Appropriate for our times:
Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries.
Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten,
your gold and silver have corroded,
and that corrosion will be a testimony against you;
it will devour your flesh like a fire.
You have stored up treasure for the last days.
Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers
who harvested your fields are crying aloud;
and the cries of the harvesters
have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure;
you have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter.
You have condemned;
you have murdered the righteous one;
he offers you no resistance. – James 5:1-6
Everyone who has been granted great wealth has also been granted great responsibility – and don’t anyone out there (liberals, we’re looking at you) think that you can discharge such responsibility by advocating for higher income taxes and more welfare spending. A billionaire who has hidden his money in tax shelters and then proceeds to yammer on about how we all have to pay more to government is a man who has fattened his heart for the day of slaughter.
To have wealth is to have an obligation to use it wisely – and in this matter I plead guilty: I, too, have not used the vast wealth which has passed through my hands over the years to the best service of my fellow man. I have, like all too many, thought only of myself. It might be that God doesn’t necessarily want us to earn 8% returns on our financial investments…but would very much like us to do for the poor ourselves, rather than farming out the work to government bureaucrats.
The lesson, for me, over the past few years is that it is time we started acting like adults – time we started looking for our problems in the mirror…and then started saying, each day, “what can I do, today, to help out?”
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