March 24 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
NEHEMIAH’S EXAMPLE IN UNIQUE CRISIS RE: GOD’S WORK.
“I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.” Neh 4:9. (See Nehemiah ch.6; PK ch.55, “Heathen Plots). — Nehemiah wisely refused to be distracted and thus hinder the grave task entrusted to him to accomplish the critical last phase of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. This lesson is preserved for the guidance of all who are called “repairers of the breach,” “watchmen on the wall,” and light-bearers of the third angels’ message.
One of the many lessons we should take away in this covid19 crisis is this: we have an unfinished work to do for ourselves and for Christ. Let nothing or anyone distract you from your high and holy calling. But make sure you know and understand what it is. But one thing is sure: it is not a peace-and-safety message. These are the stock-in-trade of false prophets, pastors and all other self—anointed messengers and wannabes. The message and work of the antiphonal Elijah’s, Ezekiels and John the Baptists are serious, heart-searching warnings to “prepare a people” for the coming stupendous climax of the great controversy, the close of probation, the outpouring of the 7 last plagues, and only after these, the glorious appearing of Jesus. Through the third angel’s message and work, God has been separating the wheat from the tares in the field and then sifting the wheat from the chaff in the barn for final garner sealing souls for eternity.
God’s messenger-prophet for the last days wrote: “As I hear the terrible calamities that from week to week are taking place, I ask myself, What do these things mean? …. In them GOD’S PURPOSES MAY BE READ. They are one of the means which He seeks to arouse men and women to a sense of their danger. . . The judgments of God are in the land. They speak in solemn warning, saying, Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh. We are living in the closing scenes of of this earth’s history. We have no time—not a moment—to lose.
Let us not be found sleeping on guard. Let us persuade men and women [starting in our own households and neighbors] everywhere to repent and flee from the wrath [of God and the Lamb] to come. Let us arouse them [and ourselves] to immediate preparation, for we know little of what is before us.
In the great closing work we shall meet with perplexities that we know not how to deal with: but let us not forget that the Three Great Powers of heaven [the Godhead] are working, that the divine hand is on the wheel, and that God will bring His promises to pass.He will gather from the world A PEOPLE who will serve Him in righteousness.” MLT 343. I am working by God’s will and empowering grace, to be numbered among this PEOPLE. They are Special People to God’s “seven eyes” though unknown and even despised by the world.
I can only encourage you to do the same but it has been and always will be by willing choice for we were created free, rational moral agents. God bless. Pastor Nat