aulty bag will serve me as a text, and are very significant.

As a figure of speech, the words are well understood. From the boy who,
by holding a horse, or running errands, earns threepence, and puts it
into a pocket with a hole at the bottom, to the man or woman who puts
the savings of years into a rotten speculation, all know the literal
meaning of Haggai's text, 'He that earneth wages earneth wages to put
it into a bag with holes'.

The central idea is that something gained by hard effort has been lost,
and that the loss was due to the man's own fault. The man had earned
his wages, and then let what he had won by toil slip through holes in
the bag into which he put it. The possibility of this in relation to
spiritual blessings is a danger we are warned against in God's Word,
and the necessity for guarding against such losses is one of the
important lessons to be learned.

This text reminds me of an incident and parable in the Book of Kings.
During the progress of a battle one of the leaders, having captured a
prisoner, called to a subordinate and placed the captive in his care,
to be kept at the risk of his life. Later, the man had to give an
account, and when admitting the loss of the prisoner he said, 'As thy
servant was busy here and there, he was gone'. Alas! there are many
whose spiritual acquisitions have slipped away like that.

The spiritual application of this thought is brought home to us by a
verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'Therefore we ought to give the
more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time
we should let them slip'. If you look in the margin of your Bible, you
will see the words, 'run out as leaking vessels', and in the Revised
Version the words read, 'drift away from them'. You see the idea is,
that unless you are careful you will lose your blessing after having
enjoyed it.

Looking round my audiences I can with fitness use these figures, and
apply the idea to many who, after tears and agonies of heart, secured
the Salvation of their souls, and the heavenly treasure which only the
pardoned sinner knows; but, alas! through the faulty bag, or pocket
with holes, their earnings slipped away, and they are now spiritual
bankrupts, their latter state being worse than the first. Thank God, if
those who have thus lost their Salvation and peace will truly repent
and do their first works, they may again obtain heavenly treasure, and
with it grace and wisdom to prevent the