A n e w s r e p o r t e r said recently: “News is either about something changing or something unusual. Life, however, is largely about something not changing and unusual. Follow the news diligently enough and you will become stone-blind to the greater part of reality and to most of the values of living.” This is a word fitly spoken. It is easy to become so excited over current events that the temporary takes pre cedence over the eternal, “I get so worked up over what is happening that I forget to preach the Gospel.” While wondering what the world is coming to, we forget Him who has come to the world. Once in a while I return to the hilltop where I grew up long ago. Far from city lights, I am amazed at how near the stars appear, how brilliantly they stand out in the dense darkness. Blinded by our little lights we do not see the stars any more. Our forefathers saw more with a candle that we discover with a searchlight. Then, too, we are always _exploding fireworks of one kind of an other, political, social, even religious, and we never see the constellations for our own sputtering sparklers. And we have stars of our own: athletic, political, movie, and TV celebrities. They go up like rockets and come down i like rocks, sizzling like comets across the sky soon to bum out. Fame is fleeting. Recently in a library I saw beside the usual “Who’s Who” a new volume, “Who Was Who!” So soon we pass from here to zero! The Word of God speaks of “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude 13). We deluded mortals hitch our wagons to these misguided missiles, these false teachers and leaders and messiahs, blind leaders of the blind. There will be more of them than ever until the coming of Antichrist himself. Satan, the arch-deceiver over all, is a fallen star: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” (Isa. 14:12). When Jesus was bom, the Wise Men saw HIS star. The Star out of Jacob, the Daystar, the Bright and Morn ing Star — He is no comet soon to fade. When our Lord spoke to the church at Thyatira, He dealt with Jezebel, a wandering star leading the church astray with a high brow philosophy. They had tolerated her when they should have put her out. In His closing words, the Lord of the Lampstands urges the faithful to hold fast what they have and then promises to the overcomer: “I will give him the morning star” (Rev. 2:28). The Morning Star is Himself for He is not only our Rewarder but also our Reward. Today the church is beguiled by Jezebelism, false doctrine, secularism. We must not let wandering stars de ceive us. We have a Star. Let us be faithful to the end and He will reward us with Himself. It is so easy to be Occupied with the transitory and miss the eternal. We j take the really great things for granted. The sun we accept as a matter of course, but let it be hidden for a few days and what a difference! Water is such a com monplace thing, but none of our fancy drinks can take its place, and without it men soon go mad. Who gives much thought to the air? But a few seconds without it spells death. Health we take for granted until we have ^ time to think it over in a hospital bed. Nobody gives - -
Have
^
You
Seen
»*xv ■'
tfc by Dr. Vance Hamer
12
THE KING'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook Annual report