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Prophets and Kings
Those who, standing in the forefront of the conflict, are impelled
by the Holy Spirit to do a special work, will frequently feel a reaction
when the pressure is removed. Despondency may shake the most
heroic faith and weaken the most steadfast will. But God understands,
and He still pities and loves. He reads the motives and the purposes of
the heart. To wait patiently, to trust when everything looks dark, is the
lesson that the leaders in God’s work need to learn. Heaven will not
fail them in their day of adversity. Nothing is apparently more helpless,
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yet really more invincible, than the soul that feels its nothingness and
relies wholly on God.
Not alone for men in positions of large responsibility is the lesson
of Elijah’s experience in learning anew how to trust God in the hour of
trial. He who was Elijah’s strength is strong to uphold every struggling
child of His, no matter how weak. Of everyone He expects loyalty,
and to everyone He grants power according to the need. In his own
strength man is strengthless; but in the might of God he may be strong
to overcome evil and to help others to overcome. Satan can never gain
advantage of him who makes God his defense. “Surely, shall one say,
in the Lord have I righteousness and strength.”
Isaiah 45:24
.
Fellow Christian, Satan knows your weakness; therefore cling
to Jesus. Abiding in God’s love, you may stand every test. The
righteousness of Christ alone can give you power to stem the tide of
evil that is sweeping over the world. Bring faith into your experience.
Faith lightens every burden, relieves every weariness. Providences that
are now mysterious you may solve by continued trust in God. Walk by
faith in the path He marks out. Trials will come, but go forward. This
will strengthen your faith and fit you for service. The records of sacred
history are written, not merely that we may read and wonder, but that
the same faith which wrought in God’s servants of old may work in
us. In no less marked manner will the Lord work now, wherever there
are hearts of faith to be channels of His power.
To us, as to Peter, the word is spoken, “Satan hath desired to have
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you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that
thy faith fail not.”
Luke 22:31, 32
. Christ will never abandon those
for whom He has died. We may leave Him and be overwhelmed with
temptation, but Christ can never turn from one for whom He has paid
the ransom of His own life. Could our spiritual vision be quickened,
we should see souls bowed under oppression and burdened with grief,