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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
False Shepherds
I have no real ground of hope for those who have stood as shep-
herds to the flock, and have for years been borne with by the merciful
God, following them with reproof, with warnings, with entreaties,
but who have hid their evil ways, and continued in them, thus defy-
ing the laws of the God of heaven by practicing fornication. We may
leave them to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling,
after all has been done to reform them; but in no case entrust to them
the guardianship of souls. False shepherds! Oh, can it be that the
men who have been engaged in this work for a long time will corrupt
their ways before the Lord after great experience and special light?
He that is to come says, “Behold, I come quickly; and My reward
is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” Every
good deed done by the people of God as the fruit of their faith, will
have its corresponding reward. As one star differeth from another
star in glory, so will believers have their different spheres assigned
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them in the future life. Will the man who did not walk with God
as did Enoch, but who walked by the side of Satan, listening to
his suggestions, obeying his promptings, imperiling his own soul
and souls for whom Christ died, to gratify the carnal mind, giving
lenity to sin in his example—will such a man be found among the
overcomers?
When a man dies, his influence does not die with him; but it lives
on, reproducing itself. The influence of the man who was good and
pure and holy lives on after his death, like the glow of the descending
sun, casting its glories athwart the heavens, lighting up the mountain
peaks long after the sun has sunk behind the hill. So will the works
of the pure and the holy and the good reflect their light when they no
longer live to speak and act themselves. Their works, their words,
their example will forever live. “The righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance.”
But what a contrast to this is the life of those who are earthly,
sensual, devilish! The sensual pleasure was indulged. In the light
of the judgment, the man appears as he is, stripped of the livery of
heaven. He stands before others as he is in the sight of a holy God.
Let every one of us think seriously whether the works following us