The Steward’s Accountability to God

The Steward’s Accountability to God THE STEWARD’S ACCOUNTABILITY TO GOD
Bv Yater Tant

Tonight when you leave this auditorium to return to your homes for a comfortable bed and a night of rest, more than 200,000,000 of your fellow-men will lie. down to sleep with hunger gnawing at their vitals. And ere the morning breaks many thousands of them will have, because of their sufferings, entered into a slumber from which the rising sun will not awaken them. One and a half times the population of our nat’on—they stand today by a terrible indictment of what we boastingly call our modern “civilization”: children with rickety limbs and sunken eyes, mothers with unspeakable despair in their hearts, fathers who are either desperate or resigned to death. And while these 200,000,000 are hungry and naked and destitute, there are another 20,000 who are daily being trained in ways and methods of increasing the sum total of human suffering. We refer to the standing armies of the earth, to these millions of men who are trained as butchers of humanity, and who are themselves sent forth to be slaughtered like cattle. From the four corners of the earth there ascends day and night one deafening crescendo of anguish, torn from the Jips of those whose lives are crushed by hunger, pain, brutality and human injustice. It is Rachel weeping for her children, and with her children she will not be comforted.

Surely no one can know all the factors involved, nor all the reasons for this continual blight of suffering on the earth. But one thing should be obvious to us all. And that is that this present chaoctic condition of world unrest, economic injustice, personal and political immorality is due, in large part, at least, to the prevailing philosophy of our times—a philosophy that in its essence is a blatant and raucous denial of the whole concept of stewardship. Mankind refuses to acknowledge that he is accountable to anything or anybody for what he thinks or says or does. The whole moral tone of our modern generation is that “it’s every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost/’ Instead of looking upon life as a sacred entrustment, for which an account must ultimately be given, the modern man is inclined to consider himself lord of life. He gloiies in his own power of soul and mind and body, and defies the whole universe to call him to account for anything. Nowhere is the philosophy of modernism more clearly expressed than in the pagan and blas-phemous cry of “Invietus”:

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.” In contrast with this boasting challenge, the Christian considers himself neither the master of his fate, nor the captain of his soul. His fate he has placed in the hands of another master; his soul into the keeping of another captain. His life is lived daily in recognition of the claims of other men and the call of another life. In a most vital sense the philosophy of Christianity is the very antithesis of this boasting cry. For Christianity regards all life as a stewardship. The Christian realizes his obligation to his fellowmen, to himself, and supremely to God. Man cannot live unto himself, nor die unto himself. He is accountable to his fellow- men. Even if we were avowed atheists we could not evade or escape that principle. As human beings we live in a society which was not of our creation; we partake of benefits which were not of our making; we enjoy privileges which are possible only because we belong to the group. This places man under an inescapable responsibility and duty to his fellows. It was the apostle Paul who said, Romans 1:14, “I am debtor both to Greeks and Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are at Rome.” He assumes his obligation to the race in this passage. He has something which he owes to humanity. He does not speak of any obligation to Christ, but rather ' “I owe it to you, my fellow-mortals.” This acceptance of our responsibility to human be-ings has ever been recognized by the finest minds of earth. When the immortal Lincoln stood that bleak November day on the tragic battlefield of Gettysburg and in his short speech of but two and one-half minutes duration gave utterance to one of the greatest of human discourses, it is not without significance that the climax of that talk comes in the recognition of man’s responsibility to his fellow man. He says, “It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaning before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the peo pie, shall not perish from the earth.” It was unpossible for his auditors to escape their feehng of responsibility. They had a sacred trust committed unto them The blood of their fellow men demanded an effort on their part worthy of that sacrifice. And may I lay it upon your hearts this morning that the tears and sweat and blood of our predecessors in the gospel of Christ place us today under a terrific obligation to them. We are stewards of a glorious heritage in Christ. From righteous Stephen, whose blood was poured out at the hands of an angry mob, on down through the long list of Christian martyrs, Polycarp, Huss, Savonarola, even to our own day the sacrifices of untold thousands places us under an obli-gation to them. By their blood the flame of faith was kept alive. Campbell and Stone, Lipscomb, Mc- Gary, and McGarvey, and a host of others have placed us in their debt. And we cannot break faith with those who gave their lives to the advancing of the kingdom of God.

Consider, too, that we are not only stewards of the benefits and privileges coming to us through our fel- lowmen, but in a very real sense each of us is accountable to his own highest self. If we cannot break faith with those who died, no less can we break faith with those who live, and with ourselves. Whatever else life may give or may deny, one thing is absolutely indispensable—that a man should not break faith with himself, that he will keep his honor bright in his own eyes; that whatever else may fail, he will not inwardly be a failure. Any of us may fail, yea all of us will fail; time and again we will fail in the things we attempt to do. It has been true of the greatest souls the earth has known. Socrates was executed by the state; Jesus was nailed to the cross; Paul was beheaded outside the gates of Rome, Livingstone died in the heart of Africa. All of these men knew the bitterest depths of failure; but not one of them was a failure in his own life. They had a certain central integrity of conscience which raised them above their failures, and we cannot know of them without realizing that they lived on high terms with themselves. They kept their white plumes; they kept their honor bright in their own eyes ; they came .into port with all flags flying.

Oh, how sadly the church today needs that sort of idealism! How desperately we need men who will look upon their honor, their conscience, their convictions, as a sacred trust; men who wiU die before betraying that trust. How desperately the time calls for men who will be true to their own highest Impulses and noblest ’deals; men who will not stoop to petty politics and unworthy methods to carry their point; men wTho will look upon their lives as a stewardship too sacred, to be sullied by participation ui anything low or base or ignoble. Cyrano de Bergerac wore a white plume, which to him was the symbol of his honor, of the right. Men laughed at his grotesque aDpearance, but if caught laughing, tney felt his sword. He loved his cousin, but she loved another who was merely beautiful and had no mind. Cyrano furnished the other with words of love to speak and to write, and m silence loved her to the end. Then sinking under the blow of an assassin, with his last breath he gasped, ‘‘But I have kept my white plume.’’ There are men hke that in every age, not merely in the age of Pichelieu. In this time of grave and disturbing influences in the church of the Lord, when many are fearful over a spirit of compromise and softness which seems to be evident throughout the land, there can be no thought quite so heartening as to know that there are men in the church who will not yield to pressure; there are men who value their own integrity higher than they value the favor of their fellows; there are men who will suffer every hardship and every adversity before they will give an inch to that which they believe to be wrong, They have convictions which are not subject to the veering tides of popular favor, and live or die, they will follow the right as God gives them to see the right. They have an inner self which is true and noble and they are determined not to break faith with them-selves. That is the spirit which guarantees the future for us; that is the spirit which all of us must seek to cultivate. If we cannot live at peace with others, if we cannot have the approval of others, we must have our own self-respect and be at peace with our own hearts:

“I have to live with myself, and so
I want to be fit for myself to know;
Always to look myself straight in the eye.
I don't want to stand with the setting sun
And hate inyself for the things I’ve done.
I want to go out with my head erect;
I want to deserve all men’s respect;
But here in the struggle for fame and self
I want to be able to like myself.
I don’t want to look at myself and know
That I’m bluster and bluff and empty show.
I never can fool myself, and so whatever happens I want to be
Self-respecting and conscience free.”

Man owes an obligation and a responsibility to the race because he partakes of benefits through the race; he owes it to himself to be true to the highest that is in him because only in this way can he really be at peace with himself and with others. But in all we’ve been saying there is neither pomt nor merit unless man also recognizes above his obligation to his fellow men or himself his obligation to God. It is his accountability as a steward toward God that gives meaning and significance to his stewardship toward the race and toward himself. Eliminate God from the picture and all other obligations are without substance or foundation. Destroy man’s sense of obligation to God, and you have destroyed the very basis of all sense of obligation. Historically, the race has never been able to devise a philosophy or a system of morals or ethics which would work without the motivating power of a belief in divinity. It is this inner conviction of our accountability to God that makes of man a moral being; it is this deeper and more vital relationship that makes possible the carrying out of our other obligations.
For one thing man is accountable unto God because his life has been created, and is sustained, by God. In Romans 9, Paul argues quite forcefully the absolute sovereignty of God in this respect. “Hath not the potter a right over the clay?” he asks. Since we are God’s creation, and have been formed from the dust of the earth only by his express will and desire, our lives are not our own; they belong to him. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein,” said David in the 24th Psalm. Thus by the highest and most universally recognized of all rights, that of ownership by creation, the human race is responsible to God. In view of this fact, how absurdly stupid is the attitude of the rich fool of Luke 12. When his fields through the workings of God brought forth an abundant harvest, he took all the credit to himself, thinking only of the advantage to his own selfish desires. “What shall I do?” said he. “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?” The fatal mistake of this man was in thinking only of himself; he laid up treasure “for himself,” refusing to acknowledge his responsibility either toward his fellow- man or toward God. He had denied any obligation to his Creator; he had betrayed his stewardship. In this second place, this responsibility toward God arises not only from God’s having created us, but also from his having made known his will for us. If he had made no revelation of his will, if he had left man to grope- his way up to moral and religious truth, as he has to scientific and political truth, then man might indeed be excusable for blunders and mistakes and perversions of the truth. But in the realm of the soul and spirit God has not left himself without witness. All nature declares the existence of a supreme being. David said in the 19th Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” And Paul tells us that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” But the heavens and the world of nature could never reveal to us the will of God. They could, and do, declare God; but it takes the Bible to reveal God. We know that God is from nature; we know what God is from the Bible. And it is here that he makes known his will and the terms of our stewardship.

Ignorance of the law has never been regarded by mankind as a justifiable excuse for violation of that law. But this holds true only where knowledge of the law is possible. If it were utterly impossible for a man to know the law, then it would be absurd to hold him morally accountable for its violation. If God had not revealed himself to man, or if he had revealed his will in such a way that man could not understand it, or if he had even couched his revelation in mysteries that could only be solved by the learned and erudite, then we might plead some justification for man’s failure to obey God. But obviously such has not been the case. In Europe during the middle ages it was quite common to bring animals into court and make them stand trial. In the current issue of Reader’s Digest there is quite a long list of such trials —in the Norman town of Falaise in 1386 a pig was tried for the murder of an infant. The pig was convicted, and the court gravely ordered that the luckless porker should be beheaded. He was dressed in human clothes, whipped and maimed before being brought to the block and having his cranial extremity separated from the rest of his carcass. A horse was executed in Dion for homicide in 1693, and there was a lengthy and complicated trial of a bear which raided certain Schwarzwald villages in 1499. The lawyer for the defense came near winning an acquittal for the bear when he insisted that Mr. Bruin be tried by a jury of his peers!

This, of course, strikes us as the height of absurdity. But it is no more absurd than would be a God who would hold men accountable without making it possible for them to know his will. In a moral universe such a thing is absolutely inconceivable. Man is either not accountable to God, or else God has revealed his will to man. But the universal testimony of the race is that man is accountable—even the atheist, however much he may hate the idea, deep in his heart has an inescapable sense of right and duty. He knows that nothing on earth can destroy that inner conviction, nothing can remove it from his intelligence. That God has revealed his will to man must be conceded by every rational man who believes in the existence of God; that the Bible is the highest and most complete form of that revelation is a fact equally open to demonstration, but is not within the realm of our present discussion. It needs hardly more than passing comment. By every worthy canon or judging of the merit of a book, the Bible must be accorded first place in all the literature of the earth. For aim, content, clearness of purpose, and intelligibility of language, it is unsurpassed. There is no work of man in existence which could deal with such profound and tremendous themes in such simple and intelligible language. Truly, God has spoken in terms that even the lowliest can comprehend. In making known his will God has not only told what he wants done, but has shown exactly how it is to be accomplished. Back to the original meaning of stewardship, the master has not only given over his land and his goods to the steward, but has told the steward exactly how he wants the land cultivated, and how he wants the goods cared for. In the other lectures of this series the method and extent of this divine entrustment have been clearly outlined. Man’s life, his property, his time, his strength belong to God. And in all things, God’s will having been made clear, he must consider himself accountable to God. But there is one other thing necessary in this tri- ology of forces which make us accountable. And that is the motive for obedience which is brought to bear. God has created man; therefore, man is accountable to him. God has made known his will to man, thus increasing that responsibility, and in the third place, God has urged upon man every conceivable motive to bring him into obedience to that will.

God has appealed to man’s understanding, his in-telligence, his reason. In Isaiah 1:18 are found these words: “Come let us reason together, saith the Lord.” The service of God is a rational, intelligent service. The invitation of Christ, when people would inquire into either his home or his teachings is always, “Come and see for yourselves.” His religion is not one of pure emotionalism; it is not merely a pleonastic platform of pious platitudes. Paul says the presentation of our bodies as living sacrifices unto God is a “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1).

Again, God makes his appeal to our conscience. Deep within the soul of every mortal there is that faculty of being which either approves or disapproves our decisions. We call this faculty conscience. Of some things the whole human race says, “this is right,” of other things, “this is wrong.” This moral capacity, this ability to discern between right and wrong is unique in man; no other earthly creature possesses it. And it is to this attribute that the Lord makes his appeal. For example, “Children, obey your parents, for this is right.” Not only to man’s understanding, and his conscience, but also to his self-interest is God’s appeal. He pictures to us the inevitable end of certain ways of life, and says “Choose ye.” By example and precept it is shown that the way of the transgressor is hard; that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap; that God will bring every work into judgment with every hidden thing; that the wages of sin is death. And on the other hand is shown the fruit of the spirit, joy, peace, love, self-control, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and finally the gift of God which is eternal life. The two lives are set before man; the horror and awful degredation of the one is shown; the supreme happiness and exalted beauty of the other is shown. And man is told, “Choose ye.” But the greatest appeal God makes is to man’s af-fections. We acknowledge him as our Lord and Master because we love him;. And we love him because he first loved us. The tragic reality and poignant sacrifice of that old rugged cross must ever touch the hearts of those who are right-thinking and fair minded. This is the demonstration of God’s love which is the compelling motive for man’s obedience. God made man in his own image, gave him all the dominion of nature for his habitation, revealed the gospel truth to him, and then that his heart might be reached gave his only begotten Son to suffer and die for man’s sins. Ah, friends, it is at the foot of the cross that we are forced to bow our stubborn wills and acknowledge our debt to God:

Under an Eastern sky,
Amid a rabble’s cry
A man went forth to die For me.
Thorn-crowned his blessed head,
Blood-stained his every tread,
Cross laden on he sped For me.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did ere such love and sorrow meet?
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all.