156
Testimonies for the Church Volume 7
the necessities of the work, and with prayer to God for wisdom they
should personally dispense their means where the need is greatest. Let
them lead out in some line of benevolence. If their minds are under
the direction of the Holy Spirit, they will have wisdom to perceive
where means are needed, and in relieving this need they will be greatly
blessed.
If the Lord’s plan had been followed, a different state of things
would now exist. So much means would not have been expended in a
few localities, leaving so little for investment in the many, many places
where the banner of truth has not yet been lifted.
[179]
Let our publishing houses beware lest in their dealing with God’s
workers, wrong principles be allowed to control. If connected with the
institution there are men whose hearts are not under the direction of the
Holy Spirit, they will be sure to sway the work into wrong lines. Some
who profess to be Christians regard the business connected with the
Lord’s work as something wholly apart from religious service. They
say: “Religion is religion, business is business. We are determined to
make that which we handle a success, and we will grasp every possible
advantage to promote this special line of work.” Thus plans contrary
to truth and righteousness are introduced with the plea that this or that
must be done because it is a good work and for the advancement of
the cause of God.
Men who through selfishness have become narrow and shortsighted
feel it their privilege to crowd down the very ones whom God is using
to diffuse the light He has given them. Through oppressive plans,
workers who should stand free in God have been trammeled with
restrictions by those who were only their fellow laborers. All this
bears the stamp of the human, and not of the divine. It is the devising
of men that leads to injustice and oppression. The cause of God is free
from every taint of injustice. It seeks to gain no advantage by depriving
the members of His family of their individuality or of their rights. The
Lord does not sanction arbitrary authority, nor will He serve with
the least selfishness or overreaching. To Him all such practices are
abhorrent.
He declares: “I hate robbery for burnt offering.” “Thou shalt not
have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small. But thou
shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt
thou have.... All that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the
[180]