d say: "I
have struggled, I have prayed, I have wept, and it has not helped me," then
you must do one other thing. You must see that the living Christ is God's
provision for your holy, spiritual life. You must believe that that Christ
who accepted you once, at conversion, in His wonderful love is now waiting
to say to you that you may become a spiritual man, entirely given up to
God. If you will believe that, your fear will vanish and you will say: "It
can be done; if Christ will accept and take charge, it shall be done."

Then, my last mark. A man must take that step, a solemn but blessed
step. It cost some of you five or ten years before you took the step of
conversion. You wept and prayed for years, and could not find peace until
you took that step. So, in the spiritual life, you may go to teacher after
teacher, and say, "Tell me about the spiritual life, the baptism of the
Spirit, and holiness," and yet you may remain just where you were. Many of
us would love to have sin taken away. Who loves to have a hasty temper? Who
loves to have a proud disposition? Who loves to have a worldly heart? No
one. We go to Christ to take it away, and he does not do it; and we ask,
"Why will he not do it? I have prayed very earnestly." It is because you
wanted Him to take away the ugly fruits while the poisonous root was to
stay in you. You did not ask Him that the flesh should be nailed to His
cross, and that you should henceforth give up self entirely to the power of
His Spirit.

There is deliverance, but not in the way we seek it. Suppose a painter had
a piece of canvas, on which he desired to work out some beautiful picture.
Suppose that piece of canvas does not belong to him, and any one has a
right to take it and to use it for any other purpose; do you think the
painter would bestow much work on that? No. Yet people want Jesus Christ to
bestow His trouble upon them in taking away this temper, or that other sin,
though in their hearts they have not yielded themselves utterly to His
command and His keeping. It can not be. But if you will come and give your
whole life into His charge, Christ Jesus is mighty to save; Christ Jesus
waits to be gracious; Christ Jesus waits to fill you with His Spirit.

Will you not take the step? God grant that we may be led by His Spirit to
a yielding up of ourselves to Him as never before. Will you not come in
humble confession that, alas! the carnal life has predominated too much,
has altogether m