Facing Life

The presumption of this proverb is that it pays to be righteous, that evil does not pay. Is this presumption correct? We have to admit that it often appears to be contradicted in actual life.

I was talking a while ago with a good church member who was a businesswoman. She declared that she had always endeavored to run her business on a Christian basis, but it hadn't paid off, at least not in a way you could measure in terms of business success. On the other hand, she said, I see men who are openly wicked who get along in business far better than I do. In business they never ask whether a thing is right but whether it will pay. They never hesitate about doing a thing because it is evil, and they seem to be making their evil doings pay off, judging from their success in business. Sometimes, she said, I feel tempted to turn about and do as they do.

That is a temptation that often comes to good men and women. If you are ever so tempted, my friend, don't yield! You have no occasion to be envious of those whose success is due to unscrupulous practices. If you could see inside their hearts, you would discover that they are not so well off as they appear to be. They may appear to be sitting pretty, but you can be sure of it--they are not! If you can get one of them to open his heart to you, he will tell you so. At least, that is what such men tell me when I talk with them, and I have talked with many of them. I suggest that you turn to the seventy-third Psalm and read what Asaph says of his experience and the conclusion he reached about the seeming prosperity and ease of the wicked.

Let no one imagine for a moment that things are going at haphazard in this world. In them midst of all the strange anomalies, inconsistencies and irregularities which appear in human affairs, there is a moral order that is sure to vindicate itself, sooner or later. He who sides with that order has God on his side, and in the end his triumph is certain. He who runs counter to it has all the forces of the moral universe against him, and in the end his doom is inevitable.