Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
The verse pictures a man who lays the foundation of a tower and then is not able to finish what he started, leaving the work unfinished and incomplete. Such failure brings disgrace and shame, with mockery and ridicule from all who see it, so a person must sit down first and count the cost to judge whether there is sufficient means and strength to finish rather than acting rashly or hastily. Counting the cost makes clear the terms of discipleship, calling for intelligent and deliberate faith with firm purpose to obey, dying to self and bringing the will into full conformity with God's will. In contrast to men who plan greatly without counting the cost and cannot complete, Jesus counted the cost of saving every son and daughter of Adam and provided abundant means to complete the work He began. No sanitarium, school, or other building enterprise is to be attempted without first finding what means can be commanded and limiting outlay to means, considering where funds to complete and sustain will come from rather than launching hastily.
Tower's Warning Picture
The verse pictures a man who lays a foundation for a tower and then proves unable to finish what he started, leaving the building unfinished and incomplete. It warns that a major undertaking begun without considering beforehand how it will be completed may fail for lack of what is needed to carry it through. The lesson belongs with the surrounding parable of counting the cost, to be understood and practiced before undertaking a work, and it calls for stopping to consider likely results and heeding counsel and warnings rather than acting on hopes and plans formed without due thought.
Such failure brings disgrace and shame, ending in mockery and ridicule by all who behold the laid foundation and the unfinished effort. The builder who cannot finish illustrates the shame of beginning without reckoning what the work requires, whether in discipleship where a soldier's life is one of duty, in ministry where extravagant display consumes resources, or in establishing institutions such as a sanitarium or school. In those enterprises the unfinished work invites others to mock because it was launched hastily and without sufficient means or divine leading, bringing perplexity, embarrassment and distress instead of glory to God.
The verse therefore requires sitting down first to count the cost and judge whether there is sufficient means and strength to finish. That reckoning means finding out beforehand what means can be commanded and then limiting outlay to means, considering where the funds to complete and sustain the work will come from, and letting the work develop gradually rather than proceeding on suppositions. It forbids acting rashly, impetuously, hastily or impulsively, and calls instead for being considerate, taking time for wise thought before action, keeping the aim fixed on God's glory, and managing resources prudently so the work can be completed. For the follower of Christ this includes asking whether there is strength to stand ground and overcome the difficulties in the warfare each must meet, never being presumptuous and never despising the strength and power of the enemy, avoiding harsh denunciatory discussion and controversy that gives advantage to foes, and moving with great caution while seeking conditions of peace, a weighing required also of those who take a position against God and the truth.
Cost of Discipleship
Christ makes the cost of discipleship plain before anyone enlists in His service, requiring a careful reckoning of what the work demands because a soldier's life is one of duty and the shame of beginning without counting the cost is failure. The commitment calls for intelligent, deliberate faith and firm purpose to obey God even when obedience requires self-denial, for eternal life is at stake and those who study Scripture receive the Spirit's conviction.
Counting the cost means concluding that heaven is worth the sacrifice and paying the price of dying to self, renouncing and being emptied of self, crucifying pride and self-sufficiency, laying aside one's own nature and its mold, bringing the will into full conformity with God's will, receiving Christ's mind and fullness, consecrating all to God's service, and abiding in Christ. Until there is willingness to pay this price the transforming grace of God is not manifested, but when the emptied nature is presented to God He by the Holy Spirit fills the vacuum with His Spirit, power, blessing and fullness, desiring to bless more than is desired and giving a blessing to diffuse to others in this short life leading to a blessed endless eternity.
Following Christ requires surrendering the whole heart, depending on Him with a changed heart, denying self, taking up the appointed cross, giving up every sinful pleasure and wrong, submitting to God's will, detaching from pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness and cherished idols, and making thorough preparation for eternity and judgment, since cleansing of conscience brings rest and happiness in His service while trying to cling to idols makes the life fickle and liable to fail. Trials, opposition, scorn and ridicule expose whether the cost has been counted in building a pure, holy character after God's likeness, and those who give up and turn back show they have not been converted. Those who claim to accept Christ while refusing to obey the law He came to uphold are left in the failed position of one who begins without being able to complete.
The warning requires sitting down in wise thought rather than acting rashly and impetuously, asking whether there is strength to stand ground and overcome the difficulties in the warfare each must meet, never being presumptuous and never despising the strength and power of the enemy. It requires avoiding harsh, denunciatory discussion and controversy that gives advantage to foes and lets the powers of darkness win, and instead moving with great caution and seeking conditions of peace, a weighing that those who take a position against God and truth must also make. The unfinished tower warns to weigh the evidence for truth and follow it regardless of consequences, venturing all to accept Christ fully and know God and His Son, rather than beginning in a way that leaves one in the enemy's hands facing defeat and building and laboring in vain.
The cost must be examined rather than relying on Christian profession or supposed hope, deciding to follow even when it requires sacrifice, for a divided life that seeks the company of those who disregard divine things cannot sustain commitment and ends in failure of everlasting life. Those who take up Christ's work with undivided hearts and rely on His strength receive supernatural help and assurance of success as they go forward in faith. One who has counted the cost can explain the commitment modestly without boasting yet with firmness, setting self to thorough consecration to Jesus. Applied to children's baptism, counting the cost means parents consider the responsibility they undertake to guide their children faithfully and help them continue in obedience and faith afterward.
Israel's Unfinished Faith
The unfinished tower is the religious faith of the Jewish nation, begun in sacrifices that pointed forward to Christ as the Lamb of God. When the promised reality came they refused Him, though He alone could make atonement for sin and give their faith its power and effect. By rejecting Christ their salvation was left incomplete and their religious service was left a ruin, showing the ruinous danger of beginning a work and being unable to finish it.
Christ's Completed Salvation
Human builders form great designs and begin to build without reckoning the expense, and then prove unable to carry through what they designed, whereas the divine plan cannot fail. Jesus reckoned the full cost of saving every son and daughter of Adam and made abundant provision by which all might be saved. Unfailing resources stand at His command to finish the work He has begun. That salvation becomes theirs on complying with its conditions and laying hold on eternal life, for those who respond to His love and yield their wills to Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Building Character to Stand
The tower that is left unfinished is a pure, holy character formed after God's likeness for eternity, and counting the cost means counting what it takes to build that character well. Building for eternity requires choosing serious, thoughtful, religiously inclined associates and putting sound, good material into the building rather than rotten timbers. It forbids being content with deficiencies and defects of character, for tolerated defects doom the building to ruin. All must take heed how they build, because the storm of temptation will sweep over the building and test it, and unless it is firmly and faithfully constructed it will not stand the test.
Applied to a person's life, beginning to build without first counting the cost and without forethought leaves the life incomplete like the unfinished tower. Sure advancement requires careful choice at the point where one may begin either to ascend or to descend.
Building Institutions Wisely
No sanitarium, school, or other building enterprise is to be attempted without first sitting down to count whether there is sufficient to finish, lest laying a foundation end in disgrace and mockery by all who see it. Those considering such work must first find out what means they can command and then limit outlay to means, considering where the funds to complete and sustain it will come from, because beginning without counting the cost is folly and a reproach. The work should not be launched hastily or on suppositions but should develop gradually, with the aim fixed on God's glory and resources managed prudently so it can be completed.
Acting without wisdom, in self-confidence and anxiety to make a large appearance through outward display for influence, instead of moving carefully and guardedly with forethought, wise calculations and careful management, brings debt, harm and failure that may never be recovered. It spoils courage, leaves a reputation of poor management, and turns helpers into bond slaves through pledges. The remedy is to begin small, work in a humble way, not spend more than is made, refuse to go into debt, enlarge slowly, stand in own responsibility, act with wisdom, tact and adaptability, bind about the edges so the work shall not ravel out, and separate and replace slack managers who do not know how to manage.
Moving ahead hastily without sufficient means or leading brings perplexity, embarrassment and distress and does not glorify God. There must be no acting on supposed wisdom or assumptions about where funds will come from, but careful forethought, clear duty and light, with counsel from brethren before laying a foundation that may be unable to be finished.
Erecting large buildings and carrying out plans calling for means exceeding revenue without first counting how much will be needed to finish leaves the work unfinished and brings debt, discouragement and confusion upon the cause. It draws means from the treasury that belong to the whole work, deprives destitute missionary fields of the help they should receive, and hedges up the way of progress in new fields.
Counting the cost means making provision beforehand by finding out whether there is money enough to carry forward the work started, and weighing what each expenditure does to other portions of the field. Resources are to be distributed with the whole work and the worldwide vineyard in view, not concentrated in a few places while other places also need institutions, nor spent extravagantly in one place while important work elsewhere lacks support or necessary buildings elsewhere are closed for lack of means. To invest without so counting is shortsightedness and failure to see that the vineyard embraces the world, allowing the work to be diverted into wrong channels and hindered, and selfish accumulation of immense buildings is therefore forbidden.
Spending money where it accomplishes the lesser good in work the world and the churches could do as stewards, and taking on absorbing but nonproducing enterprises that bring very few to the truth while neglecting fields ripe for harvest, is building without counting the cost and is not directed. Donations and revenue must be used to advance the gospel work and to get the bread of life and water of salvation before those ready to perish, not merely collected from the world to help the world.
Erecting buildings requires calculating talent to count the cost beforehand, with wise judgment leading to wise calculations. Entrusted means must not be invested where it will be continually absorbed in sustaining the enterprise, and ambition to create must give way to studying how to preserve the vitality of the institution after it has been erected.
Counting rightly calls for consecrated, intelligent workers willing to be worked by the Holy Spirit, including men of faith and financial ability who plan economically. Means not possessed and not known how to obtain must not be invested blindly, but movements must show wisdom, with advice from wise counsellors, consideration of consequences and reasoning from cause to effect, until there is complete united understanding that plans accord with the will of Him who sees the end from the beginning. No buildings are to be erected by individual responsibility alone, and not a stone is to be laid in new plans until all share responsibility; where one worker is in danger of unwise moves his fellow workers are to speak words of wisdom showing where he is in error.
Faithful building requires small beginnings in every prominent place, enlarging only as circumstances demand, drawing as little as possible from the treasury, and securing buildings in which to begin at low cost with limited outlay. Economy must govern all purchases, avoiding extravagant expenditure such as the best quality linen and furniture in favor of more common articles, so means are saved and debt is not accumulated. Each undertaking is to be counted and planned economically so it can be finished with the means available.
Plans must be kept within available resources, with outstanding debts paid before new investments are made and expansion delayed until there is means to build without being weighed down. Work must be brought within limits of resources even at great inconvenience, hugging the shore closely and waiting to increase facilities until there is means, with more careful study, since borrowing and then failing to finish dishonors God, damages influence, and bears down like weights of lead.
Doing good work in an existing institution does not prove skill and adaptability to build up a new sanitarium, so ability must be assessed first. If that ability is lacking, one should join an established sanitarium and support its work rather than undertake what cannot be completed or assume the Medical Missionary Association will take over an unfinished work, which leaves those involved in difficulty and burdens those responsible for medical missionary work.
The proposed purchase of a food factory illustrates the warning, for taking on more debt without means to manage and sustain could leave the undertaking unfinished and burden the workers, and the cost and ability to finish must be considered before beginning. So also the proposed Colorado sanitarium illustrates the need to pause and consider whether money is available, especially when an existing building has already burdened the conference with debt and further spending would divert funds from mission work.
The work done in Chicago resembles such an unfinished tower, begun through ambitious plans without reasoning through results, and attempting to impose that plan on every city would expose the failure. The building work in Australia is a tower whose completion depends on the ten thousand dollars promised as a loan being forwarded immediately, since yielding to temptation and outside influence to withhold it would leave the begun work hindered and incomplete. The work in the new world must not remain like a half-completed building, crippled and stationary, but needs financial support so new enterprises and churches become firmly established.
Elder Franke's costly, elaborate preparations for evangelistic meetings attempt a large work through human plans and outward display without adequately considering expense or the Holy Spirit's help, calling for careful, prayerful planning and work in harmony with the divine plan. In restaurant work the cost includes whether managers and helpers can commune with God and share truth while serving; if the work keeps them too busy to labor for souls and produces no good, it should be given up for work that better awakens interest in present truth and glorifies God. Plans for rescue work must not take on too much that leaves work unfinished and draws away from the leading and most urgent features of the last gospel message.
A proposed business venture shows a plan made impracticable through physical infirmity, so ability to carry through must be reckoned and completion not assumed. Undertaking enterprises and spending money without careful planning, taking on work beyond means or beyond what has been assigned while neglecting responsibilities and other work that could better serve the gospel, creates responsibilities without direction, absorbs resources without producing results, and ends in failure.
Workers must plan undertakings and expenses carefully, choose a modest steady way, avoid extravagant displays that consume resources, live within means with each dollar spent with souls in view, and seek counsel and shared understanding of consequences before construction, since excessive early spending forces later retrenchment and pride and extravagance undermine the work. Institutions that keep taking on debt and expanding without considering whether they have enough people and resources to complete plans, and plans for a sanitarium and school that take on too much at once without acting carefully and economically, show lack of wisdom and sound judgment and lead to debt and unfinished work.
Hopes and plans made without due thought about completion, support, sound judgment and heed to counsel risk failure, public shame, injury and harm to the cause. One must stop and consider likely results and seek clearer counsel before proceeding, recognizing that every move matters, as in deciding about attending the General Conference while Nashville work remained, first sitting down together to count whether what is undertaken can be finished.
Planning Personal Work Wisely
No rash movement is to be made without taking time to consider carefully, seeking wisdom from God, weighing the movement and all it portends, and becoming sure of a calling to educate and train for more spiritual work in imparting what has been received from God, since beginning without that careful counting of the cost leads to failure to finish. Once everything is weighed and the calling is clear, the move is to be made not hesitatingly but firmly, humbly trusting in God, according to ability. Decisions about undertaking new work or changing circumstances must be weighed prayerfully with reliance on God rather than rushed into on impulse or without knowing what the work involves. In expanding a religious work, keeping the aim fixed on God's glory helps prevent beginning without careful planning and sufficient means and leaving it unfinished, for the cost must be counted and resources managed prudently so the work can be completed.
Medical missionary students must count the cost by understanding their own capacity and protecting their health before undertaking demanding studies. They must not presume that God will sustain them while they overwork, expose themselves to danger, and violate the laws of nature. A worker who takes on more than necessary, instead of sharing the labor with other able workers, may exhaust strength and leave the work incomplete. God intends His servants to combine their different gifts rather than carry forward alone what cannot be completed.
For workers for God the very first steps must be carefully considered before starting, lest they begin to build without first sitting down and counting the cost and end unable to finish. The first thing is to surrender the will wholly to God and ask with the humility of a child for willingness to do the easiest, smallest things first instead of continually searching for some large thing to do. Those who faithfully do the smallest things will soon find themselves able to accomplish more important duties, for if they look to God for guidance and do their best in small things the Lord will give ability and strength for greater things.
The verse pictures a man who lays the foundation of a tower and then is not able to finish what he started, leaving the work unfinished and incomplete. Such failure brings disgrace and shame, with mockery and ridicule from all who see it, so a person must sit down first and count the cost to judge whether there is sufficient means and strength to finish rather than acting rashly or hastily. Counting the cost makes clear the terms of discipleship, calling for intelligent and deliberate faith with firm purpose to obey, dying to self and bringing the will into full conformity with God's will. In contrast to men who plan greatly without counting the cost and cannot complete, Jesus counted the cost of saving every son and daughter of Adam and provided abundant means to complete the work He began. No sanitarium, school, or other building enterprise is to be attempted without first finding what means can be commanded and limiting outlay to means, considering where funds to complete and sustain will come from rather than launching hastily.
Tower's Warning Picture
The verse pictures a man who lays a foundation for a tower and then proves unable to finish what he started, leaving the building unfinished and incomplete. It warns that a major undertaking begun without considering beforehand how it will be completed may fail for lack of what is needed to carry it through. The lesson belongs with the surrounding parable of counting the cost, to be understood and practiced before undertaking a work, and it calls for stopping to consider likely results and heeding counsel and warnings rather than acting on hopes and plans formed without due thought.
Such failure brings disgrace and shame, ending in mockery and ridicule by all who behold the laid foundation and the unfinished effort. The builder who cannot finish illustrates the shame of beginning without reckoning what the work requires, whether in discipleship where a soldier's life is one of duty, in ministry where extravagant display consumes resources, or in establishing institutions such as a sanitarium or school. In those enterprises the unfinished work invites others to mock because it was launched hastily and without sufficient means or divine leading, bringing perplexity, embarrassment and distress instead of glory to God.
The verse therefore requires sitting down first to count the cost and judge whether there is sufficient means and strength to finish. That reckoning means finding out beforehand what means can be commanded and then limiting outlay to means, considering where the funds to complete and sustain the work will come from, and letting the work develop gradually rather than proceeding on suppositions. It forbids acting rashly, impetuously, hastily or impulsively, and calls instead for being considerate, taking time for wise thought before action, keeping the aim fixed on God's glory, and managing resources prudently so the work can be completed. For the follower of Christ this includes asking whether there is strength to stand ground and overcome the difficulties in the warfare each must meet, never being presumptuous and never despising the strength and power of the enemy, avoiding harsh denunciatory discussion and controversy that gives advantage to foes, and moving with great caution while seeking conditions of peace, a weighing required also of those who take a position against God and the truth.
Cost of Discipleship
Christ makes the cost of discipleship plain before anyone enlists in His service, requiring a careful reckoning of what the work demands because a soldier's life is one of duty and the shame of beginning without counting the cost is failure. The commitment calls for intelligent, deliberate faith and firm purpose to obey God even when obedience requires self-denial, for eternal life is at stake and those who study Scripture receive the Spirit's conviction.
Counting the cost means concluding that heaven is worth the sacrifice and paying the price of dying to self, renouncing and being emptied of self, crucifying pride and self-sufficiency, laying aside one's own nature and its mold, bringing the will into full conformity with God's will, receiving Christ's mind and fullness, consecrating all to God's service, and abiding in Christ. Until there is willingness to pay this price the transforming grace of God is not manifested, but when the emptied nature is presented to God He by the Holy Spirit fills the vacuum with His Spirit, power, blessing and fullness, desiring to bless more than is desired and giving a blessing to diffuse to others in this short life leading to a blessed endless eternity.
Following Christ requires surrendering the whole heart, depending on Him with a changed heart, denying self, taking up the appointed cross, giving up every sinful pleasure and wrong, submitting to God's will, detaching from pride, selfishness, vanity, worldliness and cherished idols, and making thorough preparation for eternity and judgment, since cleansing of conscience brings rest and happiness in His service while trying to cling to idols makes the life fickle and liable to fail. Trials, opposition, scorn and ridicule expose whether the cost has been counted in building a pure, holy character after God's likeness, and those who give up and turn back show they have not been converted. Those who claim to accept Christ while refusing to obey the law He came to uphold are left in the failed position of one who begins without being able to complete.
The warning requires sitting down in wise thought rather than acting rashly and impetuously, asking whether there is strength to stand ground and overcome the difficulties in the warfare each must meet, never being presumptuous and never despising the strength and power of the enemy. It requires avoiding harsh, denunciatory discussion and controversy that gives advantage to foes and lets the powers of darkness win, and instead moving with great caution and seeking conditions of peace, a weighing that those who take a position against God and truth must also make. The unfinished tower warns to weigh the evidence for truth and follow it regardless of consequences, venturing all to accept Christ fully and know God and His Son, rather than beginning in a way that leaves one in the enemy's hands facing defeat and building and laboring in vain.
The cost must be examined rather than relying on Christian profession or supposed hope, deciding to follow even when it requires sacrifice, for a divided life that seeks the company of those who disregard divine things cannot sustain commitment and ends in failure of everlasting life. Those who take up Christ's work with undivided hearts and rely on His strength receive supernatural help and assurance of success as they go forward in faith. One who has counted the cost can explain the commitment modestly without boasting yet with firmness, setting self to thorough consecration to Jesus. Applied to children's baptism, counting the cost means parents consider the responsibility they undertake to guide their children faithfully and help them continue in obedience and faith afterward.
Israel's Unfinished Faith
The unfinished tower is the religious faith of the Jewish nation, begun in sacrifices that pointed forward to Christ as the Lamb of God. When the promised reality came they refused Him, though He alone could make atonement for sin and give their faith its power and effect. By rejecting Christ their salvation was left incomplete and their religious service was left a ruin, showing the ruinous danger of beginning a work and being unable to finish it.
Christ's Completed Salvation
Human builders form great designs and begin to build without reckoning the expense, and then prove unable to carry through what they designed, whereas the divine plan cannot fail. Jesus reckoned the full cost of saving every son and daughter of Adam and made abundant provision by which all might be saved. Unfailing resources stand at His command to finish the work He has begun. That salvation becomes theirs on complying with its conditions and laying hold on eternal life, for those who respond to His love and yield their wills to Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Building Character to Stand
The tower that is left unfinished is a pure, holy character formed after God's likeness for eternity, and counting the cost means counting what it takes to build that character well. Building for eternity requires choosing serious, thoughtful, religiously inclined associates and putting sound, good material into the building rather than rotten timbers. It forbids being content with deficiencies and defects of character, for tolerated defects doom the building to ruin. All must take heed how they build, because the storm of temptation will sweep over the building and test it, and unless it is firmly and faithfully constructed it will not stand the test.
Applied to a person's life, beginning to build without first counting the cost and without forethought leaves the life incomplete like the unfinished tower. Sure advancement requires careful choice at the point where one may begin either to ascend or to descend.
Building Institutions Wisely
No sanitarium, school, or other building enterprise is to be attempted without first sitting down to count whether there is sufficient to finish, lest laying a foundation end in disgrace and mockery by all who see it. Those considering such work must first find out what means they can command and then limit outlay to means, considering where the funds to complete and sustain it will come from, because beginning without counting the cost is folly and a reproach. The work should not be launched hastily or on suppositions but should develop gradually, with the aim fixed on God's glory and resources managed prudently so it can be completed.
Acting without wisdom, in self-confidence and anxiety to make a large appearance through outward display for influence, instead of moving carefully and guardedly with forethought, wise calculations and careful management, brings debt, harm and failure that may never be recovered. It spoils courage, leaves a reputation of poor management, and turns helpers into bond slaves through pledges. The remedy is to begin small, work in a humble way, not spend more than is made, refuse to go into debt, enlarge slowly, stand in own responsibility, act with wisdom, tact and adaptability, bind about the edges so the work shall not ravel out, and separate and replace slack managers who do not know how to manage.
Moving ahead hastily without sufficient means or leading brings perplexity, embarrassment and distress and does not glorify God. There must be no acting on supposed wisdom or assumptions about where funds will come from, but careful forethought, clear duty and light, with counsel from brethren before laying a foundation that may be unable to be finished.
Erecting large buildings and carrying out plans calling for means exceeding revenue without first counting how much will be needed to finish leaves the work unfinished and brings debt, discouragement and confusion upon the cause. It draws means from the treasury that belong to the whole work, deprives destitute missionary fields of the help they should receive, and hedges up the way of progress in new fields.
Counting the cost means making provision beforehand by finding out whether there is money enough to carry forward the work started, and weighing what each expenditure does to other portions of the field. Resources are to be distributed with the whole work and the worldwide vineyard in view, not concentrated in a few places while other places also need institutions, nor spent extravagantly in one place while important work elsewhere lacks support or necessary buildings elsewhere are closed for lack of means. To invest without so counting is shortsightedness and failure to see that the vineyard embraces the world, allowing the work to be diverted into wrong channels and hindered, and selfish accumulation of immense buildings is therefore forbidden.
Spending money where it accomplishes the lesser good in work the world and the churches could do as stewards, and taking on absorbing but nonproducing enterprises that bring very few to the truth while neglecting fields ripe for harvest, is building without counting the cost and is not directed. Donations and revenue must be used to advance the gospel work and to get the bread of life and water of salvation before those ready to perish, not merely collected from the world to help the world.
Erecting buildings requires calculating talent to count the cost beforehand, with wise judgment leading to wise calculations. Entrusted means must not be invested where it will be continually absorbed in sustaining the enterprise, and ambition to create must give way to studying how to preserve the vitality of the institution after it has been erected.
Counting rightly calls for consecrated, intelligent workers willing to be worked by the Holy Spirit, including men of faith and financial ability who plan economically. Means not possessed and not known how to obtain must not be invested blindly, but movements must show wisdom, with advice from wise counsellors, consideration of consequences and reasoning from cause to effect, until there is complete united understanding that plans accord with the will of Him who sees the end from the beginning. No buildings are to be erected by individual responsibility alone, and not a stone is to be laid in new plans until all share responsibility; where one worker is in danger of unwise moves his fellow workers are to speak words of wisdom showing where he is in error.
Faithful building requires small beginnings in every prominent place, enlarging only as circumstances demand, drawing as little as possible from the treasury, and securing buildings in which to begin at low cost with limited outlay. Economy must govern all purchases, avoiding extravagant expenditure such as the best quality linen and furniture in favor of more common articles, so means are saved and debt is not accumulated. Each undertaking is to be counted and planned economically so it can be finished with the means available.
Plans must be kept within available resources, with outstanding debts paid before new investments are made and expansion delayed until there is means to build without being weighed down. Work must be brought within limits of resources even at great inconvenience, hugging the shore closely and waiting to increase facilities until there is means, with more careful study, since borrowing and then failing to finish dishonors God, damages influence, and bears down like weights of lead.
Doing good work in an existing institution does not prove skill and adaptability to build up a new sanitarium, so ability must be assessed first. If that ability is lacking, one should join an established sanitarium and support its work rather than undertake what cannot be completed or assume the Medical Missionary Association will take over an unfinished work, which leaves those involved in difficulty and burdens those responsible for medical missionary work.
The proposed purchase of a food factory illustrates the warning, for taking on more debt without means to manage and sustain could leave the undertaking unfinished and burden the workers, and the cost and ability to finish must be considered before beginning. So also the proposed Colorado sanitarium illustrates the need to pause and consider whether money is available, especially when an existing building has already burdened the conference with debt and further spending would divert funds from mission work.
The work done in Chicago resembles such an unfinished tower, begun through ambitious plans without reasoning through results, and attempting to impose that plan on every city would expose the failure. The building work in Australia is a tower whose completion depends on the ten thousand dollars promised as a loan being forwarded immediately, since yielding to temptation and outside influence to withhold it would leave the begun work hindered and incomplete. The work in the new world must not remain like a half-completed building, crippled and stationary, but needs financial support so new enterprises and churches become firmly established.
Elder Franke's costly, elaborate preparations for evangelistic meetings attempt a large work through human plans and outward display without adequately considering expense or the Holy Spirit's help, calling for careful, prayerful planning and work in harmony with the divine plan. In restaurant work the cost includes whether managers and helpers can commune with God and share truth while serving; if the work keeps them too busy to labor for souls and produces no good, it should be given up for work that better awakens interest in present truth and glorifies God. Plans for rescue work must not take on too much that leaves work unfinished and draws away from the leading and most urgent features of the last gospel message.
A proposed business venture shows a plan made impracticable through physical infirmity, so ability to carry through must be reckoned and completion not assumed. Undertaking enterprises and spending money without careful planning, taking on work beyond means or beyond what has been assigned while neglecting responsibilities and other work that could better serve the gospel, creates responsibilities without direction, absorbs resources without producing results, and ends in failure.
Workers must plan undertakings and expenses carefully, choose a modest steady way, avoid extravagant displays that consume resources, live within means with each dollar spent with souls in view, and seek counsel and shared understanding of consequences before construction, since excessive early spending forces later retrenchment and pride and extravagance undermine the work. Institutions that keep taking on debt and expanding without considering whether they have enough people and resources to complete plans, and plans for a sanitarium and school that take on too much at once without acting carefully and economically, show lack of wisdom and sound judgment and lead to debt and unfinished work.
Hopes and plans made without due thought about completion, support, sound judgment and heed to counsel risk failure, public shame, injury and harm to the cause. One must stop and consider likely results and seek clearer counsel before proceeding, recognizing that every move matters, as in deciding about attending the General Conference while Nashville work remained, first sitting down together to count whether what is undertaken can be finished.
Planning Personal Work Wisely
No rash movement is to be made without taking time to consider carefully, seeking wisdom from God, weighing the movement and all it portends, and becoming sure of a calling to educate and train for more spiritual work in imparting what has been received from God, since beginning without that careful counting of the cost leads to failure to finish. Once everything is weighed and the calling is clear, the move is to be made not hesitatingly but firmly, humbly trusting in God, according to ability. Decisions about undertaking new work or changing circumstances must be weighed prayerfully with reliance on God rather than rushed into on impulse or without knowing what the work involves. In expanding a religious work, keeping the aim fixed on God's glory helps prevent beginning without careful planning and sufficient means and leaving it unfinished, for the cost must be counted and resources managed prudently so the work can be completed.
Medical missionary students must count the cost by understanding their own capacity and protecting their health before undertaking demanding studies. They must not presume that God will sustain them while they overwork, expose themselves to danger, and violate the laws of nature. A worker who takes on more than necessary, instead of sharing the labor with other able workers, may exhaust strength and leave the work incomplete. God intends His servants to combine their different gifts rather than carry forward alone what cannot be completed.
For workers for God the very first steps must be carefully considered before starting, lest they begin to build without first sitting down and counting the cost and end unable to finish. The first thing is to surrender the will wholly to God and ask with the humility of a child for willingness to do the easiest, smallest things first instead of continually searching for some large thing to do. Those who faithfully do the smallest things will soon find themselves able to accomplish more important duties, for if they look to God for guidance and do their best in small things the Lord will give ability and strength for greater things.