'If ye have not been faithful in that which is another
man's, who shall give you that which is your own?'
--LUKE xvi. 12.
In a recent sermon on this context I dealt mainly with the threefold
comparison which our Lord runs between the higher and the lower kind
of riches. The one is stigmatised as 'that which is least,' the
unrighteous mammon,' 'that which is another's'; whilst the higher is
magnified as being 'that which is most,' 'the true riches,' 'your
own.' What are these two classes? On the one hand stand all
possessions which, in and after possession, remain outside of a man,
which may survive whilst he perishes, or perish while he survives.
On the other hand are the riches which pass into him, and become
inseparable from him. Noble aims, high aspirations, pure thoughts,
treasures of wisdom, treasures of goodness--these are the real
wealth corresponding to man's nature, destined for his enrichment,
and to last with him for ever. But we may gather the whole contrast
into two words: the small, the 'unrighteous,' the wealth which being
mine is not mine but remains another's, and foreign to me, is the
world. The great riches, the 'true riches,' the good destined for
me, and for which I am destined, is God. In these two words you have
the antithesis, the real antithesis, God _versus_ the world.
Now let us turn rather to the principle which our Lord here lays
down, in reference to these two classes of good, or of possessions.
He tells us that the faithful use of the world helps us to the
possession of God; or, to put it into other words, that how we
handle money and what money can buy, has a great deal to do with our
religious enjoyment and our religious life, and that that is true,
both in regard to our partial possession of God here and now, and to
our perfect possession of Him in the world to come.
Now I wish to say one or two very plain things about this matter,
and I hope that you will not turn away from them because they are
familiar and trite. Considering how much of your lives, especially
as regards men of business, is taken up with money, its acquisition,
its retention, its distribution, there are few things that have more
to do with the vigour or feebleness of your Christian life than the
way in which you handle these perishable things.