Category: Devotion of the Day

“Tidings or Tumult?

Thou hast no tidings ready?…I saw a great tumult.
II Samuel 18:22,29

Ahimaaz wanted to run when he had nothing to report. Consequently, he could only say, “I saw a great tumult.” The messenger who runs too soon in the ministry has only a tempest in the head and in his heart.

Smitten as we are today with the delusion that we are doing most business when we are busiest, we need to learn John Wesley’s maxim, “I do not have time to be in a hurry.” God is saying to some of us, “Stand thou still awhile that I may shew thee the Word of God.” We are not to wear out or to rust out, but to live out, and God has as much to say about being still as about being busy. In this age of aspirin and angina a preacher may have to offend somebody in order to eliminate enough nonessentials to make time to get his tidings ready.

Otherwise, he will have seen only a tumult, and this poor world needs no more tumults.

Daily

And they, continuing daily…And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
Acts 2:46, 47

The New Testament does not abound in instruction as to what we now call “personal work” and “soul-winning.” The epistles indoctrinate and exhort as to Christian growth, and it seems to be assumed that a normal Christian will by life and lip win others.

Nowadays we drive and plan and put on courses galore trying to get Christians to do what should be their natural practice, not only with regard to reaching the lost, but with regard to church attendance, tithing, missions, and all other phases of service. All of this should be the spontaneous expression of our love for Christ and others.

The Early Church continued daily in fellowship and faithfulness, and the Lord added daily in fruitfulness. What we labor and sweat to produce is a natural consequence in the Scriptures. It is high time we majored on the conditions that produce the results we seek. A church in faith and fellowship will be faithful and fruitful. Which brings it, of course, to the door of each of us. If we follow Him daily He will make us fishers of men daily.