“What Doest Thou Here?”
111
are those who are willing to do as much for the sake of telling others
of the Saviour?
If, under trying circumstances, men of spiritual power, pressed
beyond measure, become discouraged and desponding, if at times they
see nothing desirable in life, that they should choose it, this is nothing
strange or new. Let all such remember that one of the mightiest of the
prophets fled for his life before the rage of an infuriated woman. A
fugitive, weary and travel-worn, bitter disappointment crushing his
spirits, he asked that he might die. But it was when hope was gone
and his lifework seemed threatened with defeat, that he learned one
of the most precious lessons of his life. In the hour of his greatest
weakness he learned the need and the possibility of trusting God under
circumstances the most forbidding.
Those who, while spending their life energies in self-sacrificing
labor, are tempted to give way to despondency and distrust, may gather
courage from the experience of Elijah. God’s watchful care, His love,
His power, are especially manifest in behalf of His servants whose
zeal is misunderstood or unappreciated, whose counsels and reproofs
are slighted, and whose efforts toward reform are repaid with hatred
and opposition.
[174]
It is at the time of greatest weakness that Satan assails the soul
with the fiercest temptations. It was thus that he hoped to prevail
over the Son of God; for by this policy he had gained many victories
over man. When the will power weakened and faith failed, then those
who had stood long and valiantly for the right yielded to temptation.
Moses, wearied with forty years of wandering and unbelief, lost for a
moment his hold on Infinite Power. He failed just on the borders of
the Promised Land. So with Elijah. He who had maintained his trust
in Jehovah during the years of drought and famine, he who had stood
undaunted before Ahab, he who throughout that trying day on Carmel
had stood before the whole nation of Israel the sole witness to the true
God, in a moment of weariness allowed the fear of death to overcome
his faith in God.
And so it is today. When we are encompassed with doubt, per-
plexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress, Satan
seeks to shake our confidence in Jehovah. It is then that he arrays
before us our mistakes and tempts us to distrust God, to question His
love. He hopes to discourage the soul and break our hold on God.