He that earneth wages, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
The bag with holes
The prophet lifted his warning voice, and entreated his sinful brethren to “consider their ways,” to solve for themselves the curious and alarming fact, that while toiling for their temporal gratification, and sowing broadcast with liberal hand, the return for such labours was so meagre and unsatisfactory, even as if one had been shortsighted enough to deposit his hard-earned wages in a bag with holes. The history of nations, like that of individuals, is ever repeating itself.
1. Those persons come under this description who pride them, selves on the accumulation and possession, of wealth.
2. That man is dropping his money into a “bag with holes,” who is spending any large proportion of it in things which minister chiefly to pride and vain glory. Ruskin says, “A tenth part of the expense which is sacrificed in domestic vanities, if not absolutely and meaningly lost in domestic comforts and incumbrances would, if wisely employed, build a marble church for every town in England.
3. Those persons are putting their wealth “into a bag with holes,” who are robbing God’s Church of her lawful tithes, that they may have the more to leave to their children. Inherited wealth is as often a curse as a blessing. Idleness is a source of misery, and there is no deadlier bane of character. The wise father will give his son the education which will fit him for the trade or the profession which he may prefer, and then allow him the privilege of pushing his own fortune in the world. Bishop Doane said of the men who should “make a State,” that “they are made by self-denial.” Instead of the selfish question of the votary of the world, How much can I get out of this life in the way of dress, high-living, envy, admiration, amusement?” may our endeavour be this, “How much shall this life of mine (so short and so uncertain) get out of me in loving devoted service to my Lord?” (John N. Norton, D. D.)
A bag with holes
(a talk with children):--In olden times folk kept their money in bags, and still people keep it in little bags which we call purses. “What is the good of a money-bag if it is full of holes?” Yet the prophet says that the people of his day put their money into suck bags. He means that they tried to keep something far more precious than money in this reckless fashion. He speaks of their “wages.” We are always sorry to lose anything valuable. Yet the way to lose anything is to put it in a bag with holes. What disappointment therefore is expressed here by the prophet! The feeling of loss is all the keener when we lose something that we have earned. There are some people who have what we call windfalls. Such a” windfall” has generally, like fallen apples, a bruise about it. It is not half so good as when we earn it ourselves. Now these people in the text had earned what they lost. The word here used for “wages” denotes hard earnings. I hope you children will learn in life to earn wages of your own, The best thing in life is to work for what we get. They are few who know how to use money without first knowing how to earn it. These people knew how to earn money, but they did not know how to take care of it. Half the battle of life is to earn; and the other half is to know where to place and how to use what we earn. But I have seen people who worked very hard, and yet at the close of life entered eternity as paupers. They took care of what we call money: they did not put their wealth into a bag with holes. But they never remembered that the money of this world does not pass current in the next. There is another kind of coin necessary for the next world. To die rich in the things of the world very often means to die poor with regard to the world to come. (David Davies.)
The worst foe of labour
The most persistent, most overpowering enemy of the working-classes is intoxicating liquor. It is to labour a worse foe than monopoly, and worse than associated capital It annually swindles industry out of a large percentage of its earnings. I proclaim s strike universal against strong drink, which, if kept up, will be the relief of the working-classes and the salvation of the nation. When you deplete a workman’s physical energy, you deplete his capital. The stimulated workman gives out before the unstimulated workman. When an army goes out to the battle, the soldier who has water or coffee in his canteen marches easier and fights better than the soldier who has whisky in his canteen. God only knows what the drunkard suffers, in his body, in his home, and above all, in the loss of his soul. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)
National improvidence
Objection may be urged against introducing social and political questions into Christian pulpits. Objection cannot, however, fairly be made against the pulpit treatment of that branch of social politics national improvidence. Here, in Haggai’s time, the means of life were abundant, and yet men were dissatisfied. The national improvidence of the Jews was a punishment of their neglect of God, while our national improvidence is a hindrance to our true approach to Him as a nation. See the enormous waste of means and comfort caused by our national self-indulgence, and the absolute want, and almost starvation, resulting thence to millions of our fellow-men; or, when we think of the growing passion for destructive drink, must we not see a wonderful description of our present state in this other thing which God tells us to consider, “Ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but are not satisfied with drink.” It is a common but mistaken notion that Bible teaching generally is opposed to worldly notions of prudence. Men quote our Saviour’s words, “Take no thought for the morrow,” without our Saviour’s context. His object was to prevent their letting care for providing earthly things cause them to neglect providing heavenly things. The possession of competence is not a crime. Our Saviour shows waste to be wicked, and wilful destitution a sin, not merely as being an offence and trouble to social politics, but as an iniquity against the honour of God, who, in ordaining that man should eat bread at the sweat of his brow, has laid on every man the duty of self-provision. The apostles point to the sin of improvidence in no measured terms. They never contemplate a state of things in which men shall expect fellow men in every case of need to supply all their necessities. They teach, as our Saviour did, dependence on God, but not on man. Consider the prevalence of this sin of improvidence. National improvidence exists in England without a parallel in all creation. (W. L. Blackley, M. A.)
A bad investment
I. With respect to much of the money men gain we may say it is put into a bag with holes. Look at one man who is a type of those who put earnings into a bag with holes. He works hard. With the dawn he arises. He eats the bread of carefulness. He is ever on the watch for the “main chance,” that is, for increasing the accumulations of No.
1. He does not trouble always as to the methods by which he gains. He cares only to see his balance increase. He is never known to be taken with a fit of generosity. He stints himself, and it may be his family, of all pleasures that he may increase his savings. Thus grubbing and grasping, puffing and lying, he makes the mickle into muckle. He finds the pennies become pounds, the tens grow to hundreds, and the hundreds to thousands. He gets respect, is favoured with applications for help. But he has been putting his gain into a bag with holes, if he has wrongly gained his wealth, and if he has bowed down to that, worshipping it alone. Remember that he cannot take it with him at death. It were useless if he could. There are many who, even without gaining much, make themselves slaves to their particular line of work. They give no thought to the higher concerns of life. But all their Life they toil without content; they have murmured and fretted, envied others, even misrepresented them. Into a “bag with holes” they have placed all they have so hardly gained. Then there are many who really could earn and do earn much, but they waste it. They know not where the money has gone, and if they knew where it has gone they would not confess it to themselves or to others.
II. With respect to many of the pleasures men seek, the truth of the text is manifested. We say “many,” because all pleasure is not sinful, and seeking it at times may be a strong duty. Alas! some spoil lawful and sufficient recreation by taking unlawful pleasure. They are certainly putting their efforts into a “bag with holes.” Thus also with stolen, secret pleasures. Souls yield to the desires of the heart, the lusts of the flesh, and because the thing is hidden up they rub their hands and say I have done no wrong. In no sinful indulgence can we find a gratification that shall be enduring. That deed, the memory of which causes the face to crimson, has no quality in it that can be really satisfactory.
III. With respect to our unaided efforts at reform of life, the truth of the text applies. We find out that the devil is a bad master, that the wages of sin is death. We begin to see that this life has been wasted, that we have lived for self. We then begin to struggle, in our own strength, to improve character and conquer sins. Perhaps we do make some little progress for a time. Soon we discover that it has been only for a time, and that the root of sin is still in our soul. Then the fact begins to stare us in the face, that if we could avoid all sin in the future, if we could conquer all tendency to sin in our hearts, we have yet a great account of sin which is unforgiven. Law must not be violated and dishonoured. Hence He takes up, in the Person of Christ, our sins and bears them. “He magnifies the law.” He then freely forgives us for Christ’s sake. The whole past can be as though it had not been. All sin can be fully expunged. God in Christ has provided a way of dealing with sin such as we cannot understand, but which we can accept. Confucius said, “A blemish may be taken out of a diamond by carefully polishing it, but if your words have the least blemish there is no way to efface them.” This is true of the sinful dispositions of the soul. Only Christ can efface them. Our self-righteousness, which is effort to atone in our own strength, is like wages put into a bag with holes.
IV. With respect to attempts of many to gain various kinds of knowledge we may assert the principle of the text. There are those who are incessantly inquiring, reading, and yet who know but very little. They go about, but although seeing much, they retain little. Many hear abundance of lectures, of sermons, but seem to know little more. They read their Bibles, but they increase little in knowledge of it. Now, just look back and see how much you have read and heard and known. What has been the effect on the character, the heart, the life? Has it not been put into a bag with holes T How often have you heard of the sacrifice of Christ and the infinite love of God. Has it had any effect? Has there been any effect on the life? Bitter was the wail of the mother who after ten years of care of an imbecile child said to me, “After all my love she never seems to notice me more readily than she would a stranger.” Ah! that is just what Jesus has to say of us. His love has been thrown away upon us, it has been put in a “bag with holes.” (Homiletic Magazine.)
The bag with holes
To apply this figure of the prophet’s to our own times-and circumstances, in a word to ourselves, let us see what is “the bag with the holes” into which honest earnings are too often put.
I. extravagance is such a bag. I mean the spending more on a thing than our income justifies. Bishop Patrick begins a chapter with a notable warning, “Consider thine own sufficiency.” Weigh well what you are equal to, and this may as well apply to our income as anything else. If we allow ourselves in any instance an expenditure, no matter what be the subject of it, which is unsuitable to our circumstances and inconsistent with our means, there is no other name for this that I know of than extravagance; i.e (to trace the word to its derivation) a wandering beyond the just limits within which our course should lie. There is a certain suitableness between our position and circumstances on the one hand, and our expenses on the other, which good taste will discern instinctively; any squandering in one direction must involve poverty in the other: I do not say a “bag with holes,” but a bag with one hole will let out all the money, that which is for necessary wants, as well as that which is spent upon the luxury. Is not extravagance the fault of the age? Do not men of all classes live so near to their income that it is hardly possible to avoid going beyond it? There are but two ways of meeting that difficulty: we must earn more or spend less.
II. There is another bag with holes--waste. This, though it resembles extravagance in some respects, is a different thing, for extravagance is in superfluities; waste may be of things necessary. I fear this is an increasing fault. I see it wherever I go: waste of fuel and of food, waste of money, waste of land, waste of its produce. Yet He who, by a miracle twice repeated, made bread enough and to spare for thousands in the wilderness, had an eye to what was over; and left us a memorable lesson: “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” Young people hardly know how much can be done simply by wasting nothing. I have an honest shepherd near me who once offered me a loan of £200. I know another who has saved enough to buy him a little farm. What was their secret? They wasted nothing. They have had enough for livelihood, enough for health, for comfort, and this to spare when the day of feebleness and dearth shall come. Their bag was not one with holes.
III. Akin to extravagance and waste is excess. This does, indeed, partake of the character of the other two; but it has this element in addition, that it is extravagance and it is waste, both employed on self, and both to the detriment of self. If you will just call to mind some of the calculations which are now familiar to us all you will see what a bag with holes this is for the earnings of the nation at large. More than 100 millions are spent in the kingdom every year on drink! This is the great bag with holes into which skilful earnings, hard earnings, costly earnings, are too apt to be put. That dreadful, that pitiable habit of intemperance is a solvent which will melt down a fortune however great, and a man however strong. No matter what is put into the bag, through that one hole it disappears, and leaves the owner of it like the tattered bag itself. (A. C. Bishop, M. A.)