Catherine Booth and many of the people who first joined The Salvation Army called the movement of the Holy Spirit in their work “Primitive Christianity.” They compared the power of God working through them with how the Holy Spirit worked through the early church.
Catherine said this in one of her messages entitled Aggressive Christianity: “If we could blot out from our minds the knowledge of the history of Christianity…” (From this point until the next quotation, my paraphrase) what took place since the days recorded in the Acts of the Apostles... Sit down and calculate what was likely to happen in this world. What different results might have happened? What a different world would have been the outcome if our humanity, politics and tendency to organize had not gotten in the way of the Holy Spirit!
“We Christians profess to possess in the Gospel of Christ, a mighty lever, rightly and universally applied, would lift the entire burden of sin and misery from the shoulders, (the souls), of our fellowmen…” It is a cure for “all of the moral and spiritual woes of humanity. In curing their spiritual plagues we should go far to cure their physical plagues as well. We profess to believe this…Yet look at the world…” Even look at the so called “Christian” world.
She goes on to say, “Now, I ask, how is this? I do not for a moment believe that this is in accordance with the purpose of God.” “I believe that the old arch-enemy has done in this dispensation what he did in former ones – so far circumvented the purposes of God that he has succeeded in brining about this state of things – in retarding the accomplishment of God’s purposes and keeping the world under his own power and influence. I believe he has succeeded in doing this, as he has succeeded before, by deceiving God’s own people.” “He has always got up a caricature of God’s real thing, and the nearer he can get it to be like the original the more successful he is, he has succeeded in deceiving God’s people.”
WOW! Think about that for a moment. Doesn’t it sound like she is speaking to us today rather than in the 1890s? One hundred plus years ago God inspired Catherine Booth with words we still need to hear today!
Early Salvationists recognized that they were involved in spiritual warfare and were ready to fight and die. As years progressed, we have lost some of that fire and dedication. Have we been blinded by the arch-enemy to the purposes of God and the power at our command? Are we living as spiritual paupers? Why are we so apathetic to the needs of our sick and rotting world? Overwhelmed by the needs of suffering humanity we do what we can do in our human strength. It is time to tap into the supernatural strength of God?
Prayer: God as we contemplate what you want to do through this Salvation Army of yours and more to the point through us, place your shield of protection around us and our loved ones so that the enemy cannot use people, property or possessions to distract us from seeking Your will. Open our eyes and help us to see the truth. Prepare us for the battle and help us to engage in the spiritual battle.
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