Want of faith is another cause which leads many to abandon their life-temples unfinished. Throngs followed Christ in the earlier days of his ministry when all seemed bright, who, when they saw the shadow of the cross, turned back and walked no more with him. They lost their faith in him. It is startling to read how near even our Lord's apostles came to leaving their buildings unfinished. Had not their faith come again after their Master arose, they would have left in this world only sad memorials of failure instead of glorious finished temples.
In these very days there are many who, through the losing of their faith, are abandoning their work on the wall of the temple of Christian discipleship, which they have begun to build. Who does not know those who once were earnest and enthusiastic in Christian life, while there was but little opposition, but who fainted and failed when it became hard to confess Christ and walk with him?
Then sin, in some form, draws many a builder away from his work, to leave it unfinished. It may be the world's fascinations that draw him from Christ's side. It may be sinful human companionships that lure him from loyal friendship to his Saviour. It may be riches that enter his heart and blind his eyes to the attractions of heaven. It may be some secret, debasing lust that gains power over him and paralyzes his spiritual life. Many are there now, amid the world's throngs, who once sat at the Lord's Table and were among God's people. Unfinished buildings their lives are, towers begun with great enthusiasm and then left to tell their sad story of failure to all who pass by. They began to build and were not able to finish.
It is sad to think how much of this unfinished work God's angels see as they look down upon our earth. Think of the good beginnings which never come to anything in the end; the excellent resolutions which are never carried out, the noble life-plans entered upon by so many young people with ardent enthusiasm, but soon given up. Think of the beautiful visions and fair hopes which might be made splendid realities, but which fade out, not leaving the record of even one sincere, earnest effort to work them into reality.
In all lines of life we see these abandoned buildings. The business world is full of them. Men began to build, but in a little time they were gone, leaving their work uncompleted. They set out with gladness, but tired at length of the toil, or grew disheartened at the slow coming of success, and abandoned their ideal when it was perhaps just ready to be realized. Many homes present the spectacle of abandoned dreams of love. For a time the beautiful vision shone in radiance, and two hearts sought to make it come true, but then gave it up in despair.
So life everywhere is full of beginnings never carried out to completion. There is not a soul-wreck on the streets, not a prisoner serving out a sentence behind iron bars, not a debased, fallen one anywhere, in whose soul there were not once visions of beauty, bright hopes, holy thoughts and purposes, and high resolves—an ideal of something lovely and noble. But alas! the visions, the hopes, the purposes, the resolves, never grew into more than beginnings. God's angels bend down and see a great wilderness of unfinished fabrics, splendid possibilities unfulfilled, noble might-have-beens abandoned, ghastly ruins now, sad memorials only of failure.
The lesson from all this is, that we should finish our work, that we should allow nothing to draw us away from our duty, that we should never weary in following Christ, that we should hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. We should not falter under any burden, in the face of any danger, before any demand of cost and sacrifice. No discouragement, no sorrow, no worldly attraction, no hardship, should weaken for one moment our determination to be faithful unto death. No one who has begun to build for Christ should leave an unfinished, abandoned life-work to grieve the heart of the Master and to be sneered at as a reproach to the name he bears.
Yet we must remember, lest we be discouraged, that only in a relative, human sense can any life-building be made altogether complete. Our best work is marred and imperfect. It is only when we are in Christ, and are co-workers with him, that anything we do can ever be made perfect and beautiful. But the weakest, and the humblest, who are simply faithful, will stand at last complete in him. Even the merest fragment of life, as it appears in men's eyes, if it be truly in Christ, and filled with his love and with his Spirit, will appear finished, when presented before the divine Presence. To do God's will, whatever that may be, to fill out his plan, is to be complete in Christ, though the stay on earth be but for a day, and though the work done fulfil no great human plan, and leave no brilliant record among men.
"Thy work unfinished! Do not fear
Though at his coming may be found
The stone unset.
Yet, for thy faith, beyond the skies
Thine own shall be the longed-for prize.
He knoweth best who calls from labor now
To rest, to build no more."