Superlatives have been exhausted again and again by writers in trying to describe the condition of our times. Nations are being irresistibly rushed along, as it were, toward some great climax. Men without God feel themselves like pawns in the hands of fate.
In our own land there has been a definite swing away from the faith of our fathers and from the foundations built upon the sacred Scriptures. Selfish and ruthless philosophies are being accepted instead of the gospel, and radicalism is threatening to become dominant in the affairs of our country.
Lawlessness is widespread, affecting the nation, the home, and the Church. Not only are men becoming indifferent to the gospel, they are becoming avowedly antagonistic thereto.
May the Lord send an awakening and a movement of the Spirit that will turn the youth of our day from these vain and empty things of the flesh to a living Christ and to His message for a perishing world. The abundant life is to be found in Christ alone.
A Clear Vision
Undoubtedly the Holy Spirit is presenting to us a strong and urgent call at this present time. That call, we believe, is to be not only evangelical but evangelistic; to be aggressive without resorting to cheap sensationalism; to feed God’s people but not to create a perverted appetite; to present the deepest Christian experience but to avoid a dreamy and impractical mysticism.
In other words, we are to build up a church which has both grace and knowledge and which is imbued with a clear vision of the real call of Christianity and of the world’s need.
God has put into our hands the message of life. He has given to us the commission to go forth into all the world and preach the gospel. As an equipment, He has promised us the baptism of the Holy Spirit, for which there is no substitute.
Go Forth
In an hour when human institutions are breaking down and when there is such utter confusion in the minds of men, we should feel deeply our responsibility to give them the only remedy—the gospel of love, life, and power.
There is no question but that with all the chaos about us in the economic, social, and religious world, there is a very definite heart hunger, often unrecognized in the hearts of millions of people.
God is calling the Church to her knees in intercessory prayer that the power of the Holy Spirit may be outpoured upon her. He is calling upon her to gird on the armor and to go forth under the leadership of Christ. For “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Excerpted from the 1934/1935 Annual Report to General Council.