Let me say one word of loving appeal to any who have never really sought the Lord. How is it that you say your prayers and yet you do not expect to get an answer direct from God? Because, like Jacob, you have never believed there is a God. You have not got hold of the first truth which the Bible teaches us, _God is_; "He that cometh to God must believe that HE IS." [Footnote: Heb. xi. 6.] When you pray, He must be as real to you as if you saw Him standing by hearing and answering you. Until our eyes are opened to see that death and judgment, heaven and hell, are great realities we do not really cry to God, and when we do we find out that we have never realised there is a God. Think of what God offers to you. Forgiveness, life and glory. Would you neglect getting these priceless gifts if you believed they were the real offers of a real Person? "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God." [Footnote: Jonah i. 6.] ADDRESS VI THE HANDS OF GOD PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--St. John xx. 19-31. Why has this Gospel been written? The last verse of this chapter tells us. "It has been written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we may have life through His Name." In the Old Testament when "The Name" is mentioned it meant the unveiling of the grace and glory and power of God. So we read men called upon "The Name"--and in the New Testament when the Divine glory of Christ is described we find the same expression, "His Name." It means His nature and His character. In the verse which we have just read, the wonderful truth shines out that it is through His Name, through all that He is, and all He has done, that we have _life_. So Christ Himself declares, "My sheep hear My Voice and I know them and they follow Me, and I give unto them Eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My Hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one." [Footnote: St. John x. 27-30.] Christ first speaks of His own hand and then of His Father's hand, so there are two hands which hold us fast and keep us safe, now and for ever. Let us look at what is said about the Hands of God in the Bible. Think of God's Hands in creation. The Psalmist says, "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands." [Footnote: Psa. cii. 25.] "The sea is His and He made it: and His hands formed the dry land." [Footnote: Ps. xcv. 5.] Think of His strong Hands in Providence, as Moses said, "Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power." [Footnote: Exod. xv. 6.] Nehemiah speaks again and again of "the good hand of my God upon me," [Footnote: Neh. ii. 8.] when he tells us of all God's loving help and guidance in the difficult work he had undertaken.