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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
the help of God and holy angels. They should be strong and valiant,
and wholly devoted to the cause in which they are engaged, having no
separate interest. They should not be entangled with the things of this
life, that they may please Him who hath chosen them to be soldiers.
On the other side are Satan and his angels, with all his agents on
earth, who make every effort and use every device to advance error
and wrong, and to cover up their hideousness and deformity with a
pleasing garb. Selfishness, hypocrisy, and every species of deception,
Satan clothes with a garment of apparent truth and righteousness, and
triumphs in his success, even with ministers and people who profess to
understand his wiles. The greater distance they keep from Christ their
great Leader, the less they are like Him in character, the more close
is their resemblance in life and character to the servants of their great
adversary, and the more sure is he of them at last. While they profess
to be servants of Christ, they are servants of sin. Some ministers have
their minds too much on the wages they receive. They labor for wages
and lose sight of the sacredness and importance of the work.
Some become slack and negligent in their labor; they pass over the
ground, but are weak and unsuccessful in their efforts. Their hearts
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are not in the work. The theory of truth is clear. Many of them had no
part in searching out this truth by hard study and earnest prayer, and
they know nothing of its preciousness and value by being compelled
to sustain their positions against the opposition of its enemies. They
do not see the necessity of preserving a spirit of entire consecration to
the work. Their interest is divided between themselves and the work.
I saw that before the work of God can make any decided progress,
the ministers must be converted. When converted they will place less
estimate upon wages and far more value upon the important, sacred,
solemn work which they have accepted at the hand of God to perform,
and which He requires them to do faithfully and well, as those who
must render to Him a strict account. A faithful record of all their works
is daily made by the recording angels. All their acts, and even the
intents and purposes of the heart, stand faithfully revealed. Nothing is
hid from the all-seeing eye of Him with whom we have to do. Those
who have thrown all their energies into the cause of God, and who
have ventured out and invested something, will feel that the work of
God is a part of them, and will not labor merely for wages. They will