can save us with rockets to the moon, intercontinental missiles, speed, light, magic. God must be saying to us as He said to proud Babylon 2600 years ago (Isaiah 47:13): “ Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prog nosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.” They had so little time! And America may have so little time — so little time! We boast the power of our almighty dollar among the nations, and grieve Almighty God that made us; but already our gold and silver is cankered and impotent, our currency devaluates in world markets, our hoard of gold disappears. Little pagan peoples defy us, trouble us and laugh at our international plight. Russia — athe istic. Russia (think of it!) — is saying to us, “You have so little time! Soon we’ll bury you!” We pray God will not permit it for the elect’s sake. But right now we have very little time for national re pentance. So little time! A CARANVANSARY LIFE But what about you? Paul says the time is now “high time” for you to awake out of your sleep, which can become the sleep of eternal death. A Persian pilgrim wandered one day by mistake into the king’s palace. Thinking he was in a hotel or a caranvansary (so called in. the East), he made himself at home. Finding a long gallery, he laid his carpet upon the floor and prepared to sleep. Soon he was discovered by the guards who asked him what he was doing in that place. The pilgrim said he intended to take his night’s lodg ing in the caranvansary. The guards told him angrily that the place was not a caranvansary but the king’s palace. It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate, and smiling at the mistake of the pilgrim, asked how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary. “ Sir,” said the pilgrim, “ give me leave to ask your Majesty a question or two. Who are the persons who lodged in this house when it was built?” The king re plied, “M y ancestory lodged here.” “And who was the last person who lodged here?” “My father,” the king replied. “ And who lodges here at present?” The king said, “Myself.” “And who will lodge here after you?” “ The young prince, my son.” “Ah, sir,” said the pilgrim, “ a house that changes its inhabitants so often and receives such a perpetual succession of guests is not after all a palace but a cara vansary!” Plainly, this world is not a home; it’s a hotel. We live here briefly, and there is so little time. While we are here we must prepare for a larger life, a fuller life, for certainly if this life is not a preparation for a better one, then it is largely a mockery. How ridiculous are our greed and ambitions when we contemplate life’s brevity! The changing year sternly reminds us of the brevity of our lives. What about the afterglow when you look back and think of the journey of life? W ill there be the satisfaction of years of service for Him, and a glorious anticipation of seeing Him face to face, the One whom we have served through a busy life? So little time! Prepare for the hereafter because the hereafter is not short. It’s endless. Jesus talked about ever lasting life. “He that hath the Son hath life . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life”— endless, undying, unceasing life.
So Little Time (Continued) Let’s dare to look intelligently at this evaporating mist we call “life.” Admittedly, life is short — we must then leam its divine purpose. Too many people drift through life without compass, without any conscious port of des tination, and many times, sadly, without the true knowl edge of the journey. "What can be more tragic than that? God intends that we should prepare in childhood for life. That’s why He placed babes in mothers’ arms, and said, “ Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Parents, are you indifferent to the spiritual training of your children? They cannot make up in afterlife what you have neglected to give them in youth. You should talk to little children about life and' death, God and Christ, and eternal life, so that it is indelibly printed upon the plastic and impressionable consciousness of childhood. Little children should sometime be told about the fact and nature of death. When loved ones die, tell them the meaning of death and tell them about the afterlife. What is life’s meaning? Where does it lead? Is death the.end? Have you ever faced that question? You must! This generation has lived in a terrible time of dying; there has never been any other time in history when so many have died violent deaths and when people were so conscious of death’s reality as in the last forty years. Now we know about nuclear bombs that can blow millions into microscopic dust. The Communist date for world control is now 1970. W ill it be after nuclear des truction? So little time! However, we must think constructively. The chang ing year makes us retrospective. We look back at the path behind us that trails off into dimness and look forward to the future, with varied emotions—curiosity, wonder, an ticipation, terrible fear, unless we belong to the drunken sots who at New Year’s celebrate time’s passing with bleary eyes, dirty jest, meaningless toasts. OUR REPUBLIC DISINTEGRATING? As a nation, we seem to have so little time. Ours is a republic, and history reveals that republics have always had a short life and a quick death. Ancient Rome had a long history and died slowly; but there will be no leisurely and comfortable decay for America. The heavy footfall of bloody tyranny marches resistlessly, getting nearer and nearer our doors. So little time! Apostasy and Antichrist loom clearer and clearer on the religious horizon. How much time have we to tell the story? Christ asked, “When the Son of man cometh shall he find the faith (the true faith) in the earth?” Capable historians and serious sociologists are pessi mistic concerning the. near future; they are not optimis tic fools. They know that greater civilizations than ours have risen high in the world’s sunlight, then stumbled and plunged into the dust of oblivion. Archaeologists dig amid the ruins of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and wonder how such mighty civilizations could have passed away. If they would listen, they would hear the thundering voice of the Psalmist out of the misty past, crying, “ The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” The Almighty God told Babylon when she was still in the bloom of her world glory, “ Come down, and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon . . . Thy nakedness shall be uncovered . . . I will take vengeance . . . Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness.” Today she sits silent and has for thousands of years. Her mag nificent palaces are heaps of rubble. God made it so! She was mighty. She had her scientists, who boasted they could save her. Today, our scientists boast that they
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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