Part 24 (1/2)

Be Your Own Executor.

The third thing is this: Store it up by means of exchange. Keep it safe by giving it away. The whole value of money is in exchange. It must be kept moving. But, but--and the whole heart of the teaching is here--be very wary about your exchanges. Invest your money in men, wherever the need may be. All that you invest wisely in men is stored up against any violence or craftiness of thieves and any corroding of rust.

All that is not out in active use directly among men, for men, in Jesus'

name, is in danger of being stolen, or of decaying, or of injuring you, or of being left behind, utterly worthless to you when you are through down here. Be your own executor.

Some years ago one of the religious papers of New York City told of the death of a maiden lady named Elizabeth Pellit. Her home was in the hall-room of a tenement-house, and at her death all her earthly possessions could be put into one common trunk. No executor or administrator was needed. Living in narrow circ.u.mstances, her friends thought she had denied herself all luxuries and even many comforts. But in the forty years of her Christian life she had been able to give over thirty thousand dollars to missionary work. She had supplied the money to send out and sustain one missionary in Salvador, and also for another who was to go out soon. She seemed to have grasped the meaning of the Master's teaching.

Good common sense comes in for free play here, both in adjusting one's personal and family schedule and in giving. Giving may be done foolishly, or not wisely. There is no place where there is more room for good sense in avoiding both the extreme of unwise giving and the other extreme of handicapping one's gifts.

It is a question of personal judgment how far to give money out directly and how far to invest some of it and use the income wholly in gifts. You may think that in some directions you can invest it better, and direct the income better than some organization. That is an important detail. But the chief thing is that the money itself is dedicated wholly for use out among needy men.

Now you will please mark keenly that in all this I am not talking about what I think about money. I am simply putting into plain talk Jesus' own teaching about it, in these four great pa.s.sages.

Missing the Master's Meaning.

Christian men, generally, seem to have missed the meaning of Jesus' words.

I think it due largely to the lack of teaching in the Church that world-evangelizing is a first obligation.

Recently a fire destroyed the home of a man of large wealth who lives some distance east of San Francisco. It was a beautiful palace, full of art treasures. The value of house and furnis.h.i.+ngs and the art collection was reckoned at about two million dollars. He is a Christian man, prominently identified with active Christian work, and reckoned a liberal giver. He has visited foreign-mission lands, and made special gifts to missions.

But his gifts to missions seem like a copper cent or a silver quarter given to a beggar in contrast with the two million dollars tied up for himself in the house that burned. Two millions stored up in a home, while many millions of men have lived and died in ignorance of the light and peace that comes with Jesus! Yet this man calls Jesus his Master, and sincerely, I have no doubt. And his Master said the one great thing was to tell all men of His love and death.

By no extension of the meaning of that word ”need” could he be said to need a two-million-dollar home for himself and family. And there are other millions under the same man's control. It looks very much as if this good man had missed the meaning of Jesus' words. The criticism, however, must be first upon the Church and its leaders, with whose general trend of teaching this man is in accord. According to the Master's teaching, most of the money in his house, and stored up in other ways of the sort for himself, is being lost. Far more serious, the opportunity of investment in men is being lost. That money will be all loss to him when he reaches the line of departure over into the next sphere of life.

It is very difficult to use such an ill.u.s.tration from life. There is danger that the words will sound critical in a bad or unkind sense. I earnestly pray to be kept from that. You will know that I am talking to myself first of all; and speaking of this only to help. The bother is that this man is not an exception. Rather he represents the habit and standard of his generation.

I recall another Christian man as I speak, of large wealth, by inheritance and by dint of business keenness. His face showed plainly his fine Christian character. He gave liberally in many directions, sometimes very large sums. But he lived in a home whose value ran close to a half-million of dollars. When he died, full of years and honors, he left many millions to a son who does not inherit his father's generous hand with his wealth.

Of course, the son didn't need the vast wealth.

And I wondered, silently, within my heart, how things looked to that man, as he slipped out of life up into the Master's presence, and looked down on the earth through the eyes of the One whose teaching we have been talking about. He could see China and India and Africa then as plainly as America.

How did the lost opportunity of laying up his treasure in the lives of men look to him then, I wondered. He was a good man. I saw him smile once, and his face seemed to s.h.i.+ne as an angel's. I think probably no faithful friend had ever talked to him of the plain meaning of Jesus' words, and of world-winning being a first obligation. He hadn't been taught it from the pulpit. And he hadn't thought into it himself.

Money Talks.

Many are losing a great opportunity of silently preaching Jesus to their fellows by their habit of giving. Two men were discussing the evidences of the Christian religion. The one was a Christian; the other not, and inclined to be sceptical. Arguments were freely exchanged. At last the sceptic, who was a blunt, out-spoken man, said frankly, to his friend and neighbor: ”I think we might as well drop this matter. For I don't believe a word you say. And, more than that, I am quite satisfied in my own mind that you do not really believe it yourself. For to my certain knowledge you have not given, the last twenty years, as much for the spread of Christianity, such as the building of churches and foreign and domestic missions, as your last Durham cow cost. Why, sir, if I believed what you say you believe I'd make the church my rule for giving, my farm the exception.”

That Christian man's life was contradicting every word he uttered to his neighbor. Money talks. His was talking very loudly to his sceptical neighbor. His neighbor was unusually frank in saying out what thousands are thinking. He had lost a great opportunity of winning his friend.

Debts.

In a simple little sentence Paul reveals how thoroughly he had grasped Jesus' meaning. He said, ”I am debtor both to Greeks and barbarians”--to all men.[34] Now that word, ”debtor,” commonly means two things: that you have received something of value from some one, and that therefore you owe him for what he gave to you.