Faithfulness in the Work of God
247
Vowing and Not Paying
Some of you have been stumbling over your pledges. The Spirit
of the Lord came into the-----meeting in answer to prayer, and while
your hearts were softened under its influence, you pledged. While
the streams of salvation were pouring upon your hearts, you felt that
you must follow the example of Him who went about doing good and
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who cheerfully gave His life to ransom man from sin and degradation.
Under the heavenly, inspiring influence you saw that selfishness and
worldliness were not consistent with Christian character and that you
could not live for yourselves and be Christlike. But when the influence
of His abundant love and mercy was not felt in so marked a manner
in your hearts, you withdrew your offerings, and God withdrew His
blessing from you.
Adversity came upon some. There was a failure in their crops,
so that they could not redeem their pledges; and some were even
brought into straitened circumstances. Then, of course, they could
not be expected to pay. But had they not murmured and withdrawn
their hearts from their pledges, God would have worked for them and
would have opened ways whereby every one could have paid what
he had promised. They did not wait in faith, trusting God to open
the way so that they could redeem their pledges. Some had means
at their command; and had they possessed the same willing mind as
when they pledged, and had they heartily rendered to God in tithes and
offerings that which He had lent them for this purpose, they would
have been greatly blessed. But Satan came in with his temptations
and led some to question the motives and the spirit which actuated the
servant of God in presenting the call for means. Some felt that they
had been deceived and defrauded. In spirit they repudiated their vows,
and whatever they did afterward was with reluctance, and therefore
they received no blessing.
In the parable of the talents the man to whom was entrusted one
talent manifested a grudging spirit and hid his money so that his Lord
could not be benefited by it. When his master required him to give an
account of his stewardship, he excused his neglect by laying blame
upon his lord. “I knew thee [he professes to be acquainted with his
lord] that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and
gathering where thou hast not strewed: and I was afraid [that all my