gressions, but if ever there was anger with him it is so no longer for you cannot be angry with a person whose injury against you you have forgotten entirely. We do not in this world speak of what we have forgotten, nor will God speak of our sins. We do not punish what we have forgotten, nor will God permit us to be punished for he has blotted out our transgressions and will remember them no more. There is no awaiting penalty for your sin, there is no judgment to meet at the great white throne, there is no hell for you at the last for your sins for Christ's sake have been forgotten.

If you cast a stone into the water and it sinks away there is for a time a ripple for the stone has gone down but in a moment it has gone forever, you can see it no more. So God has cast our sins into the sea and the place where they have gone cannot even be found.

V

But what must I do to take advantage of all this gracious offer of God? I answer

according to the Scripture, There must be true repentance; repentance is a change of mind, it is having a new mind for God. 4 There must be regeneration; regeneration is a change of nature, it is a new heart for God. There must be conversion; conversion is a change of living and a new life for God. If we would be born from above we must accept God's word.

Two friends were conversing one evening, one of them with a skeptical mind had just rejected the Bible because it did not tell him the things that he would know. He insisted on knowing how the worlds were made, and demanded that he should be told concerning the origin of heaven and why God permitted it, and because the Bible failed here he would have none of it. Just as his friend was leaving the skeptic said to him, "Here my lantern. I want you to take it and it will light you home." But the lantern was refused by the Christian man, “for," said he, "this lantern will not light up the mountains in the distance, nor the

is

valley stretching away at my feet." His friend was amazed. "Man," said he, "take the lantern, it will make a road for you across the moor and light up your pathway home." "Oh," said his friend, "if that is true I will take it, but listen to me, so is the Bible not for distant paths of investigation, it is not so much to tell us concerning creation and existence, we shall know these things by and by. It is for the path at your feet and it will light you home a space at a time. The skeptical man saw it in an instant, he took God's word and came back again to the faith of his childhood.

So I offer it to you with its promises as a sure fountain, with its commands carefully received and followed out. You, too, may pass from darkness into light and you may claim from God this text of mine which says, "I even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.'

CONVERSION

TEXT: "And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."-Matt. 18: 3.

Jesus Christ was the world's greatest teacher and preacher. Multitudes followed him because he taught them, not as the scribes, but as one having authority. He came to them with the deepest truth of God, but couched in such familiar expressions, and told in such a fascinating way, that all men heard him and went their way rejoicing that so great a teacher had come into the world as the messenger of God. He desired to speak to them concerning the kingdom, and seeing on the distant hillside a farmer sowing his seed, he gave them the parable of the sower, and every farmer in his company began to understand his message. He told them the story of a woman baking bread, and in the spreading of the leaven

every housekeeper had a vision of one of the deepest principles of the coming kingdom. He gave them the account of the boy who went away from his home, breaking his mother's heart, and, according to tradition, putting her in her grave; causing his old father to bow his head in shame again and again, and yet in spite of it all, his father loved him; and every listener learned from the story a lesson concerning the love of God which could have been given to him in no other way. He was acknowledged the world's greatest teacher and preacher.

The text is introduced by the word "verily" and this is peculiar to Jesus. The word calls especial attention to the coming message. It was as if he had sounded a bell and said, "Stop and listen"; and wherever the word "verily" occurs, the Bible reader would do well to give heed to the message of Jesus.

What hope is there for the moralist when Jesus said, "Except ye be converted"? What hope can there be for the man who