Each day has its own peculiar difficulties and dangers for the true believer. Those of the present hour are not the same as those which tried our fathers; but God and His Word remain the same, and to Him and the Word of His grace we turn, as did the saints in olden times.
Unbelieving thoughts and principles allowed in Christian churches present one of the greatest difficulties and dangers for God’s people of this day. Men, even accredited Christian preachers and teachers, refuse to believe all that God says in His Word, and their congregations love to have it that way. Hence amusements and entertainments take the place which only the gospel should have in many places used for Christian worship, and movements are started by well-known Christian preachers for gathering the people together on the Lord’s day to hear fine music and fine speeches, and not to hear of God or of Christ.
Whatever men say of human progress, a thoughtful Christian is obliged to admit that the days are evil, and that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:1313But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:13)). There may be material progress on the earth; there may be a great increase of mechanical and scientific knowledge; but if God is left out of man’s thoughts, and His Word refused, the end of such progress can only be apostasy from Him.
No one who believed in God the Holy Spirit being on earth, and in His power, would go to such miserable ends as concerts and recitations in order to evangelize mankind, or to glorify God.
What then is the loyal Christian’s path? First of all he must clear himself from what is false. He is not loyal to his Lord if he pursues the popular course of amusing the people. Let another person do so, but let the loyal Christian seek glory, and, though his best friends be against him, let him stand for Christ, and Christ will stand by him. Next, let him stir up his soul to faith in the presence of God the Spirit on the earth, and to the fact that He will use the servant who honors Him. As to this great reality let there be no compromise in the soul, no turning away. It is a question of faith—God has given us of His Spirit, and we dare not deny Him. When this faith fills the soul, the servant of God becomes a new man in service. He knows God the Spirit is in him, and works through him, and by him. Yet it is God who works, the servant is only a vessel. In himself he is nothing; but through God the Holy Ghost, he is a power for God on the earth.
In this dark night, and in deepening darkness, we cry to our Christian brothers and sisters to stir up their hearts as to the great truth of God the Holy Ghost being on the earth and of His indwelling His saints, and of His being their power for all true service for God and for Christ!