My greatest grief today is that, after moving so much from place to place, traveling entirely around the world, I do not know of a single Christian (apart from my dear wife) who gives the slightest real promise of becoming a prevailing intercessor before God. Numbers I had hoped might become so, but my hopes have been dashed to the ground, until at times I feel like burying myself in some isolated retreat where I would never meet another Christian on earth again. They are all like those referred to in Ezekiel 33:31-33 – “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not!
O, my dear brother, my own soul is weighed down, almost overwhelmed, as I behold the lack of reality in almost all of those to whom I have sought to minister. This is the chief reason why I am leaving the States. God’s blessing has been and now is upon my written ministry in a most unmistakable and gracious way; but my personal ministry through direct contact is almost a complete failure. But as the closing verse of Ezekiel 33 solemnly declares, ‘And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them’. And there I must leave it; in the hands of him whom I have earnestly sought – amid much personal weakness and failure – to faithfully serve.
[Letter to Lowell Green, September 9, 1934]