60
The Retirement Years
and occupy their time as happily as they can, and be ripening up for
heaven.—
Testimonies for the Church 1:423, 424
.
Money Cannot Ransom Your Soul
I regard you, my brother, as in great peril. Your treasure is laid
up on the earth, and your heart is upon your treasure. But all the
means you may accumulate, even though it should be millions, will
not be sufficient to pay a ransom for your soul. Then do not remain
in impenitence and unbelief, and in your case defeat the gracious
purposes of God; do not force from His reluctant hand destruction of
your property or affliction of your person.
How many there are who are now taking a course which must
erelong lead to just such visitations of judgment. They live on day by
day, week by week, year by year, for their own selfish interest. Their
influence and means, accumulated through God-given skill and tact,
are used upon themselves and their families without thought of their
gracious Benefactor. Nothing is allowed to flow back to the Giver.
Indeed, they come to regard life and its entrusted talents as their own;
and if they render back to God that portion which He justly claims,
they think that they have placed their Creator under obligation to them.
At last His patience with these unfaithful stewards is exhausted; and
He brings all their selfish, worldly schemes to an abrupt termination,
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showing them that as they have gathered for their own glory, He can
scatter; and they are helpless to resist His power.
Brother J, I address you today as a prisoner of hope. But will you
consider that your sun passed its meridian some time ago and is now
rapidly declining? The evening has come. Do you not discern the
lengthening shadows? You have but a little time left in which to work
for yourself, for humanity, and for your Master. There is a special
work to be done for your own soul if you are ever to be numbered with
the overcomers.
How stands your life record? Is Jesus pleading in your behalf in
vain? Shall He be disappointed in you? Some of your companions,
who stood side by side with you, have already been summoned away.
Eternity will reveal whether they were bankrupt in faith and failed to
secure eternal life, or whether they were rich toward God and heirs
of the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Will you