Looking Back With Thankfulness Looking Forward With Hopefulness

I like to look back to the first time I came to know “The Message” and its Editor. In the midst of the sad war days, my wife was sitting on a seat in Bournemouth. An elderly gentleman was there also, and many soldiers were passing to and fro. Each time one of them came near, the gentleman darted after him and gave him a small brown booklet, and then returned to his seat of observation. My wife asked for, and received with cordiality, one of the booklets; it was that straight, earnest, and much-needed message, “The Sin Against the Soldier and the Saviour.”
I at once wrote to Dr. Wreford, thanking him for it, and ordering some copies, and ever since that day we have often remembered each other at the throne of grace, for our aim is one, namely, honor to God’s Holy Word.
Yes, whatever effort any of us made, however humble during that awful war time, to bring God’s truth to the “Fighting Forces,” we may look back upon with thankfulness.
What are our grounds for hopefulness in these sad times of unrest and lawlessness? One, most certainly, and it is a war product (from a human point of view), is our Protectorate over the Holy Land, for we trust that it is above all a token that our Heavenly Father has still a use for Britain in His purposes of grace, and this grand fact commands our deepest thoughts, our prayers and our praise, for the highway of the Lord for His ancient peoples’ return is developing daily.
A second matter of hopefulness lies in the thousands of soldiers and sailors of all ranks who, facing the dread realities of life and death, have been truly converted in the awful war time, and who are now lay preachers, telling amongst the frivolous and the careless, the weary and the sad at home, what the Lord has done for their souls; what countless proofs the annals of the war afford of the power of the Holy Spirit, through an infinite variety of means, to regenerate the soul. A most touching anecdote was recently told in “The Message,” where a dying soldier turns in vain to, his nurse for some spiritual comfort, and then to a comrade lying near, who, at a loss for anything better, said the best he could-the hymn his mother taught him in childhood: “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, look upon a little child. Pity my simplicity; suffer me to come to Thee.” “Oh, say it again,” said the dear lad. Then, laying quite still for some moments, he whispered, “He has come,” and turned over and died! “Safe in the arms of Jesus.”
A third matter of hopefulness-glorious grand and rocklike is, because our hope and trust in the past and for the future are centered in the Word of God, and that means the God of the Word. Jesus the living Word; “The heaven-drawn picture of Christ the living Word.”
“A glory gilds the sacred page, majestic like the sun; it gives a light to every age, it gives, but borrows none.”
This is our nation’s greatest need in these dark and troublous times―so clearly predicted―when our harassed statesmen are searching for “assets” in face of overwhelming liabilities.
Our King George, in a speech not long ago, said, “The nation’s greatest asset is the Bible”―true, deep and precious words. Let Bible lovers lay them to heart and “Go forward” in the strength of that conviction and in the power of the loving Holy Spirit. And what said the King of kings, who will one day “rule the nations” with a rod of iron (Rev. 19:1515And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (Revelation 19:15))? But when He was about to lay down His life for our sins prayed to His father for His disciples, saying “Sanctify them through the truth. Thy word is truth.” Yes the truth, all the truth, needed for every human soul for time and for eternity, for peace that “passeth all understanding” now, and a warning against future woe.
Many are hoping and earnestly praying for a revival, and God grant it may come, but meanwhile let us apply the “one by one” method, and ask, What can I do with Jesus’ loving aid (“For without Me ye can do nothing”). If we cannot move the masses, let us seek for individual souls in the power of His holy word, and when the way or the task seems difficult, may the love of Christ constrain us toy “occupy fill He come.”
B. T. B.
(Which spells “Back to the Bible.”).