Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8

A World-Wide Work

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. 8T 182.1

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. 8T 182.2

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. 8T 182.3

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. 8T 183.1

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. 8T 183.2