Q: if God uses the faculty of some to accumulate means for distribution to others, would it not be foolish for him to dry up the channels, and let the talents of his servants lie idle at the expense of others?
It is not sin to make money, but it is sin to put our trust in it, and to accumulate for our own personal comfort and aggrandizement, instead of casting our bread upon the waters, that we may find it after many days. "But," says one, "I must lay up something for my children."
It is far better, brethren, to teach them to make a living for themselves, and not to rely upon the money you may leave to them. It is better that your child should have less money from you, and be taught to make a man of himself, than inherit a competence, which, perhaps, would make a fool of him.
"Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool.jpg)
walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity. . . . Yes, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun, because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me, and who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun." Eccl. 2:13-19.
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To leave a child a competence really causes him to slight the faculties with which God endowed him, and which God intends shall be used to His honor and glory.
Q: Is it not, then, better for a man to distribute personally the surplus means which God permits him to acquire, in a manner that will be pleasing and acceptable to the Lord, than to leave it to another who may in time become a fool and dissipate it?
And even if the recipient does keep the amount intact, the almost universal rule is that wealth never goes beyond the fourth generation. Q: Is it not the wisest course, then, to teach the children to become independent of all such chances?
Such a course would leave one free to use the surplus means as God calls for it, and all danger of misapplication after death, by chicanery of lawyers or heirs, would be avoided.
The Bible teaches the necessity of distribution while living, not the leaving to others to do this after our death."
A.T. Jones
