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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
Money is to be earned by labor. Every youth should be trained to
habits of industry. The Bible condemns no man for being rich if he has
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acquired his riches honestly. It is the selfish love of money wrongfully
employed that is the root of all evil. Wealth will prove a blessing if
we regard it as the Lord’s, to be received with thankfulness and with
thankfulness returned to the Giver.
But of what value is untold wealth if it is hoarded in expensive
mansions or in bank stocks? What do these weigh in comparison with
the salvation of one soul for whom the Son of the infinite God has
died?
To those who have heaped together treasure for the last days the
Lord declares: “Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are
moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them
shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire.”
The Lord bids us: “Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide
yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that
faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For
where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let your loins be
girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men
that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that
when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.
Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find
watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make
them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And
if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and
find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the
goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come,
he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken
through. Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an
hour when ye think not.”
Luke 12:33-40
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