CHRIST AND ECONOMY by L. A. Reed

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1900

CHRIST AND ECONOMY.

By L. A. Reed

L. A. REED. (Jacksonville, Ill.)

True economy is not to hoard whatever we can, and as much as we can. It is to make the best possible use of our opportunities, abilities, and powers. The monopolist is not the true economist. The miser is far from being economical. Take the example of that rich man, rich in this world’s goods, who was poverty stricken so far as eternal things are concerned; was he economical?—He had wasted the most and the best that had come to him; he had thrown it all away. He died as poor as any creature of earth. When he died, he had nothing. Is that economy?

“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” He felt a great deal of satisfaction in the situation; he felt that he was planning wisely and doing well. But God thought differently. “God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

And now, mark the lesson, “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” “So is he,”—“so;” what is the meaning of that word “so”?—The meaning is that this same thing that happened to this rich man will happen to every man that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. And what happened to this rich man?

But a moment’s consideration shows us that an awful thing came at the last to him. And it is this same awful thing that is to come to all who do as he did. It happens at the last that God requires the soul, and then the man is poorer than any beggar under the sun. Poverty is too shallow a name, too weak a word, to cover the awful condition of one who loses property, body, and soul, all in one fell moment.

Is there any pain in being cut off from all you love? Is it severe to be separated from the things you love and hold dear? All the ills of life are summed up in separations, in partings. What are disappointments but the losing of what we have had or have hoped to have? There is no sorrow but the sorrow of deprivations. There is no pain in this world but the pain of lacking. All of hell is simply this: to lose, to part with, to separate from, all that we love and hope for.

Some may object to this, and say that some pain consists in having things we would be glad to lose; but this is but another way of saying that we have not some of the things that would make us happy. The invalid may have disease, and long to be rid of it; but this is only to say that he has lost health. We say the poor man has his poverty; but what is poverty?—It is merely to have nothing. No; all of sorrow, all of pain, all of sin, all of death, all of hell, with all of the awful anguish of them all, consists only in not having, in being separated forever, in being cruelly torn away from, the things that belong to the true and happy life.

This is the penalty that the miser pays; this is the harvest that the monopolist reaps; this is the hell that confronts the selfish; it is the doom of him who has not been truly economical.

There are partings in this world, and no man can evade them all; there are some things to be lost, and no one but must lose his part. But there are things that no man need give up; there are things he may keep forever. I read that Mary chose that good part that shall never be taken from her. Some choose things they can not keep; that is, they seek to save that which can not be saved, or that can not be saved in the way they seek to save them. Surely this is not economy.

The teachings of Jesus Christ are simply to point out the things that may be kept, and the way by which to keep them; and also to point out the things that sooner or later must be given up, and to show us the way and give us the heart to give them up. And since this is nothing more nor less than true economy, and since Christ Jesus came down to earth for this one purpose, we begin to realize the fact that the revelation of Jesus Christ, similarly with the revelation of nature, is but a revelation of true economy.