“Show me a people whose trade is dishonest,” said Fronde, “and I will show you a people whose religion is a sham.” Unless your religion can keep you honest in your business, it isn’t worth much; it isn’t the right kind. God is a God of righteousness, and no true follower of his can swerve one inch to the right or left without disobeying Him.
STOLEN GOODS A BURDEN.
I heard of a boy who stole a cannon-ball from a navy-yard. He watched his opportunity, sneaked into the yard, and secured it. But when he had it, he hardly knew what to do with it. It was heavy, and too large to conceal in his pocket, so he had to put it under his hat. When he got home with it, he dared not show it to his parents, because it would have led at once to his detection. He said in after years it was the last thing he ever stole. The story is told that one of Queen Victoria’s diamonds valued at $600,000 was stolen from a jeweler’s window, to whom it had been given to set. A few months afterward a miserable man died a miserable death in a poor lodging-house. In his pocket was found the diamond and a letter telling how he had not dared to sell it lest it should lead to his discovery and imprisonment. It never brought him anything but anxiety and pain.
Everything you steal is a curse to you in that way. The sin overreaches itself. A man who takes money that does not belong to him never gets any lasting comfort. He has no real pleasure, for he has a guilty conscience. He cannot look an honest man in the face. He loses peace of mind here, and all hope of heaven hereafter. “As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. . . . Let no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter; because that the Lord is the avenger of all such.”
I may be speaking to some clerk who perhaps took five cents to-day out of his employer’s drawer to buy a cigar; perhaps he took ten cents to get a shave, and thinks he will put it back to-morrow—no one will ever know it. If you have taken a cent, you are a thief. Do you ever think how those little stealings may bring you to ruin? Let your employer find it out. If he doesn’t take you into court, he will discharge you. Your hopes will be blasted, and it will be hard work to get up again. Whatever condition you are in, do not take a cent that does not belong to you. Rather than steal, go up to heaven in poverty—go up to heaven from the poor-house. Be honest rather than go through the world in a gilded chariot of stolen riches.
RESTITUTION.
If you have ever taken money dishonestly, you need not pray God to forgive you and fill you with the Holy Ghost until you make restitution. If you have not got the money now to pay back, will to do it, and God accepts the willing mind.
Many a man is kept in darkness and unrest because he fails to obey God on this point. If the plough has gone deep, if the repentance is true, it will bring forth fruit. What use is there in my coming to God until I am willing to make it good, like Zacchaeus, if I have done any man wrong or have taken anything from him falsely? “If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him.” Confession and restitution are the steps that lead up to forgiveness. Until you tread those steps, you may expect your conscience to be troubled, your sin to haunt you.
I was preaching in British Columbia some years ago, and a young man came to me, and wanted to become a Christian. He had been smuggling opium into the States.
“Well, my friend,” I said, “I don’t think there is any chance for you to become a Christian until you make restitution.” He said, “If I attempt to do that, I will fall into the clutches of the law, and I will go to the penitentiary.” “Well,” I replied, “you had better do that than go to the judgment-seat of God with that sin upon your soul, and have eternal punishment. The Lord will be very merciful if you set your face to do right.”