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Prophets and Kings
congregation said, Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did
according to this promise.”
This record teaches an important lesson. “The love of money is the
root of all evil.”
1 Timothy 6:10
. In this generation the desire for gain
is the absorbing passion. Wealth is often obtained by fraud. There are
multitudes struggling with poverty, compelled to labor hard for small
wages, unable to secure even the barest necessities of life. Toil and
deprivation, with no hope of better things, make their burden heavy.
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Careworn and oppressed, they know not where to turn for relief. And
all this that the rich may support their extravagance or indulge their
desire to hoard!
Love of money and love of display have made this world as a den
of thieves and robbers. The Scriptures picture the greed and oppression
that will prevail just before Christ’s second coming. “Go to now, ye
rich men,” James writes; “ye have heaped treasure together for the last
days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your
fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them
which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have
nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned
and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.”
James 5:1, 3-6
.
Even among those who profess to be walking in the fear of the
Lord, there are some who are acting over again the course pursued
by the nobles of Israel. Because it is in their power to do so, they
exact more than is just, and thus become oppressors. And because
avarice and treachery are seen in the lives of those who have named
the name of Christ, because the church retains on her books the names
of those who have gained their possessions by injustice, the religion
of Christ is held in contempt. Extravagance, overreaching, extortion,
are corrupting the faith of many and destroying their spirituality. The
church is in a great degree responsible for the sins of her members.
She gives countenance to evil if she fails to lift her voice against it.
The customs of the world are no criterion for the Christian. He is
not to imitate its sharp practices, its overreaching, its extortion. Every
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unjust act toward a fellow being is a violation of the golden rule. Every
wrong done to the children of God is done to Christ Himself in the
person of His saints. Every attempt to take advantage of the ignorance,
weakness, or misfortune of another is registered as fraud in the ledger