Our churches should not feel jealous and neglected because they do not receive ministerial labor. They should themselves rather take up the burden and labor most earnestly for souls.
Every talent in our churches should be employed in the work of doing good. The rough places of nature, the wild places, God has made attractive by placing beautiful things among the most unsightly. This is the work we are called to do.
We need in our churches youth who are working upon the Christian endeavor principles, and the beginning must be made at home. The faithful performance of home duties has a reflex influence upon the character. In the father’s house is to be given the evidence of fitness for work in the church.
The Lord does not judge us according to the elevation of our various spheres, but according to the faithfulness with which we fill them.
If we do but one third of that which we have entrusted talents to do, the other two thirds are working against Christ.
The greatest work that can be done in our world is to glorify God by living the character of Christ.
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Chapter 55—The Increase of Facilities
A great work must be done all through the world, and let no one conclude that, because the end is near, there is no need of special effort to build up the various institutions as the cause shall demand. You are not to know the day or the hour of the Lord’s appearing, for this has not been revealed, and let none speculate on that which has not been given him to understand. Let everyone work upon that which has been placed in his hands, doing the daily duties that God requires.
When the Lord shall bid us make no further effort to build meetinghouses and establish schools, sanitariums, and publishing institutions, it will be time for us to fold our hands and let the Lord close up the work; but now is our opportunity to show our zeal for God and our love for humanity.
We are to be partners in the work of God throughout the world; wherever there are souls to be saved, we are to lend our help, that many sons and daughters may be brought to God. The end is near, and for this reason we are to make the most of every entrusted ability and every agency that shall offer help to the work.
Schools must be established, that the youth may be educated, that those engaged in the work of the ministry may reach higher attainments in the knowledge of the Bible and the sciences. Institutions for the treatment of the sick must be established in foreign lands, and medical missionaries must be raised up who will be self-denying, who will lift the cross, who will be prepared to fill positions of trust and be able to educate others. And besides all this, God calls for home missionaries. The workers for God, in the field or at home, are to be self-denying, bearing the cross, restricting their personal wants, that they may be abundant in good fruits.
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A faith that comprehends less than this denies the Christian character. The faith of the gospel is one whose power and grace are of divine authorship. Let us make it manifest that Christ abides in us, by ceasing to expend money on dress, on needless things, when the cause of Christ is crippled for want of means, when debts are left unpaid on our meetinghouses, and the treasury is empty. Do not cultivate a taste for expensive articles of dress or of furniture. Let the work advance as it began, in simple self-denial and faith.
Use your means to create, rather than your influence to diminish, agencies for good. Let no one listen to the suggestion that we can exercise faith and have all our infirmities removed, and that there is therefore no need of institutions for the recovery of health. Faith and works are not dissevered. Since the Lord is soon to come, act decidedly and determinedly to increase the facilities, that a great work may be done in a short time.
Since the Lord is soon coming, it is time to put out our money to the exchangers, time to put every dollar we can spare into the Lord’s treasury, that institutions may be established for the education of workers, who shall be instructed as were those in the schools of the prophets. If the Lord comes and finds you doing this work, He will say: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: … enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
The time has come when no physical, mental, or moral power is to be wasted or misapplied. The Lord desires that His people in America shall no longer confine to a few places at home the great facilities which concern the moral and spiritual advancement of His work. Those to whom He has given much are called upon to impart. Place your means now where it will help in giving light to darkened nations and to the islands of the sea.
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Work to Be Done. If families would locate in the dark places of the earth, places where the people are enshrouded in spiritual gloom, and let the light of Christ’s life shine out through them, a great work might be accomplished. Let them begin their work in a quiet, unobtrusive way, not drawing on the funds of the conference until the interest becomes so extensive that they cannot manage it without ministerial help.
When institutes and similar meetings are held, let them not be held in connection with our large, established churches. Let them give character to the work and spread the knowledge of the truth in localities where it is little known. This may not be convenient; but I ask, Was it convenient for Christ to leave the royal courts? Was it convenient for Him to leave His honor, His glory, His high command, and humble Himself to become one with us? He did not go to unfallen beings, but to those who needed Him most. His example we, to whom He has entrusted His work, are to copy.
We are to present the word of life to those whom we may judge to be as hopeless subjects as if they were in their graves. Though they may seem to be unwilling to hear or to receive the light of truth, without questioning or wavering we are to do our part.
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There is danger in delay. That soul whom you might have found, that soul to whom you might have opened the Scriptures, passes beyond your reach. Satan has prepared some net for his feet, and tomorrow he may be working out the plans of the archenemy of God. Why delay one day? Why not go to work at once?
How the angels must feel as they see the end approaching, and see so many of those entrusted with the last message of mercy huddling together, attending meetings for the sake of benefit to their own souls, and feeling dissatisfied if there is not much preaching, while they have little burden and are doing little for the salvation of others. All who are indeed united to Christ by living faith will be partakers of the divine nature. They will be constantly receiving from Him spiritual life, and they cannot be silent.
Life always shows itself in action. If the heart is living, it will send the lifeblood to every part of the body. Those whose hearts are filled with spiritual life will not need to be urged to reveal it. The divine life will flow forth from them in rich currents of grace. As they pray, as they speak, and as they labor, God is glorified.
The Workers. It is not the most brilliant or the most talented whose work produces the greatest and most lasting results. Who are the most efficient laborers? Those who will respond to the invitation: “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.”
If men to whom God has entrusted talents of intellect refuse to use these gifts to His glory, after test and trial He will leave them to their own imaginings and will take men who do not appear to be so richly endowed, who have not large self-confidence, and He will make the weak strong because they trust in God to do for them those things which they cannot do for themselves. God will accept the wholehearted service, and will Himself make up the deficiencies.
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The Lord Jesus takes those whom He finds will be molded, and uses them for His name’s glory, to meet His own spiritual conception. He uses material that others would pass by, and works all who will be worked. Through very simple means a door is opened in heaven, and the simplicity of the human agent is used by God to reveal God to man.
Have you tasted of the powers of the world to come? Have you been eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God? Then, although ministerial hands may not have been laid upon you in ordination, Christ has laid His hands upon you and has said: “Ye are My witnesses.”
Those whom God employs as His instruments may be regarded by some as inefficient; but if they can pray, if in simplicity they can talk the truth because they love it, they may reach the people through the Holy Spirit’s power. As they present the truth in simplicity, reading from the word or recalling incidents of experience, the Holy Spirit makes an impression on mind and character. The will becomes subordinate to the will of God; the truth heretofore not understood comes to the heart with living conviction and becomes a spiritual reality.
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Chapter 56—Help for Mission Fields
There is a burden upon my soul in regard to the destitute mission fields. There is aggressive work to be done in the missions near us; and there is great need of funds for advancing the work in foreign fields. Our foreign missions are languishing. The missionaries are not sustained as God requires. For want of funds, workers are not able to enter new fields.
All around us are souls perishing in their sins. Every year thousands upon thousands are dying without God and without hope of everlasting life. The plagues and judgments of God are doing their work, and souls are going to ruin because the light of truth has not been flashed upon their pathway. But how few are burdened over the condition of their fellow men. The world is perishing in its misery; but this hardly moves even those who claim to believe the highest and most far-reaching truth ever given to mortals. God requires His people to be His helping hand to reach the perishing, but how many are content to do nothing. There is a lack of that love which led Christ to leave His heavenly home and take man’s nature, that humanity might touch humanity and draw humanity to divinity. There is a stupor, a paralysis, upon the people of God which prevents them from understanding what is needed for this time.
God’s people are on trial before the heavenly universe; but the scantiness of their gifts and offerings, and the feebleness of their efforts in God’s service, mark them as unfaithful. If the little that is now accomplished were the best they could do, they would not be under condemnation; but with their resources they could do much more. They know, and the world knows, that they have to a great degree lost the spirit of self-denial and cross bearing.
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God calls for men to give the warning to the world that is asleep, dead in trespasses and sins. He calls for freewill offerings from those whose hearts are in the work, who have a burden for souls, that they shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Satan is playing the game of life for the souls of men. He is seeking to secure means, that he may bind it up, so that it shall not be used in advancing the missionary enterprises. Shall we be ignorant of his devices? Shall we allow him to stupefy our senses?
I appeal to our brethren everywhere to awake, to consecrate themselves to God, and to seek wisdom from Him. I appeal to the officers of our conferences to make earnest efforts in our churches. Arouse them to give of their means for sustaining foreign missions. Unless your hearts are touched in view of the situation in foreign fields, the last message of mercy to the world will be restricted, and the work which God desires to have done will be left unaccomplished.
The last years of probation are fast closing. The great day of the Lord is at hand. We should now make every effort to arouse our people. Let the words of the Lord by the prophet Malachi be brought home to every soul: “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return? Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed: for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.”
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It is time for us to heed the teaching of God’s word. All His injunctions are given for our good, to convert the soul from sin to righteousness. Every convert to the truth should be instructed in regard to the Lord’s requirement for tithes and offerings. As churches are raised up, this work must be taken hold of decidedly and carried forward in the spirit of Christ. All that men enjoy, they receive from the Lord’s great firm, and He is pleased to have His heritage enjoy His goods; but all who stand under the bloodstained banner of Prince Immanuel are to acknowledge their dependence upon God and their accountability to Him by returning to the treasury a certain portion as His own. This is to be invested in missionary work in fulfillment of the commission given to His disciples by the Son of God: “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
Those who are truly converted are called to do a work that requires money and consecration. The obligation that binds us to place our names on the church roll holds us responsible to work for God to the utmost of our ability. He calls for undivided service, for the entire devotion of heart, soul, mind, and strength. Christ has brought us into church capacity that He may engage and engross all our capabilities in devoted service for the salvation of souls. Anything short of this is opposition to the work. There are only two places in the world where we can deposit our treasures—in God’s storehouse or in Satan’s, and all that is not devoted to Christ’s service is counted on Satan’s side and goes to strengthen his cause.
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The Lord designs that the means entrusted to us shall be used in building up His kingdom. His goods are committed to His stewards that they may be carefully traded upon and bring back a revenue to Him in the saving of souls unto eternal life. And these souls in their turn will become stewards of the truth, to co-operate with the great firm in the interests of the kingdom of God.
Wherever there is life, there is increase and growth; in God’s kingdom there is a constant interchange—taking in, and giving out; receiving, and returning to the Lord His own. God works with every true believer, and the light and blessings received are given out again in the work which the believer does. Thus the capacity for receiving is increased. As one imparts of the heavenly gifts, he makes room for fresh currents of grace and truth to flow into the soul from the living fountain. Greater light, increased knowledge and blessing, are his. In this work, which devolves upon every church member, is the life and growth of the church. He whose life consists in ever receiving and never giving, soon loses the blessing. If truth does not flow forth from him to others, he loses his capacity to receive. We must impart the goods of heaven if we desire fresh blessings.
This is as true in temporal as in spiritual things. The Lord does not come to this world with gold and silver to advance His work. He supplies men with resources, that by their gifts and offerings they may keep His work advancing. The one purpose above all others for which God’s gifts should be used is the sustaining of workers in the great harvest field. And if men, and women as well, will become channels of blessing to other souls, the Lord will keep the channels supplied. It is not returning to God His own that makes men poor; it is withholding that tends to poverty.
Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 6 pp. 439-448
