The One Great Reality | Page 5

revelation of God Himself, for that is the only way the life of God can enter into your soul and mine. Are you longing to find God? It is not that we find Him, but that He finds us, making Himself to us the great Reality. We may know wonderful things about Him, but that is not enough. We must really know Him in our hearts!
The very longing which you have for this personal revelation of God comes from the loving Father Himself, and He says, "I will give them a heart to know Me": [Footnote: Jer. xxiv. 7.] so we need never think, ah! it is beyond me, for He promises to give us the heart to know Him.
I had a striking instance of this some years ago. A working man who could not read or write told me that he had been converted at our meeting. He died in the Union Infirmary, and I heard afterwards that he had been a blessing to many in the ward. He said to me one day, "I want to tell you what God is to me." In very simple words he described how he could see it all plainly. How in the beginning, sin came into the Garden of Eden and then God revealed Himself to the sinner so as to bring him back to Himself. Again and again his simple testimony was, I must tell every one what God is to me. This man had learnt to know God personally through his own need as a sinner, so it is not by earthly education that we find God, but through the Holy Spirit's teaching, and then in the Word He reveals Himself more fully.
It is "through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that grace and peace are multiplied to us," [Footnote: 2 Pet. i. 2.] so if we have not more and more grace and peace coming into our souls it is because we do not really know God.
It makes all the difference in our life when we can say, God is now my living Father; for it means God in His infinite love has taken my life into His, and by this personal link of love I take His life into mine. When He assures us that He is the Living God, it means that He lives and cares for us. All things, great and small, are under His control. We have an illustration of this in the present war. Think of our Navy, scattered over seven oceans, yet all under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Jellicoe. Not one vessel can move without his orders, no ship can be attacked without his knowledge; the wireless apparatus is at work night and day communicating every detail. It brings Sir John word of any submarine sighted, or of any movement in all the seas round our country, and it carries his orders far and near.
When God tells us that He is the living God, we know that He cares for us in the same way as a mother cares for her children. We had a touching illustration of this about a year ago.
Do you remember how we were thrilled with horror when the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria, was shot while driving through the city? He expired in a few minutes, leaving three children. In those few moments he turned to his wife who was seated by his side and said these pathetic words, "Sophie, live for our children." He did not know that she too had been mortally wounded and would be powerless to care for their orphan children.
It is because our Father-God is the living God, that He can say to us to- day just as He said to the Old Testament saints, "I am living for you, caring for you, protecting you." "Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made and I will bear, even I will carry and will deliver you." [Footnote: Isa. xlvi. 4.] When He says to you, "I am God and there is none else," [Footnote 2: Isa. xlv. 22.] does your heart answer, Yes: "Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God." [Footnote 3: Ps. xc. 2.]

ADDRESS II
GOD OUR FATHER
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--Matthew vii 24-34.
In the chapter we have just read there is a great deal about our daily home life, and the word "Father" is mentioned twelve times, so it shows that God knows all about the everyday work. It is a grand thing when we find this out.
A poor woman in China was converted, and very soon the lady missionary who visited her noticed that now her house was very clean and tidy, and told her how glad she was to