Brethren, I am not here to accuse, but to admonish and help. Let me suggest, then, why you fail to realise such a palpable truth. It is, first, because you have an idea that the Advent is far off; and, secondly, because, as I have reminded you in so many ways lately, you shut GOD too much out of this present world. The first disciples, as you may see from St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s Epistles, were filled with the conviction that the Advent was very near, that the next moment might reveal it. This did not take them out of the world, for they believed that CHRIST would come to them in the world. Neither did it make them forsake their earthly calling, for they knew that it was in that calling that they were to serve GOD, and to prepare for His coming. But it caused them always to have regard to the end, and it sanctified every pursuit and plan with the thought, “The LORD may come,” and so constantly suggested the proviso, “If the LORD will.” We have no such conviction of CHRIST’S nearness, and therefore have little reference to it, and are faintly impressed with it. We argue, the Judgment has tarried so many years, it may therefore tarry many more. Death has so long spared us, he will not come to us yet. We shall have time to finish our present occupations, we can enter upon and execute many fresh plans. We need not raise a doubt, “If the LORD will.” But, secondly, we shut GOD out of this present world. We forget that He is ever with us; that He is constantly exercising His providence over us; that He is not ignorant, or indifferent, much less distant, when we propose and proceed to execute; that it is by His exercised permission, by His actual letting us go in anger, that we fall into sin; by His inclining, and helping, and carrying us, that we think, and attempt, and perform what is good; that thus watching and caring for us, and surrounding us, He is at once the Witness, the Judge, the Rewarder of our every thought and way; that consequently, when He has tried us enough, or when we have long wearied Him, He is at hand to decide about us, and, deciding, to execute the decision. His forbearance and interference, the length of the probation, the numbers and kinds of trial, are different in different cases. He knows what is right and sufficient for each, and He applies it, and then He says, “It is enough. Thy righteousness is as length of days. Well done, good and faithful servant;” or, “It is of no use that thou shouldst be stricken any more. Thou wilt revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. Depart from me!” And in either case the vapour is dispelled—it vanisheth away. O for the full perception and realisation of this truth; that we are in the hands of a watching, proving, waiting, judging, visiting GOD. It would be hard then to do or propose anything, without immediately adding, “If the LORD will.” Two concluding thoughts suggest themselves.