This Hurried Age
This is the age of zip. The word “zip” is not to be found in the dictionary but it is prominent in the spirit of the day. When the supply of dazzling superlatives is exhausted, new words are coined to keep speeding things up faster and faster.
Horse races, automobile races, motorcycle climbs, speed boats and track meets are vying for the attention of human interest. The taxi hurries the harried to the airport. The jet flies them to the launching pad. The space craft speeds them around the world in approximately ninety minutes. Outer space is being probed. The planets are being invaded. The moon is being investigated. Special delivery air mail letters are hurried to people so that hurried decisions can be made. Telephone calls are radioed across country and across oceans to speed up communications. [Emails … texting…] Magazines are designed to tell their stories by pictures so that they can be hurriedly scanned from cover to cover. The poor and the rich rush to their jobs so that they can rush home and make plans for a rushed trip to somewhere.
Poor rush fever victims! Rush to retirement is the keynote of this age. This generation has been inoculated with a speed virus. The victim takes pep pills to hurry him awake and tranquilizers to hurry him to sleep.
This super-speed spirit has invaded the ranks of God’s saints. We are being taught to be rapid worshipers; a few short prayers, a few snappy testimonies pave the way for a sermonette. Satan is the relentless driver. His “hot line” from hell reaches out to the nerve centers of the world with its feverish, restless wave lengths… He was the motivating force behind Jonah who “rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3). Sinner and saint fall prey to his geared-up tactics.
[Daniel prophesied “…Seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” Dan. 12:4]
Blessed Remedy
The quiet tones of “Take Time to be Holy” need to be recovered.[1] Go to the Lord Jesus for His insulating work against the “rushing to and fro” spirit of the world.
“He calms the storm,
So that its waves are still.
Then they are glad because they are quiet;
So He guides them to their desired haven” (Psalms 107:29,30).
God is not glorified in jostling, competitive, rushing saints. It is the “… gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God” (1 Peter 3:4). The spirit of the world and the quiet spirit are not compatible. It is the will of God for His people to “… dwell in a peaceful habitation, In secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18). This place of quietness and rest is invulnerable. “When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?” (Job 3-1:29).
The burden of prayer upon the heart of the Apostle Paul was. “…that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Tim. 2:2). The effectual, fervent prayers of righteous people are needed to quell the epidemic of hectic haste. God’s people need to “… aspire to lead a quiet life…” (1 Thess. 4:11).
The accelerated “push and pull” of modern living is a liability.
“Better is a dry morsel with quietness,
Than a house full of feasting with strife” (Proverbs 17:1).
“Better a handful with quietness
Than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind” (Eccl. 4:6).
[“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10).]
The grace of God provides rest in a restless age. “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9).
author: W.B.Y. Osterhus Publishers, 4500 W Broadway, Minneapolis, MN. 55422 www.osterthuspub.com
[1] stanza 2:
Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.
– William Longstaff
Bible quotations changed to The New King James Version (Thomas Nelson Publishers). Bracketed Scriptures added – ed.