January, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
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care of you in the dark ? Before, you ask Him to take care o f you in the dark, do you talk to Him about what you did in the light? Do you go over your life in His presence? Do you bring out everything before Him? Do you let the full clear light o f the sanctuary shine upon your words and your behavior ? And then as He shows you things that are so opposed to His own infinite holiness,'to His ten derness, to His compassion for men; as He shows you things that are so contrary to the Spirit o f an unworldly Christ, do you make your frank, honest confession before Him and seek His grace to turn from these things once and forever, henceforth to be devoted alone to Him? I f you do, you are on the way to revival, for that is how God works. H abakku k ’ s P rayer As a rule, when people use this word “ revival,” they mean “ awakening.” They are not really thinking so much o f revival among the people o f God as o f an awakening o f the unsaved, and it is very good that we should be think ing o f that. It is right in that connection that we have the prayer o f Habakkuk, “ O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid.” If there ever was a man who might well have asked, “ Is there any use praying for revival in days such as mine ?” it was this man. He lived just a short time before the Babylonian captivity o f the people of Judah, and he knew that, in a very little while, God was going to give the people over to the Gentile avenger. Judgment would shortly be meted out to the people o f Judah; and therefore Habak kuk might have been excused if he had shaken his head and said, “ It is no use trying to do anything now. W e are just at the end of one o f God’s dispensations with u s ; the enemy is coming, and God will not defend this city any more. There is no use expecting revival or blessing.” But, no, he said to himself, “ The very fact that we are down to the end o f one o f God’s dealings with us is the reason we need Him more than ever; it is the very reason why inter cessors should be before Him to cry out, ‘In wrath remem ber mercy.’ ” I f you and I and the people o f God throughout the world come to Him with earnest purpose o f heart to cry like this, w.e can be assured that He will be delighted to answer. I am not a prophet nor the son o f a prophet, but if there is world-wide brokenness o f spirit on the part of the people o f God, if there is repentance and crying to Him, God will delight to do some mighty work before the coming again of His blessed Son. And when the people of God are thus stirred, there will be an awakening outside. R evival and A w aken ing in I ndia I read o f a little group o f missionaries in India, asso ciated with a company o f believers with whom I happened to be intimately in Christian fellowship. They were what we might call hyper-Calvinistic. They not only believed in the sovereignty o f the Lord, but their belief was almost akin to the Mohammedan doctrine of fatalism. They had been in one district for sixteen years and had not found one convert. They tried to comfort themselves with Judson’s answer to the Baptist Board when they asked him, after he had labored in his field for twenty years, “ What are the prospects ?” His answer was, “ The prospects are as bright as the promises o f God.” That was real faith on Judson’s part, and it was not long until God rewarded his faith. And so with this they tried to comfort themselves. But they were put to shame by the fact that, not very far from them, another mission started work, manned by a people who did not have anything like the same knowledge o f the Bible that these people had. They were overgiven to emo tionalism and yet simple earnest Christians who believed God and sought to walk before Him in simple faith. These
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A t the Portal
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“Lo, I am with you alway.” Standing at the portal O f the opening year, Words of comfort meet us,
Hushing every fear; Spoken through the silence 1*22 By our Father’s voice, Tender, strong, and faithful, Making us rejoice.
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He will never fail us, He will not forsake; His eternal covenant He will never break; Resting on His promises, What have we to fear? God is all-sufficient For the coming year. — F rances R idley H avergal .
people soon had one and another and even whole families come to them in brokenness o f spirit, confessing their sins and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. The hyper-Calvinistic missionaries went over to visit the newcomers, for they felt it could not be a real work. But to their amazement they got into a testimony meeting, and one after another the heathen got up and, oh, the stories o f redeeming grace they to ld ! These brethren went back humbled before God and said, “ The fault cannot be with G od ; it cannot be with the gospel we preach; it must be in ourselves.’’ So they put up a placard outside which read, “ No public services for the present; the missionaries will gather for prayer and humiliation before God.” They be gan with a day o f prayer and went on, eating as little as they could, till six days had gone by, and then on the sev enth day there came a knock at the door. During these days, there had been great confessions, much self-judgment, many idols torn down, getting right with God themselves, and they were amazed to find how much there could be in the life o f a missionary that needed to be made right. When one of them answered the knock, he found a native standing there who said, “ I want to get into the meeting.” “ But,” said the missionary, “ this is just a meeting, for the missionaries.” “ Oh, but I must get in,” the man said. “ I have lain awake for two nights, I am so miserable. You must let me in and show me the way o f life.” And o f course they all gathered around him and pointed him to Christ. The dear fellow was hardly saved when some one else came to the door. He said, “ When I found the chapel was closed, I won dered if God had given us up. The missionaries have been here for sixteen years, and I have heard the message and have never received it ; but I never thought the chapel door would be closed in my fa ce ; so I wondered whether God was through with us, whether He had given us up.” - O f course the door was thrown open. Just after that, I read an article in a certain periodical and it said, “ Six weeks have gone by since we began our time o f prayer, and already we have baptized sixty converts. There are scores more inquiring the way of life.” Awakening follows revival, that is, revival among the people o f God comes first, and then an awakening among the Christless. You do not have to hold special meetings to bring this about. All that is needed is integrity o f pur pose and honesty o f spirit before God. He will work; He will revive; He will bless wherever His people call upon Him in truth.
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