InPerspective

Harry Reeder: Why do I amass the riches that rot? Why do I have the gold stacked up that corrodes? Why do I have the garments, garment upon garment upon garment? Why do I fatten my heart in the day of the slaughter of other people's dreams and hopes?

It is because I've got a stronghold of self-indulgence in my heart. And that's where I need to get to. It's not just better financial management, I need to get to my heart. That's where James keeps bringing us.

Announcer (Male): Putting life in biblical perspective with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Jesus declared, "You cannot serve God and money." And yet, many people devote their lives to the accumulation of wealth and riches. But the strong warning of the epistle of James should cause everyone to re-evaluate their goals in life.

What does James have to say to those who live in pursuit of the almighty dollar instead of the almighty God? Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder takes us to James chapter 5 and verses 1 through 6 as he brings us today's teaching, part two of the message, "True Religion and Wealth."

Harry Reeder: Now, the second thing he does is he says, how did they accumulate their wealth? Go to the next verse. Here's what he says: they hoarded it up doing what? "Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts."

So, because their gold, their objective was to hoard up the treasures of this age, because that was their objective, the end justified the means. So, do I have some people working for me? I need more money, so what I'll do is not pay them what their work is worth, I'll take from them what their work is worth in order to increase my worth in the treasures of this world.

Or maybe they have done their work and I just don't want to pay them. Or I don't pay them what they're worth. Or maybe I've produced a product that I promised somebody but the product isn't what I promised, it's a lot less because I could make more money if it was less than what I promised.

Or my customer I promise my customer that this is what I would give to them, and I don't give to them what I promised to give. So I rob from the customer, I rob through the product, I rob from the workers because the end is my accumulation to hoard and to embrace and to worship.

Let me just take just a moment here if you don't mind because this is exactly what's happening in our country right now. It's interesting how these things speak to public policy also. Mr. Harry, what's the problem? Well, I can't afford my house. Oh my goodness, let me pray for you. Next week, Harry, how you doing on your house? No problem, paid for.

How'd it get paid for? Well, I knew I couldn't afford it and I like that house and that's where I ought to be and I'm going to stay in that house and I'm not going to sacrifice my standard of living. That house is where I ought to be. So, I got a note from the bank. How'd you do that? You don't have any collateral.

No problem. I signed my children and my grandchildren's name to the note. I put them into debt so I could keep my house. That's exactly what we're doing as a nation right now. We aren't going to deal with the lifestyle we chosen and we can't afford. So, what we're doing is just making our children and our grandchildren pay for it. If that doesn't get you to the election booth, I don't know what will. But that is exactly what we're doing.

So here he says, you steal, you take from others, you defraud them and by the way, the cry of your stealing and defrauding the product, the laborer, and the customer, the cry comes out against you and it goes straight to the Lord. Yeah, it'll go to the Better Business Bureau, but what you need to know, their cry and what you've done has gone straight to the Lord. It cries out to the Lord of Hosts.

Now, why did they do this? Why did they do this? Look at the last verse. He says, "You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your heart in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous person and he does not resist you."

Why did you do this? He said simple, the whole issue was you, self-indulgence. Self-indulgence in the treasures of this world. I can be powerful, I can have prestige, I can have position and the key to power, prestige, and position is wealth. So, let me get the wealth to get the power, the wealth to get the prestige, and the wealth to get the possessions.

And because of self-indulgence to live luxuriously in this world, it's all about how people see me in luxury. Not just my needs and not just even my wants, but my over-desires and my over-wants and my ability to put the appearance into the world that makes me significant. That's what I am going to do and that's why I will resort not only to robbery and stealing, I will condemn people, I will even murder them.

Now, folks, you say isn't he going a little bit overboard? You mean professing Christians there were doing things that may have resulted in murder of people in this matter of pursuing their riches? Well, first of all, it wouldn't be hard for me to take you to a guy like David when he saw something he wanted, he didn't mind condemning others and lying, he also murdered a man after God's heart. So, don't tell me it's not possible. It's all over the Bible. Go see Achan after the battle of Jericho.

Just let me explain it this way: just like my tongue can murder people and diminish people verbally, so can my self-indulgence and my hoarding of wealth and my commitment to self-indulgence through luxury. Because who did I steal from? I stole from the worker who was doing what? Making a living.

And I didn't care about his living in order to enhance, I took his worth for my worth. I attacked his life while he was making a living. Or people from their livelihood purchase my product and I lied to them. I went after their livelihood. I went after them and their living in order to accumulate and hoard and embrace luxury.

Why do I amass the riches that rot? Why do I have the gold stacked up that corrodes? Why do I have the garments, garment upon garment upon garment? And because I have so overflowed with it they're sitting there and the next thing I know they're moth-eaten and falling apart.

Why do I fatten my heart in the day of slaughter of other people's dreams and hopes? It is because I've got a stronghold of self-indulgence in my heart. And that's where I need to get to. It's not just better financial management, I need to get to my heart. That's where James keeps bringing us is right back to our heart. How do we see life from the heart through a Christ-centered world and life view?

So, I measure my life in things, I measure my life in my luxury, the fattening of my heart, so I will hoard, I will steal, I will take, I will destroy, I will condemn, I will even attack the livelihood and the lives of others in order to have my own and my own way.

Well, let me give you one takeaway. One takeaway bears a little bit of explanation. Let me confess this is a paraphrase and I'm name-dropping here today. This is a paraphrase of John Wesley. So, don't argue with me, argue with John. Now, I've kind of paraphrased it, so you can argue with me.

Here's what I think this takeaway is saying to you. Number one: create all the wealth you can. Make all the money you can. Notice my parenthesis: create wealth. I'm not talking about hoarding it, I'm talking about creating wealth. Go to work and create wealth.

When you create wealth, you create work. When you create wealth, you create work for others and their opportunity to address wealth and use wealth. Create wealth. And let me speak again to public policy, public theology here just for a moment.

You see, that's the evil of communism and socialism. Communism and socialism says there's just so much wealth, see the pie, and the government knows how to distribute the pie, this pie, there's only one pie. It's this big and the government knows how to distribute it.

A Christian world and life view says no, no, no, there's not one pie. God has made us in His image and because we're made in His image, we know how to work and work brings dignity and dignity creates wealth. There is not one pie and the pie isn't one size, the pie gets bigger and not only that we make more pies. That's what we do. We create wealth.

I was the beneficiary of a man who was a postman for 28 years when I was in college that understood this. Here is a man that was a postman for 28 years. He was a faithful steward of the wealth that God gave him, he would tithe, he would give to missions and then he started saving some money to open a business.

Now, some of y'all are too young to know this, this was in the 1970s and all of us kids that were in college what we loved to drive in the 1970s because the '57 Chevys were not affordable while you were in college, we wanted to get a Volkswagen. You had to have a Volkswagen.

Well, Volkswagens were accessible, one of the reasons they were accessible is they were inexpensive and one of the reasons they were inexpensive, they had no extra items on them at all. The rubber mat was less than I don't even think you could measure it, it was so thin.

And so what this guy knew is that kids are buying Volkswagens because they've got to, but they want to do something to it. So, he figured out I can go get remnant shag carpet. Some of you do not know what shag carpet is. Shag carpet was big in those days, just like my two tailors for all of my clothes, Polly and Esther. Shag carpet was big in those days and that shag carpet was everywhere.

And so what he did was get the remnant shag carpet they're going to throw away, he built a pattern for the floorboards of Volkswagens front and back and he gave us a job cutting out shag carpet and then he sold it to kids that wanted to put that shag carpet floor mats in their Volkswagen.

Why did he do this? He did it for two reasons. One: he had been tithing off of his work and giving beyond the tithe in missions and saving some to open this business. Number one principle in this business: I'm going to give 90% and keep 10%. He's going to flip it.

Number two thing he did: I'm going to find young men and women moving toward vocational Christian ministry and I'm going to give them a job to help them get through college and that's how I got that job. Create wealth. That's what making your money has to do.

Secondly, after you make all the money you can, save all you can within a biblical world and life view. I didn't say hoard, I said save. What we're talking about here is the watchword for all of my forebears in Scotland: frugality. Frugality.

You heard about the Scotsman, the Welshman, and the Englishman that were sitting on the cafe and they were eating soup and the flies flew by and a fly flew into each one of their soups and the Englishman took his spoon and said, "Out you fly," and flipped the fly out with some soup.

The Welshman reached in and took the fly and grabbed him by the wing and pulled him up and shook him over the soup and threw him away. Not the Scotsman, the Scotsman pulled the fly out by the wing, grabbed the fly and squeezed him and said, "Cough it up, cough it up!"

Frugality is the watchword for my relatives. Here's the point is that when God increases your income, your default as a Christian is not hoarding or standard of living increasing. That's not the default. There's a cable vision program called Hoarders, can you imagine that?

Have you ever been in a house of a hoarder? Everything is rotting. Have you ever seen one? I don't know who's making those programs, I don't know, but they ought not be able to find a single Christian who's a candidate to be on there.

We're not hoarders. So, when my standard of income I don't hoard it, nor do I luxuriate in it. In other words, my default is not got more money let me raise my standard of living. No, my default is I want to raise my standard of giving. That's what I want to raise.

I want to use my riches, I want to use my gold, I don't want corrosion to be the evidence against me and I don't want to be disappointed in the emptiness that what I buy with it's going to make my life. I want to be able to make use of it.

So, that leads me to number three: give all the money you can. That's generosity. You see, here's the threefold steps of what you learn in Christian giving. One is the tithe, that's percentage giving. Got $100, I give 10. Got $500, I give 50.

That's percentage giving, that's the training wheels that God gives us to learn Christian stewardship to get us started. Then you move to generosity, then you move beyond that, where do you move to? You move to sacrificial giving like the widow.

Remember what Jesus said about the widow when she came and brought the offering? He said, "She gave of all she had to live on." Sacrificial giving. The Macedonians were affirmed by Paul because they gave all that they had.

But you see, brothers and sisters, this is where I'll finish with you now. Here's the deal. Here's the deal: as long as self is on the throne of the heart and the world's treasures are the measure of your life, you were made to treasure treasure. Verb, noun. You were made, verb, to treasure, noun, treasure. You will treasure treasure.

In the last days since the ascension of Jesus, what ought to be your treasure? That's really what we're talking about. Is Christ your treasure? High treasure of heaven, is Christ your treasure in these last days, knowing that on the last days the treasures of this world are going to burn up? They're going to be gone.

God gave them to me not to hoard and exalt myself, God gave them to me to use in the last days because Christ is my treasure. That's why He gave them to me. But you cannot serve God and mammon. You can't treasure both. You've got to decide who is my treasure. And in these last days through the saving work of Jesus Christ, He has become my treasure.

The world through almost every song, every television, every commercial, everything that's out there, the world keeps telling you it is the treasures of this world that makes your life, so whatever you've got to do to get it, get it.

And the treasures of this world through the voices of this world in the culturally elite in the academy, in the Hollywood elite, in all of these places, what they keep telling you is the treasures of this world will make your life but they're empty and they eat away at your very flesh.

That's what they keep telling you. Why do the people that have the most power, possessions, and the prestige keep killing themselves with suicide? Why does it keep happening? Why do they keep the therapist in business?

And so here's the treasures of this world. The treasures of this world say, "Get me, hold me, love me, keep me." Get me! Whatever you've got to do, steal, defraud, break a contract, don't pay a debt, get me. Put your kids into debt, doesn't matter, get me.

When you get me, hold me. When you hold me, love me. And when you love me, keep me. But when Christ is your treasure, He got you and He loves you and He holds you and you get to give Him away and use your wealth for Him. That's what we get to do.

I read a bumper sticker the other day it said, "Being of sound mind and body, I spent it all." I got a better one for you: "Being of sound mind and body, I gave it all." When I leave, it's all gone. It's like running a marathon.

When you run a marathon there's two goals: every mile is faster than the previous mile and your fastest mile is the last mile and when you finish the last mile, you got nothing left. That's the way to live your life. Nothing left. No sandcastles for the winds of time to wash away. What I've done is I've given it all according to the word of God to where it needs to go.

If you'll just let me just mention maybe just one last thing to you. As a pastor and as your pastor for those of you that are members here, I want you to know something. It may not matter to you, but I still want you to know it. I do not care how much you have, I don't care how big your house is. I do not care. I don't care how many zeros are in your bank account, I do not care.

Had a lady call me up the other day used to be in this church and called me up and said, "Harry, I'm at a new church, pastor preached and he went after those of us," and she said, "I have a large house." He said it was sinful. She said, "What do I do?"

And I said, "Well, first of all, go back to your pastor and ask him what's the square footage that if I have that size house I'll be holy. What is it? 2,000, 1,000, what is it?" The issue is not how big your house is but how big is it in holding you.

I happen to know this particular person that every big event in that church which is a small church and has no kitchen or fellowship, they give their house for it. I happen to know that they have a prophet's room for pastors to come and study. I happen to know that when the missionary conference comes they put up three missionaries every time. I happen to know how they use the house.

See, I don't care how much money you've got, I don't care how big your house is. I do care how you got your money. I do care what you do with it. I do care how you view it. I don't care how much you got, I just care how much it's got you.

And I don't want the corrosion of the hoarded wealth of this world that you think gives you life that actually eats your life. That's what I care about for you. And that you're using it for Him and that's what James as a pastor cares about for these professing people whom he has identified and whom he has called to repentance and he has called them to this new life.

I know though you will not invest in the kingdom in the last days until you divest yourself of the riches of this world. That's the way we live, just like Jesus. We divest, He gave away His riches to humble Himself and save us. That's what I know needs to happen.

Would y'all look at that last verse just again and this is where I'll stop: you have condemned the righteous one and murdered him and he does not resist you. Now, there's two possibilities there: one, it's talking about the people whom we've robbed their livelihood who could not resist us because we were in power.

I'd like to suggest to you as you leave here you think of one more thing. I think that's talking about Jesus. Who alone is righteous? Who is the righteous one? Who is it that took our condemnation and did not resist? He ought to be the treasure of your heart.

A couple of pastors pointed this out to me. Do you remember that last week when Jesus was going to the cross to take our condemnation with no resistance to love us? Do you remember at Bethany when Mary broke the ointment and poured it over His feet and the disciples led by who? Judas.

"How dare you waste that on Jesus!" And you remember what Judas did when he left that house? He went and negotiated the murder of the righteous one for 30 pieces of silver and it ate him up. We're called to be like Mary. Poured out and everything that we have is ready for the Master because He is our treasure. High treasure of heaven.

Announcer (Male): You're listening to InPerspective featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder. Our current sermon series: The Gospel Life According to James. While divorce is not the unforgivable sin, nonetheless casually walking away from a marriage brings lasting heartache and can be devastating to the family.

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And once again, if you would like to receive our free gift offer, Dr. Reeder's series, Seven Essentials for the Christian Family, call 1-800-488-1888. Suffering in this life is inevitable even for believers. Join us again next time as Dr. Reeder explores valuable insights from James about true religion, perseverance, and patient endurance in the face of suffering. That's next time as we turn back to the scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.