If you could have just what you like, what would you choose? Would it be money? Well, in some ways that would be a wise choice, for money will buy a great many things. You might wish for this or that, but if you wished for plenty of money, you could get anything that money could buy.
But there are things that money cannot buy. You know that. It cannot buy the best things. It cannot buy relief from envy, jealousy, revenge, remorse. It cannot buy peace of mind and conscience. It cannot even buy health or freedom from pain. When you come to think of it, money has a very limited use.
Above all, it cannot buy life—it cannot keep from death. Neither can it give confidence in the future as to the sins we have committed. The poorest here is on a footing with the richest. Money will not—cannot—buy freedom from guilt and from sin.
Now think it over and say whether it would not be better to have God take away your sins—to have them all gone forever—than to have millions of dollars. Would it not be better to be a child of God, to know Him, to be sure of His love and favor, than to be the richest person in the country?
You know that it would be. More than that, you know that you cannot buy the love and the favor of God with money. You cannot buy salvation with money. The best things, the most desirable things, the things that last eternally, cannot be bought with money.
No, they are free gifts. They are for poor and rich alike, for all who will receive them. They are God’s gifts to sinners.
Now, if they are free, why do you not accept them? If someone should offer you a million dollars, how long would you hesitate before accepting it? You would take it as soon as you could; you would be eager to get possession of it.
But there is something better offered to you freely. Something vastly better than money or anything that money can buy is placed before you and you are told to help yourself. Why do you wait? Why do you not make sure of the best things while they are within your reach?
The Spirit of God says, through the prophet Isaiah: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:11Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Isaiah 55:1).)