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Transcript 316B — Is it Sinful to Desire Wealth?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I have a question. If somebody has the desire for material wealth, is it sin?
HC: The question is, Is the desire for material wealth sin? The Bible says in I Timothy 6, "The love of money is the root of all evil."
Let's put it this way. Natural man, outside of Christ, wants money because money buys security. Money buys that which pleases the eye. Money buys that which is most marvelous in his sight, because you see, he is worshipping the creation. His hope, his future, his security, is in things, in land, in buildings, and new automobiles, and this and that, and the other thing. That's all he's got to live for.
And so of course he desires to be wealthy, because money will provide more things. Money will provide more security, more of a hope for his life.
Now the child of God is a stranger and a pilgrim here on this earth. The child of God is just passing through. He's living as an ambassador of Christ, representing the Kingdom of Heaven. His focal point, however, is not on this earth. He fully realizes, or should fully realize, if he studies the Bible, that this earth is doomed. This earth is going to be destroyed by fire on the last day.
CALLER: Let me interject here. Would you call the desire for material riches a temptation that one has to overcome? Would you say it was from the devil?
HC: Well, this is not necessarily Satan that's causing him to do this. This can be simply the lust of his own heart. Even a child of God has a body that is still unsaved, that lusts after sin. And therefore we want more and more of this world's goods.
But the Bible says you cannot serve God and Mammon. You can't serve both. You've got to make a decision. Now if you're going to try to get a better job, to earn more money, so that your life might more effectively tell for Jesus, you'll have more funds to give to mission causes, you will be able to support the sending forth of the Gospel to a higher degree, that's a high and pure motive.
But if the motive for the better job is simply to live in a bigger house and own a newer car, that motive is a sinful motive. It's an indication that you're still serving this creation.
I think we have a tremendous example in Abraham. I'm always amazed at this Abraham. You know, he lived 4000 years ago, at the time when they had very little of the Gospel. He had very little of the Bible. And yet he knew far more about salvation than many theologians do today, who have studied the whole Bible for a long time.
Now Abraham was a wealthy man, in the sense that he owned lots of herds, and so on. But he was a shepherd. And he had every ability to buy land, to build a city, to make a name for himself, and call that city Abraham, or whatever else he wished to call it. He had every ability to do this.
But Abraham dwelt as a pilgrim. He never owned any land. The fact is, when Sarah his wife died, in old age he had to finally buy a piece of land to have a burial place for her. But outside of that, he never owned any land.
Now we have a very striking illustration of how he looked at the things of this earth. Lot, his nephew, also was with him. And Lot had a number of shepherds and quite a number of sheep, even as Abraham did. And these shepherds began to quarrel with each other, because there wasn't enough water, there wasn't enough grazing land for both of them to be together.
Now Abraham was the senior. Abraham was the patriarch. And by all rights we would expect him to say, "Now look, Lot, my nephew, God called me to this land. He promised me that He would give me the land of Canaan as an inheritance." All this would have been absolutely true to say, because God indeed did declare these very words to Abraham. And he could have said, "Now, Lot, I want you to dwell in the hill country. It's not quite as good land, but I'll dwell here in the more rich areas, because after all, I am the patriarch. And God has given me the land. And it's my right to choose the richest area." Abraham could have done this.
But we're amazed to see that when this rivalry, this quarreling between the shepherds occurred, Abraham called Lot over and said, "Look, Lot, you take your choice. I'll let you make the choice. You can live in the hills here, where the grass is not nearly as verdant, where you're dependent altogether on the rain, where there can't be any irrigation of any kind, there are not nearly as many springs. Or you can take your flocks and dwell down along the Jordan River, where there's ample water, there are palm trees, and a couple of beautiful cities. You make your choice. Where would you like to go? But we've got to separate."
Now Lot of course chose the valley, where the rich pasture land was, and where the Jordan River flowed through, and where the rich cities were, because he was looking at this world to a much higher degree than Abraham. Now why could Abraham look at the situation this way? Because things and this world didn't mean anything to Abraham. They did not mean anything to Abraham. He was looking for a heavenly city.
You take two people who are unsaved. And unfortunately, this could also be the case of two people who are Christians, very frequently. And there's a quarrel over money. Whose is this $100 or $1000, or whatever it is. And my, the fight can be very very bitter. And we can all be guilty of this to some degree.
As Christians money doesn't really have that kind of importance. "Okay. If you're going to make a big deal of it, you take the money. I'm not going to quarrel about it. It's not that important to me. I'm just a stranger here. If I have a little less, fine. The Lord takes care of me. He'll care for me right to the end." This ought to be the posture of the Christian in this world.