IV.  A godless life is one of fleeting riches.

In Haggai’s strong metaphor, the poor day-labourer earns his small wage and puts it into a ragged bag, or as we should say, a pocket with a hole in it; and when he comes to look for it, it is gone, and all his toil is for nothing.  What a picture this is of the very experience that befalls all men who work for less wages than God’s ‘Well done.’  Take an instance or two:  here is a man who works hard for a long time, and puts his money into some bank, and one morning he gets a letter to tell him the bank’s doors are closed, and his savings gone—­a bag with holes.  Here is a man who climbs by slow degrees to the head of his profession and lives in popular admiration, and some day he sees a younger competitor shooting ahead of him, and all is lost—­a bag with holes.  Here is a man who has, by some great discovery, established his fame or his fortune, and a new man, standing on his shoulders, makes a greater, and his fame dwarfs and his trade runs into other channels—­a bag with holes.  Here is a man who has conquered a world, and dies on the rock of St. Helena, with his pompous titles stripped off him, and instead of kingdoms a rood or two of garden, and instead of his legions, half a dozen soldiers, a doctor, and a jailer—­a bag with holes.  Here is a man who, having amassed his riches and kept them without loss all his life, is dying.  They cannot go with him.  That would not matter; but unfortunately he has to live yonder, and he will have ’nothing of all his labour that he can carry away in his hands’—­a bag with holes.

Such loss and final separation befall us all; but he who loves God loses none of his real treasure when he parts from earthly treasures.  Fortune may turn her wheel as she pleases, his wealth cannot be taken from him.  His riches are laid up in a sure storehouse, ’where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.’  We each live for ever.  Should we not have for our object in life that which is eternal as ourselves?  Why should we fix our hopes on that which is not abiding—­on things that can perish, on things that we must lose?  Let us not run this awful risk.  Do not impoverish or darken life here; do not condemn yourselves to unfruitful toil, to unsatisfied desires, to unguarded calamities, to unstable possessions; but come, as sinful men ought to come, to Jesus Christ for pardon and for life.  Then, in due season, you will reap if you faint not; and the harvest will not be little, but ’some sixty-fold and some an hundred-fold’; then you will ’hunger no more, neither thirst any more,’ but ’He that hath mercy on you will lead you to living fountains of water’; then you will not have to draw your poor rags round you for warmth, but shall be clothed with the robe of righteousness and the garment of praise; then you will never need to fear the loss of your riches, but bear with you whilst you live your treasures beyond the reach of change, and will find them multiplied a thousand-fold when you die and go to God, your portion and your joy for ever.