Thursday, October  30, 2008

The merchants of these things, who had become rich because of her, were standing at a distance for fear of her torment, weeping and grieving, saying, "Weo, Woe, the Great City, dressed in fine linen and purple and red garments, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. For In One Hour So Much Wealth Has Been Laid Waste." And every captain, and everyone who sets sail for any place, and sailors and whoever makes a living from the sea, they all stood at a distance. Rev. 18:15-17.

As we have seen, Babylon was not only wealthy, but fully self-absorbed in her prosperity(Rev. 18:7). She was willing to do almost anything to preserve her wealth and position. But the statement of Jesus "Give, and it will be given to you"(Luke 6:38k NIV) suggests the ironic principle that if you want to be truly wealthy, you have to give your riches away.

It seems that the one who creates a family fortune finds meaning and purpose in assembling it. But that kind of motivation will not work for later generations. They will inherit more than they can ever use, and unless they have learned to serve a higher purpose with that wealth, they lose any sense of meaning and goal. They will focus instead on the pursuit of social status and will be willing to spend enormous sums on self-gratification. This leads to the dissipation of the family fortune.

In contrast to the Vaderbilts(see October 26), the Rockefellers early sensed the need to give back to the society that made the family's wealth possible. As his wealth began to skyrocket, founder and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller found himself besieged with requests for help. Spurred on by his Baptist faith, he had been generous before he became wealthy. Years before, while a dry-goods clerk in Cleveland, he had given funds to an African-American man to free his wife from slavery. Rockefeller came to believe that God had given him his wealth because He knew that he would "turn around and give it back." The more he gave, the more money seemed to come in. With Starndard Oil generating massive dividends, John D. Donated more than $500 million in his lifetime, a sum larger than the Vanderbilt fortune (the world's biggest at the time) just 30 years before.

John D. wisely included his children in helping him to evaluate and process requests for aid. With John D's example to follow, five generations of Reockefellers had continued to devote their lives to charity. And all this giving does not seem to have reduced the family's wealth. The Rockefeller Foundation alone is worth more than $3 billion today. And that is only the trip of the iceberg.

Lord, help me give all I can, not just because it is the smart thing to do, but because it makes more like You.

When one who professes to serve God wrongs or injures a brother, he misrepresents the character of God to that brother, and the wrong must be confessed, he must acknowledge it to be sin, in order to be in harmony with God. Our brother may have done us a greater wrong than we have done him, but this does not lessen our responsibility. If when we come before God we remember that another has aught against us, we are to leave our gift of prayer, of thanksgiving, of freewill offering, and go to the brother with whom we are at variance, and in humility confess our own sin and ask to be forgiven(TFMB 59).