THERE were no “may be’s” about it. Why was it that, when Elijah was praying he sent his servant to the outlook? It was because he knew rain was going to come, and he wanted to know the first moment of its arrival, so that he could get down the mountain. He knew that the rain would come, just as certainly as Carmel rose above him, and the Mediterranean lay beneath him. Have you the same positiveness of expectation? Do you believe God really means it when He says, “Ask and it shall be given you Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you”? or is your imploration a mere matter of indefinite “perhaps”? Then it will die on your lips. Coming to God with such an insulting unbelief, He will spurn you away from Him.
Oh, my dear brethren and sisters in Christ, how can we halt and stagger and doubt, with the Bible full of promises, and Heaven full of glories, and God full of mercy and salvation for all who believe?
Some years ago a vessel went out from a port on Lake Erie. It was just as the ice was going out of the lake, and when it starts to go out it hardly ever returns. The vessel put out; but, strange to say, the ice returned, and surrounded the vessel, and the captain saw they must go down unless some wonderful relief came from some source of which he knew not. So he gathered the passengers in the cabin and said: “I will tell you the whole truth. I have done all I can to deliver this vessel, and we must go down unless more than human means are brought to our aid. Is there anyone here that can pray?” It was all still for a minute; then one of the mates said, with a good deal of tremor and modesty, “Let us pray.”
So he knelt down before God in the cabin, and told of their perils, and of the loved ones at home, and how thee would like to get home again, and asked God to spare their lives and save the ship. They rose, and lo the ice had parted, and the vessel floated through the channel way. One of the sailors said to the captain, “Shall we put on more sail?” He said, “No; there is a Hand guiding this vessel not seen of us; let her alone.” The vessel floated out into safe waters, and their time of peril was past.