lieve, help
Thou mine unbelief." The story of the present, the hope, the pure,
certain hope of the future is in those great words: "Lord, I believe,
help Thou mine unbelief."
III. THE DUTY OF THE CHRISTIAN BUSINESS MAN.
I will read to you once again the words which I have read before, the
words of Jesus in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. John:
"As He spake these words, many believed on Him. Then said Jesus to
those Jews which believed on Him, if ye continue in My word, then
are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free. They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed,
and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest Thou, Ye shall be
made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you.
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant
abideth not in the house forever: but the Son abideth ever. If the
Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
I do not know how any man can stand and plead with his brethren for the
higher life, that they will enter into and make their own the life of
Christ and God, unless he is perpetually conscious that around them with
whom he pleads there is the perpetual pleading and the voice of God
Himself. Unless a man believes that, everything that he has to say must
seem, in the first place, impertinent, and, in the second place, almost
absolutely hopeless. Who is man that he shall plead with his fellow-man
for the change of a life, for the entrance into a whole new career, for
the alteration of a spirit, for the surrounding of himself with a new
region in which he has not lived before? But if it be so, that God is
pleading with every one of His children to enter into the highest life;
if it be so, that God is making His application and His appeal to every
soul to know Him, and in Him to know himself, then one may plead with
earnestness and plead with great hopefulness before his brethren. And so
it is. The great truth of Jesus Christ is that, that God is pleading
with every soul, not merely in the words which we hear from one another,
not merely in the words which we read from His book, but in every
influence of life; and, in those unknown influences which are too subtle
for us to understand or perceive, God is forever seeking after the souls
of His children.
I cannot stand before you for the last time that I shall stand In these
meetings, my fri
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