The Passion Was The Same

Luk 16:14  And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.

Our Lord had been speaking against the sin of covetousness, when the Pharisees, who were themselves lovers of money (Luk. 16:14), began to ridicule Him.

In these circumstances the parable was spoken; it was meant to enforce the warnings against mammon (Luk. 16:13).

And there is something highly significant in the unexpected turn that the enforcing takes.

Between the typical Pharisee and this rich man there was little outward resemblance.

The bitterest enemy could not accuse the Pharisees of faring sumptuously every day...

Whatever their faults were, they were austere and rigid. They honestly despised luxurious living.

Yet in drawing this picture of luxurious living, there is no doubt that Jesus was thinking first of them.

Now, where lay the point of contact, do you think? It lay in a common love of money.

The Pharisee loved it, and he secretly hoarded it. The rich man loved it for the pleasure it bought. 

Each showed his passion for wealth in his own way, but the same passion was supreme in both.

Learn, then, how one deep-seated vice may fashion itself in the most diverse garbs.

A hundred miles may separate two rivers, but for all that, they flow from the one lake.

Our eyes might fail to discover kinship between the secret hoarding of the Pharisee and the prodigal squandering of this rich man;

But in the eyes of Christ, both ran down to a common selfishness, and to a common heart neglect of GOD.

~George H. Morrison~