Kosin, Fred: Family Rally Conference 2001-03 ~ Proverbs 6:6-11

Earth to glory, the family and the church. Our study last night, the family and the scriptures, and our study tonight, the family and finances. It looks like we drove some people away by our subject tonight. Three texts out of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter six, verse six. I'm glad that I can read this and say this is the scriptures, because if a preacher were to use these words outside the context of the scriptures, you might want to throw that preacher out. But this is what God says. Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, which having no captain, overseer, or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall your poverty come on you like a robber, and your need like an armed man. Chapter eleven, verse twenty four. There is one who scatters, yet increases more. There is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. The generous soul will be made rich, and he who waters will also be watered himself. The people will curse him who withholds grain, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. He who diligently seeks good finds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil. He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage. Proverbs chapter three, Verse twenty seven. Proverbs three twenty seven. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come back, and tomorrow I will give it, when you have it with you. Do not devise evil against your neighbor, for he dwells by you for safety's sake. Do not strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm. Three studies from Proverbs. Shall we pray together? Our loving God, we come with thanksgiving to you that this evening you have again reminded us of the wisdom that we find in your word. We thank you that as we read these portions, we are reminded of simple wisdom from simple creatures that often can teach us profound lessons. We feel so important, we pride ourselves in our industry, in our capacity, in our analyzation of our life and our society, and you have reminded us to go to the ant that we trample underfoot and learn important lessons from him. We come this evening in our ignorance, looking for your wisdom. We come with our emptiness, looking for your fullness. We come desiring that we might hear your voice because you have come to meet with us as you promised and to speak to those whose ears are open. Thank you for being with us and teaching us out of your word, as you said you would do through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. D. L. Moody took as his text on one occasion, the love of money is the root of all evil, and he took out of his pocket a cartwheel. For those of you who are younger than I am, and maybe even older than that, a cartwheel was one of the big silver dollars. I don't have one of those. All I've got is one that has the image of Sacajawea on it, who led the Lewis and Clark Expedition and is buried on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. That's our newest silver dollar. But he took out a cartwheel, one of those big peace dollars. He put it in his hand, and he looked at it, and he said, how is it possible? The love of this is the root or a root of all kinds of evil. He took it in his hand and turned it around, saw that it had no life. How can that which has no life threaten my life? He held the coin and said, how is something so small as that to be the root of every kind of evil? He looked at it from here, and he said, you can see the stars and the coin. You can see the moon and the coin. You can see God's creation and the coin. And he went with a long list as he held the coin an arm's length from his eye. But he said the danger is in loving that coin. And what you love, your eye is occupied with. You fasten your eye on things you love. You do that with your children. You do that with your family. You may do that with your possessions. And he began to move the coin closer to his hand, to his face. And he realized and said that the closer this coin got to his eye, the less he could see of his family. The closer this coin got to his eye, the less he could see of his friends. The closer this coin got to his eye, the less he could see of God's creation. The closer this coin got to his eye, he realized that it totally blinded him to everything else. And he held this one dollar coin in front of his eye, and he said, I can't see my friends, I can't see my family, I can't see God's creation, I cannot see the word of God, I cannot see the church. All I can see is that which I love. It's amazing that one coin can completely obscure our view of things around us, of things that are important to us, held out here, it's in perspective, and you can view the coin and many other things that you enjoy. But when that coin is brought so close to your eye, and it envelops your vision, you lose sight of things that are valuable. You lose sight of friendships. You lose sight of the purpose of business. You lose sight of things that are far more important than money itself. That simple object lesson has a profound lesson for us. There are two words that can open our study this evening. One is contentment. The other is covetousness. They stand on opposite ends of the spectrum. Covetousness, contentment. What is contentment? Contentment is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. Be content with such things as you have. Paul says in Timothy chapter, First Timothy chapter six and verse eight, in his portion on riches, that covetousness and contentment are in conflict with each other. Covetousness takes us back to the law of Moses. Thou shalt not covet. And there is a list of things we are not to covet. In Philippians chapter four and verse twelve, the Apostle Paul reminds us, even in prison, in these words, I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound everywhere, and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Contentment. Having or wanting the things I already have. God says in Isaiah, you are all filled with covetousness. From the prophet to the priest, you are all filled with covetousness. If it wasn't a problem, it wouldn't have been a law. Paul says in Romans, I had not known covetousness unless the law said, thou shalt not covet. You only have to go to your little boy or little girl and put something on the table where he can reach it and say to the little boy, honey, don't touch that. And that little boy walks over to that table with his finger, touches it, and looks at you. He would never have done that had you not said, honey, don't touch that. And so we are co- we are given the law, thou shalt not covet. And so contentment and covetousness. In Ephesians chapter five and verse five, in Colossians chapter three and verse five, it says covetousness, which is idolatry. Now, idolatry is something that takes the place of God. And even the coin that stands in front of my eye obstructs my view of God. Oh, you say we can't see God. But covetousness is idolatry. And we as believers are faced with the problem of idolatry. Oh, we shudder at the thought that maybe we as believers who come regularly to the Lord on the Lord's Day, we partake of the Lord's Supper, we pray, we read the word of God. How could we be idolaters? No, says God, the desire to have something else, it's not something else that doesn't belong to you. The desire to have something else other than what God has given you is covetousness and is idolatry. There are a couple of things that need to be changed in our life. One is our attitude toward money. I can't change that in your life, but God can. And I hope that our study this evening at least will approach that idea of a change in our attitude toward money. Money is not the root of all evil. I have a friend in Florence, he collects money. Well, you say I do too, but he would like me to bring back some coins from a foreign country. And so I brought him some coins from South America, and I said, I've been to this country before, and I said, I don't know whether you want the same coins or not. And he looked at me and he said, I love money. I couldn't resist it. I said, that's an interesting statement. Do you know what the Bible says about that? And I told him. He said, well, you know, that's not what I mean. But he likes foreign money, and it's not much use to him anyway. Our attitude toward money and our action in the use of money, those two things are important. I'm not sure that God wants to change our station in life financially. I don't think it is my responsibility or any preacher's responsibility to change a person's station in life in regard to money. But I think as a family, we want to change our attitude toward money and our action with money. Let's look at a couple of things this evening. First of all, the principles that a family should understand regarding finances. First of all, why? Why money? Some have a little, some have a lot, but why did God allow a system to develop in his world, what we now call money. It's a reward, God says. Money is a reward for service. In the text in Proverbs that I read to you, you owe something to somebody for doing something for them, for for you, and you could pay them, and you hold back. God says that's not good. In James, God says he sees that, and he will bring judgment on those who do not pay those who are owed. Money is a reward for service. Money is an exchange. We haven't always had money. Used to carry, before my time, those big cartwheels, the Eisenhower silver dollars were the replacement for the truly silver dollars, the peace dollars. And they were in exchange for, but that wasn't always the case. There were barter systems. When we were in West Africa, you could see cowrie shells, and cowrie shells by the seaside were money. You go to Papua New Guinea, and they wear something around their neck, and they are shell- they are shells, and those shells are money. Cattle in Botswana are money, and there are many different ways of using money as a means of bartering. I'll give you this, and you give me that, and it's an exchange of service. It's an exchange of, uh, possessions. And so money is a means of exchange. It's a way of remuneration. And so money is a standard by which we carry on a society. When we live with the Pygmies in Africa, they had a whole system among three or four hundred Pygmies. There were about eight or ten camps. A camp was a family, an extended family. One man made nets. He did it with weaving grass, and he would trade that to a man who would catch a monkey, and he might take part of that monkey, and he would trade that for something else. And the whole system, even though they had no money, they didn't know what the Zaire was, they still carried on a system that was a reward, it was an exchange, it was remuneration. That is the purpose of money. That immediately tells us, if it is primarily for reward and for exchange and for remuneration, I haven't said it is for storage. The second thing we need to ner- learn about money are some... the passage of money. The Bible says that money is temporary. We are living in a perishing world, and your money perish with you, said Peter to somebody who wanted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit. Your money perish. And as I was driving this afternoon, I listened on the radio to an advertisement. Buy gold coins. The price of the dollar, the value of the, of the NASDAQ and the Dow is going down and down, and what you need to do is the eternal coin, gold. Sorry, he doesn't read his Bible. It is temporary. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter six and verse seventeen that the rich are not to trust in uncertain riches. We are living in a world where money perishes. We are living in a world where money is passing away. I have in my Bible a five million Zaire note, and I sometimes hand hold it up to the children, and over against it I have a one Zaire note. It comes from the country that is now called Congo. And here is five million Zaires, and here is one Zaire. And I asked the children, which one would you like? The child doesn't even have to think, Five million zaires. I said, I'm sorry, you lost. This five million zaire dope was printed when the exchange rate was ah thirty million zaires to the dollar. And so what is it worth? Fifteen cents or less. But this one Zayir note was printed when the exchange rate was three Zayers to the dollar. And so that's worth thirty three cents. And so we realize that the passage of time means that money is temporary. We're living in a present world, and the next world, our money may not be, will not be worth anything. We're living in a passing world where things change, and we're living in a perishing world, and money is a temporary possession. The word wings is only used one time in the book of Proverbs, and it refers to the money. It says that you are rich, but money has, takes wings and flies away. What a picture. And you say goodbye to your money. When I was in Argentina, there was a huge crash in the microwave, Microsoft, and Mr. Gates, in just a couple of days, lost more money personally than the whole economy of Argentina. He lost more in the devaluation of the Microsoft sto- stock than the whole stock market of Argentina. It is temporary. Thirdly, and third principle we need to learn is that as soon as you talk about money, you're talking about problems, big problems. Oh, people say, if only I had more money, my problems would be gone. Somebody asked Mr. John D. Rockefeller, who was then the owner of Standard Oil, how much money do you need? His answer was, just a little bit more. The problems that exist in First Timothy chapter six and verse ten, the love of money is the root of every kind of evil. Chapter six and verse seven says, we brought nothing into the world, and you can carry nothing out of the world. We are told that the garment of the dead has no pockets, and so you can't carry it with you. Paul says to Timothy, warn those who are rich. Oh, you say that's not me. Oh, yes, it is. Say, but I'm not rich, but you are. He says, warn those who are rich in this present world. And I can take your economy and your riches and mine and make you a billionaire in another country. When we went to Romania, they asked me to show some slides of some places we had been, and our Romanian friends thought they were poor. They had been under communism for seventy years. They thought the West owed them a living because with the stroke of a pen at the end of World War II, we put them under communism. And when I began to explain to them the lives of other people and showed them slides of the Pygmies migrating from one part of the jungle to the other every woman having a pan on her head, and in that pan were a couple of other things. I said, that's everything she owns. Everything the family owns is on her head. And I said to those Romani- Romanian people, can you carry everything you own on your head? I show them in pictures in India of people living on the streets. I said, that's their house from that post to that post, about six feet. I said, the string that goes from that post to that post, that's their clothesline. That holds their clothes. That's all they have in life. And I began to hear some weeping, some sniffling, and I began to realize that these people who thought they were so poor were, in fact, rich. They had a cow, and they had milk. They had chickens, and they had eggs. They had a pig that they had fattened up, and they would eat from that pig all winter. They had crops, and they were rich. So we cannot stand and say, well, we're poor. We are rich indeed. Fourthly, there is a premise that is important. In dealing with money, God uses the principle of, or the premise of sowing seed. Over and over again, God uses the seed as the primary illustration of money. And I couldn't help but think, as I was reviewing that this afternoon, that the four soils and the parable of the sower fits nicely into that idea, that some of our money is thrown by the wayside, and the devil's birds come and take it away. Some of our money is put on soil that is insufficient. It's only this deep, and it immediately begins to take root, and then bang, all of a sudden, it's gone, and it doesn't produce anything. And some of our money is thrown on soil that has already filled with weeds, and the weeds spring up, and it chokes it, and we fight for our money and for its profit and for its profitability. And some of our money falls on good ground and produces sixty-fold, thirty-fold, a hundred-fold. The seed sowing is the illustration that God uses in the area of giving, in the area of serving. Now, we were with the farmers today having lunch, and what a lunch it was. I sat down next to a young man, and he began to ask me what I did, and if he asked me the question, what do you do about money? Here you are traveling around the world, and what do you do about money? And I was able to, um, share with him what we do about money. It's not something I talk about as far as I am concerned, and my personal ministry is concerned. But God says, if you plant, you reap. If you plant this kind, you reap the same kind. If you plant, you reap more. If you plant, you reap in a different season. Those are all laws of the harvest, and it is true in the garden, and it's true with our money. But we have a greater trust in the garden than we are, than we have of God. There aren't any of us here who would not be willing, anxious to throw the seed into the soil, knowing full well that God orders the principles and laws of the harvest for all of those seeds. But there are many of us who would not dare to trust that same principle with our money. It is seed sowing. So those, those four principles help us understand. Those are lessons we need to teach to our children. But how we treat money is what we do teach our children. We teach our children, very often, the purpose of money is to gather as much as possible. We teach them that through our own covetousness and our hoarding. We teach our children that money will last forever by the way we treat money. We teach our children money solves problems, when in fact the Bible says the love of money produces problems. And we teach our children, we believe this principle in the garden, but we don't believe this principle as far as God is concerned. Secondly, I want to look at this property. We must understand that money that God allows us to have is his gift to us. In First Corinthians chapter fifteen and verse ten, by the grace of God, I am what I am. And the word grace there is the word charis, from which we also translate gift. By the gift of God, I am what I am. It's true of you, it's true of me. And as long as we seek our wealth or our money in an honest and upright way, we can say, by the gift of God, I have what I have, what I am, I am what I am. There are three things that property should teach us. First of all, we are students with truths. We are students of the word of God, and as I said last evening, every aspect of life is addressed in this book. And of all the lists of things I addressed, there is more about money than in any other one. Book after book refers to money and to its use, to its misuse, to its problems, and to its blessing, how to handle it and how to mishandle it. So we are students with truths. We can find out what we should do with our money. Secondly, we are stewards of treasures. We are stewards of treasures. What God has given to you, he has given to you as a trust. He may recall it at any time because it is his. You may say, this is my money. Sorry. The Bible says it doesn't belong to you. You have a garden, and you say, that's my garden. Sorry, it's not your garden. All things were created by him and for him. Money included. It doesn't belong to me. I am a steward of that. And as we teach our children in the family, you are a steward of this allowance. You are a steward of these resources. We are impacting in the minds and hearts of children a lesson that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their life, for time and for perhaps eternity. We are students with truths, and we are responsible. We are stewards with treasures, and we are responsible. We are servants with tools. Why does God give us money? He gives it because we are servants of his. When he employed us, he gave us the tools. He said, I want you to use this and this and this for me. And God has given us these resources in order that we might glorify him. You are not your own. You are bought with a price, therefore glorify God. Point number three, our possessions. We face some problems. The problems of these possessions is, first of all, occupation. I am occupied with what I have. Some time ago, I think I reminded you of the definition of immaturity and maturity. An immature person loves things and uses people. He loves things, and he uses people. If you don't believe that, be a mother with a three-week-old baby at three a.m. in the morning, and this ungodly scream is let loose by this baby who wants to use mommy because he loves milk. And after many, many years, you teach that child to love people and use things. And money comes under that definition. To love things, to love money, and use people is diametrically opposed to the principles outlined for us in the Word of God. But to love people and use money is exactly what God wants in our life and in our ministry. Occupation. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. We have money because there are people who are in need in and around us. There is ownership. Hebrews chapter thirteen and verse five: I will never leave you nor forsake you. Isn't that a lovely verse? But do you know what it says before that? Be content with such things as you have. For I have said unto you, I will never leave you nor forsake you. But we quote the last part, and we forget that the antidote to covetousness is contentment and the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with us forever. It is better to have him than to have all the resources of glory. For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? There is obsession. In Luke chapter twelve and verse fifteen, Paul, the Lord Jesus says, beware of covetousness. For a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesses. And John adds his commentary in First John chapter two and verse fifteen and says, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. These are the things in the world. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. We have also a problem of obsession, or a problem of obtaining. The Lord Jesus Christ said in Luke chapter four— chapter three and verse nineteen, when he spoke to the soldiers, he said to them, be content with your wages. Does that mean I am not supposed to go in and ask for a raise? I think it means that God is in control. And that God superintending my life and my affairs will bring into my life what I need. He is wiser than I am. Point number four, The practical part. What are the practices that relate to money? The first one is to get out of debt. The Bible says, in the context of money, owe no man anything. Your first responsibility as a family is to get out of debt. David Ramsey, in his book on finances from a quasi-spiritual position, says that you should establish a one thousand dollar emergency fund in a liquid state so that you can have bills met on a regular basis. Romans chapter thirteen, verses seven and eight, tell us, owe no man anything but to love one another. It is inconsistent with God's superintendence in our life to be in debt without some supporting, uh, some supporting object. By that I mean something that is securing the loan. He says further that it is good for you to set aside four months money, and that that money should be set aside so that if there is a drought or you have not money coming in, you can live. And I say, well, that's exactly what Proverbs says. Go to the ant, you sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. We are needing as believers to get out of debt. It's practical. If you have an unsecured loan, the Bible is teaching us that we should pay that off. An unsecured loan is a loan from which the object that secures it is of insufficient value to pay off the loan. Hard to take? Perhaps it is, but we're living in troubling times financially. And as believers who commit our life to Jesus Christ, and we find our salvation in the guy- in the Bible, we find our description of marriage, we find our means of living the Christian life, we find that all in the scriptures, and we find this in the scriptures as well. Out of debt. It is the goal which we should have as believers. Secondly, out of hand. He says, and I think the scripture is quite clear, that you should pay your bills in cash. I'm not saying not a check, but not by credit card. I'm sorry, credit cards are out. They are a debt with an unsecured loan. As I was coming to the meeting tonight, I was listening to one of your radio hosts, and he was going on about the scams in your city of people who are offering get rich-quick solutions to problems. And he said in the midst of the announcement that today the debt of Americans is at a fifteen-year high, and for Christians it seems to be no less. And so it's time to take a collection. This is not a collection of money. This is a collection of credit. If you are in debt over your head, I've got a pair of scissors right here. You put your credit cards in here and begin to live based upon what God has entrusted to you. I don't want any money in here. Aren't you relieved? All I want is your credit card, which I will cut up and throw away. Dare I? Okay. Okay. I can't even get home if I put my brakes on. Amen. We're going to have a revival yet. Out of debt. It is God's way of dealing with these issues, and if we are not willing to do this, the sorrow and sadness will follow. I am telling you what God is saying. The family and finances. What you teach your children is doing, being done by what you do. And if your credit cards are maxed out, I suggest that you begin paying them off with the smallest amount first, and you begin paying off your house, and you sell that expensive car, and you get a cheap car so that you don't have a debt on your car. It's an unsecured loan. Out of debt, out of hand, out of pocket, budget and bargain. Why should you pay retail when there are all kinds of places around to bargain? I stopped at a motel not too many weeks ago to spend the night. They had advertised a special, and I went in and I said, I would like your special that's advertised. I think it was twenty nine dollars a night. He said, I'm sorry, we don't have any of those left. I said, oh, I said, have you got anything? He said, yes, I've got one for fifty nine ninety five. I said, that's too much. And I turned around and walked out. I just about got to my car, and this guy is following me. He said, how much can you afford? I said, I want a room for twenty nine, just like you advertised there. He said, I've got one for you. I bargain. And if we're going to beat the system, we must ha- learn to budget. You need to have your whole income one hundred percent budgeted. Give, save, pay. Those are the three texts I read for you tonight. Give to the Lord and to those you owe, save, and then pay. Out of debt, out of hand, out of pocket, or out of control. One or the other. Pass that thing around if you're not going to fill it up. Thank you. If we are out of control, we are failing in four or five areas. We're failing to save for a project. The Bible teaches that if you know that your refrigerator is thirty five years old, you begin to save for that project, and you save with a view to replacing that piece. Savings for a project, Proverbs chapter six, verses six through 9.