OBSTACLES.

Jesus said, "Take ye away the stone."-JOHN 11: 89.

I want to call your attention for a few minutes this morning to a verse you have heard read in the 11th chapter of the Gospel according to John-a part of the 39th verse: "Jesus. said, Take ye away the stone." Now I have not any doubt but nearly all this congregation are looking for a blessing in Chicago. I've no doubt that hundreds of you are expecting a great work here. If you are not so expecting, you ought to be; and if God does not do a great and mighty work here, it will not be his fault, but it will be our own. I find a class

of people who say, Well, we must wait until God works, and when God is ready, we will see a great work. Now, if I read my Bible and understand Scripture, God is always ready. We talk about the "set time" for God to favor us. The set time is when you and I get ready to let God work for us, just when we choose to roll away the stones that prevent his coming to our souls. Some one must take away these stones, some one must roll them off, so the Lord, Redeemer, and Savior can get at us. There is no doubt but that He himself could send down legions of angels to clear away every single stone. If even the word of his mouth should go out, every stone-like obstacle in his path would suddenly disappear, just as Satan did from his presence in the wilderness. But God does not work in that way. He works through others. He did not himself roll away the stone from Lazarus' grave; he said to his disciples surrounding him, and to his disciples in all times, "Take ye away the stone." Now I find a great many men, and a great many wives, and a great many Christians, too, who ask God to roll away the stone; and because he does not answer their prayer, they throw the blame on God. Why, the blame is not his; it is theirs. God always works in partnership. When he is asked to do a thing, he can only do it when he first sees an active disposition in the asker to help to get the blessing. This failure to second God's work for us comes from unbelief. Such a half-hearted man does not believe God will grant his prayer, and so fails to carry out his own part of the programme. The mother that prays for the reclaiming of a drunken son, or a dissolute husband, must faithfully do her part to this end, and then must have full belief that God will do the rest. There is something for us all to do for our fellow creatures, and it is the stone of unbelief that blocks up the way, if we do not do it. And it is just this great stone that must first be rolled out of the way, in this city. Let us believe

that God can do a great work here; and that practical belief will make us work as we ought to. It will be a hard work, but with this lever of faith it can be done, and in short order. There must be honest work, a lifting up of one's self first as far as may be, and then a leaving of the rest to God, whose word will completely roll the stone away and raise the dead. And what a need there is for this resurrection in all our souls. How dead cur sense of sin! How forgetful that iniquity cannot live in our heart and word and act! How careless and indifferent even to have things anywise different than they are! Is the fault God's? No; the only trouble is with ourselves; we will not ask him that he will help us to do better things. We do not want to do them. How lukewarm the love of God in our hearts, and how selfish and cold, in consequence, our thoughts tovard our neighbor! It is a wonder to me how long our standard can fly, and yet we can profess to be Christians. Do we not need to cry that God will revive us? Yes; it is we ourselves that must first be quickened! Our own hearts-those of us who profess to be Christians must feel anew the joys of sins forgiven, and a re-kindling of the early fires of faith and holy living. Only thus can good influences be made effectual on those outside. I have heard many complain of the answer of prayer being withheld, when the secret lay just here. A woman, though a professing Christian, need not pray for her husband's conversion if she be governed by an evil temper. She need not talk, even to God, about her husband until she gets command of her railing tongue and wicked looks. If you are not Christ-like in your behavior, you need not expect to be taken for an example by your godless neighbor. He will not imitate you, even if he does not despire you for your hollow professions. I recall an illustration used by my dear friend Morehouse, when he was in this city. The Apostle Paul stood with the gathering crowd about the fire, warming himself after the shipwreck, when, as they piled the wood on the fire, a viper sprang from the flame and fastened itself on his hand. Immediately the gaping crowd cried out that he was a reprobate, whom, though he had escaped the waves, vengeance would not let live. But presently Paul shook the viper from his hand into the fire, when they, seeing he did not die, changed their opinion entirely, and Paul preached to them the saving word of life. The apostle shook off the viper, and the confidence of men flowed out to him. Let us Christians all imitate this grand example; let us shake off, with God's help, the vipers of evil temer, and all the evil things that make our Christianity a nullity, and too often a reproach in the eyes of those we would call to a like name and inheritance with ourselves. And, as a community as well, we must shake off the venomous beast, whose poison not only repels others, but kills and enfeebles ourselves.

The vipers of London are different from those of New York; and,

again, our own are unlike either of these. Covetousness, the inordi nate greed for gain, has fastened on the hand of Chicago, along with many another Western city; and the sting will be worse and worse unless a remedy is found for us. We talk with an appetite much too keen about getting gain and the chances of money-making. And yet this very trait, confessedly an evil, is an argument to our hand. There is a cry in commercial circles, loud and prolonged, for a revival in business-all classes of business. In this country, during the past twenty years, I never heard any one crying out against it. But if you talk about getting a revival in God's business, there is a class of people who at once shake their heads. They do not know about it; they are afraid it won't work. A strange inconsistency; a thing is all right in their own concerns, but all wrong in God's. The two things are not different at all, for the purposes of this comparison. God's work, like man's work, may have stages of activity; and the Christian just as much as the merchant, should seek earnestly for a revival in trade. Oh, let us roll away this stone of unbelief and indifference, and we will soon hear a voice from the place of the stone crying, "Lazarus, come forth." Let us only cry as earnestly and loud for a revival as our business men have done and are now doing; and the powers and affections of our souls will spring up and bloom to eternal life. Our quickened souls and those of our friends will be made glad thereat, and rejoice together in time and eternity Should no right time come in God's fields, when can the farmer have his harvest time? How active the farmers are in getting hands to help them through the rush. The right time does come periodically in the kingdom of heaven upon earth-a ripening time, when God calls his reapers to put in their sickles.

The three stones I will especially refer to this morning, or mountains, if you prefer for that is what they are to be rolled from our caves before the dead Lazarus, quickened to life, can come forth. A great stone to be rolled away is unbelief, already spoken of. If I ask the Christian man in Chicago, Do you believe God can revive this work? I do not want him to say: "I do not believe he can; I have been here about fifteen years, and during all that time there has not been a successful attempt at reviving his work." Well, it may be so that the work has not got on well. What was the trouble? Well, I believe it was simply because people did not believe the work could really be done. But surely there is no person in the town but knows that everything is possible with God. Let us take this stand, to believe that God is actually going to do something. There is no drunkard who should despair, for I believe that God is going to save hundreds of them. He can and he will destroy his love of strong drink, root and branch, and I believe there is to be a cleansing thunderstorm in this atmosphere here before many days.

When in Glasgow, a skeptic insisted that all my converts were