LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Nothing from One's Own Heart
The work of restoration means to build again as at the beginning, without adding anything from one's own heart. When Jeroboam, the king of Israel, instituted the feasts and the parallel priesthood, he did so transgressing this principle. For the most important feast, Jeroboam chose the eighth month, "the month which he had devised of his own heart" (1 Kings 12:33), and for the priesthood, "whomsoever he would, he consecrated him to be of the priests of the high places".
Two inventions of his own heart were enough for Jeroboam to disqualify him as king of Israel. Jeroboam reigned twenty-two years, but his fate was cast on that day, just at the beginning of his reign, when he disregarded the word of God, to do his own will.
The work of God, yesterday and today, follows the same parameters. God's work may affect, at different times, a different aspect of God's economy or plan, but whatever it may be, it must be done according to God's unique and unchanging pattern.
There are many Jeroboames in the world today, as there have always been. They can boast of doing God's work, and handle numbers and multiply statistics. But, no doubt, in that day, when our works are tested by fire, there will be little left of that which God never commanded to be done, or which he commanded to be done differently, or with different materials.
Just as there are builders who build after their own heart, so there are also disturbers, like Sanballat, who invent things out of their own heart to discourage the builders: "Then I sent and said to him: There is no such thing as you say, but you invent it out of your own heart" (Neh. 6:8).
The Sanballat bring discouragement in the midst of the work. How many things are they not capable of inventing to distort the work of God? How many things are they not capable of devising so that the work will not be accomplished? Oh, God save us from them!