Hiding the Gospel

I am running a tight deadline for a short work that the LORD sent my way, but be that as it may priorities should dictate choices. It is now Saturday evening, and sleep has been kept from me since Wednesday night. May the LORD who gives to His beloved even in his sleep, abundantly pardon for His name's sake.

 

Nanay Dita came near to us with a tract already in her hand while Jordan was pleading with the crowd, I went to the lady and asked her if she knew the LORD, and from there a lengthy conversation started. People generally have a wishful thought that although they are not quite sure if they will end up in heaven, hell is never an option. It is always somewhere in between the earth and the sky, and always dependent upon their good works. Sadly I thought this way in my previous life, if I cared at all. This is the typical response of the common folk: they are not sure, or they hope to find themselves in heaven somehow.

This is why the gospel is the greatest need of any hour. The people need to know they are lost and running away from God, and that Christ crucified is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who will believe. The sad thing is that this great need of the heathen, is also the great need of the church. the heathen are not sure about the state of their soul, the church is not sure about what the gospel is. The modern church has no answer to the world, no light, and no power.

Every Christian must be armed with sword of the correct gospel. Food and alms may provide brief nourishment, but the gospel is every soul's great need, yea, even the church's. The very spring from which living water flows. This dearth of knowing the gospel has caused much callouseness and complacency, and a stagnant prayerless church has risen over the land, yet added no light to it. Dead monotonous routine has replaced the very foundation of its religion, resulting in silent pulpits that wage no war on sin, and void of zeal towards God. Sunday service has replaced personal devotion, programs have replaced prayer, and fathers have yielded their roles to pastors.

I can close my eyes and imagine the knees that God has reserved for Himself who has not bowed the knee to the Baalic system of religion. Closed churches whose function is to give light are now hiding that very light under the bushel of the system. Ignorantly, for safety's sake. I always long to pray Daniel's prayer, but everytime I am at a loss for words before the LORD. I have many things to say to people, but before God words fail me.

And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.  O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day;