But there is another suggestion, "the morning cometh and also the
night." There is the thought of the transition from the one to the
other. We certainly have been in the night so far as our living is
concerned and our working, but now I feel sure there is coming a change
and we are living in a critical time. May God help us to be faithful.
All truth is like a cycle and at different points in the circumference
there are truths which must be especially emphasized.
The late A. J. Gordon once preached a sermon on the "Recurrence of
Doctrine," in which he stated that while in one day justification by
faith was the prominent truth for the church, in another sanctification
was prominent, in still another the return of the Lord, and in still
another the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. All this I firmly believe and
it only proves to me that the prominent truth for to-day is every man
for his neighbor, every friend for his friend, every parent for his
child, the individual seeking the individual for Christ. God is
calling us to action; let us not fail.
I have a friend who used to use an illustration of a sea captain, his
first mate and his wife wrecked upon a rocky shore, huddled together
upon a rock out from the shore but too far for them to escape by
throwing themselves into the waves. The life-line is shot out to them
and the captain puts it round his first mate and bids him jump and he
is drawn to the shore in safety. Then he put the cord around the waist
of his wife, but the current is running in such a way that she must
spring at just the proper second or she will be thrown back against the
rocks and be killed. And he shouts to her, "Spring!" but she waited to
kiss him and waited too long, sprang into the sea and was thrown back
against the rock and drawn shoreward lifeless. Whether that story is
true or not I cannot say, but it is an illustration of the present day
to me. God is saying, "Now is the day of opportunity." May he pity us
if we fail!