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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
they wish others to do for them, they do for themselves what they
desire others to do for them, and do to others what they are most
unwilling to have returned to them. Here is where you need to learn.
Love is of God. You have not the love which dwelt in the bosom
of Christ. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate, or produce,
this plant of heavenly origin, which, in order to flourish, must be
watered constantly with the dew of heaven. It can flourish only in
the heart where Christ reigns. This love cannot live and flourish
without action; and it cannot act without increasing in fervency, and
extending and diffusing its nature to others. This principle you have
greatly lacked, and thus all has been dark where its presence would
have made all light.
My brother, you need an entire transformation, a thorough con-
version. Without this you are only a blind leader. Your influence
does not increase the love and union of those with whom you are.
Instead of building up, you have a scattering influence. You have
cursed the West with your deficiencies. While you are so deficient in
the grace of God, and so given to selfishness, you cannot bring up the
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church to the position which God requires them to occupy. “Whereof
I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which
is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God; even the mystery
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is
made manifest to His saints: to whom God would make known what
is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which
is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every
man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present
every man perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labor, striving
according to His working, which worketh in me mightily.”
God’s ministers must have the truth in their hearts in order to
successfully present it to others. They must be sanctified by the
truths they preach or they will be only stumbling blocks to sinners.
Those who are called of God to minister in holy things are called to
be pure in heart and holy in life. “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels
of the Lord.” If God pronounces a woe upon those who are called
to preach the truth and refuse to obey, a heavier woe rests upon
those who take upon them this sacred work without clean hands and
pure hearts. As there are woes for those who preach the truth while
they are unsanctified in heart and life, so there are woes for those