Hindrances to the Gospel.
One of the greatest of these is the divisions amongst Christians.
In a day’s walk in a country district recently we came across five different small groups within a few miles of one another, unable for some reason or another to have any fellowship the one with the other. However such a lamentable state of things has come about, it certainly is not “standing fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:2727Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel; (Philippians 1:27)).
Helps to the Gospel.
We have often experienced what a help it is in carrying the glad tidings amongst the country villages to find one or two of the Lord’s people who are earnestly seeking the blessing of those by whom they are surrounded. Many a time have we had to go single-handed into the villages, hire a room, sweep it out, dust it over, trim the lamps, open the door, receive the people, preach to them, dismiss them, lock up the room, and go away. The joy of serving the Lord is well worth it all; then, too, “he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal” (John 4:3636And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. (John 4:36)). But a “Macedonian cry” from some local brother or sister, burdened with the desire to see souls awakened and saved — “Come over and help us”— is a cheer which only those who have labored single-handed can understand.
“Give him a cheer.”
A fire was raging, and at the top story was a poor child crying for a help. The brave fireman was straining every nerve to reach it, but was blinded and almost suffocated with the smoke. The crowd below began commenting, “He can’t do it. He’ll never reach her.” The poor fireman’s energies seemed slackening, when suddenly one of the crowd called out, “Give him a cheer!” The crowd below began cheering instead of criticizing, and with one supreme effort the child was saved.
There are many in the arena fighting the powers of sin and Satan, and seeking to “rescue the perishing,” don’t let us chill them with criticism, but strengthen their hands by prayer and help them with counsel and sympathy.
Praise and Prayer.
A correspondent writes: — “My dear brother has recently, I believe, been saved, and taken to be with the Lord. This after long years of opposition to the truth. I mention it as a cause for praise, also an encouragement to go on praying for the living but still unsaved ones.”
Let us remember the promise, and let us, acting on its conditions, claim its fulfillment―
Revival in the Eastern Counties.
Much prayer has gone up to God for East Anglia in connection with the season of awakening in Wales and elsewhere. Droppings have already fallen in many places. One writes from the borders of Essex and Suffolk: “The fever is all around us here.”
Some places are still enwrapped in callous indifference; let us pray earnestly and continuously that they, too, may be aroused.
The Children of the Rich.
A serious sign of the times is the utter godlessness and absence of all religious feeling amongst the upper classes. The Bishop of London, commenting upon the statement made by the master of one of our great public schools, that “out of a hundred boys who came to the school, seventy-seven had received no religious instruction at all,” remarked, “The ignorance of definite religious truth among the well-to-do classes has become a national danger.... Men and women who spend every Sunday on the golf links, or on the river, do it because they have no strong convictions to make them wish to do anything else; they do not go to church because they do not care about the things of which they will hear in church; they do not care, because when they were young and impressionable they were never taught them, or never taught them in such a way as to make a living and lasting impression upon their lives and characters forever.”
Has not the state of the so-called churches had somewhat to do with this indifference to all serious thought as to the future? Is not the long-continued skepticism, that has poured from the pulpit, at the root of much of the unbelief of the present time? When earnest men, saturated with honest conviction and unquestioning faith in that sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, preached it in the power of the Spirit, things were very different; witness the Wesleys, George Whitfield, and Charles Finney, in former times. What has given such power in the preaching of Dr Torrey? Is it not his absolute conviction of the inspiration of the Scriptures, the power of the Spirit, and the reality of prayer. Where these things are found to-day conversions will follow. Oh, for a return to the faithful preaching of the pure Word of God!