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Human Needs and Divine Supply
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to the work. They must take Christ as their personal Saviour. Why
is it that those who have been long engaged in the ministry do not
grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus? I have been
shown that they gratify their selfish propensities and do only such
things as agree with their tastes and ideas. They make provision
for indulgence in pride and sensuality and carry out their selfish
ambitions and plans. They are full of self-esteem. But although their
evil propensities may seem to them as precious as the right hand or
the right eye, they must be separated from the worker, or he cannot
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be acceptable before God. Hands are laid upon men to ordain them
for the ministry before they are thoroughly examined as to their
qualifications for the sacred work; but how much better would it be
to make thorough work before accepting them as ministers, than to
have to go through this rigid examination after they have become
established in their position and have put their mold upon the work.
A Consecrated Life
The following quotation shows what true consecration will do,
and this is what we should require of our workers:
“Harlan Page consecrated himself to God, with a determination
to live and labor to promote the Lord’s glory, in the salvation of the
perishing. ‘When I first obtained hope,’ he said on his dying bed,
‘I felt that I must labor for souls. I prayed year after year that God
would make me the means of saving some.’ His prayers were signally
answered. Never did Page lose an opportunity of holding up the
lamp to souls. By letters, by conversation, by tracts, by prayers, by
appeals and warnings, as well as by a holy and earnest example, did
he try to reclaim the wandering, or edify the believer. In factories, in
schools, and elsewhere did this mechanic labor, and only the mighty
power of grace can explain how one so humble could achieve so
much. His life is a speaking comment on the words, ‘God hath
chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and
God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are
despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring
to naught things that are.’ ‘Our faith in eternal realities is weak,’ he
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cried, ‘and our sense of duty faint, while we neglect the salvation of