Ministers Giving Bible Readings
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Work Cannot Be Done by Proxy—By personal labor reach the
people where they are. Become acquainted with them. This work
cannot be done by proxy. Money loaned or given cannot accomplish
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it. Sermons from the pulpit cannot do it. Teaching the Scriptures in
families,—this is the work of an evangelist, and this work is to be
united with preaching. If it is omitted, the preaching will be, to a great
extent, a failure.
Those who are seeking for truth need to have words spoken to them
in season; for Satan is speaking to them by his temptations. If you
meet with repulse when trying to help souls, heed it not. If there seems
to be little good resulting from your work, do not become discouraged.
Keep working; be discreet; know when to speak, and when to keep
silent; watch for souls as they that must give an account; and watch
for the devices of Satan, lest you be led aside from duty. Do not allow
difficulties to dishearten or intimidate you. With strong faith, with
intrepid purpose, meet and overcome these difficulties. Sow the seed
in faith, and with an unsparing hand.—Gospel Workers, pp. 188, 189.
(1915).
Teach—Hold Bible Readings—You love to preach, and should
have a chance to preach wherever you go. You can do a good work in
this line, but this is not all the work essential to be done—the people
need to be taught, to be educated. Many of the sermons given would,
if cut short one half, be far more beneficial to the hearers.
Take time to teach, to hold Bible readings. Get the points and
texts fastened in the minds of the hearers. Let them ask questions,
and answer them in the plainest, simplest manner possible, so that the
mind can grasp the truths presented.....
Teach as Christ taught, study His example, His methods of teach-
ing. He preached few sermons, but wherever He went, crowds gathered
to listen to His instruction. The ministers must be educated to work
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more according to the divine pattern. You have not yet taken up the
work of educating. The people will listen to sermon after sermon, and
they can retain but a very few points in the discourse, and these lose
their force upon the mind; other things come in to choke the seed of
truth. Now the Lord’s way is the best way, to impress upon minds,
point by point, the truths that are for their eternal interest to know. Let
the soil of the heart be prepared and the seed so planted that it will
spring up and bear fruit.—
Letter 29, 1890
.