Chapter 51—Lifting Debts on Church Buildings
I rejoice with you in the prospect of clearing the church buildings
from debt. How much might have been saved if extra efforts had been
made every year to do this. There is no necessity for our meetinghouses
to continue year after year in debt. If every member of the church will
do his duty, practicing self-denial and self-sacrifice, for the Lord Jesus,
whose purchased possession he is, that His church may be free from
debt, he will do honor to God.
The Lord’s great centers, His own instrumentalities, should be free
from all debt. Every year many pounds [
Written from Australia.
] are
being swallowed up by the interest paid on debts. If this money was
all appropriated to settle the principal, the debt would not be eating,
eating, and ever eating. It is a poor, wretched policy to go into debt.
If the money that is needed to build could be first accumulated, by
strenuous efforts, and the church dedicated free from debt, how much
better it would be. O, shall we not make it a rule when building a
house for the Lord, to put forth earnest, persevering efforts, that it may
be dedicated to Him free from debt....
The Lord has shown me that debts need not be left on our meet-
inghouses in Australia or New Zealand. A debt in every case means a
neglect of God’s special, sacred things; for selfish, common things are
made first and all-absorbing.... The very highest honor is to be shown
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to God’s tabernacle. Every other consideration should be second to
this. Our ideas must be elevated, ennobled, and sanctified. Worldliness
and covetousness have been indulged by parents for their children
and for relatives and friends. Money has been appropriated when and
where it could not honor God, where it has done positive harm. Gifts
have been liberally bestowed on children and relatives and friends,
while the gifts that have been made to that which the Lord honors,
have been stinted and limited in value and in recurrence....
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