If we were asked what we
feel to be the greatest need of the time, in the light of
our far-flung travels this year, first as far East as
India, and then over U.S.A. and Canada, we should say
with strength: the greatest need of the times is a
movement of God to bring His people to know the fullness
of Christ! Only as the Church is brought into the good of
that will the world be adequately touched and the
spiritual forces in this universe be shaken from their
hold upon men and things. The evangelism of our times
needs much more behind it than it has. The Church is very
busy, but very ineffective. It is fighting to have itself
recognized, but it has little impact upon the powers of
darkness; therefore little also upon the world.
We have often pointed
out that the things which have become the greatest
evangelical and missionary forces have always been
movements or ministries which brought God's own people or
new converts into a far greater measure of Christ and
spiritual life than is usual and fairly general. We could
easily prove this by mentioning names, but it is not
necessary. Our grief is that in so many of these cases
the enemy has succeeded in making them other than they
were at their beginnings. This is the present need, and
nothing but this will counter the vitiating, dissipating,
diluting, and cheapening course of things in these days
and make the Church able to complete her testimony on the
earth in power and triumph.
It is time for all who
have spiritual responsibility to get down, as far as
possible together, to consider the spiritual state of the
Church and to be willing, whatever it costs, to take the
way by which the lost fullness of Christ may be
recovered!
There is no doubt that a
situation exists today which corresponds to that which is
found in the Book of Esther; and the need is for an
intercessory instrument coming to the Kingdom ''for such
a time as this.''
An Editor's Letter, first published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1948, Vol 26-2.