DOMINION PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

White Ribbon, Volume 31, Issue 7, 1 November 1959, Page 4

DOMINION PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

We are more than half way through our year from one Don. nion Convention to the next —March 1960. Have yot. made a survey of what has been accomplished in your Union? Did you report to your District Convention? Reports, too, should be sent in promptly to Dominion Superintendents as soon as 1959 work closes. If our work is not carried out efficiently, we cannot expect great results and we certainly cannot afford to be in the same rut a year hence. We need to aim at higher accomplishment in our work for the sake of humanity. One of the most important things to observe in our Christian life and service, is the condition attached to any blessing that we may need. “Make th s valley full of ditches” (2 Kings 3:16) was the word of the Lord, through the prophet Elisha to the King of Israel and after they had made the ditches, then the Lord caused the water to come and fill them. In like manner, when there is, on our part, obedience to the Divine condition, there follows abundant blessing and continual victory. Self-confidence is disobedience, for the Lord has told us to deny self, itself and to follow Him, who pleased not himself, but was always dependent on His Father, in that He trusted Him and acted in the Spirit’s might. Self-confidence is presumption Christ has said that apart from Him we can do nothing, even as the branch of the vine cannot bring forth fruit of itself. Faith acts on the Word of the Lord, as the children of Israel did at the Red Sea, when they received the command “Go forward". Selfconfidence goes, as the Egyptians, without any command, and defeat and death are the consequences. Satan seeks to inflate pride, or else to cast down by discouragement. Pride is like Joseph’s coat of many colours. It presents itself in a variety of ways. There is the pride of gift. Some Christian workers give the impression that they only can do certain things and that no one else can reach up to them in their chosen w-ork.

Like King Saul, they seem to think that they are head and shoulders above everybody else. “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”

Looking unto Jesus, we shall not quarel with our fellow servants. The disciples began quarrelling among themselves, because they bad taken their eyes off Jesus and bad become occupied with their own fancied self-importance. This will not be so with us, if we are looking to Him. Let us each one ask God to put the searchlight of truth upon us. Revivals do not come until God’s people are filled with holy compassion. Oh, that women who are at ease, would fall on their faces and get a new burden for souls! Oh, that we might see the world’s need as Jesus saw it, and feel as He felt towards lost souls.

Not only did Jesus sec the multitudes, and feel a mighty compassion, He did romething about it. Sisters, it is not enough that our intellects be enlightened or our emotions be stirred as we think of millions perishing without Christ and without hope and in cruel bondage to the alcohol demon. The hour is growing late. Communism is sweeping the world. The Anti-Christ will soon arise. VVc haven’t much time left. I)o we DARE to sit back in complacency? Can the old ship Zion, the Church of the Living God, sail on with the arms of its crew folded at ease and in comfort, thanking our Lord for Salvation, rejoicing that they arc safe while others are perishing in sin? No, no—a thousand times no. Let us do something about it 1> you pray each day for the salvation of the lost ? Oh, put everything on the altar this day and be willing to do whatsoever He asks, in order to lead others to Christ. "Teach us, O Lord, to serve Thee more faithfully; to give, and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to labour and not to seek for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy Will, O Lord, Our God ” Yours in the Master’s Service, OLIVE RICHARDS.