Again I say that here I do not appeal to the surface of our
consciousness, nor to men who have sophisticated themselves, nor to
people who have sinned themselves, into hardness, but to the voice of
the inner man which speaks in the depths of each man's being.

There is the cry of Want: the manifest want of the soul for God.

There is the voice of Reason.

There is the voice of Conscience.

IV. Yet many of us will not take God for our Rock.

Surely it is a most extraordinary thing that men should be 'judges,'
being convinced in their deepest consciousness that God is the only
Foundation and Refuge, and yet that the conviction should have
absolutely no influence on their conduct. The same stark, staring
inconsequence is visible in many other departments of life, but in this
region it works its most tragic results. The message which many of my
hearers need most is--follow out your deepest convictions, and be true
to the inward voice which condenses all your experience into the one
counsel to take God for the 'strength of your hearts and your portion
for ever,' for only in Him will you find what you need for life and
strength and riches. If He is 'our Rock,' then we shall have a firm
foundation, a safe refuge, inexhaustible refreshment and untroubled
rest. Lives founded on aught beside are built on sand and will be full
of tremors and unsettlements, and at last the despairing builder and
his ruined house will be washed away with the dissolving 'sandbank and
shoal of time' on which he built.