p. 186 | ZEAL FOR GOD by N. W. Vincent

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 13, 1878

ZEAL FOR GOD.

By N. W. Vincent

In the life of Jesus we witness a sweet, solemn earnestness, a perfect zeal for God. He had compassion upon the scattered flock of his people. So intent was he on preaching to them, and on healing all their diseases, that his mother and brethren seem at first to have thought him beside himself. It was his meat and his drink to please his Father. He had foregone heavenly pleasures and glories; he now denied himself common earthly comforts. He had not where to lay his head. He cast behind him the alluring vanities of the world. He spent whole nights in prayer. He took fatiguing journeys. He overcame Satan's most wily temptations. He endured the most unreasonable contradiction, the most cruel persecutions, all without sin, without a murmur, without ceasing till on the cross he could say, “It is finished.” Brethren, will we learn of Jesus how to work while the day lasts, how to do with our might what our hands find to do? Will we by him be zealously affected in the good work of instructing, benefiting, saving souls?

Have we fathers, brothers, sons, dear friends and neighbors, in the road to everlasting destruction? How are we using our means, talents, and time to save them? Could we meet their eyes, if they were to-day finally condemned, with a clear conscience? Could we listen to their weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and feel quite clear of their blood? Jesus has set us an example. In deathless love he bids us, “Follow me.” How we would toil to save these loved ones from starvation! But are they not starving for lack of sanctifying, saving truth, while tracts, books, papers, glowing with the precious revelations of God, are left to lie neglected, like the hidden talent, in publishing houses, in the rooms of the secretaries and librarians of our tract societies, or even in musty boxes and on dusty shelves of our own homes?

What time and money we would spend, what letters write, what journeys take, what insults bear, to protect these dear ones from the loss of earthly homes, to keep them out of prison, to preserve them from life-long disgrace or any temporal death. Are we manifesting half the zeal to keep them from losing Christ's glorious kingdom, and ourselves from losing their sweet company there forever; in keeping them out of the fires of Gehenna; in preserving them from everlasting contempt and the second death?

O brethren, let us awake, let us rise from the dead, and may Christ impart to us a zeal for God according to knowledge.

N. W. VINCENT.