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What Shall We Neglect?

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 22, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 8.

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What Shall We Neglect?

By A. W. SPAULDING

A. W. SPAULDING
Not only the world, but our lives and work are crowded with duties and cares. The busiest of us never accomplish all we have to do; we fail to accomplish, perhaps, all that is expected of us. And, then, either without system we leave undone the things we would last reach, or with system we plan to leave out those things we deem least important. What shall we neglect?
In the home comes the round of cooking and house-cleaning and mending; on the farm is the care of the crops and the stock, the marketing of produce, and other business; in the institution is the following of the prescribed routine of work and study or the management; in the ministry is the proclaiming of gospel truths, and the service rendered to bodies and souls of men. Always something suffers, something is neglected; what shall it be?
Too frequently the thing neglected is study and prayer. And thereby is time wasted; for without study and prayer no worker can accomplish anything of value. It is as if the typewriter, earnest to do a great day's work, should not have time to clean and oil his machine; as if the engineer, needing a high pressure of steam, should not have time to draw out the ashes and cinders; as if the farmer, with a long day's plowing before him, should not have time to feed his horses. A fellow worker said to me recently, when urged to study some helpful portions of “Ministry of Healing:”“I can not keep up with everything I am expected to do. Unless I keep abreast of the times, of the religious liberty work, the temperance work, the Sabbath-school work, the foreign mission work, etc., I shall not meet the favor of the conference.”
How much of all these many lines of thought the worker can compass, or how much he must neglect, is a matter for each one to determine with God for himself; but certain it is that before the one great essential is omitted, all these might better be neglected, “lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” The worker who spends time with God will not be behind the times; his spirituality will be worth more to the church than all the feverish researches and the funds of information of him who neglects God.
“Remember that prayer is the source of your strength. A worker can not gain success while he hurries through his prayers, and rushes away to look after something that he fears may be neglected or forgotten. He gives only a few hurried thoughts to God; he does not take time to think, to pray, to wait upon the Lord for a renewal of physical and spiritual strength. He soon becomes weary. He does not feel the uplifting, inspiring influence of God's Spirit. He is not quickened by fresh life. His jaded frame and tired brain are not soothed by personal contact with Christ. ‘Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.’ ‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.’ Ps. 27:14; Lam. 3:26. There are those who work all day and far into the night to do what seems to them must be done. The Lord looks pityingly upon these weary, heavy-laden burden-bearers, and says to them, ‘Come unto me, . . . and I will give you rest.’”—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. VII, pages 243, 244.
One of the greatest sources of weakness in our people is the neglect of the writings of the spirit of prophecy. In these times of lukewarmness and apostasy, how perilous to remain unacquainted with the Testimonies God has sent to guard us against our dangers! It is not sufficient to talk in favor of the Testimonies, to say Amen when we hear them, or to accuse others of disbelieving them; we must know their personal messages to us, and by diligently studying and practising them, know them in the sense of receiving power from their study, that they may bring forth fruit from us to God.
There are hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist homes that have not one volume of the Testimonies; there are many workers who rarely ever study them; and all of us are ignorant in practise, if not in mind, of much of the message they bear to us. The books “Education” and “Ministry of Healing,” with the clearest directions for action and the most searching and comforting messages for the lagging and the weary, have been studied by few of those who have them. Yet not only do we know that they, with the rest of the Word of God, will try us in the day of judgment, but we see to-day what mistakes we make, what false positions we take, what prolongation of the agony of Christ we cause, because of our ignorance of them.
If something must be neglected,—either, on the one hand, better food, more clothing, or a cherished visit, or, on the other hand, the procuring of the Testimonies of God's Spirit,—let it be those things of material life, and let us have the word of God in our homes. If something must be neglected,—either, on the one hand, the hour of gossip or the frills on a new dress or some of the back-breaking work that means the earning or the saving of a few more dollars, or, on the other hand, the earnest, prayerful study of the Bible and the Testimonies,—then let it be our thronging cares and foolishnesses, and let us have the word of God in our lives.
The days of strife are upon us, they are not away in the future. We see arising, with their scourges in their hands, the vengeful Hazels foretold in the spirit of prophecy. Perils are on every hand: perils from the elements and perils from the passions of men; perils from without and from within, from unrelenting enemies and from false brethren. Alone, unsheltered, we are but as autumn leaves before the whirlwind. Who is heeding the invitation: ‘Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast’? Years ago were these words of warning written, which we begin to see fulfilled:—
“The days are fast approaching when there will be great perplexity and confusion. Satan, clothed in angel robes, will deceive, if possible, the very elect. There will be gods many and lords many. Every wind of doctrine will be blowing. Those who have rendered supreme homage to ‘science falsely so-called,’ will not then be the leaders. Those who have trusted to intellect, genius, or talent, will not then stand at the head of rank and file.” “The time is not far distant when the test will come to every soul. . . . In this time, the gold will be separated from the dross in the church. True godliness will be clearly distinguished from the appearance and tinsel of it. Many a star that we have admired for its brilliancy, will then go out in darkness. Chaff like a cloud will be borne away on the wind, even from places where we see only floors of rich wheat.” “It may be that the destroyers are already training under the hand of Satan, and only wait the departure of a few more standard-bearers to take their places, and with the voice of the false prophet cry, Peace, peace, when the Lord hath not spoken peace. I seldom weep, but now I find my eyes blinded with tears; they are falling upon my paper as I write. It may be that ere long all prophesying among us will be at an end, and the voice which has stirred the people may no longer disturb their carnal chambers. When God shall work his strange work on the earth, when holy hands bear the ark no longer, woe will be upon the people. O, that thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! O, that our people may, as did Nineveh, repent with all their might and believe with all their heart, that God may turn away his fierce anger from them!”—Testimonies for the Church, Vol. V, pages 80, 81, 77, 78.
What shall be neglected, prayer and the study of God's messages, or the pleasures of life and the manifold cares of our daily work? Which shall engross our thoughts, the husks of form and profession, or the kernels of God's truth and life?
“Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: . . . for Mary hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
Alpharetta, Ga.