He hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.' Again we have to remember a previous remark as to temperament. There are differences among us in this respect. Some of us, of course, are naturally far more facile, sensitive, and yielding than others; some of us have natural force denied to our brethren. These differences will remain, and yet the weakest may be as David,' and although the weakest shall be made strong, the strongest shall be stronger still, as the angel of God.' The difference between the hind and front ranks will remain, but the whole battalion, as it were, will be shifted forwards.
Let me remind you how a condition of all that is worth doing and being is the cultivation of strength of will and of moral nature. To be weak is to be wicked nine times out of ten. I believe that the bulk of men that go wrong, that go to the devil,' as you say, do it, not so much because of a bias towards evil as of a fatal feebleness that is incapable of resistance; and I know of nothing that is more needed to be dinned into the ears--especi-ally of the young who have their chances before them yet--than this truth: the man that cannot say No!' is doomed to say Yes!' to all bad things that may solicit him. To be weak is to be wicked in such a world as we live in; and many of you know how fatally, facilely, and feebly you have yielded, for no other reason than because the temptation was there and you were not man enough to stop your ears to it, and let it hum past you without touching you. What is the reason why half the men in the world that are drunkards are so? Pure weakness. And so you may go all round the circle of vices and you will find that weakness is ordinarily wickedness, and it is always misery. As Milton's Satan tells us, to be weak is to be miserable, doing or suffering.' And it is generally failure, as witness the experience of thousands of men who have come into this city and been beaten in the race.
How then is a man to get strength? Brethren, I do not want to exalt the gospel of Jesus Christ by depreciating other and lower means by which feeble natures may get a dose of steel into their system. There are such ways, and they do help men. But if you want to have a power within you that will enable you to stand foursquare to every wind that blows,' believe me the surest way of getting it is by faith in Jesus Christ, to open your hearts to the entrance into them of that strong Son of God' who sends His mighty Spirit into every spirit that will accept it, to be the source of uncreated and triumphant strength. If we would only keep near to Jesus Christ, and live with hearts open for the influx of His great communications, we should need nothing else to make us strong for all service, against all temptation, in the midst of all suffering. There is a gift offered to every one of us in the gospel of Jesus Christ which will make our weakness into strength. A piece of sponge put into a so-called petrifying well is turned into a mass solid as iron by the infiltration of stony particles. So our yielding softness may be converted into firmness which will resist every pressure if we receive into our hearts the grace which Christ gives. He who is strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and he only, is truly strong. If then you want power learn where it is stored.--
His strength was as the strength of ten,
There is part of the secret. But how is the heart to be made pure? By the entrance into it of the purifying Christ. Christ makes fearless and strong men.
