The Kind of Zeal We Need Today
By ERNEST LLOYD
IMPORTANT events thicken about us so fast, and the scenes are shifted with so strange a rapidity, as to impress us with the fact that the great drama of earth is drawing to a close. Europe never presented such a spectacle before, and the situation calls for the most profound attention on the part of every Seventh-day Adventist. Thrones are tottering; change is written everywhere; but the kingdom of our Lord shall triumph over all. It remains for us, upon whom the last days have come, to prepare ourselves by seeking a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit for greater power and greater faithfulness in witnessing to the final message of warning and mercy here in the homeland. God is calling upon us to redeem the time, because the days are calamitous. All heaven is in earnest over the condition of the present evil world. We must now unite an earnest spirituality with increased activity in our missionary efforts to reach the unsaved about us. No Christian can afford to wait or hesitate in a time like the present. “God calls for individual zeal, not waiting for others. He calls for closet zeal, not mere platform stimulus. He calls for prayerful zeal, not self-sufficient activity. He calls for serious zeal, not levity. He calls for self-denying zeal, manifested in a willingness to surrender all. When such zeal pervades our churches, when each Christian apart, and each family apart, shall take up the work of the kingdom with Christlike solicitude; when the missionary fire is kept burning by his Spirit upon the altar of our hearts, fed by experience and meditation, and fanned by prayer; when our trials press not so heavily upon us as does the burden we carry for the souls out of Christ,—then will the Spirit of God be poured out upon his people, and we shall see the power and glory of the living God manifested in turning many to righteousness.” Let us be earnest in prayer, in faith, in labor, and in hope, and who can tell but the day of great blessing is near?