THE THINGDOM OF GOD
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WHERE TO KEEP THINGS
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.
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Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.
THE THINGDOM OF GOD
THE THINGDOM OF GOD
WHERE SHOULD WE KEEP THINGS
“Thou hast put all things”—where? In man’s hands? No. In his pocket? No. “Thou hast put all things under his feet.” That is where they belong.
Emerson in his day complained that “things had got into the saddle and were riding mankind.” What would he say today?
The modern world has gone mad over things—machines, instruments, gadgets of all kinds.
Its kingdom might well be dubbed “Thingdom,” for it is dominated by its own inventions and manufactures.
“He who makes a machine emancipates ( free from legal, social, or political restrictions; liberated) me,” said Henry Ward Beecher a century ago.
One wonders whether he would say the same today.
Things!
Think of:
The fever of getting them
The fever of getting them
1. The fever of getting them.
Leo Tolstoi told a story of a man to whom a rich landowner promised as much ground as he could walk over in one day. In the morning the man set off full of vigor, determined to cover as much land as possible before sundown. He tramped all day long without a single halt and arrived back as darkness fell to claim what he had won. As he entered the landlord’s presence, however, he dropped dead!
And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.
The folly of hoarding them
The folly of hoarding them
There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, … Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” ().
The fret of leaving them
The fret of leaving them
“I was walking in the new apartments of Cardinal Mazarin’s palace. I recognized the approach of the Cardinal by the sound of his slippered feet, which he dragged one after the other as a man enfeebled by a mortal malady. I concealed myself behind a tapestry, and I heard him say:
‘I must leave all this.’ He stopped at every step, for he was very feeble, before a Rembrandt, a Titian, or a Picasso, and, casting his eyes on each object that attracted him, he sighed forth, as from the bottom of his heart: ‘I must leave all this. What pains I have taken to acquire all these things! Can I leave them without regret? I shall never see them where I am about to go’ ” (Anon.).
But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Samuel Johnson, on being shown over the treasures acquired by his friend David Garrick, remarked: “Ah, Davie, these are the things that make death dreadful.”