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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
the sea, and it draws both good and bad. But because this is so, shall
men and women ignore the efforts made to save those who will believe
and who will unite in reaching that class of whom Christ spoke in His
rebuke to the Pharisees? Sinners and harlots, He said, “go into the
kingdom of God before you.” Will you not see that even in the church
there are those who have no connection with God? But Christ says:
Let the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest: and in the
time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the
tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into
My barn.”
When the Lord moves upon the churches, bidding them do a certain
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work, and they refuse to do that work; and when some, their human
efforts united with the divine, endeavor to reach to the very depths
of human woe and misery, God’s blessing will rest richly upon them.
Even though but few accept the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, their
work will not be in vain; for one soul is precious, very precious, in the
sight of God. Christ would have died for one soul in order that that
one might live through the eternal ages.
Let us study the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. This chapter
should enlighten our eyes. “Take heed,” Christ says: “that ye despise
not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven. For
the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if
a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth
he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and
seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily
I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety
and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your
Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.”
Matthew 18:10-14
.
Many souls are being rescued, wrenched from Satan’s hand, by
faithful workers. Someone must have a burden of soul to find those
who have been lost to Christ. The rescue of one soul over whom Satan
has triumphed causes joy among the heavenly angels. There are those
who have destroyed in themselves the moral image of God. The gospel
net must gather in these poor outcasts. Angels of God will co-operate
with those who are engaged in this work, who make every effort to
save perishing souls, to give them opportunities which many have