The Wreck of the Gold ships
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There are many passages in the Word of God, that most readers pass by, as they would pass unlighted transparencies in the street at night. If somebody sets a lamp behind the transparency, its picture or inscription becomes luminous, attracting all eyes to it. One purpose of good preaching, is to set lamps behind neglected passages.
Among the overlooked episodes in Old Testament history which are full of suggestive wisdom, is one in the life of that good and great Judaean monarch, Jehoshaphat. His reign exalted the southern kingdom to a high prosperity. He wrought a good educational work among his people, and established a commission for expounding the Mosaic laws. He did many other noble things; but upon the luster of his characteristic good reign, fell one great and grievous shadow.
It was the sin of alliance with wicked men. "Jehoshaphat had great wealth and honor, and he allied himself with Ahab by marriage." Ahab was the profligate tyrant of the northern kingdom. Jehoshaphat gave his son in marriage to Ahab's daughter, and made a military alliance with Ahab, which ended in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead, in which the northern king played a treacherous part and lost his life. Not satisfied with these entangling alliances, which were both prompted by selfish policies, he entered into a commercial partnership with Ahab's successor, the godless Ahaziah. Jehu, a prophet of Jehovah, had the courage to administer the sharp rebuke, "Should you help the ungodly—and love those who hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon you from before the Lord!"
The narrative of Jehoshaphat' s venture with wicked Ahaziah, reads very much like some of the "big bonanza" schemes of these days in Colorado and Nevada. The two monarchs join hands in a gold-hunting expedition. The sacred chronicler tells us that they built ships in partnership, on the Gulf of Akabah, for the purpose of seeking gold in Ophir. But the wicked enterprise was blasted by the Lord. "Jehoshaphat also built a fleet of trading ships to sail to Ophir for gold. But the ships never set sail, for they were wrecked at Ezion-geber." This was no accidental catastrophe; for the fearless Eliezer told Jehoshaphat plainly, "'Because you have allied yourself with King Ahaziah, the Lord will destroy your work.' So the ships met with disaster and never put out to sea." Upon that illuminated transparency which pictures the wreck of the gold-ships, there blazes out this truth; partnership with sin is a fatal mistake!
We could fill the pages of this book with illustrations of this truth drawn from our own observation. Many a sorrowing father can tell the story of what befell his beloved boy. The youth, fascinated with a set of mirthful fellows, who were immersed in all the amusements of the town, fell into their snares, and spent his evenings with them in their favorite haunts. He comes home in the late hours of the night, while his foolish parents are asleep on their pillows.
It is the old, old story, short but crushing. Like Eli—the father "restrains not" the son when he is "making himself vile," and like Eli, he pays the bitter penalty. When the ruin has been wrought by a round of wine-suppers, theaters, and brothels, the parents get their eyes open to see that evil company has wrecked their gold-ship. The streets of all our cities, like the rocks of Ezion-geber, are strewed with the ruins of high hopes that went to pieces in wicked associations. When parents entrust a night-key to a son who has no self-restraint or Bible-conscience—they give him a free pass on the road to perdition!
There is another phase of domestic life, in which this Old Testament episode finds its frequent parallels. We recall now an only daughter of rare beauty and accomplishments. Her perilous charms attracted a suitor who was coarse and sensual; but he was heir to an expected fortune. His anticipated wealth bribed the foolish parents and overcame the daughter's scruples. She consented, contrary to her own judgment, to marry him. Within a few years he was disgraced, and she was divorced. God's law is, "Whatever you sow—that shall you also reap."
It was that law, more irresistible than the winds of heaven, that wrecked the poor girl's gold-ship, in broken hopes and a broken heart. Of all the alliances with sin from mercenary motives, the most certainly fatal are those which are made under the sacred name of wedlock.
The political history of our country is sadly eloquent with examples of civilians and statesmen who have wrecked their careers by alliances with wrong men, wrong policies, or wrong institutions. Every man, on his entrance upon public life, has his "mount of temptation." If he courageously says, "Get behind me, Satan!" his subsequent path to honor and true success is assured. If he yields—he is lost. The sorceress, during more than one generation, was slavery. By her much fair speech and promises of promotion, she caused many an ambitious statesman to yield to her, and "straightway he went after her—as an ox goes to the slaughter. "
This truth of perilous partnerships is full of warnings to business men. Especially is it admonitory to young men who are anxious to reach wealth by short-cuts and are not scrupulous as to the methods. The market is crowded with sharp schemers, the papers abound with glowing announcements of commercial ventures and golden enterprises. The number of credulous Jehoshaphats who are enticed into gold expeditions to Ophir, with Ahaziahs in the partnership, is almost past belief. The wrecks are well near as numerous.
It is not only from wild schemes of speculation that danger arises. Many a merchant, banker, manufacturer, or tradesman has been induced by friends or partners to ally himself with methods and practices which his own conscience, in his better moments, did not approve; but he hushed conscience with the promise of big profits, or with the current sophistry, "Oh! everybody does such things!" The men who, like William E. Dodge, refuse to "break God's laws for a dividend" are rare to find. Commerce and trade, like politics, contain a thousand repetitions of that old Scripture line, "Because you have joined yourself with Ahaziah—the Lord has wrecked your works!"
"Do not be not partakers of other men's sins" is a divine admonition that has not lost its solemn portent. Though hand joins in hand, wrongdoing will not go unpunished. If sin is not punished in this world, then surely it will be in the next. Just as certainly as that the wages of sin is death, so certain is it that eternity will reveal the fearful wreck of innumerable gold-ships—the "loss total, and no insurance!"
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