The Message of Elijah for To-day
By Blanche Grubb
THE last warning message is now being given to a dying world. The end is soon to come; but a work of preparation, not yet fully accomplished, is to take place before that event, which is to be the culmination of our hope, can take place. Do you desire to know what this work is? Read carefully Mal. 4:5, 6. Is the message of Elijah due to-day? Who can doubt that it is? Does the message of Elijah turn only the hearts of the children to the fathers? — No; it is first to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Does not this language indicate that the hearts of the fathers have been absorbed too much with things other than the interests of their children? When the affections of the fathers have been reclaimed, or brought back to their children, let us see what will be the result. The disobedient children will be turned to the wisdom of the just; and this work is to make ready a people for the Lord. Luke 1:17. Does this indicate any change in the children’s education? Fathers and mothers, have we been so much engrossed with various things that we have actually failed to provide for the spiritual needs of our children? But in order better to understand the full significance of Elijah’s message, let us study the work of the literal Elijah. We find that then, as now, there were two classes of people brought to view, — the followers of Jehovah and the worshippers of Baal. Of the latter class it is said by the psalmist, “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.” Ps. 106:37. Parents, have you been guilty to-day of sacrificing your sons and your daughters upon the altar of worldly ambition? If you have, the message of Elijah is to you, as to Israel of old, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” Now, who had led Israel into their great evil? — It was that wicked woman, Jezebel. Again, in Rev. 2:20-23, our attention is called to a system of education so similar to that against which Elijah bore such a positive testimony in his day that it is presented under the figure of the woman Jezebel. Indeed, it is the selfsame system, though perhaps in a new guise. Dear parents, would you win your children back again to the path of obedience, to the wisdom from above, which is first pure? Then provide for them a system of education which has for its foundation the clean, sweet truths of God’s holy Word.