d desired
all the more to put His strength into them, that His strength might be
made perfect in weakness.

True, God's goodness seemed of little use to too many of them. Their
history during the next forty years was a very sad one. With many of
them God was not well pleased, the Bible tells us, and their carcases
fell in the Wilderness. A sad forty years they were for Moses also, as
he says in that sad and glorious Psalm of his (Ps. xc. 7, 8): "We consume
away in thy displeasure, and are afraid of thy wrathful indignation. Thou
hast set our misdeeds before us, our secret sins in the light of thy
countenance, for when Thou art angry our days are gone: we bring our
years to an end as a tale that is told."

But that was all their own fault. God never left them for all those
forty years. He fed them with manna in the wilderness, and the angel of
His presence preserved them.

And now, my friends, remember what I have said of God in this text, "I AM
hath sent me unto you," and see how it preaches to you an almighty,
unchangeable Father, whose mercy is over all His works, full of love and
care for all, longing and labouring for ever by His Son Jesus Christ to
raise us from the death of sin (which is the only death we need to be
afraid of) to the life of righteousness--the only life worth living here,
the only life which we can live beyond the grave! A just God, a merciful
God, a patient God, a generous God, a gracious God; a God whose glory is
to save--a God who is utterly worthy of our love and respect--a God whom
we can trust--a God whom it is worth while to obey--a God who deserves
our thanks from our cradle to our grave--a God to whom we ought honestly,
and from the bottom of our hearts to say, now and for ever:

"We worship Thee, we bless Thee, we praise Thee, we magnify Thee, we give
thanks to Thee for Thy great glory, oh! Lord God, Heavenly King, God the
Father Almighty."

VI. THE ENGLISHMAN TRAINED BY TOIL.

"All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe
to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land
which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all
the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the
wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in
thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no. And
he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with ma