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Ministry to the Rich
143
The Dangers of Prosperity
There is another danger to which the wealthy are especially ex-
posed, and here also is a field for the medical missionary. Multitudes
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who are prosperous in the world and who never stoop to the com-
mon forms of vice are yet brought to destruction through the love of
riches. The cup most difficult to carry is not the cup that is empty
but the cup that is full to the brim. It is this that needs to be most
carefully balanced. Affliction and adversity bring disappointment
and sorrow, but it is prosperity that is most dangerous to spiritual
life.
Those who are suffering reverses are represented by the bush that
Moses saw in the desert, which, though burning, was not consumed.
The Angel of the Lord was in the midst of the bush. So in deprivation
and affliction the brightness of the presence of the Unseen is with us
to comfort and sustain. Often prayer is solicited for those who are
suffering from illness or adversity, but our prayers are most needed
by the people entrusted with prosperity and influence.
In the valley of humiliation, where souls feel their need and
depend on God to guide their steps, there is comparative safety. But
people who stand, as it were, on a lofty pinnacle, and who, because
of their position, are supposed to possess great wisdom—these are
in greatest peril. Unless they make God their dependence, they will
surely fall.
The Bible condemns no one for being rich if the riches have been
acquired honestly. Not money, but the love of money, is the root of
all evil. It is God who gives people power to get wealth, and in the
hands of one who acts as God’s steward, using the means unselfishly,
wealth is a blessing, both to its possessor and to the world. But many,
absorbed in their interest in worldly treasures, become insensible to
the claims of God and the needs of others. They regard their wealth
as a means of glorifying themselves. They add house to house, and
land to land; they fill their homes with luxuries, while all about them
are human beings in misery and crime, in disease and death. Those
who thus give their lives to self-serving are developing in themselves
not the attributes of God but the attributes of the wicked one.
These people need the gospel. They need to have their eyes
turned from the vanity of material things to behold the preciousness