I be wise in detaining you by a geological discussion about the gravel you will pass over, or a physiological discussion about the muscles you will have to bring into play?  No.  After this Bible has pointed you the way to heaven, is it wise for me to detain you with any discussion about the nature of the human will, or whether the atonement is limited or unlimited?  There is the road—­go on it.  It is a plain way.

“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”  And that is you and that is me.  Any little child here can understand this as well as I can.  “Unless you become as a little child, you can not see the kingdom of God.”  If you are saved, it will not be as a philosopher, it will be as a little child.  “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”  Unless you get the spirit of little children, you will never come out at their glorious destiny.

IV.  Still further:  this road to heaven is a safe road.  Sometimes the traveler in those ancient highways would think himself perfectly secure, not knowing there was a lion by the way, burying his head deep between his paws, and then, when the right moment came, under the fearful spring the man’s life was gone, and there was a mauled carcass by the roadside.  But, says my text, “No lion shall be there.”  I wish I could make you feel, this morning, your entire security.  I tell you plainly that one minute after a man has become a child of God, he is as safe as though he had been ten thousand years in heaven.  He may slip, he may slide, he may stumble; but he can not be destroyed.  Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto complete salvation.  Everlastingly safe.

The severest trial to which you can subject a Christian man is to kill him, and that is glory.  In other words, the worst thing that can happen a child of God is heaven.  The body is only the old slippers that he throws aside just before putting on the sandals of light.  His soul, you can not hurt it.  No fires can consume it.  No floods can drown it.  No devils can capture it.

    “Firm and unmoved are they
      Who rest their souls on God;
    Fixed as the ground where David stood,
      Or where the ark abode.”

His soul is safe.  His reputation is safe.  Everything is safe.  “But,” you say, “suppose his store burns up?” Why, then, it will be only a change of investments from earthly to heavenly securities.  “But,” you say, “suppose his name goes down under the hoof of scorn and contempt?” The name will be so much brighter in glory.  “Suppose his physical health fails?” God will pour into him the floods of everlasting health, and it will not make any difference.  Earthly subtraction is heavenly addition.  The tears of earth are the crystals of heaven.  As they take rags and tatters and put them through the paper-mill, and they come out beautiful white sheets of paper, so, often, the rags of earthly destitution, under the cylinders of death, come out a white scroll upon which shall be written eternal emancipation.