Scripture often speaks of the man of God. When it does so in the Old Testament it has reference to the prophets, priests and kings. In the New Testament, this limitation no longer exists. “The man of God” is not some prophet, apostle or evangelist, neither an elder, deacon or minister, but it is the Christian.
The Christian is the man of God because he is wholly of God. All that the Christian is and ever shall be is freely, sovereignly and only from God. God ordained him to bear the image of His Son. God purchased him to be His own peculiar possession through the blood of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit God implants in him the life of faith, calls him from darkness into light, makes him willing and ready to serve Him. In the midst of the world he lives to the glory of his God, fights the good fight of faith, loves and defends the truth of His Word. In whatever station or calling of life you may find him the glory of God’s grace is marvelously revealed in him.
This, too, is our calling as covenant young people. We are today’s men of God for tomorrow. The men of God who today are at the helm will soon be released from their post. The battle for the men of God, who today are on the front lines, will be over sooner than we realize. The men of God to whom we look up today for guidance and counsel will soon be called to their reward. The places now occupied by the men of God in the midst of the Church and the Kingdom will ere-long be found vacant, ready and waiting for us to fill them.
Today’s men of God for tomorrow are we because God continues his covenant in the line of generations. The ranks in the army of the living God are not filled by volunteers, neither by conscripts from here and there and everywhere. The army of the living God is an army of royal, military race. To Abraham and his seed is the promise of the covenant; amongst his children, and in the families of all believers we find the men of God. The young man, the young woman born of Christian parentage, are the men of God today who will fill the ranks in the army of Christ tomorrow!
Glorious task!
Our task, tomorrow!
Will we be ready? Will our training and equipment be sufficient to enable us to heed the call and carry on? Let us not deceive ourselves with self-sufficiency lest we find ourselves in the predicament of unpreparedness. Preparedness should certainly be our watchword, for our task is not an easy one. Our station and calling in life will be one in a world of darkness. To be sure, tomorrow’s world will be darker, more evil than the world of today. Powers of evil, more insidious than ever, will surround us. False philosophy will try to seduce us, and we may easily, so very easily go astray. Therefore, we must be trained carefully, wisely, correctly. The best training is none too good.
There is but one means by which we can so be trained. That means is the Word of God. That Word is divinely inspired that it might prove an unfailing means to be profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, whether we are in society, shop, office, school, church or on the farm or in the military camps of our nation. In all our daily work, wherever we are or whatever we be, it must be evident that we are “men of God”, called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light to proclaim His praises.
What a glorious opportunity our young people’s societies, our catechisms, our churches offer us to enable us to be trained thoroughly! Even now this little magazine, which makes its first appearance, becomes another means to that end. Hence, I’m sure we will gladly welcome it, read it, study it and work and pray together that it may truly prove to be such a means.
Are you, am I, making good use of this preparedness program for the man of God? If we truly are men of God we shall. We shall by God’s grace put forth all our efforts to learn from God’s Word how to become prepared and we shall use every opportunity to be instructed therein. Let us never forget that the time to furnish “tomorrow’s man of God” is TODAY.
“Tomorrow is not far away, nor is the goal you seek,
Today you should be training for the work you’ll do next week.
The larger work is just ahead, each day new changes bring,
Suppose that place were vacant now, could you take charge of things?
Someday there’ll be a vacancy with greater things to do,
Will you be ready for that place, when God shall call on you?”