"Would'st thou be made whole?"
"Arise, take up thy bed, and walk."
"Sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee."
—John v. 6, 8, 14.

It has been very beautifully said that all the parables of Jesus are miracles of wisdom; that all the miracles of Jesus are parables of teaching. Believing that statement to be true, I propose here to consider this miracle of healing, as a parable of teaching. In order that we may do this intelligently, suffer me to remind you again in a few words of the actual facts of the story from this fifth chapter of the Gospel of John.

Jesus had come up to Jerusalem, and passing through the Bethesda porches, He had seen lying all around, a multitude of impotent folk, sick, and maimed, and halt, such as were in need of healing and of deliverance. But the one man who attracted His attention principally, was the one in all the crowd that most sorely needed help. Christ is always pre-eminently attracted by the most needy cases. This man had been in the grip of his infirmity for thirty-eight years. Now, that is very easily said, but how very few of us can know its actual meaning. Thirty-eight years of helplessness, not strong enough now to be able to drag himself from the place where he lay in the porches, into the pool, longing ofttimes to reach it, but always too late, some other having stepped down before him; and unable to persuade any man to help him day after day, week after week, month after month; and still, when Jesus passes through, he is impotent and needy; and in all likelihood, feebler and weaker than he had ever been.

Now, if you can for a moment, I pray you think of the surprise of the whole story. I feel that there is no more dramatic incident in the New Testament than this. The crowds are thronging Jerusalem at the feast, the sick folk are lying all about in the porches at Bethesda; and undoubtedly a great multitude of people are passing, as Jesus passed, through those porches. As the Master comes, His eye rests upon this man, who lies there in all his need, and in all his weakness, and looking down at him, He says to him, "Wouldest thou be made whole?" And I can imagine with what astonishment the man looked up into the face of the Stranger; for I pray you remember the man did not know Him, did not know that it was the Prophet, mighty in deed and word, Who was so strangely beginning to stir the whole country; and his very first word marks his astonishment—"Sir"—as though he had said, What do you mean by asking me a question like that?—"Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.'' Then Jesus says, "Arise, take up thy bed, and walk,'' and I think I see a crowd gathering around. Human nature is just the same in every age. They begin to watch and wonder, and I think, if I had been in the crowd, I should have protested against what Jesus had said. I will tell you why presently. While the crowd gathers, the Christ quietly looks at the man, that man in the grip of an infirmity for thirty-eight years, so weak that he could not struggle his own way to the pool when the water was troubled, and he stands up, bends down again, picks ^up the bed upon which he had been lying, rolling it up in all probability, flings it on his shoulder, and walks, a whole man, out of the porches into which he had been carried. And where is Jesus? He is gone. He conveyed Himself away; the crowd was coming after Him, and He departed.

Now the man starts his walk home, and some of the men who were far more eager about the observance of the Sabbath than the healing of an impotent man, stop him, and they say to him, "What right have you carrying your bed on the Sabbath?" And I like the man's answer, "The Man that healed me told me to do it." And they said, "Who is it that told you to do it?" You notice their question. They did not say, "Who is it that healed you?" They were so anxious about the Sabbath. Oh, these men that strain at gnats and swallow camels! "Who told you to carry your bed?" And he knew not that it was Jesus, and he told them he did not know, so there was an end of the strife.

Now, in all probability—if I can follow the story up, and I think I may do it correctly— he carried his bed home, and he put it down, and coming out of his house again, he made his way, eager and anxious to do what, perchance, he had not been able to do for long years, to mingle with the worshippers in the temple, back to the temple courts, back to the songs of Zion, back to worship. And as he is there among the worshippers, moving around, perchance greeting old friends, to their utter astonishment, suddenly he stands again face to face with the Man Who healed him. Jesus is in front of him. And Jesus looks into his face as he stands erect, and He says to him, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee." And again the Master passes away; and so far as we know, did not speak to the man again. But in those three things that Jesus said to him, I have a radiant revelation of His perpetual method of dealing with man. First He arrested his attention, called his mind into play, and appealed to his will, "Wouldest thou be made whole?" And then He called him to act, to put into action the new consciousness and passion that had taken possession of his soul, "Arise, take up thy bed, and walk." And then, after he was healed, He conditioned all his life for him in a very simple law. He pronounced him whole, "Thou art made whole"; and then He laid a commandment on him, "Sin no more"; and then He lit for him a solemn and suggestive lamp of warning, "lest a worse thing befall thee."

Now, shall we take these three stages in the Master's method and attempt to look at them a little more closely.

Make the first, "Wouldest thou be made whole?" The question is so simple that it seems as though we might dismiss it, and say nothing about it; and yet I am sure that that would be a great mistake, because the question that appears so simple is indeed sublime.

There are at least four facts within the compass of that question that we are bound to examine, if we would understand Christ's method with men. First, the Lord Jesus recognizes the royalty of human will. Do you want to be made whole? And I say it very reverently at once, unless he does Christ can do nothing for him. But there is more than that in the question. There is, not apparent in the question, but quite evident from what followed it, a revelation to the man of his degradation. You want to be made whole? And immediately the man's question reveals the fact that he never expected to be made whole, that he had lost heart, that he had lost hope. He said, "Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me"; which, being translated into other words, means this, It is no use asking me such a question, I have not any chance of being made whole. He had lost hope, and Christ's question revealed the fact. And yet is there not in the question of Christ, because Christ asks it, a renewal of the very hope he had lost? The fact that the man answered him at all, shows that suddenly there was springing up in the man's heart the hope that was dead. Why did he answer Christ? Nay, nay, ask another question; ask the question that in all probability the man asked, as he lay there, "What made this Man say that to me? Whole! did He say? Why, there is the song of birds in the very word, and the breath of summer seems round about me once again. Whole? What does He mean? Is He going to do something for me? Is this the Man I have been waiting for, that will help me when no one else can?" And I think that while there is evidently a revelation of the degradation of the man, in that he had lost hope, there is also a revelation of the fact that the question renewed his hope.

And yet once again, not only the recognition of royalty of will, and the revelation of degradation, and the renewal of hope, but surely a requirement, a claim upon the man suggested, in order to the end that is desired; the arrest of the man, that the man may be ready for something else. If Christ stands outside that man's will, and asks that it may consent; and if Christ, standing outside the man, reveals the man's degradation; and if, in the very question, He renews his hope; is there not a hint, an inference, a suggestion, that if he is going to have any wholeness that Christ can give him he must be ready to do what Christ tells him? So that, it seems to me, we have at least four things revealed in this question. When Christ comes to deal with a man that is impotent, a man that is in the grip of some mastering disease that is sapping his life and spoiling his days, first He recognizes the royalty of human will; secondly, reveals the fact of degradation, that hope is lost; thirdly, renews hope by the very fact of His coming, and His question; and lastly, requires submission to whatever He shall say, if the benefit that He is ready and willing to confer is to be obtained.

Now, for the moment, let us pass from the story, and attempt to apply this revelation of its meaning to ourselves. If this study has any value in it, it has that value as we are conscious of our sin, conscious of our shortcomings, conscious that we are not what we would be, conscious of the passions that master us, of the evil things that hold us in their grip. If Christ is indeed to heal spiritually; if men are to lose the chains that bind them; if indeed "the pulses of desire" are to feel the touch of "His coolness and balm"; if the poison that has burned in our veins like a veritable fever is to be quenched; there are certain things that we have to look solemnly in the face: things that are suggested by this very first question.

Jesus confronts you, my brother, my sister, personally, individually, in loneliness; and the question He is now asking you is this: Do you want to be made whole?

Now, let me say at once to you, if you do not, then I have no message for you further. I think we may just as well take these things step by step, and be quite serious about them, and businesslike about them. If there is a man who has no desire to be made whole, no desire after pureness, no desire after wholeness, no desire after a higher mode of life, no desire after the things that are beautiful, the things that are of good report, then I have no further message for that man. You drop out of my argument, you drop out of my message; I have nothing more to say to you. I have no warrant to deliver any evangel of power and of blessing to the man that does not want to be made whole.

But now, hear me. Is there such a man? There may be, but I very much doubt it. I wonder if that statement sounds at all astonishing. I will repeat it, as revealing a growing conviction in my heart and life, as I work for God, that you will have a very great difficulty in finding me the man that does not want to be made whole. Oh, but you say, look at the men who are sinning, and sinning with a high hand and outstretched arm. Look at the men that have all kinds of chances of amendment. Look at the men who have heard the Gospel message from childhood up, and yet are sinning on. Do you mean to tell us, some one is saying, that you think those men really want to be made whole? In a vast majority of cases I believe they do.

I remember one early morning as far back as the year 1887. I had been out all through the night, sitting by the bedside of a dying man in the town of Hull in the north of England, and as I was taking my way home, having seen him pass away, about four o'clock in the morning, turning suddenly around a corner, I came face to face with a young fellow, the son of godly people, a child of tender care, and constant prayer, and yet who, having fallen, was just going all the pace in wickedness; and meeting him suddenly like that, just turning the corner so that there was no escape, he and I stood face to face. He was hurrying home, through the gray morning, after a night of carousal. I took his hand in mine, and I looked into his face, and I said,

"Charley, when are you going to stop this kind of thing?"

I wish I could tell what that man said, and how he said it. I shall never forget it, I think, to my dying day. He looked into my face, a young man just about my own age at the time, and yet prematurely aged, with sunken cheek and blood-shot eye, and that grey ashen hue that tells of debauchery; and holding out a hand that he could not hold still, that trembled as he held it, he said, "What do you mean by asking me when I am going to stop?" He said, "I would lose that hand here and now, if I knew how to stop." I do not think that was a lonely case. I believe that if you could only get hold of half these men that are going wrong, if you could only get hold of them, and press them up into some corner in the early morning, catching them unawares, when they are not prepared to debate the thing with you or laugh at your entreaty, they would speak out a great truth, and it would be. We want to be pure, we hate impurity.

Oh, I know you will suggest a hundred whys. Oh, yes, I know all the whys, but face the fact first. I very much doubt if you can find me a young fellow who is playing the fool with himself, and sinning, sinning, sinning, but that if you could get back of the exterior, if you could only know what is going on in his own heart, you would find a man who wants to be made whole. Profoundly do I believe it

Now, Christ asks first, that if that is true, if I am right about you, that you will say so to Him now. That is His first question.

But now, take the next step. This man did want to be made whole. The question seems to be superfluous in one sense. I can imagine that the man might have said to Jesus, What makes you ask me that? Do you suppose I love lying here? Do you suppose I am fond of this infirmity? Do you suppose that I really am delighted with this spoilation of my life? The man did not say all that. What then did he say? He said the next thing. He said in effect, Sir, it is no use to ask me, I cannot be made whole. I tried, but I never got down to the troubled water. I have been waiting for a man to help me; that man has never come. It is no good, do not ask me about being whole. Of course I want to be whole, but I never shall.

Now here we are touching the reason why so many of these men are continuing in sin. They have lost heart, they have lost hope, they do not believe they can mend. When, every now and then, one of them comes to talk to me, or some Christian worker, and the whole truth is talked out, in straightness, that is the story we have to hear again and again. A man says to us, Oh, I would give anything if I could go right, but I cannot; it is no good. I have tried and tried and tried, and failed and failed and failed. I have been to meetings, and I have been to ministers, and I have been to all sorts of people, and I have never yet been able to stand up and be strong, since I became the slave of sin. A man comes to me and says, I am in the grip of a passion for drink. Oh, the number of such men that one has to deal with. And he says, I want to go right, God knows I want to go right, but I cannot. Said a man to me some years ago, who was a member of my congregation, a man of splendid parts, a man who, every now and then, just broke out and simply went mad with drink; and I went to see him as he was getting back out of one of these terrible drinking bouts, and sitting in his house with him, he looked at me with a sort of disdain in his face, the disdain which is the mark, not of unkindness, but of inward agony; and he said, "Mr. Morgan, what is the good of your talking to me? You don't know anything about this passion for drink, you don't know what it means." Said he, "When the thirst is on me, if you put a glass of wine on that table, and standing on the other side of it, you told me that if I touched it you would shoot me, and I knew that hell lay the other side of the bullet, I would drink that wine."

Now, don't you people that know nothing about it think that that is fanaticism. There is many a man in that condition. The grip of sin in the form of a passion for drink is awful. When it gets hold of a man it becomes more than a spiritual sin, it becomes more than a mental aberration, it becomes a physical disease. Many a man is in that condition, and he will tell you he has tried and tried, and failed and failed. Doesn't that man want to be right? Of course he does. What, then, is the matter with him? He has lost hope; he has lost heart. He is saying exactly what this man said, There is nobody can help me; don't talk to me about being whole.

But what next? And oh, my brother, I am talking to you. God knows just what you are doing, nursing your agony, hiding your sin, hidden in the world from everybody except the Master. Now, may I not say to you this, that just as the question of Jesus suggested to this man another possibility, very faint, very unlikely, and yet, perchance, something in it; and just as the question of Jesus brought to this man a new hope—may I not say to you now that the question of Christ ought to, and I believe is, bringing a new hope into your life? You know I want to take you just where you are, my brother, and help you. I want to take you right down there in the midst of your weakness, I want to take you with that underlying passion for wholeness, and that overlying conception that you can't have it, and I want to say to you, isn't the very fact that you are willing to listen, and that God's message is being delivered to you, and that once again the question of the Christ is coming to you personally, Do you want to be made whole?—is not there something in it at least that ought to suggest to you that there is half a chance, if no more, that Christ may be able to do something for you? Oh, I will take you on your half chance, if you will only come, because my Master did. I like to see the men that came to Him, not quite sure that they would get anything, and they always got what they wanted. There was a man one day came to Him, and said to Him, If Thou canst do anything for my boy. It was a poor faith, it was a faith that came on a crutch—" If Thou canst." And did Jesus say to him, Well, if that is all your confidence, you had better go away; if you question My power, I have nothing for you? No, no, Christ never does that kind of thing. If a man cannot come without his "if" Christ will bless him, notwithstanding his "if," if he will come. Christ flung the "if" back at him, and He said, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible," and he got his blessing. And there was another man came to Christ, a good deal meaner than that one. This man that came to Christ did not say, "If Thou canst." We have little respect for that man. But the other man said, "If Thou wilt." He did not question the power so much as the willingness. And was Jesus offended, and did He send him away because he came with an "if"? No, oh no. He gave him His blessing. He said, Do you doubt My willingness? Listen. "I will; be thou clean," and the man was clean. So that if you are coming upon a crutch to-night, come. If you are coming to-night, saying ac you come, I don't think there is much in this, we have heard this kind of thing before; if you are saying, as many a man has said to me, Oh, I have been out in the after-meeting before, never mind, come on the half chance. Take your half chance. That is what Christ has come to do now, just to give you a gleam of light. Oh, a great deal more than that; but that is the first thing, and if you want to be made whole, I tell you, man, the fact that you are seeking light is a sign, or ought to be a sign to you, that there may be a chance even for you.

Now, follow to the last of these points, the royalty of will, the revelation of degradation, the renewal of hope, and the requirement of submission. Let me talk now as out of the experience of the man himself who lies in the porch. He asks me if I want to be made whole? Of course I do. He asks me if I want to be made whole? What is the use, I can't. He asks me if I want to be made whole? He must mean something; surely He means something. I am inclined to think He means something. If so, I shall have to do whatever He says. Ah, that is it. That is the last thing.

The question must come to that point. It is a wonderful question, one of Christ's questions, recognising the man's royalty of will, standing outside him until he wants Him, and then flashing upon him his own degradation, and making him say there was no chance, and yet kindling in his heart the new passion for wholeness; and then suggesting, so that the man cannot escape the suggestion, that if this Stranger was going to do anything for him, then he must be willing to do what the Stranger should tell him to do. So far it is all mental.

What is the next thing? Now Christ passes from the realm of the mind into the realm of action, and He says to him three things altogether, "Arise, take up thy bed, and walk." I do not want to insult your intelligence, and yet I want you to remember He does not say, "Walk, take up thy bed, and Arise." Get right hold of that. That is what some of you are trying to do. You are trying to walk before you are up. You can't do it! He began with the first thing, and then the second thing, and then the third thing. "Arise, take up thy bed"—some of you would have left out the middle of it; some of you would have said, Arise and walk; on no, the value of it you will see presently— ' 'Arise, take up thy bed, and walk."

Now, what is the first thing a man has to do if he is going to be made whole? First, "Arise." But what is this? What is the rising that this man is called to do? I pray you notice very carefully what this is. It is the one thing that he can't do, that Christ tells him to do first. That is what made me say at the beginning of the sermon that if I had been in that crowd, I think I would have protested.

Let us go back, and imagine we are there. The porches, the sick folk, this worst case of all. A Stranger coming through, suddenly stops and says, Do you want to be made whole? and the man says, It is no use, I can't get into the water, there is nobody to put me in. And then the Stranger says "Arise!" Why, my dear sir, I should feel inclined to say to Him, This is absurd; this is the one thing the man can't do. What do you suppose he is lying here for all these years, if he could get up? Of course he can't arise. I am prepared to say to this Stranger, first, it is impossible; and therefore it is unreasonable; and I am not going to change these decisions. Impossible, and unreasonable, and I utter my protest.

Why, what is this! The man is up! The man is up while I am arguing! Was I wrong to say it was impossible? Certainly not. Was I wrong to say it was unreasonable? Certainly not. But he is up. I know it, but he has done the impossible and the unreasonable thing.

That is the miracle of Christianity. That is the revelation of Christ's perpetual method with a man He is going to heal. Are you in the grip of some evil passion, of some evil habit? For I call you to notice that sin in every man focuses itself at some one point pre-eminently, and you know that you would have been in the Kingdom of God years ago, but for one thing. You know what the one thing is, and when Christ begins to deal with you, He brings you face to face with your impossibility, and He says, "Now, begin there!"

To the young man who was a ruler, and wealthy, Jesus said, "One thing thou lackest." What was the one thing he lacked? Some men would have said it was poverty. But these are the men who do not read their Bible carefully. What was it he lacked? Controll "Follow Me." But what was the hindrance between his life of self-control and his life of being controlled by another? What lay between? His wealth. Now, Christ said, Sell that, give that up, put that away. There was nothing more impossible in all that man's life than that he should part with his wealth, and He brought him face to face with his impossibility.

There was a man in the synagogue one day whom Jesus called out, and he came and stood in front. What is the matter with that man? A withered hand! What will Christ tell him to do, to hold his other hand up? No, certainly not. What then? To hold out the withered hand! the one he can't hold out. He always brings the man face to face with the impossible thing. Always this, always this—the impossible thing!

My dear sir, Christ is not going to ask you to give up the drink. Certainly not. Why not? Because it is not your impossible thing. He is not going to ask you, my dear sir, to sign a pledge against swearing. Why not? Because you never do it. That is the human method. The human method is to get one, or two, or three little pledges, and try to make them fit everybody. And oh, how eager men are to give up their brothers' idols!

Oh, the difficulty of it, and yet the magnificence of it! Christ is dealing with every man alone just now, and you know what He is saying to you at your weakest point: Begin and do the right thing. Arise!

But now I say, while I am arguing, the man has done it, and you may do it. Shall we try and find out how this man did it? This is the great secret. There is no problem of such interest as to know how that man got up when he could not get up. I will tell you exactly how it happened, and I will tell you because I know, experimentally and personally, how it happened.

Let us look at it. Christ first addressed his will—Wilt thou? That is the first thing. When Christ says "Arise!" it means that His will is that the man should be made whole. Now, mark another thing. There is power enough in Christ to make him whole. Christ is quite equal to supply him with all he needs. There is, however, only one way in which there can be connection made between the power of Christ and the impotence of the man. The man cannot; Christ can. How are you going to get together the man's cannot and Christ's can? That is what we want to find out. When Christ said "Arise," the man said to himself, I want to be made whole, but it's no good, yet I wonder what this Man means. I will do what He says. I cannot, but I will, because He says so.

Now mark, Christ's will and the man's will touch, and in that connection, the connection of will with will, the power of the Christ flashes into the man, and he stands erect, not in the energy of will, but in the energy of Christ, which has become his, because he has submitted his will to the will of the Christ.

What is the way you are going to master that evil thing in your life, my brother, or you will never master it. It is the Christ power that you need to set you on your feet and make you live. And you can only come into connection with the Christ power when you will to do what He tells you to do. Oh, but you say, I cannot. As long as you say that, you will not. But supposing you try another way. Say no longer "I will," you have said that scores of times, and been beaten.

Do not say "I cannot," for as long as you say that you never will. What, then, shall you say? Say this, '' I cannot, but because He said so I will!" You see in that there is an abandonment to Him, you are handing your life over to Him, you do it in obedience to Him; and whenever a man takes that stand, all the power he needs for the breaking of the chains that bind him are at his disposal, and he will stand up erect, able to do the impossible, doing by faith the unreasonable, because his abandonment of will and his act of faith have brought him into living contact with the Christ of God.

And now the man is up, what next? '' Take up thy bed, and walk.'' Take up thy bed! I think one of the most illuminative and most beautiful things I have ever seen about that, is from the pen of Dr. Marcus Dods, just in a sentence and a flash. Dr. Dods says, "Why was the man to take up his bed? In order that there should be no provision made for a relapse." Ah, that is the point. Did you hear that? I don't want you to miss that. No provision for a relapse. That is the principle upon which a man is to start his Christian life.

The temptation to this man was to say, Well, I am up; I am up, really I am; yes, really I am up, and He has done it; but I think I'd better leave that bed; I don't know how I will get on in the street; I don't know how I will get on to-morrow; I'd better leave it, in case I have to come back. As sure as he had done it, he would have come back. Oh, no, no, that won't do! Jesus says, Take it up, carry the thing that has been carrying you, master the thing that has mastered you; take it up! take it up!

May I put the principle in other words, and declare it thus, When you start to follow Christ, burn your bridges behind you! Don't give yourself .a chance to go back. I do not think too much emphasis can be laid upon that. Oh, the men that leave the bridge, and presently slip back over it! Here is a man who has been, to revert to my previous illustration, the slave of drink; he says, "Now, I am going to quit this in the strength of Christ,'' and my profound conviction is that is the only way a man can quit. "I am going to do it." He means it, and he gets up and starts; when he gets home, in some cupboard in his house is a half bottle of whisker. What is he going to do with it? Oh, he says, I will drive the cork right in, and I will put a seal on it, and I won't touch it, and I will keep it in case I am in need of it. I tell you, that man will want whiskey within twenty-four hours. No, no! If that has been your besetment, when you get home, smash it, pour it out! I am not going to say soft, easy things. I am not going to tell you all you have to do is to believe. I want to tell you that you are to believe with the belief that manifests itself in works, and unless you have a belief like that, it is worth nothing. Burn your bridges, cut off your companionships, and say farewell to the men that have been luring you to ruin. Be a man, stand up, and say to the man that tempted you, and drew you aside, your dearest friend, '' I have done, I have done; I am going the other way." And I want to say this to you, the chances are all in favour of the fact that the man will come with you. That is the remarkable thing about it, that the very man that is luring you to wrong will very likely come with you, if you are only man enough to burn your bridges. Take up your bed and walk.

"And walk!" I would like to tell you all there is in that. I will tell you one thing that is hi it. Don't expect to be carried! I want to tell you that the churches are altogether too full of perambulator Christians—men and women who have to be nursed and coddled by the ministers to keep them there at all; men and women who say, "If you don't call, then I am going." Oh, go! Give us a chance!

Now, if you are going to start to follow Christ, young man, young woman, my brother, my sister, WALK. And remember, that when He gives you power to stand up, He gives you power to carry your bed, after you walk—a great sufficiency of power.

Then Jesus met this man once again. What did He say to him then? "Thou art made whole!" Has He ever said that to you? No, some one says, I don't think He has. Then you are not a Christian. Don't be satisfied because some one else said you are made whole. Never rest until He has said it to your inmost soul, and you know it. But when He does say it, then what? "Sin no more.'' Now have done with your argument as to whether you are compelled to sin or not. He says "no " How dare you, child of His love, child of His blood, child of His power—how dare you go on sinning, and say you can't help it, when He looks you in the face, and says, "Sin no more!" He never says that to a man until He has made him whole. He does not begin by saying that. He does not go to the man that is impotent, to the man that is weak, He does not say tonight to the man that is outside the Kingdom, "Sin no more." He first heals him, He first gives him power, and then He tells him to "sin no more."

What else does He say? He says this, "lest a worse thing befall thee." What could be worse? To go back to your impotence, to go back to the old disease, and have no one come and heal you. That could be worse.

I leave you to follow the lines of that indefinite and solemn warning that Christ uttered to the man, but I pray you remember it. If you have been healed, if you have been made whole, if you have been born again, and you are playing with sin, and sinning on, excusing it as an infirmity, remember Christ's word comes to-night, swift, scorching, scathing—"Sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee."

Where is my last word to be uttered? Back in the middle of the story. "Arise," says the Master, make a beginning, make a start, and make your start, not by making up your mind that you are going to do great things, but by making up your mind that Christ is going to do great things, and you are going to let Him. That is the very heart of the message! That is the secret of power! Clay In The Potter's Hand!