Hosea 5:8 Blow you the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Bethaven, after you, O Benjamin. But after much observation and many deep yearnings over those who are going astray as sheep without a shepherd, it is my firm conviction that here is at least one key to the situation. This was the method of the great evangelical revival of the last century. Whitefield took his place on Kensington Common; where the bodies of executed criminals were left dangling on the gallows, and there, with twenty or thirty thousand of the lowest rabble before him, he would point to the gallows, and, with that voice which was like the sound of many waters, exclaim: "If you want to know what wages the devil pays his servants, look yonder." Such methods at first grated on the fine sensibilities of Wesley. He says: "I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, having been till lately so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order that I should have thought the saving of souls a sin if it had not been done in a Church." Can we reconcile ourselves to such irregular methods? Can we accept the twofold requirement and preach the Gospel not only "in season" but "in season, out of season"? (A. J. Gordon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah: cry aloud at Bethaven, after thee, O Benjamin. |
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