The Lord has shown me that if the enemy
can by any means divert the work into wrong channels, and thus
hinder its advancement, he will do so. Many of our people have
made investments without sitting down to count the cost, without
finding out whether there was money enough to carry forward the
work started. Shortsightedness has been shown. Men have failed
to see that the Lord's vineyard embraces the world.
The income of the sanitariums that have
been established is not to be drawn upon to sustain numerous
lines of work for the lower classes in our wicked cities. Much
of the means that has been used to sustain this large and ever-increasing
work should, by the Lord's order, have been used in making plants
in other countries, where the light of health reform has not
shone. Sanitariums, less costly than the large ones erected in
America, should have been built in many lands. Thus plants would
have been made which, when strong, would have assisted to make
plants in other places.
The Lord is not partial. But He has been
misrepresented by His workmen. That which should have been done
in many different parts of His vineyard has been greatly hindered,
because men at the heart of the work have failed to see how the
work could be advanced in more distant parts of the vineyard.
In some parts of the field the work has been overdone. In this
way money has been absorbed that should have
been used to enable workers in other parts of the vineyard to
move forward without hindrance in planting the standard of truth
in new places. Some portions of the vineyard are not to be robbed
in order that the means may be used freely in other portions
of the field.
Man judges in accordance with his finite
judgment. God looks at the character of the fruit borne and then
judges the tree. In the name of the Lord I call upon all to think
of the work that we are required to do and how this work is to
be sustained. The world is the Lord's vineyard, and it is to
be worked.
It is not a great number of institutions,
large buildings, and outward display that God requires, but the
harmonious action of a peculiar people, a people chosen by God
and precious, united with one another, their life hid with Christ
in God. Every man is to stand in his lot and place, exerting
a right influence in thought, word, and deed. When all God's
workers do this, and not till then, His work will be a complete,
symmetrical whole.