ONLY after considerable heart-searching and inquiry have we concluded that we should carry on this little magazine for another year.
Those who are aware of the small success, in the way of circulation, which has attended our efforts will not be surprised at this remark. There are very many magazines dealing with Scriptural subjects, and we have no desire needlessly to add to their number. We only proceed therefore from year to year, step by step.
Having decided to carry on, if the Lord so permit us, during another year, we start with a definite thought before us.
There is a good deal of yearning in the hearts of true believers. Their desires might perhaps be summed up in the one word, revival. But the yearned-for revival is being sought in many and diverse ways.
Many there are who feel that the all-important something is Second Advent truth. There is indeed great power connected with the fact of our Lord’s return, if it be held as a living hope. 1 John 3:33And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3:3) plainly states this. Yet this truth, even, may be perverted, and turned into a matter of signs for the curious, and into mathematical calculations for the ingenious, with very disastrous results; as has again, and in very tragic fashion, been exemplified in the past year.
Others again seek the all-important something in new ideas as to the faith of Christ. They are charmed with that which seems to them to be “new light,” especially when the ideas are semi-philosophical, semi-metaphysical and all clothed in Scriptural phraseology. It is all quite modernistic, and looks like going forward in intelligence, while the rest of Christians are left stagnant, far to the rear. Progress of this sort has a very strong tendency to obsess people’s minds, to the extent of leaving them very unexercised and unconcerned in matters of practical conduct. Moreover there is a “progress” as to which Scripture warns us in these words, “Whosoever goes forward and abides not in the doctrine of the Christ has not God” (2 John 99Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. (2 John 9). N. Tr.).
Not a few yearn for something supernatural, something miraculous, akin to those things that happened in the Apostolic age; something that would, so they feel, rehabilitate a weak and powerless Christianity in the eyes of the world. We can quite understand their longings; but we know right well, as instructed by the Word, that there is another mighty source of signs and wonders, who is not of God, but wholly and diametrically opposed to Him. We know too that all that has been presented to the public as supernatural and miraculous in recent years has been very much open to question, and has as a matter of fact been very much questioned. We know further that, in the past, far from becoming a witness to the truth, such movements have ended in becoming a scandal against it.
What do we yearn for? We yearn for something very simple, very unexciting; something that does not, we fear, fill many of the Lord’s people with enthusiasm. Something that is profound, though simple.
We desire an unfolding of the whole truth of God, without any pet themes or specialties. We desire that unfolding to be with increasing clearness and light. But even more greatly we desire it to be with very greatly increased pungency and power: that kind of pungency that carries it right down into the conscience and heart, that causes it to have a powerful formative effect in life and conduct.
The need of the moment is, we believe, not so much that we should extend the area of our knowledge and intelligence in the things of God, as that we should be characterized by greater depth, that we should be far more really governed, and altered, by what we already do know.
In this small magazine we can do but little towards this desirable end, but may we, both editor and contributors, be helped of God to do the ‘little we can, as this year runs its course.