Providence Points Devotional: December 3, 2007

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Providence Points eNewsletter
December 3, 2007
Vol. 1 No. 7

VII FILTHY LUCRE. "
So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away
the life of the owners thereof."--1.19

THESE "ways," as described by Solomon in the preceding verses, are
certainly some of the very worst. We have here literally the picture
of a robber's den. The persons described are of the baser sort: the
crimes enumerated are gross and rank: they would be outrageously
disreputable in any society, of any age. Yet when these apples of
Sodom are traced to their sustaining root, it turns out to be greed of
gain. The love of money can bear all these. This scripture is not out
of date in our day, or out of place in our community. The word of God
is not left behind obsolete by the progress of events. "All flesh is
as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass
withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the
Lord endureth for ever."--1 Peter 1.24, 25.

The Scripture traces sin to its fountain, and deposits the sentence of
condemnation there, a sentence that follows actual evil through its
diverging paths. A spring of poisonous water may in one part of its
course run over a rough rocky bed, and in another glide silent and
smooth through a verdant meadow: but, alike when chafed into foam by
obstructing rocks, and when reflecting the flowers from its glassy
breast, it is the same lethal stream. So from greed of gain--from
covetousness which is idolatry, the issue is evil, whether it run riot
in murder and rapine in Solomon's days, or crawl sleek and slimy
through cunning tricks of trade in our own. God seeth not as man
seeth. He judges by the character of the life stream that flows from
the fountain of thought, and not by the form of the channel which
accident may have hollowed out to receive it.

When this greed of gain is generated, like a thirst in the soul, it
imperiously demands satisfaction: and it takes satisfaction wherever
it can be most readily found. In some countries of the world still it
retains the old-fashioned iniquity which Solomon has described: it
turns freebooter, and leagues with a band of kindred spirits, for the
prosecution of the business on a larger scale. In our country, though
the same passion domineer in a man's heart, it will not adopt the same
method, because it has cunning enough to know that by this method it
could not succeed. Dishonesty is diluted, and coloured, and moulded
into shapes of respectability to suit the taste of the times. We are
not hazarding an estimate whether there be as much of dishonesty under
all our privileges as prevailed in a darker day: we affirm only that
wherever dishonesty is, its nature remains the same, although its form
may be more refined. He who will judge both mean men and merchant
princes requires truth in the inward parts. There is no respect of
persons with Him. Fashions do not change about the throne of the
Eternal. With Him a thousand years are as one day. The ancient and
modern evildoers are reckoned brethren in iniquity, despite the
difference in the costume of their crimes. Two men are alike greedy of
gain. One of them being expert in accounts, defrauds his creditors,
and thereafter drives his carriage: the other, being robust of limb,
robs a traveler on the highway, and then holds midnight revel on the
spoil. Found fellow sinners, they will be left fellow sufferers.
Refined dishonesty is as displeasing to God, as hurtful to society,
and as unfit for heaven, as the coarsest crime.

This greed, when full grown, is coarse and cruel. It is not restrained
by any delicate sense of what is right or seemly. It has no bowels. It
marches right to its mark, treading on everything that lies in the
way. If necessary in order to clutch the coveted gain, "it taketh away
the life of the owners thereof." Covetousness is idolatry. The idol
delights in blood. He demands and gets a hecatomb of human
sacrifices.

Among the labourers employed in a certain district to construct a
railway was one thick-necked, bushy, sensual, ignorant, brutalized
man, who lodged in the cottage of a lone old woman. This woman was in
the habit of laying up her weekly earnings in a certain chest, of
which she carefully kept the key. The lodger observed where the money
lay. After the works were completed and the workmen dispersed, this
man was seen in the grey dawn of a Sabbath morning stealthily
approaching the cottage. That day, for a wonder among the neighbours,
the dame did not appear at church. They went to her house, and learned
the cause. Her dead body lay on the cottage- floor: the treasure-chest
was robbed of its few pounds and odd shillings; and the murderer had
fled. Afterwards they caught and hanged him. Shocking crime! To murder
a helpless woman in her own house, in order to reach and rifle her
little hoard, laid up against the winter and the rent! The criminal is
of a low, gross, bestial nature. Be it so. He was a pest to society,
and society flung the troubler off the earth. But what of those who
are far above him in education and social position, and as far beyond
him in the measure of their guilt? How many human lives is the greed
of gain even now taking away, in the various processes of slavery? Men
who hold a high place, and bear a good name in the world, have in this
form taken away the life of thousands for filthy lucre's sake. Murder
on a large scale has been, and is done upon the African tribes by
civilized men for money.

All men should think of the character and consequences of their
actions. God will weigh our deeds. We should ourselves weigh them
beforehand in his balances. It is not what that man has said, or this
man has done; but what Christ is, and his members should be. The
question for every man through life is, not what is the practice of
earth, but what is preparation for heaven. There would not be much
difficulty in judging what gain is right, and what is wrong, if we
would take Christ into our counsels. If people look unto Jesus, when
they think of being saved, and look hard away from him when they are
planning 'how to make money, they will miss their mark for both
worlds. When a man gives his heart to gain, he is an idolater. Money
has become his god. He would rather that the Omniscient should not be
the witness of his worship. While he is sacrificing in this idol's
temple, he would prefer that Christ should reside high in heaven, out
of sight, and out of mind. He would like Christ to be in heaven, ready
to open its gates to him, when death at last drives him off the earth;
but he will not open for Christ now that other dwelling-place which he
loves--a humble and contrite heart. "Christ in you, the hope of glory;"
there is the cure of covetousness! That blessed Indweller, when he
enters, will drive out--with a scourge, if need be--such buyers and
sellers as defiled his temple. His still small voice within would flow
forth, and print itself on all your traffic,--" love one another, as I
have loved you."

On this point the Christian Church is very low. The living child has
lain so close to the world's bosom, that she has overlaid it in the
night, and stifled its troublesome cry. After all our familiarity with
the Catechism, we need yet to learn "what is the chief end of man" and
what should be compelled to stand aside as a secondary thing. We need
from all who fear the Lord, a long, loud testimony against the
practice of heartlessly subordinating human bodies and souls to the
accumulation of material wealth.