The point of the remark is that salvation is not to be assumed by any one as a matter of course, but is to be sought with earnest and persistent effort.16 We must fight17 if we would win; it is in its due application true of all, everywhere and always, that they must enter into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations (Acts 14:22).

The Lord’s nets, the preachers of the word, need mending too. Our mind grows jaded, and our spirit depressed, our heart beats with diminished vigor, and our eyes lose their brightness, if we continue, month after month, and year after year, without a rest. Mental work will as surely wear out the brain as friction will destroy the iron wheel. It is a bad policy to forego the regular vacation.

The fact is that we have all spent too much time on one story of the great mansion of God’s universe. We need occasionally to go upstairs or downstairs in this mansion; downstairs and in the cellar study the rocks, or upstairs and see God in some of the higher stories, and learn the meaning of the text when it says: “It is he that buildeth his stories in the heavens.”