Habakkuk 1:6
6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadthb of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs.
The Right Kind Of Bank
He that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Haggai 1:6.
A farmer's wife once preached a sermon to a little girl. This is how it was. Katie that was the little girl's name had gone round with her one afternoon to gather the eggs. She could not understand why one egg was always left in the nest. “You see, my dear,” said the farmer's wife, “hens will lay only where there are eggs already.”
And then she preached her sermon. She told Katie how, when her father had any money to spare, he put it into the bank. “He believes in having a nest-egg,” she added. “After a year, or perhaps two, when he goes to take some of his money out, he finds that it has grown into a bigger sum. He never takes it quite all out; he leaves his ‘nest-egg.'”
Katie has a wee pocket; I see it bulging out; there are all sorts of things in it. Is there ever a hole in it? Did she ever put a lot of coins into her pocket and rattle them and rattle them until somehow one hole was worn, and then another? If Katie didn't, I know a girl who did long before Katie was born. Her mother scolded her; but like a wise mother she bought a tin bank to put the remaining coins into, and said, “Here is a bank with a nest-egg in it.”
Katie asked a great many questions about banks; that was how the rest of the sermon came to be preached. The farmer's wife told her that being careless at school was like putting what she learned into a pocket with holes in it. She would grow up not knowing things that would be a great gain to her, whereas if she were diligent she would constantly be getting wiser. And school knowledge was just like a nest-egg; if she had it she would want to know more.
Then if she grew up to be a kind woman, helping those about her, that was like putting something into God's bank. A day would come when she would find that there was treasure laid up in Heaven for her.
Boys have pockets too. Let them preach the same sermon to themselves, for their pockets very often have holes in them. I once heard a proverb that somehow I couldn't forget. “A rogue's purse is full of holes.” There are no rogues here, but if that proverb is true there is an opposite to it. A good and wise man puts his treasure into a bag without holes. Earn all you can, save all you can, and then give all you can. Have a “nest-egg” in God's bank.