32
Pastoral Ministry
Consecration
What we need is a converted ministry—What we need in this
time of peril is a converted ministry. We need men who realize their
soul poverty, and who will earnestly seek for the endowment of the
Holy Spirit. A preparation of heart is necessary that God may give
us His blessing, but this heart work is not done. O, when will the
[36]
ministry awake to the solemn responsibilities that are laid upon them,
and earnestly plead for heavenly power? It is the Holy Spirit that must
give edge and power to the discourse of the minister, or his preaching
will be as destitute of the righteousness of Christ as was the offering
of Cain.—
The Review and Herald, April 5, 1892
.
Those with incorrigible, unbending, stubborn traits of char-
acter, when transformed, make the most valuable ministers—
Ministers have been presented to me, with their course of action and
their character before they were converted—the hardest and most in-
corrigible, the most unbending, the most stubborn—and yet, every
one of these traits of character was what they needed in the work of
God. We don’t want to kill that. It is needed in order to fill important
positions of trust in the cause of God. There must be a transformation
of character. The leaven must work in the human heart, until every
action is in conformity to the will of God, and they are sanctified;
then they become the most valuable. It is this very kind of individuals
that God can use in the different branches of His work.—
Manuscript
Releases 9:61
.
Piety and devotion are what count—It is not always men who
are best adapted to the successful management of a church. If faithful
women have more deep piety and true devotion than men, they could
indeed by their prayers and their labors do more than men who are
unconsecrated in heart and in life.—
Manuscript Releases 19:56
.
Self-Sacrifice
The minister’s work demands sacrifice, but less than many
who have gone before—The preachers are not all given up to the
work of God, as He requires them to be. Some have felt that the
lot of a preacher was hard because they had to be separated from
their families. They forget that once it was harder laboring than it