"By faith Moses...refused..."
(Heb. 11:24).
Faith is the refusal of the small, for the sake of the large. Faith will make no decision, take no step, merely from worldly motives; for it sees past the immediate good to a richer, grander good. Worldly-wisdom is not wisdom; it is folly, the blind grasping at what is within reach. It is folly, for any present good, to cut yourself off from your true life. A good conscience, peace of heart, faith, the vision of God, the hope of glory--it is a fool's bargain (let pot-house moralists prate as they may) to barter these for any mess of pottage. To rake in the dust-heap for scraps of treasure heedless of the golden crown to be had for the looking and the taking--that was Lot's choice, and that is the choice of every soul who seeks first the world. Demas thought he was doing a wise thing in leaving Paul when earthly success seemed lost, but this present world, seductive though it was to him, however much it brought him, was a poor, a contemptible exchange for the days and nights with Paul, and the life lived by the Son of God. And his name is an infamy. Lot thought he was doing a wise thing in making the choice he did, but a share in the wealth of Sodom was a pitiful substitute for a place in Abram's company, and a share in Abram's thoughts and faith. And the end was a ruined home, a desolate life, and a broken heart.
Which is the wiser choice? Paul and a Roman prison and Jesus Christ--or Demas and the present world and an apostate's mind? Abram and the barren hillside and God--or Lot and the cities of the plain and Sodom's shame?
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Hugh Black was a Scottish-American theologian and author.
Black was born on March 26, 1868 in Rothesay, Scotland. He received a Master of Arts degree from Glasgow University in 1887, and studied divinity at Free Church College in Glasgow from 1887 until 1891. Black was ordained in 1891 and became associate pastor at St. George's Free Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh in 1896, where he worked with Alexander Whyte.
Black emigrated to the United States in 1906 to accept the position of chair of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Yale University in 1908 and from Princeton University and Glasgow University in 1911, and later accepted a position of pastor of the First Congregational Church in Montclair, New Jersey. Black retired from Union Theological Seminary in 1938.
Black also authored numerous books and sermons.