GOD LEADS by T. E. Bowen

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 24, 1900

GOD LEADS.

By T. E. Bowen

T. E. BOWEN.

(Rome, N. Y.)

To EVERY child of God this is a precious comfort. God leads the way. Through a diversity of intricate paths, beset with difficulties, God leads. He knows the nearest way home for every wandering lost one. Follow him! How few do. In our anxiety for some one else, we forget to follow. Then comes the chiding: “If I will that he [the other follower] tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.” I am able to lead each one individually. The task is not too great for me. Follow me.

Jesus does not lead brethren apart. It is only when they as individuals stop following him, that they get into trouble. But it is not simply for the follower’s own salvation that Jesus specially is leading. And this fact increases a hundredfold the importance for him to lead. Who but Jesus Christ could have directed Peter in his work, permitting him to be cast into prison, delivering him at just the right time, to compass the salvation of souls? Who could have directed Philip to meet the eunuch at just the right time? Paul, John, and the rest, were likewise individually directed in their daily work by Jesus, personally operating by his delegated representative, the Holy Spirit.

Now these faithful ones are dead. Jesus is looking for followers still. As a people we have been studying the message and the needs of the people the last winter. All this to us may prove in vain unless we consent to be led by the Lord. He may have permitted some complication to develop in some one’s life near you, that through you he might work a work to accomplish his salvation. Remember the complication of the fiery furnace, of the lions’ den, of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. These were permitted to come, but God brought honor and glory to his own name and to his faithful individual followers, by using instruments of clay to triumph over the human impossibility.

Will you be led? Are you willing to renounce sin, that you may be led? Are you willing to be led into difficult places, where you will have to fast and pray for victory? Daniel was willing, Elijah was willing, Christ also learned obedience by the things he suffered while his Father had him by the hand leading him. These decisions now will affect both our salvation and the salvation of many about us. God desires thus to lead us all. Shall we obediently, lovingly, patiently, follow him on to complete victory, whose “going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth”?