Luxury, Poverty and the Kingdom of God
3.  Luxury, Poverty, and Proverbs

May 5, 2007 - Dennis Mullen

            Today:  Luxury, Poverty, and Proverbs

            I love the book of Proverbs, but for all the wrong reasons.  I love it because you can read it and not think too much.  I read through Proverbs this week in about two hours and it’s as easy on the mind as reading the comics in the newspaper.  One proverb washes over you, then moves on to make way for the next one.  The temptation is to enjoy each wise saying and nod my approval, but then to forget it.  I like reading Proverbs that way, but I’m not sure that’s a great reason.

            A second reason is that Proverbs is, to use religious jargon, “works-oriented”.  If Proverbs were marketed today, it might be titled:  “How to Succeed in Life” or “31 Chapters to Unleash Your Potential”.  Proverbs is about what to DO, how to ACT, how to manage your money and steward your relationships in a wise way that will bring you success in life.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But it isn’t the Gospel, which is of course the message of God’s FREE gift of salvation to us, apart from any works we could do to try to earn it.  I like Proverbs because I like thinking in terms of work, achievement, and that isn’t always a good thing.  It can get in the way of grace.  Still, works, the things that we DO, have a very important place AFTER we’re saved, and I like Proverbs for that.

            A third reason I like Proverbs is that it keeps things simple.  There is hardly a proverb in this book that anybody needs to have explained to them.  If the whole Bible were Proverbs, we wouldn’t need preachers.  You don’t have to know Hebrew or ancient Jewish customs or strange religious terminology to understand these short bits of wisdom.  They’re simple, and I like simple.  The problem with simple, though, is that real life isn’t often simple, so simple bits of wisdom may be TOO simple to work in every situation, so that even these bits of wisdom need to be applied with wisdom.

            For example, Proverbs 22:6 says:

  PR 22:6 Train a child in the way he should go,

    and when he is old he will not turn from it.

            Now that’s generally true.  If you train your children well in the ways of God, generally speaking they’ll continue to follow that path that you set them upon.  But it isn’t a 100% money back guarantee and if it were, kids would be little robots not real people with free will to decide for themselves. 

            Another proverb makes clear the nature of proverbs:

  PR 11:8 The righteous man is rescued from trouble,

    and it comes on the wicked instead.

            This is often what happens.  Wickedness is revealed and justice prevails.  And ultimately in the coming Kingdom of God, those who have chosen wickedness in this life will pay for it.  But you don’t need much life experience before you realize how often this ISN’T what happens in this world.

            Proverbs knows this - this fact that not every life situation can be captured in a single witty saying.  That's why 26:4 says: 4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
       or you will be like him yourself.

But 26:5 says:

 5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
       or he will be wise in his own eyes.

            Which is it?  We're smart enough to know that it depends on what kind of fool we're talking about!
 

            I bring all this up because today we dive into Proverbs to find a few needed lessons about poverty, riches and obedience to God’s Word.  What we’re going to see is absolutely necessary to see in our study of poverty.  But if we don’t approach this wisdom wisely, we won’t see the whole picture, and we’ll just confirm our prejudices or our visions of how we WANT the world to be rather than how it really is.

            So, what about wealth, poverty and the book of Proverbs?  We've been away from this study for a couple of weeks so let's review where we've been.  Week one:  The Rich Man and Lazarus.  We talked about the implications of our own luxury in the face of a world where many people are starving.  Week two:  The Separation of the Sheep and the Goats on Judgment Day.  We talked about that famous line from Jesus:  "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me," and in that saying we saw our obligation to let go of some of our luxuries and serve Jesus by helping the poor.
          So, two sermons on OUR obligation, and more to come.  But what about the obligation of the poor?  Is the entire moral responsibility for their assistence on those who have some money and some goods?  Don't THEY have an obligation?  Over the last six months I have heard a number of our people talk about helping the willing, "not with a hand out but with a hand up".  That implies that the poor, or some of them anyway, have an immediate obligation to take part in their own assistance.  Is that from the Bible?
          It is, and one of the places in the Bible that it's from is Proverbs.  In fact, it's no exaggeration to say that Proverbs is a manual on how to succeed in life.  It isn't just a collection of wisdom, but wisdom aimed at success - in fact, let's go a step further and say that it is wisdom aimed at gaining wealth, as long as we define wealth more broadly than simply the material things.  Listen, after all, to some of these proverbs that get to the heart of the book:

  PR 3:1 My son, do not forget my teaching,

    but keep my commands in your heart,

  PR 3:2 for they will prolong your life many years

    and bring you prosperity.

 Or this (and this is wisdom speaking about herself):

  PR 8:18 With me are riches and honor,

    enduring wealth and prosperity.

  PR 8:19 My fruit is better than fine gold;

    what I yield surpasses choice silver.

  PR 8:20 I walk in the way of righteousness,

    along the paths of justice,

  PR 8:21 bestowing wealth on those who love me

    and making their treasuries full.

          Those two paragraphs remind me that there are whole chapters of Proverbs devoted to advertising wisdom's virtues, telling young people and older ones too how smart they would be to store up wisdom rather than to focus on money and pleasure exclusively, and some of the benefits of pursuing wisdom, crass though it may sound, is that in the long run it can make you rich and content.
            Now, let's say I'm a young man again (parts of Proverbs are addressed very specifically to young men - in fact, there is a whole chapter on staying away from wild women!) - and I don't have much money because I'm just starting out in the world.  I want to make good choices and hopefully succeed in life and make a little money along the way so that I'm no longer poor.  What does Proverbs tell me?  Let me oversimplify and find TWO lessons for prosperity in Proverbs:

          1.  Obey God.  Pursue righteousness.  Follow God's commands.  However you want to put it, there is this message in Proverbs that says that if you pursue God and live according to his commands, and resist the temptations to sin and pursue your own lusts and worse impulses, God will reward you.  For example:

  PR 3:9 Honor the LORD with your wealth,

    with the firstfruits of all your crops;

  PR 3:10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing,

    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

          That of course refers to the tithes and offerings that God's people owe to God.  From the OT Law through the prophets through Jesus, through the apostles, giving to the Lord of the firstfruits, the first part of your income is linked to a promise of blessing from God.  No plan for financial success is complete if it doesn't include tithes and offerings. 

          More generally, this idea of living for God and being blessed by God in a material way is seen in these:
 

  PR 10:3 The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry

    but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

          Again, does it ALWAYS work that way?  Not in this world.  In the coming Kingdom, it will, and it often does in this world too.

  PR 11:24 One man gives freely, yet gains even more;

    another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

PR 11:25 A generous man will prosper;

    he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

PR 13:21 Misfortune pursues the sinner,

    but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.

  PR 13:22 A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children,

    but a sinner's wealth is stored up for the righteous.

          These and other proverbs make the case that obedience to God, righteousness, brings blessing and even prosperity.  He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.  The second lesson for escaping poverty and gaining wealth receives much more attention in Proverbs:

          2.  Work Hard.

  PR 10:4 Lazy hands make a man poor,

    but diligent hands bring wealth.

  PR 12:11 He who works his land will have abundant food,

    but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment.

  PR 14:23 All hard work brings a profit,    
but mere talk leads only to poverty.

And then, this extended proverb that is one of my favorites, just for its wit:

 PR 24:30 I went past the field of the sluggard,

    past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;

  PR 24:31 thorns had come up everywhere,

    the ground was covered with weeds,

    and the stone wall was in ruins.

  PR 24:32 I applied my heart to what I observed

    and learned a lesson from what I saw:

  PR 24:33 A little sleep, a little slumber,

    a little folding of the hands to rest--

  PR 24:34 and poverty will come on you like a bandit

    and scarcity like an armed man.

             Good stuff.  So, there is this consistent principle in Scripture (not just in Proverbs) that if there is work to be done and someone is able to do it, then the key to getting the food and shelter and the other things you need is to take part in the work.  If someone is unwilling to do that, then poverty is the natural consequence.

             I have spend nearly 20 years in this community and I know quite a few people (many of YOU, in fact) who have succeeded financially and materially, and one thing all of these people have in common is they know how to work hard.  They put in the effort and time in grade school, middle school, high school, then went off and did it again in college.  They worked hard in their jobs, or they put in long hours starting and running a business and they work hard at their homes and take care of their possessions.  Now I know that in the world out there, there are people who have stumbled into wealth - lottery winners, or people who inherited money, etc.  But I don't know any of those folks.  Everyone I know who has done well worked hard to do it.

             When I was 11- or 12, I went to a 4-H Club meeting (this was out in the farm country of Ohio) and that night we were talking about raising money for some project.  Someone suggested a rock-a-thon, where everyone gets sponsors and then you sit in a rocking chair for 18 hours, and your sponsors pay you by the hour.  After we kicked that idea around, one of the farmers who served as our club sponsors, spoke up and said:  "Young people, I don't pay people to rock in chairs.  I pay them to work!"  He was giving us an important life lesson, one that Proverbs supports.  If you want to make a living, learn to work.  Learn to do more than you feel like doing, learn to work when you don't feel like it, learn to to do good work, and that will in many ways set you apart from the crowd.  The world owes no one a living.  So learn to work hard.  That is SUCH an important truth, and in many ways our solutions to poverty fail when they fail to take into account the need to work.

             If only that was all there was to it.

             If hard work were the total answer, we wouldn't have a series on luxury, poverty and the kingdom of God, but rather one sermon called "Get back to work!"

             In a perfect world, work would always pay off in proportion to the quality and effort you put in.  If a field needed plowed or a tree needed cut or a class needed taught or a sermon needed wrote :) then the more you worked at it the more money would be deposited in your account, and then everyone could choose how much to earn by choosing how hard to work.

             But the world doesn't work that way, and Proverbs knows it.  Proverbs doesn't simply tell the poor to get to work.  It knows there are other things besides laziness that keep people poor, and there are other things besides God's blessing that make people rich.  Listen:

            
  PR 13:23 A poor man's field may produce abundant food,

    but injustice sweeps it away.

  PR 14:31 He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,

    but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

  PR 19:17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD,

    and he will reward him for what he has done.

  PR 21:13 If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor,

    he too will cry out and not be answered.

  PR 28:8 He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest

    amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.

  PR 28:27 He who gives to the poor will lack nothing,

    but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

  PR 29:7 The righteous care about justice for the poor,

    but the wicked have no such concern.

  PR 31:8 "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,

    for the rights of all who are destitute.

  PR 31:9 Speak up and judge fairly;

    defend the rights of the poor and needy."

            Some of those verses are about concern for the poor - benevolence, aid.  We're pretty comfortable with that.  But some of them are about justice and injustice, themes we may not be as comfortable with, but themes the Bible cares a lot about.  What is "injustice" in this context?  Injustice is when the people among us who work the hardest can't make a living - because, as we have seen, the Bible says that hard work is supposed to pay.  Injustice is when the poor have their land pulled out from under them or when they are charged exorbitant interest.  Injustice is when part of the world has all of the opportunity and all of the wealth and the larger part has no way to work and earn a living.
          And because our fallen nature tends to make the world less and less just, we need to go on in this series, on beyond these simple but true ideas from Proverbs to other parts of Scripture that teach us of our complicity in making the world unjust and call us to repent.  But before we do, let's own these truths about success from Scripture.  Obey God.  Work hard.
          I'll close by saying that Proverbs is SO thorough in covering the field of wisdom that, in spite of giving us these keys to wealth, it also warns us to think about whether or not we really want wealth.

  PR 13:8 A man's riches may ransom his life,

    but a poor man hears no threat.

  PR 30:7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD;

    do not refuse me before I die:

  PR 30:8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

    give me neither poverty nor riches,

    but give me only my daily bread.

  PR 30:9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

    and say, `Who is the LORD?'

  Or I may become poor and steal,

    and so dishonor the name of my God.

             Whenever we think about success, we should remember the words of Jesus:  What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  Mark 8:3

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