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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
increase your farms and invest your means in worldly enterprises, for
by so doing you not only hinder the cause from advancing, but by
anxiety and overwork lessen your prospect for eternal life.
We ought now to be heeding the injunction of our Saviour: “Sell
that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not
old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not.” It is now that our brethren
should be cutting down their possessions instead of increasing them.
We are about to move to a better country, even a heavenly. Then let us
not be dwellers upon the earth, but be getting things into as compact a
compass as possible.
The time is coming when we cannot sell at any price. The decree
will soon go forth prohibiting men to buy or sell of any man save him
that hath the mark of the beast. We came near having this realized in
California a short time since; but this was only the threatening of the
blowing of the four winds. As yet they are held by the four angels. We
are not just ready. There is a work yet to be done, and then the angels
will be bidden to let go, that the four winds may blow upon the earth.
That will be a decisive time for God’s children, a time of trouble such
as never was since there was a nation. Now is our opportunity to work.
There is among many professing the truth a spirit of unrest. Some
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want to go to another county or state, buy large lands, and carry on an
extensive business; others want to go into the city. Thus little churches
are left in weakness and discouragement to die, when, had the ones
who left them been content to work on a smaller scale, doing their
little with fidelity, they might have made their families comfortable
and been free to keep their own souls in the love of God. Many who
move are disappointed. They lose what little property they had, lose
health, and finally give up the truth.
The Lord is coming. Let everyone show his faith by his works.
Faith in Christ’s near advent is dying out of the churches, and selfish-
ness is causing them to rob God to serve their own personal interests.
When Christ is abiding in us, we shall be self-denying like Him.
In times past there has been great liberality on the part of our
people. They have not been backward to respond to calls for help in
the various branches of the work. But of late a change has come. There
has been, especially with our Eastern brethren, a withholding of means,
while worldliness and love of possessions have been increasing. There
is a growing disregard of promises made to help our various institutions