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may have appeared to them valueless; but after a time, as their worldly
treasure increased, they became less devotional. Although they have
enough for a comfortable sustenance, yet all their acts show that they
are in nowise satisfied. Their works testify that their hearts are bound
up in their earthly treasure. Gain, gain, is their watchword. To this
end every member of the family participates in their labor. They give
themselves scarcely any time for devotion or for prayer. They work
early and late. Sickly, diseased women and feeble children whip up
their flagging ambition and use up the vitality and strength they have
to reach an object, to gain a little, make a little more money. They
flatter themselves that they are doing this that they may help the cause
of God. Terrible deception! Satan looks on and laughs for he knows
that they are selling soul and body through their lust for gain. They
are continually making flimsy excuses for thus selling themselves for
gain. They are blinded by the God of this world. Christ has bought
them by His own blood; but they rob Christ, rob God, tear themselves
to pieces, and are almost useless in society.
They devote but little time to the improvement of the mind, and but
little time to social or domestic enjoyment. They are of but little benefit
to anyone. Their lives are a terrible mistake. Those who thus abuse
themselves feel that their course of unremitting labor is praiseworthy.
They are destroying themselves by their presumptuous labor. They are
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marring the temple of God by continually violating the laws of their
being through excessive labor, and yet they think it a virtue. When God
calls them to account, when He requires of them the talents He has
lent them, with usury, what can they say? What excuse can they make?
Were they heathen who know nothing of the living God, and in their
blind idolatrous zeal throw themselves under the car of Juggernaut,
their cases would be more tolerable. But they had the light, they had
warning upon warning to preserve their bodies, which God calls His
temple, in as healthy a condition as possible that they might glorify
Him in their bodies and spirits, which are His. The teachings of Christ
they disregarded: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through
and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through
nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
They let worldly cares entangle them. “But they that will be rich fall