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Transferring Earthly Treasure
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this work. Look back over your past life and consider how destitute
it is of good, noble, generous actions. You have talked the truth, but
you have not lived it. Your life has not been elevated and sanctified,
but it has been characterized by selfishness and stinginess. You have
served self faithfully. It is now high time that you were changing
your course and working diligently to secure the heavenly treasure.
You have lost much that you can never regain. You have not
improved your opportunities for doing good, and your unfaithfulness
has been entered upon the books of heaven. The life of Christ was
characterized by self-denial, self-sacrifice, and disinterested benevo-
lence. You do not take a right view of the preparation necessary for
the kingdom of God. Your ideas are altogether too meager. Talk is
cheap stuff; it does not cost much. Works, fruits, will determine the
character of the tree. What fruits have you borne? The apostle James
exhorts his brethren: “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a
man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If
a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one
of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled;
notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful
to the body; What doth it profit?” Your good wishes, my brother,
will not supply the need. Works must testify to the sincerity of your
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sympathy and love. How many times have you carried the above
representation out to the letter?
You have a very good estimate of yourself, but you have a work
to do that no other man can do for you. Your nature must be changed,
and there must be a transformation of the entire being. You love
the truth in word, but not in deed. You love the Lord a little, but
your riches more. Would the Master say to you, if He should find
you as you are at the present time: “Well done, good and faithful
servant; ... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord”? What joy is here
referred to? “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the
cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the
throne of God.” The joy that was set before Jesus was that of seeing
souls redeemed by the sacrifice of His glory, His honor, His riches,
and His own life. The salvation of man was His joy. When all the
redeemed shall be gathered into the kingdom of God, He will see of
the travail of His soul and be satisfied.