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Section 7—Fees and Wages
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life while you live thus? Has not God a place and a work for you?
Is there not something more for you to do than merely to please and
gratify self?—
Letter 4a, 1902
.
Two Classes of Servants
From a sermon, Grimsby, England, Sept. 19, 1886.
In the last days there are to be only two parties, the one on
the right hand and the other on the left, and Christ says unto one,
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“Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world: for I was anhungered, and
ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a
stranger, and ye took Me in: naked, and ye clothed Me: I was sick,
and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me.” And they
answer, When saw we Thee thus and ministered unto Thee? And
Christ says, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” But to those on the left
He says, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels.”
The first class had Christ interwoven into their character, and they
were not conscious of anything they had done. “Come, ye blessed
of My Father,” is the benediction, “inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.” So we see Christ identifies
His interests with fallen man. He turns to those on the left hand and
says, “I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty,
and ye gave Me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in:
naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited
Me not.” And then they ask Him, “When saw we Thee an hungered,
or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not
minister unto Thee?” And the answer comes, “Inasmuch as ye did it
not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.” Not the greatest
but the least.
Well, now we want to bring Christ into our everyday life. Those
who had not fed the hungry, or clothed the naked, or visited the sick,
were not conscious of it, and why? Because they had educated and
trained themselves in the school of self-indulgence, and the result
was they lost heaven and the eternity of bliss which they might have
had had they devoted their powers to God.—
Manuscript 16, 1886.