Grace Fellowship    08/10/08    Thinking About Money (Proverbs 19)

Let’s begin today by reading Proverbs 19 together.  Hear the word of the Lord:

 1 Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, Than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.
       2 Also it is not good for a soul to be without knowledge, And he sins who hastens with his feet.
       3 The foolishness of a man twists his way, And his heart frets against the LORD.
       4 Wealth makes many friends, But the poor is separated from his friend.
       5 A false witness will not go unpunished, And he who speaks lies will not escape.
       6 Many entreat the favor of the nobility, And every man is a friend to one who gives gifts.
       7 All the brothers of the poor hate him; How much more do his friends go far from him! He may pursue them with words, yet they abandon him.
       8 He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; He who keeps understanding will find good.
       9 A false witness will not go unpunished, And he who speaks lies shall perish.
       10 Luxury is not fitting for a fool, Much less for a servant to rule over princes.
       11 The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, And his glory is to overlook a transgression.
       12 The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion, But his favor is like dew on the grass.
       13 A foolish son is the ruin of his father, And the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping.
       14 Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD.
       15 Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, And an idle person will suffer hunger.
       16 He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, But he who is careless of his ways will die.
       17 He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, And He will pay back what he has given.
       18 Chasten your son while there is hope, And do not set your heart on his destruction.
       19 A man of great wrath will suffer punishment; For if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.
       20 Listen to counsel and receive instruction, That you may be wise in your latter days.
       21 There are many plans in a man’s heart, Nevertheless the LORD’s counsel—that will stand.
       22 What is desired in a man is kindness, And a poor man is better than a liar.
       23 The fear of the LORD leads to life, And he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be         visited with evil.
       24 A lazy man buries his hand in the bowl, And will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.
       25 Strike a scoffer, and the simple will become wary; Rebuke one who has understanding, and he         will discern knowledge.
       26 He who mistreats his father and chases away his mother, Is a son who causes shame and         brings reproach.
       27 Cease listening to instruction, my son, And you will stray from the words of knowledge.
       28 A disreputable witness scorns justice, And the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity.
       29 Judgments are prepared for scoffers, And beatings for the backs of fools. (Proverbs 19:1-29, NKJV)

There is a certain TV series which I have enjoyed from time to time that has something to do with traveling through the stars, exploring strange new worlds, and seeking out new life and new civilizations.  One of the new civilizations that was found was a race called the Ferengi.  The Ferengi are a very materialistic people.  Their Ten Commandments of sorts, are called the 173 Rules of Acquisition.  For instance, one of their rules states, “Employees are the rungs on the ladder to success.  Do not hesitate to step on them.“  Rule #23: “Nothing is as important as your health, . . . except your money.“  But maybe this is the one rule that best describes the Ferengi mindset.  According to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, “A man is only worth the sum of his possessions.”

There is very little integrity among the Ferengi.  Their lust for money and material possessions has become their greatest virtue.  They are the interstellar entrepreneurs of science fiction.  They find it sinful and unacceptable to be poor, they are loathed by all who know them, and they aren’t very good role models. Look at verse 1:  Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, Than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool.

The picture here is of two people: The rich man and the poor man.  Poverty is not something to be desired.  No one in their right mind prefers destitution over affluence.  But in this passage, there is something worse than being poverty stricken.  It is the rich man who becomes rich by means of his perversity.  The poor man who walks in integrity is a better man than a rich and respectable man who is actually a perverse fool, an habitual liar.

What does it mean to “walk in integrity”?  The word technically means “The state or quality of being entire or complete.”  It is the opposite of being duplicitous or double-minded.  The double-minded man is not trust worthy because you never know what he is thinking.  What he thinks is subject to change dependent upon personal advantage.  But the person who has integrity, you might say of him that you always know where he stands.  Predictable versus two-faced.  Consistently moral versus someone who lives according to what is most financially advantageous regardless of right or wrong.  Many people climb the corporate ladder that way.

While the poor person is not typically someone who is often envied, the poor man who is consistently righteous and fears God is much to be preferred over the rich opportunist who thinks nothing about his own soul.  I strongly suspect there are a lot more good, decent poor people than rich people with integrity.  And also, there is nothing inherently evil about being poor or rich.  It all depends upon the motives of the heart.  Better to be poor and honest, than to be rich and a liar.  God tests the heart.

Let’s look at verse 4 which is another commentary on the rich and the poor, and the nature of friendship: “Wealth makes many friends, But the poor is separated from his friend.”  

We’ve all heard of the proverbial “fair-weather friend”.  When things are good, and life is pleasant, it’s relatively easy to find a friend.  Wealth never has difficulty finding friends.  For the rich man, every day is another day in paradise, or something presumably like it.  And there are plenty of people who are willing to be his friend in order to share in the blessing.  National elections are often swayed by promises of prosperity.  You lower my taxes and raise my benefits, and generally make my life better than it has been for the past four years, and I’ll be your friend and vote for you.  Wealth (or the promise of it) makes many friends.

On the other hand, when things are bad, and life is hard, friends are scarce.  Poverty creates a friendship vacuum.  There are those whose friendship towards you is totally dependent upon your financial standing.  That is much, if not most of the motivation for the number of immigrants that come to this country.  They have heard that all Americans are rich, and compared to some place like Somalia or Bangladesh, that’s not too far off the mark. They don’t come here to become Americans.  They come here for the money.

Money makes “friends”.  Poverty makes you lonely.  The Hebrew word for “poor” in this verse means low, poor, weak, thin, one who is low.  Who do you think of when you hear those words?  I think of all those little, skinny kids in the infomercials that play upon our consciences and ask us to support them with a check on a monthly basis.  That is poverty.  Those people truly do need help.  And according to Jesus, we will always have the poor.  We will never eradicate poverty.

I am poor according to most American standards.  In fact, there may be several of us in this church whom the federal government would describe as living “under the poverty level”.  Beloved, none of us have ever seen poverty like what this verse is talking about.  Rich and poor are relative terms.  But I’ve seen poverty, and I’m telling you, NONE of us have ever experienced that. None of us want to.  Nobody wants to be poor like that, and virtually no one wants to be around people like that, who are perpetually needy.  Beggars.  Destitute.  That is why “the poor is separated from his friend.”

These are just facts.  This is just the way life is.  Money motivates much of what is called friendship.  Be aware of that.  I’ve often reminded Sharon that I’m sure that was her motivation for marrying me: my money.  We’ve all heard of the guy who wins the lottery, and suddenly, he has relatives coming out of the woodwork he didn’t even know he had.  You would be wise to keep that in mind if you ever find yourself amongst the well-to-do.  You might also want to remember that poverty is the enemy of superficial friendship.  

But it is the poor and the suffering whom Jesus called us to minister to, particularly those who bear His name.  He set the ultimate example of this for us when, though He was rich, He Himself became poor and made His home among us.  Obviously it is not a sin to be poor.  It’s just not very desirable.  But it is Jesus’ willingness to enter into our poverty that endears Him to us.  And in our spiritual poverty, He has also become the friend that is closer than a brother, the friend that will never leave us or forsake us, regardless of our bank balance.  Other so-called friends are not like that.

Family isn’t even faithful in poverty.  Verse 7 - All the brothers of the poor hate him; How much more do his friends go far from him! He may pursue them with words, yet they abandon him.
 
“Hateful” is the word used to describe such brothers of the poor.  “Unfaithful” is the word that describes such friends.  Both are merciless.  In ancient Jewish culture, there was no County Assistance Office.  There were no Social Security programs.  Friends and family were your only social security.  When they abandoned you in your hour of need, you were truly alone.  And that was in Israel, among God’s people.  We can only assume it was just as bad and more than likely worse among the Gentile nations who had no access to God or His Law.

All these verses are warnings to tell us we are not immune to the effects of being poor.  We would be wise to avoid poverty.  It is not fun, nobody really likes you, and you suffer in solitude.  Our nation has programs in place that help alleviate much of the abject poverty that most of the rest of the world knows intimately.  But the message here is two-fold: 1) If you become poor, expect to live alone; and 2) Do whatever you can to avoid becoming poor.  Listen to what Proverbs says about this:

6:6-11 Go to the ant, you sluggard!  Consider her ways and be wise, Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler, Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest.  How long will you slumber, O sluggard?  When will you rise from your sleep?  A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep--  So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, And your need like an armed man.

10:4-5  He who has a slack hand becomes poor, But the hand of the diligent makes rich.  He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.

19:15 Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, And an idle person will suffer hunger.

20:4 The lazy man will not plow because of winter; He will beg during harvest and have nothing.

21:25 The desire of the lazy man kills him, For his hands refuse to labor.

24:30-34 I went by the field of the lazy man, And by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding; And there it was, all overgrown with thorns; Its surface was covered with nettles; Its stone wall was broken down.  When I saw it, I considered it well; I looked on it and received instruction: A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest;  So shall your poverty come like a prowler, And your need like an armed man.

Work hard.  Don’t be lazy.  Avoid the perils of poverty.  And have pity on those who suffer from it.

Verse 17 - He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, And He will pay back what he has given.

The Lord Jesus presumably spoke more about money than any other topic.  One of the more memorable things He said was, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21, NKJV).  

Money, and what we do with it is an indication of the spiritual condition of the heart.  Yesterday, several of us went up to Philipsburg to help replace the roof on the home of ____________ .  One of the things that was mentioned early in the project was the fact that none of us were getting paid for this.  At least, not in this life.  God Himself pays back those who pity the poor.  That is one way of laying up treasure in Heaven.

_________ shows pity to the poor.  She knew of a young girl who had no clothes to wear to Camp K.  I don’t know why that was the case, it just was.  So ____ took this girl to GoodWill on one of their regularly scheduled Half Price days and bought her a new wardrobe so she could go to camp and hear the Gospel.  Now ____’s roof is being replaced.  God is paying back in a practical way, what she and ___ have given to the poor.  They regularly lend to the Lord in this way.

Yesterday, I saw a billboard for a bank that was advertising a savings account with an interest rate of over 4%.  Wow!  4% is pretty good these days!  The problem is you have to already have $50,000 sitting around that you can invest in order to get that kind of return.  Instead, take some of that same money and have pity on the poor.  Your interest rate then becomes infinite.  Imagine lending to the Lord!  That money is never lost.  God will repay.

Finally, look at verse 22 - What is desired in a man is kindness, And a poor man is better than a liar.

With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8, NKJV).

We are to be lovers of mercy and kindness, primarily because it is required of us, but secondly because we have been shown infinite mercy and kindness.

4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7, NKJV).

These are the qualities that are to mark the Christian: Kindness, love, mercy, grace.  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). The best way to practice these attributes of kindness and mercy and pity, and all the fruits of the Spirit is upon the truly poor.  We have all experienced the worst kind of poverty: poverty of soul.  We have known what it means to be spiritually destitute, if not physically.  How can we who have been shown such pity withhold it from those who suffer around us?

A poor man who shows kindness is better than a rich liar.  None of us could really be called rich by American standards.  But we have ample opportunities to show kindness to those who are.  Let’s not miss them.  Are you kind to the poor?  Or do you avoid them as though they have some incurable disease?  Some do seem to have the nearly incurable disease of laziness.  We should not lend support to able-bodied sluggards.  But to those who suffer through no fault of their own, we who are able are required to show them the same kindness we have been shown by God.  God loved us and in our poverty, He gave us His Son.