Children of this world wiser?

                                                                                                                                         Vol. XXII, No. 6, June/July 2009 

[This is an excerpt from a sermon by Asahel Nettleton, 1783-1844, a founder of what is now Hartford Theological Seminary.]

The men of this world shame us by their conduct. They rise up early and sit up late. They plan and execute. Labor, fatigue, and hardship are nothing to them if they can but collect a little of this world together before they leave it. They are laying up treasures on earth, which the moth and rust will soon corrupt. And shall you not be as earnest to lay up for yourselves a more enduring substance – a treasure in the heavens? They are laboring for that meat which perishes, but you are called to labor for that which endures unto everlasting life. Do you not feel reproved by their conduct to think that the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light?

[Reprinted from Professing Christians Awake!, the text of the sermon produced by The Inheritance Publishers and available free (donations needed) at P.O. Box 1334, Grand Rapids, MI 49501 or www.hnrc.org/ip.]