p. 34 | THE ECONOMY OF NATURE by L. A. Reed

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1900

THE ECONOMY OF NATURE.

By L. A. Reed

L. A. REED.

(Jacksonville, Ill.)

We have said that God in all his dealings is most lavishly generous, and yet most rigidly economical. This is a seeming paradox. How can God be both generous and economical?—In the same way that he is both merciful and just.

“Nature is a rigid economist. In her household there is no waste. Everything is utilized to the utmost: the decay of rocks forms the soil of plants; and the decay of plants forms the mold in which future plants will grow. The sunlight and carbonic acid gas of past ages, which seemed to be wasted upon a desert world, have been stored up in the form of coal for the benefit of man. The water that seems to be dissipated in the air descends in dew and rain to refresh and quicken the earth. The matter that has served its purpose in one object goes by death and decomposition to form another object with a different purpose to serve. The materials which the animal kingdom receives from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms must be restored in order that they may be carefully circulated, without diminution or waste, over the whole earth. The gases that disappear in one form reappear in another. Forces are changed into their equivalents. Heat becomes motion, and motion heat. Nowhere is there any waste. In the ashes of every fire, in the decay of every plant, in the death and decomposition of every animal, there is change; but not loss: death; but not waste. Everything is made the most of. The fragments of every product of nature are gathered up carefully, and made to serve a useful purpose in a new form at nature’s feast. Amid all her LAVISHNESS nature is very SAVING.”

And yet you see how she saves,—not as the miser saves, by hoarding; her methods are far different. She saves by making the most of everything. And here we have a lesson. He is not the most economical who saves most; he is not the best economist who accumulates the largest pile. Of such Christ says, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” But he is truly economical who makes the very best use of all that comes to him. Economy is the right use of the gifts of God.

God gives no allowance to monopoly. If God retained all that he might retain, for his own individual use, neither you nor I could exist. And when you or I hoard for ourselves the things of God, we are not acting as he acts. All things were his; he might have retained them, but he did not. All things are his; we have no possible right to retain them; and shall we? Surely if we follow the example of God, we can not. “Freely ye have received, freely give.” If God has given you the grandest system of truth that mortals ever knew, dare you hoard it? If he has told you that which is of the utmost value to all mankind, will you keep it from them? If he has given you of this world’s goods, will you use them selfishly? If he has given you mental powers, will you spend them upon your own lusts? If so, then we shall be like the man that laid up treasure for himself, and was not rich toward God. Then we shall be like the fig-tree that bore no fruit. Then shall we be like the man with the one talent. And, like them, we shall have our just reward; for from us shall be taken away even that which we have. “Then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that LAYETH UP TREASURE FOR HIMSELF, and is not rich toward God.”

God help us to give to others that which he has committed to us. God help us to teach the truths for this time. God help us to use the wealth of this world as becometh faithful Christians. God help us to pay an honest tithe. And God help us to spend and be spent, even as the example of Christ and of all nature teaches us. So shall we be truly generous and genuinely economical. And so, too, shall we be rich toward God, and an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto us into his glorious kingdom. For in that day he shall say to us, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, . . . enter in.” And our hearts cry out in glad expectancy, “Even so, amen.”