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The Publishing Ministry
The position or office a man may hold is not alone an indication
of his usefulness in the cause of God. It is the development of a
Christlike character through sanctification of the spirit that will give
him influence for good. In the estimation of God the degree of his
faithfulness determines the value of his service.
God accepts the services of those only who are partakers of the
divine nature. Without Christ man can do nothing. Love for God
and man alone places human beings on vantage ground with God.—
Selected Messages 2:186, 187
.
Labor Prompted by Love for Souls—I have been thinking of
the question that was agitating your mind in regard to wages. You
suggest that if we paid higher wages, we could secure men of ability
to fill important positions of trust. This might be so, but I should very
much regret to see our workers held to our work by the wages they
receive. There are needed in the cause of God workers who will make
a covenant with Him by sacrifice, who will labor for the love of souls,
not for the wages they receive.
Your sentiment regarding wages, my much-respected brother, is
the language of the world. Service is service, and one kind of work
is as essential as the other. To every man is given his work. There
is stern, taxing labor to be performed, labor involving disagreeable
taxation and requiring skill and tact. In the work of God, the physical
as well as the mental powers are drawn upon, and both are essential.
One is as necessary as the other. Should we attempt to draw a line
between mental and physical work, we would place ourselves in very
difficult positions.
The experiment of giving men high wages has been tried in the
publishing institutions. Some men have grasped high wages, while
others, doing work just as severe and taxing, have had barely enough
to sustain their families. Yet their taxation was just as great, and often
men have been overworked and overwearied, while others, bearing
not half the burdens, received double the wages. The Lord sees all
these things, and He will surely call men to account; for He is a God
of justice and equity.
Those who have a knowledge of the truth for this time should be
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pure and clean and noble in all their business transactions. None among
God’s servants should hunger and thirst for the highest place as direc-