None of us is immune to the lure of riches. Not even faithful Christians. And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains what happens when we take our eyes off God and put them on gold or earthly treasure. Let's open our Bibles to one Timothy chapter six. We come in verse ten to one of the most misquoted statements in the Bible.
This little sentence, "For the love of money, is the root of all kinds of evil," and of course, people misquote that saying that the love of money is the root of all evil. And in point of fact, what is being expressed here is the sentiment. That there is no kind of evil to which the love of money may not lead men. When that love of money once takes hold of someone, that's the point. Once a love of money takes hold of someone, there is no kind of evil to which it may not lead.
And therefore, it is imperative that we ask ourselves: Well, am I a lover of money? Because if a love of money brings with it temptation and a trap and termination, this is something that we would want to find out about, don't you think? How can I tell if I am eager for money? Number one, when thoughts of money consume my day, when my mind goes into neutral, I start thinking about money. How much I've got, how much I'm going to get, how the stocks are doing, how the portfolio is doing, whatever else it is.
When thoughts of money consume my day. Secondly, when the financial success of others makes me jealous. Thirdly, when I am tempted to define success in terms of what I have rather than what I am in Christ. When I think about myself in relationship to what I possess, rather than I marvel that I am Christ's possession. Fourthly, when my family is neglected in my pursuit of money.
Fifthly, when I close my eyes to the genuine needs of others, because you see, I don't want to spend any of it. I just want to keep it all. Sixthly, when I live in the paralyzing fear of losing my money, and I wake up and I think, oh, if I don't have all this, what will happen to me then? You see, then we're a long way away from the the large black coffee and the blueberry muffin. At that point, right?
Because all you need for that is a buck seventy-four.
Now, if you need a Rolls Royce to go pick it up, that's a problem. Seventhly, I love money when I'm prepared to borrow myself into bondage. When I'm prepared to borrow myself into bondage, I'm not prepared to live in a certain kind of house, or drive a certain kind of car, or drop back into a rented apartment, or put myself in in in half a trailer home beside a stream. Because I'm so consumed with all of this stuff that I'm prepared to borrow myself into total bondage. And eighthly, it is a safe indication that I love money too much when God receives my leftovers rather than my first fruits.
Now says Paul, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and some people he says, eager for money, have wandered. From the faith, and a departure from the faith is inevitable when gold replaces God in man's affections. Let me just illustrate this. First of all, in the parable of the soarer. As we have it in Luke chapter eight, not going to expound this.
I just want to turn you to it for your own further study. But in Luke chapter eight, you remember the story of the sower. He goes out and sows the seed, and some of it falls along the path, and the birds come and take it up.
Some falls on rock. And there is an instant bloom and an instant fade, and some other seed falls among thorns, which grow up and choke the plants. And Jesus, in response to the question of his disciples, is giving the explanation of his parable, and he says in verse fourteen, "The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way." They are choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not come to maturity.
Somehow or another, Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter five fit into that picture. You remember the story of them. Lying about the sale of their property, trying to make it look as though they had done better than they had done in terms of their giving, there was no reason for them to do so. There was no pressure on them to capitulate, in the way in which they did. And what about Judas Iscariot on that sorry morning, when Jesus was bound and led away and handed over to Pilate?
And Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, and he was he was seized with remorse, and he returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. I've sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." What's that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility. You're the one that borrowed the money from the bank. The bank's not.
The bank manager is not going to stand up and take the hit for you when you go into foreclosure." I expect him to come and bring soup to your house. You get a very curt letter from him. He'll simply say, "That's your responsibility." And so Judas threw the money in the temple, and he left. And then he went away, and hanged himself. Or what about the man we read of in the Old Testament in Two Kings five?
Gehazi, lying. Because he's consumed with the idea of getting stuff. The thing that annoyed him about his master was that he left Naaman. He let Naaman off the hook. Naaman shows up with all manner of provisions.
Offers them to Elisha. Elisha says, "No, I couldn't possibly take that." Bids him goodbye, and Gehazi standing by, and his heart is full of a desire for money, and he wants all the stuff that Naaman had, and so he goes down, and he is led into temptation, and he is trapped, and his condition becomes terminal, and instantaneously he breaks out in leprosy, and the children born to him were born in a leprous condition.
So says the Scriptures. What of Demas in Second Timothy in chapter four and in verse ten? Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me.
Now there is no indication there, admittedly, that he was consumed with money. But the fact is, he is an indication like those mentioned here in verse ten, who wandered from the faith. You see, they wandered from the faith by straying from faith and trust in the Lord Jesus as the central, foundational desire and love of their lives. Thou, O Christ, art all I want more than all in Thee I find," says the hymn writer. Say we in the singing of the hymn, but then we have to live.
Then we have to make decisions. Then we have to decide about purchases. And what happened to them? While having wandered from the faith, they were pierced with many griefs. Says one commentator, their reaching out after money has brought the previously mentioned foolish and injurious sinful desires into their life, and these desires are the means of this self-inflicted torture.
You know, the greatest tragedy of all here is that there is no indication that the grief that came to these individuals was godly sorrow. You say, "Well, is that significant?" Yes, it's actually very, very significant because Paul, when he writes his second letter to Corinth, speaks about the distinction between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow, and he says in two Corinthians seven ten, "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret." But listen, worldly sorrow brings death. Worldly sorrow brings death.
So here are these individuals who start off so well. Then their eyes are distracted from the course. Then they begin to look over here and fancy that perhaps their lives would be far better if they had all of this. And so they begin to pursue that. And they're tempted to do foolish and injurious things.
And they become trapped. And they become impaled on their own desires. And their hearts are broken. Not because of their condition before God, but because they lost all that they had hoped for, and their disappointment and their regret is not the gateway to repentance and to life, but is actually the path to death. Fee, one of the commentators, Professor Fee, has a wonderful paragraph that I just want to close close with.
He says, "Thus their final indictment is a tragic one, and for Paul, a painful one. Here were good men who had emerged as leaders in the church in Ephesus. You understand? He's not talking hypothetically here." He's talking about people he has in mind, guys who were at the front of the parade in Ephesus. You see, you can't wander from the faith unless you have been united to the faith, unless you have been a proponent of the faith.
Here were these good men emerged as leaders in the church in Ephesus, but they had allowed themselves to be ensnared by Satan. Who knows how or why? They became enamored of new ideas, fell in love with speculative interpretations, or made themselves look good by appealing to an ascetic ideal, an elitist Christianity. But underneath, they had come to love money, and it did them in. That's the phrase.
I thought it was quite a striking phrase for Fee to use because his language is fairly prosaic. But he says they came to love money, and it did them in. And it'll do you in, and it'll do me in too, as sure as guns are guns. It's not even a point of debate. They went astray from the faith and pierced themselves through, as with a sword, and with many griefs.
And Paul says, "Let those of you who think you stand take heed, lest you fall." Loved ones. We must shudder at the thought of joining them. I'm sure that a lot of the moral failure that we have seen in the last twenty years here in America in pastoral ministry is actually directly related to First Timothy six six and following. That what happened was that the individual began to love stuff. And began to have stuff, and the stuff that he had allowed him to go places that previously had never gone.
And in that climate, and in that company, he allowed himself the wandering eye, and the distracted foot, and the uncontrolled hand. And he was impaled. Let me give the last word to a woman. Joe Briscoe says, "Years ago, I stopped looking to anyone but God to satisfy me. There is no man that can love me enough, no child that can need me enough, no job that can pay me enough, and no experience that can satisfy me enough." Only Jesus.
Let me read that again, because it's good. Years ago, I stopped looking to anyone but God to satisfy me. She writes this in the context of her husband being gone on a three-months preaching trip, without returning home. There is no man that can love me enough. No child that can need me enough, no job that can pay me enough, and no experience that can satisfy me enough.
Only Jesus.
Now Paul says, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, and the old is gone, and the new has come." And certainly, if we are going to make any kind of significant impact in our day, the pagan world is going to have to be able to look and detect a radical difference, not necessarily. In the externals of things, because as I said this morning, we could all move to a shack down by a stream and kid ourselves that we had dealt with the problem. Monasticism tried that, and look what happened to those gentlemen—many of them. But at our core attitude in relationship to sex, namely purity before marriage. And fidelity within marriage, and in relationship to money, and in relationship to power, because our whole culture is built on bodies, brains, and bucks.
Whether you have the right body, or you're with someone who has the right body. Whether you have the right level of intelligence, or you hang with a group that does, and whether you have sufficient wherewithal to establish your status, and the prophet says, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, or the strong man boast in his strength." Or the rich man boast in his riches. In other words, don't do what everybody else does. Don't go out and say that you are ugly, poor, and stupid. Don't tell lies.
You are not ugly. You are not poor, and you are not stupid. That's not the answer to it. The answer is don't boast in it. Don't tell your kids, "Oh, you are so beautiful." Command your children for their character.
If you have resources, don't sit and count it in the night. Figure out ways you can use it for the kingdom. And if you have intelligence, don't use big words to impress people. Offer your mind to the living God and serve Him. And let the world see the difference of a new creation, of a life transformed.
Now, you young people, especially, with all of your lives before you, and all of the challenges coming your way, and all of the consuming demands—you know—you better look like this. You better think like this. You better drive like this, and so on. It's so hard, so hard. But the little song that I quoted earlier, I quote regularly to myself, and you may like to quote it too.
Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. For the sin is all over the place. Put your power within, Lord, because I'm powerless by myself. I can't evade temptation. I'll be in the next trap.
I'll be a terminal case. Put your power within, Lord. Take me as I am, Lord, and make me all Your own, and keep me day by day, Lord, underneath Your sway, Lord, and make my heart Your palace and Your royal throne. Whether I make a buck or not, whether I'm well known or live in obscurity, whether whatever I do and wherever I go and whatever it costs, this is what I want you to do, Lord. This is what I want to be for you.
And the promise of God's word is that the individual who is prepared to say that and mean it, he will. God will never be that individual's debtor, for there is no good thing that the Lord will withhold. From those whose walk is blameless, some of you are here tonight, and you need to make that little song your own. And some of you have been wandering and fooling around, and you're dealing with foolish and harmful desires. I pray that God will arrest you before you fall.
Into perdition. You are listening to Truth for Life with Aleister Beg. Aleister returns in just a moment. As we are finding out, becoming a new creation in Christ radically transforms the way we think about everything. Jesus made this clear in one of the most famous sermons he ever preached, the Sermon on the Plain.
He taught about the values of his kingdom and how they are vastly different from the world's values. That the poor will be blessed, those who weep will laugh, and that we should rejoice when we're hated. But how are we to understand all of this? What does it mean?
Well, that's the subject of Alister's book, *The Christian Manifesto*: Jesus' life-changing words from the Sermon on the Plain, and we're offering the ebook for free today. With clarity and honesty, Alister guides us through Jesus' challenging teaching about what it means to live as citizens of God's kingdom. In fact, let me read a brief excerpt. Alistair writes: How do you enjoy life at its very best? Those we consider blessed tend to be the wealthy or the successful or the powerful or the popular.
Jesus looks at his disciples, his followers, and says that even though they are none of these things, it is they who are blessed. Why? Simply because they're members of his kingdom. Here is life as it's designed to be lived and enjoyed. Here is satisfaction, laughter, and joy.
Read more as you download the ebook and the companion study guide for the Christian Manifesto. Both are free today at truthforlife.org/manifesto.
Now here's Aleister again with a closing prayer. Oh Lord, our God. How your word searches our lives. How soon they will be over, and how quickly we will return to the dust from which we were formed. And although we know it to be true, that the key to contentment is somehow directly related to our possessionless arrival.
And departure. Nevertheless, in the middle, so easy to get stuck, so easy to be distracted, and so we pray that you will remind us of the wonder of our standing in the Lord Jesus Christ. That we have been declared accepted in your sight, not because of how well we have done on this particular test, but because you have loved us with an everlasting love. That instead of standing before you in condemnation, we have been justified freely in your sight, on the basis of what Jesus has done.
So then, we pray. In light of your mercies, help us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. May the crown we bear be the crown of contentment. May our hearts be your very palace and the throne upon which you reside. And when we fall and falter, as we inevitably do, help us, Lord, to confess our sins, to pick up, and to look on to you, the welcoming Father, who ran and kissed the neck of the boy who made a royal hash of it in a pursuit of everything that represented pleasure.
Grant us then a spirit of joy, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen. I am Bob Lapine. Are you growing in your faith? Alister often says, "As goes the shepherd, so go the sheep." And tomorrow we'll learn how church leaders establish the pattern of spiritual maturity for the whole church. I hope you can join us.
The Bible teaching of Aleister Beg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
