GOD’S WARNINGS TO THE RICH.
It is not the purpose of this article, or this paper, to discuss the political phases, aspects, or remedies for the troubles growing out of ever-increasing wealth in the hands of the few. All these are but temporary, incidental, and ultimately ineffective. All true reforms begin in the individual heart. In this we wish to show that all these present conditions and their sad outcome are noted in the “more sure word of prophecy,” that even by this means men might know that Jehovah is God, “declaring the end from the beginning.” God’s prophets of old bore their messages to the generation in which they lived, saying, in all likelihood, much more than is recorded. Under His guidance they wrote out for future generations that instruction which would be applicable to them. The prophets spoke for their own day; they wrote for the future. Viewed in this light, we can often see double predictions, a part referring to the prophet’s own time and people, and a part to the far future. The former is a type of the latter. Conditions among the ancient people of God are similar to conditions existing later. Judgments upon Israel of old are the prototypes of judgments upon modern Israel. The rich and tyrannical and oppressive then, are prophecies of the same characters now. All this is especially true of the last days. Satan will then work “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” to destroy souls. Every device which he has used to deceive souls in the past, he will use again. But as his devices in the past were met by the word of the prophet, so God gives us that same word of all the past to forewarn us now. Among these instructions God has numbered those concerning riches. Here is one scripture from the New Testament for these very days:— “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. 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. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5:1-7. Note the specifications of the prophecy: (1) There are great “miseries” coming upon the rich, and God forewarns them. 2. He tells them the causes, the seed-sowing of this harvest of miseries: They have in the face of the direst needs, the most abject poverty, gathered such an abundance of clothing and riches and gold and silver that the garments are not worn out, but become moth-eaten, the riches grow corrupted by disuse, and the gold and silver actually rust in their locked vaults and treasure-houses; nay, more than this, they have gotten some of this wealth by fraud, some by oppression in wages rightfully belonging to their employees; they have been utterly regardless of the cries of the poor, feasting and taking their pleasure, as a warrior who has slaughtered his enemy and finds rich spoil in the captured banquet-rooms; and in this oppression, in various ways,4they have condemned and killed the Righteous One, Christ Jesus, who identifies Himself with all the sufferings of humanity; and all this that they might heap together treasure “for [or as the R.V., in] the last ‘days,’” when, above all other times, it would be folly to store it, and most of all it would be needed for the poor, the unfortunate, the famine-stricken. And every one of these specifications is now manifestly and increasingly true, tho they were not a few years ago. The gold and silver does not necessarily mean coin; and yet it is true of coin and bullion held in treasury-vaults at the demand or option of wealthy bond-holders till it becomes rusted or cankered. Think of the moth-eaten garments which might have blessed the poor and ragged and naked. 3. The one class of laborers are not here mentioned because they are exclusively sufferers; that one class is typical of all others. The prophet used the most numerous class in his day. The miner and the factory operator of every sort are, in the spirit of the prophecy, included. Whence come “the miseries”? From the rising up of oppressed and outraged humanity, as another prophet declares, and as we will show later. 4. And yet, he who rises up against such oppression is fighting his own battle alone, and can hope only for temporary success. The prophet says: Leave the case in God’s hands. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” The righteous King is coming, whose dominion shall be “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth;” and “He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy.” Ps. 72:8, 4. “Shall They Not Rise Up Suddenly?”
Here is another divine prediction:— “Thou that art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and that canst not look on perverseness, wherefore lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he; and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He taketh up all of them with the angle, he catcheth them in his net, and gathereth them in his drag; therefore he rejoiceth and is glad.” “Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith. And also because his wine is a treacherous dealer, he is a haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and can not be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples. Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges! Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. Wo to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Wo to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?” Hab. 1:13-15; 2:4-13, R.V. Note here again the particulars of the prophecy:— 1. The cry of the Spirit in oppressed humanity against man swallowing up his fellow; against man counting men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things of earth, that he might gather by his various schemes, and use them as parts of a machine, as tho justice did not exist, and the rule of God was at an end. It is not of God that the product of the people should be all consumed. 2. The cause of such inhuman oppression is the crushing, the deadening of human sensibility. The oppressor is puffed up. Wine has perverted his wisdom; not necessarily or alone of the bottle or the flask, but of ambition, of unholy greed, “the wine of Babylon,”—affecting him as it affected Lucifer, the king of Babylon, who proposed to reign, even to the dethroning of God. Isa. 14:4, 10-14. 3. Thus intoxicated, he is not willing to live and let live. He leaves his field of operation and covets his neighbor’s; he keeps not at home; his ambitions enlarge as sheol, and he can be satisfied with nothing less than the nations; he must exploit them all. Neither civilized, heathen, nor distant tribes and peoples are beyond his insatiate appetite for power. 4. But at last the sad awakening comes. Oppression reaps its fruit in like kind of spirit. Brain force is met by brute force. Money’s power is met in deadly conflict by Poverty and Idleness and Hunger and Want. The prophet declares that the oppressed peoples and nations shall take up a taunting proverb. They shall say, “Wo to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges,”—unfulfilled promises, bonds, and the like. The rising up will come suddenly and unexpectedly. The cowering “cur” will turn, and the erstwhile master will be bitten and vexed, and his riches will be “for booties,” for a prey. The spoiler of nations will be spoiled, and the wages and means of life wrung from the blood of men, will be paid in blood. Another prophet, speaking of the same oppression and robbery in order to get gain, and the cry of the poor and the needy, thus warns the rich against the consequent uprising: “And the songs of the palace shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God; the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence. Hear this, all ye that would swallow up the needy [not the worthy alone], and cause the poor of the land to fail.” Amos 8:3, 4. Great opportunities and great power involve great and grave responsibilities. He who discharges them aright, who deals justly and loves mercy, will be blessed, and will prove a blessing. But he who violates the principles of justice, who lightly passes over the needs of his fellow-men, while he partakes continually of God’s goodness; who oppresses, or even despises the poor and the needy, while he revels in luxury and rolls in wealth, shall reap, sooner or later, the fruit of his sowing: “That which a man soweth shall he also reap.” This law is as eternal as justice; and the Judge can not be purchased by wealth or intimidated by power. When from mine and mill, from factory and sweatshop, from tenement and slum, the lean, the hungry, the hunted, the driven, the despairing, shall come forth together and rise up against the men of wealth whose hearts have been hardened by gold, when these masses shall be joined by the armies which have been enlisted or conscripted from among them to exploit the nations or protect plutocracy, then will God’s Word be fulfilled in violated law, and men will realize in literal life the words of Inspiration: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.”