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Helping the Tempted
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and repenting, tempted and discouraged. We are to go to our fellow
men, touched, like our merciful High Priest, with the feeling of their
infirmities.
It was the outcast, the publican and sinner, the despised of the
nations, that Christ called and by His loving-kindness compelled to
come unto Him. The one class that He would never countenance
was those who stood apart in their self-esteem and looked down
upon others.
“Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come
in,” Christ bids us, “that My house may be filled.” In obedience
to this word we must go to the heathen who are near us, and to
those who are afar off. The “publicans and harlots” must hear the
Saviour’s invitation. Through the kindness and long-suffering of
His messengers the invitation becomes a compelling power to uplift
those who are sunken in the lowest depths of sin.
Christian motives demand that we work with a steady purpose,
an undying interest, an ever-increasing importunity, for the souls
whom Satan is seeking to destroy. Nothing is to chill the earnest,
yearning energy for the salvation of the lost.
Mark how all through the word of God there is manifest the
spirit of urgency, of imploring men and women to come to Christ.
We must seize upon every opportunity, in private and in public,
presenting every argument, urging every motive of infinite weight,
to draw men to the Saviour. With all our power we must urge them
to look unto Jesus and to accept His life of self-denial and sacrifice.
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We must show that we expect them to give joy to the heart of Christ
by using every one of His gifts in honoring His name.
Saved by Hope
“We are saved by hope.”
Romans 8:24
. The fallen must be led
to feel that it is not too late for them to be men. Christ honored man
with His confidence and thus placed him on his honor. Even those
who had fallen the lowest He treated with respect. It was a continual
pain to Christ to be brought into contact with enmity, depravity, and
impurity; but never did He utter one expression to show that His
sensibilities were shocked or His refined tastes offended. Whatever
the evil habits, the strong prejudices, or the overbearing passions