p. 7 | GO TO NOW, YE RICH MEN by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 5, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 18.

“GO TO NOW, YE RICH MEN.”

By T.

The first verses of the fifth chapter of James are addressed to a particular class of men and at a particular time. The first verse shows that it is the “rich men” who are addressed, and the last part of the third verse shows that the time when they are thus addressed is in the “last days.” These verses are a prophecy, and the language is the most literal and clear, so that any one may readily understand it. Turn to the fifth chapter of James in your own Bible, and study each statement carefully and thoroughly. The first three verses are as follows:—

“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.”

There is certainly no sin in the simple matter of being rich; for the Scriptures say that “thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore unto thy fathers, as it is this day.” Deut. 8:18.

“It is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Any power or gift bestowed of God should be used. And if a man has the ability to accumulate wealth, he should exercise that ability.

But the acquiring of wealth must be accomplished in a proper and lawful manner. And the wealth after acquired should be properly used. There could be no right motive in getting money except to do good with it. A man with hoarded wealth that he is not using unselfishly in helping others, is committing a great wrong. And God will call him to account for the abuse of his intrusted talents.

In the “last days” there will be men who “heap treasure together” in an unlawful manner; for the text says, “Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth.” James 5:4. Then with what clearness does the Word of God tell us that “fraud” and the oppression of the “laborer” is the great factor in the “heaping together” of treasure in these last days.

And then the manner in which this heaped-up treasure is used is also stated in language of unmistakable clearness. Says the apostle, “Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.” James 5:5. Thus sin is added to sin. Fraud and the oppression of the laborer are exercised in heaping this wealth together, and then “wanton” “pleasures” and “nourishing the heart” “as in a day of slaughter” are indulged in. And all this in the touching and imploring presence of the greatest destitution! With the pitiful cries of the laborers ringing in their ears, these possessors of heaped-up wealth plunge deeper and ever deeper into their pleasures and sensual gratifications.

With this picture so vividly brought before our minds by these wonderful prophetic utterances, is it any wonder that the Lord sends a message of warning to the “rich” of these last days, couched in such expressive language? “Go to now,” says the inspired Word, “ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.” James 5:1. Then “miseries” will surely come upon the rich men that will cause them to “weep and howl.” It is a divine principle that “with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Matt. 7:1. And just as these men grind down the poor, and cause untold and indescribable suffering and miseries, even so is the day surely coming when their miseries will wring the bitterest cries and weeping from their unregenerate souls.

There is even now such a sentiment against the rich that it will require only a little spark to start an onslaught against them the like of which the world has never beheld. There are the men and women who are having their very lives ground out in the “sweat shops;” there are those who are employed in many of the great factories and other places where they can make only a few dollars per week with which to support their families; and then to these must be added the vast army of the destitute and unemployed who think that no work is given to them because the men of wealth have brought about conditions that make it impossible for the laborer to have his rights. God is mercifully holding all these elements in check now, while He appeals to rich and poor alike to turn from the errors of their ways. But when the last one of these days of probation is closed, and in that short time of trouble which immediately precedes the second coming of Christ, all of these elements will break loose, and the prophecy will be literally fulfilled that “there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time.” Dan. 12:1.

The man is indeed blind who can not see that the elements for this “time of trouble” are forming all over the world to-day. And the time can not be long delayed when it will be necessary for divine justice to say, “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.” The Lord has given them warning upon warning in His Word; still they pursue their wrong course. He even caused these warnings to be written hundreds of years before the “last days,” in which time they particularly apply; but, disregarding every warning and entreaty, they continue to pursue the course that their own enlightened consciences is telling them all the time is an evil way.

Their “riches are corrupted,” and their “garments are moth-eaten,” says the apostle. And continuing he says: “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.” James 5:2, 3. Thus these “last-days” rich men simply heap up treasure. They do not use it. It becomes “corrupted,” “moth-eaten,” and the “canker” and “rust” of this accumulated wealth is yet to “eat their flesh as it were fire.”

How can men be so hard-hearted as to simply pile up wealth beyond any possibility of ever using it, and while it is rusting and corrupting, they remain unmoved amid the moanings of destitution and distress? The “cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts.” And the Judge of all the earth has appointed a time of settlement. But before that time of final settlement, He is seeking to win all to the right paths,—to draw them into the blessed experiences of the tender love of God. Heed the voice of divine entreaty while probation still awaits you. T.