is downward.  The loveliest garden, by being neglected, will get full of weeds.  The most highly improved breeds of domestic animals tend toward degeneracy and deterioration as to quality, unless carefully guarded.  Man is no exception to the rule.  It is only by watchful care that one generation of people becomes wiser and better than the generation that preceded it.  Our Lord would oft repeat such expressions as these:  “What I say unto one, I say unto all, Watch.”  “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning.”  “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”  “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.”

There is no heart so stubborn hard but that the softening power of Divine love can mellow it; and there is no soul so full of the thorns and briers of evil passions and bad habits, but that the sanctifying power of the truth can cleanse it.  Jesus came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.  They that be whole need not the physician, but they that are sick.  God is able to do for all who look to him for help, exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think; and in Christ he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him.  No case of leprosy was ever beyond the power of the Lord to cleanse.  No blindness was ever too dark for him to remove.  No palsy was ever too dead for him to quicken into healthy life.  No fever was ever too burning for him to cool.  No demoniac was ever so insane or epileptic, under the power and in the possession of even a legion of devils, but that he could have them all cast out and the possessed one sit calmly, be clothed and in his right mind.  Nothing is impossible with God.  The good-ground hearer brings forth fruit unto perfection because he looks to the Lord, through his blessed Word, for help.  This help comes through his obedience to its holy precepts and commands.  God cannot help any one who continues to live regardless of and indifferent to the precepts of his Holy Word.

In a modified sense the same laws govern in the spiritual world that govern in the natural.  As it is impossible for God, according to his established order, to give you a rich and remunerative crop of corn or wheat from a field covered with briers, thorns and weeds; just in the same measure in a spiritual sense is he unable to give you happiness, peace of mind and joy in the Holy Ghost while you continue in a life of sin.  “He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

Brethren and sisters, it may be that some of you fear, at times, that your heart is no better than a bed of rock; or that it is full of thorns; or that it is hard and poor as the beaten road.  But such self-examinations give evidence that the Holy Spirit is in your hearts and that he is carrying on a glorious work of grace there.  “Blessed are the meek.”  “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”  “God resisteth the proud; but giveth grace to the humble.”  Be not discouraged.  Our Father is the great husbandman, and he knows just how to treat every kind of ground, just what to do in every heart.  Then let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.