Let no man take it, that the statement on the inaccessibility of heaven
to the rich involves the opposite, how easily shall they that have
nothing enter in. The people who have lived pulseless lives are apt to
point to their poverty as the proof of their piety. But righteousness
is neither a matter of riches nor of rags. The great Teacher glorifies
neither. The qualifications for citizenship in His kingdom strike
deeper than that.
His words have nothing to do with the bitter envy of the demagogue who
denounces those who have earned that for which he would not labour. He
measures men not by that they have but by that they are. He looks
through both the fine linen and the tattered rags to the man. Money
interests Him only as it affects character. The question of riches and
poverty is not a matter of housing and eating, but what a man does for
himself and his world with that which he has.
Riches of themselves do not bar a man from heaven; but they full often
eat into his heart, become of absorbing interest, and so effectually
and forever blind the inner vision to the best things. It is not that
heaven has shut its gates, but that the love of money, the selfishness,
born of cupidity, has paralyzed those spiritual senses by which he
might have found his way therein.
The possession of wealth is not a sin; to some it has come almost
without effort, even against their wills; but it does constitute one of
the most severe tests that can be set before a soul. It increases the
difficulties of the right life, because it enlarges so greatly the
responsibilities. The greater the wealth the greater the trust laid
upon a man as the steward of the produce of the earth.
The principle holds of all possessions; all are tests of character. A
man can love gold just as ardently when he has but a grain as when he
has possessions beyond computation. A single dollar, laid on the
heart, can shut out the light of heaven as effectually as can a
million. The relation between riches and righteousness is not
determined by the balance in the bank, but by the balance that a man
succeeds in maintaining in his heart between his own interests and the
trusteeship which possession places upon him.
Money makes men as well as unmakes them. The burdens, the tests, the
responsibilities it entails, the temptations it presents, all form part
of life's great lesson. Out of the struggle between self and the
service we owe the world, out of the keen fighting against
covetousness, and the battle against the debasing tendencies of the
love for gold and the greed for gain arise the giants--or fall the lost
souls.
The rich young ruler came to Jesus and faced his test; the demand that
he should sell all and give to the poor simply put his heart on trial;
it set before him the great choices; it decided as to the things which
he held first. To him the possession of things was more than the
possibilities of using them in service; before the great test he fell.
It is just as easy and often fully as dangerous to set your heart on
the gold you haven't got as it is to fall into the snare of the miser.
Everything depends on the place you give to riches in your life. One
man seeks them as a prize to be won and enjoyed for his own
gratification, his own glory and fame; another seeks them only as
larger avenues to usefulness, and to him riches come as tools, as
servants, as possibilities of making his life count for more.
Some men die with their houses full of tools unused; they have made the
fatal mistake of setting their hearts on the tools instead of on the
work. Others come to their accounting possessing as many tools, but
all of them shining from hard use, and counting as their treasures not
the tools but the things produced, the good accomplished. Wealth is
for work and the work is for the making of the man. They enter the
kingdom who are kingly, whether they learned the royal lesson and
acquired the heavenly character through the school of poverty or that
of riches.