The expression "so and so is in the saddle" is often used referring to the ruler of any organization from the government down to the home. What about the individual? Someone has calculated that fifty years ago American citizens desired seventy-two different items and considered eighteen of them important to their happiness. Today the score stands at 496 desires while 96 are considered essential to happiness. Today uncontrolled desire is the overweight jockey riding and lashing the human race into a frenzy. Ministers are not immune from this lecherous rider.
"Satan invents unnumbered schemes to occupy our minds, that they may not dwell upon the very work with which we ought to be best acquainted."—The Great Controversy, p. 488. Among these "unnumbered schemes" are slavish desires to be the proud possessor of unnecessary gadgets in general. The world has become a Disneyland of attraction. The human race is blindly stumbling into boats that carry them through the tunnel of satanic pitfalls and attractions. As mankind glides through the darkness every vicious appeal possible is thrown at him. The demoralizing effect of mass advertising that dazzles the eyes and pounds the ears of man only serves to send him deeper into despair and to bind the chains of inordinate desires about him more strongly.
The untamable spirit of rivalry fans the flame of greed until all that is left is the charred soul incapable of making any contribution to society. Some loudly denounce the Canaanites for offering their children to Moloch, yet they in turn prostrate themselves before the god of gadgetry. Thus humanity is on a continual strain endeavoring to meet the requirements of an unsubdued self.
This craving for the so-called luxuries of life is not only hindering the progress of the cause of God but also destroying the spiritual nature of those who are possessed with it. This unremitting onslaught of Satan's seemingly innocent temptations drive the yielders into a position where they lose the capacity to enjoy life unless a continuing stream of possessions fills their hands and time. Our possessions become a veritable yoke of bondage.
An interesting story is told of the great Hun leader, Attila, while he was fighting the decisive battle of Chalons. Attila faced almost certain death and on the night prior to what he thought would be his last stand, he had his men make a pile of all his wealth and possessions. Early the next morning Attila mounted his pile of material wealth and gave instructions for his soldiers to set it on fire in the event they lost the battle. What a graphic picture of millions today who are perching themselves atop life's accumulation of objects, ready to be consumed in the final conflagration of the earth.
Oh, men of God, let us arise and point the way of self-sacrifice by our daily example. Listen to Paul speak to Timothy: "But Godliness with contentment is great gain.. . . And having food and raiment let us be therewith content" (1 Tim. 6:6, 8). And again, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" (2 Tim. 2:3, 4). Paul's words are excellent medicine for the minister who has contracted this galling disease. Let uncontrolled desires be replaced by self-control through the Lord Jesus. Life then becomes an easier burden.
J.R.S.
