PREPARATORY WORK by Charles H. Bates

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 11, 1901

PREPARATORY WORK.

By Charles H. Bates

CHARLES H. BATES.

(Denver, Colo.)

“Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.” Isa. 28: 24–26.

The words quoted above are illustrated by every good tiller of the soil. The farmer goes out in the fall, plows and harrows the ground, until the soil is ready for the spring crop. In the spring he sows the seed, with the expectation of receiving an abundant harvest. The work of the previous fall was all preparatory work, and illustrates God’s plan of work with the human family at different times in the world’s history. The Lord never brings any judgment upon a nation or people without spending some time in preparatory work.

The case of Noah is to the point. One hundred and twenty years before the flood destroyed the wicked inhabitants of the earth, the Lord raised up Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” to warn the world of its impending doom, thus giving the people ample time to prepare for, and thus escape, the general destruction that awaited them. But it finally came, and suddenly, too, when it did come.

Coming a little further down the stream of time, we notice the deliverance of the children of Israel. Forty years before the actual deliverance took place, Moses was chosen to lead God’s people, and was prepared by the Lord for this, the important work of his life.

There was much history made by the people of God during all those years, but the time finally came when Israel was delivered, and just as certainly as the people of God were delivered, their enemies were destroyed.

Take another example—that of Gideon, by whom the Lord chose to deliver the Israelites out of the hand of the Midianites. By a test of the fleece, the Lord first proved to Gideon that he was the man to lead out in the work. Judges 6: 37–40. He then told Gideon to have his men come up to the battle, and there assembled thirty-two thousand. The Lord said there were too many, and for all who were fearful and afraid to return, and twenty-two thousand went to their homes, thus leaving only ten thousand. But the Lord had still another test. He said, “Bring them down unto the water. . . . Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself.”

Many wonder at this test, but if we give it thought, it is quite plain. Those who were so unconcerned as to bow down on their knees to drink, instead of doing as the three hundred did, dipping the water up in their hands with their eyes on the enemy, would not be the men to fight, so the Lord sent them to their tents; but the three hundred who dared not take their eyes off the enemy long enough to bow down to drink, were the ones chosen of God.

All this was preparatory work, but the time finally came when the Lord, by the hands of a few faithful men, delivered His people from their enemies.

The work of John the Baptist is another example, showing how God prepared the people of that time for the advent of His Son. The judgment alone will reveal the great and important work John the Baptist did in heralding to the world the coming of our Lord.

Coming down to our own time, what has the Lord done, and what is He still doing, to prepare a people for the greatest event that will ever take place on this earth—the second coming of Christ?

The work was begun in the sixteenth century under Luther, and it has moved steadily forward until nearly every country of this dark world has heard the joyful news of the soon return of our blessed Saviour.

But all this is preparatory work,—to prepare a people to stand in the great day of God; and how soon, with the present facilities for carrying the gospel, can the special message of the third angel of Revelation 14 be carried to the uttermost parts of the earth? Christ will come, “but who may abide the day of His coming?” That day will come even as the flood came, even as the time finally came for the departure from Egypt, and as surely as the first advent of Christ to this earth.

Are we prepared for that great event? There will be only two classes living on the earth at that time—the wicked and the righteous. While the one are crying for rocks and mountains to fall on them (Rev. 6: 16), the other will joyfully exclaim, “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us.” Isa. 25: 9.

“Then shall the King say, . . . Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matt. 25: 34.