In Christian preaching, wealth and generosity explore the spiritual challenges and responsibilities tied to material riches, emphasizing that true treasure lies in godly contentment and a generous heart (1 Timothy 6:10). Illustrations often use images of burdens, misers, and fleeting riches to warn against greed and highlight the eternal value of sharing and faithful stewardship (Matthew 6:19-21).
Money cannot buy entrance to heaven or true happiness.
A London newspaper offered a prize for the best definition of money. It was awarded to a young man whose definition was, "Money is an article which may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven and as a universal provider of everything except happiness."
Excessive wealth can hinder spiritual joy; contentment and God's riches suffice.
"A garment which is too long trails in the mire and soon becomes a dirty rag; and it is easy for large estates to become much the same. It is a hard lesson to learn to abound; (Phil. iv. 12). We say such a one would do well to be a lord or a lady; but it is a harder thing than we think it to be." It is hard to carry a full cup with a steady hand. High places are dizzy places, and full many have fallen to their eternal ruin through climbing aloft without having grace to look up. The simile of the trailing garment used by Manton is simple, but instructive. Such robes raise a dust, and gather upon themselves all sorts of filthiness, besides being subjected to needless wear and tear. A man may have so much of this world that he misses the next. His long robe may trip him up in the race for the heavenly prize, and he may fall a victim to the wealth he idolized. Alas, for the poor rich! Faring sumptuously every day, and yet full often strangers to that deep and peerless joy which belongs to those who, in the deep waters of poverty, find a boundless bliss in trusting God. When the rich are saved they should count it a miracle of grace, and feel great gratitude to him who enables a camel to go through the eye of a needle, notwithstanding his hump. Lord, give me neither poverty nor riches; or, rather, be thou my riches, and give thyself to me. As for all else, I would leave myself without reserve in thy hands.
A miser's greed can cause physical harm and spiritual emptiness despite great wealth.
Ostervald, a well-known banker, died at Paris, literally of want. This man felt the violence of the disease of avarice so strongly, that, within a few days of his death, no importunities could induce him to buy a few pounds of meat for the purpose of making a little soup for him. "Tis true," said he, "I should not dislike the soup; but I have no appetite for the meat; what, then, is to become of that?" At the time that he refused this nourishment, for fear of being obliged to give away two or three pounds of meat, there was tied round his neck a silken bag, which contained eight hundred bank-notes of a thousand francs each.
Misers are so attached to money they cannot freely give, causing spiritual coldness.
MISERS, Treatment of There is a perpetual frost in the pockets of some wealthy people: as soon as they put their hands into them, they are frozen, and unable to draw out their purses. Had I my way, I would hang all misers; but the reverse of the common mode: I would hang them up by the heels, that their money might run out of their pockets, and make a famous scramble for you to pick up and put in the plate. Rowland Hill.
A wealthy man's deathbed remorse warns against valuing riches over soul salvation.
A gentleman died recently at his residence in one of our uptown fashionable streets, leaving eleven millions of dollars. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, in excellent standing, a good husband and father, and a thrifty citizen. On his death-bed, he suffered with great agony of mind, and gave continual expression to his remorse for what his conscience told him had been an ill-spent life. "Oh!" he exclaimed; and his weeping friends and relations gathered about his bed, — "oh, if I could only live my years over again! Oh! if I could only be spared for a few years, I would give all the wealth I have amassed in a life-time. It is a life devoted to money-getting that I regret. It is this which weighs me down, and makes me despair of the life hereafter." His clergyman endeavored to soothe him; but he turned his face to the wall. "You have never reproved my avaricious spirit," he said to the minister. "You have called it a wise economy and forethought; but I now know that riches have been only a snare for my poor soul. I would give all I possess to have hope for my poor soul!" The terror and remorse of his death-bed administered a lesson not to be lightly dismissed from memory. N. Y. Daily Star.
Riches are temporary burdens that leave only marks of sin when life ends.
It were no bad comparison to liken mere rich men to camels and mules; for they often pursue their devious way over hills and mountains, laden with India purple, with gems, aromas, and generous wines upon their backs, attended, too, by a long line of servants as a safeguard on their way. Soon, however, they come to their evening halting-place, and forthwith their precious burdens are taken from their backs; and they, now wearied, and stripped of their lading and their retinue of slaves, show nothing but livid marks of stripes. So, also, those who glitter in gold and purple raiment, when the evening of life comes rushing on them, have nought to show but marks and wounds of sin impressed upon them by the evil use of riches. St. Augustine.
Riches bring burdens of care, fear, temptation, guilt, sorrow, and final accountability.
The Hebrew word signifies "heavy." For riches are a burden; and they that will be rich do but load themselves with thick clay. There is a burden of care in getting them, of fear in keeping them, of temptation in using them, of guilt in abusing them, of sorrow in losing them, and a burden of accounts at last to be given up concerning them. Henry.
Riches are uncertain and easily lost through many unforeseen dangers and deceit.
He that sees a flock of birds sitting on his ground cannot make sure of them; so he that has riches, and thinks himself fully possessed of them, may be deceived, and soon deprived of them. A small spark of fire may set them flying, a thief may steal them, an unfaithful servant may embezzle them. A soldier, a wreck at sea, a bad debtor at land, — there's a hundred ways to set them packing. They have wings, and hop from branch to branch, from one man to another; seldom to him that is the true owner of them. Spencer.
Clinging to riches can lead to ruin and death, as illustrated by the drowning passenger.
When the Washington steamer was burnt, one of the passengers, on the first alarm of fire, ran to his trunk, and took from it a large amount of gold and silver coin, and, loading his pockets, ran to the deck, and jumped overboard. As a necessary consequence, he went down immediately. His treasure was his ruin.
A wealthy man’s epitaph 'most miserable' shows riches do not guarantee happiness.
In one of England's great cathedrals rests one whose gravestone, according to his own directions, bears but the single word, Miserrimus, "most miserable." He was a man of wealth and position, or his sepulchre could not have been there. This is not an infrequent confession of the rich.
A self-made millionaire declared his life a failure despite great wealth.
A gentleman of this city, who rose from a boy in the poorhouse to the possession of eight millions, acquired by his own energy, died recently amid deep regret, declaring that his life had been a failure.
Great wealth can be lost, leaving even the richest dependent on charity.
Cressus, whose name is a synonyme for great wealth, was himself taken captive, stripped of all his treasures, and in old age was supported by the charity of Cyrus.
Sharing wealth leads to its increase, unlike selfishly hoarding it.
Read to. You want to double your riches, and without gambling or stock-jobbing. Share it. Whether it be material or intellectual, its rapid increase will amaze you. What would the sun have been, had he folded himself up in darkness? Surely he would have gone out. So would Socrates. This road to wealth seems to have been discovered some three thousand years ago; at least, it was known to Hesiod, and has been recommended by him in the one precious line he has left us. But even he complains of the fools, who did not know that half is more than the whole. And ever since, though mankind have always been in full chase after riches, though they have not feared to follow Columbus and Gama in chase of it, though they have waded through blood, and crept through falsehood, and trampled on their own hearts, and been ready to ride on a broomstick, in chase of it, very few have ever taken the road, albeit the easiest, the shortest, and the surest. Hare.
Wise rules for handling riches include balanced joy, care, and sorrow in wealth.
A London merchant wrote down these four rules for his own guidance, and embodied them in his practice for fifty years. "If rich, be not too joyful in having, too solicitous in keeping, too anxious in increasing, nor too sorrowful in losing." The Lord gave him wealth, and he used it well.
— Denton
True riches are measured by the heart's character, not material possessions.
No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has. Beecher.
Worldly riches fail to satisfy like nuts that don't fill the belly.
Worldly riches are like nuts: many clothes are torn in getting them, many a tooth broke in cracking them; but never a belly filled with eating them.
— Venning
Riches are useless after death, highlighting their vanity and temporal nature.
A distinguished man lay on his death-bed, when a great mark of distinction and honor was brought to him. Turning a cold glance on the treasure he would once have clutched with an eager grasp, he said with a sigh, "Alas! this is a very fine thing in this country; but I am going to a country where it will be of no use to me."
— Dr. Haven
Wicked riches are deceptive and harmful, like poisoned gifts that destroy.
Such riches are deceitful shadows, which cover an apparent good under an undoubted evil: they are hands that take their master by the throat; they are poniards with a golden haft, which delight the eyes with vain seemings, and pierce the heart with mortal wounds; they are precipices furnished with precious jewels, such as Heliogabalus desired to illustrate his death with; they are heights which are not measured but by their falls; they are deadly poisons steeped in a golden cup. N. Caussin.
Wealth alone cannot bring true happiness or satisfy the soul.
The insufficiency of mere wealth alone to confer happiness is strikingly illustrated in the life of Nathan Myers Rothschild, the Jew, who died in London some thirty or forty years ago, one of the most devoted worshippers that ever laid a withered soul on the altar of Mammon. For years, he wielded the purse of the world, opening and closing it to kings and emperors as he listed; and, upon certain occasions, was supposed to have more influence in Great Britain than the proudest and wealthiest of its nobles, — perhaps more influence than the Houses of Parliament taken together. He once purchased bills of the government, in a single day, to the amount of twenty million dollars, and, with the profits on a single loan, purchased an estate at the cost of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Yet, with all his colossal wealth, he was a miserable man, and, with sorrowful earnestness, once exclaimed to a gentleman who was congratulating him on the gorgeous magnificence of his palatial mansion, and thence inferring that he was happy, "Happy! me happy!"
Wealth and treasures are left behind at death, showing their ultimate futility.
Mahmoud, the first Mohammedan conqueror who entered India, when a mortal disease was consuming him, ordered all his costly apparel, and his vessels of silver and gold, and his pearls and precious stones, to be displayed before him. In the royal residence at Ghuiznee, which he called the Palace of Felicity, he drew from this display, wherewith he had formerly gratified the pride of his eye, a mournful lesson, and wept like a child. "What toils," said he, "what dangers, what fatigues, both of body and mind, have I endured for the sake of acquiring these treasures, and what cares in preserving them! and now I am about to die and leave them."
Moderate wealth lasts longer and great riches often quickly vanish, leading to poverty.
There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads upon the heels of great and unexpected riches. La Bruyère.
The joy of pursuing wealth fades, leaving only lifeless treasures like desert pyramids.
Very few men acquire wealth in such a manner as to receive pleasure from it. Just as long as there is the enthusiasm of the chase, they enjoy it; but when they begin to look around, and think of settling down, they find that that part by which joy enters is dead in them. They have spent their lives in heaping up colossal piles of treasure, which stand, at the end, like the Pyramids in the desert sands, holding only the dust of kings. Beecher.
Life's value is not measured by possessions or wealth.
We say a man is "made." What do we mean?—only that he is worth five hundred thousand dollars. And we say a man is ruined when he has lost his property. When shall we learn that "a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth"?
A rich man’s careful saving contrasts with his son’s wasteful life ending in poverty.
An old woman, who showed the house and pictures at Towcester, expressed herself in these remarkable words:—"That is Sir Robert Farmer; he lived in the country, took care of his estate, built this house, and paid for it; managed well, saved money, and died rich.—That is his son. He was made a lord, took a place at court, spent his estate, and died a beggar." A very concise, but full account, and fraught with a valuable moral lesson. "He layeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them."
Constantine showed a miser that all his earthly riches would be reduced to a small grave.
Constantine the Great, in order to reclaim a miser, took a lance and marked out a space of ground of the size of the human body, and told him, devoted female), and found every fact had been correctly reported to me. O, sir, what cannot the gospel do to gird weakness with strength, and make even the gentleness of a modest, retiring woman resolute to act for God. How such efforts shame timid, time-serving disciples among our own sex.
## THE WORLD.
"Add heap to heap, accumulate riches upon riches, extend the bounds of your possessions, conquer the whole world, and in a few days such a spot as this will be all you will have."
Wealth is worthless at death; all must face God equally without earthly riches.
Down to the grave comes the millionaire. "How much are you worth?" says Death. "Men call me worth thirty millions." It is not enough to pay his ferriage! But he goes through; and when he has got through, his wealth having been taken from him, he is no bigger than a mosquito! There is hardly enough left of him for a nucleus to start on in the next life. Beecher.
Riches cannot comfort or save a man at death.
Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, a pious minister, mentions the case of a rich man, who, when he lay on his sick-bed, called for his bags of money; and having laid a bag of gold to his heart, after a little he bade them take it away, saying, "It will not do! it will not do!"
Possessions cannot guarantee salvation; conviction can lead to conversion.
A nobleman, who lived in the neighborhood of the Rev. Mr. D—, one day asked him to dine with him. Before dinner they walked into the garden, and after viewing the various productions and rarities with which it abounded, his lordship exclaimed, "Well, Mr. D——, you see I want for nothing: I have all that my heart can wish for." As Mr. D—— made no reply, but appeared thoughtful, his lordship asked him the reason. "Why, my lord," said the old man, "I have been thinking, that a man may have all these things, and go to hell after all. The words powerfully struck the nobleman, and through the blessing of God terminated in his conversion.
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