A concealed golden wedge and a Babylonish garment troubled the entire camp of Israel. The frown of God was brought upon the people because of the sin of one man. Thousands were slain upon the field of battle because God would not bless and prosper a people among whom there was even one sinner, one who had transgressed His word. This sinner was not in holy office, yet a jealous God could not go forth to battle with the armies of Israel while these concealed sins were in the camp.
Notwithstanding the apostle’s warning is before us to “abstain from all appearance of evil,” some persist in pursuing a course unbecoming Christians. God requires His people to be holy, to keep themselves separate from the works of darkness, to be pure in heart and life, and unspotted from the world. The children of God, by faith in Christ, are His chosen people; and when they stand upon the holy ground of Bible truth they will be saved from fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.
Brother R, you have stood directly in the way of the work of God and have brought great darkness and discouragement upon His cause. You have been blinded by Satan; you have worked for sympathy and have obtained it. Had you stood in the light you could have discerned the power of Satan at work to deceive and destroy you. The children of God do not eat and drink to please the appetite, but to preserve life and strength to do their Master’s will. They clothe themselves for health, not for display or to keep pace with changing fashion. The desire of the eye and the pride of life are banished from their wardrobes and from their houses, from principle. They move from godly sincerity, and their conversation is elevated and heavenly.
God is very pitiful, for He understands our weaknesses and our temptations; and when we come to Him with broken hearts and contrite spirits, He accepts our repentance, and promises that, as we take hold of His strength to make peace with Him, we shall make peace with Him. Oh, what gratitude, what joy, should we feel that God is merciful!
-240-
You have failed to rely upon the strength of God. You have dwelt upon yourself and made yourself the theme of thought and conversation. Your trials have been magnified to yourself and others, and your mind has been diverted from the truth, from the Pattern which we are required to copy, to weak Brother R.
When out of the desk you should have felt the worth of souls and been seeking opportunities to present the truth to individuals, but you have not felt the responsibility devolving upon a gospel minister. Jesus and righteousness have not been your themes, and many opportunities have been lost that, if improved, might have decided more than a score of souls to give all for Christ and the truth. But the burden you would not lift. The pastoral labor involved a cross, and you would not engage in it.
I saw angels of God watching the impressions you make and the fruits you bear out of meeting, and your general influence upon believers and unbelievers. I saw these angels veil their faces in sadness and in sorrow turn reluctantly from you. Frequently you were engaged in matters of minor consequence, and when you had efforts to make which required the vigor of all your energies, clear thought, and earnest prayer, you followed your own pleasure and inclination, and trusted to your own strength and wisdom to meet, not men alone, but principalities and powers, Satan and his angels. This was doing the work of God negligently and placing the truth and cause of God in jeopardy, periling the salvation of souls.
An entire change must take place in you before you can be entrusted with the work of God. You should consider your life a solemn reality and that it is no idle dream. As a watchman upon the walls of Zion, you are answerable for the souls of the people. You should settle into God. You move without due consideration, from impulse rather than from principle. You have not felt the positive necessity of training your mind, nor of crucifying in yourself the old man with the affections and lusts. You need to be balanced by the weight of God’s Spirit, and all your movements regulated by it. You are now uncertain in all you undertake. You do and undo; you build up and then tear down; you kindle an interest and then from lack of consecration and divine wisdom you quench it. You have not been strengthened, established, and settled. You have had but little faith; you have not lived a life of prayer. You need so much to link your life with God, and then you will not sow to the flesh and reap corruption in the end.
-241-
Jesting, joking, and worldly conversation belong to the world. Christians who have the peace of God in their hearts will be cheerful and happy without indulging in lightness or frivolity. While watching unto prayer they will have a serenity and peace which will elevate them above all superfluities. The mystery of godliness, opened to the mind of the minister of Christ, will raise him above earthly and sensual enjoyments. He will be a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. The communication opened between God and his soul will make him fruitful in the knowledge of God’s will and open before him treasures of practical subjects that he can present to the people, which will not cause levity or the semblance of a smile, but will solemnize the mind, touch the heart, and arouse the moral sensibilities to the sacred claims that God has upon the affections and life. Those who labor in word and doctrine should be men of God, pure in heart and life.
You are in the greatest danger of bringing reproach upon the cause of God. Satan knows your weakness. His angels communicate your weak points to those who are deceived by his lying wonders, and they are already counting you as one of their number. Satan exults to have you pursue an unwise course because you place yourself upon his ground and give him advantage over you. He well knows that the indiscretion of men who advocate the law of God will turn souls from the truth. You have not taken upon your soul the burden of the work and labored carefully and earnestly in private to favorably impress minds in regard to the truth. You too frequently become impatient, irritable, and childish, and make yourself enemies by your abrupt manners. Unless you are on your guard, you prejudice souls against the truth. Unless you are a transformed man, and will carry out in your life the principles of the sacred truths you present in the desk, your labors will amount to but little.
-242-
A weight of responsibility rests upon you. It is the watchman’s duty to be ever at his post, watching for souls as one that must give an account. If your mind is diverted from the great work and filled with unholy thoughts; if selfish plans and projects rob of sleep, and in consequence the mental and physical strength is lessened, you sin against your own soul and against God. Your discernment is blunted, and sacred things are placed upon a level with the common. God is dishonored, His cause reproached, and the good work you might have done had you made God your trust is marred. Had you preserved the vigor of your powers to put the strength of your brain and entire being into the important work of God without reserve, you would have realized a much greater work, and it would have been more perfectly done.
Your labors have been defective. A master workman engages his men to do for him a very nice and valuable job which requires study and much careful thought. As they agree to do the work they know that, in order to accomplish the task aright, all their faculties need to be aroused and in the very best condition to put forth their best efforts. But one man of the company is ruled by perverse appetite. He loves strong drink. Day after day he gratifies his desire for stimulus, and, while under the influence of this stimulus, the brain is clouded, the nerves are weakened, and his hands are unsteady. He continues his labor day after day and nearly ruins the job entrusted to him. That man forfeits his wages and does almost irreparable injury to his employer. Through his unfaithfulness he losses the confidence of his master as well as of his fellow workmen. He was entrusted with a great responsibility, and in accepting that trust he acknowledged that he was competent to do the work according to the directions given by his employer. But through his own love of self the appetite was indulged and the consequences risked.
-243-
Your case, Brother R, is similar to this. But the accountability of a minister of Christ, who is to warn the world of a coming judgment, is as much more important than that of the common workman as eternal things are of more consequence than temporal. If the minister of the gospel yields to his inclination rather than to be guided by duty, if he indulges self at the expense of spiritual strength, and as the result moves indiscreetly, souls will rise up in the judgment to condemn him for his unfaithfulness. The blood of souls will be found on his garments. It may seem to the unconsecrated minister a small thing to be fitful, impulsive, and unconsecrated; to build up, and then to tear down; to dishearten, distress, and discourage the very souls that have been converted by the truth he has presented. It is a sad thing to lose the confidence of the very ones whom he has been laboring to save. But the result of an unwise course pursued by the minister will never be fully understood until the minister sees as God seeth.
Chap. 26 – Inordinate Love of Gain
Brother S, I was shown, December 10, 1871, that there are serious defects in your character, which, unless seen and overcome, will prove your ruin; and you will not only be weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, and found wanting yourself, but your influence will determine the destiny of others. You are either gathering with Christ or scattering abroad.
I was shown that you have a deeply rooted love for the world. The love of money is the root of all evil. You flatter yourself that you are about right, when you are not. God seeth not as man seeth. He looks at the heart. His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. Your great care and anxiety is to acquire means. This absorbing passion has been increasing upon you until it is overbalancing your love of the truth. Your soul is being corrupted through the love of money. Your love for the truth and for its advancement is very weak. Your earthly treasures claim and hold your affections.
-244-
You have a knowledge of the truth; you are not ignorant of the claims of Scripture; you know your Master’s will, for He has plainly revealed it. But your heart is not inclined to follow the light which shines upon your pathway. You have a large measure of self-conceit. Your love for self is greater than your love for the cause of present truth. Your self-confidence and your self-sufficiency will certainly prove your ruin unless you can see your weakness and errors, and reform. You are arbitrary. You have a set will of your own to maintain, and although the opinions of others may be correct, and your judgment wrong, yet you are not the man to yield. You hold firmly to your advanced opinion, irrespective of the judgment of others. I wish you could see the danger of continuing the course you have been pursuing. If your eyes could be enlightened by the Spirit of God, you would see these things clearly.
Your wife loves the truth, and she is a practical woman, a woman of principle. But you do not appreciate her value. She has worked hard for the common good of the family, but you have not given her your confidence. You have not counseled with her as was your duty. You keep your matters very much to yourself; you do not love to open your heart to your wife and let her know your exercises of mind and your real faith and feelings. You are secretive. Your wife does not hold the honored place in your family that she deserves and that she is capable of filling.
You feel that your wife should not interfere with your plans and arrangements, and you too frequently set your will and plans of operation in opposition to hers. You act as though her identity should be merged in yours. You are not satisfied to have her act as though she had an individuality, an identity of her own. God holds her accountable for her individuality. You cannot save her, and she cannot save you. She has a conscience of her own by which she must be guided. You are too willing to be conscience for her, and sometimes for your children. God has higher claims upon your wife than you can have. She must form a character for herself, and she is accountable to God for the character she develops.
-245-
You have a character to form, and you are accountable to God for the character that you develop. You have a controlling influence and possess a dictatorial spirit, which is not in accordance with the will of God. You must cease to be so exacting. You have prided yourself upon your fine taste and organization. You have nice ideas, but you have not carried this exact and fine perception into your character and into your deportment. You have failed to perfect a symmetrical character. You have good ideas of order and arrangement, but all these nice qualities of the mind have become blunted by being perverted. You have not complied with the conditions laid down in the word of God for becoming a son of God. All the promises of God are upon conditions. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” This experience you have yet to obtain. You love to get into the company of unbelievers and hear them talk, and talk yourself. Jesus cannot be glorified with your conversation, and if you had had the spirit of Jesus you could not have been so much in the society of those who had no love for the truth of God.
-246-
You have felt that there were hindrances to your children’s becoming Christians, and have felt that others were to blame. But do not deceive yourself in regard to this matter. Your influence as a father has been sufficient, if there were nothing else to hinder, to stand in their way. Your example and your conversation have been of such a character that your children could not believe that your course was consistent with your profession. Your conversation with unbelievers has been of such a low order, and so light, so filled with jesting and joking, that your influence could never elevate them. Your deal with others has not always been strictly honest. You have not loved God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. If in your power, you would advantage yourself at your neighbor’s disadvantage. Every dollar which comes to you in this manner will carry with it a curse which you will feel sooner or later. God marks every act of injustice, be it done to believer or unbeliever, and He will not pass it over. Your acquisitive disposition is a snare to you. Your deal with your fellow men cannot endure the test of the judgment.
Your Christian character is spotted with avarice. These spots will have to be removed, or you will lose eternal life. We each have a work to do for the Master; we each have talents to improve. The humblest and poorest of the disciples of Jesus can be a blessing to others. They may not realize that they are doing any special good, but, by their unconscious influence, they may start waves of blessing which will widen and deepen, and the happy result of their words and consistent deportment they may never know until the final distribution of rewards. They do not feel or know that they are doing anything great. They are not required to weary themselves with anxieties about success. They have only to go forward, not with many words and vainglorying and boasting, but quietly, faithfully doing the work which God’s providence has assigned them, and they will not lose their reward. Thus will it be in your case. The memorial of your life will be written in the book of records; and, if you are finally an overcomer, there will be souls saved through your efforts, by your self-denial, your good words and consistent Christian life. And when the rewards are finally distributed to all as their works have been, redeemed souls will call you blessed, and the Master will say: “Well done, good and faithful servant,” “enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
-247-
The world is indeed full of hurry, and of pride, selfishness, avarice, and violence; and it may seem to us that it is a waste of time and breath to be ever in season and out of season, and on all occasions to hold ourselves in readiness to speak words that are gentle, pure, elevating, chaste, and holy, in the face of the whirlwind of confusion, bustle, and strife. And yet words fitly spoken, coming from sanctified hearts and lips, and sustained by a godly, consistent Christian deportment, will be as apples of gold in pictures of silver. You have been as one of the vain talkers and have appeared as one of the world. You have sometimes been careless in your words and reckless in your conversation and have lowered yourself as a Christian in the opinion of unbelievers. You have sometimes spoken of the truth; but your words have not borne that serious, anxious interest that would affect the heart. They have been accompanied with light, trivial remarks that would lead those with whom you converse to decide that your faith is not genuine and that you do not believe the truths you profess. Words in favor of the truth, spoken in the calm self-possession of a right purpose and from a pure heart, will do much to disarm opposition and win souls. But a harsh, selfish, denunciatory spirit will only drive further from the truth and awaken a spirit of opposition.
You are not to wait for great occasions, or to expect extraordinary abilities, before you work in earnest for God. You need not have a thought of what the world will think of you. If your intercourse with them and your godly conversation are a living testimony to them of the purity and sincerity of your faith, and they are convinced that you desire to benefit them, your words will not be wholly lost upon them, but will be productive of good.
-248-
A servant of Christ, in any department of the Christian service, will by precept and by example have a saving influence upon others. The good seed sown may lie some time in a cold, worldly, selfish heart without evidencing that it has taken root; but frequently the Spirit of God operates upon that heart and waters it with the dew of heaven, and the long-hidden seed springs up and finally bears fruit to the glory of God. We know not in our lifework which shall prosper, this or that. These are not questions for us poor mortals to settle. We are to do our work, leaving the result with God. If you were in darkness and ignorance, you would not be as guilty. But you have had great light, you have heard much truth; but you are not a doer of the word.
Christ’s life is the pattern for us all. His example of self-denial, self-sacrifice, and disinterested benevolence is for us to follow. His entire life is an infinite demonstration of His great love and condescension to save sinful man. “Love one another, as I have loved you,” says Christ. How will our life of self-denial, sacrifice, and benevolence bear comparison with the life of Christ? “Ye are,” says Christ, addressing His disciples, “the light of the world.” “Ye are the salt of the earth.” If this is our privilege and also our duty, and we are bodies of darkness and of unbelief, what a fearful responsibility we assume! We may be channels of light or of darkness. If we have neglected to improve the light that God had given us, and have failed to advance in knowledge and true holiness as the light has directed the way, we are guilty and in darkness according to the light and truth we have neglected to improve. In these days of iniquity and peril the characters and works of professed Christians will not generally bear the test nor endure the exposure when examined by the light that now shines upon them. There is no concord between Christ and Belial; there is no communion between light and darkness. How, then, can the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world be in harmony? The Lord our God is a jealous God. He requires the sincere affection and unreserved confidence of those who profess to love Him.
Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 3 pp. 239-248
