A Foundation of Faith by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 28, 1903

A Foundation of Faith

By L. A. S.

THE foundation of God's work in the earth is the foundation of faith. By faith, those who have established the enterprises connected with his cause will have moved out in the face of seemingly insuperable obstacles, of worldly opposition, and predictions of defeat by the opponents of the work. They have established enterprises and built them up to a state of prosperity which has attracted the attention and won the confidence of worldly people. But when this stage has been reached, then comes the temptation to conduct the enterprise on a worldly basis, to let it be governed by business considerations, the same as a common worldly enterprise. The danger is an insidious one, which too many fail to discern. When the interests of God's work demand that moves be made which seem foolish from a worldly point of view, many rise up in opposition and predict that such moves must end in disaster because they are not what would be called good business policy. They forget that the enterprises were started in the face of every prospect of failure from a worldly point of view; that people occupying this point of view derided them and predicted their speedy collapse and dissolution. They forget that the enterprises in God's work were not established on a foundation like that of worldly enterprises, but on the foundation of faith. They have proved successful not because probabilities of a worldly sort were in their favor, but because God was back of them, and his power was exercised in their behalf. To shift such an enterprise from this supernatural foundation to the foundation of a worldly enterprise, would certainly be fatal to its success in the work which it was established to do.

L. A. S.