SW 25.1
(The Southern Work 25.1)
I would appeal to you in behalf of the Southern field. If we consulted our own ease and pleasure, we would not desire to enter this field; but we are not to consult our own ease. “Even Christ pleased not himself”; But we are to consider the fact that that field is no more discouraging to those who would be laborers together with God than was the field of the world as it presented itself before the only-begotten Son of God. When He came to earth to seek and to save that which was lost, He did not consult His own ease or pleasure. He left His high command, He laid aside His heavenly honor and glory, He laid off His glorious diadem and royal robe, and left the royal courts, in order that He might come to earth to save fallen man. Though He possessed eternal riches, yet for our sakes He became poor, that He might enrich the human race. By accepting the Son of God as their Redeemer, by exercising faith in Him, the sons and the daughters of Adam may become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. The apostle says: “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” Christ was willing to come to a world that was all marred and seared with the curse—the result of Adam’s transgression of the law of God. He was willing to undertake the case of fallen beings who had lost their original holiness, and who were in ignorance of the perfection of God’s character. He was willing to come to bring back to loyalty those who were not subject to God’s moral government. In the grand counsels of Heaven it was found that it was positively necessary that there should be a revelation of God to man in the person of His only-begotten Son. He came to earth to be “The true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (SW 25.1) MC VC