Two Ways
125
Some have felt tempted to take themselves from the work, to labor
with their hands. I saw that if the hand of God should be taken from
them, and they be left subject to disease and death, then they would
know what trouble is. It is a fearful thing to murmur against God.
They do not bear in mind that the way which they are traveling is a
rugged, self-denying, self-crucifying way, and they must not expect
everything to move on as smoothly as though they were traveling in
the broad road.
I saw that some of the servants of God, even ministers, are so easily
discouraged, self is so quickly hurt, that they imagine themselves
slighted and injured when it is not so. They think their lot hard. Such
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realize not how they would feel should the sustaining hand of God
be withdrawn, and they pass through anguish of soul. They would
then find their lot tenfold harder than it was before, while they were
employed in the work of God, suffering trials and privations, yet withal
having the Lord’s approbation. Some that are laboring in the cause of
God know not when they do have an easy time. They have had so few
privations and know so little of want or wearing labor or burden of soul
that when they have an easy time, when they are favored of God and
almost entirely free from anguish of spirit, they know it not and think
their trials great. I saw that unless such have a spirit of self-sacrifice,
and are ready to labor cheerfully, not sparing themselves, God will
release them. He will not acknowledge them as His self-sacrificing
servants, but will raise up those who will labor, not slothfully, but in
earnest, and will know when they have an easy time. God’s servants
must feel the burden of souls and weep between the porch and the
altar, crying: “Spare Thy people, O Lord.”
Some of the servants of God have given up their lives to spend
and be spent for the cause of God, until their constitutions are broken
down, and they are almost worn out with mental labor, incessant care,
toil, and privations. Others have not had and would not take the burden
upon them. Yet just such ones think they have a hard time, because
they have never experienced hardships. They never have been baptized
into the suffering part, and never will be as long as they manifest so
much weakness and so little fortitude, and love their ease so well.
From what God has shown me, there needs to be a scourging among
the ministers, that the slothful, dilatory, and self-caring ones may be
scourged out, and there remain a pure, faithful, and self-sacrificing