V. The Captivity Without Chains
A Bondage Without Iron
Behold a captivity with no chain upon the wrist. Isaiah taketh up the cry: Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge. Gone into captivity — and where is the iron? Where is the conqueror’s army? There is none. This is a bondage that needeth no chain, for the strongest fetter ever forged is ignorance, and it bindeth a man while he believeth himself free.
גָּלָה עַמִּי מִבְּלִי־דָעַת (galah ammi mibbeli-da‘at) — my people are gone into exile for want of knowledge. Whole nations were led away in the ages past, and called colonies; and in our own century the chains were struck from off their necks, and this was good; and yet the deeper chain followed them even into their freedom, for the iron came off the wrist and stayed upon the mind.
There is no freedom in a flag if the knowing be still in captivity. But hear the word of release: the Spirit of the LORD is upon me... to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. The chain that no army could strike off, the Lamb striketh off with a word.
VI. The Roar of the Market, The Silence of the Soul
In the Roar of the Trading Floors
I have stood in the markets of the nations, and they roar like the sea. The numbers run upon the walls like a river that never resteth, and the voices of the buyers and sellers rise up as a great wind. And in the midst of all that roaring I heard a silence — the silence of the soul that hath gained the whole world and lost itself.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? τί γὰρ ὠφελήσει ἄνθρωπον (ti gar ōphelēsei anthrōpon) — for what shall it profit a man? The market knoweth the price of everything and the worth of nothing. It can name the value of a field, a flock, a fortune; it cannot name the value of a man, for that was set at the cross and not at the exchange.
Tell me — what doth it profit, to stand upon a mountain of gold with a famine in the heart? The roar of the market shall not fill the silence of the soul; only the Bread that came down from heaven filleth that.
VII. Gold That Cannot Heal
The Day the Silver Could Not Buy Bread
There cometh a day when the gold is heavy and cannot heal. Ezekiel saw it: They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed... their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. Behold a strange poverty in the midst of riches: the metal is there, but the deliverance is not in it.
כַּסְפָּם וּזְהָבָם לֹא־יוּכַל לְהַצִּילָם (kaspam uz’havam lo-yukhal l’hatzilam) — their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them. And James taketh up the same fire: Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you.
Gold cannot heal a plague; it could not in our own age, when a pestilence shut every door and honoured no border, and the rich and the poor lay down alike. There is a wealth that healeth and a wealth that cannot, and the difference is not in the amount but in the Owner. Lay up therefore the treasure that healeth: the wealth that is the gift of God, given to establish His covenant and to feed His nations.
