Through three bitter years of depression the Lord has enabled His servants to hold the lines of His work without a break, but we now seem to have reached the point of supreme test. Everything depends upon the steadiness with which His workers and people shall meet the pressure of the present situation. These conditions were all foretold in the Bible, together with the fact that the work of God is to be brought to a triumphant conclusion amid unprecedented stress and upheaval.
In America, the pillars of our financial structure have been seriously shaken. The dollar value of the nation's wealth has been rapidly receding. From an estimate based on Bureau of Census figures, the wealth of the United States amounted in 1929 to 361 billion dollars. Since then it has been reduced to a present estimate of 145 billion dollars,—a decrease of 60 percent,—while the best figures obtainable place public, corporate, and personal indebtedness of the people of the United States at about 150 billion dollars. Therefore, according to these estimates, we are now living on credit, and consuming that credit in, both public and private expenditures.
Because of this financial decline, unprecedented in the history of our nation, every organization and every individual is affected. One out of every twenty-two business and industrial concerns went into bankruptcy during the past three years, while one out of every six banks has been closed. And the financial situation in America is typical of conditions around the world. In some countries these are much worse, and there is hunger and want everywhere.
Missionary organizations are in great perplexity, and many missionaries of other societies are being called home. Some of these societies are abandoning mission stations, and leaving fields of labor where they have operated many years. The resources of our own denomination have been greatly reduced. Four cuts in the General Conference appropriations have been made in three years, and we now face another cut. Yet our faithful missionaries are still holding their posts. ' The line of advance is being held intact around the world. Were not God with His people, this would not be possible. It is one of the miracles of modern missions.
But the end is not yet. We need to hold steady and keep our courage high, despite the fact that the number of unemployed in the United States alone is around twelve million.
Grain prices are lower than in a generation, and incomes are thereby greatly reduced. When the receipts on the Sixty-cent-a-week Fund for missions were totaled for January, we were astonished to find a shrinkage of 17 per cent. Our budget for 1933 did not contemplate any such shrinkage of receipts as this. But we must not now become unsteady or panic-stricken. The Lord's servant has counseled, "We must look our work fairly in the face and advance." No hindering cause must be permitted to hamper our faith. He who gave the gospel commission has said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." This work must go steadily onward, and every worker believing this must consecrate his time and earthly resources to the great task before us.
Just now, as never before, we should share our income with the cause we love. Many are without an income and cannot now give as they otherwise would. The burden must therefore be heavier than before on those having steady incomes. Our duty as workers in this emergency is to lay the situation clearly before our people, that every God-fearing believer in this cause may do his part.
When Zerubbabel was called to build the second temple, the obstacles seemed insurmountable. He knew that in the previous temple the gold and silver and the fine cedar were all provided in abundance. But as he faced the task before him, it loomed as a great, insuperable mountain. However, the Lord interposed, and sent the message, "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain." Commenting on this, the servant of the Lord says:
"Throughout the history of God's people, great mountains of difficulty, apparently insurmountable, have loomed up before those who were trying to carry out the purposes of Heaven. Such obstacles are permitted by the Lord as a test of faith. When we are hedged about on every side, this is the time above all others to trust in God and in the power of His Spirit. The exercise of a living faith means an increase of spiritual strength and the development of an unfaltering trust. It is thus that the soul becomes a conquering power.
'Nothing shall be impossible unto you.' " "Prophets and Kings," pp. 594, 595.
As the foregoing indicates, our resources in this message are not material but spiritual. The same word that came to Zerubbabel is for us today, as we look at the obstacles before us. Our hope and trust are not in might nor power nor money, but in the workings of God's Spirit.
Washington, D. C.
