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"Buy The Truth And Do Not Sell It"
(Proverbs 23:23)
In the neighborhood of my childhood there were two commodities of exchange:
marbles and baseball cards. We were also fortunate to have crawdads, sock balls
and various other treasures. But when you needed to do some serious trading, you
had to have either marbles or baseball cards.
Sometime after 1953, I came into possession of about four Mickey Mantle baseball
cards. Now the primary purpose of having baseball cards in the 1950's was
bragging and trading. (On rare occasions, baseball cards might also be useful to
bribe a bully. As a last resort, before being beaten to a pulp, you could offer
the bully a popular baseball card. It usually worked if he didn't have the
offered card.)
Back to these '53 Mantle cards I owned. In a moment of juvenile whim, I traded
those four cards to Charles Pruitt for a bag of marbles. I don't even have the
bag of marbles today (I lost my marbles). Those four Mickey Mantle cards sell
today for about $7,000 each! If I had them today I would be driving a new truck.
Nobody told me in 1953 to hold on to those cards. I didn't appreciate the value
of what I had so I lost it.
Do you have a Bible? Have you learned the truth about Jesus Christ and what the
individual response should be? Hold on to that truth, comply with it, share it.
Do not sell it. You'll be setting yourself up for eternal regret.
By Warren E. Berklet
The Front Page
From Expository Files 11.11; November 2004
