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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
For the want of wise management the work in Battle Creek and
throughout the State of Michigan is far behind what it should be.
While it is necessary for us to understand the situation and the needs
of foreign missions, we should also be able to comprehend the needs
of the work at our very doors. If rightly improved, the advantages
which God has placed within our reach would enable us to send forth
a much larger number of workers. There is need of vigorous work
in our churches. The special message showing the important issues
now pending, the duties and dangers of our time, should be presented
before them, not in a tame, lifeless manner, “but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power.” Responsibilities must be laid upon the
members of the church. The missionary spirit should be awakened as
never before, and workers should be appointed as needed, who will act
as pastors to the flock, putting forth personal effort to bring the church
up to that condition where spiritual life and activity will be seen in all
her borders.
Much talent has been lost to the cause because men in responsible
positions did not discern it. Their vision was not far-reaching enough
to discover that the work was becoming altogether too extended to
be carried forward by the workers then engaged. Much, very much,
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which should have been accomplished is still undone because men
have held things in their own hands instead of distributing the work
among a larger number and trusting that God would help them in their
efforts. They have tried to carry forward all branches of the work,
fearing that others would prove less efficient. Their will and judgment
have controlled in these various departments, and because of their
inability to grasp all the wants of the cause in its different parts, great
losses have been sustained.
The lesson must be learned that when God appoints means for a
certain work we are not to lay these aside and then pray and expect
that He will work a miracle to supply the lack. If the farmer fails to
plow and sow, God does not by a miracle prevent the results of his
neglect. Harvesttime finds his fields barren—there is no grain to be
reaped, there are no sheaves to be garnered. God provided the seed
and the soil, the sun and the rain; and if the husbandman had employed
the means that were at his hand, he would have received according to
his sowing and his labor.