Let your imagination exercise itself again in the larger orbit, and
think of some modern prophet standing up in London with this message
upon his lips;--"The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the
uttermost parts of Russia." The message strikes us as incredible, but it
is only because, like the people of Judah, our conception of the divine
orbit is so small and circumscribed. I for one am watching with
fascinated eyes the movements of Russia. I am wondering what is coming
to us from that great people, so long and patiently sad, so full of
reverence, going on long, weary pilgrimages to bow at holy shrines.
Superstition? Yes, if you please. But I am wondering what is going to
happen when the dogged strength of that superstition becomes an
enlightened faith. I am wondering what will happen when that rich,
fertile bed of national reverence begins to bear the full and matured
fruits of the Spirit. What then? I know it is not easy to think it. It
is not easy to widen the orbit of one's thought. It is never easy to
stretch a neglected or unused muscle. But the wider thought is the orbit
of our God, and in the mysterious land of Russia untold destinies may be
even now at the birth.
And so do I urge that we think in vaster orbits of the divine
inspiration of nations. Let us reject the atheism of incredulity, and
let us encourage ourselves in the boundless hope of an all-encompassing
God of the human race. The great God journeys on in His tremendous
orbit, and who knows from what unlikely peoples the rejuvenation of the
world is to come? "The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the
uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the
land of Assyria."
Now I want to go further, and under the power of the prophet's teaching
I would urge that we think in wide orbits of the divine raising of the
heroic leaders of men. In what wide and mysterious sweeps the great God
works when He wants a leader of men! The man is wanted here at the
center, but he is being prepared yonder on the remote circumference! God
hisses for the fly or the bee, and He calls it from very obscure and
unlikely fields.
Here is ancient Israel. Her altars are defiled, and her balances are
perverted. She is hollow in worship, and she is crooked in trade, and
the people are listless in their debasement. A leader is wanted to awake
and scourge the people. Where shall he be found? The Lord hisses for a
fly in Tekoa, a wretched little village, in a mean and scanty setting;
and the fly was a poor herdman, following the flock, and eking out his
miserable living by gathering the figs of the sycamore. And this Amos
was God's man! A prophet of fire was wanted in Bethel, and God prepared
him in Tekoa! But what an orbit, and who would have thought that Tekoa
would have been a school of the prophets?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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