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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
“Organizations, institutions, unless kept by the power of God,
will work under Satan’s dictation to bring men under the control of
men; and fraud and guile will bear the semblance of zeal for truth,
and for the advancement of the kingdom of God....
“God will not vindicate any device whereby man shall in the
slightest degree rule or oppress his fellowmen. The only hope for
fallen man is to look to Jesus, and receive Him as the only Saviour.
As soon as a man begins to make an iron rule for other men, as soon
as he begins to harness up and drive men according to his own mind,
he dishonors God, and imperils his own soul and the souls of his
brethren. Sinful man can find hope and righteousness only in God;
and no human being is righteous any longer than he has faith in God
and maintains a vital connection with Him. A flower of the field
must have its root in the soil; it must have air, dew, showers, and
sunshine. It will flourish only as it receives these advantages, and
all are from God. So with men. We receive from God that which
ministers to the life of the soul. We are warned not to trust in man,
nor to make flesh our arm.”
The foregoing was printed in
Special Testimonies to Ministers
and Workers, Series A, No. 2, 1897
.
In 1903, I wrote to the president of a conference:
“By means of one agency, Christ Jesus, God has mysteriously
linked all men together. To every man He has assigned some special
line of service; and we should be quick to comprehend that we
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are to guard against leaving the work given us in order that we
may interfere with other human agencies who are doing a work
not precisely the same as our own. To no man has been assigned
the work of interfering with the work of one of his fellow laborers,
trying to take it in hand himself; for he would so handle it that he
would spoil it. To one God gives a work different from the work that
He gives another.
“Let us all remember that we are not dealing with ideal men, but
with real men of God’s appointment, men precisely like ourselves,
men who fall into the same errors that we do, men of like ambitions
and infirmities. No man has been made a master, to rule the mind
and conscience of a fellow being. Let us be very careful how we
deal with God’s blood-bought heritage.