This devotional first appeared in https://www.revivalandreformation.org
So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners. Proverbs 1:19, NKJV.
To every person is given his or her work. Each has a place in the eternal plan of heaven. It is the duty of fathers and mothers to overcome their own lawlessness, their untidy habits. Truth is clean and pure and of great value and needs to be brought into the character building. Those who have the truth, the love of the truth in their hearts, will make any and every sacrifice that this truth may have the first place in everything….
There are those in our churches who have much to say in regard to Christianity, but in whose presence we should always be guarded, for they dismiss the Word of God from their business transactions. When there is buying and selling to be done, God is not by their side. The enemy is on the ground, and he takes possession of them. Christian brotherhood and love is laid a sacrifice on the altar of greed. God, heaven, the precepts of Jehovah, His oft-repeated injunctions, are obliterated from the soul. They know not what it means to practice the principles laid down in the Word of God. They sell their souls for unlawful gain. So thick is the veil which blinds their eyes that they can see only the fraudulent gain. So hard is the incrustation that envelops the heart that it feels not the love and tenderness and pity of Christ for their fellow beings. The holiness and truth of God are shut out from their souls.
Will the people of God frown down all this corrupting influence? Will they give their hearts to God? Will they deal mercifully with their fellow mortals? Will Seventh-day Adventists bear in mind that they cannot swerve from truth in their dealings with their fellow beings, that they cannot violate justice or let go their integrity without forsaking God? Anything that dishonors Him will never benefit you. People who expect to prosper by violating the eternal principles of righteousness are laying up for themselves a harvest they will not care to reap. They place themselves in the enemy’s ranks and bring degradation upon themselves. Although for a time they may seem to prosper, they can never help to compose the family of God.–Sermons and Talks 2:133, 134.
