Facing Life's Inescapables

Transcript

[Top Margin: Facing Life's Inescapables] This is the conclusion of the whole matter. We can't escape ourselves; we can't escape sacrifice; we can't escape Jesus. We had better accept there are the great inevitable's of life. The House We are Building. When the Brooklyn Bridge was in course of construction, Roebling, the architect, was sick in bed. He was unable personally to watch its construction and could only direct the builders from his sick room. Finally the vast structure was finished. But before it was opened the master builder was taken out in a little boat, propped up with pillows, to a position in the East River beneath the great span. There he lay for a long time in silence with the plans of the bridge before him, looking now at the blueprints and now at the bridge, until it was all gone over. Then he sank back among the pillows with a satisfied smile. "It's is like the plan." God has set us a plan for the building [Page 2] of the soul: the life of Christ as it is revealed in the New Testament. No one can fail if he follows that plan. It is your lasting opportunity, The Misuse of Prayer Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. We should never pray for God to abrogate the natural laws, neither should we make prayer a substitute for work and intelligence. Rather, we should prayer for an understanding mind so that we may know and understand God's expression of Himself in the ways of nature, and for an obedient hearts so that as we learn to know and understand God's way and God's will we may dare to act and live in harmony with this understanding. This is true prayer. Success In Life There is an old saying, "If wishes were horses beggars would ride." Friends, the great highroad of success lies along [Page 3] the old high-way of steadfast well doing; and they who are the most industrious and the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful. Success treads on the heels of very right effort. Life is What You Make it. Modern psychology affirms that vital religious faith is unequaled in its resources to make life worth living. The church holds before us this fact-confirmed in the lives of Paul, Augustine, John Wesley, Tolstoy, Schweitzer in Africa - that you can be more than a conqueror, and that [Inserted text: Antecedent] can be what you choose to make it.