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Securing Our Inheritance, May 23
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like
manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire.
Jude 1:7
.
The outlook in our world is indeed alarming. God is withdrawing His
Spirit from the wicked cities, which have become as the cities of the antedilu-
vian world, and as Sodom and Gomorrah. The inhabitants of these cities have
been tested and tried. We have reached a time when God is about to punish
the presumptuous wrongdoers, who refuse to keep His commandments and
disregard His messages of warning. He who bears long with evildoers gives
everyone an opportunity to seek Him and humble their hearts before Him.
Everyone has opportunity to come to Christ and be converted, that He
may heal them. But there will come a time when mercy will be no longer
offered. Costly mansions, marvels of architectural skill, will be destroyed
without a moment’s notice, when the Lord sees that the owners have passed
the boundaries of forgiveness. The destruction by fire of the stately buildings
supposed to be fireproof is an illustration of how in a short time earth’s
architecture will lie in ruins....
The twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew gives an outline of what is to come
upon the world. We are living amid the perils of the last days. Those who are
perishing in sin must be warned. The Lord calls upon every one to whom He
has entrusted the talent of means to act as His helping hand by giving their
money for the advancement of His work. Our money is a treasure lent us by
the Lord, and it is to be invested in the work of giving to the world the last
message of mercy....
He who looks at earthly things as the chief good, he who spends his life
in an effort to gain worldly riches, is indeed making a poor investment. Too
late he will see that in which he has trusted crumbling into dust. It is only
through self-denial, through the sacrifice of earthly riches, that the eternal
riches can be obtained. It is through much tribulation that the Christian enters
the kingdom of heaven. Constantly he is to war the good warfare, not laying
down his weapons until Christ bids him rest. Only by giving all to Christ can
he secure the inheritance that will endure through all eternity.—
Letter 90,
May 23, 1902
, to Brother Johnson, a layman.
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