Clough Proverbs Lesson 61
DI #1: Laws of Property III
I’d like to take
this time to answer some of these questions.
What is the use of judging believers if salvation cannot be lost? One never loses salvation is going to heaven
therefore what is the purpose of judgment after Christ returns? We made that point two weeks ago; the point
is that the plan of salvation in God’s Word is divided into three parts. Part 1, or phase 1 is sometimes known as
justification. That’s the time when you,
a point in time when you appropriate Christ’s finished work on the cross on
your behalf. This is an active faith in
your part; at that time all of the benefits become legally yours. That is an irreversible decision. The second part of the plan of salvation is
sometimes known as sanctification or phase two, and this extends from that
point when you become a Christian till the time you die. During this phase of time there is further
work done under salvation in which the Holy Spirit produces the character of
Christ in you in the various details of your life. And then phase three which deals with your
eternal situation. Now the point of
judgment or evaluation is that when you enter phase 3, all human good is
rejected and the only thing that goes with you for your credit is divine good
or things that you have done in the filling of the Holy Spirit. It is an evaluation that must be done if you
are to live truthfully with yourself for all eternity; it is very, very
important and the reason it doesn’t seem important is because we have
emphasized part one of the plan of salvation more than the other two
parts. For this reason it appears
inconsequential, however it is not.
What are examples
of produce coming from the wise use of capital?
Well, any successful business is an example of this; maybe the most
facetious example to look at at the present hour is the marvelous deal that the
Russians got with American capital and American grain so we all can pay higher
beef prices. This was Uncle Sap riding
again on giving his enemies everything that they want and using it to deprive
the taxpaying American citizen of his rights.
But that was just shrewd bargaining; the Russian men negotiators were
very shrewd and frankly they just out maneuvered the Americans at the
bargaining tables. It’s not a new thing
if you’ve studied American history in the last ten years.
I really enjoyed
your discussion of property and family wealth; would you please take a moment
to discuss this principle in regard to the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son is an illustration of many
things but in connection with the Proverbs series at the present time it’s an
illustration of ownership. You remember
that father gave his son all of his inheritance an the son squandered the
inheritance. Now the point there is that
the son, because he owned the inheritance, had the right to misuse the
inheritance. He didn’t have the right to
avoid the results of the issue but he had the freedom to misuse what he
owned. Ownership conveys not just the
right of ownership, so to speak, the right of usage, but ownership also conveys
the right of misuse of property. If you
can’t misuse the property or don’t have the freedom then obviously you don’t
own it, which is connected with the next question.
Is the right to
pass wealth resulting from labor acceptable?
If so, why not the right to pass inherited wealth? This goes back to the three ways in which
wealth is gained. You can gain wealth as
a gift, you can gain wealth by inheritance, or you can gain wealth by
labor. And my point was that the
inheritance tax is a modern example of the infringement of the state upon the
third divine institution, that that tax isn’t really a just form of tax,
biblically speaking. Now it’s always to
tax if you grant that the individual own things, then it follows logically that
it is all right to tax inherited wealth for the sake of revenue, but as my
point was made, the modern inheritance is not a revenue tax. The inheritance is not designed by
politicians to raise money, it is designed to destroy families; that is the
avowed purpose, to break up wealthy families, and our point is that from the
Bible that is not a legitimate aim of Scripture. There’s no sin of being wealthy. By saying that the government must break up
wealthy families implies there’s something morally wrong with being wealthy and
nowhere in Scripture do you anything that says it’s morally wrong to be
wealthy. That’s depriving you of the
property before you have a chance to misuse it.
If there’s something sinful about the way people are using their wealth,
then make a law against that specific point but don’t deprive them of their
wealth before they have a chance to use it.
Laws should only be against misuse of property, not against its ownership
and that’s the point about inheritance tax.
There’s a further point about inheritance tax that under
And then the final
question, the American expression to make money denotes the idea that capital
can be created from labor. How does this
line up with Scripture? Does God reward
godly labor by directly, in the way
Shall we turn to
Proverbs 13 and this morning we’ll continue with a study of the laws of
property, labor and money. Now we have
dealt and are dealing with one part of those laws; the laws that have to do
with property. And these laws are
critical for several reasons. If you do
not understand what appears to be a very secular, very unspiritual topic in the
Word of God you’ll never get the point about Jesus’ parables. Jesus’ parables are built presuming that we
understand the laws of property, labor and money; otherwise we’re never going
to interpret the parables of the New Testament correctly. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the laws
of ownership and the laws of labor and the laws of money you never can
understand the terms of the plan of salvation.
Grace will mean nothing to you unless you understand what labor itself
is all about. So we have specialized in
the law of property and we’ve dealt with certain aspects of this law of
property.
We have given
certain principles of the law of property, three so far. The first principle under the law of property
is that there is no such thing as absolute ownership, either by the individual
or by the state. The anarchist is wrong
and the statist is wrong. Both are wrong
because both postulate that the state or the individual has final rights in the
area of property. Now according to God’s
Word that is not the case; God is the one who gives the rights, not the
state. A simple analogy of this
principle—marriage. Just because you
have to go to the country courthouse when you want to get married and get
permission and get a license and have that license signed by the pastor or the
man doing the service, and witnesses in some states, that does not mean the
state makes your marriage. The state
only legally recognizes what has happened during the ceremony. From the Christian perspective, if the state
didn’t give you a license and didn’t give you a marriage license recorded in
the county books you would still be married because of what happened at the
ceremony. Marriage does not require the
state; Adam and Eve were married without any benefits of the county courthouse;
there weren’t any county courthouses in Eden.
And so therefore marriage precedes the state.
The second
principle we have studied besides the fact there is no such thing as absolute
ownership is the principle that ownership is the right to misuse as well as
properly use property. Ownership implies
my freedom to misuse what is mine as well as use it correctly; a very important
principle because the modern man is so afraid that somebody is going to misuses
something he takes it away before he has a chance to either use it or misuse
it. And that is wrong; ownership means I
have the right, the potential, the freedom to misuse if I so choose.
However, the third
principle that is brought to bear is that man is not free to avoid the judgment
for misuse of his property. He is free
to misuse it, but he is not free to avoid the resulting judgment from its
misuse. And in connection, in connection
with the third principle we studied the cycle of wealth given in Scripture,
that you always have godly labor receive blessing. The blessing becomes a stumbling block and
you have a preoccupation with the details of life. As a result, you then have disobedience to
the Word of God and then you have poverty, and that is explained in Deuteronomy
particularly, and in other books, such as the book of Proverbs. That is the biblical philosophy of wealth in
a nutshell. The Bible says that you can
spot the cycle of wealth in national entities and you can spot the cycle of
wealth in individual families and in individual lives. This is simply a cycle that is built in to
the way we’re made, and the way the universe is made. No government decree can change this. This is a fact of creation; this is the way
history flows and operates.
Today we come to
the last point under the law of property and this says that man, in his
rebellion, tries to avoid judgment for misuse of property. We’re going to go through some proverbs and
then I’m going to give you four examples from modern America that shows this
biblical principle at work; how man as a sinner tries to avoid God’s judgment
for the misuse of property. Think a
moment; if you have some property and you are a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ that property has been given to you, you are a steward of the property
and you misuse it. How do you suppose,
or how do you anticipate that God would judge you? How do you suppose God will work it out in
history so that you will experience judgment for the misuse of your property,
besides I mean the final judgment, I don’t mean something that is going to
happen in heaven, I mean something not that’s going to happen inside history.
There are three
ways that God has of judging an individual as well as a nation. All three of these ways are spelled out
carefully in Scripture. The first way
that God has of bringing judgment upon a family for misuse of its assets or
upon a nation for the misuse of its assets is by what we call national
calamity, but for which the insurance companies have very adequately stated an
act of God. National calamity or an act
of God, and this is a way God has of bringing judgment down upon a family, upon
a family it might be in the area of physical health. We’re not saying all national calamities are
for this purpose; we’re saying this is one of the instruments available in
God’s sovereign hand to bring judgment upon it.
A second judgment
upon it is in the area of the free market, the laws of the free market. We’ll see more of those later. This is illustrated, incidentally, by Matthew
25:14. Jesus’ whole parable about the
Christian life, about spiritual principles, presupposes you’re going to
understand first these common sense laws of property and management of
wealth. It’s the story of the talent you
remember, and in verse 14 the man travels into a far country, and he gives unto
his servants these talents. And he says
that he that had five talents went and traded with the same. Verse 16 was a wise use of capital; he put
his capital to work and he gained assets.
Verse 17, he that had two talents, he gained another two because he used
the capital wisely. Verse 18, he that
received one talent dug in the earth and hid his Lord’s money. This was a foolish use, and under the laws of
a free market obviously he came out with zero production. Now that is a way we have, simple, just
common sense; the market itself in a free type situation disciplines misuse of
property.
And then a third
system that is illustrated in Scripture, besides this one, is illustrated in 1
Samuel 8; we’ve gone through it several times, just to review in 1 Samuel 8 a
third way God disciplines. And that is a
very common one seen over and over again, cause of great lament in conservative
circles but nevertheless one that God uses and that is encroachment by the
state. A third way God disciplines the
individual in his misuse of property is the encroachment of the state. If the individual misuses the property you
will find generally in a historical entity that the state expands its power and
takes away from the individual and takes away from the family, that where
property has been misused now the state holds it, and 1 Samuel is a
prediction.
1 Samuel 8 is one
of those classic passages that in the Word of God that in one chapter
summarizes biblical political philosophy and in this chapter Samuel warns, and
he said in verse 11, “This will be the manner of the king who shall reign over
you,” Israel gave up a free government for a centralized power. “He will take your sons, and appoint them for
himself.” Verse 12, “he will appoint him
captains over thousands” and so on, build up of bureaucracy. Verse 14, “he will take your fields,” which
in Israel’s economy was capital, the government takes your capital away from
you. And so this is a third way in which
God allows judgment to occur in history upon people who misuse property.
Now let’s see how
these three principles apply and how they’re illustrated in God’s Word. Turn first to Proverbs 13:11, “Wealth gotten
by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathers by labor shall
increase.” Now there are two proverbs we
have to study together because they both express the same truth, Proverbs 20:21
and Proverbs 13:11; turn to Proverbs 20:21 for a similar parallel thought. “An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the
beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed.” Both of these proverbs together speak of
gaining the ability to use wealth. Now,
if God gives us a whole bunch of capital at first, we do not have the skill to
use it. And the book of Proverbs simply
observes that what God actually does in history, He gives us a little bit and
trains us in its use, and then He gives us a little bit more, and a little bit
more, until finally we build up a thing of all of these gifts. But it’s a gradual process, and if it is not
a gradual process and God allows us to be suddenly deluged with wealth, the
book of Proverbs warns that this wealth will not be well managed.
And that’s why in
Proverbs 13:11 it says “wealth gotten by vanity,” the word “vanity” is the word
that was used by Eve to name her second son.
The first son was Cain, the second son was Hedel, and Hedel,
actually it’s H-e-d-e-l, means vapor, something that has formed but has no
substance, just is there and disappears.
It’s the word vanity, it’s the word nothingness. It is the word used over and over again in
the book of Ecclesiastes for human viewpoint, nothing. It has the appearance of truth, it seems to
stand up to some test but inevitably it falls of its own weight and has no
substance; that is human viewpoint. And
the same thing with wealth that is suddenly gained. “Wealth gained by vanity,” meaning wealth
that is gained by no labor, wealth that is given in this sense, by no labor,
“shall be diminished,” passive voice meaning that after misuse that wealth will
fall away. But then, ‘he that gathers by
labor shall increase,” showing that in the process of gathering the wealth by
hard labor some education occurs on how to use it, with some people at
least. And verse 11 then teaches how we
can appreciate and control wealth.
But you say wait a
minute, doesn’t this violate the principles of God’s plan of salvation; doesn’t
God give us all blessing at the moment we are saved. Haven’t you put on the board the diagram that
says when you receive Christ God the Holy Spirit works in your life, God the
Father, God the Son, that God the Father has foreknown you, He predestinates
you, He justifies you, He calls you and He disciplines you, He glorifies you,
that God the Son gives you His righteousness, you share in His death, His
resurrection, His ascension, His intercession, His session, that God the Holy
Spirit regenerates you, indwells you, baptizes you, seals you and gives you at
least one spiritual gift, He makes intercession for you. Haven’t you said that all these possessions
are yours at the point of salvation?
Yes, all of those are my possessions but in experience, haven’t you
notice that when you first become a Christian how much do you know about the
wealth that is yours. You don’t. What is the usual process in the average
believer’s life? How does God the Holy Spirit
usually work in you? Over a process of
years He expands your awareness of those possessions and you become more
skilled in their use. A baby Christian
doesn’t know a thing about how to use the wealth that is given him at the point
of salvation. This is what’s wrong with
Christian organizations that are inevitably appointing people who became
Christians two weeks ago to lead some group.
They have no leadership ability and the New Testament condemns this
process; it is anti-biblical to the core.
Watch out for Christian groups or Christian areas where novices are put
into leadership positions. It’s
absolutely contrary to the Word for this principle, the have no skill in the
use of the wealth that God has given them in Christ.
Now as we grow we
gain skill in these things. Now this is
what is wrong with another group of Christians that you’ll meet frequently, and
that is they recognize that when we start out as baby Christians we don’t know
too much about the wealth in Christ. We
know just a little bit, we have only a limited awareness. So they’ve drawn a false conclusion that what
we need is a second blessing and so therefore they say there’s a second
blessing and God the Holy Spirit does a second great work in their life. Usually in this part of the country
supposedly with the phenomenon called tongues, which is a counterfeit to the
New Testament phenomenon of tongues. But
in this situation this second blessing is supposed to give the wealth. Wrong; the wealth was already there, the
problem isn’t the possession of the wealth; the problem is the perception of it
and skill in its use.
So therefore we
reject that concept and we find that God, in His plan of salvation, has
involved with the concept of maturity.
There are two opposite viewpoints of the Christian life and if you don’t
distinguish between these two you’re always going to be in trouble. One is the concept of being in
fellowship. This is the bottom circle,
the sphere of your personal relationship on a moment by moment basis with the
Lord Jesus Christ. You are either in
fellowship or you are out of fellowship, you are either filled with the Holy
Spirit or you are not, you’re either controlled by the flesh or controlled by
the Holy Spirit and it is an either/or at any given point in time. However, there’s another concept which is
called maturity and the maturity is a gradual process and it involves degrees
of growth; you can have a baby believer, an adolescent believer, a mature
believer, that’s the concept of maturity.
This is another concept, this is an either/or. Maturity is not an either/or and don’t
confuse the two. You can be filled with
the Holy Spirit and operate filled with the Holy Spirit as an immature baby
believer and it is perfectly acceptable with God.
And some older
Christians are going to misinterpret this because they think that the filling
of the Holy Spirit is maturity and it isn’t maturity, it just means this moment
you are following and submitting to the will of God now. Here you have some new Christian and he has
some hang-ups, behavioral hang-ups, and these annoy the more mature
believers. And so they insist that the
baby believer act like a mature one, you’re filled with the spirit, why don’t
you act like it, is the usual expression.
All right, the person is acting like it, he is an immature believer and
he is filled with the Spirit and he may have sin patterns in his life that the
Lord has not dealt with yet. He may have
dealt with those sin patterns in your life years ago, and you’re impatient and
you’re jealous and you’re bitter because God the Holy Spirit doesn’t clobber
this Christian like God the Holy Spirit clobbered you. And you just would love to see God clobber
this new believer, just so he can kind of share the misery. And that’s wrong; God the Holy Spirit has His
own personal schedule and He didn’t consult you about how to deal with other
believers. And this is one of the great
sins in our circles, of one Christian trying to straighten out another believer. And this is legalism and we have our share in
this congregation so just watch out. Now
we have people that want to go around straightening out how people part their
hair and how long it’s supposed to be and how short the skirts are, etc. but
just relax and let the Holy Spirit handle the problem, He is quite
capable. In fact tonight you’re going to
see just how capable when David allows the Holy Spirit to work with Saul.
All right,
Proverbs 17:2, another principle of wealth and it’s control and use and misuse,
a very embarrassing Proverbs for a prominent Jewish family, nothing could be
more embarrassing than the following situation and it’s a deliberately
embarrassing proverb. “A wise servant
shall have rule over a son that causes shame, and shall have part of the
inheritance among the brethren.” Now we
can’t appreciate how embarrassing that was to a Hebrew family of biblical times
but a Hebrew family placed everything on the son. In fact, today this kind of Semitic
orientation persists to some degree in a distorted form, not in a biblical
form, among the Arabs. To this day a
modern Arab will often resort to his children as I have two boys and three
children. And you wonder what is the
trouble here; the point is girls were not considered worthy of mention, they’re
just children, but the boys are considered worthy of mention because they are
the men who will carry the name, who will (?) the line, obviously the Arabs
have not heard of women’s liberation but I’m afraid that women’s liberation
will not go too far in places like French Morocco and other places.
“A wise servant
shall have rule,” deliberately slaps in the face the norm of a Hebrew family;
everything was geared for the son to inherit, the son would be given the
family, but the proverb says no, “A skilled servant shall have rule over a son
that constantly causes shame,” the “wise servant” is sakal, this is a word which we have occur time and time again, it
is a word that means skill in the details of life; the wise servant is one who
knows how to use what is his. And
therefore the one who knows how to manage the details of life and if some of
you think all this doesn’t apply to me because I’m not wealthy, you have one of
the most valuable possessions this morning, whether you’re a Christian or
non-Christian: it’s time! Now maybe
you’ve never thought of that as a product of wealth but that is the most
valuable possession anyone sitting in this congregation has, is time. Time is a gift to you from God the Holy
Spirit; Jeremiah said His mercies are renewed every morning, and the fact that
you got up and that you have a day before you is a gift; you didn’t earn it,
you didn’t deserve it, it was given to you.
Time is something.
How do you use
your time? Do you waste and flitter it
way or do you wisely use your time? I’ve
noticed a very interesting thing; young people growing up in families have
always had their mother and their father to get them off if the hook. If they would misuse their time momma and
daddy would always help them out, and then they come to college and the first
year, all of a sudden they have deadlines to meet and momma and daddy aren’t
there to help, and the wise use of time becomes a critical lesson. We find over and over again young people who
have not trained do not know how to use even time, leave alone wealth properly
and it shows, and by February or March they are ready for the funny farm, can’t
take the pressure of university life and it’s simply because they have never
learned how to manage time and so if you don’t learn anything else in the university
learn how to manage time; one of your most valuable skills.
[Proverbs 17:2b]
“…and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren,” this is the
ultimate slap, a servant who was born without the father’s genes, a servant, a
slave, would come in and would begin to control the inheritance. Why?
Because it was more important for the Jewish father to have his wealth
in that family managed wealth than it was to give it to a son that causes
shame. It shows you the priority that
the wealth must be managed properly. And
the son would still be a son, yes he would, he would have rights of the son,
but he would lose out in his management of property. This is why in the New Testament someone
asked about the judgment seat; why is it necessary for Christians to be judged
at the bema seat? This is one reason,
because in phase three the Christian, the members of the body of the Lord Jesus
Christ, are going to be given spheres of rule.
This is spelled out in 1 Corinthians 6 and other passages. Some of these spheres of rule deal with
angelic areas; some deal with government areas, there will be numerous spheres
of rule that you will be assigned to and the assignment will depend upon how
well you have trained yourself using the assets of God during your Christian
life. So why is the bema seat
important? It has to do with your
ultimate final place in eternity. And it
doesn’t mean that you’re going to lose out on being in heaven but it means your
position in heaven will vary as to how much you have produced through the
filling of the Holy Spirit while on earth.
Another proverb,
Proverbs 21:20, “There is treasure to be desired, and oil, in the dwelling of
the wise, but a foolish man spends it up,” that’s a good King James
expression. But verse 20 teaches again
the principle; oil, what is oil? Oil is
olive oil; where is olive oil produced?
Olive oil is produced obviously in orchards. And so therefore what is meant here is farm
production, and when it says, “There is treasure to be desired, and oil,” in
the house of the wise means there is a result of genuine production. He has the results of production because he
is wise, because he is skillful. “But a
foolish man spends it,” he never saves his produce, he blows his paycheck,
never saves it, and never therefore gains capital so that he can ever get
ahead, always running behind, paying with Bank Americard for the last three
months and so forth. This is the foolish
man who dissipates his wealth as soon as he earns it.
Those are some
proverbs that illustrate the principles of the law of property. Now I want to give four practical modern
examples of violations of these principles and how we all suffer as a result of
violation. Then next week we’ll move to
a whole new area, the laws that have to do with labor. Here are four illustrations; practical, they
may be offensive to some of you but that’s too bad, the Word of God still says
that these are violations of these laws.
And remember we are studying in this series the divine institutions and
the divine institutions include all the areas of life. So you have the first divine institution
which we are studying here now, the responsibility, laws of labor and
money. Those are one part of life. The laws that control the first divine
institution apply to everyone. The
second set, marriage, the best woman/best man concept. Those apply to both Christian and
non-Christian. The third divine
institution, the principle of authority; authority is learned in the home, the
principle of education, education is learned in the home, education comes under
the authority of the parents, not under the property of the state. The fourth divine institution, the concept of
justice, law and punishment. The fifth,
the concept of nationalism, and finally the area of the Church which is
peculiar to our own age of history. All
of these laws with the exception of the one in red applies to both believer and
non believer, the one labeled in blue are due to man’s sinfulness, and the ones
in the clear anti date the fall, they are for all men and are not sinful in
themselves.
Let’s look, then,
since we’re studying the divine institutions at how these institutions work and
function. Let’s have some proof. The first illustration: American agriculture in
the 1930s. American farmers during the
depression faced an obvious problem.
During this time hundreds and hundreds of farmers lost their land. There were foreclosures on the land and so
therefore what the farmers did was illustrate for us the fourth principle; that
is, sinful man wants his property but he wants to avoid the judgment for its
misuse. And so therefore when the
foreclosing would occur there would be gangs of farmers that would hang around
the auctions, threatening to do physical violence to the bidders so as to keep
the price of the land down, and this was interference, this was the farmer not
allowing the free market to operate. And
then the government came and the government allowed the farmers to repurchase
their own lands back at very generous terms.
Said one of the men who originally designed the program, the government
took it upon itself the responsibility, notice the word, the responsibility of
attempting to determine both production and prices as well as maintaining soul
resources. In the second place this
program was carried out at the expense of the consumers; agriculture from now
on was to be a servant industry with the taxpayer and consumer paying the
bill. Finally, it should be noted that
the government entered so definitely into the program of financing agriculture
that by 1937 the government agencies held one-half of all long-term
agricultural notes in the country.
So you now had the
farmer who wanted his land; he wanted to own the land, but he did not want the
responsibility of having to face the threat of loss as well as gain; he wanted
the business gains but not to face the possibility of lawsuits. And he called the government in to help and
so who finally owned the land? The state. And who finally controls the farmer? The state.
And here you have an illustration of the state encroachment. The farmers did not want the responsibility
that came with ownership, therefore they lost not only the responsibility but
they lost the ownership.
The second
illustration from modern America of this principle and that is labor
unions. Labor in this example can be
seen as property, imagine your skill as a laborer; imagine your skill as a
piece of property that you own. You want
to use this skill but with the ownership comes the responsibility to be judged
for its misuse, and if you are a sloppy worker and you misuse your skill at
labor, what is God’s judgment. That
somebody better than you will take your job away from you. You have to compete and you have to stand the
pressures of a free market situation.
But certain people in our country don’t want it, they want to own the
skill of labor but they want to avoid judgment by the free market and so they
establish laws to keep away from the job market the person who is not a member
of that particular union and they ask the state to make rules that say we have
a union shop, and only members of our union have the right to bid on those
jobs. This again is a violation of the
principles of ownership of property. We
want to own the skills but we do not want the responsibility that goes with
it.
And so again, what
is the result? The three ways God
judges; natural calamity, the free market, and state encroachment. You miss out on the free market and you wind
up the state, and so now who controls this?
The state. How much of the
average union dues goes to finance the lobby in Washington to keep the
government off the union’s back. Vast
amounts, millions of dollars, because a monster has been created, a government
encroachment.
A third
illustration from American life of the violation of the law of property and
that is the businessmen who do international trade. They often yell at the union and they chide
labor for its hypocrisy and yet these businessmen are equally hypocritical because
they want their property, which is their ability to manufacture goods, that is
their skill, and they want the skill but they don’t want the responsibility
that comes with it. They want to avoid
the judgment of the free market and so therefore what do they do? They shout to Washington, let’s have tariff’s
against foreign products; let’s jack their price up so we won’t have to compete
with them; we want to have our production without competition. And so we have the same story; businessmen
own the property but they want to avoid judgment upon their business; whether
it is wise or foolish the government steps in and you have state encroachment.
A final
illustration, the limited liability corporation; what is a limited liability
corporation? A limited liability
corporation simply is the fact that large business owned by many stockholders
do not want to share the total responsibility for what they own, and therefore
if the corporation is sued they don’t want to bear the lawsuit and the losses
from it. One of the books that I would
recommend for those of you who want to do more studies in the area of the Bible
and economics is Rousas John Rushdoony’s book, Institutes of Biblical Law, and in it he has a passage on the
limited liability. And he discusses this
and I think this quote will summarize the concept of this illustration.
“The purpose of
limited liability laws is to limit responsibility, although the ostensible
purpose is to protect the shareholders, the practical effect is to limit their
responsibility and therefore encourage recklessness in investment. A limited liability economy is socialistic;
by seeking to protect people a limited liability economy merely transfers…”
notice this, “merely transfers responsibility away from the people to the state
where planning supposedly obviates responsibility. Limited liability encourages people to take
chances with limited risks, and to sin economically without paying the
price.” And we emphasize the last
statement.
All these examples
that I have given you basically illustrate this principle; the man is trying to
sin economically without paying the price for his own sin.
Now let’s come to
the New Testament and see how these principles apply in our Christian life
also. Turn to 1 Corinthians 3, as
Christians you do not have limited liability in one area of our life; it’s kind
of scary but we don’t, and that is, when you become a Christian God gives you
possessions. I have just labeled some of
those possessions; let me go through them again for you. Some or you are new and some of you may not
know some of your possessions in the Lord Jesus Christ. We divide our possessions up by the Trinity
and by what these three personalities of the Trinity do. God the Father foreknows you; this means God
the Father has foreknown you from all eternity.
He has had His eyes upon you; God the Father has predestinated you,
which means that He has designed a destiny for you in Christ and this was
designed for all eternity, and you and I weren’t around to give advice on how
this destiny might be designed; it was designed without our approval or
disapproval. For that reason it’s a
perfect plan.
And then the third
thing that Romans says in the passage on what the Father has given us is He has
called us. That means and refers to all
the events and circumstances in your life that have brought you to the Word of
God. We could go through this
congregation this morning and I could pick out certain people I know here that
would have the most fantastic tale to tell on how God the Holy Spirit works in
their life to bring them to Jesus Christ and after that to bring them into a
deep relationship with Him through the Word of God. Then we have another possession, the
possession of justification, which God the Father has given to us. That means that He has passed sentence in His
court and if you are here and you have placed your faith in Christ it means
that God the Father has said that you are forever justified completely even in
the areas of your life that haven’t been lived yet. You are only justified once. And then the Father promises glorification;
He promises to you a salvation of your body as well as your soul. Healing is never total in this world; it
can’t be, we live in fallen bodies and it’s not God’s will that everyone be
healed. Glorification says that healing
and atonement completely occurs with the resurrection body. And then finally another possession we speak
of is… you won’t like this as a possession but it’s discipline. And God the Father is a perfect father and
you may have come out of a bad home situation; you may have had warped norms
and standards. Your parents may have
allowed you to get away with everything and anything but when you join the
family of God you are going to have the most perfect Father who ever lived; you
are going to have a Father with infinite wisdom who will not permit you to get
away with everything and who will lower the boom. And this is a principle that legalists never
seem to understand because they’re always trying to get in the way of the
boom. A legalist is always trying to be
God’s agent of discipline, always trying to go around straightening somebody
out. But you just mind your business;
God the Father is the Father and you are not, that’s His job and you let Him do
it.
Then we come to
things that God the Son does for us, possessions that are yours. He gives you perfect righteousness, this is
credited to your account instantly at the time you receive Christ. This means that when you go to heaven your
ticket of admission is not something you have cranked out; you haven’t printed
your own ticket, Christ has and Christ has given it to you. You haven’t even fought the ticket, He gave
it to you. You share Christ’s death
which means that now your soul is freed from bondage to sin; it doesn’t mean
experientially but it means in position.
You share Christ’s resurrection which has to do with a similar fact, you
now have access to His power. You share
Christ’s ascension and His session which means that He is the ruler over all
the principalities and powers in the universe.
Satanic attacks, demonic attacks, all come under His authority and since
you share His authority, seated at the Father’s right hand you share authority
over any demonic situation. And finally,
another possession that the Son gives us is that He daily makes intercession
for us. We’ll study that in Hebrews, how
God the Son prays to God the Father about you personally; how there are prayers
being made in heaven concerning you and you may say nobody loves me; well
somebody does and somebody with infinite love loves you and makes infinitely
wise decisions about you.
And then God the
Holy Spirit regenerates you, gives you a new nature. He indwells you, He baptizes you at the time
you receive Christ, not at some point future to your salvation experience. That is taught in 1 Corinthians 12. And then you have God the Holy Spirit sealing
you, that’s eternal security and then you have God the Holy Spirit giving you
spiritual gifts plus He advocates for you.
Now all of those are your possession.
What we’ve just said under this principle, we always, and it’s the
sinful tendency of us all to avoid responsibility, we want the privileges but
we don’t want the judgment that comes with it.
Now watch how it works in the Christian.
Christians are not immune to this at all. Look at this, here are all your possessions;
you have many more than these and they’re all given to you at the point of
salvation. But there’s a catch; the
catch here is that you’re going to be evaluated in how you use it. Now watch how some Christians cop out. The usual cop out is well if I’m going to be
held responsible for the use or misuse of it maybe what I can do is just avoid
ever learning about them. So the first
cop out usually runs this way: I’m not going to study the Word of God seriously,
I don’t want to know all that deep stuff, I just want to be satisfied with the
simple gospel. You people over at
Lubbock Bible Church are too deep. Now
of course taught all the doctrine we teach in three years in about two weeks
when he went into a place. When Paul
taught he taught three or fours a day every day, every day of the week and at
one time in Ephesus he taught for three to four hours a day for three
years. And he hired a lecture hall, he
had people in there by the hundreds and he went over and over and over basic
doctrine. And he probably had people say
oh, Paul, you’re so deep but the Holy Spirit said no, I hold you responsible
for it and if you are going to be responsible for the possessions in Christ you
must know what they are. And one of
these that is the last one that people usually want to find out about is a
spiritual gift.
That’s usually a
key indicator on how willing we are spiritually to assume responsibility,
because look, if you’re looking seriously for your spiritual gift what are you
really saying? I want to find my place
on the team, I want to start playing, I want to be in God’s will, I want to be
in service to the body of Christ. That’s
what you’re saying when you say I want to know what my spiritual gift is but
since I don’t want to be in service, negative volition says, I’m going to avoid
the spiritual gift; I’m going to avoid even studying the Word about them; I’m
going to avoid them every way I can because I don’t want to touch it.
Another cop out is
yeah, I know about spiritual gifts but I’ll tell you what, I’ll pick the one
spiritual gift that doesn’t involve any obligation on my part. Now of all the spiritual gifts there are
many; there are gifts of helps, you can imagine somebody coming forward, I have
the gift of helps. Fine, we need you
right over there, and you can imagine somebody coming up, I have the gift of
giving. Fine! I have the gift of management; we need a
person to run this area, this area, this area.
You see, all the gifts require almost an obligation on your part. But what is the on gift that doesn’t? The New Testament gift of tongues. Now isn’t it interesting that that’s just the
gift that seems to be advocated in many, many circles. It’s just another form of cop out because tongues
is just another Christian cop out because you’re not responsible to do anything
with it except flap your tongue at both ends and wave in the breezes and make
noises and then everybody’s happy. And
this gets you off the hook; you’re not obligated to pray, you’re not obligated
to use your gift for the good of the body of Christ and if you are some circles
you’ll say oh, tongues are for my private devotional life. Huh-un, if they are a spiritual gift they are
for the body life, not individual life.
No spiritual gift
is ever given for your personal benefit.
Personal benefit is a side effect of all the gifts. I’m personally benefited when I exercise my
gift as pastor-teacher, but my gift wasn’t given to me to benefit me; it was
given to benefit the body. Some people
have a fantastic gift of exhortation; they weren’t given that gift of
exhortation to benefit themselves, they don’t look in the mirror and say I
exhort, I exhort, I exhort. It wasn’t
for them; it was for helping other believers.
They have a responsibility to other believers, and others have the gift
of helps, very quietly around here, in areas you’d never believe. We have people with the gift of helps doing
this, doing that, you never hear about them.
You don’t hear glowing testimonies, oh, I have the gift of helps and I
do (?), none of that. None of that! People quietly going about with the gift of
helps doing things, oftentimes not even knowing they’ve got the gift, strangely
enough, because here is another interesting fact, you can be filled with the
Spirit and actually exercise your gift and not even know you’ve got it, until
after a while some other believers watch you, and they say have you ever
thought you have this gift or that gift or something. Why do they say that? Because you’ve been using it and
unconsciously all the time you’re using it never even realized you had it.
Now that is a
sample of your wealth in Christ. And we
are responsible to use that wealth. And
in 1 Corinthians 3:6 we have Paul’s sense of responsibility. I want to take you to two passages before we
close this morning as we close out this section on property because I want you
to see the spiritual analog to material property. 1 Corinthians 3:6, Paul’s talking about
various pastors, various teachers, and they had a little fan club at
Corinth. And they clustered around a few
people. “I have planted,” says Paul,
“Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
[7] So, then, neither is he that plants anything, neither is he that
waters, but God that gives the increase.
Verse 9, “For we are laborers together with God; you are God’s husbandry
[cultivated field]; you are God’s building.
[10] According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise
master builder, I have laid the foundation,” that means he began the local
church in the city of Corinth. There are
two places that were the playboy centers of the ancient world. One was Corinth and the other was Crete. And Christianity had a numerous following in
both places and they had a lot of screwed up people in both places and the
epistle of Titus is written to all the playboys in Crete and 1 Corinthians is
written to all the playboys in the city of Corinth. If we had in our local assembly the kind of
things that were going on in Corinth we would really have a reputation around
the community.
“I have laid the
foundation, and another builds thereon.”
Now that foundation means that Paul won these people to Christ and began
it. Paul had a spiritual gift, Paul’s
gift was apostleship. Paul had another
gift; he was pastor-teacher, now that was a possession that Paul had in
Christ. He knew that possession but was
Paul immune from judgment if he misused his gift? NO!
Look at verse 11, “No other foundation can no man lay than that which is
laid, which is Christ Jesus. [12] Now if
any man…” if any man, and the principle is if he, he’s got the gift of
apostleship, he’s the one that’s doing the church planting, he says, “if any
man build on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—“
those are six items that characterize what people will do. He’s talking about future pastors also. Here’s what Paul has done, the work is
finished, and now another man comes along to build on this work, and he can
build it out of six materials, and these men do it and it’s a possibility they
will do it.
But, verse 13
says, “Every man’s work shall be made clear,” there is no limited liability
here. Jesus Christ will make it
completely clear, every person is totally liable for their production, “for the
day shall declare it, “the day is the judgment seat of Christ, “because it
shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall test every man’s work of what
sort it is.” Notice, every work, every
man’s work, there is no limited liability, you can’t be shielded. There is going to be no labor union claim
this is a union shop and nobody else can labor here except me and I’m going to
be immune (?) and I want to do as sloppy a job as I can and get as high a pay
for it and so forth. And there will be
none of that at the judgment seat of Christ.
Every man’s work is going to be tested and thoroughly judged.
Verse 14, “If any
man’s work” stays, just like a blow torch is going to be put onto this thing
and if the work stands the heat, “which he has built upon it, he shall receive
a reward. [15] If any man’s work shall
be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by
fire.” And that is by application every
believer; you have a spiritual gift today.
And you can pretend you’re not interested in it and you can pretend that
if you can avoid learning about it then you can avoid responsibility and so
on. Huh-un, it doesn’t work that way, 1
Corinthians 3 says right now you’re building in your life and the lives of
those around you, wood, hay and stubble, or gold, silver and precious
stones. You don’t have a chance to cop
out; you’ve just got two choices. You’ve
got a choice to do a lousy job or a good job and 1 Corinthians 3 should be a
sober warning to every one of us. I have
to think of it, you have to think of it; when it comes to this the pastor and
the congregation are on the same level; all of us are going to face this kind
of a judgment.
One further
passage which I showed you last week, 2 Corinthians 5:11. Here’s the effect this had on Paul. Thinking again in terms of man’s sinful
preoccupation to own things but avoid responsibility for their misuse. “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord,”
what’s “the terror of the Lord?” The
terror is the judgment. Now do you
suppose Paul uses the word “terror,” why doesn’t he just say well knowing that
He’s going to frown or something? He
uses a very strong word here, “Knowing the terror of the Lord,” it’s something
Paul Himself feared, even though Paul is the greatest apostle of the early
church, he himself is afraid at this point.
He has great respect for this bema seat judgment. “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord,
we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made
manifest” or “clear in your consciences.
[12] For we comment not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion
to glory on our behalf, that you may have somewhat to answer them who glory in
appearance,” this goes into the argument of Corinthians. But the point is that he’s making is verse
14, “The love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that, if one died
for all, then all were dead. [15] And he
died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves,
but unto him who died for them.” There’s
your phase two salvation; there is where salvation is pictured as no limited
liability, we are held liable for how we use the gift at the point of
salvation.
Now this Sunday we
finished the law of property; next week we’ll deal with the laws of labor.