Words of Encouragement
175
A World-Wide Work
The Lord has shown me that if the enemy can by any means divert
the work into wrong channels, and thus hinder its advancement, he
will do so. Many of our people have made investments without sitting
down to count the cost, without finding out whether there was money
enough to carry forward the work started. Shortsightedness has been
shown. Men have failed to see that the Lord’s vineyard embraces the
world.
The income of the sanitariums that have been established is not to
be drawn upon to sustain numerous lines of work for the lower classes
in our wicked cities. Much of the means that has been used to sustain
this large and ever-increasing work should, by the Lord’s order, have
been used in making plants in other countries, where the light of health
reform has not shone. Sanitariums, less costly than the large ones
erected in America, should have been built in many lands. Thus plants
would have been made which, when strong, would have assisted to
make plants in other places.
The Lord is not partial. But He has been misrepresented by His
workmen. That which should have been done in many different parts
of His vineyard has been greatly hindered, because men at the heart of
the work have failed to see how the work could be advanced in more
distant parts of the vineyard. In some parts of the field the work has
been overdone. In this way money has been absorbed that should have
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been used to enable workers in other parts of the vineyard to move
forward without hindrance in planting the standard of truth in new
places. Some portions of the vineyard are not to be robbed in order
that the means may be used freely in other portions of the field.
Man judges in accordance with his finite judgment. God looks at
the character of the fruit borne and then judges the tree. In the name
of the Lord I call upon all to think of the work that we are required
to do and how this work is to be sustained. The world is the Lord’s
vineyard, and it is to be worked.
It is not a great number of institutions, large buildings, and outward
display that God requires, but the harmonious action of a peculiar
people, a people chosen by God and precious, united with one another,
their life hid with Christ in God. Every man is to stand in his lot and
place, exerting a right influence in thought, word, and deed. When all