God is pleased to work his purposes out often, if not always, in a sort of 'slow motion'. If God's people had it within their own power to execute the eternal plans they would do everything far more quickly. The urge in our souls is to have things done at a great rate. Though piety forbids the prayer coming to our lips, the thought is often in the hearts of God's children, 'Why is God so slow in his ways?' The churches of Christ make their progress through time ever so slowly and our sanctification itself goes forward at a painfully slow pace. On the other hand, the powers of darkness have generous scope given to them to impede every good effort which Christians put forth to glorify God. The whole world in which we live, like our own gardens, is prolific in weeds of every sort but very sparing of the fruits and flowers of righteousness. The one grow up overnight; the other only after months and years of toil and disappointment.

The above reflection becomes more painful, not less so, as we become more familiar with the sovereign character of God. The problem which we feel over God's seeming 'slowness' when we have low views of his greatness is not so pressing as it becomes when we see him more clearly. If God in some sense 'needs' us to 'help him' against the forces of evil, we are not greatly puzzled that these dark forces are so successful in resisting the gospel. Their success, we might suppose, is owing to our human failure to give God the 'needed' assistance in doing his great work. God is 'doing his part', we might imagine, 'but we are letting him down and it is no wonder that we see Satan so successful'.

There is an element of truth in this view of our service to God. Unfaith­fulness on our part may well be rewarded with failure. But it would be a shallow view of God to suppose that he could fail for want of 'help' from us. Omnipotence, by definition, can do all it wishes without help from any. Even the little we give of strength and ability to God is his own gift. We never 'help' God in the sense of adding anything to his powers or resources.

Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.Romans 11:36

It is this very fact which makes it so painful to observe the seeming 'slowness' of God's work in the world. The gospel conquered the Roman Empire in three centuries. But then it fell into decline for a thousand years. The vast mission-fields of the world had to wait long centuries before a Carey, a Martyn and a Livingstone ventured to take the light to them. The Jews have been in darkness for almost two millennia and still show small evidence of their future regrafting into the church of Christ (Romans 11:23). How many tribes on earth are still to this day without a Bible! How many Middle Eastern countries are closed to gospel work! How much decline we see in the West! How much apostasy in the visible church! If Christians were to walk by sight and not by faith the church would have been eaten up with despair and paralysed with inertia many centuries ago.

We must suppose that the 'slowness' of God's ways, as we perceive it, is itself a wonderful part of the eternal plan. It is the fruit of God's perfect wisdom. In this, as in all other respects, 'the foolishness of God is wiser than men' and 'the weakness of God is stronger than men' (1 Corinthians 1:25). If we are to act wisely in the service of God we must learn to attempt much, but be patient in our expectations and to labour on against setbacks, obstacles, problems, oppositions and disappointments. We must defy that indefinable agony of soul which comes on the Christian when he sees that Satan has been permitted to blast his best efforts for a time.

If the Christian worker adopts the attitude and outlook of the business­man and estimates of spiritual work only in outward terms of visible progress and success, he will almost certainly fall into the snare of having to compromise the standards and principles of God's Word. Spiritual progress is something which man cannot measure. The farmer sows his seed and hopes, confidently perhaps, for a crop in the autumn. But the preacher or missionary may have to wait long years before he sees the harvest-time. The preacher, or the missionary, like the farmer, sows in hope but the season of reaping is hidden from him. In the meantime he must go on patiently sowing the good seed of God's Word into human hearts. He must 'hope against hope' (Romans 4:18) through the long dreary times in which the Word of God seems not to bring forth any visible fruit in the lives of men.

However hard it is for flesh and blood to wait for God to 'give the increase' (1 Corinthians 3:7) — ten years perhaps, or twenty, or more still — the Christian who labours for God must look constantly to his hidden hope. This hope is the sure promise of God that 'in due season we shall reap if we faint not' (Galatians 6:9). All gospel-work is to be carried out in faith and in hope. We do not yet see what the results will be. Our hope of gospel success, like the greater hope of heaven, is a hope which is 'not seen' (Romans 8:24). We must 'with patience wait for it' (Romans 8:25).

It is at this very point that a powerful temptation assails every faithful Christian worker. It is the secret voice in his ear which whispers to him that he would be more successful if he abandoned God's methods and resorted to methods of his own. 'If God's message does not bring results, why not adjust the message to suit men's tastes?' 'If I am to get the numbers up I must surely be allowed to preach the gospel in imaginative ways'. 'The old gospel and mere preaching do not work anymore and so we need to use a little of the world's methods'. It is all too easy to find justification for changing both our message and the worship of God if once we begin to listen to the whispered voice of temptation.

Just about every species of novelty and every form of unfaithfulness to Christ has been justified by one or other plausible pretext. 'We must be positive and not negative'. So the preacher never speaks of death, judgment or eternal punishment in hell. 'We must be contemporary'. So the pulpit omits large areas of truth which are vital to Christian sanctification and knowledge. 'We must make our hearers happy as they go home'. So we hear very little of repentance, mortification of sin or of taking up our cross and denying ourselves. 'We must attract the outsider at all costs'. So worship is 'modernised' till it differs little from entertainment. The whispered voice in the preacher's ear — or perhaps rather in the ears of some in his congregation — becomes the real source of authority for what is done at the services of worship in God's house.

If there is one text more than another which deserves to be printed on church calendars and text-cards in our times it is surely this:

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.1 Samuel 15:22-23

This is admittedly a very demanding text of Scripture. It obliges us first of all to become diligent students of God's Word till we are sure we know what he really requires us to preach and how he requires us to worship him. Then it tests our nerve to the uttermost because we may have to face the possibility that God may not always seem to 'bless' our obedient adherence to his Word in our preaching and our worship. At least, God's blessing may appear to us to be less than we want and revival to come more slowly than we expected. It is at this very point that temptation either to alter God's message or else to invent our own methods becomes acute.

King Saul's patience was exhausted when Samuel delayed beyond a certain day. He could bear the strain no longer and he took matters into his own hands by foolishly offering to God a burnt-offering irregularly. His own confession later to Samuel was: 'I forced myself' (1 Samuel 13:12). When, still more foolishly, he repeated the same sin later he had to admit: 'I have sinned ... because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice' (1 Samuel 15:24). The temptation to disobey God always arises from pride and ambition on our part or else, as in Saul's case here, from fear of man.

If, in our service to Jesus Christ, we aim to be faithful we need to set our minds steadfastly to resist these influences of ambition and fear. The call of the hour is for servants of the Master who will be true to 'the whole counsel of God' in their preaching and resolve in their aim to behave properly in the house of God. To do otherwise may have the appearance of giving the preacher some advantage in terms of popularity or usefulness. But every departure he makes from the Word of God in order to purchase such an 'advantage' will appear in the end to have been achieved at too high a price. Not only will compromise take something away from our eternal reward; it will produce a harvest of trouble for Christ's people in time to come.

Why is God so 'slow' in working? Partly, no doubt, in order to try our obedience to his written Word. Why does God delay in sending revival? Partly, we may suppose, in order to give our knowledge and faith a whole­some trial, and to prove the purity and sincerity of our motives in serving him. It is poor service if we take occasion from it to alter what God has said in order to gain human applause or some other personal advantage. The 'slowness' of God's ways tries us all, searches out our real motives, and tests our real commitment to what he has commanded us to say and do.

If God sometimes appears to us to work 'too slowly' we must call to our attention the great fact that his Word never alters. The gospel, even the 'old-fashioned gospel', is never out of date. It is still the only message that will change man's heart and lift him to heaven. To preach the Word fully and faithfully is the greatest service we can ever render to God in this life. It is no proof that he is not blessing us that we may not at this hour be seeing great revivals or witnessing great numbers of conversions. There are days in the history of the Church when we have to preach the Word not only 'in season' but also 'out of season' (2 Timothy 4:2). Christ will not blame us for preaching faithfully in a dark day in which there are few conversions. But he will blame us if we mix error with his gospel on the pretext that it will be more successful.

Similarly, it will be to our shame and discredit if we alter the worship of God by introducing our own inventions to please the carnal minds of men. What, after all, is 'worship' but an offering to God of what he himself has required? Everything else is 'will-worship' (Colossians 2:23) and God says of it,

In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.Matthew 15:9

Worship is not doing something to draw people to church, though it often has that effect. It is first and foremost the offering of praise to God because he is worthy to receive it, and because he requires it.

'But will God never visit us again to do a speedy and great work of revival?' Undoubtedly he will, and we must bend every nerve to pray and plead for his gracious visitation. While he tarries, however, we must make no golden calf.