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By Pastor Glenn Pease
Someone said, life is an everlasting struggle to keep money coming in, and teeth, hair, and vital organs from coming out.
Few have known this better than General Ulysses S. Grant.
He led the armies of the North to victory in the Civil War, and was twice elected president of the United States.
He was a fairly wealthy man when he retired from public office, but he proved that the wealthy have problems with money too.
They make mistakes on a grander scale.
Grant invested his capital in a new Wall Street investment firm operated by a smooth talking young man, whom Grant considered a financial wizard.
If the ability to make money disappear was what he meant, then he was a wizard, indeed, for Grant lost everything, and at 62 he was penniless.
Among his many friends was Samuel Clemens who had published many successful books under the name of Mark Twain.
Clemens convinced Grant he should write about the Civil War, and he would publish his book.
Grant signed the contract and got to work producing two volumes that rank among the world's great military narratives.
Grant got 10 thousand in advance, and his widow got 200 thousand in royalties.
His heirs also got close to half a million.
Clemens made a fortune on the deal, and he decided to try it with two other famous generals.
It didn't work, and Clemens had some reverses that led him to go bankrupt at age 59.
He too made a come back, and when he died in 1910 he left his heirs over half a million.
These two famous men illustrate the universal battle of life-how to make money; how to keep it, and how to make it count.
The Christian does not escape this battle at all.
The Christian spends a large portion of life engaged in making, spending, giving, saving, and losing money.
What makes this hard is the Christian is not endowed with any special gift that enables him to be any wiser than the non-Christian in his management of money.
That is why the New Testament is so full of warnings about money, and the danger of being obsessed by it.
There is also, as in our text, a lot of New Testament advice on how to use money wisely.
All of this would be unnecessary if Christians were just naturally financial wizards, but this is not the case.
Martin Luther was one of the great theological minds of history, but he had no skill whatever with money management.
At age 42 he had not yet saved a penny.
When he married Katherine Von Bora she discovered he was a money management drop out, who let money slip through his fingers with no accounting for where it went.
She had to tell their banker not to honor a draft unless she first approved it.
She had to take over to protect him from himself.
This story has been repeated over and over again in the lives of Christian leaders.
C.S. Lewis was one of the most brilliant Christians of the 20th century, but he had no sense of money management.
When Joy Davidman married him, she found that he had thousands of pounds he didn't even know he had.
He also had a small fortune in his checking account, and this was back in the day when there was no interest on it.
She quickly got it into a savings account.
One of the reasons many genius type people are not good money managers is because money is not that important to them.
They are preoccupied with other and greater things.
Einstein, for example, sometimes used his check as a book mark, and then turned it into the library.
Robert Frost wrote,
Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What they did with every cent.
It is admirable to be preoccupied with values greater than money, and not to be obsessed with it.
Prov.
3:13-14 says, "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding.
For she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold."
Luther and Lewis were wise in devoting their minds to greater values than money management.
But the higher wisdom yet is to know how to use money wisely without it being the dominant occupation of your mind.
The Proverbs also speak highly of the values of money.
Prov.
10:15-16 says, "The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.
The wages of the righteous brings them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment."
The balance life calls for both the avoidance of addiction to money, and the application of the advantages of money.
In other words, money is a paradox.
It is both dangerous and delightful; a curse and a blessing.
Paul says the love of money is the root of all evil, and Mark Twain said, the lack of money is the root of all evil.
The one does not eliminate the other, for Twain's remark compliments Paul's.
It is lack of money that leads people to such an obsessive love of it that they do all kinds of evil to get it.
The point is, it is hard to say anything about money, either negative or positive, that cannot be demonstrated to be a valid statement.
The poem, The Song Of Silver says,
Doug from the mountain-side, washed in the glen
Servant am I or the master of men.
Steal me, I curse you,
Earn me, I bless you;
Grasp me and hand me, a friend I shall possess you.
Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me,
Angel or devil, I am what you make me.
This is just what Paul is saying in our text.
Paul recognizes fully the paradox of money, and so he covers both sides by sharing warnings as to its dangers, and wisdom as to its delights.
If we are going to open our homes to Christ, we will have to be aware that He is aware of how we see and use money.
This is a vital part of our life for Him, for money is a major means by which we become a part of His upper class, which is the servant class.
It is important that we have a good grasp of both the dangers and delights of money.
First lets look at-
I. THE DANGERS OF MONEY.
The primary danger is in its power to deceive us into believing it is a substitute for God.
Paul says the eagerness to be rich has led some to wander from the faith.
Moneytheism-the almighty dollar replaces monotheism.
Christians can be deceived into thinking of it as a substitute for their love.
They expect money to convey their love, and solve all problems in relationships.
Joyce Landolf in her book, Tough And Tender writes, "We seem to have accepted money as the cure-all for every disease, need, or problem imaginable.
A man who has not said one real thing to his wife in years shrugs his shoulders and says, 'I don't know what she wants-she's got everything.
She can go out and buy anything.
She's got the house, clothes, and tons of things.
What else does she need?'
He has made the money, bought the myth, and paid for it.
All he has to show for himself is a large brick wall made up of material possessions which stand solidly between him and his wife.
He thought his money would buy a bridge; instead it has built a wall,...."
That is why money is so dangerous.
It makes so many people sincere in their conviction that it will be the cure-all.
There are few human beings alive who have not sincerely thought that a million dollars would solve all of their problems.
It could, in fact, do just that, but it could also add a whole new batch that you never dreamed of having.
Paul says those who desire to get rich mess their lives up good.
Paul must have had some good examples in his day, but we have many more in our day.
Kit Konolige has written a book called, The Richest Woman In The World.
It is a fascinating book, not about common place millionaires, but about those more rare people who have over 150 million.
There are only between 400 and 500 such people in the United States, and 58 of them are women.
Before you turn green with envy, you need to know how much it cost to be this rich.
First of all, you are usually widowed or divorced.
If you are still married to a man who has not worked himself to death, you probably have an unfaithful husband, and a very unhappy relationship.
There is an excellent chance that you hate your kids, and the feeling is mutual.
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