Clean Money | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

Clean Money.

As a godly merchant lay upon his dying bed, he spoke to his children of the little property which he had acquired and was leaving behind him. "It is not much," said he, "but there is not a *dirty shilling in it."

There is such a thing as clean money. It may be earned by diligence in business, by honest labor of hand or mind, or by the severest toils in occupations which are not esteemed as either easy or genteel; but there is money, even in the purses and coffers of many who profess to be followers of Christ, which all the waters of Jordan could not make clean. There are the wages of unrighteousness, the gains of ungodliness, the hoarded spoils wrung from the thin hands of the poor and needy; there are revenues from the traffic in strong drink; there are rents paid to church members for places that are used as traps and pitfalls to ensnare unwary men; there are gains acquired in a thousand ways which are blackened with the stain of sin and with the curse of God. Thousands on thousands have thus laid up wealth which shall curse them in life and in death; which shall ensnare their children and beguile them to their ruin; and which shall finally eat their flesh as it were fire, when the Judge who standeth before the door shall come to make inquisition for blood, and to punish the ungodly in the last great day.

O man of earth, as you look upon your gains and treasures, as you count your hoards and estimate your possessions, ask yourself the question, Is this clean money? and decide that as God shall give you grace and help, nothing which you possess shall deserve the curse that follows the wages of unrighteousness, the gains of those who know not and fear not God.—The Armory.