Two Crowns
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your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body
is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be
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full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of
darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
that darkness! No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate
the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise
the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:19-24
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Then that which I had seen was explained to me as follows: The
multitude who were so eagerly striving for the earthly crown, were
those who love this world’s treasure, and are deceived and flattered
with its short-lived attractions. Some, I saw, who profess to be the
followers of Jesus, are so ambitious to obtain earthly treasures that
they lose their love for heaven, act like the world, and are accounted of
God as of the world. They profess to be seeking an immortal crown,
a treasure in the heavens; but their interest and principal study is to
acquire earthly treasures. Those who have their treasures in this world,
and love their riches, cannot love Jesus. They may think that they
are right, and, although they cling to their possessions with a miser’s
grasp, they cannot be made to see it, or to feel that they love money
more than the cause of truth or the heavenly treasure.
“If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness!” There was a point of time in the experience of such, when
the light given them was not cherished, and it became darkness. Said
the angel, “Ye cannot love and worship the treasures of earth, and have
the true riches.”
When the young man came to Jesus and said to Him, “Good Master,
what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” Jesus gave
him his choice, to part with his possessions and have eternal life, or
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retain them and lose it. His riches were of greater value to him than the
heavenly treasure. The condition that he must part with his treasures
and give to the poor in order to become a follower of Christ and have
eternal life, chilled his desire, and he went away sorrowful.
Those who were shown me as clamorous for the earthly crown,
were those who will resort to any means to acquire property. They
become insane upon that point. All their thoughts and energies are
directed to the acquirement of earthly riches. They trample upon the
rights of others, and oppress the poor, and the hireling in his wages. If
they can take advantage of those who are poorer and less shrewd than