Trying to Serve God and Mammon
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righteousness,” He says; “and all these things”—all that is essential
for your good—“shall be added unto you.”
With many, the things of this world obscure the glorious view of
the eternal weight of glory that awaits the saints of the Most High.
They cannot distinguish the true, the real, the enduring substance, from
the false, the counterfeit, the passing shadow. Christ urges them to
remove from before their eyes that which is obscuring their view of
eternal realities. He insists upon the removal of that which is causing
them to mistake phantoms for realities, and realities for phantoms.
God entreats His people to give the strength of body, mind, and soul
to the service that He expects them to perform. He calls upon them
to be able to say for themselves that the gains and advantages of this
life are not worthy to be compared with the riches that are reserved for
the diligent, rational seeker for eternal life.—
The Review and Herald,
June 23, 1904
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Engrossed in Pursuit of Wealth
The enemy is just as perseveringly at work now as he was before
the flood. By the use of various enterprises and inventions, he is
diligently working to keep the minds of men engrossed in the things
of this world. He is employing all his ingenuity to lead men to act
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foolishly, to keep them absorbed in commercial enterprises, and thus to
imperil their hope of eternal life. He devises the inventions that imperil
human life. Under his leadership, men carry through that which he
devises. They become so absorbed in the pursuit of wealth and worldly
power that they give no heed to a “Thus saith the Lord.”
Satan exults as he sees that he is successful in keeping minds from
a consideration of the solemn, important matters that have to do with
eternal life. He seeks to crowd the thought of God out of the mind,
and to put worldliness and commercialism in its place. He desires to
keep the world in darkness. It is his studied purpose to lead men to
forget God and heaven, to bring all the souls that he can under his
own jurisdiction. And to this end he brings forward enterprises and
inventions that will so occupy men’s attention that they will have no
time to think of heavenly things.
The people of God must now awake and do their neglected work.
Into our planning for this work, we must put all the powers of the mind.