It will not do for you to depend on making your charity gifts in testamentary bequests at death. You cannot calculate with the least degree of surety that the cause will ever be benefited by them. Satan works with acute skill to stir up the relatives, and every false position is taken to gain to the world that which was solemnly dedicated to the cause of God. Much less than the sum willed is always received. Satan even puts it into the hearts of men and women to protest against their relatives’ doing what they wish in the bestowment of their property. They seem to regard everything given to the Lord as robbing the relatives of the deceased. If you want your means to go to the cause, appropriate it, or all that you do not really need for a support, while you live. A few of the brethren are doing this and enjoying the pleasure of being their own executors. Will the covetousness of men make it necessary that they shall be deprived of life in order that the property which God has lent them shall not be useless forever? Let none of you draw upon yourselves the doom of the unprofitable servant who hid his Lord’s money in the earth. {5T 155.1}

Det vil ikke få jer til at testamentere jeres velgørenhed efter jeres død. I kan ikke i mindste grad være sikre på at sagen vil blive gavnet af jeres testamenteringer. Satan arbejder med stor dygtighed på at oprøre slægtninge og alle falske standpunkter tages for at vinde for verden det, som højtideligt var tilegnet Guds sag. Meget mindre end den tilegnede sum, bliver modtaget. Satan lægger en protest i mænd og kvinders hjerter, imod at deres slægtninge gør hvad de ville med deres ejendomsoverdragelse. Det er som om de betragter alt Herren har fået, som berøves fra afdøde slægtninge. Hvis I ønsker at jeres midler skal gå til sagen, så giv af dem, af det I ikke virkelig behøver til jeres underhold, medens I lever. Nogle få brødre gør dette og nyder fornøjelsen at være sin egen eksekutor. Skal livet berøves på grund af menneskers begærlighed? for at de ejendomme Gud har lånt dem, ikke skal gøres ubrugelig for evig? Ingen af jer må pådrage jer den uduelige tjeners dom, som gemte Herrens penge i jorden.