JESUS NEVER FAILS: ““Behold! My Servant whom I uphold…He will not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa 42:1, 4). Charles Spurgeon tells the following story: I shook hands after the sermon this morning with a good missionary of Christ from West Africa. He has been there 16 years. I believe they reckon four years to be the average missionary’s life in that malarious district. He had buried 12 of his companions during that time.…He was going back to Africa to live a little while longer perhaps, but he expected to die soon. Then he added—I thought, sweetly, as I shook his hand—“Well, many of us may die; perhaps hundreds of us will, but Christ will win at last. Africa will know and reverence our Lord Jesus; and so what does it matter what becomes of us—our names, our reputations, our health, our lives—if Jesus wins at last!” What heroic words! What a missionary spirit! “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 Jn 5:4).