Testimonies for the Church Volume 1 - A New You Ministry

say to those of a fearful heart: “Be strong”? God would have His servants hold upthe feeble hands, and strengthen the wavering. Those who are not prepared to do thiswould better first labor for themselves and pray until they are endowed with powerfrom on high.God is displeased with the lack of self-denial in some of His servants. They havenot the burden of the work upon them. They seem to be in a deathlike stupor. Angelsof God stand amazed and ashamed of this lack of self-denial and perseverance. Whilethe Author of our salvation was laboring and suffering for us, He denied Himself, andHis whole life was one continued scene of toil and privation. He could have passed Hisdays on earth in ease and plenty, and appropriated to Himself the pleasures of this life;but He considered not His own convenience. He lived to do others good. He sufferedto save others from suffering. He endured to the end and finished the work which wasgiven Him to do. All this was to save us from ruin. And now, can it be that we, theunworthy objects of so great love, will seek a better position in this life than was givento our Lord? Every moment of our lives we have been partakers of the blessings of Hisgreat love, and for this very reason we cannot fully realize the depths of ignorance andmisery from which we have been saved. Can we look upon Him whom our sins havepierced and not be willing to drink with Him the bitter cup of humiliation and sorrow?Can we look upon Christ crucified and wish to enter His kingdom in any other waythan through much tribulation?The preachers are not all given up to the work of God, as He requires them to be.Some have felt that the lot of a preacher was hard because they had to be separatedfrom their families. They forget that once it was harder laboring than it is now. Oncethere were but few friends of the cause. They forget those upon whom God laid theburden of the work in the past. There were but a few then who370