Rusty Money
James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, had caught the Lord's very language as well as His thought. He says, "Your gold and silver are rusted, and their rust shall be for a testimony against you."[36] It would seem as though there were quite a bit of rusty money entered in Christian names and controlled by Christian people. It is lying in vaults, and lands, and savings-societies, and old stockings, gathering rust.

It is in sore need. It needs friction, the friction of use. Without that its real, rare value will be completely lost. It is furnishing food for moths when it was meant to be furnishing food for men, bread of wheat and bread of life. There'll be many a striking scene when some men come up into the Master's presence with loaded purses, "caught with the goods," while millions of their brothers are living such pitiable lives because of their ignorance of Jesus.

But there are men who do understand. And their number is increasing. There are those who understand the Master's basis for conducting their business matters. That basis is shrewd, faithful management of the business itself as good stewards of God; full, proper provision for home and loved ones -- simple, but ample and intelligent; and then all the rest out in active service for men in Jesus' name. If that basis were more largely understood and accepted, what wondrous changes would come; changes out in the world, and changes in the home, and changes in the home church.

Many men are supporting their own representatives in the foreign field. Many a church now sustains its own missionary or missionaries. The ideal toward which the Church might well aim is that every family should have its own missionary. The real unit of life is the family. The children would then grow up with the world-vision dearly and deeply marked. There are thousands of families in circumstances that are reckoned moderate that could support a missionary by planning. But the relationship should be carefully kept one of warm sympathy and prayer, as well as one of money. The reflex blessing upon the home would be immeasurable in its sweetness and extent.



Royal Murderers
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