p. 10 | God’s Plan for His Work in the Earth

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 13, 1908

God’s Plan for His Work in the Earth

By A. T. ROBINSON

A. T. ROBINSON

“As for God, his way is perfect.” “He is the rock, his work is perfect.” Our God is a perfect being. His work is perfect. His way for the accomplishment of his work is perfect. Therefore the only guaranty of success in any department of the Lord’s work in this world is to find out his way, and then follow in that way, even though it leads contrary to cherished plans and human ideas that may have been followed.

The idea is God’s plan to save a lost world. To say that this plan does not provide for every part of the work, would be to say that the plan falls short of being perfect; and this, in turn, would be charging imperfection to the One who made the plan.

The apostle Paul speaks thus concerning God’s plan for the support of the ministry, in both the former and Christian dispensations. “Know ye not that they that minister about sacred things, eat of the things of the temple, and they that wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar? Even so did the Lord ordain that they that preach the gospel should live of the gospel.” 1 Cor. 9:13, 14, R. V.

Men have tried to improve upon this plan, by establishing a supper room in connection with the church, in which festivals, fashionable suppers, lotteries, grab-bags, kissing parties, and many other questionable means are resorted to in raising the preacher’s salary. These efforts to do the Lord’s work in man’s way are admitted on all sides to be miserable failures and a vexation of spirit.

The adoption by a portion of the membership of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination of the Lord’s own plan for the support of the ministry, the payment of the first tithe, has demonstrated to the whole world that it is the only plan that will succeed. So far as this plan is adopted, it results in more than an abundance for the support of the ministry in what is called the home land, while many thousands of dollars of the surplus is passed on, through the Foreign Mission Board, for the support of the workers in mission fields.

I verily believe,—in fact it is a living certainty,—that if those in this denomination who do not pay their tithes were doing so as faithfully and as conscientiously as are a large number of this people, there would be an abundant supply of means from this one source alone for the liberal support of every Seventh-day Adventist minister in the world, and of their families as well. No more, then, would the agonizing cry be passed down the line from the Foreign Mission Board to the presidents of conferences, as was done a few weeks ago, to the effect that the Mission treasury was empty.

My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Somebody is responsible before God for this state of things. My brother, my sister, you who have been selfishly withholding that which the Giver says is his (“It is holy unto the Lord”), I charge you before God with a personal, individual responsibility for this cry that comes from the reapers in the whitening harvest-fields of the world. “Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”

A few weeks ago the writer received a letter from a brother, saying that while the Lord had been greatly prospering him in his business he had not been paying his tithe for a long time. As evidence of the genuineness of his confession and repentance he inclosed a check for fifteen hundred dollars back tithe. May God bless this dear brother as richly in spiritual things as he has been blessing him in the things of this world. O that the good Spirit of God may knock and find admittance at the door of a thousand hearts of those who ought to do as this brother has done.

I tell you, brethren and sisters, God is in earnest with this people, and it is high time that we were getting in earnest with ourselves. God means what he says in the third chapter of Malachi, when he charges his people with having robbed him in tithes and offerings. The windows of blessing are closed and barred on our side. Heaven is appealing to those who have been thus robbing God: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, . . . and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

Hastings, Neb.

(To be concluded)