Why don't some of these merchants say: "If God is going to make me a successful merchant in Chicago, I will be one whether I like it or not, and if He isn't I won't."
If you are sick, and a doctor prescribes for you, don't take the medicine—throw it out the door. It does not matter, for if God has decreed you are going to die, you will; if He hasn't, you will get better. If you use that argument you may as well not walk home from this tabernacle. If God has said you'll get home, you'll get home—you'll fly through the air.
I have an idea that the Lord Jesus saw how men were going to stumble over this doctrine, so after He had been thirty or forty years in heaven He came down and spoke to John. One Lord's day in Patmos, He said to him:
"Write these things to the churches."
John kept on writing. His pen flew very fast. And then the Lord, when it was nearly finished, said, "John, before you close the book, put in one more invitation. 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And WHOSOEVER WILL, let him take the water of life freely.'"
The Mysteries of the Bible
Dr. Talmage tells the story that one day while he was bothering his theological professor with questions about the mysteries of the Bible, the latter turned on him and said:
"Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things you don't."
The Little Lone One
I sometimes think if an angel were to wing its way to heaven, and tell them that there was one little child here on earth—it might be a shoeless, coatless street Arab—with no one to lead it to the cross of Christ, and if God were to call the angels round His throne and ask them to go and spend—aye, fifty years, in teaching that child, there would not be an angel in heaven but would respond gladly to the appeal. We should see even Gabriel saying, "Let me go and win that soul to Christ." We should see Paul buckling on his old armor again, and saying, "Let me go back again to earth, that I may have the joy of leading that little one to his Saviour."