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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4b
the church, and expect to receive help from them, and do not practice
self-denial and economy when they are well provided for. And if they
do not receive help every time, Satan tempts them, and they become
jealous, and very conscientious for their brethren, fearing they will fail
to do all their duty to them. The mistake is on their own part. They are
deceived. They are not the Lord’s poor.
The instructions given in the word of God in regard to helping the
poor do not touch such cases, but are for the unfortunate and afflicted.
God in his providence has afflicted individuals to test and prove others.
Widows and invalids are in the church to prove a blessing to the church.
They are part of the means God has chosen to develop the true character
of Christ’s professed followers, and to call into exercise the precious
traits of character manifested by our compassionate Redeemer.
Many who are single, and can but barely live, choose to marry and
raise a family, when they know they have nothing to support them. And
worse than this, they have no family government. Their whole course
in their family is marked with their loose, slack habits. They have but
little control of themselves, are passionate, impatient, and fretful. Such
embrace the message, and then feel that they are entitled to assistance
from their more wealthy brethren; and if their expectations are not
met, they complain of the church, and accuse them of not living out
their faith. Who must be the sufferers in this case? Must the cause
of God be sapped, and the treasury in different places exhausted, to
take care of these large families of poor? No. The parents must be the
sufferers. They will not as a general thing suffer any greater lack after
they embrace the Sabbath than they did before.
There is an evil among some of the poor which will certainly prove
their ruin unless they overcome it. They have embraced the truth with
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their coarse, rough, uncultivated, habits, and it takes some time for
them to see and realize their coarseness, and that it is not in accordance
with the character of Christ. They look upon others who are more
orderly and refined, as being proud, and you may hear them say, “The
truth brings us all down upon a level.” Here is an entire mistake, in
thinking that the truth brings the receiver down. It brings him up,
refines his taste, sanctifies his judgment, and if lived out, is continually
fitting him for the society of holy angels in the city of God. The truth
is designed to bring us all up upon a level.