Wealth can be spiritually dangerous
Austin Gardner • August 20, 2022
Riches make a slippery descent to ruin
For us to align our lifestyles with our stated beliefs can be very difficult. I love the following gleaning from a commentary on Deuteronomy. It is one thing to have money and quite another for money to have us. Money can never be our goal or our god. Money must be a tool we use in the service of our God and King
- Wealth often leads to fleshly indulgence. With abundance in our possession, it is easier to indulge the appetites than to deny them. Yet the higher life can only be developed at the expense of the lower. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.”
- Wealth breeds self-sufficient pride. It serves to weaken our sense of dependence upon God. When from our visible stores every felt need can be supplied, we are prone to forget the unseen Giver. Most men may well thank God that the temptations of wealth dwell not under their roofs. “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” In the hot-bed of riches, the flower of sweet humility does not thrive.
- Wealth loses sight of its own origin. It has a short memory for obligations. The millionaire soon forgets the days of poverty and struggle—forgets the Friend who succoured him in his extremity—kicks away the ladder by which he rose. Riches naturally encumber and stifle the flame of religious feeling.
- Riches beget in us false confidence. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we say, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?” We find a delicious pleasure in hearing our own skill and sagacity praised. The tide of natural feeling sets strongly towards self-trust.
- Riches tend towards idolatry. In the days of poverty we did not object to be accounted singular; but in the time of wealth we aspire to do as others do. It is arduous to have to think for one’s self, to rely upon one’s own judgments, to pursue a course which men will ridicule. If others bow down to their own net, or rear a popular idol, we too must bow down and worship it.
- Wealth has given us prominence, set us on high, and we must not risk our new reputation.
It is easier to drift with the stream than to stem it. Justice, with her balances and sword, is always nigh. No man can defraud God.
- Riches make a slippery descent to ruin
H. D. M. Spence-Jones, ed., Deuteronomy, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 160–161.
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