Facilities for Finishing the Work by J. M. HOPKINS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 26, 1911

Facilities for Finishing the Work

By J. M. HOPKINS

J. M. HOPKINS

[In a special way God is preparing the world for the fulfilment of Matt. 24: 14: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations: and then shall the end come.” In hundreds of places where, until very recent years, the way was hedged up, and doors were closed against the gospel of Christ, we now see outstretched hands beckoning, and hear pleading voices calling, for this precious salvation of God. How wonderful are the workings of his providence! Just when millions are thus pleading, God is providing the means for the speedy accomplishment of the gospel work.

The whole world appears to be astir. One has only to note the mighty throngs that press the railway cars rushing across the continents of earth in every direction, and that crowd the great vessels that plow their way across earth’s oceans and seas, plainly to see that many are running to and fro. Prophecy could not be more literally fulfilled.

Knowledge Is Being Increased

The wonderful educational progress and scientific discoveries and inventions of the last century stand unparalleled in earth’s history. Well does the writer remember the primitive methods of agriculture,—the scythe, the Morgan or the grapevine grain cradle, sowing grain broadcast by hand, dropping corn and covering it with the hoe, cultivating corn with an ox, one leading the ox with a muzzle over his nose to prevent his eating and destroying the corn, while the other held the old-fashioned single shovel plow. As I remember those times and methods, I often wonder what people would think of such methods now. As in these matters, so in the methods of transportation and communication—how vastly different from fifty, seventy-five, or one hundred years ago! Modern improvements and facilities are so common that people think little or nothing of them. But, however men may look at it, the grain-binder is a wonderful invention. So likewise is the steam-plow, which turns over twelve, fifteen, twenty, and even more acres in a day; so are the steam and electric threshing-machines, the sewing-machine, and other domestic utilities; so the telegraph, the telephone, and the phonograph; so is the airship, which rushes through the air at railroad speed thousands of feet above the earth; so the means for turning out and scattering abroad the printed page. All these, wonderful as they are, are only a few of the marvels of the last days.

The Message to Us

And what is their language and significance? To the student of the prophetic page they say: The end is rapidly nearing, and the God of heaven is unfolding and opening up his resources for the speedy accomplishment of his closing work. When earth’s millions are calling for the message of salvation, the Author of that salvation is harnessing the elements and the powers of heaven, and using the wonders of nature to answer the call. To-day, just now, God is calling upon his remnant church to receive the divine equipment that will enable them to co-operate with him in this mighty closing work.

“We are laborers together with God.” 1 Cor. 3: 9. “Workers together with him.” 2 Cor. 6: 1. Can it be possible that the great God will condescend to work with humanity? Jesus said: “Lo, I am with you alway.” “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me.” Pause and reflect a moment: What does the yoke suggest? We well understand what it means to yoke two oxen together. It means that they are united in doing the work required of them. And was not this figure employed by our Lord designed to convey the same lesson? If so, then to be “laborers together with God,” “workers together with him,” means that humanity is yoked with divinity in the great gospel commission. And now, when he is so wonderfully providing means for the speedy accomplishment of his work, he says to those with whom he is yoked, “Be . . . filled with the Spirit.” Receive the divine equipment for service that will enable you successfully to carry forward the work entrusted to you.

The Co-operation of Heaven

My brother, my sister, why should you fear or be discouraged when thus intimately associated, thus yoked, with the God of heaven, with Omnipotence, with Infinite Wisdom? In “Ministry of Healing,” pages 159, 160, we read:—

Heavenly intelligences are waiting to co-operate with human instrumentalities, that they may reveal to the world what human beings may become, and what, through union with the Divine, may be accomplished for the saving of souls that are ready to perish. There is no limit to the usefulness of one who, putting self aside, makes room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, and lives a life wholly consecrated to God. All who consecrate body, soul, and spirit to his service will be constantly receiving a new endowment of physical, mental, and spiritual power. The inexhaustible supplies of heaven are at their command. Christ gives them the breath of his own Spirit, the life of his own life. The Holy Spirit puts forth its highest energies to work in mind and heart. Through the grace given us we may achieve victories that because of our own erroneous and preconceived opinions, our defects of character, our smallness of faith, have seemed impossible.

“To every one who offers himself to the Lord for service, withholding nothing, is given power for the attainment of measureless results. For these God will do great things. He will work upon the minds of men so that, even in this world, there shall be seen in their lives a fulfilment of the promise of the future state.”

Let us associate this wonderful statement with another: “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it [their “love in the Spirit,” verse 8], do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding: that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God: strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us

meet to be partakers of the saints in light.” Col. 1:9-12.

Wonderful declarations are these from the spirit of prophecy and the Book of God. Reader, study both of them carefully and prayerfully. They say and mean just what our God has for his remnant people. Shall we humble our hearts before him? By his grace let us put away every wrong, and thus by faith and obedience and consecration place ourselves in that attitude toward him that he can entrust us with his Holy Spirit, the divine equipment for service in this age of marvelous development and progress, when the gospel of the kingdom is going to all the world. Shall we individually do this? Earth, with its tinsel and dross, will soon be the scene of ruin and desolation. What, then, will its treasures, its pleasures, its fame avail?

Receive the divine equipment for service. “Be . . . filled with the Spirit.”

Hewitt, Minn.