Comments on Mission

Presenting Our Mission Work

In years past, I have spoken in favor of the plan of presenting our mission work and its progress before our friends and neighbors, and have referred to the example of Nehemiah.

And now I desire to urge our brethren and sisters to study anew the experience of this man of prayer and faith and sound judgment, who made bold to ask his friend, King Artaxerxes, for help with which to advance the interests of God's cause.

Let all understand that in presenting the needs of our work, believers can reflect light to others, only as they, like Nehemiah of old, draw nigh to God, and live in close connection with the Giver of all light.

Our own souls must be firmly grounded in a knowledge of the truth, if we would win others from error to truth. We need now to search the Scriptures diligently, that, as we become acquainted with unbelievers, we may hold up before them Christ as the anointed, the crucified the risen Saviour, witnessed to by prophets, testified of by believers, and through whose name we receive the forgiveness of our sins.

—Counsels on Stewardship, p. 191

World-wide Mission

The Saviour's words, "Ye are the light of the world," point to the fact that He has committed to His followers a world-wide mission.

In the days of Christ, selfishness and pride and prejudice had built strong and high the wall of partition between the appointed guardians of the sacred oracles and every other nation on the globe. But the Saviour had come to change all this.

The words which the people were hearing from His lips were unlike anything to which they had ever listened from priest or rabbi. Christ tears away the wall of partition, the self-love, the dividing prejudice of nationality, and teaches a love for all the human family.

He lifts men from the narrow circle that their selfishness prescribes; He abolishes all territorial lines and artificial distinctions of society. He makes no difference between neighbors and strangers, friends and enemies. He teaches us to look upon every needy soul as our neighbor and the world as our field.

—Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, p. 42

That They May Be One

Christ prayed for his disciples "that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

The unity of believers is to be an evidence to the world of the divine power and mission of Christ. This should be the mighty argument to convince the world that Christ is the Son of God, the Redeemer of fallen man. The love existing between believers is to be similar to the love existing between the Father and the Son. And this love in the soul is the evidence of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

We are to love God supremely, and our neighbors as ourselves. It is in the lack of this love that thousands fail, and are found transgressors of the law. Supreme love for God will lead to love for our fellow-men, and the commandment of Christ is, "Love one another as I have loved you," "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another."

We cannot have this love unless Jesus is abiding in the heart by living faith. The very unity of disciples, the love manifested one for another, will be evidence to the world that God has sent his Son into the world as its Redeemer. This unity and love will exist wherever the Spirit of the Lord abides; heart will be bound to heart, and works of righteousness will appear in the daily life.

—The Signs of the Times 04-13-91

This Work Requires Means

But this work requires means. It is true that times are hard, that money is not plenty; but the truth must be spread, and money to spread it must be placed in the treasury. Many are trembling with fear because the work moves faster than their slow faith, and means is expended more rapidly than it comes into the treasury; and yet we have taken only the first few steps in advance.

Our message is world-wide; yet many are doing nothing, and many more, so very little, and with so great a want of faith, that it is next to nothing. Shall we abandon the field that has already been opened in foreign countries? Shall we drop part of the work in our home missions? Shall we be disheartened at a debt of a few thousand dollars? Shall we falter and become laggards in the very last scenes of this world's history? My heart says, No, no! I cannot contemplate this question without a burning zeal in my souls to see this work go. We would not deny our faith, we would not deny Christ; yet we shall commit this fearful sin unless we move forward, as the providence of God opens the way.

The work must not stop for want of means. More money must be invested. "Sell that ye have and give alms." There is a time coming when commandment-keepers can neither buy nor sell. In the last extremity, before this work shall close, thousands of dollars will be cheerfully laid upon the altar. Men and women will feel it a blessed privilege to share in the great work of preparing souls to stand in the great day of God, and they will give hundreds as readily as five dollars are given now. But let us not dishonor God by thinking that the church has not the means to do all the work that devolves upon her just now.

—Advent Review and Sabbath Herald 10-12-86