Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 48, 1900

Steed, D.

Geelong, Victoria, Australia

March 23, 1900

Previously unpublished.

Dear Brother Steed:

I have written a letter of testimony to you and have sent it to Brother Baker to read to you, and have asked him to retain the copy. I do not generally allow my writings to go into hands of those who so readily heed the temptations of the enemy to criticize their brethren in the ministry, and who would criticize and place a wrong construction upon the matter written. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 1

Your great desire to obtain sympathy and pity too often leads you astray, to sympathize with and pity those who do not deserve your sympathy and pity; and those who do need your help, every jot of it, on the right side, do not get it. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 2

Now my brother, I have instruction to give you. The Lord is not pleased with your position. You do the church more harm than you can do it good. You need to consider that if the Lord accepts young men in the ministry as His lightbearers, He gives them light to bear to dispel the darkness. Christ is our light and our righteousness, and if you walk in the light as Christ is in the light, you will be a lightbearer to the world. But your spirit of criticism is not a source of strength but of weakness to the church. You cannot build up a church yourself. You need the deep movings of the Spirit of God, and you do not have the qualifications essential. You depend more on the sympathy of your brethren than on the Lord. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 3

I have many things to say to our brethren in New Zealand, but I cannot say them now; I have not the time or strength, but I would say; It will not do for the New Zealand Conference to give you credentials as a minister whom they can indorse in the work. It is not the best thing for the New Zealand Conference, or any other conference, to endorse your labors as a minister of the gospel, and thus signify that you are in full confidence of the conference to take charge of the church in any place. You yourself need to become a learner before you are to be entrusted with the work of the Lord as a teacher. I advise you, my brother, to separate in your work from the companionship of those with whom you cannot harmonize. Take up some other line of business or work. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 4

For your own soul’s sake take heed to yourself, and your individual self is all you are capable now of handling. Certainly your brethren cannot conscientiously advise you to remain in the ministry when you are doing the flock of God harm instead of good. I advise you to take up some line of work where you can labor with your hands. The conference is not authorized to pay you wages to work against the ministers or to create a condition of things that will cause them much anxiety and worry for the work wherever you should be. You create more burdens than your service will relieve. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 5

The work of the ministry is a sacred, solemn work, and the men in responsibility should feel that they make themselves responsible for the setting of a shepherd over the flock who is not faithful to care for that flock, that no mischief shall come to any one of the Lord’s sheep or lambs. They are to feel that they are physicians of souls to bind up the spiritually diseased, and to not leave them poisoned to the death by your administration of drugs in the form of evil surmisings, criticisms, faultfinding, and the evil attributes these evils mentioned bring into their character building. You will make the work very much harder after you have had the care of the sheep for a time, and there would be much more peace and much more hope of prosperity for any church when men of your temperament have nothing to do with the sheep of the Lord’s pasture. You feel competent of taking responsibilities whatever they may be. You have not wisdom to do clean, uplifting, thorough work. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 6

Your wife’s labors are valuable as long as she is not a partaker of your spirit, and it will be most difficult for her to not sympathize with you in your manufacturing business of creating dissension and strife. It is a terrible thing for the shepherd of the flock to feed the sheep with poison rather than with healthful food. Our brethren become very weary of your suspicions, and your mind is easily worked by the enemy. I see no way out of the dilemma but to release you from the work you are doing, for it is not perfecting your character and fitting you up to be a living Christian to be trusted and depended upon to stand in places of duty. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 7

You are not sent to the churches to labor with your pen or your voice, and take upon yourself your burden of finding fault and criticism. You create more burdens than your service will relieve. When you are thoroughly changed in spirit, when you can let your brethren stand in God to do their appointed work without your complaints and faultfinding, then you will have more confidence and faith in God. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 8

You are not authorized to receive pay from the conference while you do so little to build up and place the right mold upon the conference. Your position in soliciting the highest place bears not the image and superscription of God. Has God engaged you in His service to watch and criticize and sow the seeds of faultfinding? You are not doing the work of God in your sowing discord and strife. Now, my brother, the work will do far better without you than with you. According to the light given me of God, you win some souls to Christ, but your faultfinding and criticism is of that character that it is a great perplexity to know where to place you to labor. Your manner of labor is not as God would have it. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 9

It is better for you to have nothing to do in the churches. Take care of your own soul, and if not connected with your brethren you will not see so much to find fault with. Your main thought is to be exalted and to blame your brethren if you are not exalted. But dear brother, it is not possible for you to be worked by the Holy Spirit while you feel sufficient to work yourself and all your brethren if they would let you. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 10

I have love for your soul, and I earnestly beg of you to not try to connect with your brethren whom you do not love, and in whom you do not have confidence, and while you feel grieved because they do not take more notice of you. Your danger of losing eternal life is great. You need to place yourself in a different position where you will not injure your brethren and hurt the souls for whom Christ died. Your development of character is not as it should be. To add to the difficulties of your brethren by your criticisms, which are an offense to God, is anything but comforting and pleasing. If you will give up the position you have held as teacher, and become a learner, there is some chance for your soul. I do not want you should lose your soul. But to remain in the ministry to be pettish and faultfinding and uncourteous, as you have been in the past, would be supreme folly. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 11

Is there not good work you can do? Take up some work where you will not come in close connection with human minds. Satan sees he can use your faculties under the pretense of doing good service, and can make you a tempter to other minds to keep the church stirred up and make them as weak as water. By thus giving up to a spirit of faultfinding you help the enemy in his work of accusing. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 12

Now, my brother, I entreat you to place yourself where you will not be used so effectively by the enemy to tear down in the place of building up. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 13

I have written this for Christ’s sake, for the truth’s sake, and for your own soul’s sake. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 14

Yours in love. 15LtMs, Lt 48, 1900, par. 15