CONCLUSION
At the bottom of it all, this is a question of faith and love. They follow on one another, and are interdependent: Do we TRUST GOD and are we motivated by OUTGOING CONCERN?
FAITH: do we trust God that He has allowed this drought to seize the Church in order for us to learn lessons that we hadn't learned in the fat years? Are we worried? Do we think that the actions of men now require us to break the Biblical precedents by taking matters into our own hands? Do we go on common sense or do we open the Bible and follow God's explicit directions?
We can see in Scripture God's modus operandi: He initiates (Exodus 6.3-8). He called Abram. He established a covenant with Abraham. He delivered Israel from Egypt, and He made sure that His people made it to the Promised Land, in spite of themselves. He made Israel His People. He called us. He loved us. He opened our minds to the Truth. He sent Jesus Christ before we knew we needed His sacrifice. He founded the Church. He is sending Jesus back as King of Kings. None of these things were initiated by humans; most of them were vigorously resisted. God commands the prerogative, and we have to make a choice at every step of the way whether we trust Him enough to respond by following Him. We must act according to the precedent set in Scripture: God will act first, and we are responsible for following His lead.
LOVE: when we made our respective decisions about where to attend, who did we think of first? Were we thinking first about God and next about our neighbors? Or did we think about self first, worrying that we needed to save ourselves from certain doom? Are we looking out for the spiritual welfare of our brethren, or are we saying that it's impossible to love them and keep ourselves unspotted? As Mr. Armstrong would have broken it down, "Is our motivation to get or to give?"
In the final analysis, the critical gap that this trial addresses is not outside of our person. It is not in forms and structures of government. It is not in Mr. Tkach or Mr. Feazell. The critical gap is in me, and in you. It is not without, it is within. [FN14 -- It is interesting that all these years, we were expecting persecution to arise from outside, and it sprang up within our midst. The threat was not without, it was within, and the solution is not to go out, but to examine ourselves.] It is a test of faith and love -- and everyone who is taking this exam is learning volumes about both. It is unpleasant, it is upsetting, and seems to have no perceptible end, but such are the trials that God uses to create beautiful character in us.
We can take heart in two admonitions from God:
Wait
God repeatedly tells His people to wait on [or for] Him. Psalm 27.14; Isaiah 30.18; 40.31 are a few examples of this admonition. For what are we waiting? We often don't know just what He has in mind, which means we must exercise trust in something we cannot see. It's no coincidence that the Faith chapter, Hebrews 11, begins with that definition, and carries throughout that same theme. God's people in all times must endure, holding onto that which is not seen (II Corinthians 4.16-5.8).
Stand Fast [FN15 -- "From the beginning of the book of Acts to the end of Revelation, the terms "hold fast" or "stand fast" are mentioned 16 times. There is a message in that, and we don't need to read between the lines to get it.]
In Exodus 14.13-14, God inspired Moses to command the worried Israelites to just "stand still". That doesn't sound like much, but in some eras, standing fast is as exhausting as running a marathon (Matthew 24.13). There is a time for every purpose, and this is a time to stand. Common sense might tell us to build rafts on our own and start floating across the Red Sea, but rafts wouldn't have been much defense against the mighty armies of Egypt, anyway. No, God has something much more effective, and altogether unexpected, in mind.
These admonitions in Scripture to wait and to stand fast both include a promise: deliverance (i.e. "salvation"). God hears the cries of His people, He knows their grief, and He will confound their enemies and deliver His children into peace.
This trial is a blessing. We should "count it all joy" to be given a test which teaches us to exercise our minds to distinguish clean from unclean, and eat only of the clean (Hebrews 5.14). That process -- distinguishing right from wrong and choosing to do what is right -- is the process by which God develops His character in us. Of course, developing character is why God set out to create humans in the first place.
<end of part 11, and end of article>
Editorial note: The author of this article wishes to remain anonymous. People will try to guess who it is. First and last clue - he does not live in Pasadena or Southern California.
