was a man whom some folks said did not have good sense, but he was impressed that since God had saved him he ought to work for God and get others saved. A lawyer attended the same church to which this man belonged. The pastor was very desirous of saving the lawyer and winning him for the church, so he prepared a sermon to meet the lawyer's case. One night he preached this sermon when the lawyer was present. Shortly after, the lawyer gave his heart to God and joined the church. The pastor felt that his sermon under God had done the work. But get the truth now, and see how God works: The brother who had not much sense went to the lawyer in meeting one night. He was interested in his salvation. The pastor saw him and wished he would stay away from the lawyer, for he knew he would drive him away. The brother said to the lawyer, "Don't you want to go to heaven?" "No," was the reply. "Then go to hell," was the rejoinder, and the brother left him. The lawyer was asked by the pastor, "What part of my sermon was it that convinced you?" "Oh," said the lawyer, "It was not your sermon. I could have answered every part of that, every point you made. It was that dunderhead who came to me and asked me if I wanted to go to heaven, and I told him, 'No.' He told me, 'Then go to hell.' And I got to thinking, 'That is where I am going, if I do not repent.' And I began to pray and asked God to save me. That is why I am here." God can bless any small effort even of the weakest when it is for His glory. He does do it. I have heard many sermons as unctionless as a last year's bird's nest, fine, some folks called them; and then I have heard others that were apparently without point, but God blessed them and souls were saved. Preach the Word. It holds good today, and is owned of God.

    There are promises in the Word of God for every condition of life, and an acquaintance with them inspires the soul with confidence. Peter says, "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." And that man called of God to preach the Word says, "Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Let us use them, avail ourselves of them. Do you know what is here for you already provided? Is it not a wonderful provision of God that you can turn at any time to the Word and find there something that will defeat the enemy?
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    When David was without a sword they told him there was none except the sword of Goliath; and, as he remembered how he had hewed off the head of the giant when he was but a stripling he said, "Give me that, there is none like it." So there are no weapons for you, my brethren, like these that have been proved and tried in the days gone by. When tried, ask the Holy Ghost to guide you in the selection, and then use it to the glory of God. By so doing you are in the Scriptural, Apostolic Holy Ghost line, and you will always find that victory is sure and yours. The Lord did it three times in the wilderness. The enemy charged on Him three times, but He received each assault on the point of the Sword, and the devil was glad to retreat. IT IS WRITTEN, it is written, it is written; you need no other; follow the example of the. Lord, and with Him have the victory. Look, here is a weapon for a storm -- tossed soul -- one who has taken his mind and his trust off the Lord. Look at him. He wakes in the morning and thinks of his cares; thinks of his troubles; dwells on them; regale's his friends with them; takes them to work with him; brings them home with him, and goes to bed with them. You have met him; you know him. Troubles assail him on every side, -- a whole phalanx of cares -- but there is a weapon in the Word of God that will put them all to flight. Use it. It is written, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee." Here is another, "Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you." Peter walked bravely on the waters until he looked on the waves, then he began to sink. Look to Jesus, and walk anywhere the providences of God call you.

    But here is another person. Cares? No. Sickness? No, never was sick a day in his life. But the devil assails him; casts his fiery darts at him day after day. The enemy comes in like a flood; temptations are sore; intense smell of the pit. What is there in the Word of God for such a time? Listen, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him," and the margin reads, "and put him to flight." Claim that at once. God still lives and the promise is true, true for you. Claim it and sing,

    "Should earth against my soul engage,
    And fiery darts be hurled,
    Then I can smile at Satan's rage
    And face a frowning world.

    Let cares like a wild deluge come;
    Let storms of sorrow fall;
    So I but safely reach my home,
    My God, my heaven, my all."

    You may have the victory by taking the Word. Simple? To be sure it is; but so many want another way, forgetting that God works by simple processes, that He may bring to naught the wisdom of the mighty. If some folks had been at Jericho they would have rejected rams' horns, and the marching six days, and, on the seventh day, marching seven times, and then worst of all, "shouting." They would have said, "No shouting, please." They would have silver trumpets, and dress parades, -- but God's way brought the victory. The heroes, of whom we have an account in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, put to flight the armies of the aliens by faith in God's Word. Cares, and trials, and afflictions, and temptations, and demons, stand in mortal dread of "it is written." O church of the living God, O ye men and women, ordained before the foundations of the world were laid to be holy and victorious, use the Word, and put to flight all that opposes. Oh, that the prophets of the land were sounding forth that which is written, instead of sermonettes on agnosticism, and evolution, and the state of affairs in Europe. "Go preach my Gospel," saith the Lord. "Bid the whole world my grace receive. He shall be saved who trusts my Word. He shall be damned who won't believe."

    Prepare yourself beforehand for time and eternity, for life and for death.

    Listen to this: "Perfect love casteth out fear;" all fear; fear of men and devils; fear of judgment. I surely am an admirer of Paul, -- he would walk in every path that God opened up to him. The Holy Ghost testified to him that bonds and afflictions awaited him in every city. Friends implored him with prayers and tears not to go. They dreaded the power of Rome, but lions and perils and demons and threatened death, all failed to stop him. He declared, "I am not only ready to be bound at Rome; I am ready to die for the Lord Jesus' sake also." Fear casts a shadow, -- brings gloom and dread into the heart; but just as when you open the shutters, and let in the sunlight, you drive out all the darkness, so the love of God perfected in the heart, drives out all fear and timidity, and makes the weakest one to say, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
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    With a full assurance of the value of the Word you can look adversity, and afflictions, and cross purposes, all in the face, and in advance shout the victory, saying, "I know whom I have believed;" and He has it written in the Word, "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself." You can bunch them all and say, "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come ... shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." For it is written, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Look at Joseph in his dying hour: He gathers his brethren and kinsmen around him and in dependence on the Word of God he says, "God will surely visit you, as He swore unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." He believed God's Word, and I have thought, as I read the last verse in the Book of Genesis, "And Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt," that unburied coffin was standing evidence of their dependence on the Word: He will visit us as He said, and we shall go up out of this land. Victory and freedom are certain because, "It is written." Do you know what that WORD meant? Let me illustrate. Here is an acorn, a bushel of them. What do you see? "Oh," you say, "acorns, just acorns." Why, bless you, beloved, I see oak trees, and timber and bridges and ships and navies and conquests and victories, all right there in those acorns. So in that promise I see Red Seas crossed, rivers divided, walled cities taken, enemies defeated, Israel in Canaan, -- complete victories. So in "it is written" I see victory for every child of God over everything that may arise, -- victory in the midst of the darkness; victory when friends do not know what to make of you; victory when death comes into the home; victory, till in the very presence of death you may shout defiance to the grim monster and say:

    "Knowest thou not when my Master died,
    Thy sting was lost in His wounded side;
    And the gates of steel and the bars of brass
    Gave way that the King of kings might pass?"

    "It is written," "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms shall destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eves shall behold, and not another." Amen!

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  # Genesis 42:12 -- "There is corn in Egypt."

    Genesis is the book of beginnings. Many streams from which the saints of all ages have quenched their thirst have their source in these chapters. Man may turn from these lessons taught here and say to us who revere the whole Book, that we are "under the law," yet when I remember that this Old Testament was the Scriptures of Jesus which He advised the people of His day to search, declaring at the same time, "they are they which testify of Me," I conclude, for one, that I will stay by the whole Book. Genesis is the authentic basis of the Bible. Before I enter its portals to scan the treasures it contains, I am overwhelmed by the statement the Divine mind first makes to man, "In the beginning God." Remember, in this, no matter what great mysteries are revealed to my untutored mind, nor how massive the truths I meet, God is the explanation of all these. What He does not see fit to reveal to me now I shall know hereafter. But there are more facts left on record than I can comprehend. I learn that in all ages God has had a people, and, wherever He has had a people, there the providences of God were engaged in their behalf. The man who slept on the mountain top all alone said he "had God for his next door neighbor;" but as I step quickly along the history of man, passing from century to century, scanning the footprints of the race, I find also the footsteps of God Himself, always working good to man. And I am firmly convinced "His footsteps down the centuries beat one eternal rhyme." If man fails in the garden under the most perfect conditions, I find that God gives him another opportunity and brightens the clouds that lower over him with a precious glowing promise: 'The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." If I find man unrepentant and wicked until God in His wrath lets loose the reservoirs of the skies, and the fountains of the great deep are broken up until the waters, rising mountain high, sweep a race beneath their waves, thank God, I also find those very same waters bearing on their breast an ark of salvation that assures the coming of a mighty Deliverer who shall destroy all the works of the devil. In the loins of the occupant of that ark is the seed of the Comer (so the Jews call the Messiah), the Christ of Calvary. In the Book of Genesis I learn unmistakably this great comforting truth, you cannot thwart God. Shadows may come, but back of the shadows is God, keeping watch above His own. The clouds we so much dread are big with mercies. Man may say God is on the side of big battalions, but this book declares He is on the side of truth. "The eternal years of God are hers."

    Oh the calmness of the eternal God! He takes a man out of the midst of idolaters, transplants him into a strange land, puts him in to a deep sleep, so he will be still, and then holds converse with him. "Know of a surety thy seed shall be as the stars of the heavens for multitude, and they shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years, but that nation will judge and they shall come out with great substance." The promises of God are for the people of God. The promise made to Abraham is renewed to his son, and the same Providence cares for and watches over him. To his son's son, God again says, "Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." And right here I see in this man's history the story of your life and mine. God has outlined the plan for us, made it known to us in His Word, and by His Spirit, and yet we forget the Word; and, when trials come, when clouds cast their shadows, when God in love is exercising His parental right to strip us, we say, "All these things are against us." We sing with tears on our cheeks, aye, and mean it when we sing:

    "The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose
    He'll never, no never forsake to its foes;
    That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake,
    He'll never, no never, no never forsake."

    And then within six hours or less we forget the promises of God and, distrusting His providences, let the great enemy of God and our souls get us on the run. Read carefully the context and get the lesson God would teach us.
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    I see here the child of the promise in the midst of famine -- the land once so bountiful now blasted and withered, as if by the curse of God -- a child of God, an heir of the promise, surrounded by his children, and his children's children, all heirs of the same promise, and all threatened by the same famine. A mark of God's displeasure? Nay, a mark of His providential care. That famine is a hint from God to Jacob to move out of his nest; it is an assurance, if he but knew it, that the God of Abraham and Isaac is on the throne, and that His eyes are upon His people. We are so short-sighted that a little stress of circumstances makes us forget promises, forget the Promiser, and go to bemoaning our fate, forgetting that the "love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind, and the love of the eternal is most wonderfully kind." That famine means that the Almighty God is moving along the lines of His thought for His people, to get them where He wants them. He is pointing them to the fulfillment of His promises made to Abraham: "Thy seed shall be strangers in a strange land that is not theirs." It means that He is robbing them of sustenance, depriving them of corn; it means He wants to put them where there is corn in abundance. He cannot fail, He will not forget. To the child of promise "All things work together for good" -- all things temporal and spiritual. A man in Nebraska sowed sugar beet, and felt good over the prospect of an excellent crop. But one morning he went to his fields and the frost had nipped them badly. Discouraged, he went away to another farm that he owned, saying, "What a failure; what a disappointment!" Some weeks after, having occasion to return that way, he saw the finest crop of growing sugar beets, he had ever looked upon. The frost had only pruned the plants; the roots had struck down deeper and stronger, and he reaped bountifully from that field. When God sends a frost to nip your plans, when your prospects are blasted, hold still; God wants you to take a better grip, a firmer hold upon Himself. Paul on horseback surrounded by Roman soldiers, Paul on ship and wrecked, in charge of a Roman centurion, is more than the prisoner of Rome; he is the prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ, who must testify for his Lord and Master at Rome, and he is on the way to greater triumphs, escorted by the cavalry of the greatest world power of the age. I hear him as he gives a trumpet blast from his Gospel trumpet, after looking over the entire field: "Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I am here reminded of a dying soldier boy left to perish, and no loved ones near. The chaplain came that way and found him, and, kneeling by the dying boy, he asked him of his faith, to what did he belong. "Belong?" asked the dying boy, not getting the import of the question. "Yes," said the chaplain, "of what persuasion are you?" "Oh," said the boy, not far from the glory to come, "same as Paul: I am persuaded that neither life nor death shall separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." And he responded to the last roll call, and went up to see God.

    This famine is a blessing to Jacob, if he would only look up, and it is the road to greater blessings, to promises fulfilled, to mighty displays of God's power. It is the road to divided seas, enemies overthrown, angels' food, smitten rocks, to the possession of wells already dug, cities already built, a land in which there is no scarceness of bread, that flows with milk and honey. But what trouble God does have with us to get us there! Their need was great, sure. The famine did pinch, sure. But let me say right here that God does always anticipate our needs. He is never surprised. There are no accidents with God. He is not shortsighted; He knows the end from the beginning. A gentleman visited an asylum of deaf and dumb children and, examining them, he wrote this question, "Does God reason?" One of the children wrote underneath immediately this answer, "God knows and sees every thing. Reason implies doubt and uncertainty, therefore, God does not have to reason." Aye, God knows . every need, every sigh, every heartache. God knew all about the famine, and made provision for it seven years before it came. . Down in Egypt, the richest bottom land in all the world had been producing bountifully, and the Egyptians had been storing it up for the heirs of the promise. I know the Egyptians had some, too, but that is God's way of doing. He blesses His own people so abundantly, that much of it runs over to bless other folks. There was corn in Egypt, God had not forgotten and, better yet, He had His man in charge of the corn. And more yet, His man was a friend of the famine stricken. God had not only prepared an abundance of corn, but He had been preparing the way to get the heirs of the promise to the corn. Jacob shall have corn, but God will have His way to get him there. Look at him, surrounded by his children, among them two upon whom he dotes, around whom his heartstrings seem to twine. The father's love for Joseph breeds envy in the hearts of the brethren, and they conspire to get rid of the dreamer. A dreamer sure enough he is, but his dreams are of God. In his youth God gave him intuitions of coming greatness. In his dreams of the night he saw the sun, moon and eleven stars make obeisance to him. He saw his own sheaf, standing upright in the field while eleven sheaves bowed to his sheaf. The world, aye, and the church, crucifies men who have visions from God. It sends a John Bunyan to jail while it keeps a cruel and God-defying Jeffries on the bench. And this dreamer was no exception. In his way to the future, to which God had called him to be the redeemer and preserver of his brethren, there was the pit, the dungeon, the slavery and the exile. His own brethren sell him to the Ishmaelites, take his coat of many colors, dip it in blood, and say to Jacob, "Know thou if this be thy son's coat?" And Jacob, mourning his son as dead, refused to be comforted, and said, "I will go down to the grave unto my son, mourning." Then his father wept for him. Did God permit it? Yes. Already His providence is at work for Jacob, and he is to learn the lesson, that the man who will live for God shall find that all things are his servants. Sorrows are not meant to disfigure tis; they are to transfigure. The folks who go through fiery furnaces, heated seven times hotter than they are wont to be heated; are on the way to promotion. Lions' dens and jails are stepping stones for saints. Crosses are wings by which they pass over mountains, and get within whispering distance of the throne. This sorrow is a stepping stone out of famine to plenty. Job had twice as much after his trial as he had before it. Don't let the devil frighten you by magnifying trials. Where he puts up a scarecrow depend upon it there is corn, go ahead, and find it, and find the devil's scarecrows are harmless things. My Bible says, "Many shall be purified, and made white and tried." Trials are an evidence of your sonship. By suffering with Jesus God is getting you ready to reign with Him. When famine comes He will tell you where the corn is; when trials come, grace will be nigh al hand. God is able to make all grace abound toward you that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work.
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    There is an old adage, "Troubles never come singly." How we do remember such sayings of the world, proverbs born of their sorrows and unbelief! forgetting that God's Word assures us that there are two messengers of God that accompany every child of God. Listen to the sweet singer of Israel: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." No wonder he adds, "And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Trials are apt to double up, but, remember this, "When the tale of brick is doubled, Moses comes." Famine grows sore upon them, and death threatens, for Jacob says "Go down into Egypt that we may live and not die." And when they go in obedience to his command, and return with sufficient for awhile, they are told not to return unless they bring Benjamin, the son of Jacob's right hand. And very soon it is a question of life and death again, but then the Governor who has all the corn of Egypt at his command says: "No, Benjamin, no corn. Jacob, you want life; you want corn; you must let your Benjamin go." "What? Joseph is gone! Simeon is gone! Must Benjamin go, too? Will yet take him away also?" How like us today. God wants to bless us, to enrich us, to feed us, on the very same terms, but we hold on to our Benjamin though we sing,

    "The dearest idol I have known,
    Whate'er that idol be
    Help me to tear it from
    Thy throne,
    And worship only Thee."

    When God instituted the Church in the family of Abraham, He taught us a lesson we are so slow to learn. We admire the man who left everything else at the foot of the mountain, and went up with his Isaac, and deliberately bound him, and put him on the altar, but there are few Isaacs surrendered today. The church at large holds on to the dollars, the Mammon it worships, gives to build million-dollar churches, while it recalls missionaries from the fields, saying, "We have not the money." It burns incense to nets, while forgetting the world at large, dying and without hope. God help us, ministry and people, to practice what we preach! God says in His Word that there are great returns for giving up the best we have. "For iron I will give you brass, for brass I will give you silver, for silver I will give you gold." A man once said he got back more than he shoveled out, for God had the largest shovel. 'Tis true, as many of God's folks have found out. A lady of wealth being well saved took off her pearls and diamonds and, selling them, with the proceeds she built a Rescue Home. For months she visited it, taking great interest in the inmates. In a few years a precious soul saved through the instrumentality of the home was on her deathbed. She wanted to see the founder of the home, and when she came, in gratitude she told how the Lord saved her through the home, and admitting that if it had not been for the Home she would have been lost. As she bent over to kiss the lady's hand, the tears fell on the fingers where the diamonds were once worn. And as the lady looked at them, in gratitude to God she said, "My diamonds have come back again." Surely God gives us back again that which we have given Him.

    How loath we are to surrender the dearest! He says, "I want your boy for Africa, I want your girl for India." "O Lord, anything but that." "I want your property. I want to transmute your gold into jewels for my crown. I want to send the Gospel abroad. I want others to hear that there is corn in Egypt. Give Me your money." God wants our dearest and best, and we must surrender or starve our souls.

    I see old Jacob standing at the door of his tent: "Joseph is gone, Simeon is gone, and now Benjamin! I am bereft indeed!" But was he? How we do misinterpret God's dealings. Down yonder Joseph is Governor of all Egypt, and all the corn is in his hands, at his disposal, and his heart is longing for Jacob. Down yonder Simeon is boarding at Joseph's expense, and the land of Goshen, the garden spot of Egypt, awaits the whole family. Jacob, cheer up! "We scan His works in vain. God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." A lady was working on a piece of tapestry when her pastor came in and, seeing the wrong side of it, he said, "What a strange piece of work! No figure! The whole thing is askew." "Oh," she said, "you are looking on the wrong side of it. There is another side." When Joseph, and Simeon, and Benjamin are all gone, when the last surrender is made, then trust a little, and you will soon see the wagons coming, -- wagons that Joseph will send for you; for Joseph is alive and he will come with them. He is riding in the second chariot and holds the key to all the grain. Soon you shall eat at his table, feel his embraces, and know his kisses on your lips. Do we get the lesson? Do we find this Scripture profitable? Must God tear away our nest before we will try our wings? "He builds too low who builds beneath the skies." Our treasures are in heaven. This is not our abiding place. God wants us to move on and up. Our affections must be set on things above, where our Joseph sits at the right hand of the Father. All power is given him in heaven and on earth. Trust His Word! He says, "I am with you always;" "I am coming again to receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also, I go to prepare a place for you." Jacob started for the corn and on his way met the chariot, and Joseph and a great company of Joseph's friends. We are on the way, and, at any moment, our Joseph is apt to come, in His chariot riding along the edge of the clouds and with Him a great company. He will receive us to Himself. We will sup with Him. Sorrow and saints will be divorced forever. "Then let our songs abound; let every tear be dry. We are marching through Immanuel's land to fairer worlds on high."

TO BE CONTINUED......
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  # John 10:10 -- "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

    There is a wonderful fullness in the Word of God, and oftentimes, as we read, our hearts are touched by the abundant promises, and the provision made for the human race, if they will but accept of it. If we do not see this provision when we read we should take the advice of the Spirit to the church of the Laodiceans, and anoint our eyes with eyesalve that we may see. This to my mind is what David wanted when he prayed for some of God's eyesalve, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." And when God anoints man's eyes, when HE opens them, then we see the truth revealed in the light of God. The veil is not on the Word, but on the heart, yet the Spirit will take away the veil, and the Bible, the Word of God, teems with wonders. It is a wonderland; it not only relates miracles, but it assures believers that greater works than these that I do shall ye do also because I go to my Father. Walk with Jesus through the Word, and let Him open the understanding, by the Holy Spirit, and, as the disciples on the way to Emmaus felt their hearts glowing within them with the new spiritual life, so will our hearts burn within us by the way. Beloved, we do not need any new revelation; we just need to search and study and love the Word, the revelation that we now have, and God will wonderfully open up the whole Californias, and Sierra Nevadas, and Golcondas and Klondikes of spiritual wealth unto each one of us. The Bible is the best seller on the bookstands today, but we need more knowledge of the Book that lies unopened on our center tables. Jesus said, "Search the Scriptures; they are they which testify of Me: in them ye have eternal life." Oh, God has mines that very few love to explore; they go after the ashes of the world; they put money into pockets that have holes; they starve their souls on the world's dainties while they might be rich. Listen to what God says in the Word, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed." Buy it, buy it, buy it! The wise man said, "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Nowhere else can we find the abundant life but through Him who is the Life. The prayer of the heart should be as Adelaide Proctor has so well expressed:

    "I do not ask O Lord
    That life should be a pleasant road;
    I do not ask that thou shouldst take from me
    Aught of its load;
    I do not ask that flowers should ever spring
    Beneath my feet;
    I know too well the poison and the sting
    Of things too sweet.
    For one thing, Lord, dear Lord, I plead:
    Lend me aright,
    Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed,
    Through peace to light."

    The Word makes known to us the way in the very word of Jesus who was Himself the Life,the Truth, the Way. He knew that man did not have the life abundant. He knew the misery of a soul in hell, and the joy of a soul in heaven. He knows the meanness of a life left unto itself and, because He knew, He pitied us in our lost estate, and, pitying us when there was no man to help, He brought life to us. And redemption was an assured fact from that very moment for every soul who would accept of the Way as He laid it down. The soul must rise above transitory things and soar into the environment of things spiritual if it would meet the thought of God for all men. God is now waiting to come into every heart, to take full possession, to give life, and life more abundant, but we are so slow to see. A woman very busy one time entered her room as the twilight shades were falling. She went directly to her desk, turned on the gas, and began to write. Page after page she wrote; five minutes she worked, ten, then half an hour. The solitude became oppressive. She wheeled her chair around and, with a shock of joyful surprise, looked squarely into the face of her dearest friend lying on the lounge by her side. "Why, I didn't know you were here! Why didn't you speak?"

    "Because you were so busy you didn't speak to me." So it is with God. The Holy Ghost, the representative of the Father and the Son, is here all the time, but we are so busy, so taken up with other things, so engrossed with temporal and material things, we fail to listen, to recognize His presence. We can never be alive to the Infinite unless we get the life which so abundantly awaits us, aye, is proffered us on every page of the Word of God; for all these things were written that ye might believe and believing might have life through His Name.
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    Someone may now say; "I thought grace was free!" So it is. Water is free, but you must drink it or you will die. Air is free, but you must inhale it or you will die. Grace is free, truth is free, salvation is free, and abundant, but you must accept of it, and accept of it on God's own terms. Here is God's own air, take it in, breathe it; fill your lungs with it, and live. If you close your lungs against it, your blood will stagnate and you will die. If you close your heart to the truth of God, you will die of spiritual stagnation. Open all the channels, pay the price, empty your hands, purify your hearts, and just let -- let -- let the Holy Ghost have His way, and you will know the power of this wonderful salvation. Yes, I love this fullness of this wonderful Word; I love it because it is the fullness of God, and it is for you and for me. Praise the Lord! I take a telescope and look up to the heavens and I see stars, stars innumerable. The telescope does not put them there, but it enables me to see them. These wonderful truths are in the Word, in this blessed old Bible, but we do not see them oftentimes because our affections and prejudices and pride and distorted judgment prevent. But just let the Holy Spirit come in, give Him full possession, and He will reveal their beauty and power unto us. Some years ago I was reading after that now sainted man of God, Rev. R. V. Lawrence of the New Jersey Conference, a man who knew what the abundant life meant, and I recall partly an illustration he once used. He told of an Irish boy who was away from home, and so homesick that every day he would go down to the water's edge and look toward home. One day a gentleman who was at the shore took with him a telescope and looked across the waters with so much pleasure that he did not fail to express aloud. The boy heard him, and also expressed a desire to take a look towards home any way, not expecting to see the cabin by the water side over there. The gentleman gratified the boy, and when the lad looked across the waters and saw everything brought right alongside, he began, "There it is! There is the cabin, there are the pigs, and the boys, and there is mother sitting by the door, and there is the green grass! Oh, I feel as though I was home again!" Then turning to the gentleman, that boy who didn't have a penny in his pocket said, "Say, Mister, what will you take for this?" I do not wonder he wanted to buy it. But here is a Book from God Himself. It is the Word of God, and I put it to my eyes and by faith I see, the unseen to mortal eyes. Yonder is my home, my portion fair. Yonder are the mansions of the blessed. Yes, yonder are the loved ones who wait our coming. Yonder my Lord awaits our arrival and, as the soul of the believer catches the inspiration and fire, he sings,

    "I am thinking of home, yes of home, sweet home,
    And my spirit doth long to be
    In that far better land where the saints ever sing
    Of the glory of God, my Redeemer and King,
    And salvation so full and so free."

    Oh, the richness of the Word of God! Oh, the blessedness of the faith that brings salvation nigh! It takes the very best that language can give to express, aye, we fail to express it; language is too poor to tell what one feels as waves of glory roll over the heart that just simply believes God, and takes Him at His Word. Listen, as my heart goes out in the Word, Where sin abounded, grace doth abound. That it? Nay, "grace doth much more abound." Hallelujah! Niagaras of grace! Oh do hear it! Oh do believe it, and get blessed! God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all things, may abound in every good work. Is that it? No! No! "That ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Men, women, brethren and sisters, here is something of which you can have enough. A woman who was always poor, and never had enough of anything, one time went down to the ocean, and as she watched the waves coming in, one after another, and no cessation, she stood in open-eyed wonder, and said, "Thank God, here is something of which you can have enough!" You may have, and you can have, all the salvation you want. And, beloved, let me say it kinds, you have all you want, for grace abounds. By the grace of God, Jesus Christ tasted death for every man. God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us; and again, "We are more than conquerors. through Him that hath loved us." Oh, do not say that you will be satisfied just to get into heaven; God wants you to be more than conqueror, to have an abundant entrance. Get the full import of the text, "I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly." O ye little ones in Zion, ye who are weak because of unbelief, ye who have been wounded in the conflict, God wants you to be strong in Him, to have life, to have abundant life. He can and will heal every wound that sin hath made. If you did fall down, do not lie there. Get up, call on God, give Him a chance to show His abounding grace, and He will gladly do it, and the angels will have a time of rejoicing over another brand plucked from the burning.

    I want to bring to you this thought: Life is the Gift of God. Natural life is the gift of God. "God breathed into man's body the breath of life and man became a living soul." When the Master stood before the grave of Lazarus, and spake to him saying, "Lazarus come forth," it is said that many of the Jews believed on Him. Why? Because they knew that none but God could impart life. Spiritual life is the gift of God. Do you accept of it? The Apostle says "Eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." And this morning, this very hour, it is your privilege to take God's gift and to know that you know you are one of God's live men. Life is the work of the Spirit.

    He is called the Spirit of Life. Jesus never spoke of the Spirit as "it". He did not regard the Spirit as an influence. I was preaching one time and in the course of the sermon I said I would not hold union services with any people who denied the Deity of Jesus Christ or the personality of the Holy Ghost. Immediately a person in the congregation asked me, "Can you give me a Scripture that proves the personality of the Holy Spirit?" Of course I did at once. "The Spirit said, Separate unto me Saul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have called them," "The Comforter when He is come will guide you into all truth," "He will take the things of God and show them unto you," "He will guide you into all truth." He is a person. Never speak of Him as "it" or "itself." It is wrong to do so. Spell "Spirit" with a capital, and honor the Holy Ghost, for the Holy Ghost IS the Eternal Spirit, as we were taught in those days when children in the Sunday School had catechisms in their hands instead of lesson leaves that deny the Deity of Jesus and the efficacy of the blood.
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    I want to bring before you another thought with this text: Life more abundantly is a term of comparison, is a contrast with life that preceded it. It is comparing spiritual things with spiritual, life more abundantly. This is one of God's great inspiring truths. Believing this we can stand before valleys of dry bones and say, "These can all live," before a mighty chief of sinners, a very Saul of Tarsus, aye, in the very presence of spiritual indifference and wickedness in high places, and claim victory for our God. When God was on a mission to destroy, He would not do it until He talked to Abraham, for He said, "I know Him." And this man, because he believed God, was called the Friend of God. But there is something better than that for the believer today. Yonder goes Moses up to the Mount, and on its summit God comes down to meet with him, and for forty days God talks with Moses. I think those forty days were but as a few minutes to Moses he was so engrossed with communion with God, that he lost all thought of time, and when he came down his face shone with the glory of another world. But for the believer today, there is something better than that. "The Law came by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ." There was something helpful to a penitent sinner when the Urim and Thummim flashed on the breastplate of the high priest, and he knew that he was accepted of God. It was a blessed thing when the High Priest, after the sprinkling of the mercy seat with blood, would come out and with uplifted hands would pronounce the benediction on the multitude, and every man could go to his home a justified and forgiven man; but through Christ we have something better than that:

    "Jesus our great High Priest,
    Hath full atonement made .
    Ye weary spirits rest,
    Ye mournful souls he glad!
    The year of jubilee hath come,
    Return ye ransomed sinners home."

    Yonder on the side of old Mount Tabor I see Elijah at prayer; before him an altar, and on the altar a sacrifice, around him Israel and the prophets of Baal. I hear him pray. Listen! Did you ever hear such a prayer? He prays for fire -- fire from heaven, "O thou Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy Word." And the fire comes -- fire from heaven, and it consumes the sacrifice. But we as the children of God today have something better than that. Fire, not for Israel's altars alone, but for every child of God, for every heart; in every church, for all time. Listen to the voice of one crying in the wilderness: "There standeth one among you the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." The Baptizer with fire has come at last, and He says, "I am come not only that ye might have life, but that ye might have it more abundantly." If I had my choice to go back to Mt. Tabor where fire from heaven fell upon the altar, or back to Pentecost where the Holy Ghost as in cloven tongues of fire came upon each of them, I would say "Pentecost," every time. And we do not have to go back to either, for here and now we have the very same Jesus that was at Pentecost, and just as ready to give the fire, when we are as ready to receive the Holy Ghost as they were on that day.

    The Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the fullness of the Spirit, this is the Life Abundant. The Spirit and the Life go together. You cannot separate them. A Spirit-filled soul is a live soul. Listen! "The words I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life." To be spiritually minded is life. The Spirit is life because of righteousness. The letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life. The Spirit shall be in you a well of water springing up to everlasting life. The fullness of the Spirit is the privilege of every believer. This means life enough to help someone else. When Jesus was in the Mount of Transfiguration, there were nine disciples down on the plains, and a boy grievously vexed with a devil was brought to them, and they could not cast him out. But read of them after Pentecost. Read Acts 5th chapter and 11th verse: "There came a multitude from the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folks and those which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every one." They had power from on high. They had the abundant life. I do not read of very many conversions through the labors of the disciples before Pentecost, but, after that, three thousand were converted in one day, and after that five thousand, and everywhere they went "the Word of God mightily grew and prevailed." When Thomas Harrison was young he wanted to do something for God. He had a passion for work for God. He went to the book stores and bought the Life of John Fletcher, and Carvosso, and Bramwell, and he studied books. He did everything but take the gift. But one day he got desperate. He said, "I'll have this cleansing, this fullness or I'll die. I'll put away all these books, and this afternoon shall be all knee work." And he gave his knees a talking to, and said, "You might just as well come down, for I am not going to get up until I get the victory, until God gives me the Holy Ghost." And he went to praying, when there flashed through his soul there was a better way than long and hard struggling with God for a human soul -- just take God at His Word, believe that He meant exactly what He said, that life, the fullness of the Spirit was the gift of God. And in just three minutes he was on His feet shouting aloud, "Glory to God, I've got it."
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    God is no respecter of persons. If you want it, meet the conditions, believe God, and take it. Take it now. God sanctifies by the Holy Spirit. To them that believe on His Name all things are possible.

    This Life means life under all circumstances, life when your feet are growing cold, when your loved ones fade out from your vision, for it is life eternal. Pardon me for calling your attention to the hero of Pilgrim's Progress. He had the victory when he came down to the banks of the river, and he said, "I feel the bottom and it is good." Old Mr. Standfast, also one of the characters portrayed in this choicest piece of literature it has ever been my privilege to read, came down to the river. Hear him shouting, "This river has been a terror to many, yea, the thoughts of it has often frightened me, but now, methinks I stand easy, for my feet are fixed upon that upon which the feet of the priests that bare the ark of the covenant stood while Israel passed over this Jordan. The waters are indeed to the palate bitter and to the stomach cold, yet the thought of what I am going to and of the conduct that waits for me on the other side, lie as a glowing coal to my heart. I see myself now at the end of my journey. My toilsome days are ended. I am going now to see that Head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth there have I coveted to set my foot, too. His name has been to me as a civet box, yea, sweeter than all perfumes. His voice to me has been most sweet, and His countenance have I more desired than the light of the sun. His Word did I gather for my food, and for antidotes against my faintings. He has held me and I have kept me from mine iniquities, yea, my steps has He strengthened in the way." And his last words were: "Take me, for I come unto Thee," and the angels and the trumpeters of the skies sang his welcome home to the city where cometh no night, where the inhabitants never Say, I am sick, and where the people are forgiven their iniquity. Home, forever at Home.

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  # 2 Corinthians 2:14,15, 16 -- "Thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph and maketh manifest through us the savor of his knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God, in them that are being saved, and in them that are perishing, to the one a savor of death unto death, and to the other a savor of life unto life."

    Paul was a student and a scholar. He was acquainted with the history of the nations around him, the most prominent, the most powerful, the most intellectual. He could quote from their poets; he was acquainted with their laws; he knew their history and customs. He had in mind, when he uttered the words of our text, a triumphal Roman procession and entrance. Rome would send forth her armies against those who dared to question her power, her authority, her rights of conquest. They would go out along the Appian Way; they would go by the thousands and tens of thousands, and never give up until the object which they desired to attain had been accomplished. They would never give up until they had achieved victory. They may have been gone for months, for years; they may have been defeated again and again; their enemies may have been numerous, but Rome was only satisfied with one thing, and that was victory. After they had been gone for months or for years, and victory had been gained, they would come back, and the army would camp outside of the city; then the Roman Senate, grave and reverend seigniors, would vote them a triumphal entrance. The city would be decorated in holiday attire; seats would be erected for the Senators and other authorities of the government; the city would be decorated with laurel and pine, and the private homes of the citizens would bear evidence of the gratitude of the occupants towards the soldiers. On the day of the entrance, the Roman soldiers would march down through the city; the gates would be thrown open, and the army would come marching. in. The parade would be led by a large band of musicians furnished by Rome. They would be followed by young men leading animals peculiar to the country that had been conquered. These were decorated with the laurel and with the pine. The horns of the animals that were to be sacrificed would be gilded with gold. After them would come the spoils on floats, the best things the conquered countries could produce. Then after them would come a chariot, a magnificent affair decorated with silver and gold drawn by pure white horses and they would be covered with garlands. In that chariot would be seated the conquering general, on his head a crown of laurel, which afterward would be replaced by a crown of gold, and in his hand a scepter meaning victory. Then after him would come the prisoners, the common soldiers and the priests. These priests would be swinging golden censers, and in the censers would be fire, upon which was thrown incense, making a sweet savor among the prisoners, a savor of life unto life with some, and of death unto death, for others, while others would by decree of the conqueror be set free. Then after them would come the soldiers of the conquering army. These soldiers carried with them laurel and pine and also trophies of victory. As they marched along the streets by the stands which had been erected, on which sat the citizens of Rome and the Senators, these latter would proclaim the victories which had been won, and the countries which had been conquered and the battles that had been fought. They would march along until they came to the triumphal arch. Here the soldiers would take to one side the prisoners that had been condemned to death. After they had reached the Capitol Hill, the crowns would be awarded, and the day would be over. Paul had this in view. He had no idea that we were called to defeat. No man who knows God is ever truly defeated. If a child of God fails, it is because he has not availed himself of the capital which God has provided, because he does not realize the sufficiency of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul never forgot who he was. In writing to some he called himself "a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ," and in writing to others he called himself "the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ." He never failed to tell that he belonged to Jesus, and to witness for Him was his delight. As the Psalmist could say a thousand years before him, "The Lord is My God," so Paul could say, "The Lord is MY strength; I can do all things through Christ strengthening me." He would stand before even his enemies and say, "The life which I now live I live by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ who loved me and gave Himself for me;" "My life is hid with Christ in God." He remembered his relation to Jesus and, because he did, he endured hardness as a good soldier of the Lord. He had the victory when he was shipwrecked on the deep; he had the victory when facing a howling mob at Ephesus, or in whatever place of peril he might be. He never lost sight of the fact that he belonged to God. He was not marching on to victory, He marched IN victory. Difficulties might gather round him; darkness might settle down upon him, swords might be lifted up against him, but on these he could read, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper." Lions might be on every side and roar, but he had the victory. A roar hurts nobody. I remember going into battle once and the bullets hissed as they passed. and the Major said, "Never mind them, boys, they are by you when you hear them." Oh, it is true, it is possible to live in victory down here right in the midst of the battle. There can be no victories without battles. Hear it, get ready to shout over it, God's Word declares it: Christ is leading us to triumph. Through this old world, Christ is leading a triumphal procession, and He makes them always to triumph in Him. I like to think about it; there are men and women in the procession who were picked up out of the highest society, some from the lowest. They have all been in the mire and the clay, but as you look at them, you cannot see any mire and clay on them; you cannot see the pit from which they have been dug. They have been washed white. I like to look at them, Paul says, "I am God's branded man," I look back over the procession, and see an Abel who had the testimony that God was pleased with him. I see a Noah of whom God said that he was perfect in his day and generation. I see an Abraham who left folks and home and went out not knowing where he was going, but he had confidence in the Guide. I see a David who valued his relation to God more than he did his crown, I see a Matthew who sat at the seat of customs, a woman out of whom went a legion of devils. I see folks who were gathered up from all sides. There is John Bunyan, the swearing tinker; Newton, the pirate slave stealer; Jerry McCauley, the river pirate; men whom God picked up from an awful life of sin and used in the salvation of souls. These are all alike, for they have all been saved through the blood of Jesus Christ, and sing the same song, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us in His most precious blood, unto Him be glory and honor and power and dominion for ever and ever." To be in that triumphal procession is to triumph with Christ.
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    His victories are ours and our victories are His. Some years ago, Admiral Dewey waited for the dispatch that would tell him war had been declared between this country and Spain. Soon the tidings came, and Dewey sailed around Correggio, went to Manila Bay, engaged the Spanish fleet, and the news came back of the glorious victory in Manila Bay. What did we say? We said, "It was our victory." What did we do? We brought out our flags, put them up, and said, "It is our victory."

    I love to look at the conflict which Jesus had with the enemy in the wilderness where He defeated the devil and defeated him for you and me; and at the victory He gained on the cross when He conquered death, and to say He conquered death for you and me. He went down into the grave; He burst the bands asunder, and arose gloriously triumphant. He conquered the grave for you and for me. I look back at that scene when on Olivet He lifted His hands in blessings on His disciples, then ascended to where the angelic hosts of God sang Him welcome home. He led captivity captive, and His victory was ours because He conquered, you and I shall conquer. Because He lives, we also shall live. In this army we are all conquering generals. In the armies here, there are more privates than generals by far, but there are no privates in God's army. We are all KINGS and Priests. There used to be a time when there was a priest here and a priest there, but, bless your hearts, ever since Jesus went up into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled His blood to make atonement, all the redeemed are kings and priests unto our God, and all bound toward a triumphal entrance. Today I stand my feet on the promises of God, and expect, anticipate, victory. There is no such thing as defeat to the triumphal army of our God. "I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." "They shall come from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God." The devil is a defeated devil. He is a conquered foe, and from every temptation, God will open a way of escape. Praise the Lord! If I am glad for anything it is that as a child of God He hath illuminated me for victory as He has every child of God. Study God's plan; live up to it, and shout the victory in advance. It is a bad thing to under-rate your enemy, but it is a good thing to know who you are fighting with. The Prince of Orange went out to fight Catholic Europe -- just little Holland. The prime minister said, Your grace, as you are going to fight Europe I would like to ask you, have you made any alliances?" And the Prince replied, "Before I entered this war, I made an alliance, not with the kings of earth, but with the King of heaven and He never lost a battle."

    When Judah went out to battle one day, before the battle was begun, the pious King set the Praisers in array that they might be all ready to praise God for the victory that He was going to give, and of which the king was assured. Sure, why not? Has not God said, "This is the victory even our Faith?" God picks out a man here and there to be a leader. Joshua led the hosts of Israel. One morning he got up early and walked out to see the city he was going to attack, to view the situation, look at their weakest point, and he saw a man with a drawn sword in his hand. He went to him and said, "Who art thou? Art thou for us or for our enemies?" And the man spoke and said, "Nay; but as captain of the Lord's hosts am I come." Joshua takes off his shoes, and falls down on his face before him and gets the plan of the battle according to God's order. The Lord said, "Joshua, I have given Jericho into thy hand. You are to march around the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day march around seven times; then the priests will blow the old rams' horns, and the people will shout." (I am glad there is divine authority for shouting.) On the seventh day they followed the plan; the priests blew, the people shouted, the walls went down, and the saints of God marched in. How? By staying by God's plan.

    God has nominated us for victory. The Lord said to Paul, "I will show thee the great things thou must suffer for my name's sake." You remember when Saul was outside the city of Damascus, and a light shone above the brightness of the noon-day's sun, and he cried, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Do you see that man out there, that man with the stripes on His back? Paul, that is you. Do you see that man with his feet in stocks, and his hand manacled? Paul that is you. Do you see that man in the midst of a howling mob? That is you. Do you see that place way out there in the sea, and the ship going to pieces? Do you see that fellow standing on the deck in the midst of all this? That is you. Do you see that man with his head on the block and the axe all ready for work? That is you. Will you be true? And Paul says, "By the grace of God, I will." But Paul, there is another side to it. "When you are in prison, I will be there with you; when you are in the storm, I will be there, too, and my angels will bring you messages from me. They may sit down on you, but I will stand by you. Paul will you be true?" "By the grace of God, I will." Beloved, God's plan for you is to lead you always in triumph, and to make manifest through you the knowledge of Christ in all places. What does He mean by this? It is just this: God is going to use you to save other folks. I went the other day to see a dying man. He had been very wicked, and did not know how to trust in Jesus. I tell you what he did turn to in his extremity. I heard him utter the Masonic cry of distress. God have mercy on the man who has nothing, better than that when he faces the grim monster, for he surely is a lost man! I stood there at his bedside and told him what God had done for me, how God saved me, and that I knew it as well as I knew my own name, and of the joy that came as a result of believing in Jesus. God wants us to encourage other folks by telling them how we were saved by taking God's way, to tell them how we became temples of the Holy Ghost by believing in Jesus, and how he gives us victory and when they hear of real victory they want it, and are encouraged in the warfare. God bless you, He maketh us to be a blessing to other folks. We are to be a sweet savor unto Christ whether other folks hear or not, whether they are saved or not, whether it is acceptable to them or not. It is acceptable to God, and the man who preaches it, is acceptable with Him. I used to think a sermon was not a success unless the altar was lined, but now I know it is a success whether they come or not. It is my business as a minister of the Gospel, to preach it; the results belong to God. After I preach, when I go to bed, I say, "Lord I did my best." Whether they come or not, the responsibility is with them. They are free moral agents; they accept or they can reject. I sometimes think that God is going to reward us for the people who ought to come as well as for those who do come. Our labor is owned of God if our eye is single to His glory. If you want to please people, you can do it. There was a time when I stood before an audience on the lecture platform and people laughed one minute and cried the next and the reporter would tell in the papers how they were affected by the lecture: they laughed and cried. There was no God in it. I had to quit the lecture platform, or be damned. I was an intense prohibitionist and one night, a Sunday night too, I preached a sermon on Prohibition. When I went home God asked me, "If there had been a sinner there who wanted to be saved was there anything said tonight that would help him?" I quit preaching sermons of that kind, and preached to win folks for God.
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    I was preaching at a church for three weeks one time, and I was most beautifully entertained in the home of a rich farmer. A number of people were saved in that meeting, but this man though under deep conviction went through that meeting without being saved. It was the last Sunday night, and the last meeting was over. My host took the lamp, (there were no electric lights in that country) and he said, "Mr. Kulp I will show you to your room." I said, "No Sir; please put that light down; I have something I want to ask you. A number of people have been saved in this meeting. You have been there every night, and tonight you are still unsaved. I must ask you a question. "Is there any thing I could have done that would have won you for God that I have left undone?" He stood there dumbfounded, like a guilty sinner, and at last he said, "Say Elder, if I am lost, it is not your fault. You have done all you could do." I said, "Good night. I am going to bed." And he showed me to my room. Brother, it is worth more than any thing else to be assured of faithfulness to souls, just to know that God is pleased with you. The Psalmist was conscious of his integrity before God. We as ministers of the Gospel are not seeking the plaudits of worms of the dust.

    The victory is eternal and continuous. It will not always be battles, bye and bye it will be peace, eternal peace. By and by there will be rest. I can imagine those soldiers of Rome coming back and waiting outside of the City for that triumphal entrance. Tomorrow they are going to the Capitol Hill and get their crowns. Say, beloved, God bless you! The time is coming when the last enemy will have been overcome, the last battle will have been fought, the last grave will have been dug, and when the saints of God of all ages shall march in through the gates of the Celestial City, and Jesus Christ the Captain of our salvation, will stand by the great white throne of the Eternal God, while God Himself will arise to give us welcome, and all the angel choirs of heaven will sing our welcome home. Home at last! Thank God, there is a triumphal entrance for the saints! No matter what may be the difficulties in the way, God will take you through. Go if you go barefooted, and lions be on both sides of the way, go if you have to go between flashing swords. No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Go on, and one day you shall see the King in His beauty, and when I get there if He will only let me kiss His feet, I shall be satisfied through all eternity.

    Christ makes us always to triumph -- to triumph over circumstances, over darkness, over enemies, over every thing that can rear its head against us, -- maketh us always to triumph. Beloved, are you farther along this year than you were last? I am not asking you if you are shouting happy. I am simply asking you, are you in the procession? I know some folks who never shout. I have in my church a little woman in whom I have as much confidence as I have in M. G. Standley, and she never shouts. But I know when she is getting blessed. Her face will get red and her eyes will fill with tears, but I never heard her say "Hallelujah" in all my life, and I was her pastor fifteen years and more. Shouting is good, but oh, there is something way beyond it. Are you in the procession? How many have victory, not twenty years ago, nor twelve, nor five, but NOW? "Brother Kulp, you do not know anything about my trials." Jesus does. Jesus knows all about my trials, Hallelujah! Sister Cowman tells me that over in Japan they have no word for, Glory to GOD, so they say Hallelujah! What word have you got? A brother tells me that he has quiet hallelujahs down in his soul. Have you? Are you conscious of the presence of God with you and in you? I am not talking about when you joined the church, nor when you were baptized, nor when you were blessed last. I am talking about Bible salvation, triumphing in Christ. It is Christ in you the hope of glory. It is just as much your privilege and mine to triumph as it was Paul's. When I was preaching down in Kentucky, an old colored woman would get blessed and shout, and when I was coming away that dear old Auntie came to me and said, "Say, you are my preacher." And I was too. If I can please God and please His people I am glad of it.

    One time the Governor of a province in China was taking the Emperor out to see his soldiers. The Governor 'was drawing money from the Emperor for ten thousand soldiers, when he had only five thousand, so he took brooms and dressed them up in soldier clothes. The Emperor reviewed them from a distance. There were only five thousand real soldiers, the rest were broomsticks. Beloved, are you broomsticks or soldiers? Are you real or just professional, just a member of the church? O beloved, it will pay you to get in the procession. His triumph will be your triumph, and the victory will be an eternal victory for you.

TO BE CONTINUED.....
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