CONSECRATED FARMERS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 19, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 20.

“CONSECRATED FARMERS.”

“There Are Diversities of Gifts.”

A BROTHER writes us from Kansas that he can not do colporter work or preaching, and intimates that neither of these is his calling. He says that he was taught by his father all about farming, and that he holds this knowledge in trust as so many talents. In his own words:— Shall I not use them to the honor and glory of God? If I by farming support the laborer in the field, will it not be rewarded? We should give all our time and means for the service of the Master, by denying self, and using all but the necessaries of life for the support of the Gospel. GOD WANTS CONSECRATED FARMERS, and may He help us to see this and to realize that it is as much His work to haul the wood and draw the water as it is to preach or do colporter work.

There is more to the same effect; it is all good and to the point. We do need “consecrated farmers,” and consecrated carpenters, and consecrated teachers, and consecrated herdsmen, and consecrated workers in every department of life. And God accepts the consecration and will use the ability and knowledge and talent consecrated to Him. We read in His Word of the farmer, or tiller of the soil, “For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and teach him.” See Isa. 28: 23–29. Of an artificer in metal and stone and wood, the Lord said, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.” See Ex. 31:3–5. God has given no more precious promises to preachers than he has to artisans or farmers. There should be no printers, or bookbinders, or farmers, or carpenters, or coopers, or blacksmiths, or any other kind or class of workers, equal to the Christians in these lines. The work of consecrated workmen will be square, honest, ever improving, and blessed of God. They will heed the divine injunctions: “Be diligent;” “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”

But alas, there are professed Christians in all legitimate lines of work who say, “My wisdom is my own,” and who plan for themselves. As a result many ever remain poor workmen and poor witnesses for the Lord. Many never have aught to give for the cause of God—a needy cause, so as to give God’s professed children the privilege of co-operating. They do not plan for God. They make, and use what they make, and give to God what is left, which is often little or nothing. “He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.”

The Lord does not want it thus. May we offer to our farmer, carpenter, blacksmith, etc., Christian readers, a few suggestions? Not that we would take the place of the great Master, who gladly instructs all His servants, but we would offer what we have to say in the words of one of old (Ex. 18:23), “If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure.”

1. Plan for God. Plan your work for the sake of His cause; plan that you may be able to invest more in it; that you may make larger deposits in the Bank of Heaven, which never breaks, closes, or suspends payment.

2. If you have in the past been unable to pay the Lord His tithe, to say naught of giving to His work, try a different plan this year. Set apart a piece of land for the Lord. Estimate it honestly, what would be equal to a tenth of your products. Set apart another portion for freewill offerings to foreign missions, to home missionary work, to city missions, to periodical work, to the poor. Prepare the soil of these portions of land for God. Sow or plant them for God. Cultivate the crop for God. Care for it for God. Reap and thresh, and garner and market for God. Pray continually that God’s blessing may rest upon it. Do not neglect it that you may care for your own. If you have boys, encourage them to do the same. Give them a piece of land that they may work in partnership with God.

3. Are you a carpenter or mechanic? How would it do to devote the profits of every tenth job to the Lord’s work, giving the first tenth to Him, not the last, dealing honestly and liberally?

Will such methods prove a success? If you are living up to the light God has given you, they can not prove otherwise. Try it, brother. How many will?

One thought more: Do not think because you are farmers or mechanics that you can not do personal missionary work. You can not afford to lose the blessings, the freshness of heaven, which personal contact in ministry to the needy gives you. It brings Jesus Christ to your side. The water of life makes you a channel, refreshing and vitalizing every power of your being.

Consecrated Christians—there are no others—are needed everywhere. Such will labor for God; such will share in the blessings here and the reward hereafter.