Proverbs 30:7 ¶ Two things have I required of thee; deny me
them not before I die: 8 Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither
poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: 9 Lest I be full, and
deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the
name of my God in vain.
In keeping with this prayer there are several
verses worth reading. Would that our spiritual and political leaders would pray
this prayer. Would that Christian parents would instill this ideal in their
children.
Isaiah 59:4 None calleth for justice, nor any
pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive
mischief, and bring forth iniquity.
Jeremiah 16:19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day
of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth,
and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things
wherein there is no profit.
Ezekiel 13:8 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have spoken vanity,
and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord GOD. 9 And
mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies:
they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written
in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land
of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 22:28 And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing
vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the
LORD hath not spoken.
The good, old fashioned American dream of being
rich and living a life of leisure is not in keeping with God’s plans for
Christians.
Proverbs 23:4 Labour not to be rich: cease
from thine own wisdom.
Luke 16:13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one,
and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye
cannot serve God and mammon.
1Timothy 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not
highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us
richly all things to enjoy;
Poverty, as some of us know firsthand, is
terribly inconvenient. There are many verses regarding the need to help someone
who is poor and it is so well understood that being poor is not a desirable
thing in our culture that I need not post verses regarding it only to say that
Christ became poor so that He might make us rich in all spiritual things.
2Corinthians 8:9 For ye know the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor,
that ye through his poverty might be rich.
Christians are told;
1Timothy 6:8 And having food and raiment let
us be therewith content.
We can apply these verses literally to us in
that we seek neither to be rich or poor in a worldly sense. In order for
Christians to achieve this they are told to work with their own hands and mind
their own business and give generously to those in true need.
1 Thessalonians 4:11 And that ye study to be
quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we
commanded you; 12 That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and
that ye may have lack of nothing.
Ephesians 4:28 Let him that stole steal no
more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is
good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
These verses in Proverbs show us how wealth can
produce apathy toward God and the things of God and how poverty can influence
one’s actions to bring shame on the cause of Christ. This reminds me of the
famous film noir, Scarlet Street, where a friend of Edward G. Robinson’s
character says that he doesn’t like Sundays. He doesn’t know what to do with
himself. This apathy, this nonchalance in a culture that lifted up Sunday as a
day to worship the Lord is typical of the person who says in his heart, “I have
a home. I have a job. What do I need with Christ?”
It is good to have enough. It is not good to
have too little. It is rarely good to have too much. In all things we should
seek what God would have us to have and enjoy in this life giving liberally to
others in need. Remembering;
1 Corinthians 3:21 ¶ Therefore let no man
glory in men. For all things are yours; 22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas,
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are
yours; 23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
Proverbs 30:10 ¶ Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest
he curse thee, and thou be found guilty.
Good advice to a busybody Hebrew but what does
it say to a modern Christian? The accusation, by context, is a false one, as
the accuser is the one who faces the curse.
Paul, in talking to Christians about not judging
each other’s convictions, says this;
Romans 14:4 Who art thou that judgest another
man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be
holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
And again he tells us in the same context;
Romans 14:13 Let us not therefore judge one
another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an
occasion to fall in his brother’s way.
(On a side note, “rather” is used to say “more
importantly” as in the following;
2Corinthians 5:8 We are confident, I say, and
willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.)
It is Satan who is the great accuser of the
brethren.
Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice
saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our
God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and night.
When it is a matter of convictions and not of a
violation of God’s clear standards and open sin, then the Christian is not to
accuse another of God’s servants before that servant’s only master; God.
Standing at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10) we
do not want to have Christ point out that we spent a great deal of time as a
busybody sticking our nose into other Christian’s convictions and attacking
them, accusing them falsely of disobedience to God when it was a matter of our
liberty in Christ.
Christians, particularly those who claim to be
Bible believers, tend to judge other Christians by their political beliefs,
manner of dress, and personal convictions more than they do by their love for
Christ through His words in His Book. When it is a matter of heresy or sin as
defined in the Bible that is one matter but when it is a matter of a
Christian’s personal beliefs and convictions that is another.
Here is an example for us Fundamentalists. Many
of us know the exact day we believed, even the hour. Others know that they
realized the truth about Christ during a summer Bible study or through a series
of evangelistic meetings. The former think they can pinpoint the hour and
minute they were saved and the latter simply know that before they were
unbelievers but afterwards they were saved. The former often attacks the latter
in a petty manner insisting if you don’t know the time and the hour you could
not have been saved. This can drive people from the church assembly. It is
unfair and unreasonable to assume that everyone knows the minute they believed.
It’s not always that way. I do remember one Wednesday night in March, the 19th
to be sure, in 1986, when Beth prayed with me for my salvation confirming what
I already had come to believe by a process of the Holy Spirit’s working in my
life. Was I saved at that point or was that a confirmation of my salvation at
an earlier time when my soul believed who the Christ of the Bible was and that
He died and rose from the dead for me?
What if someone said, I can’t tell you the date
or day but during the Bible study with Pastor so and so I came to realize that
I needed to believe and trust in Christ and that I did? Does that make them a
faker because they can’t give me the time or day? I don’t think so. The
question for both of us is do we believe? Salvation is predicated upon belief
in Christ only. Read Acts 16:31 and Romans 10:9-10. There is no mention of “and
can relate the day and the hour it happened.”
Another peculiar notion is the one where our
salvation experience is based on, in someone else’s imagination, if our life
changed completely at the point we believed. Some had a tremendous change in
their lives at that moment. Sins fell away like rotten clothing and they were
completely changed. Others, like myself, struggled with sin and it took God’s
words speaking to me over many years through His Book to relieve me of many of
the burdens of sin under which I suffered. The first person might say, well you
weren’t saved, if you didn’t immediately achieve perfection. They’ll point out
2 Corinthians 5:17 as if they no longer struggle with sin. And yet, Paul, whom
they will say is the greatest Christian who ever lived, in Romans 7:14-25,
still struggled with sin in his flesh. Since it is spiritually and
intellectually dishonest to interpret one passage in the part of the Bible that
is doctrinally applicable to your dispensational era in contradiction to
another we aren’t warranted in saying that the person who doesn’t stop sinning
when they are saved isn’t really saved. Some will say that once you are saved
sin doesn’t have dominion over you but you still struggle with the wicked
demands of the flesh, with victory only being possible in Christ, through
prayer and through the Holy Spirit speaking to your spiritual heart through
God’s words.
So, be careful in judging other Christians. It’s
best not to do it at all. Judge heresy, sin, apathy toward the calling of God,
and corrupting His word, but not conviction. The proof of the pudding is in the
eating. People watch our lives, as they are the only Bible many people will
ever read. Judge a righteous judgment and remember, as the oft abused passage
in Matthew 7 teaches (and does not contradict anything in the books written
directly to Christians), you may be judged by the same standard in which you
use. In all things, remember this passage in James, a letter written to Jewish
Christian believers in the earliest days of the church after Christ’s
ascension;
James 2:13 For he shall have judgment without
mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
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