Criticizing Ministers
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they will feel under no obligation to heed the word of God to them.
And when light is set aside as darkness, Satan has things his own way.
Our God is a jealous God; He is not to be trifled with. He who
does all things according to the counsel of His own will has been
pleased to place men under various circumstances, and to enjoin upon
them duties and observances peculiar to the times in which they live
and the conditions under which they are placed. If they would prize
the light given them, their faculties would be greatly enlarged and
ennobled, and broader views of truth would be opened before them.
The mysteries of eternal things, and especially the wonderful grace of
God as manifested in the plan of redemption, would be unfolded to
their minds; for spiritual things are spiritually discerned.
We are never to forget that Christ teaches through His servants.
There may be conversions without the instrumentality of a sermon.
Where persons are so situated that they are deprived of every means of
grace, they are wrought upon by the Spirit of God and convinced of the
truth through reading the word; but God’s appointed means of saving
souls is through “the foolishness of preaching.” Though human, and
compassed with the frailties of humanity, men are God’s messengers;
and the dear Saviour is grieved when so little is effected by their labors.
Every minister who goes out into the great harvest field should magnify
his office. He should not only seek to bring men to the knowledge of
the truth, but he should labor, as did Paul, “warning every man, and
teaching every man in all wisdom,” that he may “present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus.”
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The man is to be regarded and honored only as God’s ambassador.
To praise the man is not pleasing to God. The message he brings is to
be brought to the test of the Bible. “To the law and to the testimony: if
they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light
in them.” But the word of the Lord is not to be judged by a human
standard. It will be seen that those whose minds have the mold of
earthliness, those who have a limited Christian experience and know
but little of the things of God, are the ones who have the least respect
for God’s servants and the least reverence for the message He bids
them bear. They listen to a searching discourse and go to their homes
prepared to sit in judgment on it, and the impression disappears from
their minds like the morning dew before the sun. If the preaching is
of an emotional character, it will affect the feelings, but not the heart