“Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” (James 5:1–6, ESV)
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.
4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
James 5:1-6, ESV
Wealth is not the problem…….it is the love of wealth that is the problem.
Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.
Proverbs 11:28, ESV
Problem: Greed is seldom seen as a vice but celebrated as a virtue.
Greed is called the deadly sin because it can kill the possibility of a proper relationship to the Creator and giver of all good things.
God will not condemn anyone of wealth, but God will judge your worthless wealth.
How did you gain your wealth?
++How did you use your wealth?
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, ” He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-9, ESV
1. Worthless wealth can lead to great _heartaches_.
V.1. 1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
“You rich”
2019 Survey
* World Adult population: 5+ billion
* Median net worth average worldwide: $7,522
- Swiss $228,000
- U.S. $66,000
- Haiti $193.
2. Worthless wealth can lead to _dreadful judgements_.
V.2-3 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.
3 Temporary natures of worthless wealth:
- “your riches rot”
- “your garments are moth-eaten”
- “your gold & silver corrode”
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21, ESV
V.2,3 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.
They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing. Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.
Ezekiel 7:19, ESV
The very wealth that you were counting on in the “last days” will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire (wasteful wealth in a trash fill). And this worthless wealth will testify your heart of greed against you on the day of judgement.
Is it wrong to save?
++Is it a lack of faith to put resources aside to be prepared for the future?
Yes…….
If it’s for the wrong reasons!
* The issue is not savings but hoarding.
* God trusts us with resources but we do not have “rights” to what is not ours.
* Be a conduit of His blessings, not a dead-end of His blessings.
Guidelines for saving wisely for God’s will:
- Provide for your family.
1 Timothy 5:8
- Promote God’s kingdom.
2 Corinthians 8:1-3
- Care for those in need.
1 John 3:16-18
- Support those in ministry
1 Corinthians 9:4-14;
Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.
Galatians 6:6, ESV
Promising fulfillment in money and things and lands and houses and cars and clothes and boats and campers and hot tubs and world travel, materialism has left us bound and gagged, pathetically thinking what the drug addict thinks, that our only hope is getting more of the same. All the while the voice of God,
so hard to hear through the clatter of our things, tells us that even if materialism did bring happiness in this life- which it clearly does not- it leaves us woefully unprepared for the next
-Randy Alcorn
3. Worthless wealth can lead to _many sins_.
V.4,6
- Wealth unjustly gained.
V.4 4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
- Wealth selfishly _spent_.
V.5 5 You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
“Luxury” _Softness/ comfort_.
“Self-indulgence” _Pursuit of pleasure_.
“Fatten your hearts in a day of slaughter” _Addictive lifestyle/ never enough_.
“They are like so many unthinking beasts, luxuriating in their pastures day after day, growing fat by the hour and care less of the fact that each day, each hour, brings the butcher nearer. Only the thin beast is safe that day; the well-fed has made itself ready for the knife……blind to heaven and hell, living for his life, forgetting the day of slaughter.”
Alec Motyer
Wealth wickedly _acquired_.
V.6 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.
4. Wealth can lead to blessings.
17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.
1 Timothy 6:17-19 NLT