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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
be accounted slothful servants. “To every man his work.” Not one is
excused.
Our duty to act as missionaries for God in the very position where
He has placed us has been greatly overlooked by us as a people. Many
are eagerly turning from present duties and opportunities to some
wider field; many imagine that in some other position they would find
it less difficult to obey the truth. Our larger churches are looked upon
as enjoying great advantages, and there is among our people a growing
tendency to leave their special post of duty and move to Battle Creek
or to the vicinity of some other large church. This practice not only
threatens the prosperity and even the life of our smaller churches, but
it is preventing us from doing the very work which God has given us
to do, and is destroying our spirituality and usefulness as a people.
From nearly all our churches in Michigan, and, to some extent,
from other states, our brethren and sisters have been crowding into
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Battle Creek. Many of them were efficient helpers in smaller churches,
and their removal has greatly weakened those little companies; in some
cases the church has thus been completely disorganized.
Have those who moved to Battle Creek proved a help to the church?
As the matter was presented before me, I looked to see who were
bearing a living testimony for God, who were feeling a burden for the
youth, who were visiting from house to house, praying with families
and laboring for their spiritual interests. I saw that this work had been
neglected. On coming to this large church, many feel that they have
no part to act. Hence they fold their hands and shun all responsibility
and effort.
There are some who come here merely to secure financial benefit.
This class are a heavy burden to the church. They are cumberers of the
ground, their unproductive boughs shutting from other trees the glory
of heaven’s sunlight.
It is not pleasing to God that so many of our ministers should settle
at Battle Creek. If their families were scattered in different parts of the
field, they might be far more useful. It is true that the minister spends
but a short time at home, yet there are many places where that time
would be of far greater benefit to the cause of God.
The Lord says to many at Battle Creek: What doest thou here?
What account can you render for leaving your appointed work and
becoming a hindrance rather than a help to the church?