THE god of this world, that old serpent, the devil and Satan, exercises great power to-day, as the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. This is evident in the abandonment of the public worship of God, the utter disregard of the Sabbath Day, the inordinate thirst for the pleasures of sin and the utterly loose treatment of the marriage ties, by multitudes in this professed Christian nation of ours. Then there is political power. Millions are influenced by political creeds and propaganda to be zealously devoted to one or other of the prominent parties and are not ashamed to own and support their political faith against all opposition. The scientists also have acquired and placed at the disposal of others, instruments charged with powers, hitherto unknown among men, for industry, for speedy flight, for destruction, and for many and varied other purposes. An inventive genius to-day may get £100,000 and more as a reward for providing some fresh method of harnessing the natural power which is inherent in God’s world.
In the midst of all this wickedness, worldly wisdom and scientific progress, the complaint is heard that the professed Christian Church is singularly impotent and lacking in power to fulfill the spiritual tasks expected of her. How right and proper we judge this complaint to be, when uttered especially by such as are of the “afflicted and poor people, who trust in the name of the Lord.” There are those who discern the “signs of the times” in the light of the inspired Word of God. They are deeply grieved, but not surprised, at the lack of that Power, the power of the Holy Ghost, which came down from heaven on the day of Pentecost along with the blessed Gospel of a crucified and risen Redeemer. “But my people would not hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me” (Ps. lxxxi, 11). The heavens are as brass, and the awakening and converting influence of the divine Spirit is withheld in great measure throughout our land. Wherein is the lack of Power discernible? The Gospel preached, and accepted, in most places, is one in which the facts of the Fall, the Atonement and Regeneration, are relegated to the background or loosely held. Many profess godliness, but deny the power thereof. The authority or power to exercise scriptural Church discipline has almost disappeared in the churches of to-day. There is much of a spurious faith which never laid hold on the merits of Christ. Public prayer is not wanting; but where is family worship and secret prayer? And what strangers they are in our midst, who fear the Lord and speak often one to another, concerning “the things that are above.” Even the pure and faithful preaching of the same Gospel as the Apostles declared is as “the seed sown by the wayside,” in the experience of most of hearers.
Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and are concerned about their own soul’s salvation and health, and long to see their fellow-sinners truly repenting and believing; are deeply sensible of the lack of Power to-day, and mourn and pray over the calamity, and desire to wait upon the Lord in the path of duty appointed for them. “Wilt thou not revive us again?” (Ps. lxxxv. 6).