Mark another thing. You remember in this Book of Job, with all the hard things that Job said, you can not find a place where God rebuked him. All he said was, “Stand up, Job, and let me talk to you. You can not understand my providence and government. You must trust me, Job.” So he does with hundreds and thousands. There was David who wrote the prayers and poetry of the ages. What a man he was! Yet he succeeded in pleasing God, not by his sins, but he pleased God. The truth is, the Bible is a record of bankrupt cases of men who were full of the wreck and ruin of sin, and yet grew up into this perfect stature of men in Christ Jesus our Lord. What an encouragement it is for everybody to seek to be perfect before God. Let me hasten to the conclusion. The first reason why we should be perfect before God is this, that God has agreed to help us, “I am the Almighty God.” He will stand by in every serious and sincere attempt to be his. If you seek to keep step with your convictions, if you seek to be true to your best light, remember that God is with you to help you all he can. I know about the weight of evil; I know that when we strike out for the shore, there is some dreadful undertow that seems to draw us back. I know the earthly is weak and we seem to be drawn down. But I answer the whole of it by this great truth in this text, “I am the Almighty God.” God helps, God will strengthen us. There is a little thing that occurred in my boyhood, that has been a great comfort to me many times in the hard work I have been called to do. When I was about fourteen years old, and my brother about twelve, my father took us out fishing on Long Island Sound. We had a poor flat-boat called a scow. We were ambitious, like all little boys, and when we turned in to go to the shore, about four miles, I was entrusted with a pair of long oars, and my brother with a shorter pair. We saw near us a boat with two boys in it about our own age, with their father, an admirably built boat, clean in her lines as a yacht. They were looking at our boat, and the man said to my father, in a sneering tone, “You have got a pretty strong crew in there, but I guess we will beat you to town.” My father said nothing, but he straightened up and looked at his boys. How we pulled! They beat us a good deal of the way; it was their boat; I knew the boys were not any better than we, for I had thrashed the biggest one several times. We pulled away, and they were yet three or four rods ahead, when my father reached out his great hands and put them on mine, I seem to feel them to-day, and as I pulled he pushed. We beat. Many a time I have thought of it when I have been trying my best, my father pushes while I pull. “I am the Almighty God.” That is enough for me. All it means is within my reach; all the possibility it promises is within my grasp; all hope, all blessedness, all might, all victory through my Father in Heaven. “I am the Almighty God. Walk before me, and be thou perfect.”