“Listen, You Rich Men” (Part 2 of 2)

The Truth Network Podcast is brought to you by Alistair Begg It is vital that we have a more comprehensive understanding of what the Bible in total has to say about poverty and wealth. First of all, the Bible doesn't cast any aspersion or suspicion upon riches in and of themselves. The Bible does not cast any aspersion or suspicion upon riches per se. Secondly, the Bible consistently warns against and condemns the vices which are the snares of the rich. First Timothy—at the end of 1 Timothy, Paul is giving to young Timothy all these instructions, and he gives instructions concerning those who are actually rich people in his fellowship.

And he exercises a warning for them, and it reads as follows. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. In other words, the rich are not denounced for being rich, but they are warned about yielding to the temptations to which the rich are prone.

There are peculiar vices that are the snares of those who have. Thirdly, the Bible teaches us that godliness with contentment is great gain. We're still in 1 Timothy 6.

In fact, we're quoting the sixth verse of 1 Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment is the opposite, if you like, of covetousness. Covetousness is a form of idolatry.

Idolatry is sin. And in verse 8, if your Bible is open, you will see that Paul says, And I can tell you what you need in order to be contented. If we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. One of the loveliest things that happened on our trip when we were traveling with a company of people was to see a teenage girl, sixteen years of age, very American, at the end of a day walking through these villages, reaching down and taking off her Nikes that had been purchased for her by her father in Nordstrom's in order to go on the trip, taking them off and handing them to a girl of similar size and stature who was a Haitian girl that she'd met in the village. It just suddenly struck her. Why should I have all these shoes? And this girl walks in her bare feet.

You can have my shoes. Now, you see how messed up we are? If we have food and clothing, we will be content. That is an alien concept, isn't it? Fourthly, the Bible teaches us that riches are an expression of God's kindness. They're not the only expression of God's kindness, nor even will we say they're the supreme expression of his kindness, but nevertheless, they are. We saw that in the reference to Job there in James 5. And also, we picked it up, didn't we, here, as he makes it clear that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment?

Verse 17. You see, if we get this wrong, we go severely wrong. We go severely wrong. It is an expression of God's goodness to us that we have these things.

And if we fail to recognize that, then we will become inherently masochistic, or we will deny the benefit of the things, or we will be constantly running down everything we have. Oh no, this doesn't mean anything to me. Oh no, I don't want this at all. No, I don't really enjoy this.

Tell the truth, of course you do. It is lovely to have a nice meal. It is a wonderful provision of God. It is a peculiar thing to have running water, and for that we ought to be thankful.

It is super to be able to live within the framework of these things. God gives us these things richly to enjoy and more besides. God is not a killjoy in relationship to these things, and his perspective on wealth and goodness and provision is not marred by our inability to understand the framework of his purposes. God, who sovereignly bestows things for us to enjoy, may sovereignly take them away so as to teach us to enjoy him and not to enjoy them. And if we start to love them rather than love him, he may have to take them away so as to show us that ultimately our only joy is in him. And I will trust in you alone.

I will trust in you alone, for your endless mercy follows me. We can't say that if we are trusting in something other than God. If we have food and clothes, if God blesses us and provides us with riches, we see it as an expression of his kindness. Fifthly, the Bible teaches us that there is a peculiar responsibility that falls to the rich. That falls to the rich. We're still in 1 Timothy 6.

Command them to be good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. And interestingly, verse 19, in this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. It's not our purpose to expound this, but it is interesting, isn't it? What Paul is saying is that when we go into our earthly treasure and we take from our earthly treasure in order to benefit those who live with earthly impoverishment, while we are removing from the bank of earth, we are actually depositing in the bank of heaven. Isn't that what he's saying? We take it out of here and give it there, and people say, Are you crazy giving all that away?

You say, No, you don't understand. There's a test at the end of this life. There's a terminus to which we're coming. There is a payday that will come. None of this will come with me in my coffin. None of it will come with me in my coffin. Therefore, I'm taking it now, and I'm giving it here.

And in actual fact, I'm making a deposit there. It's nothing other than Jesus. Lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, and you'll have them eaten up for you, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, and you'll find that they do not fade away. The responsibility that falls to the rich, then, is clear. Once again, notice that there is no insinuation, to the least degree, that it is evil or wrong for them to possess these things, or that these things should be disavowed.

If that were the case, then the whole letter would end in a different way, wouldn't it? Command those who are rich in the present world not to be arrogant or to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for their enjoyment, and command them to give it all away. No, he doesn't say that. He says, Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and willing to share. Sixthly, the Bible teaches that it is difficult but not impossible for a rich man or woman to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Bible teaches that it is difficult but not impossible for a rich man or woman to enter the kingdom of heaven. Why is that? Well, you don't have to think about it very much, do you?

The more you have, the more credit they'll give you, the more credit you get, the better cards you can have, the better cards you can have, the more you can take it around, and eventually you have no credit limit at all! And you can have a black one or a blue one or a green one or a red one, or you can have one with 007 on it, or you can do whatever you like, and you can go around, and it gets you most places. Takes the waiting out of wanting. Improve now. Build later. I mean, that's KeyBank on the way to the airport.

How am I going to improve now? Don't worry about it. Your credit's good with us. So the rich people figure, hey, I can get in everywhere.

Do you take platinum? What? This is the gate of heaven, sir. No, American Express doesn't work up here. Oh, it doesn't? Oh, it's Visa, is it? No, we don't use Visa either.

MasterCard? No. Well, I've been able to get in most places in my life. You telling me I can't get into heaven?

Well, not on that basis you can't. And some of them in the crowd called out, hey, Jesus, who can get saved then? And Jesus says, what is impossible with men is possible with God. And when I realize that everything that I hold dear and build my life upon counts for nothing before the entryway to heaven, and that my credit is actually a debit, and I look then to find where the credit basis is found for entry to heaven, and I discover that it is in the person of the Lord Jesus. And Paul had to come to understand that. All the things I counted as dear and as important and as irrelevant to me, he said, I now count them as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. Seventhly, the Bible teaches that God hasn't ordained a quality of distribution of gift or possession.

It is clear from the reading of the Bible that there is diversity physically, materially, spiritually, intellectually. When Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4, who makes you different from somebody else, the answer is God. When he asks, Who gave you…? What do you have that you didn't receive?

The answer is nothing. Therefore, we recognize that who we are and what we are and what we have achieved, whether we recognize the hand of God in it, whether we realize his common grace to us in the endowment of entrepreneurial skills, or whatever it might be, we actually find ourselves in positions as a result of who and what we are. And when you read the Bible, it is obvious that some people were more capable than others of increasing their possessions. Lydia is identified as a woman of prosperity because she was. How do you know she was a woman of prosperity? Because you find that out in relationship to people who were less prosperous.

Ananias and Sapphira had particular abilities—certain people at homes and dwellings and so on. And so the very fact of diversity and the inequality of the disbursement of stuff is something that has to be reckoned with in the Bible. And the answer to it in the Bible is not some kind of artificial leveling process, some attempt to secure uniformity.

No. Rather, it is far more revolutionary than that. It is for those who enjoy peculiar improvements in their life to be rich in kindness, to be ready to give to others, and to be willing to share. The fact is that God gives some the ability to get wealth, some people live in economic terms, in poverty, in comparison to the rich, and the call of God to his people is to take whatever we have been given richly to enjoy, but not to use it as self-indulgence, not to preen ourselves in the realm of frivolity and superficial luxury, but to take that which we have been given freely and to use it generously in the lives of others. Jesus recognized this diversity when the woman came in the Gospels and cracked the alabaster jar and washed his feet and dried his feet with her hair, and someone in the group said, Hey, that's a colossal waste of money.

Why is somebody doing that with such a wonderful jar of perfume? That could have been sold and given to the poor. And Jesus calls their bluff and says, Hey, guys, wait a minute. The poor you will always have with you. You're not always going to have me with you. This lady has done a really nice thing.

Leave her alone. What was Jesus doing? Saying, I don't care about poverty?

No, of course not. He was simply acknowledging that in our fallen world, inequality is part and parcel of it. Eighthly—are you bored yet?

Okay. Eighthly, the Bible teaches us that God has a peculiar, particular concern for the poor. That God has a peculiar and particular concern for the poor. In Psalm 68, he is described as a father to the fatherless and a defender of the widows.

In Deuteronomy 10, he loves the alien, giving to the alien food and clothing. In Leviticus 19, when he marks out the strategy for his people to live as lights in the midst of the culture, he says to them, And when you reap the harvest, do not go to the perimeters of your field. Do not go to the very edges. Leave the edges.

And do not, whatever you do, go back through a second time to pick up the residue. Why? Because this will provide for those who do not have fields, who cannot plant fields, but who may be the beneficiaries of your largesse. He makes provision in recognition of the existence of those who are not in the class of field owners and field developers and entrepreneurs. He doesn't disavow them. He makes special provision for them.

Why? Because he is passionately, compassionately interested in those who are poor. Ninthly, it therefore follows obviously that the Bible then teaches that God's people are to be equally concerned for those who are poor. That's why in chapter 1, James has already said that one of the marks of religion is to care for the orphans and for the widows, isn't it?

In verse 27 of chapter 1. If anyone considers himself religious and doesn't keep a tight rein on his tongue, a controlled tongue, he deceives himself. His religion is worthless.

In fact, if you want to see religion in action, he says, faith in action. God the Father accepts us pure and faultlessness to look after orphans and widows in their distress and make sure that you're living a clean life before the watching world. And that's why when you go to the passage in Deuteronomy 18, God says, I love the aliens, and I give them food and clothing.

And in verse 19 of Deuteronomy 10, he says, And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourself were aliens in Egypt. Tenthly, God's judgment falls upon his people for trampling on the heads of the poor. God's judgment falls upon his people for trampling on the heads of the poor. Amos chapter 2, for three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.

Why is that? They sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. You need money, I'll take your sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor, as upon the dust of the ground, and they deny justice to the oppressed.

Now, we'll be coming back to all of this, but let me just say these final three and then one more. God, the Bible teaches us, has a particular concern for the poor. God's people, the Bible teaches us, must be equally concerned.

God's judgment falls upon his people when we do not display that concern. And the Bible teaches us that it is sinful to show favoritism on the basis of financial or social status. It is sinful to show favoritism on the basis of financial or social status. That's what James said in James chapter 2, wasn't it? He said, you imagine a situation where somebody comes in, and they are obviously very well put together, and someone says, well, we'd love to give you a very special seat here, and someone else comes in, and he's in a shabby circumstances, and the person says, why don't you just sit on the floor? It is sinful to show such favoritism on the basis of wealth.

Let me finish with a quote from Professor John Murray in relationship to this last point, because it is a significant challenge, isn't it? He says, perhaps few weaknesses have marred the integrity of the witness of the church more than the partiality shown to the rich. The church has compromised with their vices because it has feared the loss of their patronage.

The church has compromised with their vices because it has feared the loss of their patronage. Loved ones, we have a long way to go in all of this. I know that this challenge comes home heavily to my own heart, but I do want to assure you of this. For those of you who don't know, that on this final point, there is no peculiar patronage that exists at Parkside Church. There is no money for arms here. There's no one seeking to use finance as a mechanism for involvement or for leadership or for manipulation or for control.

I can guarantee you of that. That is not to say that there are not those who have and do give with extreme generosity in relationship to all that God has provided for them. But to a man and to a woman—and I know only of a few, most I know nothing about, but to the few that I know—there is no sense whatsoever in which there is anything other than the openhearted, openhanded bringing of resources to the feet of the elders, as it were, to entrust to those in leadership with the solemn responsibility of making good use of that which such individuals, on account of their generosity, have been able to bestow. And in actual fact, whether it is ten dollars in relationship to an income of three hundred dollars or whatever the proportion may be, the principle remains throughout. But rest easily in your beds on that last one, and let us ask God to write his Word in our hearts in case some more of us need to be taken off our shoes and given them away.

And not because of a tax write-off, but because it is the only compassionate thing for a child of God to do. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with a message he's titled, Listen, You Rich Man. In addition to the teaching you hear on this program, you're able to study with Alistair every day when you sign up for Truth for Life's daily devotional email. The email includes a passage of scripture followed by a brief commentary from Alistair.

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They're all faithful to what we find in the Gospels, written in simple language that the very young can understand. Your child or grandchild will learn about the promises God makes and the promises he keeps, about a coming king, about a rescue, about heaven, about so much more. Ask for your copy of the book Stories of Jesus today when you give a donation to the teaching ministry of Truth for Life. Your financial support goes directly to the distribution of this daily program and also toward making all of Alistair's online teaching entirely free to access and share. You can give a one-time gift at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can set up an automatic monthly donation when you visit truthforlife.org slash truth partner. If you'd prefer you can call us at 888-588-7884. If you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio 44139. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening today. There's no doubt that money can be useful, but tomorrow we'll hear a clear warning about the dangers that can attach to money as well. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.