Sydney, N.S.W.,
Australia.
My Dear Friends,
I write this letter from a distant part of the world, where the Lord has been pleased to bring me in His good providence. You will remember that when Peter was sent of the Lord to preach the Gospel to Cornelius and his household at Caesarea, he had to say, “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34, 35). As Peter found it in Caesarea, so have we found it at Sydney in Australia. Here also the Lord has a people who fear Him and love His name and serve Him. The grace of God is the same wherever it is found. It manifests itself; it cannot be hid. So have we found it here in Sydney among a people who desire to hear the Gospel of God’s grace, and to live a life of faith upon the Son of God.
When Paul was on his way to Rome as a prisoner after his shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea, the brethren in Rome came to meet him, “whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.” As it was then, so it has been here in Sydney. We cannot but rejoice to see the grace of God in those who fear the Lord and think upon His Name. May the Lord be pleased to raise up many more such by His grace.
In view of the size of this city — Sydney has three million inhabitants — what need there is for a wrestling spirit to plead with the Lord for the further establishing and extension of His kingdom in this city and land, and in every part of the world. The Saviour in instructing His disciples in answer to their request, “Lord, teach us to pray”, taught them to say, “Thy kingdom come”. How extensive is this request when it embraces the Cause of Christ in every part of the inhabited world! It includes a request for the coming of Christ’s kingdom in our own souls, and in those of our loved ones, our friends and neighbours, as well as in our cities, our communities, and our nation, and in the nations of the world.
In earlier days the Lord had a number of His noted servants in this distant part of the world, who preached the Gospel of His grace with authority and power to poor lost and perishing sinners. Sydney’s greatest need today, and that of New South Wales, and the whole of Australia as well, is that the Lord would be pleased to raise up many faithful preachers of the Gospel; men who would not shun to declare the whole counsel of God; men who would not fear the face of man; men ready to expose the evils rampant in Australia as elsewhere, especially the sins of idolatry and Sabbath-breaking; men ready to face obloquy and shame for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.
The need of the land, too, is for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the Gospel might be preached with the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, in order that sinners might be converted from the error of their ways. Nothing less than this will effect the change required. It is through the Holy Ghost being sent down from heaven that all genuine evangelical revivals have taken place which have changed the face of congregations, communities, yea, and of nations as well in the past. It was never by revivals got up by men.
How is this to be brought about? The answer is plain. The Lord Himself has been pleased to give the answer in His own Word. “Thus saith the Lord God; I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezek. 36:37, 38). Seeing then, that the answer is given, let us on our part confess our helplessness, our sinfulness, and our utter impotence to effect any change. It is our duty at the same time to return to the Lord, for He is saying, “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you” (Mal. 3:7). Let us, according to His own direction, say, “Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously” (Hosea 14:2). He is to be entreated of — “I will yet be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them” (Ezek. 36:37). “Look unto Me,” He says, “and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Is. 45:22).
May the Church at home and overseas be richly blessed by Him, who holds the seven stars in His right hand, and who walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
Your sincere friend,
The Editor.