Simeon was led by the Holy Spirit into the Temple just in time to see Mary and Joseph come in with the Baby, Jesus.

Simeon took Jesus in his arms and began to prophesy of the Divine Glory that was at hand for the Gentiles and the nation of Israel.

At this moment the aged Anna came in. Anna was a prophetess, a woman of much prayer. She also recognized her Christ and prophesied of the redemption He would bring.

The priests, scribes, and Pharisees continued to practice the politics and discuss the problems of their nation. Money continued to change hands. The young men continued their studies. The leaders of Israel were living in the blindness of the flesh.

The common people baked their bread, worked in the fields, watered their animals. Yet the Lord God of Heaven was in their city as a Baby.

Sometimes when the Lord says a few will walk in white He means only two or three. The Scriptures teach us that God often chooses one person, or a few, to do His work.

How wretched to spend one's life in religious activity and then to have God pass us by! To miss the Lord's Christ!

How can we avoid having this happen to us? By watching diligently in prayer. By looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance and enablement rather than to human help. By exalting Christ in the church and worshiping Him rather than filling up the Divine service with activities operated by human skill and talent.

Now the Lord Jesus points the church in Sardis back to its place of beginning:

Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. (Revelation 3:3)

Christ advises a Sardis-type, human-oriented church to "remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent." He tells the members to go back to the fire in which their church was born, to the faith in God and holy living that were passed on to them by their founders.

Go back! Go back! Go back to the fire, to prayer, to reliance on the Spirit of God! Go back and seek the old paths and inquire where the good way is! There we shall discover the wells of power and peace that have been dug by the prayer warriors of old. We do not want "success" apart from the Spirit of God.

Christ does not tell us to go back and imitate the events that transpired in former years. The Holy Spirit always has a present truth, a present burden, a present way of building the Body of Christ, of bearing witness to the nations, of preparing the way for the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

We are not to go back and copy what was done before, not even by the churches of the first century, for we know from the writings of Paul that those people were as imperfect as we are.

Rather, we are to return to prayer, to holy living, to the preaching and teaching of the Scriptures rather than the traditions of men, to reliance on the Person of Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God instead of on the ideas and ambitions of human beings.

To be continued.