Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards – get gold

The story is told that visitors will find in a Deadwood, South Dakota museum this inscription left by a beleaguered gold prospector: “I lost my gun. I lost my horse. I am out of food. The Indians are after me. But I’ve got all the gold I can carry!” The story reminds us humans are seeking creatures, and that when some thing or some one is supremely valuable and important to us, we seek it or them at great personal cost and even great risk to ourselves. 

The human quest for gold powerfully illustrates that fact. In October, 2004 author Peter L. Berestein published a book entitled, “The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession.” At amazon.com a short summary of the book includes these words: “...Berenstein tells the  story of how human beings have become intoxicated, obsessed, enriched, impoverished, humbled and proud for the sake of gold. From the past to the future, Berenstein’s portrayal of gold is intimately linked to the character of mankind.” I quote a few sentences from Berenstein's book: “Finding and producing gold demands immense effort relative to the amount of glittering yellow metal that makes its appearance at the end of the process. For example, in order to extract South Africa’s annual output of around five hundred tons, some seventy million tons of earth must be raised and milled – an amount  greater than all the material in the pyramid of Cheops . . . This radically distorted ratio of effort to output appears to have done little to discourage people from pursuing the worldwide search for gold – perhaps the most telling evidence of how highly prized, vital, essential, and irresistible gold has been . . . the quest for gold was gluttonous . . . King Ferdinand of  Spain coined immortal words in 1511 when he declared, ‘Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards – get gold.’ ” (pp 9-10, 15). 

Enough about gold. All this reminds us of Jesus’ statement to the tax collector Zacchaeus in Luke 19:10 – “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” A blood-spattered Roman cross where Jesus hangs with human spittle on His face and metal spikes through His hands and feet roars the message of God’s amazing love for lost human souls (John 3:16; Romans 5:6-8). Who can truly behold the Son of God upon that tree and not be gripped by just how far Christ was willing to go and how much He was willing to risk to save our souls? The cross gripped the apostle Paul. He once fiercely persecuted Christians, but was at last captured and conquered by Christ’s love (Acts 9:1-22; 22:1-16; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

So infused was Paul with love for Christ and lost people, that when he came up from the water of baptism, he never let up in his efforts to spread the gospel of Christ. In what many call his greatest letter, the book of ROMANS, his very first words sum up what his life was about – “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God” (1:1). Even those superficially acquainted with the Bible know about the hold Christ had on Paul’s life. So in love was he with Jesus, so gripped by the fact that at all hazards Jesus was committed to saving souls, even the hazard of the cross, Paul began to hazard his own life to win others to Christ. All this raises a troubling question – are you hazarding anything for Christ’s sake and the sake of lost souls? Honestly, are you?

--Dan Gulley