THEN another thing: Those who compose the conference committees have an obligation to God, and to those sacrificing souls, to guard that sacred means against such encroachments as that. You and I, as certainly as we are conference committeemen, are obliged, under God, to guard the doubly sacred funds of the Lord’s treasury against this kind of practice and work that will drift along and spend time with no sufficient returns, and perhaps none at all, for the means taken out. You and I are responsible to God and to the people that that thing shall not be done. We must administer the things of our trust in a more godly, substantial, and manly way than that.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.1

Then when this is done, as certainly as the key turns that way, the cause will go that way. And the key has turned the other way so much at least, that, practically, the cause stands committed to that other way of things. I can confidently appeal to every conference committee in this house; for each one knows that the key has been turned that other way so much and so long, that, practically, the tide has become set that way.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.2

This evil is not alone in the ministry. In the ministry the example has been set. If a man can get into the ministry, can be ordained, and have his credentials, and his name on the pay roll, then, although only two, three, four, five, or six people, or even none at all, are brought in in a whole year’s work, that is expected to pass all right; the wages must go on just the same. Then that same example has been followed in the institutions. Many, almost the majority, of those who become connected with our institutions—a printing house or a sanitarium—think that that is all that is needed. They have their position, they think that it must be theirs forever, merely because they are “Sabbath keepers,” and so they drift along with no thought as to whether or not their work is profitable to the institution. The management are kept at their wits’ end year in and year out to keep that institution from running behind all the time. An institution of two or three hundred operatives perhaps, and yet it be a problem and a constant study to the management and the board to keep from losing money!ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.3

Can there be any problem about it? When an institution has all the work it can do year in and year out, and two hundred and fifty or three hundred operatives, and it barely clears itself of expenses, is it not as plain as A B C that the work of many of those operatives is not paying for their wages, that their work does not bring into the institution what their wages take out,—whether it be a printing house or a sanitarium?ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.4

And it does not stop with employees. I have met it—I do not say where, possibly I do not need to say where; for I know personally that it is found in more than one place. Physicians in charge of an institution, responsible for its work and the building up of its practice, ask for an increase of wages, ask boards for money to keep that institution out of debt, when the only possible way that the board has to get money is to borrow it. Asking the board to borrow money to increase their wages!ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.5

Now how long can it go that way before that institution will be self-supporting, think you? How long can that kind of management be kept up before there will be an income to that institution? There is no problem in that at all. That simply says that that physician was not putting into his work enough energy and thought to gather practice, and make his own way; not enough to make his work pay his way, and pay his own wages.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.6

To more than one of these I said, and to all, preachers, physicians, printers, and all others, I still say, Suppose you were not in the institution at all. You are supposed to carry on your chosen work somewhere in the world. Suppose you were not in this institution. Then what would you do for wages? Would you ask the board to borrow money from Seventh-day Adventists to pay you wages, and support you? If not, why not? One of these thought that perhaps he would not. Then I said, “Why do you do it now? Brother, there is nothing at all to hinder you from having more wages, all the wages you want. Just simply go to work, and make it. Make all the wages you want, and you have it. But I will not borrow any money, nor ask anybody for money, to pay you wages.”ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.7

So I say that there is in our presence, as committees and boards generally, enough evidence to show that the key of the ministry has been turned to the wrong side long enough to make that entirely too largely a practice among Seventh-day Adventists. So that it is actually a principle seriously to be considered in this work of reorganization.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.8

And there is a better way, thank the Lord. And that way is the way of the gospel: simply preach the gospel, which is the power of God; and get this people in possession of the power of God and the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God that will make a man of a man, and give him power to make his way in this world wherever he strikes the earth, with nothing but his two bare hands to begin with. I will put it that way if you want it: I say truly that all that any Christian anywhere in this world needs to make his way is to be somewhere, and have the use of his faculties and his two bare hands. That is so; for it is written, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.... And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” And what is He? Is he not the Head of every Christian? And what is the office of the head anywhere? Is it not to do the thinking, to do the planning, to be the guide? And if Christ your Head is not that, then what is he to you?ARSH June 3, 1902, page 8.9

Well, then, brethren, we are agreed, are we not, that you and I, that the ministry of the gospel in the third angel’s message, shall work upon that basis solely, that each minister’s work shall bring into the cause of God more than his wages and expenses can possibly take out? Now is that settled? Come along, let us all say, Yes. [Voices: “Amen.”]ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.1

Now do not misunderstand. I do not mean, I do not suggest at all, that anyone of us is to start out in our preaching to bring in money; or that we are to have our minds on money. That is not it,—souls are what we after—souls alone. We will work for souls, to bring souls to God, souls to Jesus Christ, souls to the gospel. And what is the gospel?—The power of God. Then we will preach the gospel, that he who receives it may be clothed with the power of God, and thus be able to do what he never was able to do before: it matters not what kind of person he may be who receives the gospel.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.2

Let us put it to the extreme: because it is not extreme at all. Suppose that each one of us individually goes out from this conference to preach the gospel the season through, the coming season; and by that true gospel, the power of God, we bring to Christ twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, of the poorest of the poor people, who never knew a thing of Christianity, and never could make a clear living in the world, but were simply a drag on the community, to be supported by gifts from people round about in the neighborhood. Suppose that is the only kind of people we gather to the gospel in this season’s work. As certainly as that is so, as certainly as you and I preach to those folks the gospel, the true gospel, the power of God, and they receive it, then next year each of those people, every soul of them, with Christ his Head, will be able to make his way in the world in spite of everything on the earth. And you and I are to be ashamed of ourselves if we preach any other gospel, or any less gospel, than precisely that—the power of God. And that people, taken from the poorest of the poor, and clothed with the power of God, which is the gospel itself; imbued with the wisdom of God and the knowledge of God; with the Spirit of God to guide them,—in a word, with Christ truly their Head,—will be able to make themselves prosperous; they will clearly make their way in the world; and they will bring a profitable, an honest tithe into the treasury for the gospel ministry. That is so.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.3

So I say it is not money we are to work for. Our minds are not to be upon that at all. Our minds are to be upon souls, and the righteousness of God upon those souls, and they imbued with the divine character. Then with every minister doing that, how will things stand? How will the treasury stand?—It will be full. And each season’s work as the years go round, will shop, be of that same sort. Then see what trate [sic.] will come: Our ministry will be of that sort that will bring to the treasury funds for the spread of the gospel to the world—each year bringing, for that year, more to the treasury than we take out. Then isn’t it as plain as A B C that there will be a constantly accumulating fund in the treasury beyond whatever can be taken out by those who are the laborers in the conference? Isn’t that so? Then what shall be done with that accumulating fund?—It is to be used for missionary work, to spread the gospel abroad, to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.4

As certainly as the ministry takes that stand, and works steadily on that basis, so certainly the people who are influenced by that ministry will, each one of them, at whatsoever he works, be not only self-supporting, but will produce a clear profit in his work. There will be a constantly accumulating fund beyond what he consumes in his daily life. And what shall he do with that? Suppose he is a farmer,—a gospel farmer, I mean; a man clothed with the power of God, and having the wisdom of God to devise, and the Spirit of God to show him how and what to do. His work brings in more than his living consumes. What shall be done with that excess? Isn’t it just as certainly true that that excess shall go to spread the gospel to all the world, and not into a bank, nor out at interest, as that the excess of the work of the minister himself shall be to spread the gospel, and not to put money into a bank or out at interest?ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.5

Then when that thing spreads from the ministry through all the ranks of Seventh-day Adventists everywhere, what will be the result? Will they be indebt?—No; not one of them. Each one producing more than he consumes, each one having an excess to devote to the cause of God,—that so everywhere, with every one all over the world, in all the ranks, then the day will have come when that glorious Scripture will be a living fact: “Thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow.”ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.6

I will say, too, right now, brethren, that that time has come. The time has come for that promise of God to be fulfilled upon his people, and in his people, before the world: that his people shall lend to many nations, and shall not borrow. But you know that it has not been that way. It has been the other way; and yet you see the secret of how that promise is to be fulfilled. And I do not say that that time is going to come. I say truly that that time has come. It has come to every soul who will accept this gospel in its sincerity, and will act upon that gospel that we are now studying. It will be so with each minister, and each individual member of the church. You can see plainly enough that that is the way it will work. Let each employee in our conferences, in our publishing houses, in our sanitariums, each student in our colleges, each individual on the farm or in the shop, put his soul into his work, concentrate all his Christian mind upon the task that is under his hand, to do it in a way the most nearly perfect and the most speedy way possible to be perfect. Can there then be any possibility of any conference, or any institution, or any individual running behind or barely paying expenses?—Why, no. Each will have a surplus with which to spread abroad the truth to the world. It is as plain as A B C.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.7

O! the Scripture tells about wicked men being “inventors of evil things.” You know that that is so to-day. It was so when Paul wrote. It is so to-day. Men of the world, the wicked of the world, are doing it now in Chicago, actually sitting down to hard, close thinking to invent some new way of doing iniquity, to invent some new trick in evil. That is the truth. Well, then, isn’t it high time that Christians, every soul of us, became so devoted to the righteousness of God, to the glory of God, in the success of the cause of God on earth, that we shall concentrate every energy of mind, body, soul, and spirit to inventing how best to do right things? What grander thing can we devote ourselves to? What grander project can there ever be to occupy the faculties of man than to put the utmost attention of his whole being upon how best to do right things? O, come along! let us be Christians.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.8

There is another mischievous thing that come in, to which I must call your attention, by this wrong process of drifting, and the ministry content to receive their pay from the treasury, and committees content to have it so, with only two or three, or four or five, souls in return, or perhaps none at all. It comes to this: Here is a worker who goes through a whole year. He reports perhaps three who accepted the truth. And you know that there are many on the lists who have made reports for a year, of not even that many. Every committee knows that that is so. Now this one is “a worker,” and he goes right on, and is pay goes right on. His next year’s work may bring in two or three more. Presently here is simply an everyday Christian in the church, who, by his Christian influence and intelligence, brings two or three people into the truth. Instantly he is recommended to the conference for a license, and to be taken on the list as a worker. And why not? When licensed and accredited workers, who are drawing wages all the time, do so little, and still are retained and paid as “workers”? Why is not any one a worker, and worthy of license, and to be on the list, who does as much? And so it has actually come to pass that whosoever brings to the truth one or two or three souls in a year, is expected to be counted a worker, to be taken upon the list, and counted in the pay roll. And these are “the workers.” And what are all the other members?ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.9

That distinction has actually grown up. These who bring the few to the truth are “the workers.” And we get these all together, and we have “a workers’” meeting. And what are the other people, all those who are not on the list?—O! they do not expect to be expected to be specially active in doing missionary work, and bringing souls to the truth, because they do “not see how they can leave home and become workers.” You see that it runs inevitably to that: the great body of the people have ceased to be workers, have ceased to be the gospel workers that they must be to be Christians; and “the workers” become a special class.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 9.10

Every Seventh-day Adventist in the world ought to be able to bring to the truth one, two, or three souls every year of his life.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 10.1

True, there are many who say: “In this community where we live, the people have all heard the truth, and have decided against it, so that there is no chance to bring any to the truth.” Well, you are not obliged to stay there. Get up and move to a place where the people have not heard the truth. Settle down where they will be glad to have somebody in the community who can speak to them the truth, and they will listen to it, and they will come to the truth. That is what individuals are for who are not of the ordained ministry. That is why I say that every Seventh-day Adventist in the world—I mean Christian men and women of course, who can go here and there, and do as their own judgment dictates—should bring to the truth every year one or two or three souls. They are not obliged to stay where they are, in communities that have been warned. There are thousands of communities on the earth that are hungering and thirsting for such persons to come and live there, and be shining lights. And yet if all would truly be shining lights, they would find that the communities where they now are, have not decided against the truth nearly so much as is thought. Maybe the have heard the truth, and had no chance to see it. Give them a chance to see it shining in good deeds in the lives of all who profess it, and it will make a great difference in their attitude toward the truth.ARSH June 3, 1902, page 10.2

(To be concluded)

May 27, 1902

June 10, 1902