Acts 8:20-24 But Peter said to him, Your money perish with you, because you have thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.… As we read Peter's words, their very sound brings out the nature of the sin, for their terms express the contradiction that is involved in the misuse of money. To purchase a gift is evidently impossible. One of the two words must be wrong. Either the thing is not a gift, or else we have not purchased it. Is the world, is our life, a gift or a purchase? Between those two ideas we are for ever vacillating. Our belief in God says it is a gift; our lives of activity and energy say it is a purchase. We talk of Providence, and then are discouraged at our misfortunes or our failures, as if we had never heard of such a thing as God's providence. We pray for all blessings, temporal and spiritual, and then congratulate ourselves when we have put ourselves in a position to obtain them. Now, into these lives, for ever tossed between these two ideas, enters the element of money. Its one reason of existence is purchase. We cannot eat it or wear it; the man who hoards it for the mere pleasure of looking at it is acknowledged to be a pitiable fool. Can we not see how at once this universal thing, so necessary and so much desired, throws all its weight on the side of purchase in our view of life? It makes one continual barter. Purchase is a necessary element of life, and money represents it. It is needed for our independence; without it we sink down into gift-receivers from out" fellow-men. The strong, self-reliant character that belongs to men of business comes entirely from their holding so natural a relation to their fellow-men they receive what they pay for, they expect to be paid for what they give. That is the simple law of honest trade and of honest manhood, and woe to the man who attempts to avoid it, whether by begging or gambling. The very money which he receives is a rebuke to him, as it tells him of the universal existence of that law of purchase between man and man which, like all other laws, will punish the man who violates it. But when money, with the principle which it represents, begins to enter into our relation to God, then the contradiction comes, and the sin with it. Just as living on men's gifts spoils our true relation to them, so trying to purchase of God spoils entirely the true sense of our relation to Him. God must give: that fact is written in our belief of Him as our Creator, our great Superior, infinitely above us. It is the fact that is repeated in the tone of authority that fills every revelation of Him; it is the thought of every heart that cares to look for Him in the earth around us. There is no God if we can purchase things of Him. Money is utterly atheistic in its very central principle when taken out of its proper place; and, as men heap it up, we have only the repetition of the old-storied struggle of the giants who heaped mountain upon mountain, all of which were so good in their places on earth, that they might reach to heaven, and unseat God from His throne. As money grows in power and influence, this will be its destructive power upon men's lives. Beware of this danger; it meets all, as they pass out of childhood's state of gift-receiving into manhood's time of purchase. There is nothing with which to meet it but the simple knowledge of God cultivated by every means which is thrown about us, and by every spiritual influence which can be brought to bear upon us. The relation to God must be learned more and more closely in all its special features. The thought and the effort must be fixed directly on Him by morals, by religion, by worship, by study, by prayer. Never more than in these times, when money is the world's great power, did mankind more need the simplest, purest, most childlike belief in God, that life may be truly complete on both sides, toward man and toward God. The two sides will not remain without effect upon each other. The dependence of the one will soften and save from cruelty and haughtiness the independence of the other. He who knows that he is constantly receiving from One above him cannot be cruel and exacting toward one below him; nay, he cannot keep from being like his great, bountiful God in sweet acts of charity. The independence of the one will add a sense of responsibility and power to the other; he who appreciates the power that God has given him among his fellow-men will more gladly enter the service of that God to whom he owes so much, thankful for the opportunity to do something. And see how, once more, the relation between rich and poor is touched by this higher view of God as a constant and manifold Giver. Must the poor man stand aside, and see his neighbour, who has money, go before him in opportunities of doing good, in acquisition of high and refined motives and character in life? From how much does the want of money shut him out? Of how many of God's gifts does it deprive him? Of but one — ease of bodily relation toward his fellow-men, one of the most dangerous gifts that can be bestowed. Shall he stand mourning for that one, while all the time God waits to bestow character here, salvation hereafter, while moral possessions and eternal life are open to him, and means of doing good by personal growth and work which wealth can never buy are at his hand? "Thy money perish with thee." Money is perishable — in substance, form, possession. Our souls are immortal. Which shall affect the other? Shall we and our money perish together? or shall our lives, knowing our God, lift up the money by the devotion of us to whom it belongs? Shall it dazzle us with its glitter, and prevent our seeing God? or shall we save it by our power of serving God? We are the greater, surely, and to us God has opened a path out of this bondage in which earthly things are for ever holding us. Walk in it; break the chain, golden though it be, that binds our immortal souls to this earth; and seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and with that gift all other gifts shall be a blessing, and not a destruction. (Arthur Brooks.) Parallel Verses KJV: But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. |
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