p. 21 | Patient Continuance

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 9, 1902

Patient Continuance

“LET US not be weary in well doing.”

“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that.”

Early in the morning, all day, and late at night,—these are the Christian’s working hours. No “eight-hour day” for him. His working hours are filled with active labor, and he sleeps only that he may be refreshed for service for his Lord.

The man who is acquainted with God, finds in the changing seasons no reason for delay. Summer and winter, spring and autumn, are all the same to him. God is ever the same. He changes not. And his riches, all of which he holds at our disposal, are a constant quantity, and are not increased nor decreased by the changing times and harvests.

Our Father can help us as easily in the springtime as in the autumn. He can bless, after Christmas as well as before Christmas. Men who enter the canvassing work in September or October because it is “before Christmas,” are likely to leave the work during January and February because it is after Christmas. Those who enter the field this year because the crops are good, are likely to leave the field next year if the crops are poor. Such “fair

weather” and “prosperous times” professors are not the soldiers who will carry the banner of Christ through this last great conflict.

The man who consecrates his life for service every day in the year, and for every year until the Lord comes, will enjoy all the blessings that God gives through bountiful harvests, prosperous times, and “before Christmas” deliveries. But far beyond these blessings, and infinitely more precious than all of them, are the peace, the joy, and the riches that come to us in times of adversity, when we are led by a Father’s unseen hand into that “secret place of power” where we really and truly become acquainted with God. This way of working is the secret of financial success, and of all other true success in this wide world.

We appeal to you who have put your hand to the plow, not to turn back; and we again invite into the service all whose hearts can still be appealed to by the times in which we live, and by the needy cry which is daily ascending to God from millions who are lost in darkness and sin. The day of the Lord hastens as rapidly in January as in December; then why stop work? The needs of men are as great when times are hard as in times of prosperity; then why be subject to the seasons? “He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.” Eccl. II:4.