Will a Man Rob God?
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Master’s will toward you for thus appropriating His goods? What will
you say when an account is demanded of your stewardship?
Brethren, awake from your life of selfishness, and act like con-
sistent Christians. The Lord requires you to economize your means
and let every dollar not needed for your comfort flow into the treasury.
Sisters, take that ten cents, that twenty cents, that dollar which you
were about to spend for candies, for ruffles, or for ribbons, and donate
it to God’s cause. Many of our sisters earn good wages, but it is nearly
all spent in gratifying their pride of dress.
The wants of the cause will continually increase as we near the
close of time. Means is needed to give young men a short course of
study in our schools, to prepare them for efficient work in the ministry
and in different branches of the cause. We are not coming up to our
privilege in this matter. All schools among us will soon be closed
up. How much more might have been done had men obeyed the
requirements of Christ in Christian beneficence! What an influence
would this readiness to give all for Christ have had upon the world!
It would have been one of the most convincing arguments in favor of
the truth we profess to believe—an argument which the world could
not misunderstand nor gainsay. The Lord would have distinguished us
with His blessing even before the eyes of the world.
The first Christian church had not the privileges and opportunities
we have. They were a poor people, but they felt the power of the
truth. The object before them was sufficient to lead them to invest all.
They felt that the salvation or the loss of a world depended upon their
instrumentality. They cast in their all and held themselves in readiness
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to go or come at the Lord’s bidding.
We profess to be governed by the same principles, to be influenced
by the same spirit. But instead of giving all for Christ many have taken
the golden wedge and a goodly Babylonish garment and hid them in
the camp. If the presence of one Achan was sufficient to weaken the
whole camp of Israel, can we be surprised at the little success which
attends our efforts when every church and almost every family has
its Achan? Let us individually go to work to stimulate others by our
example of disinterested benevolence. The work might have gone
forward with far greater power had all done what they could to supply
the treasury with means.