Devotional0606

(Commentary on Acts 16: 6-12 excerpt from 'People's Bible' 19th Century) (4 Minutes)

Why should the Holy Ghost forbid the apostles to preach the Word anywhere? We are forbidden to do certain things. The things themselves are good, but the time is wrong, or the place is ill-chosen, or another opportunity is greater and ought to be absorbent. It is not enough that you are in a good place, doing a good work, your object should be to live and move and have your being in the very Spirit of God, so that wherever He may point, your very heart may outrun your feet in attaining the appointed and sacred destination.

The Holy Spirit is always to be consulted. Pray without ceasing, walk with God. Be so near Him that a whisper will reach His heart. Be the friend of God, have no self, be sanctified wholly - body, soul and spirit. Be quick all over, answering instantaniously with eagerest love every commandment of the Divine will. Do not be your own idol. Have no judgement, preference, prejudice, that you cannot take up and cut in two with a double-edged knife, if God should so will it. "Not my will, but Thine be done." I will work here or there, on this side the sea or yonder side - both sides are thine. "Lead, kindly Light." Where that is the spirit, the life can never go wrong. Where life is bounded by programs and outlines and purposes merely human, life will be a succession of mistakes and stinging disappointments. "O rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him, and He will give thee thine heart's desire."

What did Paul see then in his vision? It was quite a typical vision. Paul saw a man in earnest prayer, praying to a fellow man. It was all, perhaps, the Macedonian suppliant could then do. Begin where you can. Paul saw a man in earnest, and a man seeking help. The man said, "come over into Macedonia and help us." There are cowards that run away when poor, ill-used people call for "help." There are men, women and children calling all over the land today for "help" and we put our fingers in our ears, and go home and say, "Behold, we knew it not." "If thou forbear to deliver him that is drawn unto death, and say, Behold, I knew it not, doth not he that knoweth the heart understand, and will not he make an inquisition for blood?"

Christianity is "help" or it is nothing - active service, co-operation, sympathy, a common sacrifice for a common good. This is a typical instance. If the Church could have it's eyes opened today, it would see every unevangelized country and every land in sore strait or difficulty typified in this Macedonian man. From every land "they call us to deliver their souls from error's chain." The Macedonian man represents a large population. Let us regard him as a man who has heard of Christianity, or who is dissatisfied with Pagan teaching, or who feels the pain of a great void which the firmament itself could not fill with all its wealth of light - he cries for something more; that man is not far from the kingdom of God. Do not believe that Pagans who are struggling after virtue and calling for "Light, more light! Light, more light!" are far from the kingdom of heaven.

"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also must I bring." " In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." But that is a reason why those who believe they have the true light should hasten with it, that they may scatter the shadows and establish the day.

-Joseph Parker (1830-1902)