Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 18 (1903)

Ms 181, 1903

Warning in Regard to Food Factories

1903

Previously unpublished.

We will now have to be careful in regard to largely extending and creating food factories. This I have been instructed will prove a snare and engross minds in manufacturing merchandise; and minds thus engrossed become belittled and common and cheap. Bribes will be presented, of high wages, that will not and ought not to be, to tempt men from the field of labor to carry the gospel message or to tempt men who have a position already to assume more responsibility than they can carry and thus lose their spirituality. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 1

Something is being devised in this line that will be one of the greatest difficulties we shall meet. There are men who can make a success of limited responsibilities; but when there is crowded upon them a larger amount of work, they have not sufficient physical stamina, and they become tired, weary, and overworked, fractious and impatient. They lose the love of God out of their hearts, and then what? They lose courage, and God cannot bless them. Physicians have done double the work they ought to do, and they need indeed a physician to give them a prescription to drop that extra labor they were tempted to take on. Say No, I am in a place where I will not be so tempted, so tried. I can do no more safely than I am doing. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 2

Again I warn men who should become canvassers to get the publications so essential before the world everywhere, in gospel ministry of the Word, in praying for the sick, in turning souls from sin unto righteousness. I have had presentations of the great food manufacturing work, and I am saying to men and women, Keep your conscience clear before God. Do not place yourselves in places where you will be tempted and tried by the sight of your eyes and the hearing of your ears, that shall influence your spiritual perception of what it means to be Christlike. Hold the standard firmly: hold it high. And let no one talk you into the restaurant work and making of foods. The preparation essential in your characters to have a fitness to meet the Lord Jesus when he shall come is your most important work. God help you in this matter. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 3

It will take something more than sanitariums as they are now managed, and the establishment of food factories with all their perplexities and liabilities and commercial workings, to make impressions to convert souls. All this matter of the food business is not to be worked so as to hedge up the way by getting talent and capability in this line of work, and I now send out the warning that what we need is the best talent in canvassers, evangelists, and ministers who have received the Holy Ghost. We need the divine nature to come into our natures so that we will be able to talk with God and then with the people. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 4

I am alarmed as I see how many obstructions are arising through various devisings, to hinder in the place of helping the work. I am instructed that the restaurants in our cities are not the means of bringing souls to be convicted of the truth. All these things are to be considered. Mixing up our young people with worldlings is something we shall have to study seriously how to avoid, and we need to understand that we are to let no man whom God has called to do His work become entangled with many perplexities. Keep your souls in the best atmosphere, and do not place your poor, weak souls where you find temptations that will lead you to be regardless of the fitting up in character for the school above. God wants every worker who understands the truth to educate himself to seek and to save the souls perishing around us. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 5

Many things will be managed that will take the mind and absorb the talent, but God help us to so run that we may win the crown of eternal life. “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” Hebrews 3:12. Some are in special danger now. “But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Verse 13. 18LtMs, Ms 181, 1903, par. 6