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Accountability for Light Received
619
“And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many,
which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in
the sight of God speak we in Christ.”
Those who corrupt the word, handing out wheat and chaff, or
anything that they may deem gospel, while they oppose the com-
mandments of God, cannot appreciate the feelings of the apostle
as he trembled under the weight of the solemn work, and of his
responsibility as a minister of Christ, having the destiny of souls
for whom Christ died resting upon him. In the estimation of self-
made ministers it will take but a small pattern to fill the bill and
make a minister. But the apostle placed a high estimate upon the
qualifications necessary to make a minister.
The deportment of a minister while in the desk should be cir-
cumspect, not careless. He should not be negligent in regard to
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his attitude. He should possess order and refinement in the highest
sense. God requires this of those who accept so responsible a work,
that of receiving the words from His mouth and speaking them to
the people, warning and reproving, correcting and comforting, as
the case may require. God’s representatives upon earth should be
in daily communion with Him. Their words should be select, their
speech sound. The haphazard words frequently used by ministers
who preach not the gospel in sincerity should be forever discarded.
I was shown, Brother P, that you were naturally irritable, easily
provoked, and that you had lacked patience and forbearance. If your
course was questioned, or you were urged to take your position upon
the truth, you felt too much that you would not be hurried. You
would not move a step because others desired you to do so. You
would take your time. Should your hearers pursue the same course,
you would consider them blameworthy. If all should do as you have
done, God’s people would require a temporal millennium in which to
make the needed preparations for the judgment. God has mercifully
borne with your backwardness; but it will not answer for others to
follow your example, for you are now weak and deficient where you
might be strong and well qualified for the work.
Brother R could effect but little for you. His labors were unwisely
directed. He erred in especially interesting himself for those who
thought they should become teachers. Had he not touched the case
of a minister in Maine, and had he labored in new fields where