Editorial Postscripts

Gauge!—The passing of time since the death of God's chosen messenger to the remnant church increases yearly the peril of forgetful­ness and the sin of disregard. There needs to be a revived study of these Heaven-sent mes­sages, and a renewal of allegiance to the clear, sound instruction bequeathed to us. Our al­legiance to these inspired counsels—illuminat­ing and applying, as they do, the principles and provisions of the Word—is a dependable gauge as to our own spiritual status, and to our faith­fulness as spiritual watchmen. Because of the thickening perils we need as never before to study and heed this precious gift to the rem­nant church.

Lapses!—From time to time indiscretion and moral lapse shock the church and blight her record. The fact that this sometimes involves public representatives causes us to bow the head in sorrow and humiliation. Sad to say, the offender usually continues in public labor until his duplicity is found out. That is the alarming part of it all—that it is the discovery by others of the indiscretion, and not one's own horror of sin, that terminates the public service. This reveals the blighting, narcotizing, damning effect of sin. And why is such iniquity possi­ble? It is because godliness has ceased to be the consuming passion of the soul; because truth is held by such merely as an intellectual belief, and not as the determinative principle of life; because lukewarmness and distance have come between the soul and God; because Christianity is to such, a theory to which mental assent is given, and not a vital relationship to the living Christ; because such men are con­vinced in mind, but are not converted in heart; because the everlasting gospel is to them but a systematized body of doctrines, and not the life­and-death provisions of salvation. God have mercy on the hypocrite who thus becomes a stone of stumbling and reproach. Let us all seek God anew for the realities of the gospel, and for personal purity of heart.

Legalism!—Judging from the public lectures of some, the auditors would gather that Paul, Peter, and John wrote, under inspiration, only doctrinal declarations and outline prophecies—nothing of regeneration, vital godliness, right­eousness by faith, et cetera. We are largely re­sponsible for the opinion that too largely pre­vails that we are legalists and doctrinarians, de­pendent for salvation upon works of obedience. Because of the necessary emphasis upon God's inviolable law in the midst of a general re­pudiation, we should go out of our way to stress the basic truths of salvation,—that we are saved solely by grace, and only by grace are we en­abled to keep the law. We must have converted converts, else they are but tenfold more the children of condemnation because of the magni­fied vision of the law we bring to them, and the false security that obedience to the letter may bring.

Cities!—Multitudes, multitudes in the world's great cities. They stream out of the sky­scrapers, and pour forth from the subways like ants in endless procession. They thread their way frenziedly through the narrow gulches be­tween the man-made mountains of stone and steel. They rush to and fro, money mad, pleasure bent, amusement crazed, intense, so­phisticated, and godless for the most part, knowing little of the Judge of all the earth, and caring less about His bar before which all must soon stand. Yet we must somehow reach them, warn them, and win God's hidden jewels from among them. The evangelistic problem in our huge cities is terrific. To secure and finance the location, to get the eye and the ear, to cause the throngs to pause long enough to listen, and to reach in their seclusion those who will not come—such is the city evangelist's task. His problem is intensified tenfold over that of the small town worker. Costs, restric­tions, worldliness, sophistication, sin, and the mad rush confront at every turn. Pray for our fellow workers in the great cities. God must work mightily with them if there is any ade­quate matching of the needs.

Handicaps!—It is distressing that a gracious provision, such as the Spirit of prophecy, is constantly handicapped by two unwholesome groups that alike constitute deterrents to sound, true, and loyal adherence to the gift. The first are the skeptics, or doubters. These range from the mildly apathetic, who are usually silent, to actual rejecters, who often become agitators against the gift. The very negative­ness of their position, however, limits their influence with the discerning. The second group swings to the other extreme. These not only profess loyalty to the gift, but usually the only loyalty. They go beyond the claims of the gift itself, and beyond the belief and teach­ing of the loyal and best-informed leadership of past and present. Such often attribute ver­bal infallibility and personal inerrancy of judg­ment to the Lord's messenger, castigating as unsound and disloyal those who do not so hold with them. This is most regrettable and unwise. The need today is for sound, sincere, rational belief in the gift, and conscientious following of its counsels.                                            

L. E.F.