THE KING’S BUSINESS
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becomes a conviction, that in His Church today the hand that is back of it is not the faulty and faltering hand of man, but the living power of Jesus Christ, continuing that which He began to do when on earth, then there is no room for discouragement, but only for the unwavering certainty of hope. This thought, this conviction, is the rebuke of all our fears and doubts. You remember once on his journeys when Jacob, in the days when his heart was hot and restless and full of foreboding, in a threatened meeting with Laban, and when the threatened evil did not come, Jacob called the name of that place Mahanaim, or two camps, his own and God’s, and the angels of God present but unseen were the power that delivered him. The same truth is found in daily life. The places of difficulty afid of danger, of crisis, are found to be the camp of two forces, not only our own but God’s, not only of the enemy but that of Divine power as well. And I do not know of any other thought with so great an uplift, with so great a power to help, as this conviction that history is a continuous process, and is not divided sharply into two parts, as we .sometimes are prone to divide it, for'we.may say of older days, “those were the days when God walked with man, those were the days when His power was manifest, those were the days when Jesus was present and today all is changed.” This is a mistake that we may fall into, and a mistake that will surely rob us of much of our comfort and assurance, if we do fall into it. Rather, is it true that those were the days when Jesus began to do, these are the days when He continues to do. There is another suggestion akin to this first that comes from these words and that is : He continues His work through men.
2. E ach individual ’ s work is an INCOMPLETE PART OE G od ’ s WORK. Peter and James and John; Paul, Barnabas, Silas and Philip, all do their part in their own times and places, and yet all these are very incomplete parts of the whole work that has to be done. The one thing that lifted these men from discouragement, and that made them feel that their work was worth while, was the consideration that it was the part of a greater and perfect whole. Even the best of them, those •that did most, could not but be conscious of the imperfection of what they had done and yet they were all great minded enough to see the truth that Paul expressed, “Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Jesus began and continued to do and to teach through these men. And let us emphasize again for our deeper thought that the book of the Acts of the Apostles is still an unfinished book. It stops abruptly with no natural ending. It does not bring any life to a graceful and logical end. It leaves the activities of Paul still in full swing and there it closes. And it closes so because it had to, for the thing of which the book treats has never come to an end and will not till time itself shall.cease to be. This gives us a suggestion as to the way in which we should look at our work today, and this way of regarding it serves both as a deterrent from undue pride and as an encouragement against unnecessary depression. The greatest thing a man can do, the highest service he can render to his generation, the noblest sacrifice to God, is only a part of the great work that the Master of men is working out among men. It is not that thesé services were not the expression of per-" sonality, the free gift of a human soul giving itself for the needs of others. This is true, but back of that there is the great work of God which He car-
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