Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee.
A leading surgeon I heard of, when he has a bad wound to dress, or a broken limb to set, tells the patient:
"Now, look at the wound, see just how it looks, and then look at me!"
So when you have seen the state your heart is in, look up to Christ, and nowhere else.
There was an architect in Chicago who was converted. In giving his testimony, he said he had been in the habit of attending church for a great many years, but he could not say that he had really heard a sermon all the time. He said that when the minister gave out the text and began to preach, he used to settle himself in the corner of the pew and work out the plans of some building. He could not tell how many plans he had prepared while the minister was preaching. He was the architect for one or two companies; and he used to do all his planning in that way.
You see, Satan came in between him and the preacher, and caught away the good seed of the Word. I have often preached to people, and have been perfectly amazed to find they could hardly tell one solitary word of the sermon; even the text had completely gone from them.
"I hab hearn folks say, 'Hope I has 'ligion, but I doan know'; but I neber hearn a man say, 'I hope's I has money, but I doan know.' Dat sorter 'ligion dat yer hopes ye's got, but doan know, ain't gwine to do no mo' good dan der money what yer hopes ye's got but doan know."
An English army officer in India who had been living an impure life went round one evening to argue religion with the chaplain. During their talk the officer said:
"Religion is all very well, but you must admit that there are difficulties--about the miracles, for instance."
The chaplain knew the man and his besetting sin, and quietly looking him in the face, answered:
"Yes; there are some things in the Bible not very plain, I admit; but the seventh commandment is very plain."
The Bible is like an album. I go into a man's house, and while waiting for him, I take up an album and open it. I look at a picture. "Why, that looks like a man I know." I turn over and look at another. "Well, I know that man." I keep turning over the leaves. "Well, there is a man who lives in the same street as myself--he is my next-door neighbor." And then I come upon another, and see myself.
