Editorial Keynotes

God can do more in five minutes through a completely unobstructed channel than man can achieve through prodigious human labor. He can touch hidden and unknown resources at His will, that we could not discover with our utmost toil. He can lead us to waiting souls that all our earnest searching would never find. Such is the united testimony of Scripture, the witness of experience, and the pledge of the spirit of prophecy.

God is able, willing, and waiting.

We live in the day of His proffered power. Not human mechanics, but di­vine power is our need as individual workers and as a corporate group. Heaven's power house is accessible, and the switch that releases that power is prayer,— individual prayer, united prayer, penitential prayer, intercessory prayer, persistent prayer. All heaven's resources await our demand and re­ception, when we surrender in impor­tunate confession and humility, " first for ourselves, and then for the people."

With a new year upon us, with a world task to finish, with an unpre­pared church for which we are respon­sible, with our limitations so evident, does not our need constitute a tremen­dous challenge to prayer?

We are exhorted, nay, commanded, as ministers to pray. Joel, the prophet of the latter rain, calls for the ministry to weep between the porch and the altar, to intercede, and to ask for the Holy Spirit to be poured upon all flesh, that every willing soul may be saved.

This editorial is an invitation, not an official appointment of another day to our already congested calendar,—just a solemn invitation to every min­ister and gospel worker who would be glad personally to set apart the first Sabbath of each quarter as a day of special intercessory prayer. Wherever you are around the world circle, if you feel the need, if your heart responds, join your fellow workers in this day of pleading prayer. Let us ask for ourselves, to meet our great personal needs. Let us plead for souls. Let us entreat for the finishing of the work and the speedy coming of the Lord.

Let us ask for rain in the time of the latter rain. Thirsty, parched, feverish, delirious men and women are all about us. How they need the water of life! But first of all we need it ourselves in fullness, that we may become Artesian wells of living water, bringing life and love and satisfaction into the abounding dreariness, desolation, and death all about us.

If your heart responds to this invi­tation, please send to the Association headquarters a postcard or letter, that we may know of your union with us. Participate as you are individually im­pressed. Perhaps it will be in individ­ual, personal prayer. Perhaps you will invite " two or three " to unite with you. Perhaps you will wish to add full or partial fasting. But pray.

And prayer is not simply words. Giant spiritual leaders of the past found words at times too inadequate. Even the Holy Spirit prays for us with " groanings which cannot be uttered " in words. Real prayer is the outreach of the soul toward God. Remember the groanings of Christ in Gethsemane. Remember Elijah's fervency on the mount, and pray until the seventh time. Remember Moses on Mt. Sinai. Upon descending, his face shone because he became the intercessor for his people and actually offered his life there to God for them.

The first Sabbath day of each quarter in 1929, when we face anew our tasks and confront our quarter's problems afresh, will be April 6, July 6, and Oc­tober 5. Remember, the first day sug­gested is April 6.

Let us Pray.

L. E. F.

Trenchant Truths

The corrective of error is the pro­claiming of the truth.

When we differ with a brother, let us lock arms instead of locking horns as we seek an understanding.

There is but one thing greater than truth, and that is love. Love is the supreme test of discipleship.

We must respect the offices in God's cause, even though we cannot approve all the actions of the incumbents.

There is grave peril that we shall become simply one of the denomina­tions. We are a movement, not a de­nomination in the accepted sense.

Head knowledge without a heart ex­perience is one of the greatest curses that can strike a church or an individ­ual, be he layman or minister.

No vocation is so lofty as the min­istry. Never should its representatives descend to methods which are unethi­cal or in the slightest degree question­able.

Let us eschew superficial evidence and illogical conclusions. Arbitrary assertions are not to be confused with sound evidence, nor a pleasing quota­tion with established facts.

Keep intact the barriers of reserve. Be doubly careful to safeguard against any valid occasion for the breath of suspicion, the whisper of scandal, or the charge of indiscretion to grow out of the conduct of the minister.

Good men nearly always appear on both sides of a religious dispute, both putting forth plausible arguments. Let us not judge a question by the men championing a viewpoint, but by the merits of the case as tested at the bar of truth. After all, we are individ­ually accountable to God.

A word is, or should be, just the audible expression of a thought. How­ever, we will admit that some words are merely a screen to cover up lack of thought. So mere words do not necessarily mean anything. It is the thought behind that counts. Let us be thought-full preachers.

We need to extend our horizons and to broaden our vision. We need pe­riodically to break away from our rou­tine, and get a perspective of our work. Otherwise we become narrowed and stereotyped in outlook and labor. Nothing can compensate for perspec­tive. Break away once, and see.

Real preaching is possible only as the outgrowth of real study. The man who would preach for God must have his hours of retirement and medita­tion. In our frenzied life and pro­gram, this will come only as we reso­lutely allot and budget our time. We must plan our work, and then work our plan.

It is good for us each to have our periods of reversal to humble us and keep us from becoming lifted up, self-dependent, and self-satisfied. The well-meant flattery of friends and ad­mirers is liable to spoil us. We need the balance and shock that criticism and lack of understanding bring in their train.

Spirituality is neither a substitute for, nor an antagonist of, intellectual knowledge. The times, this movement, and God's honor demand an informed ministry.

Needed, an apostle of simplification!

To rest back upon human brilliance instead of the radiance of the Light of the world, to depend upon the power of words instead of the Word of power, to substitute human energy instead of the divine dynamic of the Holy Spirit,—these are the persistent, subtle foes of every preacher. Let us recognize them and repudiate them, each and all.

When we select men for the various posts of leadership in home and for­eign lands, what is the standard by which we gauge them? Is it good man­agement, organizing ability, platform skill, intellectual attainment? Or do we choose men " full of the Holy Ghost "? When we get back to Pente­costal standards, we shall have Pente­costal results.

When the soul is troubled and the heart is crushed, no one wants the jok­ing, frivolous preacher. Such want counsel and help from the serious, spir­itual man, who knows his Saviour, who understands the problem of sin, and above all has personally experi­enced Christ's full salvation. Not the­ory but life is needed. God save us from trifling preachers, and above all save the trifler himself.

Though without a formal creed, it is possible for us to become as creed-bound and sterile as the veriest creed­ist of the popular churches. If there is one principle that is clear in the Bible and in the spirit of prophecy, it is that light shines more and more until the perfect day. God forbid the development of the attitude, spoken or implied, that there is no more light beyond. Such a day would mark the dawn of stagnation and death in the study of prophecy and doctrine. Life demands continual growth, develop­ment, and enlargement.

How pitifully shallow some presen­tations are! Let us launch out into the deeps. We need something more to give than good cheer, an interesting forty minutes, an informative presen­tation of ethics, or even the continuous recital of mission stories. Men and women are dying for the saving provi­sions of Christ. And many such are within the church. God will not hold him guiltless who fails to meet the needs of the souls of men.

With no priest but Christ, no sacri­fice but Calvary, no confessional but the throne of grace, and no authority but the word of God, we are to meet the perversions of all past ages and the aggressions of the present, teach­ing, warning, and winning by our em­phasis on the full, positive truth as it is in Jesus.

Majorities do not make a matter right, nor do their votes change a wrong into a right. The right is in­trinsic, irrespective of the human atti­tude. God and right are often on the side of the minority. It is no disgrace to have a personal conviction, provid­ing you will work with your brethren.

There is not a belief, duty, com­mand, promise, or hope that does not revolve around this central fact that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.                                 

L. E. F.