When Jesus was on the earth He endeavored to reveal to mankind the fact that He was the divine Son of God. The people had a hard time believing it; He faced much doubting and encountered many barriers. On one occasion He said, "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake" (John 14:11). The things that He did, the way He did them, when He did them, where He did them—all testified to His divinity and to His love and mercy. In Psalm 111:2 we find these words: "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." He has made His wonderful works to be remembered. 0 that we would work in a way that would be great and that we could say, "This is an example of how to work"! God's workmen would do well to understand His ways and His purposes, for it is through us that His work to a great degree is to be accomplished.
If we read the last few chapters of The Great Controversy we will find described in great detail how God's work is to be finished. We can learn how this is to be done by studying things that have happened in the past. The experiences of human beings as recorded in the Bible are examples of the way God has worked in the past and how He may work in the future.
Now when we speak about finishing the work of God in the earth there is one example that has been a great inspiration to my soul. It is the example of Zerubbabel as he endeavored to finish the building of the Temple after the Captivity.
You will remember the circumstances that surrounded this experience. Several people had made attempts to rebuild Jerusalem. The foundation had been laid, the walls had been put up, and a good work had been done, but the work had not been finished. Beginning is important, keeping the work going is important, but it is more important to finish the task. That is our great challenge today—to finish the work God has given us to do. There were plenty of obstacles in those days. The Samaritans came up and hindered the people. They influenced them into thinking it wasn't time to finish the Lord's work; it was time to fix up their own places so they could live in them. In other words, they said, "Our house first, Thy house second." But that was not the way God wanted them to work. So He told Haggai the prophet to tell the people, "Consider your ways." Then we read: "The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel . . . and the spirit of Joshua .. . and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord" (Haggai 1:14). God used the remnant to finish the work of the Temple.
We claim to be the remnant church, God's remnant people. In the twelfth chapter of the book of Revelation, we are told Satan went to make war with the remnant. God works with innumerable hosts in the invisible world, but in the visible world He uses only a few. When He wanted to make the Jewish nation He called one man, Abram, and said, "Look at the stars. I am going to use you to make a great nation." Think of the wanderings of that man and his people; building an altar here and an altar there, apparently a people without a purpose, but God was using them to do a great work. Thus it was in Zerubbabel's time. A large number of people had been left behind in Babylon. They were not disturbed about rebuilding the Temple. But God stirred up a few among them, and sent them off on a mission to build the city and the Temple once again. Zerubbabel was the head of the group and they finally finished the work. Let us take courage, brethren—the work of God will be finished by a remnant.
When God wanted the Temple rebuilt He said: "Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel . . ; and be strong O Joshua, . . . and be strong all ye people." How wonderful it is that we can draw our strength from God. When He says, "Be strong," I believe He means that we can be strong if we obey Him and follow His plan. When God commands He enables. We are told: "As the will of man co-operates with the will of God, it becomes omnipotent. Whatever is to be done at His command may be accomplished in His strength. All His biddings are enablings."—Christ's Object Lessons, p. 333.
God's work needs you, my brethren, but you need a thousand times more to be in God's work. To everyone who becomes a partaker of His grace, the Lord appoints a work for others. Much can be accomplished when all work together. God help us today as leaders to carry the message to our people that all are to have a part in the finishing of the work.
The work of the Seventh-day Adventist movement is to evangelize. When the Lord Jesus sent out His disciples to do this work, He said to them, "I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Men have lived among dangers, men have suffered endless sacrifices, but they were sustained by the promise, "I am with you." Today we should have a new awareness of the value of that wonderful statement, "I am with you."
God's work is going to be finished in the midst of opposition. There was opposition in the time of Zerubbabel, and there will be even greater opposition in our day.
People may scoff and ridicule. That is what they did when the faithful were trying to build the Temple, but God brought them through and they finished it. God help us to be true in times of persecution and stress. Those who are true to God will be menaced, denounced, proscribed. Their only hope will be in the mercy of God. Their only defense will be prayer. As we face the possibility of persecution, as we face even the possibility of division in our own families, in our church, may the God who was with Zerubbabel be with us as we finish His work.
When this is done and Jesus comes, history will be an open book, the mysteries of the past will be made clear. So let us put our all into the finishing of the work of God and so hasten the greatest of all events —the coming of Jesus Christ.
