Gambling and Stealing by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 11.

Gambling and Stealing

By Editor

Some curious distinctions are allowed where there is a disposition to apologize for certain features of human weakness. For instance, a newspaper editor speaks of a certain “naturally honest” man whose “fatal passion” for “gambling” led him “to steal to gratify its craving.” Gambling and stealing are sprouts from the same root—covetousness. All schemes to get rich at the expense of other people spring from the same root. The gambler and the thief both aim to get something for nothing, but they choose different methods. It is only the judgment of men that allows one to pass as honest and respectable, while the other is summarily condemned. The judgment of God makes no discrimination between “a demoralizing vice” and a vice which may happen to be forbidden by civil law; the divine law takes cognizance of the covetousness that lies at the bottom of both. The really important matter is not the fine discrimination of men, but how will it stand in the great final judgment, when He who judges the hearts of men shall render His decision? “For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” And we are further assured that His Word is “quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.” So the fallible judgment of man, who “looketh on the outward appearance,” will have no weight in that infallible court. Hence the exhortation, “Prepare to meet thy God.”