It is a day of small things, and we must not be discouraged if we find people taking little interest in the truth, or even opposing it. We are just in the end of a broken-down and ruined dispensation on which the judgment of God is about to fall, and we must not expect to see results such as were seen at the beginning, when an ungrieved Spirit was working in great power.
We find much instruction for the present day in Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Malachi, for they wrote of times somewhat analogous to the present. Then, the ten tribes had been carried away by Shalmaneser, and were lost. Judah had been carried into Babylon, and spent seventy years in captivity. A remnant from Judah returned in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and the temple and the walls of the city were rebuilt. This return, and the building of the temple and walls of the city were all pure grace from the Lord.
We see, however, on the part of the people so favored, a constant tendency to decline. They did not go on with the work as they should. They yielded to the influence of the enemy and the work ceased. Haggai charges them with living in ceiled houses, while God's house lay waste, and they had to be stirred up afresh to go on with the work.
Then in Malachi, a little over a hundred years later, we see most dreadful declension-a mass of profession without reality, in the midst of which were to be found a feeble few who "feared the Lord and spake often one to another."
This little remnant alone gets the approval of the Lord, with the assurance that they should be His when He makes up His jewels. About 400 years later we still find this feeble remnant in such as Zacharias and Elizabeth, Mary, old Simeon and Anna, and the shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem. But how few and how feeble they were. Now, as we draw near the end, it is somewhat the same-a great mass of profession, but with little reality. There are, however, those whom the Lord owns, and of whom He can say, "Thou hast... kept My word, and hast not denied My name," and those, too, who have kept their garments, and who shall walk with Him in white.
These are the few-not the many. Well, in such a day, what we are called to do is to "hold fast." "Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown." Rev. 3:1111Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. (Revelation 3:11).
The struggle will be short, for He is near, but it is real, and we need courage to stand, even if it be alone. There was a time when no man stood with Paul, but the Lord stood with him, the testimony was given, and he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. How blessed to be able to count on Him, though all others forsake us! May we, brethren, be strong in Him.