In carrying forward the Lord’s work at home and abroad, those in positions of responsibility must plan wisely so as to make the best possible use of men and of means. The burden of sustaining the work in many of the foreign lands must be largely borne by our conferences in the homeland. These conferences should have means with which to assist in opening new fields, where the testing truths of the third angel’s message have never yet penetrated. Within the past few years, doors have been thrown open as if by magic, and men and women are needed to enter these doors and begin earnest work for the salvation of souls.
(CT 524.1)
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Our educational institutions can do much toward meeting the demand for trained workers for these mission fields. Wise plans should be laid to strengthen the work done in our training centers. Study should be given to the best methods for fitting consecrated young men and women to bear responsibility and to win souls for Christ. They should be taught how to meet the people and how to present the third angel’s message in an attractive manner. And in the management of financial matters they should be taught lessons that will help them when they are sent to isolated fields where they must suffer many privations and practice the strictest economy.
(CT 524.2)
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The Lord has instituted a plan whereby many of the students in our schools can learn practical lessons needful to success in afterlife. He has given us the privilege of handling books that have been dedicated to the advancement of our educational and sanitarium work. In the very handling of these books the youth will meet with many experiences that will teach them how to cope with problems that await them in the regions beyond. During their school life, as they handle these books they may learn how to approach people courteously and how to exercise tact in conversing with them on different points of present truth. And as they meet with a degree of success financially, some will learn lessons of thrift and economy, which will be of great advantage to them when they are sent out as missionaries.
(CT 524.3)
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The students who take up the work of selling Christ’s Object Lessons and The Ministry of Healing will need to study the book they expect to sell. As they familiarize their minds with the subject matter of the book in hand and endeavor to practice its teachings they will develop in knowledge and spiritual power. The messages in these books are the light that God has revealed to me to give to the world. The teachers in our schools should encourage the students to make a careful study of every chapter. They should teach the truths there presented and seek to inspire the youth with a love for the precious thoughts the Lord has entrusted to us to communicate to the world.
(CT 525.1)
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Thus the preparation for handling these books, and the daily experiences gained while bringing them to the attention of the people, will prove an invaluable schooling to those who take part in this line of effort. Under the blessing of God the youth will obtain a fitting up for service in the Lord’s vineyard.
(CT 525.2)
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There is a special work to be done for our young people by those bearing responsibility in local churches throughout the conferences. When the church officers see promising youth who are desirous of fitting themselves for usefulness in the Lord’s service, but whose parents are unable to send them to school, they have a duty to perform in studying how to give help and encouragement. They should take counsel with parents and youth, and unite in planning wisely. Some youth may be best fitted to engage in home missionary work. There is a wide field of usefulness in the distribution of our literature and in bringing the third angel’s message to the attention of friends and neighbors. Other youth should be encouraged to enter the canvassing work to sell our larger books. Some may have qualifications that would make them valuable helpers in our institutions.
(CT 526.1)
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In many instances if promising youth were wisely encouraged and properly directed, they could be led to earn their own schooling by taking up the sale of Christ’s Object Lessons or The Ministry of Healing. In selling these books they would be acting as missionaries, for they would be bringing light to the notice of the people of the world. At the same time they would be earning money to enable them to attend school where they could continue their preparation for wider usefulness in the Lord’s cause. In the school they would receive encouragement and inspiration from teachers and students to continue their work of selling books; and when the time came for them to leave school, they would have received a practical training, fitting them for the hard, earnest, self-sacrificing labor that has to be done in many foreign fields, where the third angel’s message must be carried under difficult and trying circumstances.
(CT 526.2)
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How much better is this plan than for students to go through school without obtaining a practical education in field work, and at the end of their course leave under a burden of debt, with but little realization of the difficulties they will have to meet in new and untried fields! How hard it will be for them to meet the financial problems that are connected with pioneer work in foreign lands! And what a burden someone will have to carry until the debts incurred by the student have been paid!
(CT 527.1)
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On the other hand, how much might be gained if the self-supporting plan were followed! The student would often be enabled to leave the educational institution, nearly or wholly free from personal indebtedness; the finances of the school would be in a more prosperous condition; and the lessons learned by the student while passing through these experiences in the home field would be of untold value to him in foreign fields.
(CT 527.2)
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Let wise plans now be laid to help worthy students to earn their own schooling by handling these books, if they so desire. Those who earn sufficient means in this way to pay their way through a course at one of our training schools will gain a most valuable practical experience that will help fit them for pioneer missionary work in other fields.
(CT 527.3)
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A great work is to be done in our world in a short time, and we must study to understand and appreciate, more than we have in past years, the providence of God in placing in our hands the precious volumes, Christ’s Object Lessons and The Ministry of Healing, as a means of helping worthy students to meet their expenses while in training, as well as a means of liquidating the indebtedness on our educational and medical institutions.
(CT 527.4)
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Great blessings are in store for us as we wisely handle these precious books given us for the advancement of the cause of present truth. And as we labor in accordance with the Lord’s plan we shall find that many consecrated youth will be fitted to enter the regions beyond as practical missionaries, and at the same time the conferences in the home field will have means with which to contribute liberally to the support of the work undertaken in new territory. May 17, 1908.
(CT 528.1)
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The word of God is to stand on its own eternal merits; to be accepted as the word of God; to be obeyed as His voice, which declares His will to the people. The will and voice of finite man are not to be interpreted as the voice of God.
(CT 528.2)
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Those who teach the most solemn message ever given to the world should discipline the mind to comprehend its significance. The theme of redemption will bear the most concentrated study, and its depths will never be fully explored. Do not fear that you will exhaust the wonderful theme. Go to the fountain for yourself, that you may be filled with refreshment. Drink deep at the well of salvation, that Jesus may be in you a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life.
(CT 528.3)
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At one of our conference schools the teachers led out in reviving an interest in the sale of Christ’s Object Lessons. Bands of students, after prayerful study of the book, visited a large city near the school, in company with their teachers, and in their work gained a sound, solid experience that they prize above silver and gold. This kind of work is, in fact, one of the means that God has ordained for giving our youth a missionary training, and those who neglect to improve such opportunities lose out of their lives a chapter of experience of the highest value. By entering heartily into this work, students can learn how to approach with tact and discretion men and women in all the walks of life, how to deal with them courteously, and how to lead them to give favorable consideration to the truths contained in the books that are sold.
(CT 529.1)
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Students, your voice, your influence, your time—all these are gifts from God and are to be used in winning souls to Christ. As teachers and students engage heartily in selling Christ’s Object Lessons, they will gain an experience that will fit them to do valuable service in connection with camp meetings. Through the instruction that they can give to the believers in attendance, and through the sale of many books in the places where such meetings are held, those who have been in the school will be able to do their part in reaching the multitudes who need to be given the third angel’s message. Let teachers and students bear their share of the burden in showing our people how to communicate the message to their friends and neighbors.
(CT 529.2)
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When we follow plans of the Lord’s devising we are “laborers together with God.”1 Corinthians 3:9. Whatever our position—whether presidents of conferences, ministers, teachers, students, or lay members—we are held accountable by the Lord for making the most of our opportunities to enlighten those in need of present truth. And one of the principal agencies He has ordained for our use is the printed page. In our schools and sanitariums, in our home churches, and particularly in our annual camp meetings, we must learn to make a wise use of this precious agency. With patient diligence, chosen workers must instruct our people how to approach unbelievers in a kindly, winning way, and how to place in their hands literature in which the truth for this time is presented with clearness and power.
(CT 530.1)
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Only by the aid of that Spirit who in the beginning “was brooding upon the face of the waters;”(Genesis 1:2) of that Word by whom “all things were made;”(John 1:3) of that “true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”(John 1:9), can the testimony of science be rightly interpreted. Only by their guidance can its deepest truths be discerned. Only under the direction of the Omniscient One shall we, in the study of His works, be enabled to think His thoughts after Him.
(CT 530.2)
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The canvassing work is one of the Lord’s appointed agencies for extending the knowledge of the truth for this time. The effort made in some schools to circulate Christ’s Object Lessons has demonstrated what can be accomplished in the canvassing field by the students. The Lord has blessed the efforts put forth to relieve our schools from debt, and those who have engaged in the work have obtained an excellent experience. As they have taken up the work disinterestedly, great blessing has come to them. Many have thus gained a knowledge of how to handle our larger books.
(CT 547.1)
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Wherever possible, students should, during the school year, engage in city mission work. They should do missionary work in the surrounding towns and villages. They can form themselves into bands to do Christian help work. Students should take a broad view of their present obligations to God. They are not to look forward to a time, after the school term closes, when they will do some large work for God, but should study how, during their student life, to yoke up with Christ in unselfish service for others.
(CT 547.2)
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There is power in the ministry of song. Students who have learned to sing sweet gospel songs with melody and distinctness can do much good as singing evangelists. They will find many opportunities to use the talent that God has given them in carrying melody and sunshine into many lonely places darkened by sorrow and affliction, singing to those who seldom have church privileges.
(CT 547.3)
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Students, go out into the highways and hedges. Endeavor to reach the higher as well as the lower classes. Enter the homes of the rich as well as the poor and, as you have opportunity, ask, “Would you be pleased to have us sing some gospel hymns?” Then as hearts are softened, the way may open for you to offer a few words of prayer for the blessing of God. Not many will refuse to listen. Such ministry is genuine missionary work.
(CT 548.1)
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Students, educate yourselves to speak in the language of Canaan. Put away all foolish talking and jesting, all foolish amusements. By faith grasp God’s promises and determine that you will be Christians here below while preparing for translation. If you strip yourselves of every hindrance to progress in the Christian life, your minds will be worked by the Holy Spirit, and you will become fishers of men. The salvation of God will go forth from you as a lamp that burneth. If your own hearts are filled with light from above, wherever you may be you will shed light upon others. He will bless you in your service, and you will see of His salvation.
(CT 548.2)
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The third angel was seen flying in the midst of heaven, heralding the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The message loses none of its power in its onward flight. John saw the work increasing until the whole earth was filled with the glory of God. With intensified zeal and energy we are to carry forward the work of the Lord till the close of time.
(CT 548.3)
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In the home, in the school, in the church, men, women, and youth are to prepare to give the message to the world. Our schools are to be more and more efficacious and self-reliant from a human standpoint, more like the schools of the prophets. The teachers should walk very near to God. The Lord calls for strong, devoted, self-sacrificing young men and women who will press to the front and who, after a short time spent in school, will go forth prepared to give the message to the world.
(CT 548.4)
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From our colleges and training schools missionaries are to be sent forth to distant lands. While at school let the students improve every opportunity to prepare for this work. Here they are to be tested and proved, that it may be seen what their adaptability is and whether they have a right hold from above. If they have a living connection with heaven they will have an influence for good on those with whom they come in contact.
(CT 549.1)
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While we were living at Cooranbong, where the Avondale school is established, the question of amusements came up for consideration. “What shall we do to provide for the amusement of our students?” the faculty inquired. We talked matters over together, and then I came before the students and said to them:
(CT 549.2)
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“We can occupy our minds and our time profitably without trying to devise methods for amusing ourselves. Instead of spending time in playing the games that so many students play, strive to do something for the Master.”
(CT 549.3)
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“The very best course for you to pursue is to engage in missionary work for the people of the neighborhood and in the nearby settlements. Whenever you are listening to an interesting discourse, take notes and mark down the passages that the minister uses, so that you can review the subject carefully. Then after faithful study you will soon be able to give a synopsis of the discourses, in the form of Bible readings, to some who do not come to our meetings.”
(CT 549.4)
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