The Casino
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:6
I expect you sometimes have a picnic when the weather is nice. That is what Spurgeon used to do when he was staying in Menton. One day when a French lady saw him and some of his friends going out for a picnic, she said, “I can’t make you English people out at all! You have nice hotels where you can have your meals in comfort, and yet you go and eat your dinner in a ditch!”
It’s time to get your map out again. Can you find Menton? If Spurgeon and his friends went east they came to Italy, and if they went west they came to a very small country called Monaco. One of Spurgeon’s favourite places for a picnic was called Beaulieu, and to get there they had to travel right through Monaco. Most of that country is made up of a big and beautiful city, and you might see it named on your map— it’s called Monte Carlo. And Spurgeon didn’t like Monte Carlo. It was a beautiful place, but he still didn’t like it, and I’ll tell you why.
In that city there was—and still is—a very big casino, which is a place where people gamble. They pay money to play games hoping to get more money back!
On one of his early visits to Monte Carlo, Spurgeon decided to go into the casino—not to gamble, but to see what it was like in there and what happened. He watched the gamblers as
they put down great sums of money—and, of course, most of them lost! Almost every year when Spurgeon was in Menton he heard of people who had committed suicide because they had lost all their money gambling at the casino.
After his first visit, Spurgeon never went to the casino again. He had seen enough! And I’ll tell you what made him decide never to enter that place again. One of his friends was one day walking in the beautiful gardens around the casino, when along came the manager. The friend began to apologize for being there because, as he said, he never gambled. The manager said, “My dear sir, you are most welcome to come at any time, even though you do not gamble. You are one of our best friends, for you and others like you help to make the casino respectable!”
Spurgeon’s friend decided never to visit those gardens again. Spurgeon himself felt the same because he didn’t want people to say, “Well, the casino must be all right if Spurgeon goes there!”
People are gambling all the time today—playing Bingo, and betting on football results, horse racing, dog racing, almost any racing! They enter the National Lottery, and some even bet on whether it will snow on Christmas Day! But what is wrong with gambling? For one thing, it makes people greedy, and it tends to make them forget God and think only of this world and what it has to offer; and it is also addictive—that means that it can get such a grip on people that they can’t stop: they gamble more and more, and usually lose more and more!
The Bible says, “Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content” (i Timothy 6:6-8).
