time to think about it.'

Then there are some of you that are kept from following Christ because
you have never yet found out that you need a guide at all. Then there
are some of you that are kept back because you like very much better
to go your own way, and to follow your own inclination, and dislike
the idea of following the will of another. There are a host of other
reasons that I do not need to deal with now; but oh! brethren, none of
them is worth pleading. They are excuses, they are not reasons. 'They
all with one consent began to make excuse'--excuses, not reasons; and
manufactured excuses, in order to cover a decision which has been
taken before, and on other grounds altogether, which it is not
convenient to bring up to the surface. I am not going to deal with
these in detail, but I beseech you, do not let what I venture to call
Christ's seeking of you once more, even by my poor words now, be in
vain.

Follow Him. Trust, obey, imitate, hold fellowship with Him. You will
always have a Companion, you will always have a Protector. 'He that
followeth Me,' saith He, 'shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life.' And if you will listen to the Shepherd's voice and
follow Him, that sweet old promise will be true, in its divinest and
sweetest sense, about your life, in time; and about your life in the
moment of death, the isthmus between two worlds, and about your life
in eternity--'They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the sun
nor heat smite them; for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them,
even by the springs of water shall He guide them.' 'Follow thou Me.'