VII. THE COMMERCIAL SIGN

The last Biblical sign of the times to be mentioned is presented in James 5:1-8. It is of the “heaping up” of treasures in “the last days.” The days are to be characterized by the increase of wealth and poverty. This is not a discussion of the problems of capital and labor. It is a declaration of the Word of our God. The passage reads:

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.”

Within the memory of most of us, a man who possessed a million dollars had an international reputation. There were three such men in America in my boyhood. The times have changed. Just before the war one denomination enrolled seventeen hundred millionaires. We created nine thousand new millionaires in this country during the first three years of the war. Men do not stop now with a million. One man in New York City has four hundred million dollars more than Adam would have had if he had lived from his time until now (6,000 years), and had received one-hundred thousand dollars a year, and kept it all without interest. Adam would have had six-hundred million, but this man has one billion dollars. The passage continues:

“Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. . . . establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”