Money

I am sure you can tell what it is that I have in my hands, when you hear me shake it. Yes, you all say money, and so it is. Here is a penny, a five-cent piece, a ten-cent piece, and a few quarter dollars, a half dollar, a silver dollar and a five-dollar gold piece.

This is the kind of money we use in the United States. But over in the country where Christ lived and taught, very poor people used the mite, which was a Roman piece of money. You remember having read in the Bible about the poor woman who cast two mites into the treasury? Here is a little piece of money from Italy; it is a centicimo. These small pieces of money are the kind they now use in the city of Rome. Here is one of the widow’s mites. It would take ten of these mites to be worth one cent of our money. So the poor woman who cast two mites into the treasury, cast in one-fifth of a cent.

But you must remember that that was all she had. She had nothing else, even with which to buy bread. The Scripture says that she had cast in “all her living.” Then beside mites in the country in which Jesus lived, they had the Roman farthing and penny, and the Jewish shekel and talent, which was of gold.

Money is a good thing in enabling us very simply to buy and sell, such articles as we desire either to possess or to dispose of. It would be next to impossible for us to get along without the aid of money in buying and selling. But do you know that the best things in this world cannot be bought with money. You cannot buy air, or sunshine, or rain, or health or salvation. These things are worth more than money, and money is not sufficient with which to purchase them, so God gives them to us. The Bible does not offer salvation in return for money; but the invitation is,
“Whosoever will, let him come.”
The Bible declares that
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.

It is not wise for anybody to despise or underestimate the value of money. As a matter of actual fact, when parents are uncertain whether their children have good sense, or whether they are idiots, and take them to a skilled physician, if the physician finds that the child does not realize the value of money, and does not have the spirit of devotion does not like to receive a penny, and does not clasp his hands and close his eyes, or in some other way assume the attitude of prayer, when other people kneel down to pray to God—these two things are regarded as sufficient evidence that the child lacks the intelligence of an ordinary human being, and is pronounced an idiot. I am sure that every boy and girl here knows the value of money, and I hope that you all bow your heads when others pray.

I told you that money is a good thing, and that it is important in business; but sometimes you will hear people say, that “money is the root of all evil.” Now the Bible does not say that; the Bible says that
“the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Money is a good thing, but when you love it so that you will sacrifice moral principle, and do things which are wrong in order to secure money, then you manifest that undue love for it which makes a miser, and which is the root of all evil. I should be very sorry indeed to think that any boy or girl here, or any one in our Sunday-school or church, should be a miser. In order that you may have the right spirit in regard to money, it is important that you should learn while you are young, to give for the support of the Church, to send the Bible to the heathen, to support the missionaries, to help the poor, and to do every kind of good work. You should learn to give very frequently and to give liberally.

You should remember also that the money which you call your own is not yours; it belongs to God. You are only a steward. God permits you to have this money, just the same as the lord in the parable entrusted it into the hands of his servants; to one he gave five talents, to another two talents, and to another one talent. These talents, as I told you, had a money value; it was money, therefore, that was entrusted into their hands. So also God entrusts money into our hands. The steward who had received one talent was entrusted with a little more than $1,700.00, and when the lord of these servants returned he required that they should give an account of their stewardship that they should tell what they had done with their money, how they had invested it, and what gain they had secured. Now, when you and I come to render up our final account before God, it will be necessary that we should tell not only what we have said, and what we have done on the earth; but that we shall have to give an account of every penny and every dollar that we have ever possessed.

If this money belongs to God, and we have to give account for our use of it, what we have done with it, you see how important it is that we should give at least one-tenth of all our income to help to support the Church and to carry forward every Christian work; and then that we should remember that the other nine-tenths also belong to the Lord. If you use your money to go the circus, or to the theatre, or use an unreasonable amount for fine clothing, or extravagance of any kind, you should remember that you will have at last to render an account to God for the use you have made of this money, which belongs to Him, and not to you at all.

It is very important that we should come to recognize our true relation to God upon this money question while we are young, lest the love of money should fasten upon us, and we should become dishonest in our dealings with men; and by failing to give in order to help to support the Church and every worthy charity, we should also be dishonest with God, by withholding any portion of the one-tenth which belongs always to the Lord. I trust you will so use your pennies and larger sums of money, that when the Day of Judgment comes, you will be able to give an account that will not bring regret to your heart.