NIGH upon eighteen hundred and sixty years ago the Lord Jesus spoke a parable which should be all the more heeded as time goes on. He told of a rich man (Luke 12), whose fields brought forth with such abundance that he had no room to house his harvest. Then said he, “This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater.” He meant to live many years longer, for no man begins to build without desiring to finish. He said, “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” “But God said.” Ah! he had not thought of Him, nor of the potter who has power over the clay He mold’s. “God said, Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” Have we heeded this parable, recorded for us by the pen of inspiration so long ago?
Only this year, nay, this month (November 1893), one man forgot it. Great numbers were gathered together in the now world-famed city of Chicago. Not an “innumerable multitude of people,” as on the hill-sides of Galilee, when the foregoing parable was spoken, but a worldly, godless company celebrating the glories of the World’s Fair, and above all that day exalting the Mayor of the city that the world wonders after. He is to address the assembly — listen to his words: ―
“I believe that I will live to see the day when Chicago will be the biggest city in America. I don’t count the past. I have taken a new lease of life, and I intend to live more than half a century, and at the end of that half-century London will be trembling, lest Chicago should surpass her”! Himself and his city are exalted — yea, his own life is to be prolonged; he has taken into his own hands the keeping together of body, soul, and spirit, and half a century ahead, in his daring presumption, he looks.
But God still sits in heaven; “and among the inhabitants of the earth” “none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:3535And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou? (Daniel 4:35).) Within nine hours the speaker of those impious words met a violent death, and his spirit returned to God who gave it. “If He cut off... then who can hinder Him?” (Job 11:1010If he cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder him? (Job 11:10).) He was like Herod who sat on his throne in all the pomp of regal display. He spoke, presumably he boasted, and the people applauded, saying, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of God smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he gave up the ghost” (Acts 12). “Vain man would be wise,” but he likes to be so without God.
Great Babylon of the future will do the same. She will glorify herself as she has ever done. She, the empty shell of Christendom, the personification of religion without Christ, will say, “I sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Wherefore, to her, in whom is found the blood of all the saints, “shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her” (Rev. 18).
Reader, “God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Eccl. 5:33For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words. (Ecclesiastes 5:3)). It is a solemn thing to leave Him out of our lives: He only can do “whatsoever pleaseth Him” (Eccl. 8:33Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. (Ecclesiastes 8:3)). But thankfully may we add that “it pleased Him by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:2121For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21)). He “sent His Son a propitiation for our sins,” and death has no terrors for the lowly, contrite heart that believes the record that God has given of His Son.
H. L. H.