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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
earnest work, to be accomplished. Souls for whom Christ died are in
peril. So long as Jesus has said, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake
thee,” so long as the crown of righteousness is offered to the overcomer,
so long as our Advocate pleads in the sinner’s behalf, ministers of
Christ should labor in hope, with tireless energy and persevering faith.
But while the truth of God is carried by young and inexperienced
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men whose hearts are scarcely touched by the grace of God, the cause
will languish. Brethren F and G are more ready to argue than to
pray; they are more ready to contend than to persuade, endeavoring
to impress the people with the solemn character of the work for this
time. Men who dare to assume the responsibility of receiving the word
from the mouth of God and giving it to the people, make themselves
accountable for the truth they present and the influence they exert.
If they are truly men of God, their hope is not in themselves, but in
what He will do for them and through them. They do not go forth
self-inflated, calling the attention of the people to their smartness and
aptness; they feel their responsibility and work with spiritual energy,
treading in the path of self-denial which the Master trod. Self-sacrifice
is seen at every step, and they mourn because of their inability to do
more in the cause of God. Their path is one of trial and conflict; but
it is marked by the footprints of their Redeemer, the Captain of their
salvation, who was made perfect through suffering.
In their labor the undershepherds must closely follow the direc-
tions, and manifest the spirit, of the Chief Shepherd. Skepticism and
apostasy are met everywhere. God wants men to labor in His cause
who have hearts as true as steel and who will stand steadfast in in-
tegrity, undaunted by circumstances. Amid trial and gloom they are
just what they were when their prospects were brightened by hope
and when their outward surroundings were all that they could desire.
Daniel in the lions’ den is the same Daniel who stood before the king,
enshrouded by the light of God. Paul in the dark dungeon, awaiting
the sentence which he knew was to come from the cruel Nero, is the
same Paul who addressed the court of Areopagus. A man whose heart
is stayed upon God in the hour of his most afflicting trials and most
discouraging surroundings is just what he was in prosperity, when the
light and favor of God seemed to be upon him. Faith reaches to the
unseen and grasps eternal things.
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