Clough Manhood Series Lesson 43

Wealth-Part V: Debt

Tonight we are going to have the last in the section on money. Next Sunday and the Sunday after that will be a two-section part on male leadership in the local church. And then after that we hope to get into Song of Songs. Song of Songs is an extremely difficult book. Hopefully we an get to it within three weeks. We’ve been discussing wealth. This is why, by the way, we summarized this section on the doctrine of the Christian man; after all, if there’s no two other topics, sex and love, that are on most men’s minds, I don’t know what they are. So this is why we’re ending the series on this note.

Wealth, we said, was an expression of your value system. Wealth in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament is considered extremely important because it is the means that a person has for projecting their value system into the world. And it’s about the only thing that gives power. This is taught in the book of Proverbs and while it’s true Christians can operate at the poverty level, it’s also true that in the overall theology of the Bible the man’s job is to produce, not sit on his butt. And this is the thing that God told Adam and this is the thing that we are required to do. So Proverbs particularly is where you pick that theology up for yourself on the role of wealth. And wealth has many aspects, not just money, but if you can think in terms of highly developed skills, then that is wealth.

The other night I happened to watch a program with the New York Philharmonic and it was discussing with the leading pianist soloist after the program and the conductor of that particular program was discussing the role of the artists, and it seems like no matter what field it is, whether it’s music, whether it’s are, whether it’s business, whether it’s some other field that a man’s involved in, it takes time, years, to develop skills. And this man, who is considered to be one of the world’s top pianists and happened to be on the program was telling about how he practices five years ahead; he starts researching pieces of music now to practice so that in five years he feels ready to go on the concert circuit and play them. Now if it takes five years for a man like that to get what he considers perfection in his technique and so forth, obviously it’s a highly disciplined skill. And that goes for art and it goes for anything.

So wealth is not just the amount of assets that you can convert into dollars right away; it’s also your skills, skills that you develop over a long time period. Some of us went over to the Reformation convocation at Tech today; hopefully most of you who are interested in what we’re trying to do here at Lubbock Bible Church, of breaking out of the usual fundamentalist mode as far as music is concerned, could have gone there and heard the Reformation music. This was put on by the Lutheran churches in town and what struck me, as it struck so many of us, I guess, as we sat there and listened to it, was that here we have some of the greatest music ever written in the Reformation, lyrics written by J. S. Bach, a born again musician, and we have it being sung by people who have no idea on earth what they’re singing about. And the tragedy is that that musical heritage is ours; it belongs to the body of Christ, people who have trusted in Christ. They are the ones who down through the centuries generated this art form and now it’s being used into the service of liberal theology and it’s just tragic to watch that. If Bach, for example, could have been raised from the dead prematurely to observe this kind of a thing I’m sure he would have vomited, if that would be possible in the resurrection body.

One good thing that happened in the course of this was an interesting quote that was read describing the music of the Reformation. And for those of you who think that the music program is just a product of a few people sitting in the back and the choir and it’s sort of my little pet thing I’m doing now, and so forth, listen to the words of Martin Luther. “With all my heart I would extol the precious gift of God in the noble art of music. Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God, because by her all the emotions are swayed. Nothing on earth is more mighty to make the sad joyful and the joyful sad; to hearten the downcast, to mellow the over reaming, to temper the exuberant or mollify the vengeful. This precious gift has been bestowed on people to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. But when natural music is sharpened and polished by art, then one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect wisdom of God in His wonderful work of music, where one voice takes a simple part and around sings three, four, or five other voices, leaping, spinning round about…” and as I complete this sentence you must understand Luther has a peculiar way of speaking and writing, and this is very Lutherian as you listen to it. “…five voices leaping, spinning round about, marvelously gracing the simple part like a square dance in heaven, with friendly bows, embracings and hearty swinging of the partners. He who does not find this an expressible miracle of the Lord is truly a clod and is not worthy to be called a human being.”

So hopefully now we won’t think that this is some eccentric product of a few nuts at Lubbock Bible Church. It’s just that some people in our fundamentalist circles have this attitude because they were raised in cultural poverty and nothing immoral or unspiritual about this, it’s just that we have to remember, many of us who have been raised in (quote) “Christian conservative” circles, that we have to remember that in 1920 and 1930, within those ten years we lost everything. The fundamentalists were thrown out of every major denomination. That is why we are not Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian or anything else, because the founders of fundamentalism said we will not be put in a position ever again of having to give money to apostate organizations. When you go to the mainline denominations they are all supporting the National Council of Churches, who in turn ship funds to the guerillas in Rhodesia to kill white missionaries. And this sort of thing has gone on and on and on. And these people that want to sit in the next liberal church some place, and always because Aunt So and So gave the first stone in the wall, do not understand that this is treason to give your money to people who are killing missionaries. And yet you can’t get the big denomination boards to give you the time of day when you raise this. And so the fundamentalists got out.

But by 1930 when the fundamentalists had gotten out, they lost all their seminaries; we lost all our schools and finally, by 1940 most of the great men who started the movement died. It was a tragic era in church history and we are just now coming out of it. So don’t ever take the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s as a normative picture of what fundamentalism ought to be like. It isn’t normative. It is coming up out of a situation that was rendered prostrate by various powers to be in the church. So understand that as by way of background.

Now a particular prayer request. The hymn book committee has been on and off for many, many years in Lubbock Bible Church, many people down through the years have devoted hours and hours and hours of time to try to select hymns. Those of musically sensitive can see what’s happening because in the morning series you’ve noticed we have how Great is my Father’s world, and How Great Thou Art and apart from that, that’s about the only hymns we can find in our luxurious hymn book that speak anything about creation. Now isn’t that marvelous; we have 400-500 hymns in that thing and you try to find one that talks about creation; a rather elementary act of God one would say, but nevertheless, find a hymn that speaks of the issue. You can’t because these goofballs that wrote the thing apparently don’t have a balanced theology. So down over the years there have been people who have devoted many hours to this and finally a long culmination of their efforts. The first part of this hymn book is now existing; this part of the hymn book deals with the character and essence of God, with all of His attributes. It has various hymns, almost a hundred of them, just on the doctrine of God alone which should argue to someone that the hymns can be found. Now, of course, some of these hymns come out of hymnals dating back to 1670 or 1680, a little historical search had to be done, but to those who persevere the rewards are great. Hymns 3-13 deal with God’s creative acts; hymns 14-83 deal with each of God’s attributes; hymns 84-93 deals with God’s triune nature. And this is just the beginning of a hymn book projected to have some 700 hymns, covering every part of the divine viewpoint framework and every basic doctrine of the Scripture, arranged in proper order. So before the service I don’t have to sit down with the song leader and do a spin to find out where the hymns are that we need this morning; they’ll be properly indexed.

Well, only one problem with this, as you can imagine; we have a problem with copyrights. Now some of these copyrights obviously have run out, Luther’s for example, but then there are some modern hymns that we have to get permission to use. Only one problem, the people who put copyrights on their materials neglect to put their address on the material so you can find out who owns the copyright. And the other problem is that the copyrights are on the hymn books from which these hymns are taken and we don’t know what that copyright means. For example, if you turn in your hymn book you’ll see some hymns are “used by permission of,” well, those are copyrighted individual hymns. We have to get permission to use those. There are four or five modern hymns in here, and those have to be checked out. But then there’s the great majority, of course, that have come from copyrighted hymn books and these have to be researched very carefully. And then the other problem is that some of our people here in the congregation have done a lot of work rewriting the lyrics to the good music. There are some hymns with good music and the lyrics to that will be totally rewritten. And this requires creative work and an individual copyright.

So our prayer petition is this: Please pray as we write the Library of Congress, copyright division, that we can get this thing expedited through all the massive bureaucracy. You can well imagine, knowing government like most of you do, how long this process can take. It can take as long as a year or two, just writing a letter, oh sorry, they don’t live here any longer, they’ve been transferred. This kind of thing, chasing down hymn after hymn after hymn; it’s a massive process and that process, we’re turning out, is just as much of a work job as creating the hymnal. So some people have been very creative, have given dozens and dozens and hundreds of hours of their time to get this out; now all thwarted by the all the bureaucracy that we have to go through. But we must do it, it’s the law of the land. So therefore pray for expeditious working of the bureaucracy so we know where to write, and we don’t have to round Robin Hood’s barn to get there. All right, from Robin Hood’s barn we’ll get back to money and the other points that we have discussed.

We have studied how money is used in worship. We have said that worship, the use of money is given in the Bible, is a clear expression of where we have put our values. Again, it’s putting our money where our mouth is. We’ve studied taxes and we’ve said that Caesar loves a cheerful giver and this becomes in competition to our God, as Caesar wishes to take over more and more areas of God’s domain. And then finally the area of the family. Last time we studied this we dealt with family wealth. One of the most frustrating things that any Christian man has is first of all in starting his family properly. Most young men marry and start with nothing, and so their wives have to work. And are all sorts of problems are introduced into the marriage situation. In the Bible, in that ideal situation the man would have had two to three years salary saved up before he got married, and those of you who are newly married know exactly how that would have eased the problem for your first and second year of marriage, had this been done. But our society puts pressure on the man in this situation so it’s very hard for the average guy to do this. The second thing about the family we studied was the battle to save while you’re in an inflating economy; a tremendous battle, but all men in their families and their homes face that problem. Where do we put our assets to protect our wives and out children? This is a big problem. The other problem we dealt with in the family and money is trying to get your money put into the next generation; your firstborn son, your other children. These are the children that are going to go on living in your name, and you’ve got to somehow do battle to transfer your wealth to those people. And the problem is not easy at all when the government insists upon taxing inheritance. It’s an ungodly tax, inheritance tax is. It is not given for the purpose of revenue; it’s infinitesimal what the government gets off of inheritance tax…infinitesimal! The tax is never designed for revenue generation; the tax on inheritance is designed to crush the family; in particular crush wealthy families. But just because a family is wealthy doesn’t mean it’s evil, but that’s the socialist mentality. So we have these areas of battle that the Christian man is called upon.

And tonight we are finishing the last area of that, it’s the battle over indebtedness. Let’s turn to Exodus 12:35, the problem of indebtedness. This is not a minor problem. In the Bible the economic term for indebtedness and pay off of debt, called redemption, are used and thought so much of by the Holy Spirit that He describes the plan of salvation in monetary terms. This little word: redemption. do you know what it means? Getting out from debt, that’s what it means. And those of you who have been in debt and have had to work your way out the hard way know exactly the sensation of relief when that last payment is made. And you vow to yourself at least not to go in debt for a few hours more.

This act of redemption, this feeling of redemption, is what the Bible describes as typifying and describing the state of salvation. And in Exodus 13:35, after the Jewish people received their political freedom you’ll notice what happened. “And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed [asked] of the Egyptians,” they didn’t borrow, this is they ripped them off, “jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment. [36] And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent [gave] to them such things as they required. And they spoiled” or ripped off “the Egyptians.”

Now why is this true, what justification do we have for this. It’s simple; for 400 years or depending on the chronology, 200 years, these people had given of their labor, largely in slavery. They were paid zero wages. The Egyptians owed them back wages. Who built the pyramids, the particular pyramids? General Graham had an interesting comment on pyramids I guess I mentioned; they were just the Egyptians attempt to build cubes, showing his evaluation of their technical skills. The Egyptians used free Jewish labor to build these projects and God is not going to have people constantly ripped off before the wheels of historic justice play out. And so therefore on the night of the Passover they walk off with the silver and the gold of Egypt. That is their back salary. See, there is a certain restoration of the scales of justice in history.

Now this is important because it’s picked up in the New Testament, this idea of redemption, getting out of debt, getting saved. Turn to 1 Peter 1:18, a very famous passage but it doesn’t mean too much if we don’t first see its simple, the simple level of truth. In 1 Peter 1:18 out salvation is described in terms of getting out of debt. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, from your vain conversation [manner of life] by tradition from your fathers, [19] But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Notice, you were redeemed. This time you got out of debt not because you paid cash; because Christ paid blood and that gave us out and we memorialize it forever in our service of communion, the Lord’s supper.

So therefore the biblical picture is always linking salvation to getting out of debt. We were in the slave market of sin; we owed money. In the slave market in the ancient world was populated, not so much by military conquest; it was populated by people who couldn’t pay their debt, and so the concept of the slave market of sin from which we were redeemed is the picture of people who were in bondage economically and therefore someone liberated them by paying off the debt.

This picture of indebtedness and getting out of debt and salvation is carried forward in several places in the Mosaic Law. The culture of Israel, you know, was to be a divine viewpoint witness; that is, God established the nation Israel to communicate to the world what society would look like if God were King. For that reason the Mosaic Law is important; it gives wisdom. And in that law, and we’ve mentioned this several times in the manhood series, every six years all debts would go to zero. Every forth-nine years all buyed land titles would revert to the original owner. Now why were these provisions built into the system? They were built into the system so that the individual person, and the nation as a whole, would not get multiply indebted, would not get hopelessly indebted and continuously indebted, because indebtedness, economic borrowing, is a picture of slavery and the nation was not to have that social characteristic and so God had these provisions in the Law to break it. Every six years on the seventh year boom, all notes cancelled. If you haven’t paid yours back God is going to have to provide the creditor because you don’t have to pay him back any more. On the 50^th year, the year of jubilee, the land reverted back, even if you had to trade off some of your real estate holdings to pay off debts, it would come back to you; title would remain in the family. Now those provisions are there to break and crack the habit of borrowing.

Let’s look at how the provisions of the Mosaic Law were later amplified in the Old Testament. Turn to Psalm 37 for this particular psalms is a psalm that’s called a wisdom psalm. It’s a psalm that teaches principles. In Psalm 37:21 we have a slogan: “The wicked borrows and pays not again; but the righteous shows mercy, and gives.” That was their moralism, you might say, about this business of borrowing money. It was considered extremely wicked to borrow and to (quote) “declare bankruptcy” and so forth. That sort of thing was in violation of the Law because it was a form of theft. “The wicked one borrows, and doesn’t pay again.” Now the opposite of borrowing is given. Notice, the righteous doesn’t just not borrow, but he is productive enough so that he can then give. There’s a spirit, not of consumption, but a spirit of production; consumption versus production.

Let’s look at Proverbs 3:27, same kind of thing, and notice in these as we look at these crystal sentences to succinct statements of wisdom that they epitomize a mental attitude. Verse 27-28, the spirit of Proverbs 3, the spirit of mental attitude of generosity. “Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.” That would apply, by the way, to many things, not just money; a good little proverb to remember. If you have the power to do something, sometimes you don’t, God doesn’t hold us responsible when we can’t, but he does hold you responsible when you could have done something and you didn’t. [28] “Say not to thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give you, when you have it right with you.” So again it’s a certain mental attitude that concerns our holding of wealth.

Turn to Proverbs 22:7, here more than any other we have the central idea of indebtedness. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” It will always work; young people get married, one of the standard questions I now ask in premarital counseling and they don’t have to answer it, I mean I’m not trying to be the interrogator, but I’m just asking it so that they can consider it: are you gong to be self-existing on your own, with your own budget as a couple, or has mamma and daddy pitched into the till for you? Now that’s not always bad because sometimes in-laws like to help. But if you get in a position where mamma and daddy have given you something, there’s always the temptation later on, when all isn’t going just exactly the way mamma and daddy want, unless you have some very mature in-laws, that they’ll say now who gave you that? The borrower is servant to the lender, and you can make your whole home, and you start your whole marriage off in servitude when you don’t have to. Maybe you do have to eat beans for a couple of months but so what. The point still remains that you are not going to be the servant to the lender.

Now this doesn’t have to be applied in every case, but it depends and I always ask the young couple, watch out, know what is going to be, are they going to lord it over you? Are you going to accept it as a gift? Gift it, fine, but be careful of indebting yourself to hold a cloud over your marriage over your family. This goes for other things; for your home. You’re a slave, we all are, to the bank who holds the mortgage. Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, we have to have certain insurance policies on the home, the bank requires it. The bank makes us pay for it; the money doesn’t go to the bank, it goes to the insurance company. Why? Because the bank is going to protect its part of our home. If you have a car you pay collision on it because the bank is interested in protecting the bank’s investment. You are a servant to the lender. And this gets carried on throughout life. And before you sign too quickly on the dotted line for some installment plan at 18% interest, just think, as a borrower you are servants to the lender. If you have problems with this area, as I’ll say later on this evening, and just seem to get in debt all the time, take Proverbs 22:7; [can’t understand words] shall put a caricature out for you of Proverbs 22:7, have her put it up there in big two inch letters over your door, over your kitchen table or something. But do something to remind you of the principle.

All right, we could go on, there are many, many other passages, of course, in the Bible but I think these show the general spirit of the text. Now, one caution, for no sooner do we teach this business about don’t get indebted then we have some person, some man who’s starting his business; he says yes, but does this principle apply to my business and commercial loans, because you’ve said that all the se principles in the Bible apply to personal loans. Well, it’s true, commercial loans were permitted and encouraged to get businesses started. Proof text: Matthew 25:27.

In Matthew 25:27 the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching a certain well known principle. Tonight we are not going to look at the spiritual side because we want to look at the physical principle. Jesus is talking to a young man who had money and he said what’d you do with it. And he says in verse 27, “You ought, to have put My money to the banker, and, at My coming, I would have received My own with interest.” So He encourages the man here to use his money in investments. So no, these prohibitions against usury and indebtedness do not apply to commercial loans. The only caution is that obviously indebtedness is dangerous and it’s foolish beyond certain limits, and as part of your business, you have to do that or talk to some men, maybe Christian men that you know, that are skilled in the area of investments and money. Don’t lay that one on me, I have nothing to say in that area, so that’ll be all 1500 counseling appointments I don’t have to do because I don’t know anything about it. So you talk to some of the other men here that are experts in that area.

Now the cost of debt. There’s a tremendous cost to indebtedness, and of course all people trained in finance know this but for some of you who may not have realized just how much cost in indebtedness, here’s a little chart somebody worked out where you borrow $1,000 each year at 10%, for ten years. Well, after ten years you’ve borrowed $10,000, which you owe, your debt. Your interest, suppose it’s 10%, your interest you’ve paid already is $5,500, and then if you take ten years to pay that back after it all is said and done, at 10% you’ve paid $5,500 more in interest, for a total of $11,000 in interest on an amount of $10,000. Now that isn’t too shrewd. That really isn’t swift, to do things that way, unless you expect an imminent inflation rate of 50% or some sort. So notice the high cost of being in debt. Now it’s true, you have a hard time, as young couples, oftentimes you have very hard times, old couples too, saving anything in an inflating economy. But the problem is that it’s still better to save it and put it some place; if nothing else the mental attitude of discipline over your affairs. Learn to live, in other words, with some sort of control here.

Let me show you another text with a graphic picture of this. Deuteronomy 28:44; it pictures the lifestyle of people who just can’t avoid getting this massive indebtedness. Notice the expression used here, a very graphic expression. In the context it’s talking about the cursing on the nation Israel; it’s talking about the fact that the nation is going to be in debt, balance of payments all screwed up and everything. And the Gentile “will lend to you,” Israel, “and you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you’re going to be the tail.” And that’s the way it is, and that’s always the way it is whenever you are in debt. So take heart from these pictures, the picture you saw in Proverbs 22:7, the borrower is servant to the lender, and Deuteronomy 28:44 which shows you, are you the head or are you the tail, come wagging along like a squirrel after every nut in the place. And that’s exactly the way it feels when you’re multiply indebted; bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, from one bill payment to the next. The tail of the squirrel is a very good picture of this kind of a situation.

Does the Bible give us some advice on how to get out of debt? Yes it does. Here is some advice, some of the advice that the Scriptures do give. The first problem is that indebtedness, unless of course obviously you had a situation of massive sickness and a catastrophe, that kind of thing, but we’re talking about what affects most couples and most people, just getting in debt for the sake of getting in debt. And the first piece of advice the Scriptures give, I’ll give you some verses on it but let me just tell you the principle, is you’ve got to admit that it’s your –R ungodly learned behavior pattern that got you there. It’s not the people that sold you the goods; it’s the fact that you bit on the advertising when you didn’t need it, and you didn’t exercise judgment, and if a person is in debt habitually they habitually don’t exercise judgment. And so therefore you’ve got to come… before you deal with this bill or that particular bill, the bills aren’t the issue; it is the mental attitude that’s the issue.

Now the mental attitude is dealt with in several passages in the New Testament. I’ve shown you some other passages, but let’s look at these. Luke 3, this is directed at army officers; it could apply to anyone but in that day it applied to army officers. It’s a very famous passage, incidentally, in case you ever get in a discussion with somebody that says ah, the New Testament doesn’t hold to capital punishment. I submit that this particular passage in Luke 3:14 teaches it by implication. Soldiers were there to kill. When these soldiers came to John the Baptist, he didn’t say quit; in other words, you are trained killers, do a good job, that “do violence to no man,” is talking about illegitimate killing, not killing in order of army. “…neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages.” And that’s not a sentence to total passivity, that’s not saying that if there’s another unit with better wages you can’t bargain a little bit, but what it is saying is that there ought to be a mental attitude that says all right, Lord, right now You haven’t given me any higher wages, and I’m going to have to say okay, for now this is my ceiling and I’m going to have to be therewith content. And that’s it; too bad but that’s it. We will try to do better in the future, but right now we are going to live within our limits; be content with your wages.

Another parallel reference to this is Philippians 4:11-12. That’s a good reference too. [“Not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. [12] I know both how to be abased, and I now how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”] “I have learned in whatsoever state therewith to be content. Covetousness, the lust for good, is a violation of the tenth commandment.

All right, that’s where it all starts. If a person can’t make a change in his mental attitude, any little counsel that can be given about hey, here’s a plan to get out of this debt, it’s thwarted; believe me, I’ve seen it happen. You get a plan, here’s somebody just under the pile, you get a whole plan to get them out of the pile, they get out of the pile and boom, they celebrate and go right back in. Well, now what happens here? It’s because the basic mental attitude was never changed. You’ve got to change the basic mental attitude and that is a spiritual battle. It has nothing to do with the dollar bill; it has to do with this problem, right here; it’s a spiritual battle. We all are affected in degree to this.

All right, second thing, we have got to get in view a certain Christian lifestyle of productivity. You think again of the puritans, coming over to this country, carving out a higher civilization out of the rocky soil of New England. If you’ve never been to New England, let me tell you something about the soil. It’s not like the soil around here; you see those pictures of stone fences along the farms in New England, do you know where the stones came from? Every spring the frost heaves them up and before you can plow the ground you’ve got to lift the stones off and for centuries those farmers have been lifting stones out of the field, out of the soil, because the frost heaves it up and you can’t get a plow without breaking it. That’s the kind of farmland that the Puritans had to farm. And so they were a productive people. You think of the Mennonites moving down here in Seminole, if the department of immigration will let them. Think of the Mennonites moving in, the productivity of these people; fantastic productivity. Why? Because they’re using biblical principles; they have a productive lifestyle.

Now what has happened in our country is we have eliminated cause/effect. So let’s say we have different lifestyles and we’ll indicate lifestyle one, lifestyle two, lifestyle three, lifestyle four. And there are various groups and so forth identifiable in our country with different lifestyles with regard to this business of production. It has nothing to do with race though it may at times be identified with certain races. It doesn’t have to d with race! I say it has to do with their spiritual background and perception of what it means to be a human being made in God’s image. And because of this, when we have a free enterprise system, suppose lifestyle one was a lifestyle of productivity; these people were future oriented, that means that the young men would go out and they’d say okay, I’m making this amount of money, I’m going to save 10% of my salary, and yes, it means that I can’t get into a house, or I can’t buy this and I can’t buy that that I want right now but I am going to save this and I am going to build into my future, and I’m going to capitalize… I’m going to capitalize my wealth, I’m looking to the future. So what’s going to happen after a while is that lifestyle one is going to guarantee to be successful, whether it’s an industry, farming or whatever, that’s immaterial, the lifestyle is what is going to generate the wealth.

And then we have a second lifestyle over here and this lifestyle says mañana, you know, put everything off till tomorrow and we’ll sleep today. Now that’s fine; if you want to enjoy the present that’s a good way to live. But it’s not going to produce much wealth, which is all right too; maybe a person living lifestyle two doesn’t want to have wealth; that’s all right. But then here’s what happens under socialism. Then the people in lifestyle two are bettered by politicians, oh, look at those wealthy people over there, they rip you off. We want to redistribute the wealth. And so what happens? The government intervenes and penalizes lifestyle one by ripping off their wealth and giving it to lifestyle two, when lifestyle two was a volitional choice. Those people didn’t have to live that way, they chose to live that way. And this goes on again and again and again. And you see, this is why, any form of socialism and welfarism is detrimental to this sort of thing because it penalizes your most productive people. They are the ones that get ripped off, not the clowns and the clods. And this goes on and it goes on and it goes on, and American industry is full of this kind of thing and we’re about to see it all play out. So, if you are a young Christian man going into some area, go into some area of basic production that will be needed in the future, and get your skills in that area, and produce in that area. And find some place where you can work where there’s a minimum of this kind of interference. It is the only way you’re going to survive and build for tomorrow.

All right, so we’ve made a decision then, we said, we’ve recognized our problem, our indebtedness is a spiritual problem. We’re going to pray about it; we’re going to read the Scriptures until the Word of God just heals this lusting we have for things. I don’t know of any other medicine than a healthy prescription of daily dose of the Word to do this but just reading it, reading it, reading it, reading it, over and over and over and over. Then you recognize the problem of lifestyle that you will choose. No one else is going to choose it for you; you have the right to be a bum the rest of your life. Or, you can be a productive individual the rest of your life. But don’t blame it on something else; within boundaries we are our own responsible agent.

Now let’s turn to Proverbs 21 for another little item about how to get out of debt. After we’ve made this basic choice of what kind of a person we’re going to be, in Proverbs 21:20, we ought to make it a principle that wherever we are on the scale of the economics, whatever we’re earning, we will not be spending exactly equal to what we’re taking in. We will learn to live with a healthy margin. And that’s what’s taught here; let me explain. “There is treasure to be desired, and oil, in the dwelling of the wise man, but a foolish man spends it up.” And the principle there is that both start out with the oil, and that was his desire. The only difference is the idiot spends it all and the wise man saves it, he conserves it. Not that he’s a penny pincher, but he always saves a percent. He lives with his spending level below his income; an elementary thing but boy, a revolutionary truth to some people. Believe me because I don’t say this sarcastically because I’ve been in counseling problems, people have been Christians all their life, boy, that’s a profound truth. It involves third grade arithmetic. When you subtract a larger number from another one you come out with bad answers.

All right, now there’s a way, a fourth principle in this process, 2 Corinthians 8:12. And oftentimes a young man is very plagued with this. This is the problem of giving. I will have to say this about some of my colleagues, ministers have a tendency to be rip off artists. Some of the greatest con artists in the world are ministers. And they would love to have you give to their every little goofy project that they have, and they conceived this autonomously and so on, never checked with anybody, never examined the thing, but they go (quote) “out on faith” which means going out on a limb and hoping the Christians will bail me out. And then they’ll kind of get the guilt thing, oh gosh, what’s going to happen, this work’s going to cave in if you don’t give for it. Well, let it cave in; maybe it ought to. You see, the free market operates in Christian work if we just let it operate.

I think, for example, a very practical illustration, {?} pointed this out and maybe some of you aren’t aware of the details of it; one of the newest supportees of Lubbock Bible Church, {?} and they represent to me one of the finest, well-trained, prepared, couples I have ever seen go toward the mission field. They both have spent years on the mission field before they went out; they are fully aware of the living conditions on the scene; and they are very shrewd in their strategies. They have it thought out what the role of the missionary is supposed to do; it’s not just give shots to the Hottentots; it is to go ahead and give education to them, as well as the gospel, so they can take the gospel into every area, and then we won’t have a repeat of the debacle that we are watching in Africa now, with the black evangelicals just wiped out because they were taught month after month and year after year by the American missionary, oh, don’t get involved in politics, it’s evil. Fine, and so the nation gets its freedom, the evangelicals stay out of politics, and Edi Amin takes over. Brilliant accomplishment. And where are the Christians? Well right now they’re either dead or they’re in prison, that’s where the Christians are, all because they were taught that it’s evil for a Christian to get involved in politics.

The Muslims don’t teach their people that way; there’s a school that is training Muslims to take over Africa in Alexandria, Egypt, right tonight. And any person who graduates from this school in Alexandria must have memorized the Koran in Arabic from cover to cover or they can’t graduate. Now that’s what the Islamic people demand of their missionaries. Who says we can’t have a training program that tough. Well, we had, and {?} are well equipped. It’s interesting, I’ve been watching as they’ve put out the feelers for their support. They’ve already got it. Now why is that? I submit to you it’s because the Christians as a body sense that this couple knows what they’re doing and therefore they give to them. There’s a confidence that they have, and so therefore they don’t have to go around beg, beg, beg, beg, beg, beg, beg, that kind of thing.

But now oftentimes it’ll be, particularly when you’re starting your married life, you’re starting out in the world on your job as a single person, that you may want to give some time and you can’t; maybe you don’t have the right talent; maybe you don’t have the cash, and you’ll be in that kind of a bind sometimes. Well, lest you feel guilty about it look at 2 Corinthians 8:12, “For if there first be a willing mind, it is accepted according to that which a man has, not according to that which he has not.” In other words, what Paul says, it’s the mental attitude. Do you want to? If you have the means, fine. If you don’t have the means, fine. It’s going back to whether you want to, your own mental attitude in the area of giving. But we suggest if you are in problems of indebtedness, it may sound foolish from the pragmatic, utilitarian point of view, I agree, it may sound foolish to say that one ought to be in this area of giving, yes, even while you’re in debt. The reason is because of a mental attitude. As long as you can give two cents you are in a position where you’re using your wealth the way you’re supposed to and that’s a positive reinforcement of a principle that ought to operate.

All right, another thing that may have to be done to get out of indebtedness. 1 Kings 15, it’s not very pleasant but sometimes this has to be done. Two things we’ll conclude with in this program. In 1 Kings 15:16 the King of Judah was entrapped. Basically he was in bondage. It’s a form of political blackmail analogous to being in debt. In verse 18 what does this king do to get out of debt? He “took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasuries of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants. And King Asa sent them to Ben-hadad,” now look what he’s doing? He’s shipping the gold and the silver out of the house of God, as well as his own palace, to obtain redemption. Now nobody likes to do this but it may come down to it, where a couple or an individual is so heavily in debt that you have to sell off some of your possessions, possessions that you really like, that are cherished possessions. But you really don’t need them on a day by day basis; you really don’t need them. Maybe it’s the car that you’re making too big payments on it and you’ll have to put up with an old thing for a while longer, but whatever it is you may have to go and sell off, sell off, sell off, sell off, sell off, and generate cash to get out of the debt.

Believe me, the physical deprivation of getting rid of those cherished goods is nowhere to be compared to the emotional relief of getting out of debt. That is far more valuable for your soul than the little physical thing here and there.

The other thing that was done and this was done in the family, and I think this is implications about women working. Every once in a while a young man will say well, I’m not going to let my wife work. Boom, absolute value. That’s ideal. Correct. But let’s look at Exodus 21:1. This is talking about slavery and bondage, indebtedness. No man likes to see his wife work, obviously. We’re not talking about some [can’t understand word] bum, he doesn’t like to see his wife work, unless the wife is involved in something that she likes to do and can do it on the side or something, that’s different. But no man likes to say well Hon, you’ve got to go out and work, that’s the only way we can make it. It’s not a pleasant thing. But to show you that it is not totally excluded either, by the Word of God, let’s examine this passage.

Exodus 21:2, “If you buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. [3] If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he was married, then his wife shall go out with him. [4] If his master have given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters,” and so on, it discusses this Hebrew servant. Now where did the Hebrew servant come from? The Hebrew servant sold himself into bondage because he was in debt. You say fine, that’s the man, not the woman. Keep reading. Verse 7, “And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. [8] If she please not her master,” and so on, there’s the case where the daughter is sold.

Now offhand I was unable to find one, where the wife is put out to work like this, though Proverbs 30 does show the wife involved in a business. Here you’ve got the children being put into work where the work money comes back to the father and the mother of the home. So we do have precedence, sometimes, in breaking out of massive indebtedness, where the entire family has to chip in. Now you say, well that’s awful. Being in debt is awful. And sometimes getting out of debt requires radical moves. And oftentimes if these radical moves are taken, it will leave such a bad taste in your mouth it will cure you of ever having to do that again. So that has a long-term redemptive quality in your soul. You’ll remember that, you’ll say next time the glittering appeal comes, next time the sweet deal is put to you, where you could stand to lose and get massively in debt, and you say no thanks; thanks but no thanks, I’ve been through that before; I can remember when my wife had to work, when my children had to work, and I’m never going to do that again, I learned my lesson there. But it’s part of learning. And the Scriptures realize that this is a fallen world and caution us in this area of the use of money.

This concludes the series on money; some of you have handed in feedbacks and again this evening I walked off without the feedback cards. But we’ll get to them someday and we’ll try to answer those things.