Message: Gaining a Spiritual Loss

GAINING A SPIRITUAL LOSS

"Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss." Acts 27:21

*     *     *

GAINING A LOSS IS PARADOXICAL

"Nine-year-old Henry struck upon the idea of hiring his little brother as his servant. "I'll give you ten cents a week," he said. Little Tom agreed. Henry then felt he'd offered too much money. "I can only pay you five cents a week, after all," he said. Little Tom agreed, just as cheerfully. Thinking he could get the child for even less, Henry said, "All I can pay is a penny a week." Hesitantly, his little brother agreed, but protested: "Don't raise it any lower." (from Humorous Stories)

Yes, as contradictory as it may seem, there are "raises" which actually "lower" one's profit and "gains" which bring us "loss". It is a paradox, but true, not only in the financial realm but also in the spiritual realm as well. More than one forlorn wage earner has discovered that the "raise" which his crafty employer gave him in reality "lowered" his pay when increased hours work was laid upon him or some fringe benefit was therewith taken away. Laborers in today's fields of employment whose just wages are thus "kept back by fraud" might well protest such practices in the words of the little boy: "Don't raise it any lower!" Likewise, in the spiritual realm, one should not only protest, also shun, the gains which the crafty old devil offers which are actually great losses.

*     *     *

GAINING A LOSS IS OFTEN CONSEQUENTIAL

Frequently it is the consequence of sin, as when Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of evil resulting in the loss of good, God's smile and fellowship, and eternal life. Many times it is the consequence of placing a higher value on the material and temporal than one places on the spiritual and eternal:

"The Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind, made a great success as an operatic singer, and money poured into her purse. Yet she left the stage when singing her best and never went back to it. Once an English friend found her sitting on the steps of a bathing machine on the sea sands, with a Lutheran Bible on her knee, looking out into the glory of a sunset, and asked her: 'How is it that you ever came to abandon the stage at the very height of your success?' Jenny Lind's quiet answer was: 'When, every day, it made me think less and less of this (laying a finger on the Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?'" (adapted, author unknown)

The sunset of life for us all is approaching faster than we may realize. How vital it is that we value the spiritual and eternal above the material and temporal. Sad indeed are the consequential losses that come from some earthly gains. Sometimes, as in the case of the incident recorded in Acts 27:21, the gaining of a loss is the result of human impatience and a determination to "sail on" in spite of a timely, Divine admonition spoken through a faithful messenger.

*     *     *

GAINING OF A LOSS CAN BE PROVIDENTIAL AND VERY BENEFICIAL

One morning a Christian farmer in Rhode Island put two bushels of rye in his wagon and started to the mill to get it ground. On his way to the mill he had to drive over a bridge that had no railings to the side of it. When he reached the middle of this bridge his horse, a quiet, gentle creature, began all at once to back. In spite of all the farmer could do, the horse kept backing till the hinder wheels of the wagon went over the side of the bridge, and the bag of grain was dumped out and fell into the stream. Then the horse stood still.

Some men came to help the farmer. The wagon was lifted back up to a safe position on the bridge, and the bag of grain was fished up from the water. Of course, the grain could not be taken to the mill in that state. So, the farmer had to take it home and to dry it. He had prayed that morning that God would protect and help him through the day, and he wondered why this accident had happened.

He found out, however, before long. Upon spreading out the grain to dry, he noticed a great many small pieces of glass mixed up with it. If this had been ground up with the grain into the flour, it might have caused the death of himself and his family. Jehovah-Jireh was on that bridge. He made the horse back and throw the grain into the water in order to save the farmer and his family from the danger that threatened them. (adapted from Dictionary of Illus.) Romans 8:28--Selah