“Prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom.
xii. 2).
There are three conditions in which the water in that engine may be.
First, the boiler may be full and the water clean and clear; or, secondly,
the boiler may not only be full but the water may be hot, very hot, hot
enough to scald you, almost boiling; thirdly, it may be just one degree
hotter and at the boiling point, giving forth its vapor in clouds of
steam, pressing through the valves and driving the mighty piston which
turns the wheels and propels the train of cars across the country.
So there are three kinds of Christians. The first we will call cold water
Christians, or, perhaps better, clean water Christians.
Secondly, there are hot water Christians. They are almost at the boiling
point.
One degree more, we come to the third class of Christians, the boiling
water Christians. The difference is a very slight one; it simply takes one
reservation out, drops one “if,” eliminates a single touch, and yet it is
all the difference in the world. That one degree changes that engine into
a motive power, not now a thing to be looked at, but a thing to go.