on, not in their dishonesty,
cupidity, and miserly hoarding of the wealth that is at best but
transitory, but in their zeal, forethought, and provision for the
future. Moreover, let not wealth become your master; keep it to its
place as a servant, for, "No servant can serve two masters: for either
he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the
one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

DERISION OF THE PHARISEES MET; ANOTHER ILLUSTRATIVE PARABLES.[971]

The Pharisees, who were covetous, or more precisely stated, who were
lovers of money,[972] overheard the foregoing instructions to the
disciples, and openly scoffed at the Teacher and the lesson. What did
this Galilean, who owned nothing but the clothes He wore, know about
money or the best way of administering wealth? Our Lord's reply to their
words of derision was a further condemnation. They knew all the tricks
of the business-world, and could outdo the unrighteous steward in crafty
manipulation; and yet so successfully could they justify themselves
before men as to be outwardly honest and straightforward; furthermore,
they made ostentatious display of a certain type of simplicity,
plainness, and self-denial, in which external observances they asserted
superiority over the luxury-loving Sadducees; they had grown arrogantly
proud of their humility, but God knew their hearts, and the traits and
practises they most esteemed were an abomination in His sight. They
posed as custodians of the law and expounders of the prophets. The "law
and the prophets" had been in force until the Baptist's time, since
which the gospel of the kingdom had been preached, and people were eager
to enter it[973] though the theocracy strove mightily to prevent. The
law had not been invalidated; easier were it that heaven and earth pass
away than that one tittle of the law fail of fulfilment;[974] yet those
Pharisees and scribes had tried to nullify the law. In the matter of
divorce, for example, they, by their unlawful additions and false
interpretations, had condoned even the sin of adultery.

The Master gave as a further lesson the _Parable of the Rich Man and
Lazarus_:

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and
fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a
certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full
of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from
the rich m