- Standing Before God -

     God will never give up His rightful claim. He will never cease to command. However, you may be determined to refuse to obey and if you die following your own will, refusing the will of God, He will eventually justify the reasonableness of your condemnation before the assembled universe. Not one of the countless millions of the human family will stand alone before God pleading that he had done all that he could to comply with the conditions of salvation revealed in His Word, and yet he is unsaved. Everyone who fails to obtain the immortal life will be self-condemned, with not an excuse to offer before God.

     When the sin-cursed earth is purified from every stain of sin, when the Mount of Olives is rent asunder and becomes a great plain, when the Holy City of God descends upon it, the land that is now called the Holy Land will indeed become Holy.

     The judgment scene will be held in the presence of all the worlds, for in this judgement the government of God will be vindicated and His honor, His law, stand forth as "holy, and just, and good" [Romans 7:12]. Then every case will be decided, and the judgment sentence passed upon the whole world. Sin will not then appear attractive, but will be seen in all its hideous magnitude. Then will be seen the relation in which we stand to God and each other....

     When God's people are clothed with white robes, and crowned as true subjects of His kingdom, those who have been disloyal will see the inconsistency of their [not] uniting with the loyal to honor and magnify the law of God, which they have educated themselves to disregard....

     Christ had such an experience in His humanity that He would be close beside everyone who passes through suffering for the truth's sake--those who are tortured, imprisoned in dungeons, and bound in chains...And all who cause His people to suffer, will experience this suffering in their own bodies, be they pope, legate, priest, or people. They will understand in that day that they were dealing with Christ in the person of His saints. Then they will understand what these words mean, "the wrath of the Lamb" [Revelation 6:16].

     Those who have tried to lay their plans in councils, and by their superior numbers gained power to oppress the saints of God, to compel them to dishonor and disobey their Redeemer, will understand the work they have done upon the earth as enemies of God, betrayers of sacred trusts. They will then know how many souls they have deceived and led away from their allegiance to God. They will see that they have made themselves responsible for the loss of souls by misrepresenting the word of God....

     [Jesus] says, "Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, And shall come forth" [John 5:28, 29]. This voice is soon to resound through all the nations of the dead, and every saint who sleeps in Jesus shall awake and leave his prison house. The general judgment shall take place at the end of the one thousand years. Whoever has disowned Christ, betrayed Him in the person of His saints, will then see the result of his work....

     Christ will then sit on the throne of judgment. He will not stand before the bar of Pilate or Herod. He is the judge, and Pilate and Herod stand before the Man whom they scourged and delivered up to the will of His enemies, while priests and rulers clamored for the death of their Messiah. Pilate and Herod, who suffered the Lord to be scourged, and those who scourged Him, those who struck Him in the face and mocked Him will understand what it means to meet the wrath of the Lamb.

     Farmers, merchants, lawyers, tradesmen, will be wholly engrossed in business, and the day of the Lord will come upon them as a snare. When men are at ease, full of amusement, absorbed in buying and selling, then the thief approaches with stealthy tread. So it will be at the coming of the Son of Man....

     The time is coming when the mountains shall be shaken and removed as a cottage, but the thoughts, the purposes, the action, of the faithful worker for the Master, although now unseen, will appear again at the great day of final retribution. Things that now may seem a light matter, will then appear as witnesses, either to approve or condemn....

     In the great day of judgment, no man who has retained the frailty and imperfection of natural humanity, will be vindicated, for he could not enjoy the perfection of the characters of the saints in light. He who has not sufficient faith in Christ to believe that He can keep him from sinning, has not that faith that will give him an entrance into the kingdom of God.

     In His teachings, Christ sought to impress human minds with the coming judgment and its publicity. This is not the judgment of a few individuals, or a nation, but of a whole world of human intelligences, of accountable beings. And that judgment must be held in the presence of the world, that the love, integrity, the service of man for God may be glorified and honored on the largest scale.

     "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son" [John 5:22]. He has given His authority to execute judgment, "because He is the Son of man" [Verse 27]. In His super-added humanity consists the reason of Christ's appointment. God hath committed all judgment unto the Son, for without controversy He is God manifest in the flesh. [see 1 Timothy 3:16].

     God designed that the Prince of Sufferers in humanity should be the judge of the whole world. He who submitted to be arraigned before an earthly tribunal; He who came from the heavenly courts to save man from eternal death. He whom men despised, rejected, and upon whom they heaped all the contempt of which human beings, inspired by Satan, are capable; He who suffered the ignominious death of the cross. He alone was to pronounce the sentence of reward or of punishment. When every man shall be judged as his works have been, then the words spoken to...[the Jewish leaders] in the judgment hall "Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God" [see Matthew 26:64], will appear before them as if written in letters of fire. Under the inspiration of Satan, the Jews had chosen a robber and a murderer in place of Christ, and with this company they bound themselves for the judgment of the last day....

     In that day the law of God is be revealed in its majesty, and men who have broken that law, and stood in defiant rebellion against its holy precepts, will understand that law which they have despised, discarded, and trampled underfoot is God's standard of character. Every commandment-keeping soul, every transgressor, will have placed before him the scene when the Sabbath was first given to man in Eden, when the foundations of the earth were laid, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Then it was that the Sabbath was instituted. This scene will be vividly brought before every mind.

     Those who have administered in word and doctrine, who, by smooth words and fair speeches have taught that the law of God is no longer binding, that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was only given for the Jews; those who have educated their hearers to show contempt for the warnings sent by the Lord's prophets and apostles and delegated servants, will have brought to their mind the scenes of Sinai with all their grandeur....

     All heaven recognized the first advent of Christ....And will Christ's second coming be wanting in glory?--No! He comes in triumph. At His death creation shrouded itself in darkness, and all nature sympathized with His sorrow and humiliation; and nature will testify her triumph at His second appearing....

     The same Jesus whose atonement has been rejected, whose followers have been despised and reviled, will be "revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" [2 Thessalonians 1:7-9]. Then shall "all the kindreds of the earth...wail because of Him" [Revelation 1:7].

     Too well do the unprepared inhabitants of earth know what to expect. Satan cannot pay a ransom for their souls, and poor, deluded, professed Christians, who have been content to let the ministers do their searching of the Scriptures, see that they will receive as their works have been. Those, too, who have wrested the Scriptures and taught for doctrines the commandments of men, see that they must answer for the souls of those whom they have led into error and apostasy. A wail of despair and agony reaches heavenward, but it is echoed back to earth. Louder, far louder than any human cry, is the last trumpet's sound, and far above all is heard the voice of Omnipotence: "Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity" [Matthew 7:23].

     At the present time there are those placed as jurors, senators, lawyers, and judges, who forget that God is a party to all their transactions, and that He will call them to give an account of all their injustice toward their fellowmen in causing the innocent to suffer and the guilty to escape. Men have so long done this that they have forgotten God. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil" [Ecclesiastes 8:11]. But the God of truth is a witness to every false oath, and the Holy One that inhabiteth eternity will not serve with their sins.

     No man can violate justice in the common courts of today, but he will sooner or later understand that all fraud, all deception, will stand open to the universe of heaven and to the inhabitants of earth. God has given to men the talents of reason, of speech, of discrimination, and if they pervert God's gifts and use them to work fraud and unrighteousness and injustice, the Lord will surely bring them into judgment. God is either served by the reason and talents He has entrusted to men, or He is dishonored by them. He sees the transactions of the children of men. No one can practice falsehood, no one can receive a bribe to clear men from the consequences of their guilt and fasten the wrong upon the innocent, but the Lord will bring them into judgment for it.

     This will be a serious matter for those who have assumed the responsibility of administering justice, and who for the sake of gain have done injustice to their fellowmen. Those men who are standing in responsible positions may know that whatever dishonors God is a transgression of His law, and places them at the bar of God to render an account for their deeds. These men who have supposed that they can violate the principles of righteousness, and that will come out right in the end, may know that for all these things the Lord will bring them into judgment....

     There are men in the church and in the world, who have educated themselves to practice fraud, and for this they will be brought into judgment....Men have chosen to stand, not under the bloodstained banner of Prince Immanuel, but under the rebel flag to do the works of a rebellious prince. They may have sold their souls for money; they may have taken the Lord's money to purchase wheat and the facilities whereby poor men live, that they may extort from the Lord's creatures the highest prices; they make for themselves princely fortunes, but for all this the Lord says He will bring them into judgment....

     The cries of starving humanity are coming up before God, while these men bow down to their senseless idols as verily as do the heathen to their gods of wood and stone. Though the whole world were in league to prove it otherwise, every dollar gained in this unholy traffic wraps a curse up with it. The larger the bank stock, the more surely will be the judgment of God.

     I urge you to consider what the opening of the books of heaven will reveal. The book of remembrance will confront you at the judgment bar, revealing in distinct lines the longsuffering of God. God could cut you down as a cumberer of the ground, but instead He points you to an open door, and says, "Repent...and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out" [Acts 5:19].

     In the judgment, when every case is decided, there will be revealed in its fullness the responsibility of every man. You will realize the influence you might have had over other souls, had you stood under the bloodstained banner of Jesus Christ. How interwoven is the web of human influence. The course of action followed by every man has a direct bearing upon the lives of others.

     I have had presented to me the solemn scenes of the judgment, and I now ask you to stop and consider, "How is it with my soul?"

     Mighty, invisible powers are acting their part in the affairs of men in the last great conflict. The warfare will be so conducted that the power that has exalted itself above God, and has enlisted souls in rebellion against God, will work out fully the principles of disobedience. Every mouth shall confess the glory of God. [see Philippians 2:10 ]. It will be plainly seen that the principles of righteousness and obedience to God's law are above all powers and the retribution that falls upon transgressors is just.

     The unfallen worlds and the heavenly universe will see the result of the apostasy of Satan, and will acknowledge God as the living and only true God. The forces of rebellion will confess God's righteousness, but their acknowledgment will not give them another probation. Their cases are forever settled. After the second resurrection, Satan, the root, and his children, the branches, will perish together.

     When the redeemed stand before the throne of God to answer to their names, there will be precious souls there who will respond because of the faithful, patient efforts made in their behalf, the entreaties and urgent persuasions to flee to the stronghold. Thus those who are laborers together with God will receive their reward.

     In the day when everyone shall be rewarded according to his work has been, how will transgressors appear in their own sight as for a few moments they are permitted to see the record of their life as they have chosen to make it regardless of the law which through eternal ages will govern the universe? They will then see what God desired them to do. They will realize that they should have used their blood-bought privileges in behalf of truth and righteousness. They will see that instead of placing their talents and influence on the side of rebellion, thus strengthening the forces of the enemy, they should have devoted their powers to being and doing good....

     In the day of judgment men will see what they might have become through the power of Christ. They will see the robbery that they have practiced toward God. They will realize that they have apostatized from their Creator. They will see the good they might have done, but did not do. They utterly refused to be made better. The efforts put forth in their behalf were in vain. They knew the claims of God, but they refused to comply with the conditions laid down in His word. By their own choice they were united with demons. The power given them to use in God's service they used in the service of self. They made self their God, refusing to submit to any other control. They deceived themselves, and made themselves contemptible in the sight of God....

     Fallen men and fallen angels are sure to join in a desperate companionship. He who fell because of apostasy works constantly against goodness and obedience. He is leagued with those who refuse to keep God's law. In the day of judgment, all this opens before the impenitent. Scene after scene passes before them. As plainly as the light of the noonday sun, they see what they might have been, had they cooperated with God instead of opposing Him.

     The picture cannot be changed. Their cases are forever decided. They must perish with the one whose ways and works they followed.

     A flash will come to all lost souls. They will see clearly the mystery of godliness, which during their lifetime they despised and hated. And fallen angels, endowed with higher intelligence than men, will realize what they have done in using their powers to lead human beings to choose deception and falsehood. All who have united with the deceiver, all who have learned his ways and practiced his deceptions, must perish with him....The Lord Jesus looks pityingly upon them and says, "Depart." At that time Zechariah, Chapters 3 and 4 will be understood.

     Those who exalt self place themselves in Satan's power, preparing to receive his deceptions as truth. There are ministers and workers who will present a tissue of nonsensical falsehoods as testing truth, even as the Jewish rabbis presented the maxims of new portions of meat in due season, while the poor sheep are starving for the bread of life....This fanciful mixture of food that is being prepared for the flock will cause spiritual consumption, decline and death....

     As in the days of Noah, those who have had great light will show their inconsistency. Because Christ's coming has been long foretold, they conclude that there is a mistake to this doctrine....Shall we who claim to be students of prophecy forget that God's forbearance to the wicked is a part of His vast and merciful plan, by which He is seeking to compass the salvation of souls? Shall we be found among the number who cease to cooperate with the Lord, and who are found saying, "My Lord delays His coming?" [see Matthew 24:48]....

     The final judgment is a most solemn, awful event. This must take place before the universe. To the Lord Jesus the Father has committed all judgment. He will declare the reward of loyalty to all who obey the law of Jehovah. God will be honored and His government vindicated and glorified, and that in the presence of the inhabitants of the unfallen worlds. On the largest possible scale will the government of God be vindicated and exalted. It is not the judgment of one individual or of one nation, but of the whole world. Oh, what a change will then be made in the understanding of all created beings. Then all will see the value of eternal life.

     When God honors His commandment-keeping people, He would not have one of the enemies of truth and righteousness absent. And when the transgressors of His law receive their condemnation, He would have all the righteous behold the result of sin....

     He who occupies the position of Judge is God manifest in the flesh. What a consolation it will be to recognize in the judge our Teacher and Redeemer, bearing all the marks of the crucifixion, from which shine forth beams of glory, giving additional value to the crowns which the redeemed receive from His hands, the very hands outstretched in blessing over His disciples as He ascended.

     The very voice which said to them, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" [Matthew 28:20], bids them welcome to His presence. The very One who gave His precious life for them, who by His grace moved their hearts to repentance, who awakened them to their need of salvation, receives them now into His joy. Oh, how they love Him! The realization of their hopes is so much greater than their expectation! They take their glittering crowns and cast them at His feet. Their joy is complete.

     When sinners are compelled to look upon Him who clothed His divinity in the garb of humanity, and who still wears that garb, their confusion is indescribable. They remember how His love was slighted and His compassion abused. They think of how Barabbas, a murderer and a robber, was chosen in His stead; how Jesus was crowned with thorns and scourged and crucified; how in the hours of His agony on the cross the priests and rulers taunted Him, saying, "Let Him come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He saved others, Himself He cannot save." [see Matthew 27:42, 43]. All the insults and despite offered to Christ, all the suffering caused to His disciples, will be as fresh in their recollection as when the satanic deeds were done. The voice which they heard so often in entreaty and persuasion will again sound in their ears as when the Saviour spoke in the synagogue and on the street. Then those who pierced Him will call on the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand. [see Revelation 6:16, 17].

     "The Wrath of the Lamb." One who ever showed Himself full of infinite tenderness, patience, and longsuffering; who having given Himself up as a sacrificial victim, was led as a lamb to the slaughter to save sinners from the doom now falling upon them...makes them realize what they might have had, had they received Christ and improved the opportunities granted them....

     In that great day, all will see that their course of action decided their destiny. They will be rewarded or punished according as they have obeyed or violated the law of God. In that great day the character of each individual will be plainly and distinctly revealed. God will look into all the feelings and motives. No one can then occupy middle ground. Men and women are either saints or sinners, either entitled to a glorious life of eternity, or doomed to eternal death. What a scene that will be! The aggravated guilt of the world will be laid bare, and the voice of the eternal judge will be heard saying, "Depart from Me. I never knew you."

     The judgment will be conducted in accordance with the rules given in order that man might have eternal life. The law of God, which men are now called upon to obey and make their rule of life, but which many refuse to accept, is the law by which they will be judged. We are judged by our works. Obedience or disobedience means everything to us.

     The last great day will witness the triumph of the law of Jehovah. As the impenitent look upon the cross of Calvary, the scales fall from their eyes, and they see that which before they would not see. The law, God's standard of righteousness, is exalted, even as His throne is exalted. God Himself gives reverence to His law.

     We have been given great light in regard to God's law. This law is the standard of character. To it man is now required to conform, and by it he will be judged in the last great day. In that day men will be dealt with according to the light they have received. He who knew his Lord's will, and did it not, yet committed things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with many stripes. But he who knew it not, yet committed things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with few stripes [see Luke 12:47, 48]. The number of talents will determine the returns expected. The sinner's guilt will be measured by the opportunities and privileges which he failed to improve. He will not be punished merely for his own rejection of the offer of salvation. He will be called to account for the influence he has exerted in encouraging others in sin....The punishment of the sinner will be measured by the extent to which he has influenced others in impenitence.

     We cannot now enter into the many transactions that have made up the life-record of church members. These transactions are registered in God's book of records. How will this record appear in the great day when everyone shall receive according as his works have been?... "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of these things which were written in the books, according to their works" [Revelation 20:12]. Then men will have a clear sharp remembrance of all their transactions in this life not a word of a deed will escape their memory.

     To His Son the Father has committed all judgment. To prepare Himself to be judge of all the world, Christ endured the hardships and trials of mankind, suffering in all points like as we suffer, thus familiarizing Himself with the power of Satan's temptations....

     Accurately recorded in the books of heaven are the sneers and trivial remarks made by sinners who pay no heed to the call of mercy, when Christ is represented to them by a servant of God. As the artist takes on the polished glass a true picture of the human face, so God daily placed upon the books of heaven an exact representation of the character of every individual.

     Church members need to obtain the Spirit--the Holy Spirit,--to fast and pray, striving earnestly to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. Not one particle of Sodomitish impurity will escape the wrath of God at the execution of judgment. Those who do not repent and forsake all uncleanness will fall with the wicked. Those who become members of the royal family and who form God's kingdom in the earth made new will be saints, not sinners.

     Those who have had great light and have disregarded it stand in a worse position than those who have not been given so many advantages. They exalt themselves but not the Lord. The punishment inflicted on human beings will in every case be proportionate to the dishonor they have brought on God. Many by a course of self-indulgence have put Christ to open shame.

     How long shall the testimonies of warning be rejected for the wisdom of men?...I shall now have to be far more explicit than I have been in the past. I shall be compelled to make statements that I have not wanted to make, but I must be more explicit in order [to] save the flock of God from deceptive influences....

     There may be a necessity of doing the very work that the Lord has in the past inspired His messengers to do, in order to save the largest number of souls from the satanic influences that would lead them astray. The world's opinion will oppose the very work that must be done in order that the safety of the flock of God shall not be imperiled....

     In His Word the Lord declared what He would do for Israel if they would obey His voice. But the leaders of the people yielded to the temptations of Satan, and God could not give them the blessings He designed them to have, because they did not obey His voice but listened to the voice and policy of Lucifer. This experience will be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God, who have been established by His grace and power. Men whom He has greatly honored will in the closing scenes of this earth's history pattern after ancient Israel.

     "Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" [Hebrews 3:7-13].

     Bear this in mind. History is being repeated. The perils that God's people encountered in past ages, they will encounter again, intensified. Satan has obtained influence over men whom God has honored above all human intelligence, as He honored Solomon.

     "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him" [Hebrews 2:1-3].

     The things that had been spoken by priests and rulers had become leavened with erroneous theories. The gospel of the Old Testament had been misinterpreted by the teachers who had desired to fit the presentation with their condition spiritually in the place of exalting truth and laboring to bring the people who claimed to be the chosen of God, up to the holy principles given by Him. Christ came to give the gospel in its purity and its true bearing, and all are to show their esteem of His teaching.

     The Lord was leading His people back to the real truth. The Scriptures show the loss they had sustained and would continue to sustain unless they went back to the Word, refusing to let anything they had heard slip from their memory....

     Unless we give the most earnest heed to the Word of God, human minds will work up theories according to their own deficient practices, and will misrepresent and misapply a "Thus saith the Lord." A departure from the great principles Christ has laid down in His teachings, a working out [of] human projects, using the Scriptures to justify a wrong course of action, will confirm men in misunderstanding, and the truth that they need, to keep them from wrong practices, will leak out of the soul like water from a leaky vessel.

     Thus it is in our time. A departure from right principles will blind the understanding as to what is truth. The holy law of ten commandments, written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and placed in the ark, is the standard of righteousness. Before the obedient and the disobedient it will appear in the last great day, and all the wicked will be convicted. They will see that their actions proceeded from a depraved character. They will see that the part they acted served to carry on the rebellion begun in the heavenly courts. They will see all the cruelty and all the wickedness that have dishonored their Creator and brought about the wretchedness that fills the world.

     The law that they disobeyed was their life. Obedience to it would have made their characters as fine gold, their principles as the golden wedge of Ophir. The law that they chose to disregard and trample under foot would, if obeyed, have kept them in happiness and peace, and obedience would have borne fruit in sanctified love and beauty of character. The world would have been filled with holiness and purity....

     Those who refuse the testimonies God has sent them are not eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God. The character developed tells its history to the end. Through the refusal to receive correct principles, and the corruption of human nature, Satan works by his sophistry to deceive if possible the very elect....

     Unless man is given the converting grace of heaven, he will have no disposition to oppose Satan's counsels, and will become the enemy's willing dupe.

     In the books the truth is stated, barricaded by a "Thus saith the Lord," The Holy Spirit traced these truths upon my heart and mind as indelibly as the law was traced by the finger of God upon the tables of stone, which are now in the ark, to be brought forth in that great day when sentence is pronounced against every evil, seducing science produced by the father of lies....

     Some may make light of these messages, misinterpret them, and say untruthful things, which lead others' minds astray. Our only hope is in the God of truth. Our mediator understands every phase of the matter. The more plainly the testing truth is brought before the people, the more bitter will be the hatred manifested by those who have departed from the faith, and given their attention to sentiments of Satan's presentation.

     Sometimes that which men teach as "special light" is in reality specious error, which as tares sown among the wheat, will spring up and produce a baleful harvest. Errors of this sort will be entertained by some until the close of this earth's history....

     Truth is sustained by a plain "Thus saith the Lord." But there has been a weaving in of error, and the use of Scriptures out their natural connection, in order to substantiate fallacies, which would deceive, if possible, the very elect....

     Confession must come sooner or later; if not voluntarily now, then finally before the universe and the multitude that shall compose Satan's vast army encircling the city of God in the vain supposition that numbers will prevail. Those who persist in refusing to confess now, will then be forced to confess their errors; their unfaithful, underhanded dealing, and all their transgression of the law of God.

     Oh, how much better to confess errors now, than to leave them until the opening of the records in the books of heaven, when every act shall be revealed, and even the motives that led to the action! God reads the secrets of every heart. And the day draws near when all who have united in calling the actions of the unrighteous man just and righteous, will see that they have acted a part in deceiving the man, and that they have been partakers of his unrighteous deeds. They will then understand that, because they have strengthened his evil propensities by passing them by without reproof, they are united with him in the sin, and as surely as the Lord has spoken, they will share the punishment when it will be administered in the presence of an assembled universe.

     In the day of judgment some will plead this good deed and that as a reason why they should receive consideration. They will say, "I set up young men in business. I gave money to found hospitals. I relieved the necessities of widows, and took the poor into my home." Yes, but your motives were so defiled by selfishness that the deed was not acceptable in the sight of the Lord. In all that you did, self was brought prominently to view.