Freed From The Bondage Of Finances

And yet, I'm afraid, far too many Christians have written off the first six verses of James chapter 5 as applying to somebody else. Somebody else who is rich. Let me ask you, what connotates rich? When is rich, rich? If you talk to anybody, it's when you have just a little more than you have right now. Even the millionaires, they're not rich. Because there's always somebody who has a little bit more than they do.

What we have is our poverty line. And those that live below poverty line are still living better off than most of the people in the world. To most of those people, you are considered wealthy. Several years ago, I had the privilege of going to Lagos, Nigeria, which is the armpit of Africa. Both physically and literally. And even the wealthy there live substandard compared to our country.

It's amazing. We are the rich. We are the wealthy. Let me share some thoughts with you this morning as we start into this. It will take us a couple of weeks to get through these six verses. Friendship with the world is probably best expressed by our desire to have the riches that this world has to offer. Now, let me qualify riches. Riches here is speaking specifically, and we will look specifically at finances.

But let me expand our view here to the things of this world, be they people or possessions. Our friendship with the world can best be defined then by our desire to have these things, to have these riches. Most people and many, if not most, Christians think only about gaining more of this stuff. Be it friends or family, spouse, possessions, home, car, cars, stuff, fun stuff.

Wealth is, as far as finances are concerned, stocks, investments. We spend the bulk of our life acquiring those things, somehow thinking that these things are going to provide us some kind of a security. Once I have obtained this job, this position, this income, this stuff, these people, this family, once I've obtained that, then somehow I think I'm secure, and so we work the bulk of our life for those goals, hoping to make them before we're 65, maybe by 55, so we can take an early retirement to enjoy our stuff. And that's our pursuit.

That's our life's goal. That's our life's dream. We're locked into that. Now, the Bible does not condemn riches or wealth in and of itself. Riches and wealth, these things are amoral. They're not immoral. They're not moral. They're amoral. They're neutral. But the Bible always deals with our attitude towards these things. And that's what we'll look at as we go through this section in James.

It's our attitude towards these things that are the focus. Listen, listen, listen. And Paul stressed this when he said that you who are single, praise God, and just continue, let the Lord bring you a mate. Because when you're single, you can just keep your focus on the things of the Lord and what you need to do for Him. When you have a mate, you have to be concerned about the things of your mate and of your family.

And he doesn't condemn marriage. After all, God established it and blessed it and called for that.

Yeah, people, stuff, finances. The more easily we can be corrupted to maintain that stuff or to obtain more stuff, the more easily our focus is on what I have to do to maintain this. When they announce the lottery winners, how many of you go, oh, I wish it would have been me? You know, especially the 55 plus million dollar ones. No, you don't. All initially we're thinking of when we hear those is I could pay off all my bills and then have fun.

You wouldn't. Where do you put it? Well, I put it in a bank. All of it. Most banks say they're only insured up to $100,000. And that's, they say they're insured up to $100,000. You take 55 million divided by 100,000, that's a lot of banks to put a lot of money in to try and figure out how to keep it insured and stuff and save. And then the banks get gobbled up and they change and they're going to go broke.

Well, do I put it in short-term bonds or long-term bonds? Municipal funds or mutual funds or whatever? Do I put it in this or that? Do I convert it over to stocks? Well, stocks, you realize that that takes up your entire life. I need some money. Well, if you take it out, now you have to pay a penalty. If you pay a penalty, now that's going to come back on you in the IRS.

And the IRS is going to hit you with this and they'll hit you with that. A lot of fun to have money. Then you think, well, somebody's going to take it away from me. And your friends and your relatives all of a sudden call on you. Hi, friend. And so you have to seek to maintain that. And then you give some away. And then how am I going to get that back? What if I get to 55 and only have 45 million?

So I have to think of other ways to maintain and obtain. And all of a sudden, your life is consumed with that. Now, it's not just with millions of dollars. It's with wherever you are right now, with whatever you have right now. If that's our focus, we can be corrupted in seeking to maintain what we have or seeking to obtain more as we look at the wealth that we have,

depending on our attitude. The more we have, listen, the more we tend to look to that first in time of crisis. Crisis comes down, be it a job loss or sickness in the family or financial need. Where's the first place you go? If it's a financial need, what's the first thing you do? I'll tell you what I do, what I have a tendency to do, what I'm seeking to change in my own life.

Financial crisis to me is no money and a new bill that comes in or no money and the car, the transmission drops on the street. Got to have a new train. Can't just push it up and bail, you know, bailing wire that thing. I got to have, where am I going to get it? What do I tend to do? Well, look at my own finances, look at my own resources. What can I sell? Who can I call?

Who can I appeal to? Where can I get the money for this? And then, and then finally, oh God, right? The more of the wealth of this world that we have, the more we tend to trust it first, seek it first. Decisions to make. Do you move here? Do you move there? Do you stay here? Do you go to this college? Do you go to that college? What do you do? First thing you do, talk to family, talk to friends,

talk to others in places in the colleges, talk to others in the city, call the Chamber of Commerce, get all the information. Now, when do you pray? After I get it all accumulated and then I kind of lay it out as an offering before God and say, okay, God bless. You know, how come we don't seek Him first in those situations? The more we tend to have, the sooner we tend to seek it first instead of the Lord.

We need to realize that God has entrusted us, who live in the wealthiest nation in the world, with what we have. And He knows what we need. And that's why He hasn't given us more at this point, because He doesn't want us killing ourselves with it. If we are faithful in the small things, God is faithful to give us more. We see that in the Gospels. We see it in the rest of the epistles.

When we're faithful with the knowledge, the little knowledge that we have of the Lord, with the little bit of light that we have to seek the Lord and to ask Him to open it up to us, He does. And James talks about that in the beginning of his letter in chapter 1. He gives us more light, more understanding. When we're faithful with the stuff, with the wealth that He's given us, and by faithful I mean we hold it before Him with an open hand and we recognize, I didn't earn it.

Oh, I may have sweated my fingers to the bone all those years in the factory or on the farm or whatever, but I didn't earn it. God gave it to me. The only reason I have it is because God gave it to me. He is the source and I acknowledge Him as that. And I hold it before Him with an open hand and I say, whenever you want it, you can take it. Both my resources and my family and my spouse,

I hold them before the Lord with an open hand and I say,

and it's always for our good. But when a crisis hits, if you're not holding the wealth that you have with an open hand and ready for God to take it, then when God touches and takes it and removes it and your focus is on that and your security is on that, when it's gone, you're hopeless. You are sidelined. You are ineffective. You are no longer a vessel for God.

You've been sat out. We have to learn to hold the resources before the Lord with an open hand. And may I say that those who are sitting here this morning or listening on tape or listening on the radio, and you have an idea that all you have is just a little, that you still don't see that you have a lot, may I say to you, you can have just as much desire for riches as a wealthy person does. You can have just as much desire for the things of this world as a wealthy person does, whether you have a little or a lot. Case in point, our little jiffy trip over here on the corner

was in the paper recently for having sold the most lottery tickets per capita, probably in the known world. And we're down on the south end of town in the poorer part of the community. Everybody's staking their hopes on hitting the numbers, hitting that lucky win. You don't want that. The Bible warns against quick inheritance, quick income, quick gain financially.

It warns against it. It's devastating. It's destructive. But even having a little, we can have those desires for the things of this world. And again, it's not how much we possess, but it's our attitude toward the things we possess. Let me ask you this morning, what is it that you think you need? What is it that you think you need? What are your needs this morning?

Mentally kind of go down through what you think they are, and then think about how they became a need to you. I remember when I worked at the police department, we'd often have times where officers would be together. We'd either buddy up and ride when we were doing patrol at night, or when I was working the desk, the officers would come in, as they'd come in to take a break, and they'd sit there in the dispatch area, and we'd talk. And inevitably, all the officers are talking about things that are going on at home and what they're doing in their off hours, and the things that they're acquiring.

Most often, it was the things they were doing to their homes. Improvements, home improvements, things they were adding on. A new addition, a new garage. Maybe getting a new car, a new van, because their family was growing a little bit. And it's amazing to me how you'd sit and listen to that for a little while, and all of a sudden you'd think, well, I need to do that too.

I ought to build on, put on a garage. I need to get a van. My family's growing.

Brother, if you just have a little faith, you can have anything. God promises to prosper us. After all, He says that in His Word. And if you have faith, brother, you can have total healing. You can have anything that you want if you just have faith, and we measure our spiritual maturity according to our possessions, according to the wealth, according to our health.

I'm unhealthy. Surely there must be sin. There was a faith healer who had an auditorium full of excited followers who were howling and rejoicing as he was coming towards the end of his sermon,

And Fred went back over there. Looking over the crowd again, he spotted a young man sitting in the audience, and he called him up front on stage. And the man came up, and he said, What's your name, son? The fellow said, It's Sam. And so, do you have any physical challenges, Sam? And he says, I stutter, sir. And he said, Well, Sam, go stand behind the partition.

And Sam did. And after a big timpani roll and shouts from the crowd, the preacher yelled, Fred, I want you to throw your crutches over the partition. And suddenly, from behind the partition, here came two crutches lying over, landing on the floor. And the preacher yelled back and said, Now, Sam, I want you to say something. And Sam said from behind the partition,

Fred fell down.

How often we seek to measure our spiritual maturity on our wealth, on our possessions.

And he calls us to weep and to wail. Now, we've seen that before back in verse 9 in chapter 4. He calls us as we draw near to God to seek Him, to come before Him, to grieve and to mourn and to wail and change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. And we saw that that's a genuine repentance, a genuine need for God in the areas where we have sought after the things of this world, even biting and devouring one another to get them.

Now in chapter 5, he brings us back to that. And he says that we need to repent because there are things coming upon us because of our wealth. And he gives us three reasons for that, and that's what we're going to look at over the next couple of weeks. Three reasons to be concerned and conscious about this. Three reasons, I pray, that we'll use to examine our own lives

and see where we are concerning the bondage to riches, that we might be freed from that as believers, especially in these last days. Reason number one. Reason number one. That we need to be concerned and that there needs to be repentance in our lives is because of the way riches have been obtained. Because of the ways that the rich have obtained their wealth.

Look at verse 4. He says, look, the wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. Then look down in verse 6. He says, you have condemned and murdered innocent men who were not opposing you. The way that they obtained their riches.

A need was there. A laborer was called and conscripted to come and do that work with an agreed on wage. Jesus gives us an example of that in Matthew chapter 20 in verses 1 through 16. The idea of the landowner who goes and he hires a laborer at a certain hour of the day and they come into his fields and they agree to work for one denarii or whatever it is for the day.

And then he goes about noon and hires some more to work for the same pay. And then around 3 o'clock, some more. And then right at 5 o'clock when you're going to quit in an hour, he goes out and gets some more and agrees to pay them a denarii for the day. And then when it comes time for them to come and collect their wages, he pays them. And the ones who came earlier in the day are complaining

because these guys who came in in the last hour got the same pay as they did and they've been working all day. And the master says, why are you complaining? Didn't I pay you what I agreed to pay you? See, so there was the picture of the laborer who has been verbally contracted to come and work and then is paid at the end of the day for his services. God gave special instructions in his word, in the law,

concerning laborers to protect the laborer. In Deuteronomy chapter 24, you can just listen and write these down if you want and look at them later. Deuteronomy 24 verses 14 and 15, he says, Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and he's counting on it.

Otherwise he may cry out to the Lord against you and you will be guilty of sin. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 13, Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him. Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight. Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 13, Jeremiah cries, Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor.

You see, these rich men had hired these laborers and agreed to pay them a certain amount for their work that had been done and now the work is finished but they have not paid them. And verse 4, the verb tense in the Greek in verse 4 is not only have they failed to pay, but they aren't ever going to pay. They're not concerned with pay. They're seeking to hold back for themselves, saying they can't afford to pay for this work that's already been done.

You may be saying, I'm not rich. This doesn't apply to me. Let me ask you something. You pay your bills. All of us have bills. Do you pay them? Do you pay your taxes? All of us are subject to taxes. Do you pay what is rightfully yours? You see, even Jesus didn't condemn them. He may be sitting there saying, well, the taxes go to fund abortions and they go to fund the different things,

the homosexual things that I don't agree with and all that, so I'm not going to pay my taxes because I don't think it's right. Jesus had the same things that he faced. They did the same kind of atrocities and even worse, really, at his time than we are exposed to now. And when they came to him and posed him that question, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not?

You remember his answer, taking a coin whose inscription is on a coin, Caesar's, then render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and render unto God the things that are God's. He didn't dispute. He didn't say, well, because the government's corrupt, you don't pay your taxes and you seek to secede from the union like they're doing down in the Republic of Texas. You don't do that.

You're obedient to the government. Why? Because God has established every authority that there is, and you trust God to take care of them if they're corrupt, if they're crazy. Do you pay your bills? You see, you and I have contracted with KG&E that they take care of our electricity and they provide that, and we've agreed to pay them for that. We've contracted with either city water or rural water

that they provide our water, and we go and turn on the tap and it's there, and we've agreed to pay them for that. They provide schools and roads and highway systems and police protection and fire protection, and we've agreed to pay for that. Do we? Do you pay your bills? Because listen, if you don't, this warning's for you and for me. How sad when we as Christians disgrace the name of our Lord and Savior

by the misuse of our finances. We get ourselves so overburdened in debt. I've been there.

Do you know why? Because Christians tend to be more demanding than nonbelievers. They expect more for less, and they seldom tip. And if they tip, it's meager. Do you realize that? What a sad testimony for the name of Jesus Christ when we do that. We are in bondage to riches, brothers and sisters. I don't care how much you make. I don't care where you live. In this society, we are in bondage to riches.

It's a struggle. It's a tool of the enemy. It's part of holding on to the things of this world. And you and I have got to understand that, repent of it, and seek to be freed from it. If we want to be used as a vessel of God, if we want any hope of satisfaction in this life, we have to be freed from that bondage. We have to be able to walk daily before the Lord with everything, as I mentioned, lifted before Him.

Take it if you want to take it. Bless if you want to. I'll receive it as from you only. And not use it to consume it upon ourselves.

That's the way it was in the society in the time of James, and that's the way it is now, unfortunately. When God established Israel in the land, He gave the people a system of courts, a judicial system He established in Deuteronomy 17, verses 8-13. In Exodus 18, verse 21, He warned these judges not to be greedy, not to seek to do things for their own personal gain, for their own political benefit. Leviticus 19, verse 15, He said that these judges were not to be partial to rich or poor, but to seek to make a fair and honest judgment straight down the line based upon the law.

Not partial to the rich because of their finances, not partial to the poor. Deuteronomy 19, verses 16-21, No judge was to tolerate perjury. Matter of fact, the perjurer, the liar who was found to be so after testifying, was to be sentenced to the same sentence as the accused. So if a person was accused and convicted of murder and someone was found who had perjured their testimony on the witness stand, and this person is sentenced to death, then the person who gave the false testimony would be sentenced to death.

My, how that would change our court systems today. How quickly would someone be willing to get up on the stand and say, No, I didn't know nothing about no real estate scheme. If they knew that if it was found out that they lied, they'd go to jail. How soon would people fail to give false testimony if in a murder case and they were called to testify, No, I had no idea where he was when all the time you did and it was found out and he's sentenced to be executed and so are you.

How quickly it would clean up the judicial system. Deuteronomy 16, verses 18-20, The judges were warned not to accept bribes. For it says in verse 18, A bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. And yet now we don't have bribes so much as we have payoffs. You're wrong in this. Well, I know I'm wrong, but how much will it take?

No different today than it was in the time that James is writing. Here in verse 6, The rich are accused of oppressing the poor, it says, and the innocent even unto death. You've condemned and murdered, oppressing them even to death because the poor couldn't resist the rich because they didn't have the resources to resist. Today in our society on all levels, we see the same type of oppression with those in authority over others.

We see the corporate structure in the business world that's gobbling up all of the small businesses. A lot of times you'll watch as we have presented to us the economic indicators in our society and they show all of the small business statistics of how many small businesses a month are being issued small business loans and how many are growing up. But they're really hesitant to print out how many are folding and being gobbled up by corporations, even corporations in the funeral business. I didn't realize that until the other day.

I'd done a funeral and we were on the way to the cemetery

and unfortunately, it's even in the church. Unfortunately, so many churches make decisions not based on whether this is God calling us to move in this direction. We're moving by faith whether we have the resources or not, but it's based on the bottom line. And we're no longer moving by faith, trusting in a righteous God who provides. We're moving along according to the corporate structure of America

and we are in bondage to riches. And we are in the area of being neutralized in our testimony.

we're seeking to find that stability back in the rut instead of trusting the Lord to move us to a place that's better. That will be better for us in the long run. That will be better for Him as we are His witnesses. So maybe you're in bondage to finances where that's concerned. God may be speaking to your heart but you don't know whether you can trust Him in this.

Maybe you're in bondage to finances and you're in debt up to your ears. Let me challenge you today. Get out of it. Get out of it. Get out of it. Get out of it. Take the time now to cut up your credit cards. Get a consolidation loan if necessary. But seek to get out of debt. We are closer and closer to the one world government. We are closer in these last days to the Lord's coming.

And the closer we get, the hotter it's going to get, the more tense it's going to get, the more pressure is going to be put on the areas of finances. And as Christians, the more that happens to us, we can go the ways of the world and it causes disagreements and it causes fractions and divisions and it causes pressures and nervous breakdowns and hospitalization. Or we can be freed from that bondage