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Witnessing to Others, September 7
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to
undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring
the poor that are cast out to thy house?
Isaiah 58:6, 7
.
We are living in the last days of this earth’s history, and it is time we understood
what we must do to be saved. The Lord will work intelligently for all who will
work intelligently for Him. My brethren and sisters, there is something more for
you to do than to sit in your churches Sabbath after Sabbath and to listen to the
preaching of the Word. You have a work to do for [your] friends and neighbors.
God requires ... that you visit these families and seek to create an interest in the
truth for this time. You are not laboring together with God if you neglect the work
of helping others to take hold upon eternal realities.
Our ministers are not to be encouraged to hover about the churches to repeat
to the believers week after week the same truths. We have a truth that is saving
and precious. The Word of God must be planted in many hearts; the bread of life
must be dealt out to many hungering souls.... It is a blessed work to lift up Christ
before the world.
When the work of the judgment is finished and decisions have been made for
eternity, it will be seen that it is those who have given themselves wholeheartedly
to the service of God who will stand right with heaven. Some of these may not
have been able to leave their families to go to some mission field, but they have
been missionaries in their own neighborhood. Their hearts have been so filled
with the love of God that their great anxiety has been to win souls for Him. This
has been more to them than silver and gold and the precious things of this world.
And as they have labored in simplicity to minister the Word of truth, the Spirit of
God has sent home the Word to the hearts of the people.
My brethren and sisters, let us study the simplicity there is in the Word of God.
Let us see what we can do to advance the cause of Christ in the earth. Christ was
in this world as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. There were many
who set themselves against His work. There will be those who will oppose you.
But your work is to preach Christ and Him crucified; and when you do this, the
salvation of God will be revealed in the conversion of souls....
Let the light shine where you are. Lay hold of the power that there is in Christ,
and learn to overcome through the merits of His blood and the word of your
testimony.—
Manuscript 93, September 7, 1909
, “Address to the Church at Salt
Lake City.”
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