Royalty and Ruin

Human Ways Contrasted With God’s Way

The way of the world is to begin with pomp and boasting. God’s way is to start the glorious triumph of truth with the day of small things. Sometimes God trains His workers by disappointment and apparent failure. He wants them to learn to master difficulties. RR 209.5

Often we are tempted to become discouraged when we meet perplexities and obstacles. But if we will hold our confidence unbroken, God will make the way clear. Success will come. Mountains of difficulty will become a plain; and he whose hands have laid the foundation, even “his hands shall also finish it.” Zechariah 4:9. RR 210.1

Human power did not establish the church of God. The church was not founded on the rock of human strength, but on Christ Jesus, the Rock of Ages, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18. God’s glorious work will never come to nothing. It will go on, “‘not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 4:6. RR 210.2

The promise to Zerubbabel was fulfilled literally. See verse 9. “The elders of the Jews ... built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the command of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. Now the temple was finished on the third day of the month of Adar.” Ezra 6:14, 15. RR 210.3

The second temple did not equal the first in magnificence, nor was it made holy by those visible signs of the divine presence that the first temple had. No supernatural power marked its dedication—no cloud of glory filled the newly built sanctuary, no fire from heaven consumed the sacrifice on its altar. The Shekinah no longer rested in the Most Holy Place. The ark, the mercy seat, and the tablets of the law were not found there. RR 210.4