I CAN BUT CHOOSE NOT TO ‘COME DOWN’ (Last of 6 Parts)

FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:

I CAN BUT CHOOSE NOT TO ‘COME DOWN’ (Last of 6 Parts)

“The course of Nehemiah should have a strong bearing upon our minds as to the MANNER of meeting this kind of opponents. Nehemiah made his supplication to God, while his own spirit was HUMBLED. He clung to God with UNWAVERING FAITH. THIS IS THE COURSE THAT WE SHOULD PURSUE.

Time is too precious to be devoted by the servants of God to VINDICATING THEIR CHARACTER, blackened by those who hate the Sabbath of the Lord. We should MOVE FORWARD with unwavering confidence, believing that God will give HIS TRUTH great and precious victories. In HUMILITY, MEEKNESS, and PURITY OF LIFE, RELYING UPON JESUS, we should carry a CONVINCING [not controlling] power with us that we have the truth.

“We do not understand, AS IT IS OUR PRIVILEGE, the faith and confidence that we may have in God, and the GREAT BLESSINGS which [this kind of] faith will give us [as Nehemiah’s faith did].

“An IMPORTANT WORK is before us. We are to obtain a MORAL FITNESS for heaven. Our WORDS and our [life] EXAMPLE are to tell upon the world [around us]. Angels of God are actively engaged in ministering to the children of God.

Precious PROMISES are upon record ON CONDITION of our obedience to God’s requirements [know what they are lest we be deceived by its counterfeits]. Heaven is full of the richest of blessings, all waiting to be COMMUNICATED to us.

If we feel our NEED and COME to God, in SINCERITY [the opposite of hypocrisy] and in EARNEST faith [the opposite of listless, shallow, or merely based on “feelings”], we shall be brought into CLOSE CONNECTION with heaven [not earth!] and shall be CHANNELS of light to the world [fallen, sin-cursed earth].

“The WARNING needs to be often sounded. ‘Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.’ (1 Pet. 5:8, KJV).” E. G. White, Vol. 3 Testimonies for the Church, pp 574-5.

This brief series focusing on Nehemiah’s faithful work and exemplary example in finishing up the rebuilding and repairing the breach of the walls of Jerusalem within the specified time within the 70-week prophecy of Daniel 9, points forward to two antitypical applications:

1) the worldwide work of restoring the Decalogue in its rightful place in the plan of redemption of the everlasting gospel with particular emphasis on creation Sabbath of the fourth commandment as being the seal of God versus the mark of the beast antichrist
2) the individual rebuilding and restoring our sin-devastated characters, fitting it up for eternity, the work of sanctification. The law is written in the hearts and minds, no longer just on two inanimate tables of stone. Justification is our “title” to heaven; sanctification is our “fitness” for heaven, and the seal of God in our foreheads is our “passport” to heaven.

It is my hope and prayer that all of you will join, voluntarily and willingly, the work of rebuilding and restoring these two antitypical “walls” (the institutional and individual) before probation ends, individually at death, or at earth’s close of probation, typified by the closing of the one door to Noah’s literal ark at the end of 120 years and seven days before it started to rain.

As Jesus warned, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it in the days before the coming of the Son of man in His glory with all His angels.” Bless all, NMF