Testimony Treasures, Volume 3 - Ellen G. White

that your indolence is incurring guilt.
It is God who gives men power to get wealth, and He has bestowed this
ability, not as a means of gratifying self, but as a means of returning to God
His own. With this object it is not a sin to acquire means. Money is to be
earned by labor. Every youth should be trained to habits of industry. The
Bible condemns no man for being rich if he has acquired his riches honestly.
It is the selfish love of money wrongfully employed that is the root of all
evil. Wealth will prove a blessing if we regard it as the Lord's, to be received
with thankfulness and with thankfulness returned to the Giver.
But of what value is untold wealth if it is hoarded in expensive mansions
or in bank stocks? What do these weigh in comparison with the salvation of
one soul for whom the Son of the infinite God has died?
To those who have heaped together treasure for the last days the Lord
declares: "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness
against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire."
The Lord bids us: "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves
bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no
thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights
burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he
will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may
open unto him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when
he cometh shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that he shall gird
himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve
them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch,
and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the
goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would
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