Verse 12
That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.
The disciplinary and educational function of business, and some of the dangers that assail those engaged in it
I. Whatever their motives may be, businessmen are actually practising daily and hourly the christian virtues of faith or foresight, prudence, self-control, self-denial, temperance, uprightness. The characteristic virtues of the business world are Christian virtues every one, and in adopting them men have acknowledged the excellence of Christianity. Self-indulgence is recognized as folly, as the foe to all happiness and manliness. Self-denial, self-control, is known in the practical affairs of life to be the condition of all success. Thus far, then, men have learned the great lesson of the Cross, and have taken its principles to be the rules of business life. Therefore it is that, if rightly and wisely conducted, there is no better discipline for the formation of character than business. It teaches in its own way the peculiar value of regard for other’s interests, of spotless integrity, of unimpeachable righteousness; and the busy activities of life, in themselves considered, are good and not evil. They are a part of God’s great work, and are as much His appointment as the services of praise and prayer.
II. Though beyond all question the business energies of the age have been reinforced and guided by the gospel, until discipline, temperance, and self-control have become their permanent characteristics, and though beyond all question the business pursuits of the age are recognized by Christian thinkers and economists as departments of human culture and as part of God’s administration of the world, yet businessmen, with all their earnestness and sagacity, are peculiarly liable to be blind to these high considerations and ignorant of this great economy. There are two dangers by which they are continually liable to be betrayed: one is selfishness, and the other is worldliness.
1. Profit, of course, is the very essence of success in business. Yet the making of profit is apt to become an absorbing passion with the eager businessman for its own sake. His ordinary relations with men are apt to be more or less controlled by it. He pretty soon begins to wish to make his association pay, and his friendships, and his politics, and everything that he is and has and does. And if he is successful, a certain selfish pride establishes itself in his heart. Then comes avarice, that amazing and monstrous passion of the soul which loves money for its own sake, which grows on what it feeds on, which never can be appeased, never has enough. Woe to the man who sinks into this slavery.
2. Men are simply absorbed and engrossed and satisfied with their business pursuits and interests, and so neglect and forget their religious and eternal interests. Man is more than a denizen of this world. There is a hunger of the heart which nothing but God can appease; a thirst of the soul which nothing but God can satisfy. “That ye may walk honourably toward them that are without.” What can give this, spite of poverty or wealth, but the Christian conscience which is void of offence toward man and God? “That ye may have lack of nothing.” What can assure this, but the Spirit of adoption, which bears witness with our spirit that we are children and heirs of God? (Bp. S. S. Harris.)
Motives to industry
I. It is right. “That ye may walk honestly.”
1. Idleness exposes men to three forms of dishonesty--
(1) Unlawful dependence on others. We have no right to ask or receive the produce of another’s labour when we are perfectly able to have produce of our own. This belongs to him and we filch it when we take it without value returned. It is taking the bread out of his mouth. All beggars, loungers, and loafers of all classes come under this category--labourers, genteel placemen, ministerial sinecurists.
(2) Thievery. The thief is not usually one who can’t, but one who won’t work. To rob requires abilities which if honestly employed would secure adequate remuneration. But the thief likes his calling because of the idle leisure it promises, and the love of display which its wicked gains may gratify.
(3) Gambling--the vice of which consists in getting that for which nothing, is given, involving the rightful owner in loss. That he might have been the garner is no justification, but a condemnation of both parties. This, too, springs from love of ease, from love of excitement, and from the feverish desire to be rich without the legitimate pains.
2. Honest industry avoids these temptations and secures--
(1) Independence, which is worth all that is requisite to secure it. The worker could not stoop to the base cringing necessary to reap the paltry gains of the parasite, and mercifully escapes the contempt to which the idle dependent is exposed.
(2) Nobility of soul which would scorn to take an undue advantage of another.
II. It is profitable. “That ye may have lack of nothing.” This is perfectly legitimate as a subordinate motive, and is one of the mainstays of civilization and philanthropy. The idea involves--
1. The economy of the results of labour. To gain a competence thrift, temperance, and forethought are necessary. How many men honest and industrious enough, and with every means of acquiring a competency from time to time “lack” everything from their thriftless ways. But while honest to others they are dishonest to themselves. Frugality must enter into any large meaning of honesty.
2. The use of the results of labour--
(1) In domestic requirements.
(2) For charitable purposes.
(3) For the promotion of religion. (J. W. Burn.)
Honesty
When James II, sent his Jacobite emissary to seduce the commanders of the British navy, he reported that Sir Cloudesley Shovel was in corruptible; “He is a man not to be spoken to,” was the emissary’s tribute. (C. E. Little.)
Honesty rewarded
A farmer called on Earl Fitzwilliam to represent that his crop of wheat had been seriously injured in a field adjoining a certain wood where his lordship’s hounds had, during the winter, frequently met. He stated that the young wheat had been so cut up and destroyed that in some parts he could not hope for any produce. “Well, my friend,” said his lordship, “if you can procure an estimate of the loss you have sustained I will repay you.” The farmer replied that he had requested a friend to assist him in estimating the damage, and they thought that, as the crop seemed entirely destroyed, £50 would not more than repay him. The Earl immediately gave him the money. As the harvest approached, however, the wheat grew, and in those parts of the field which were the most trampled the corn was strongest and most luxuriant. The farmer went again to his lordship, and said, “I am come, my lord, respecting the field of wheat adjoining such a wood. I find that I have sustained no loss at all; for where the horses had most cut up the land the crop is most promising, and therefore I brought the £50 back again.” “Ah,” exclaimed the venerable Earl, “this is what I like! this is as it should be between man and man!” His lordship then went into another room, and on returning, presented the farmer with a cheque for £100, saying, “Take care of this, and when your eldest son shall become of age present it to him, and tell him the occasion which produced it.”
Honesty towards those without
Only a few weeks ago, a missionary in China took his gun to go up one of the rivers of the interior to shoot wild ducks; and, as he went along in the boat, he shot at some ducks, and down they fell; unfortunately they did not happen to be wild fowl, but tame ducks belonging to some neighbours. The owner was miles away, but the boat was drawn up to the side of the river, and the missionary went about carefully endeavouring to find out the owner of the ducks, for he could not rest until he had paid for the damage he had ignorantly done. The owner was much surprised, he had been so accustomed to have people shoot his ducks and never say a word about it, that he could not understand the honesty of the man of God, and he told others, until crowds of Chinese gathered round and stared at the missionary as if he had dropped from the moon; a man so extremely honest as not to be willing to take away ducks when he had killed them! They listened to the gospel with attention, and observed that the teaching must be good which made people so conscientious as the missionary had been. I should not wonder but what that little accident did more for the gospel than the preaching of twenty sermons might have done without it. So let it be with us; let us so act in every position that we shall adorn the gospel which is committed to our trust. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Exemplary honesty
When this church was built, the President of the Board of Trustees called together every contractor and every mechanic that had worked upon it to ask if any of them had lost money by a too close contract in its construction; and the welcome reply came to us, on the part of every single man, “We are content: we have made a reasonable profit on the work.” And I think the blessing of God has rested on this Church from that day to this, in that it was honest. Nor do I know that this Church has ever committed an act, even through carelessness or forgetfulness, of dishonesty in the matter of the management of its fiscal affairs. (H. W. Beecher.)
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