Choosing Earthly Treasure
45
Brother E, had you directed the powers of your intellect into the
right channel, serving your heavenly Father, you would have been
growing stronger in the truth, stronger in spirit and power, and would
now be a pillar of the church in-----, and, by your example as well
as by giving the reasons of our faith from the Scriptures, would be a
successful teacher of the truth. Had the powers of mind which you have
employed in getting property been used to bring souls from darkness
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to the light, you would have met the approval of God and been highly
successful.
Those who have but small capacities, sanctified by the love of God,
can do good for the Master; but those who have quick, discerning
minds may employ them in His exalted work with grand results. To
wrap in a napkin the talents God has entrusted to them, and hide them
in the earth, thus depriving Him of their increase, is a great wrong. We
are probationers. The Master is coming to investigate our course, and
He will inquire what use has been made of the talents lent us.
Brother E, what use are you making of the talents God has placed
in your care? Have you done what you could to enlighten the minds of
men in regard to truth, or have you found no time from your business
cares and perplexities to devote to this work? It is a crime to use the
bounties of God as you have done, to diminish your physical strength
and separate your affections from God. “Ye cannot serve God and
mammon.” You cannot love this world and love the truth of God.
“Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” You are not a
happy man. Your family is not a happy family. Angels of God do not
come in and abide with you. When the religion of Christ rules in the
heart, conscience approves, and peace and happiness reign; perplexity
and trouble may surround, yet there is light in the soul.
Submission, love, and gratitude to God keep sunshine in the heart,
though the day may be ever so cloudy. Self-denial and the cross of
Christ are before you. Will you lift the cross? Your children have been
blessed by a mother’s prayers. They have loved religion. They have
tried to resist temptation and to live lives of prayer. Sometimes they
have tried very hard; but your example before them, your love and
devotion to the world, and your close application to business, have