The Travail of Zion

The Bible plainly teaches that the salvation of the world is to come through the church, the body of Christ. Although God certain can and does reveal Himself to people apart from other human channels, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”* (1 Corinthians 1:21) And the Word is equally clear in teaching that this witness is not to be by a cold, formal ecclesiasticism, but by a holy church whose glory shall be seen and felt, and whose divine power shall cause the nations to flock to the brightness of her burning light, calling her walls salvation and her gates praise. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”* (Isaiah 52:7)

But “how shall they preach, except they be sent?”* (Romans 10:15) And how shall they be sent, except they be purified and empowered? (Isaiah 6:6-8; Luke 24:46-49).

Christ’s prayer for the church was that it might be sanctified, that the world might believe and know that God had sent Him for its redemption (John 17:17-23).

Ezekiel said that the heathen would know the Lord, when He should be sanctified in His people before their eyes (Ezekiel 36:23). But certainly He is not “sanctified” or “made holy” in most of the denominations and congregations today before the eyes of the world.

Another prophet, in perfect harmony with the teachings of the Scripture throughout, declares that only when Zion travails will sons and daughters be born unto God (Isaiah 66:8).

Travail is one of the sharpest pains known in the physical realm. Its cry is simply heartbreaking. Few can hear it without tears, while husbands are scarce indeed who can listen at all to the agonized wail. With faces set and white we have seen them take their hats and rush away from the sound of the pitiful groans of the one they loved best on earth. God takes this physical pang and heartbreaking wail and applies it to the church, and says that such a suffering, burden, and agonizing cry must come on His people, before sons and daughters are born unto Him, that is, before genuine conversions can take place.

In view of this inspired statement, several questions at once arise in the mind.

One is, what shall we say of the policy of those pastors and evangelists who endeavor to secure a revival among the unchurched, while passing over the state of the professing church as we see it today. God conditions salvation among the lost on the spiritual life of the church—and a very high plane at that. And yet these leaders of the people deliberately ignore what the Divine Being says about the matter and would have judgment commence among the lost when the Lord says it must begin at the House of God (1 Peter 4:17).

God still has His true prophets and evangelists who observe the divine requirement and insist upon the Upper Room experience for the church, before conversions can be expected in the streets as at the day of Pentecost. But all such preachers are avoided by leading congregations, union meetings, and conferences, where workers are sought and selected who “let the church alone and go for sinners,” as it is commonly said.

They seem not to know, or have determined to forget that God will not go into business with a morally spotted partner; that He insists that they who bear the vessels of the Lord should be clean; that in unmistakable illustration of His plan He made one hundred and twenty of His most devoted disciples and followers tarry ten days in Jerusalem until they received the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Then, and not until then, did the revival break out in the streets where we see three thousand born of the Spirit in one day, and five thousand on another. Zion was in travail and sons and daughters were born unto God by scores and hundreds and thousands.

Of course, to the spiritually-enlightened, it is very evident why the divine plan is not approved, relished, or followed by most of the churches today. It brings an attention on themselves that they do not desire; it rolls an awful obligation upon them which they do not propose to assume; it requires a going down before God and men, a cleansing from all sin, a dying out to this world and a living for and in God that is not on their program at all. Nor will they have it, or listen to a man who preaches and urges upon them such an humbling, praying, seeking, and finding.

It is not the financial outlay of the meeting that these church members dread. On the contrary, it is well known that if they can secure an evangelist who will “let the church alone and go for sinners out in the world,” they give largely and liberally to such a man and meeting. It is far easier for such people to go down deep into their pocket books than to go down low at the altar. Giving up money is far less difficult with them than surrendering sins and yielding up the entire self to God. Liberality touches only the vest pocket and a very small section of the person, but holiness takes in the whole man.

This is the reason that the holiness evangelist often takes very little financial compensation away with him when he leaves a place, while another kind of evangelist goes off from every meeting with a good amount of money to deposit. The congregation or audience gladly pays down such “blood money” for the privilege of being let alone, of not being urged to obtain holiness, or of coming into a great soul agony over the salvation of men. Down in their hearts these givers to such a meeting know that they have escaped cheaply by the payment of twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred dollars.

We have often wondered how such workers feel as they go away with the blood money of lost souls in their pockets, knowing they have not declared the whole counsel of God, that they have withheld essential truth, and completely ignored the method God lays down for a real revival and the genuine salvation of men.

A second question that arises in the mind is that, where God’s plain commands and directions are not followed for the obtainment of a meeting of supernatural transforming and converting power, what are we to think of the paraded, printed, and trumpeted results of all such so-called gospel services? How are we to regard the converts to the church that come from these same greatly advertised meetings? God says before there can be conversions—before sons and daughters can be born unto Him—Zion must travail. But you will look in vain to find true spiritual travail in these meetings. There was no Upper Room tarrying nor Upper Room receiving of the baptism with the Holy Ghost. No messages were given declaring that judgment must begin at the House of God. The evangelist had been corresponded with and bought off beforehand with the express understanding that he should preach to the goats, the sinners out in the world. So, because Zion did not receive the attention God demands, and the health of God’s people was not attended to, there was neither travail of the church nor “strength to bring forth.”* (Isaiah 37:3)

We stand amazed at the utter ignorance shown by many leaders in the church of the law of analogy which God lays down for our information and guidance in this matter.

In the natural life, a birth is anticipated and prepared for with great attention. Those most concerned make every effort to strengthen and prepare the mother for the great trial of labor. Every sacrifice is made, and every attention is devoted to her in view of the approaching crisis. For if in that hour she has not strength to bring forth, there is not only no life added to the household and family, but there are really two deaths. The mother then is properly and necessarily the object of supreme interest, if we would see a son or daughter born into the family.

At once the thoughtful spiritual person must recognize the significance of God’s work of holiness, and the movement of this teaching in the church. It is to get Zion ready to bring forth children to God. It is to prepare the church as a spiritual mother to have genuine conversions, to present sons and daughters unto the Almighty.

We repeat the question then: what kind of church growth are we having today, what kind of converts is Christianity getting, and what kind of sons and daughters of God are these that are being reported, that come from a non-travailing, nay, from a dead mother!

Can a dead mother bring forth offspring? Must we close our understanding to the laws of analogy, and deny the Word of God, and say that this card-signing crowd of so-called converts have been born of God through a spiritually dead mother?

Reformation is not transformation. The first a man can do, the second only God can perform. Joining a church is not salvation, but rather, being born of the Spirit. Now look at the brigade of card signers and by close questioning it is evident that they not only know nothing of regeneration, but have not even experienced the bitterness of repentance. They know not a thing about the birth of the Spirit, and stare in silence and ignorance in answer to the question of whether they have had the witness of the Holy Ghost to their being children of God.

And lo! These puppet figures, these joiners of a meeting house, these doll babies stuffed with sawdust, are labeled and printed and publicly called the sons and daughters of God.

We readily acknowledge that here and there an honest and ripe soul has found salvation in the deadest meeting, or in no meeting at all, as was the case with the writer—but that is no disproof of the argument here founded on the Word of God. God once used an animal to rebuke a disobedient servant of His. That was an exception. His rule is to send men to reprove men.

The rule of salvation according to the Bible and according to an analogy laid down by the Lord Himself is that Zion must travail before sons and daughters can be born unto God.

With this in mind, it is easy to read through the lines of a report where we are informed that several hundred were at the altar—but can it be said that several hundred were saved? In some newspapers, we are informed, the figures having been given by the evangelist that five, six or seven thousand people passed through the inquiry room. But passing through an inquiry room is not salvation. Five thousand snakes and goats can move through an inquiry room and pass out as they came in, still snakes and goats.

He who would prevent the judgment that must begin at the House of God, and would rob the church of Christ of the Upper Room experience is in reality the enemy of his own race, and is standing between God and the salvation of the world.

“I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.”* (Jeremiah 6:12-17)

Verily, God’s way is the best way, the true way. When Zion travails, sons and daughters will be born unto God.