Clough Proverbs Lesson 59

DI #1: Laws of Property I

I want to answer two questions: When things are in your subconscious, which as a believer you have refused to recognize, and so you don’t know what the problem is, is it good to go to a Christian psychiatrist so as to receive added help in rooting out the area of rebellion. The answer is yes if you can find one; there are Christians who are psychiatrists and Christians who are psychologists and then there are Christian psychologists, and the difference is that one is a believer operating with human viewpoint methods; the other is a believer who is trying to operate with divine viewpoint methods. And as far as I know there are only one or two in the state of Texas. So it is desirable to do this if you can find them.

The second question: If it’s wrong to tell God how to do something, then what about the way the Jews did in putting God to the test, like putting out the fleece? They are referring to the Gideon episode in the book of Judges, the answer to that one is that they didn’t tell God to do it that way, they asked Him to do it that way and there’s a world of difference between the two words.

The third question involves the problem of the gospel. Exactly how much does one need to know in order to be saved? How much did the Old Testament people know about Christ? Wouldn’t this show how much material is essential to salvation? That’s true, the last part of that question, in that the Bible tells us that it’s not necessary to know all the details in order to be saved, otherwise very few people would be. However, one of the essentials of believing in Jesus Christ is to have a firm grasp of God’s character and our sinful character, and I’d like to answer that question, expand the answer a little bit, read a section from a magazine which is devoted to restoration orthodoxy in our own generation and this was an interview with the leader of a very prominent evangelistic organization. And the question was: “Do you agree with the claim that revivalism is seen in,” this particular organization, “as part of a great spiritual revival.” And the editor of this magazine who was a very good biblical scholar said this. So and so, who is the head of this organization, “told me personally that we are now witnessing the greatest spiritual revival seen on this earth since the days of the apostles. I think you would agree with me that numbers and noise are not the only indications of the value of a revival. We need to take into account the basic questions people are grappling with, or what (?) would call the fundamental motif of the spiritual movement.”

“Consider the two great religious revivals which were so revolutionary that they actually did change the course of history. I am referring to the revivals in the time of the apostles and in the time of the Reformers. What was the social concern? The basic question people were asking was: how can a man be just with God? How can I be acceptable and pleasing before a righteous and holy God? The question was theocentric,” that is God centered. “Men’s earnest inquiry grew out of an overwhelming sense of God’s holiness and their own guilt standing and corrupt state. This is not really the basic question that people are asking in present day revivalism. This has been a very permissive age and a lot of it has rubbed off on those of us who call ourselves evangelical. God is cast in the role of an easy-going benevolent who forgives sin out of sheer mercy. There is very little confrontation with a God of law, righteousness and judgment. Few of us are confronted with Luther’s question: How can I find a gracious God? We take it for granted that God is gracious. Never have young people had so much time, so much freedom and so many means to run off to pleasure, yet they are bored and unsatisfied. The uppermost question they are asking is: How can life become an exciting adventure? How can I have a bundle of fun, I’ve tried sports, sex, pot, what next? In the context of this question the revivalists come along and say, “Try Jesus.”

“You may ask what is wrong with trying Jesus. My reply is this: man’s original sin was to make his own happiness his primary concern. The Greeks call this Eudemonism, which making the attainment of happiness the goal of life. The ultimate sin is to enlist Christ as a means to this end. We question the fundamental motif of much of this type of revivalism; it is egocentric instead of theocentric. It does not change the goal but merely changes the method. Instead of regeneration it offers sublimation. If the current religious fervor is to have any depth or substance it has to be on a higher plain than Eudemonism; we have to stop trying to deal with God as if He were Santa Clause, we believe in you Santa Claus, now let’s get down to the real think where are the toys? We desperately need to hear the gospel preached in the biblical context of our accountability before God’s Law and His judgment seat.” And he goes on to point this out. I think that pretty well stresses what the heathen need to know, the nature of God and the nature of them selves.

Today we come to a new section in the book of Proverbs. And this is a section that will be difficult for some of you to appreciate as part of the gospel. We have so far in the book of Proverbs tried it thematically; we’ve dealt with the general laws of responsibility, the law of temporal effect, the law of final effect, the law of self-destruction and have shown how all of these laws apply to men everywhere, believer and unbeliever and then we have dealt with the laws of the soul, and we’ve dealt with five laws of the soul: the law of psychosomatic effect, the law of mystery, the law of hope, the law of self-destruction.

Now today we come to a new category of laws, still under the first divine institution. Remember, the outline, the large outline we’re following is that life can be divided into spheres and the most confusion exists today on the part of believer and unbeliever in failing to see that there are sovereign spheres to life that can’t be mixed. And you have the first one, which is responsibility, labor an money, essentially summarized by the word volition. God gives men a choice. And that is a whole sphere. And under that category, before we get into the second one, which deals with marriage, or the third one which deals with family, before we get to those two we have to completely exhaust, at least in topical way, the content of the first divine institution.

So today we come to the laws of property, labor and money. Now this is a whole new area for many believers because today the Church is affected by what we might call Neo-Platonism in that spirituality is made something that is divorced from material things. You never hear of the simple gospel being applied in the area of finance, or the simple gospel being applied in the area of business, other than businessmen as moral or something like that. So there’s no serious widespread application. This recalls to mind two points that we ought to remember from history as we start this section, and that is one that Trotsky once said. Trotsky, when he was interviewed before somebody graciously hatcheted him to death in Mexico, said to a reporter that there are only two philosophies that are serious, that complete in civilization for men’s allegiance; one is communism because it involves all areas of life, and the other one is Calvinism. He didn’t say Christianity, he said Calvinism. Why did he say Calvinism? Because he referred to the Reformers, the Protestant Reformation, which taught the Word of God in all areas. True, it restored clarity to the gospel but the Reformer’s gospel was far more powerful than the gospel of evangelicals today. The gospel of evangelicals deals with the private life and that is it. And Christ is talked about only in terms of the private life but never in terms of the public life, or the social life.

And so therefore we have the social life out here, and who has dominated that sphere but the liberals. And the Christians have lost it by default because we have not preached God’s authoritative controls in the area of the social life. There is content, much content to the Word of God in this area but very rarely do you ever hear it preached. I know this to be the case because in preparing this section for teaching I have looked and looked and looked for materials written on the subject and you could list them on less than one hand, serious works that have been done recently by Bible-believing people.

One man, Carl Max Weber, introduced a thesis some years ago in which he pointed out that modern capitalism owes its existence to Protestantism. And he had a very interesting thesis and that was that modern capitalism in business really operates largely on credit and the concept of credit to produce historically came from imputation of Christ’s righteousness. And that may be a long way away today from the concept of credit but historically the thing that gave credit such an impetus in a legitimate way was that God has given us credit and in the Bible that credit is called imputation. God, at the point of salvation, credits us with Christ’s righteousness. He credits us in certain assets we are to invest and [can’t understand small section] we don’t agree with everything he did but he did crank this out.

Now, there are going to be three things, areas of benefit that this group of laws should give you, the laws of property, labor and money. You should benefit from this area at least three ways; number one, you should benefit from this section or group of laws from the book of Proverbs because it should better define the will of God for you in these areas. If you are in a labor union, if you are in a management situation in business, you need the guidance in the Word of God to control your thoughts in this area, to act as an authority to decide questions in this area.

A second way this should benefit you is that you should have a greater witnessing opportunity. A lot of men, particularly, never become Christians simply because they don’t believe the gospel is serious enough. Now what’s the best way of convincing a hard-nosed businessman that the gospel is serious enough? To just talk about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus every five minutes. No! One of the most powerful witnessing opportunities to confront a hard-nosed businessman would be to simply show him that right in his own backyard the gospel is authoritative and has force. And therefore immediately he has to confront the gospel right in his own backyard. So it increases, as a second advantage, it increases the sphere of witnessing because it increases the sphere of confrontation between divine viewpoint and human viewpoint.

And then the third benefit that should accrue to you from understanding some of these laws is that you will now be able to appreciate the parables of Jesus Christ. Most of Jesus’ parables in the New Testament are grounded on a capitalist free market economy and you do not appreciate what Jesus is teaching unless you appreciate it what it is that is first taught, and then the spiritual analogy. And many Christians come to the gospels and fail to get Jesus point because they’ve never understood simple economics to begin with, and yet Jesus grounded all of His parables on a free market concept of capitalism. So that would be the third great benefit that we can obtain from this.

Now I’ve divided this group of laws into three words: property, labor and money. The first thing we want to point out, we’re going to ask a number of questions. Our format today, instead of going through verse by verse, though we will go through some verses, is going to be to define what we mean by the laws and then ask questions to clarify in your mind what these words mean.

The first thing we want to understand is why this order? Property, then labor, then money, why that order? The answer is because man as a creature must always have materials to work with. Only God can labor without property and its called ex nihilo creation. But man, being finite, must always have materials and wealth first, before he can labor. The artist can’t make his paint and his brushes before he makes his picture all at once, he’s got to first purchase his paint, purchase his brush, purchase his canvas, and then he makes his picture. But the artist can’t labor in painting until he first has tools to labor with. The farmer can’t grow things until someone gives him the seed and the land and the fertilizer and the tools. So all labor on the part of the creature is capitalist labor; it depends on capital and you can’t labor as a creature without capital. So we start off with the fact that all creatures, being finite, must be capitalists because they must have capital in order to function in labor. Take away a man’s tools, take away his assets and he can’t labor, he can’t produce, he has nothing to produce with, nothing to produce on. So we being with property.

Now what is the law of property, that will be our first law, summarizing, trying to do as I said, thematically summarizing the content of the book of Proverbs. What is the law of property? There are two parts to the law of property; today we’ll study the first part, next week the second part. The law of property states that property or capital makes responsibility historically possible. In other words, man has been given volition; man has been given the power of choice. But if you don’t give him something to choose with, then the freedom to choose is illusory, it’s false, it’s an image, it’s a phantom. And so in order to make volition and responsibility function in history, property is always necessary, property of something. You’ve got to own your (?), you’ve got to own something in order to choose, to have the choice. So property, then, makes responsibility historically possible. If you didn’t have property you would not have freedom of choice. It’s as simple as that; a person in the jail who’s had everything taken away from him by virtue of the government does not have freedom of choice any more. Therefore property is a prerequisite for volition.

Now the second part of the law of property is that under the general laws of responsibility God gives or takes away property as we submit or rebel, that God will take away property or He will give you property generally as you submit or rebel. There is a moral motion under the laws of general responsibility.

Today we want to start with the fact that property makes volition possible. We want to press this, see if it really is true and then if it is true what can we do about it as far as our Christian life is concerned. To begin let’s turn to Genesis 1:26, when God gave the first man the first choice. On the sixth day of creation, “God said, Let us,” the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, foolish people who say the Trinity is not present in the Old Testament, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. [27] And God created man in His own image….” Verse 28, “And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion….”

Now what is God giving to man here? God is giving the earth to man, is He not? When it says “have dominion over it,” isn’t that giving him title to that property? Who owns the earth? Man owns the earth. Who gave the earth to man? God did. And so when God gave man volition God gave man property; volition without property is an illusion. So along with volition and responsibility comes property and how you use it.

In Genesis 2:15, what did do to man, when God gave man a test? “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Did God just put man anywhere to dress and to keep and to labor? No, He put him in his own land; He gave him property to keep and to dress. And so therefore God gave the man capital. Now that was at the point of creation, so let’s look; first at the point of creation God gave man capital to choose to destroy or to use constructively, but the capital came from God.

Now turn to Genesis 8:17, after the flood. After the flood, “Bring forth with thee,” He says to man, “every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth; and that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.” And then, Genesis 9:1, “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth. [2] And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth … and upon all the fishes, into your hand are they delivered.” Therefore, after the flood with the Noahic Covenant what happened again? God gave man capital; God gave man property to exercise his volition with. So for the second time in history we have God capitally investing in man.

Now a third time and this is found in Genesis 12:1, when God speaks to Abraham. He says, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee. [2] And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee,” and you know the rest of the Abrahamic Covenant, but the point of Genesis 12:1, go to “a land that I will show thee.” Now in Genesis 15:18, an enlargement of the Abrahamic Covenant, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land,” so for the third time in history we have God giving, at the point of the Abrahamic Covenant, capital to man. Why does God give the capital to Abraham? It is to be invested eternally; it is God’s land, given to the seed of Abraham. They have eternal title to the land. Why? Because they would exercise their choice in subduing the earth for God’s glory. So capital is again given, property is given to them.

So what can we say then? That at every point in history God gives property to man and then judges man how he uses the property. Basically this is a picture of freedom; God invests capital and watches how we make use of the capital. See, if you understand this simple rule that operates in the business world every day you can understand the Christian life, because when you became a Christian at the point of salvation God puts you in union with Christ, en Christo, we are “in Christ,” and because we are in Christ we have certain assets. And God has given those to us as He gave the land to Abraham, as He gave the earth to Noah, as he gave the world to Adam. God gives us assets in Christ. God makes an investment in your life at the time you become a Christian. And God expects production; He expects us to be good managers, He expects us to be functioning capitalists on how we use the property that He has given us. He doesn’t use the property, we use the property. He’s put it into our hands for us to use. So the capitalist concept is one that undergirds all the spiritual life. If capitalism is false, and if socialism and welfarism is true, then you can throw your Bible in the basket because all the parables go out the window; the Bible presupposes a capitalist type of system.

Now we have to ask another question. We’ve asked how does property make freedom function, or responsibility function, or responsibility function; we’ve just seen how God always gives man property or capital investments and expects man to use it. The second question, what is the property that God has given us. Let’s not just think of land, though that’s the easiest. God includes in property land, true, that’s the easiest picture of property land, but more than land he gives us natural resources in the land; He gives us our bodies. Did you ever stop to think that Adam is called Adam; do you know what the Hebrew word for land is? Adamah. Why is Adam called Adam? Because he is made from the earth. And God gives us a body and He expects us to use it and we’ll come to passages later, in the New Testament, where He expects us to invest and use our bodies. God gives us, in the area or the second divine institution the right man or the right woman. That is considered property, an odd concept which we’ll cover when we get to the second [divine institution]. The right man is the property of the right woman and the right woman is the property of the right man. We have children and God gives children and I will show you later on in the third divine institution that they are considered property that God gives into our hands to be used or misused for His purposes. God finally gives us property in the form of money and that comes up with special treatment after we get through labor because it’s fluid property.

Now we come to something else and this is the third question we have to ask. We’ve asked the question, what is property, how does property undergird freedom or volition, now we have to ask a very, very critical question and in asking this one, here is where we collide with the whole society. It’s very discouraging as I’ve studied the Word in one sense, it’s encouraging in another but it’s very discouraging if you really are a serious student of the Word of God, the more you study the Word of God, the more you see how bent out of shape our present society is in every area. There’s not one area that winds up with the Word of God today. The concept of public education is not a biblical concept; it’s something that grew out of Unitarianism in New England. And public education, basically, is anti-scriptural in its very essence. So the whole field of education rests on anti-biblical presuppositions. You go over into the area of what is taught in the classroom, public or private education and you find there human viewpoint by the ton. Then you come over now into the area of economics and business and sad to say you discover the entire business and financial establishment of the world is basically grounded on anti-biblical presuppositions.

So may there not be any believer here this morning who says I don’t know what God wants me to do with this life, I can’t see anything to do, there are thousands and thousands of things for you to do; the question in your mind should be which one is it that I can do and what are the 8,000 ones that I can’t do, because there are many, many ministries facing every one who is a mature believer, and in whatever you may be you have to face and confront human viewpoint.

Now we come to this third question and here is where the confrontation between divine viewpoint and human viewpoint comes into the open. We have to treat what is known legally as eminent domain, the concept of who is the final owner. The simple illustration of eminent domain would be if the city of Lubbock or the State of Texas was to decree that there would be an interstate highway going through a section of property that you own, eminent domain would say that the state has the right to take your property for public use. Eminent domain says the state overrides the individual at this point in time. But I am going to use the concept of eminent domain for absolute ownership. We want to ask ourselves what is absolute ownership, and how do men think about absolute ownership and how should you think as a believer in Jesus Christ about absolute ownership? Are you going to agree with the neighbor as to what is absolute ownership, eminent domain or not?

Three answers have been given down through history to this problem of eminent domain. The first one was given in the ancient near east. Who were the absolute owners of property in the ancient city-state? It was the gods; the gods owned the property, everyone was the vassals of the gods, the peasants who farmed their land were farming the gods land and they worked for the gods; translated into practical every day behavior it meant they worked for the priesthood. But the gods of the city-state the land. Eminent domain did not reside in the state; eminent domain did not reside in the individual; eminent domain resided in the gods, they owned everything. That’s the first answer that men of human viewpoint have given; the gods owned the land. If you understand this also you understand why it was so very, very hard for Jewish farmers in the Old Testament to get their faith straight, that Jehovah owned the land, not Baal; there were competing claims as to who owned the land. This also will show you why it was that Joshua raised a holy war; why he had to crush, defeat, destroy, and kill and slaughter the enemies of Jehovah, to make it absolutely clear that Jehovah, not Baal, owned the land. So the first answer is that the gods owned the land.

The second answer, given down through the ages, particularly through the middle ages was that the Church owned the land, and so in the medieval times the Church was the one that decreed to the prince how things would go, the owner of the castle, it was the Church that owned the land.

A third answer given in modern times is that the state owns the land; it is the state that has the power of absolute ownership. Illustration of this: the District of Columbia was ceded to the federal government for use; in the document that shifted ownership of the District of Columbia to the federal government a clause stated that the property rights of the inhabitants should remain unaffected. In later legal decisions the federal government has decreed that it will decide how the District of Columbia operates. How? Because eminent domain resides in a sovereign state, not in the individual property owners. Now the writers of our Constitution have two points in the federal Constitution that tried to protect against this ever happening to our country, but as usual the Constitution is interpreted like the Bible; allegorically.

And so articles in the Constitution no longer have literal force. But Article V in the U. S. Constitution has a quote in it: “Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” That was one attempt, it wasn’t strong enough but it was an attempt to defend individual ownership against intrusion by the state. Article X said: The powers not delegated [to the United States] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since eminent domain was not exceeded to the federal government, therefore the federal government does not have eminent domain under the Constitution. If any government in these plans has eminent domain it would be the state government, not the federal because this power was never given to the federal. And yet you can read legal opinion after legal opinion that says that in practice today the federal government had eminent domain; not because the Constitution gave it but because we redefine eminent domain and this leads us, then, to understand something. Eminent domain, or absolute ownership equal, in practice, sovereignty. The question is where does sovereignty reside? In the individual citizen or in the state? Where is the ultimate threshold of sovereignty? Today, 99% of your friends, most of you probably, if you are honest with yourself believe this, that sovereignty resides in the state, not in the individual or in something.

Those are three answers, God, the Church and the state. Now there was a fourth answer that is minor, has not been held by too many people, that obviously came in reaction to the third one. If people are going to say that the state is the sovereign, that the federal government holds title, if the federal government exercises sovereignty then you can imagine easily what would have happened, so in the 19^th century we have writers like Bakunin, in 1871, [sounds like: Totkan in 1903 and [sounds like: Saul] in 1908 put forth the doctrine of anarchy. What was the primary point of the anarchists? An anarchist says the individual is sovereign, not the state. And so now we have the rocking back and forth today between what we will call the statists and the anarchists. Those are the two extremes; communists are statists; Nazis are statists. Welfarists and socialists are statists. And you have the, if you want to take it to the conclusion, the ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra right if they would function logically would hold to anarchy, that the individual is sovereign, not the state; the individual dictates to the state, not the state to the individual. Now on a human viewpoint basis that’s your choice today.

But we have another option and in God’s Word ownership of sovereignty obviously resides in One who is really sovereign, not the state or man but God. God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love, God is omniscient. God alone has the attribute of sovereignty, God alone has eminent domain. Therefore God alone is the source of absolute ownership.

Some verses of Scripture; let’s look at Psalm 50:10, a verse that many of you have thought of in (?) and praise, a promise that is often used in prayer meetings, but today it’s going to be more than just a promise for prayer meetings; today Psalm 50:10-12 the teaches the law of eminent domain residing in God Himself; not in any state, not an individual, not the gods of nature and not the Church. Absolute ownership is the prerogative of the Triune God, sovereign Son and Holy Spirit, and any other organization or creature that demands absolute ownership is apostate and is an idol.

Psalm 50:10, “For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle upon a thousand hills. [11] I know all the fowls of the mountains; and the wild beasts of the field are Mind. [12] If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and the fullness thereof.” That is a statement of true eminent domain. God, the Triune God of the Bible is the One who holds eternal title to all things. Absolute ownership therefore does not reside in the state, it resides in God.

What does this mean? Now let’s go through the Scriptures and watch what ownership versus the state and how this works. Turn to 1 Samuel 8:11 and you’ll see that throughout Scripture, throughout history, it is God versus Caesar on this question. Who has eminent domain? Samuel warns the people what centralized power will do to Israel and he says, “This will be the manner of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons,” that is your property, “and he will appoint them for himself,” as one person facetiously remarked about the Robin Hood idea that the government robs the rich to pay the poor and this was subsequently added to by saying that finally Robin Hood who once robbed the rich to pay the poor now robs both rich and poor alike to pay Robin Hood.

And this is always what happens when government gets in, as it’s forecast here in verse 11. “He will take your sons and he will appoint them for himself,” always a tendency of federal power, “for his chariots, to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. [12] He will appoint captains over thousands,” and so on, “to plow his ground,” the ground of the state, the ground that the state owns, “and to reap his harvest,” what does that mean translated? It means socialism. The god that owns the means of production and Samuel said watch it Israel because when you centralize your power in an organization finally you wind up with welfarism and socialism when the state owns the means of production. “…and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots,” the military then becomes an agent of the state and not for the freedom of the people. [13] “He will take your daughters to be cooks, and bakers,” [14] “He will take your fields,” which translated means the state will take the individual’s capital; the capital passes from the individual to the hands of the state. “…he will take your vineyards, and your olive yards, the best of them,” when the government moves the government just doesn’t take any property, it always takes the best property. And has always been the case, it’s predicted here in the Bible. And the date of this prediction: 1000 BC. Now come it is that 3000 years later people are just waking up to the possibility. Verse 15, “He will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, to give to his officers, and to his servants,” the bureaucracy of the state.

And verse 18, “Ye will cry out in that day because of your king which you have chosen,” and verse 18 is the footnote to what I’m saying, we don’t have time to deal with that today but verse 18 is a footnote, people get the government they deserve. People who do not wish responsibility and private ownership will always retreat and will always let the government take their property because they don’t want the responsibility for the property. We’ll see how that develops later on the laws of labor.

So the state intrudes and the state winds up taking everything. But this is to be a warning in Israel and it was not right, 1 Samuel 8 is a prophetic condemnation of welfarism and socialism in Scripture, and Christian’s biblical philosophy of government has not changed since. When you hear Christians, so-called, in government circles pushing for socialistic welfarist schemes they are Christians who are either honestly ignorant of the Word of God of they’re Christians in deep profound rebellion against the Word of God. But no Christian with clear conscience could ever push or promote welfarist or socialist schemes. They collide with the laws of Scripture.

For another incident that shows this dramatically is 1 Kings 21:1, this shows God’s attitude when the government tries to claim eminent domain for itself. The famous, famous incident in Scripture, the Naboth vineyard crisis. “And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard,” so we have capital, that he owned, it is not the state’s, it is his, “which was in Jezreel, close to the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. [2] And Ahab spoke unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near to my house, and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.” Now here you have verse 2 what appears to be a legitimate proposal by the state. The state agrees to take the man’s property and give him just compensation for it. And you say, certainly, isn’t that biblical? Isn’t it biblical for the state to demand your property if at the same time it gives you fair price? No.

Verse 3, “And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.” The property was the property of the family, not of the state. And Naboth refused just compensation by the governmental authorities. [4] And Ahab came into his house heavy [sullen] and displeased because of the word which Naboth, the Jezreelite, had spoken to him;” Jezreelite refused to sell private property to the government, “for he said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he lay down on his bed, and he turned away his face, and would eat no food.” This is Ahab sulking. [5] But Jezebel, his wife,” to make a long story short, comes in and takes the property and she, in the process forcibly removes it. Verse 9, “And she wrote in letters, saying, proclaim a fast that, and set Naboth on high among the people. [10] And sent two men, sons of Belial [worthless fellows] before him, to bear witness against him,” and she sets up a false case and Naboth is stoned. Verse 13, “They carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, so that he died.” The government moves in, since the individual owner will not sell to the government the government will kill the owner; the government will have the property. [Tape turns]

1 Kings 21:19, “Thus saith the LORD, in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick your blood. [20] And Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.” That is God’s attitude to the state taking private property. The law of eminent domain does now apply biblically to the state. The state does not have absolute title to property, if the citizen does not want to sell the state has no power to take it, period, according to the Scriptures. According to present legal opinion that’s not right; according to Scriptures however, which must be our norm and standard, that is the law.

Ezekiel 46:18, another verse of Scripture that shows the doctrine of property and eminent domain. What does Ezekiel say? What is to be the norm and standard for the government? What is to be the law of the land as far as God is concerned? “Moreover, the prince shall not take of the people’s inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession, but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, [that my people be not disposed every man from his possession.]” in other words, the government is stick to its own given assets and not to take individual property from individuals. So we have it affirmed from many, many occasions.

Finally another passage in the New Testament that shows the exercise of true eminent domain, Matthew 25:31, Jesus Christ at His return. Now I have said all along, if you’ve noticed, I’ve said the eminent domain resides in the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But of the Trinity which personality of the Trinity is always most visible in history. Which personality of the Trinity is always the object of revelation? Which personality is it that secures salvation for man? It is the Second Personality, God the Son, the Lord. And now in Matthew 25:31 and following the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Second Personality of the Trinity, exercises the right of eminent domain. Jesus Christ holds absolute ownership, absolute title. “When the Son of man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” This means He will historically exercise eminent domain and absolute ownership. [32] “And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides sheep from the goats. [33] And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. [34] Then the King shall say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Who, then, the word “inherit,” who then is it that gives the inheritance? The Lord Jesus Christ. And He is giving capital, once again, the fourth time in history. The first time was to Adam; the second time was to Noah; the third time was to Abraham, and the fourth time, the complete reality of the earth and its resources given by the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ holds the absolute ownership, not the state, nor anyone else.

Now you can easily see how pursuing this philosophy can lead you into collision with contemporary society but I show you that because that’s exactly the nature of the point, that the believers today, as we have failed through 400 years since the Reformation, we have failed to apply the Word of God at point after point after point after point after point. We have allowed the legislature to pass laws that reflect that human rather than divine viewpoint, and therefore we suffer, and men suffer by the scores, men suffer by hundreds and thousands because we have allowed the laws of the land to be shaped by human viewpoint rather than divine viewpoint. This is a challenge, as Christian citizens, we’ve got to start somewhere and as we go through the book of Proverbs and these various laws these will show you some points of starting.

Now since we’re in Matthew we come to a final question we want to ask this morning and that is, what does ownership mean? And it’s given to us in a parable in Matthew 20:1; if you’re unclear as to what ownership means, and many, many people are simply because we have grown up in a very warped culture in this area. Matthew 20:1-15. This is a parable Jesus taught, designed to infuriate anyone who’s interested in the modern cause of labor but Matthew 20 is how a capitalist can control his property.

Jesus said, “For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard.” The man is a capitalist; the vineyard is his property, the property that must be used to produce and he hires laborers to use his property. [2] “And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.” So a labor contract has been let in the morning; the workers on the hourly wage has been established; there is nothing that change the contract. [3] “And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, [4]And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. [5] Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. [6] And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? [7] They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. [8] So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. [9] And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. [10] But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.”

In other words, the labor rate for those hired early in the morning was X, the rate of pay for those hired later in the day, which were not under a bona fide labor contract, was much greater than that. They actually made more per hour, if the total amount that they earned for that day was the same but they worked less hours, so the labor rate was higher. And so at this point the owner of the vineyard gave a higher wage to those who he hired later. The first laborers, he had a contract, the second he did not. He had not contract with the others, he said I’ll just pay you what’s right, and they came without contract.

Now verse 11, “And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, [12] Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.” In other words, the people who had the labor contract now wanted to revoke their contract because they claimed that the employer gypped them. But, in verse 13, “But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: did you not agree with me for a penny?” Did you not enter into a labor contract with me, and they had to say yes. Then [14] “Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto you.”

And then verse 15 teaches what ownership means: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” That is the biblical doctrine of ownership. The laborer does not dictate to the employer how the employer will use his property. The employer uses his property as the employer wishes, period over and out. And that is the true doctrine of biblical ownership, “I will do with my own as it pleases me. Is your eye evil, because I am good?” Now the first tendency to read verse 15, living in our society, used to the things we’re hearing on TV and seeing in the newspaper, oh, this employer is unfair, this employer is very, very unfair to the laborer. Maybe you agree reluctantly that he has the right to do with his property what he wants to do with his property, but certainly many of you have said at this point, yes, I know he has the right to do with his property what he wants to do with his property but it is wrong to do that. No, you’re wrong again. The Word of God says it was right to do that. Notice how often the word appears in this; in verses 14-15, not only does the owner have the right to do what he wants to do with his property, but it is right for him to do what he wants to do with his property and the Word of God recommends it.

So therefore here is the biblical image of ownership, which you can see has been largely distorted in our own time. Now later on we’ll deal under the laws of labor and money with certain forces that are brought to bear on employers so this doesn’t get out of hand, but the point still remains that this is the true idea of ownership in Scripture. Be clear what it means to own something; teach your children ownership. Teach them that when they have something they do not have to share it with somebody else. It is nice for them to share it, but if they own it and it is truly their property they are free to do that as the please. If they are not free to do with something that is theirs as they please, then it isn’t their own, it’s somebody else’s. But ownership means and conveys sovereignty and it’s very hard because children will naturally be selfish with things that they own and they’re going to have to learn there are prices to be paid for selfishness, because the rest of the people won’t bother with you any more, and they’re going to have to learn to use it, but don’t say that a toy is a child’s property if the child doesn’t have total control over the use of his property. Just be honest and say it’s not his toy yet but don’t tell him it’s own and then tell him how to use it. You can guide him how to use it but if you tell him and force him to compel him to use what is his own then you are setting him up for collectivism because when he is an adult he will be wide open for the government to step in and tell him how he will use his property.

Again, this is so radical and so different from what we have been all brought up to believe, all the values that have been (?) upon us since childhood, that I know this seems hard, this feels strange, but what other interpretation can you get out of these passages of Scripture. Be skeptical, maybe what you have been taught and what you’re used to isn’t correct; maybe the Word of God is. And maybe what we’re all used to is wrong. Maybe what we’re all used to is false.

There are also two passages in Proverbs to show and illustrate property. First, Proverbs 10:16; I had to take you through the panorama of Scripture first because presupposes you’re familiar with it already. Proverbs is just a set of verses that presupposes familiarity with the rest of Scripture. Now for a few quick verses in Proverbs. If you want a list of the verses that teach the power of wealth, this verse chain in the book of Proverbs teaches unabashedly the power of wealth. Proverbs 10:15; Proverbs 13:22; Proverbs 14:20; Proverbs 17:2; Proverbs 18:11; Proverbs 18:23; Proverbs 19:4; Proverbs 19:6-7; Proverbs 22:7. These verses all teach the power of wealth or how wealth increases your freedom.

[Proverbs 10:15, “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty.”

Proverbs 13:22, “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children; and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”

Proverbs 14:20, “The poor is hated even by his own neighbor, but the rich has many friends.”

Proverbs 17:2, “A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causes shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren.”

Proverbs 18:11, “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit.”

Proverbs 18:23, “The poor uses entreaties, but the rich answers roughly.”

Proverbs 19:4, “Wealth makes many friends, but the poor is separated from his neighbor.”

Proverbs 19:6-7, “Many will entreat the favor of the prince, and every man is friend to him that gives gifts. [7] All the brethren of the poor do hate him. How much more do his friends go far from him! He pursues them with words, yet they are lacking to him.”

Proverbs 22:7, “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”]

First Proverbs 10:15, we’ll just pick a few of these verses to look at. “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city; the destruction of the poor is their poverty.” The word for “wealth” is a word in the Hebrew, hon, and it means ease, it comes from the Hebrew verb to have it easy, and the work here is labeled by hon to emphasize the fact that one of the advantages of wealth is that it gives your life more freedom to enjoy God. Wealth does have power and the Bible certainly, later on we’re going to see how wealth can be misused, yes it can be, but still wealth conveys power. And it is not wrong therefore to seek for you freedom in this way. Wealth, in Proverbs 10:15 is the rich man’s citadel, actually in verse 15 the “strong city” was a defended city with walls around it, something like a medieval castle, and it means his defense, it was his insurance against material disasters and pressures, not all disasters as the Word of God is careful to point out, but it is an insurance against various material type disasters in this world. And the Bible says that, that is one of the things that is conveyed by wealth, “the destruction of the poor,” or literally the ruin of the poor “is their poverty,” or their poverty is their ruin, meaning opposite to the citadel it is their vulnerability to material type catastrophe. And the Bible teaches that a man who is not as wealthy as somebody else is more vulnerable in the vicissitudes of life; it’s a simple fact, that’s the way it works.

Proverbs 18:11 parallels this, we won’t deal with that one, but let’s turn to Proverbs 18:23. Another advantage, not only does wealth give power and freedom to override material crises, but wealth in verse 23, “The poor uses entreaties, but the rich answers roughly.” The “poor,” the word used means speech, it’s imperfect meaning he habitually does this, “the poor man speaks entreaties,” the word for “entreaties comes from another Hebrew verb tachan, and tachan is the word to ask for grace, and it means that the poor man continually has to rely upon gifts for his life. There are three ways to gain wealth legitimately in Scripture. One is by gift, one is by inheritance and one is by labor.

Today in our society somehow receiving wealth by inheritance is considered immoral; this is why we have inheritance laws but inheritance laws are condemned by God’s Word. No family should ever be penalized for gaining wealth. If it’s gained honestly what’s wrong with it. What is wrong with somebody being wealthy? Is there something wrong with that? Is there something immoral because somebody worked hard and gained wealth and accumulated it and wishes to give it to their children? What’s immoral about that? And yet the state, with inheritance taxes is essentially saying yes, it is immoral to be too wealthy. Who said that and where did that standard come from? It didn’t come from God’s Word. And we’ll prove it to you when we get in the third divine institution, inheritance laws were considered unbiblical in Israel. Inheritance laws in our own generation are just a manifestation of socialist left-wing thought but have nothing to do with the Christian faith. People who are for inheritance laws basically are socialists at heart.

But there are three legitimate means for gaining wealth: inheritance, give and labor. And is says here that the poor man must rely upon the first means; he must rely upon gifts for his wealth. And the poor man continually asks for gifts; he must rely then, mostly on that, because his labor for some reason does not produce. “But the rich man asks roughly,” or asks in an independent way. In other words, the point is that the rich man is not dependent upon gifts for his wealth. He has gained it already and has it secure and therefore another thing that property gives is a freedom from having to drain friends, a second asset of wealth and private property, a freedom from having to drain friends of their gifts and of their funds to give to you. Wealth saves from this.

Now in Proverbs 19:4, another asset of wealth, and this is not facetious, in verse 4, “Wealth makes many friends, but the poor is separated from his neighbor.” It’s true that wealth makes many false friends but that isn’t the emphasis of verse 4. The emphasis of verse 4 is that wealth conveys social power and therefore an ability to make many friends, namely because you have more leisure to make the friends. “But the poor is separated,” habitual imperfect, he “is separated from his neighbor,” and it’s the word which is passive voice, meaning that his friends gradually back away from him, that they don’t want to be drained by him and so they tend to back off from him. And so the third asset of wealth is that not only does it have the power to gain friends, but it has the power to enjoy friends. That friendship can be placed on a non-supplicant level and therefore can be relaxed.

So a fourth advantage of wealth, just to sample the book of Proverbs here, Proverbs 22:7. “The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” The rich ruling over the poor is mostly our emphasis here, the borrower and the lending is going to be covered later on in the laws of money, but here we’re interested in just the phrase, “the rich constantly rules over the poor,” and the idea being not to be rich so you can rule over the poor but don’t be poor so someone else won’t rule over you. That’s the point; in other words, wealth frees you from the creditor type slavery.

Those are some of the positive assets of wealth in Scripture. Some of these hit hard, are very encrusted attitudes, and as we go through this Proverbs series, in this area more than any other area of the book of Proverbs I’m sure you’re going to find it hard to take in some of these areas because you’ve been taught that it’s somehow Christian to be poor, and it’s somehow Christian not to seek wealth, that it is somehow Christian not to exert ownership because ownership is selfishness. Not at all in Scripture; ownership is not, by itself, selfishness, it can become selfish. But ownership, the right to do with it as you please, is ownership and not selfishness. It has nothing to do with selfishness but the average Christian has so confused the word “ownership” with selfishness that he becomes socialist in the thinking.

Now in conclusion turn to Ephesians 1 so that at least you can see the advantages of learning this for your spiritual life immediately, hopefully these things will help in the areas of your practical everyday life. But in the Christian life and in the area of our relationship with God the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, consider Ephesians 1:3 now from what you’ve learned about ownership. Remember I said the Bible is grounded on a capitalist free market system. It will become more evident as we go along. In verse 3 when it describes our position in the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you are here this morning and you have personally received Christ as your Savior from sin, then verse 3 applies to you. “Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ,” now don’t take such an ethereal other worldly hyper spiritual attitude to blessing. Do you know what the word “blessings” would have meant to a Jew in the Old Testament? What we just saw in Proverbs, material blessing. Our blessings aren’t spiritual; blessings are material in the Old Testament.

Now here it is true it defines the sphere as in the heavenlies, but the blessing means and intends to us to carry over from the Old Testament the idea of investment, the idea of property, the idea of ownership. Now look at something; here is where if you understand ownership, remember the man and his vineyard, remember what ownership means? The right to do as you please; that’s ownership, that’s sovereignty. Now when it says is verse 3, “Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us all spiritual blessings,” what does that say? Does that teach ownership? Is that saying that God the Father has given us the ownership of certain blessings in Christ? What does that mean? It means that we are free to do with it as we please.

Now before too many people get upset, just hold it, I know what’s on your mind, I can read your faces. But let’s just first understand ownership. Ownership means that God the Father has given us in the Lord Jesus Christ numerous blessings. For example, God the Holy Spirit has regenerated us, indwelt us, baptized us, sealed us, given us at least one spiritual gift, makes intercession for us; God the Father has predestinated us, He’s elected us, He’s called us, He’s justified us, He’s glorified us, He disciplines us; God the Son has given us absolute righteousness, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, intercession and so on. So there are many, many different blessings that accrue to us as believers.

Now when it says God “has blessed” it’s in the aorist tense, it hasn’t said God had begun to bless, and it hasn’t said that God blesses you if, it says God has blessed. Well, what does that mean? It means that we have gained capital, not by labor, but by gift and by inheritance. We have gained capital, we have gained property, we have gained wealth by means of gift and inheritance. Thank God there are no inheritance laws in the spiritual realm because if there were the Lord Jesus Christ would never be able to give away His inheritance.

Now since we have received ownership and since we have received so much and it is ours, it means that we are free to do with it as we please. This is why there is such a thing later on as the bema seat judgment. Why does Jesus Christ, this is for believers only, described in 2 Corinthians 5:10 and other passages, the bema seat is for believers only, people who are “in Christ” are judged on the basis of how they have used the assets, the blessings given to them, and we are going to be held accountable for how we use our property. We are free to use it as we wish. God does not coerce us. No one in this congregation can ever say God coerces you to do something. You are free to rebel against Him any time you wish but you are not free to thereby come to the judgment seat and plead ignorance because the judgment seat will be the prefect evaluation of your investment program spiritually. And how you invested the capital given to you by inheritance and gift from the person Jesus Christ, how you’ve used that inheritance or misused it. Why is judgment possible? Because ownership conveys sovereignty; you are free to do with it as you wish.

Next week we’ll deal with another phase of the law of property.