As we take up the service of issuing this magazine in 1969, conscious of the feebleness and imperfections of our work, we highly value the prayers of our readers. Our earnest desire is that the Lord Jesus Christ may be honored and glorified through these pages; that the magazine may help to establish, and to encourage, and that it may help lead our fellow believers to a closer walk with God our Father and the Lord Jesus as we await His return to call us Home to be with Himself.
A great concern that we should share, very particularly in view of the trends in lawlessness, is to pray, and to pray much for our President (or whatever the head of government may be called in countries where our readers live), and for those in authority at every level. Pray "for all that are in authority," the Apostle writes, "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:2-4). We are to pray for their salvation; we may pray that they will be controlled, and that they will be protected in these times of rebellion and violence.
January, traditionally, is the time for reflection though it is becoming passe, looking back over the year passed, people are dissatisfied and make resolutions for the year ahead. As Christians, we should entertain no illusions as to our utter inability to succeed in this area in our own strength. We will find it most worthwhile, however, to take time to think and meditate upon the goodness of God our Father and His ways in grace with us. This in turn leads us to consider the quality of our own response as reflected in our ways. One wrote us a short time ago:"Having lived a life-time of good health … I took it all too much for granted. Our all-gracious Father laid me low to meditate upon His wonderful loving kindness." How that echoes, I thought, what most of us would readily concede if honest with ourselves; we take life’s good things, and very especially and particularly those spiritual, "all too much for granted."
It was Joseph, one of the clearest types of Christ in the Old Testament, who, while imprisoned for his faithfulness, appealed to the butler:"Think on me when it shall be well with thee" (Gen. 40:14). But when it was well_very well_with that man, he did not "remember Joseph, but forgot him" (v.23). In projecting ourselves into this situation, do we feel rather uncomfortable? More, does it not make us feel ashamed and rebuked! Yes, most of us, at least, will have to own up to it. "The desire of our soul" has not been, as it ought, "to Thy Name, and to the remembrance of Thee" (Isa. 26:8). We have become wrapped up in and absorbed with earthly things_ with our own things. Although we have heard the Word, and even now hear it, to what an extent are we "choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life" (Luke 8:14)!
When the return of the Lord ceases to be our constant expectation our spiritual energies relax and the spirit of the world carries away our hearts. The desire for gain and for "pleasures of this life" may be our snare particularly now.
Deliverance from this spirit of the world we believe to be one of the great needs of the people of God at this time. Such a spirit hinders us, above all, from being in a position to receive the truth from God. While its fulness is in the written Word, yet the truth is communicated to us only by the Holy Spirit, the blessing from whom is greatly dependent upon our manner of life and our walking in truth. To confirm this, notice that the prophetic revelations received by the prophet Daniel, in his book, are introduced by the quite-detailed account by Jehovah of his godly behavior, involving his separation, in faithfulness to Jehovah, from (what constituted for a Jew) the world.
As the year is before us, or as much of it as we may see, may we be mightily aroused to an awareness of these vital realities. "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord" (Lam. 3:40). May the Holy Spirit mercifully and powerfully work in us in delivering grace, that we may be able to say with the Apostle Paul that "our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity before God (not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God), we have behaved ourselves in the world" (2 Cor. 1:12 F. W. G. trans.).
FRAGMENT When God measures men He puts the tape around the heart, not the head.
"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Jude 20, 21