The beginning of blessing is the honest acknowledgment before the Lord that such a state of failure (the failure of the collective testimony of the church to Christ its head) exists. A lot of “strange gods” have captured the hearts of the beloved people of God: Let us put them away and fast before Him (denying self).
The vessel of testimony is as wrecked as the ship on which Paul sailed towards Rome. It is not a question of saving the vessel: That is a lost cause. The water spilled upon the ground through our unfaithfulness cannot be gathered up again! (See 1 Samuel 7.)
Am I saying there is no path for faith in these days? Far be the thought! The Lord has, I believe, preserved a path in which faith can walk until the shout (calling the assembly home). Hannah says God preserves the feet of His saints (1 Sam. 2:99He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. (1 Samuel 2:9)), and Proverbs 29Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. (Proverbs 2:9) tells us that God preserves the path itself for us to walk in.
How should we walk in that path which the Lord has, I believe, graciously showed us? Humbly recognizing that grace alone brings us to that path and can keep us in it for His glory until He comes.
R. K. Gorgas