Some day, some
day, He will call me into His blessed presence, and I shall stand
before His face, and praise Him for ever for counting me worthy,
and calling me to preach His glad Gospel, and share in His joy of
saving the lost. The "woe" is lost in love and delight through
the baptism of the Spirit and the sweet assurance that Jesus is
pleased.
Occasionally, the call comes to a man who is ready and responds
promptly and gladly. When Isaiah received the fiery touch that
purged his life and purified his heart, he "heard the voice of
the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?"
And in the joy and power of his new experience, he cried out,
"Here am I; send me!" (Isaiah vi. 5-8).
When Paul received his call, he says, "Immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood" (Gal. i. 16), and he got up and went as
the Lord led him.
But more often it seems the Lord finds men preoccupied with other
plans and ambitions, or encompassed with obstacles and difficulties,
or oppressed with a deep sense of unworthiness or unfitness. Moses
argued that he could not talk. "O Lord!" he said, "I am not
eloquent, neither heretofore nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy
servant; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."
And then the Lord condescended, as He always does, to reason with
the backward man. "Who hath made man's mouth?" He asks, "or who
maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I
the Lord? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with thy mouth, and
teach thee what thou shalt say" (Exodus iv.
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