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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
with the standard of duty revealed in God’s word. Ministers should
encourage and cultivate benevolence.
I was shown that some who have been engaged in our office
of publication, in our Health Institute, and in the ministry have
labored simply for wages. There are exceptions; not all are guilty in
this respect, but few have seemed to realize that they must give an
account of their stewardship. Means that had been consecrated to
God to advance His cause has been squandered. Families in poverty,
who had experienced the sanctifying influences of the truth and who
therefore prized it and felt grateful to God for it, have thought that
they could and should deprive themselves of even the necessaries
of life in order to bring in their offerings to the treasury of the Lord.
Some have deprived themselves of articles of clothing which they
really needed to make them comfortable. Others have sold their
only cow and have dedicated to God the means thus received. In the
sincerity of their souls, with many tears of gratitude because it was
their privilege to do this for the cause of God, they have bowed before
the Lord with their offering and have invoked His blessing upon it
as they sent it forth, praying that it might be the means of bringing
the knowledge of the truth to souls in darkness. The means thus
dedicated has not always been appropriated as the self-sacrificing
donors designed. Covetous, selfish men, having no spirit of self-
denial or self-sacrifice themselves, have handled unfaithfully means
thus brought into the treasury; and they have robbed the treasury of
God by receiving means which they had not justly earned. Their
unconsecrated, reckless management has squandered and scattered
means that had been consecrated to God with prayers and tears.
I was shown that the recording angel makes a faithful record
of every offering dedicated to God and put into the treasury, and
also of the final result of the means thus bestowed. The eye of God
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takes cognizance of every farthing devoted to His cause, and of the
willingness or reluctance of the giver. The motive in giving is also
chronicled. Those self-sacrificing, consecrated ones who render
back to God the things that are His, as He requires of them, will
be rewarded according to their works. Even though the means thus
consecrated be misapplied, so that it does not accomplish the object
which the donor had in view,—the glory of God and the salvation of