Basic HTML Version
38
Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
was sacred, lost its value and its sacredness. He thought, If I now
sell it, I can easily buy it back. He bartered it away for a favorite
[39]
dish, flattering himself that he could dispose of it at will and buy
it back at pleasure. But when he sought to buy it back, even at
a great sacrifice on his part, he was not able to do so. He then
bitterly repented his rashness, his folly, his madness. He looked
the matter over on every side. He sought for repentance carefully
and with tears, but it was all in vain. He had despised the blessing,
and the Lord removed it from him forever. You have thought that
if you should sacrifice the truth now, and go on in a course of
open transgression and disobedience, you would not break over all
restraint and become reckless, and if you should be disappointed in
your hopes and expectations of worldly gain you could again interest
yourself in the truth and become a candidate for everlasting life.
But you have deceived yourself in this matter. Had you sacrificed
the truth for worldly gain, it would have been at the expense of life
everlasting.
Under the parable of a great supper, our Saviour shows that many
will choose the world above Himself, and will, as the result, lose
heaven. The gracious invitation of our Saviour was slighted. He
had been to the trouble and expense to make great preparation at an
immense sacrifice. Then he sent his invitation; but “they all with
one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have
bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray
thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke
of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And
another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”
The Lord then turns from the wealthy and world-loving, whose lands
and oxen and wives were of so great value in their estimation as to
outweigh the advantages they would gain by accepting the gracious
invitation he had given them to eat of his supper. The master of
the house is angry, and turns from those who have thus insulted his
bounty offered them, and he invites a class who are not full, who
[40]
are not in possession of lands and houses, but who are poor and
hungry, who are maimed and halt and blind, and who will appreciate
the bounties provided, and in return will render the master sincere
gratitude, unfeigned love and devotion.