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Christ’s Object Lessons
Christ knew that at the destruction of Jerusalem the Jews would
remember His warning. And it was so. When calamity came upon
Jerusalem, when starvation and suffering of every kind came upon the
people, they remembered these words of Christ and understood the
parable. They had brought their suffering upon themselves by their
neglect to let their God-given light shine forth to the world.
In the Last Days
The closing scenes of this earth’s history are portrayed in the
closing of the rich man’s history. The rich man claimed to be a son of
Abraham, but he was separated from Abraham by an impassable gulf—
a character wrongly developed. Abraham served God, following His
word in faith and obedience. But the rich man was unmindful of God
and of the needs of suffering humanity. The great gulf fixed between
him and Abraham was the gulf of disobedience. There are many today
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who are following the same course. Though church members, they are
unconverted. They may take part in the church service, they may chant
the psalm, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my
soul after Thee, O God” (
Psalm 42:1
); but they testify to a falsehood.
They are no more righteous in God’s sight than is the veriest sinner.
The soul that longs after the excitement of worldly pleasure, the mind
that is full of love for display, cannot serve God. Like the rich man in
the parable, such a one has no inclination to war against the lust of the
flesh. He longs to indulge appetite. He chooses the atmosphere of sin.
He is suddenly snatched away by death, and he goes down to the grave
with the character formed during his lifetime in copartnership with
Satanic agencies. In the grave he has no power to choose anything, be
it good or evil; for in the day when a man dies, his thoughts perish.
(
Psalm 146:4
;
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6
).
When the voice of God awakes the dead, he will come from the
grave with the same appetites and passions, the same likes and dislikes,
that he cherished when living. God works no miracle to re-create a man
who would not be re-created when he was granted every opportunity
and provided with every facility. During his lifetime he took no delight
in God, nor found pleasure in His service. His character is not in
harmony with God, and he could not be happy in the heavenly family.