100 Sermon Illustrations on Wealth

John Connally had been governor of Texas, a candidate for President, and made millions in the oil business. Just before he died, he had to file for bankruptcy. He was around $48 million in debt. He kept an embroidered pillow by his side: “It's not a sin to be rich anymore, it's a miracle.” He commented, “Rather prophetic, isn't it?”

Poor girls in China are committing mass suicide due to despair over boring life in countryside. Peasant girls often jump to their deaths wearing their finest clothes, hoping it will somehow speed their reincarnation as city girls.

Vic and Lillian Cooper (51,34) of Maltby, England, won $77,481 in a bingo jackpot. Four months later it was all gone and they have applied for welfare. "It may be a cold day in Hell before they get it, say welfare authorities." They spent $6,300 on a car, $7,200 on a vacation trailer, $7,200 on furniture, and $56,781 on miscellaneous (largely gifts for relatives and toys for their son Darren, 4). They are now $144 behind in rent and living on $49 a week, including a $13 government allowance and a previous loan.

"It's very difficult when you get money for the first time in your life not to go out and spend it," said Vic. "We used to look in the shop windows and never be able to afford anything."

Series of important articles on New Testament and money.

Articles:

Hard Sayings of Jesus. [see below...]

Investing in What Lasts.

Enjoying Creation - Within Limits

Called to Share

The Christian Ideal

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Hard Sayings of Jesus:

1) Are Christians any different than non-believers?

a) Jesus has radical views on money.

b) Christians spend pretty much like everyone else.

3) Hard sayings of Jesus. [CT, 5/12/89, p.28]

a) Harder for rich than camel through needle's eye. Mt 19:16-30

b) Give up all to be my disciple. Luke 14:25-33

1> Not just willingness, but abandonment.

c) Treasure and heart, God vs. Mammon.

4) Balancing statements.

a) Rich believers in NT. Lk 19:1-10

b) Command to carry purses. Lk 22:35-36

5) Wealth creates a false sense of security.

a) We cannot avoid a continual tension.

"The Cross covers precisely the distance, for each of us, between what we

attain and what God demands - between our striving and our arriving."

b) How much to give away? More.

The ancient city of Nimrud (=Calah in Bible) has yielded fantastic gold jewelry from graves recently. The Assyrians were brutal but good craftsmen. A short history of their rise and fall is given.

From the standpoint of material wealth, Americans have difficulty realizing how rich we are. Going through a little mental exercise suggested by Robert Heilbroner can help us to count our blessings, however. Imagine doing the following, and you will see how daily life is for as many as a billion people in the world:

1. Take out all the furniture in your home except for one table and a couple

of chairs. Use blanket and pads for beds.

2. Take away all of your clothing except for your oldest dress or suit, shirt

or blouse. Leave only one pair of shoes.

3. Empty the pantry and the refrigerator except for a small bag of flour,

some sugar and salt, a few potatoes, some onions, and a dish of dried

beans.

4. Dismantle the bathroom, shut off the running water, and remove all the

electrical wiring in your house.

5. Take away the house itself and move the family into the toolshed.

6. Place your "house" in a shanty town.

7. Cancel all subscriptions to newspapers, magazines, and book clubs. This

is no great loss because now none of you can read anyway.

8. Leave only one radio for the whole shantytown.

9. Move the nearest hospital or clinic ten miles away and put a midwife in

charge instead of a doctor.

10. Throw away your bankbooks, stock certificates, pension plans, and

insurance policies. Leave the family a cash hoard of ten dollars.

11. Give the head of the family a few acres to cultivate on which he can raise

a few hundred dollars of cash crops, of which one third will go to the

landlord and one tenth to the money lenders.

12. Lop off twenty-five or more years in life expectancy.

By comparison how rich we are! And with our wealth comes responsibility to use it wisely, not to be wasteful, and to help others. Think on these things.

________

According to Rev. Brett Blair, this list comes from economist Robert Heilbroner

#1412

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The clergy had a rather difficult time getting started in the gold fields around Denver. The earliest service held in the area was in June or July 1860, with several hundred miners sitting in the open air on logs and stumps. The earliest church was thrown up in a single Sunday building bee. At the first funeral service one of the prospectors, Pat, standing with the mourners, leaned down to examine the dirt shoveled from the grave and instantly staked out a claim. The minister, watching him, ended his prayer,

"Stake me off a claim, Pat, this we ask for Christ's sake, Amen."

The first Methodist minister in Denver, without a church building, preached from behind the bar of a saloon. His sermon began, "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, come buy wine and milk without money..." while behind him were signs reading:

NO TRUST. PAY AS YOU GO.

Realizing that this unholy alliance of saloon and church could come to no good end, the town directors of Denver donated four lots each to the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Auroria countered with a free lot to the first four denominations that would build churches, regardless of their faith. Denver bounced back into the lead by donating, as a Christmas present, ten lots to the Hebrew congregation and then, a little later, eight lots to the Catholics, sixteen to the Episcopal church and six each to the Presbyterians and the Baptists. No one has suggested what this prodigal though uneven distribution of real estate was based on; but the grants were made on Denver's coldest day in history.

Clovis Chappell wrote in his book of sermons “Feminine Faces”:

“When Pompeii was being excavated, there was found a body that had been embalmed by the ashes of Vesuvius. It was that of a woman. Her feet were turned toward the city gate, but her face was turned backward toward something that lay just beyond her outstretched hands. The prize for which those frozen fingers were reaching was a bag of pearls. Maybe she herself had dropped them as she was fleeing for her life. Maybe she had found them where they had dropped by another. But, be that as it may, though death was hard at her heels, and life was beckoning to her beyond the city gates, she could not shake off their spell. She had turned to pick them up, with death as her reward. But it was not the eruption of Vesuvius that made her love pearls more than life. It only froze her in this attitude of greed.”

I don't know what comes to your mind when you hear the word "fat," but I have a good idea. In America fat is nearly always a dirty word. We spend billions of dollars on pills, diet books, and exercise machines to help us lose excess fat. I hadn't heard a kind word about fat in years - that is, until I met Dr. Paul Brand.

"Fat is absolutely gorgeous," says Brand, a medical doctor who has worked with lepers in India. "When I perform surgery, I marvel at the shimmering, lush layers of fat that spread apart as I open up the body. Those cells insulate against cold, provide protection for the valuable organs underneath, and give a firm, healthy appearance to the whole body." I had never thought of fat quite like that!

"But those are just side benefits," he continues. "The real value of fat is as a storehouse. Locked in those fat cells are the treasures of the human body. When I run or work or expend any energy, fat cells make that possible. They act as banker cells. It's absolutely beautiful to observe the cooperation among those cells!

Dr. Brand applies the analogy of fat to the body of Christ. Each individual Christian in a relatively wealthy country like America is called to be a fat cell. America has a treasure house of wealth and spiritual resources. The challenge to us, as Christians, is to wisely use those resources for the rest of the body.

Ever since talking to Dr. Brand, I have taken a sort of whimsical pleasure once each month in thinking of myself as a fat cell - on the day I write out checks for Christian organizations. It has helped my attitude. No longer do I concentrate on how I could have used that money I am giving away; rather, I contemplate my privilege to funnel those resources back into Christ's body to help accomplish his work all around the world.

What would you do if you had a free wish?

There is a story about a married couple that had a terrible fight. The wife stormed out of the house and vowed never to return. On the driveway she tripped over something she had never seen before - an Aladdin's Lamp. She picked it up, rubbed it, and sure enough, a Genie popped out.

"I am at your command," the Genie says. "I will grant you three wishes for whatever you desire." Naturally, she is over-joyed. But the Genie tempers her enthusiasm: "I must tell you, that whatever you get, your husband will get twice as much." The wife wasn't too thrilled with this, but decided to go along.

"First," she said, "I would like a million dollars." POOF!! Just like that a million dollars lay at her feet. She leaps for joy, but comes back to earth when the Genie reminds her Ol' Meanie in the house received two million. "Are you sure you want to go on?" he asked.

"Sure," she says, with a little less enthusiasm. "Next, I'd like a pile of diamonds, three feet high." POOF!! Right next to the money, a mound of sparkling diamonds appears, a yard high. "I don't mean to dampen your fun," the Genie cautions, "but your husband is sitting in his Lazy Boy recliner with a pile of diamonds on both sides of him. "Would you like to forget that last wish?"

She thought for a moment or two, but then said, "No, Genie, I'd like that last wish. "What I want you to do is ... scare me half to death!"

Illustration continues:

Death as solution. It's just a joke, of course, and we chuckle over it, but is it all that fanciful when we know there are those who will kill for less, and those who will use death to solve an unhappy situation, and try to take away wealth?

==================================

Another version by Roddy Chestnut:

A depressed woman was walking along the beach when she saw a bottle on the sand. She picked it up and pulled out the cork. Whoosh! A big puff of smoke appeared and out came a genie. “You have released me from my prison,” the genie told her. “To show my thanks, I grant you three wishes. But be careful, for with each wish, your mate will receive double of whatever you request.”

“Why?” the woman asked. “That jerk left me for another woman.”

“That's just the way it is,” replied the genie.

The woman said, “O.K, give me a million dollars.” There was a flash of light, and a million dollars appeared at her feet. At the same instant, in a far-off place, her jerk husband looked down to see twice that amount at his feet.

“And your second wish?”

“Give me the world's most expensive diamond necklace in the world.” Another flash of light, and the woman was holding a valuable necklace. At the same time her husband received two.

“Genie, is it really true that my husband has two million dollars and more jewels that I do, and that he gets double of whatever I wish for?” The genie said it was indeed true.

“Okay, genie, I'm ready for my last wish,” the woman said. “Scare me half to death.”

Sermon in James series. Danger of being rich. James 5:1-6

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CAN A CHRISTIAN DRIVE A B.M.W.?

==============================

I. A radical critique.

II. James' rebuke of the rich.

A. He is addressing the rich pagans outside the church. 5:1

B. No rich people in heaven?

C. Wealth has a way of demanding our allegiance. Matt 6:24

III. Here come de judge.

A. We are in the "last days." 5:3

B. Treasure is secure in heaven, or rusted on earth.

IV. What the rich did wrong.

A. They have ripped off workers. 5:4

B. They have lived for pleasure.

V. Difficult truths.

A. Everyone will answer to God.

B. The way we live shows what we really believe.

C. The longer we live a certain way, the harder our hearts become.

D. Put hope in God, not money. 1 Timothy 6:17

#2730

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Should A Christian Buy A Lexus?

Yes and No answers by different Christians.

Yes, we can own a Lexus. “Utilitarianism” sees the moral good as making the best possible use of our resources and so many Christians think the rich should give away all their money to the poor. In reality the Bible says two things to the rich: riches are a blessing, but it is a blessing that is supposed to connect us to God. When the connection breaks down we are in sin. The connection is spiritual (humility, compassion) and physical (justice for the poor). The Bible contains many righteous wealthy people, who were even affirmed by Jesus. Jesus and the prophets condemned those rich who ignored the poor and lived in spiritual alienation. Another factor is that wealth is relative – a Lexus is a luxury to most Americans, but even a beat-up old car is a luxury to most of the world. John Schneider

No, we shouldn’t own a Lexus. A rich lifestyle more reflects American consumerism than biblical righteousness. Christians are not to be rich in things. We should reduce consumption, not increase it. How much can we keep? It is difficult to determine exactly. What we keep may be more important to God than what we give. Possessions are OK if they proclaim the gospel of Jesus. Jo Kadlecek & David Williams

Letter to Editor (#90, page 12) by Jim Moses of Lexington, Kentucky:

The problem is not really the Lexus but what constitutes stewardship. It is also an issue of the fit between our accountability to God and our accountability to others. Williams and Kadlecek over-simplify the poverty issue. It’s true that God does not need us to achieve the power of riches to bring about His will, but God challenges and strengthens our trust in Him by distributing as He wills. Jesus’ disciples were more the middle class of their society than the poor. Peter, Andrew, James, and John had a fishing business that was big enough for Zebedee to hire others to work in. Matthew was a tax collector. John retained sufficient possessions that he had a house to provide room for Mary after the crucifixion.

The early Church had sufficient resources to care for widows. Some voluntarily sold their possessions and gave all to the church but, if I interpret Peter’s rebuke to Ananias properly, that was not required. In fact, there was only one man (recorded) whom Jesus told to give all to the poor. That “rich young ruler” was clearly violating the first and great commandment.

The real bottom line is, where do Emily and Robert go from here? I have a dear friend who says God has never permitted her to buy a new car but has always provided a reliable used car. She never condemns those who buy new cars, but her testimony had me reevaluating our fourth new vehicle (in 26 years). The clearest witness of the Good News is the love we have for one another. This love must transcend the Cavalier and the Lexus.

Jim Moses, Lexington, Kentucky

Christian financial adviser Gary Moore spent more than 15 years keeping pace with the daily fluctuations of Wall Street. But after the stock market crash in the fall of 1987, he came to realize money, upward mobility and other elements of the “American Dream” were unable to provide security and happiness.

That sent Moore on a biblical quest for insight which resulted in “The Christian’s Guide to Wise Investing.” One of the most important things he discovered in researching the Scriptures, he said, was God didn’t want 10 percent of his money — he wanted 100 percent.

“I also discovered that I could have avoided 90 percent of my investing mistakes over the years if I had spent a little more of my time reading Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Luke and James,” he wrote in his book. “Proverbs and Ecclesiastes not only provide wise, perceptive, assuring and frank guidelines on the subject, but also prove that God addressed the subject of money and security very early in the history of the faith.” Among the verses he cites are Proverbs 1:33, 15:6, 20:21 and 28:20, and Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 and 11:1-2.

The author of these two books, Solomon, compares the pursuit of wealth to chasing the wind, he said, something proven by a survey of wealthy individuals. Although respondents had an average income of $194,000 and assets of $750,000, two-thirds felt guilty about being affluent and 40 percent did not feel financially secure. That is why it is so important for Christians to bring their lives, including financial planning, into conformity with biblical principles, Moore said.

“Most of the problems investors face can be attributed to one thing: self-centeredness,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and a professor of moral philosophy, said that self-interest could be good for all of a society if it was enlightened by moral values. If not, self-interest could destroy a society.”

Christ wants people to place their trust in him, Moore added, not in savings, investments, institutions or governments. However, since God gave his children a role in cultivating his resources, he said, Christians should be concerned with earning financial returns that can benefit the Lord’s work.

For believers who want to multiply resources, he outlined these seven investment principles, which he said will keep use of money prudent but productive:

1) All investments involve risk.

The higher the promised return the greater the risk, including certificates of deposit and bonds. “Advertising, media listings, banks and brokers have successfully trained modern Americans to seek the greatest promises. Far, far too few of these mention little or anything about the risks involved.”

2) If it looks too good to be true, it is.

The largest single obstacle to investing success today, he said, is that there are too many ways to make average investments look very attractive; the best returns usually don’t come from the top of the lists offering the highest promised returns.

3) Be skeptical but not cynical.

While greed and corruption exist in the worlds of insider trading, junk bonds, penny stocks and commodity pits, most of these are far removed from the domain of conservative investors, he said. If investors stick to productive, conservative areas, Moore said, they will be safe.

4) What goes up will assuredly come down, at least for awhile.

Successful investors combine a faith in the future with a respect for, and acceptance of, the downs along the way, according to Moore. Thus, he said, those who spend time trying to predict the future would do better evaluating why successful investors make money year after year.

5) Fear and greed may drive Wall Street, but they shouldn’t motivate Christians.

“Scripture teaches that we are to free ourselves from fear of the future and from greediness,” he said. “We should be productive and prudent with money. Our investing will benefit greatly by remaining confident yet conservative.”

6) If everyone is doing it, it’s wrong.

“The hardest thing to learn about investing is that following the crowd never works,” Moore said. Christians have always been called upon to be different from the world and “faith will help you practice this principle, and your investing will benefit.”

7) Keeping faith with others is good business.

“Socially responsible investing should be the cornerstone for any Christian who handles money,” he said. Moore noted a national study showed over a 30-year period that investing in companies with a written code of principles returned nine times more than a composite of Dow Jones stocks.

__________

Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

RNbp5A19mrjB5A19e5A23

A FIR-TREE said boastingly to the Bramble, "You are useful for

nothing at all; while I am everywhere used for roofs and houses." The

Bramble answered: 'You poor creature, if you would only call to mind

the axes and saws which are about to hew you down, you would have

reason to wish that you had grown up a Bramble, not a Fir-Tree."

Better poverty without care, than riches with worries. Blessed are

the poor for they shall see the Kingdom of God.

It's the call millions of Americans dream of making, and Mary Sanderson got to make it on Dec. 19, 1997. Sanderson, now 37, calmly dialed her supervisor at Bell Atlantic in Dover, N.H., where she had toiled for $11 an hour as a night-shift phone operator. "You know those people who say that if they won the Powerball jackpot they'd keep right on working?" she said. "Well, I'm not one of them."

Winning $66 million meant that Sanderson could slip into bed alongside husband Jason, 33 -- a staffer at a screen-printing plant and a part-time wrestler known as the Wolfman -- and sleep the deep, blissful sleep of the rich. Or so she thought. "That night I got so paranoid I couldn't speak," recalls Sanderson. "I was afraid to believe it was real and afraid to believe it wasn't." Her first night as a multimillionaire and she'd never slept worse. "I spent the whole time crying," she says, "and throwing up."

All this goes to prove what we already knew -- that becoming insanely rich can drive some people over the edge. And in today's robust economy - an age of instant Internet zillionaires, bloated sports contracts, nine-figure lottery jackpots and shoot-the-moon movie star salaries -- the perils of plenitude can seem even worse. "Getting rich suddenly is a phenomenon of our times, and it can be a shocking, isolating event," says author Michael Lewis, who analyzed the Wall Street wealthy in 1989's Liar's Poker, and who is working on a book about the instant moguls of Silicon Valley. "Suddenly the world treats you like you're a pi'ata, slugging you and hoping some candy comes out."

An address change to easy street can be jarring -- something Oprah Winfrey discovered years ago. She went from a comfortable salary as host of her own Chicago talk show in 1984 to raking in millions after the program was syndicated. "I was stunned," Winfrey told PEOPLE recently. "I was looking at the checks coming in and I was like, 'What do I do with this?'" Her initial response to the mind-boggling windfall? "Towels," she says. "I bought a lot of towels. Having money is the better-towel syndrome, where you get to buy thicker and thicker towels."

But all those towels -- and a multimillion-dollar condo in Chicago -- were not as fulfilling as the money she used to help others. "Things don't really define you," says Oprah, who is worth an estimated $675 million and who regularly donates a chunk of that fortune to charities. (She pledged to build 205 new houses for Habitat for Humanity, and has funded more than 100 college scholarships.) "You don't truly understand that until you get there."

Oprah's realization -- that piling up material possessions won't necessarily lead to inner peace -- is one that comes unexpectedly to many. "The myth of the American dream is that money leads to contentment, but it often has the opposite effect," says Milwaukee therapist Jessie O'Neill, whose book The Golden Ghetto deals with the alcoholism, divorce and other troubles she faced as a result of being wealthy. (Her family inherited part of the General Motors fortune.)

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The answer to the eternal question "Is it better to be a jock or a nerd?":

Michael Jordan made over $300,000 a game. That equals $10,000 a minute, at an average of 30 minutes per game.

With $40 million in endorsements, he made $178,100 a day, working or not.

If he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head.

If he goes to see a movie, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there.

If he decides to have a 5 minute egg, he'll make $618 while boiling it.

He makes $7,415/hr more than minimum wage.

He'll make $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends.

If he wanted to save up for a new Acura NSX ($90,000) it would take him a whole 12 hours.

If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.

He'll probably pay around $200 for a nice round of golf, but will be reimbursed $33,390 for that round.

Assuming he puts the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax-deferred account (401k), he will hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st.

If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year.

He'll make about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics.

He'll make about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon. While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600.

In his last year, he made more than twice as much as all U. S. past presidents for all of their terms combined.

...However...

...If Jordan saves 100% of his income for the next 250 years, he'll still have less than Bill Gates has today.

Game over. Nerd wins.

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It seems as if almost no one could foresee the impending collapse of energy giant, Enron. People continued to invest in Enron right up to the announcement of their financial crisis. Many of their employees have been seriously hurt by the possible loss of their retirement funds that they'd invested in the company. Many outside investors have lost everything they invested. One news report indicated that virtually all investment analysts were recommending investing in Enron almost to the end. The scope of the financial disaster may be unfolding for years. Who could have guessed that this seemingly rock-solid investment could turn out to be worth nothing in the end?

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Investing Where You Cannot Lose."

In a sense, any earth-concern or earth-stuff we invest in is going to turn out to be worth nothing in the end - even if our financial dividends and profits continue to grow. But "in the end" means "eternity" - where only things that last forever will prove to have been life's most profitable investments.

In our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Timothy 6, beginning with verse 17, God talks about those who "put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain" - hey, even our headlines remind us how true that is. God goes on to say, "Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves, as a firm foundation for the coming age..." God directs us to invest our time, our money, our energies in things that will last forever. Like people's lives.

You may not be getting rich. In fact, you may barely be making it. Maybe your name is virtually unknown and the work you do largely unnoticed. But if you're really affecting the lives of people around you, you are building up a stock portfolio in Heaven, Incorporated that's going to make you an eternal millionaire! The impact of your life isn't measured by the size of your bank account or the title on your business card - it's the number of lives who will say about you in heaven, "He or she made the difference for me!"

As our children left for school each morning, I would tell them to "GO MAD" that day. No, I wasn't encouraging them to be insane. They knew that "GO MAD" means "Make A Difference." God didn't put you here primarily to make money, to make friends, to make an impression. He put you here to make a difference! If you're not investing your best in that, then you're missing what you're here for! And there is no greater difference you can make for someone than to help them be in heaven with you forever - by telling them about Jesus.

Ray Boltz has a song that has really touched a lot of us over the last few years. It's about people who have given quietly to the Lord's work, who have faithfully taught their Sunday School class, or have said a word for the Lord. The song "Thank You" paints this beautiful picture of people you've unknowingly touched, either directly or indirectly, coming up to you in heaven and thanking you for helping them to be there.

Recently, a friend of mine was asked to sing that song at his grandparents' funeral - they went home to heaven with just a couple of days between their partings. It was hard for him to get through that chorus -"Thank you for giving to the Lord. I am a life that was changed. I am so glad you gave." But on the final chorus of that song, Steve looked down at his grandparents' caskets and sang - "Thank you for giving to the Lord." Then, with his heart and his eyes full, he said "I am a life that was changed!" Will there be people who will say that about you?

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. 'Practical Answers to Real Life Issues'

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ubj:

The FAX of LIFE

Date:

7/6/98 12:46:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time

From:

GBCIII

To:

GBCIII

BCC:

RKChestnut

Subject: The Future of Money

Date: For the Week of July 6, 1998

Time magazine ran a cover story titled "The Future of Money." The article zeroed in on some recent bank mergers and how technology is moving us quickly toward a digital economy. A best guess is that we are not far from the time when handling cash, writing checks, and using credit cards will all give way to a single electronic card that will carry all your financial information in one place.

Maybe so. Maybe not. I'm neither an economist nor a futurist. But the article did nudge me to think about the spiritual implications of money for the future.

The first thing the Bible teaches about money is that it is a gift from God that we are to use as good stewards. We are only caretakers of his wealth, for the world and everything in it belongs to God. He created it. We are simply entrusted with it for a short time.

Contrary to the impression that has been left with some, Scripture nowhere says that money is evil or that wealth is unspiritual. It is the "love of money" in various forms -- selfishness, greed, dishonesty, stealing -- that the Bible rebukes. One who prospers has the right to enjoy the benefits of his or her wealth. That same person has the responsibility to share the things money provides with others. And that sharing is to be done with a generous, cheerful attitude.

Here is the counsel of Paul the Apostle about money: "Tell those rich in this world's wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow. Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage -- to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous. If they do that, they'll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life" (1 Tim. 6:17-19, The Message).

So how does one keep a spiritual perspective about these things? Here are a few questions that might help . . .

* How much of your self-image is tied to career, income, and possessions?

* If you lost everything you have, would you still feel complete as a person?

* When you daydream, which comes to mind more often: How to honor God in your life or how to get more money for something you want

* How many hours a week does your work require? Do you spend a tithe (10%) of those hours in private communion with God in prayer?

As you plan for the future, remember that "financial security" is a misleading idea. Security comes from an authentic relationship with the God who loves you.

A Summary Of The World

If we could shrink the Earth's population to a village of precisely 100

people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look

like this:

57 would be Asians, 21 Europeans, 8 Africans &

14 from the entire Western Hemisphere (N & S)

51 would be female; 49 male

70 would be non-white; 30 white

70 would be non-Christian; 30 Christian

6 people would have 50% of all wealth

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death; 1 near birth

1 would have a college education

No one would own a computer.

"Two-thirds of the earth's population have never made a phone call."

Harper's, 5-97

Years ago, an enterprising mechanic in Texas found a great new way to drum up business. Every so often, the man would load up some old car parts in the back of his truck and drive three or four miles up the highway from his gas station. He would then scatter the car parts along the highway. Sure enough, drivers flying by at 60 or 70 mph would hit the parts, damaging their cars and forcing them to get off at the next exit, where just by chance, they would find (would you believe it?) this man’s service station. The man would then charge them for the repairs and send them on their way.

What would make someone do something so senseless? Money. Or rather, the love of money. Jesus called this particular love “the root of all evil.”

If Jesus were preaching today, he would probably be labeled as a preacher who is always talking about money. After all, according to one count, he talked about it more than most of the “doctrines” we tend to focus on. This chart shows the number of Bible verses on each topic:

baptism: 30

prayer: 225

faith: 300

love: 700

money, finances, material possessions: 2,350

It seems like Jesus was pretty concerned about this topic.

And rightly so. Money will make you do things you would never do otherwise. A man of apparent integrity, faced with losing his business and his career, will almost always lie to try to save his business. A woman, given a chance to receive some money she is not really due, will many times decide to “fudge” the facts. In fact, a startling survey found that enormous numbers of people would lie, cheat, steal, or even kill if offered $1 million to do so.

Jesus summed it up simply: in each person’s life, there can be only ONE Lord. The throne of your life cannot be shared by both your Bible and your bankbook. In the end, when push comes to shove, either your faith will win, or your greed will.

Which will it be?

Some years ago there appeared one day in the same daily newspaper, two accounts, one of an American women who had just spent $70,000 for a dress from Paris; and the other of a woman, a beautiful Christian character, who, being questioned in a legal matter, modestly admitted that she had given many millions of her estate to various righteous causes. "Well", as someone remarked, "it is a matter of taste - Paris gowns or heavenly crowns."

TWO MULES well-laden with packs were trudging along. One carried

panniers filled with money, the other sacks weighted with grain. The

Mule carrying the treasure walked with head erect, as if conscious of

the value of his burden, and tossed up and down the clear-toned bells

fastened to his neck. His companion followed with quiet and easy

step. All of a sudden Robbers rushed upon them from their

hiding-places, and in the scuffle with their owners, wounded with a

sword the Mule carrying the treasure, which they greedily seized while

taking no notice of the grain. The Mule which had been robbed and

wounded bewailed his misfortunes. The other replied, "I am indeed

glad that I was thought so little of, for I have lost nothing, nor am

I hurt with any wound."

Those who are rich tend to have more problems than those who live

humbly. Thus, money is the not source of our happiness.

Once there was a young Chippewa woman who was tired of the big city. She decided to return to the Indian Reservation in Northern Canada. Life was simpler there.

But before she left, she gave three weeks notice to the boss, collected her last paycheck, and began to pack her belongings. What a job that turned out to be!

Pictures, bedding, rugs, clothes, china, books, pots and pans -- box after box until they almost reached the ceiling of her living room. She could almost see the envious looks of her friends on the reservation!

Packing made her so tired she fell asleep. She dreamed she had arrived on the banks of the Red River with her big pile of boxes spread around her. There she waited for her brother, who would bring a canoe for her journey home.

Finally her brother arrived. At first he seemed a little surprised at her pile of belongings, but he said nothing. He just went to work, carefully loading box after box into the canoe until it was nearly full. But the stack of boxes on the shore seemed no smaller.

“Why didn’t you bring a bigger canoe?” she cried.

Her brother answered quietly, “It’s the biggest canoe on the reservation. Besides, Grandmother said she was sure it would do.”

At the mention of her grandmother, the young Indian woman became very quiet. She had just remembered what her grandmother had said to her: “Remember, my dear one, if you have more things to move than can fill one canoe when you come back home, then you will know that you have become greedy. You will have taken more than your share, and others will not have enough. Don’t let that happen to you, my granddaughter.”

When the young woman woke up she found herself crying tears of shame. She had become greedy. She had taken more than her fair share. She knew she had to give away all her extra belongings and return to the reservation with only what she could carry in one canoe.

[This popular illustration contains many errors and is probably based on a fictional event. See Barbara Mikkelson's article at )

In 1923, nine of the world's most successful financiers met at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. Financially, they literally "held the world by the tail" -- anything that money could buy was within their grasp -- they were rich--rich--rich! Read their names and the high position each held:

1. Charles Schwab, the president of the largest steel company.

2. Samuel Insull, the president of the largest electric utility company.

3. Howard Hopson, the president of the largest gas company.

4. Arthur Cutten, the great wheat speculator.

5. Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange.

6. Albert Fall, the Secretary of Interior in President Harding's Cabinet.

7. Jesse Livermore, the greatest "bear" on Wall Street.

8. Ivar Kreuger, head of the world's greatest monopoly.

9. Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements.

A tremendously impressive group -- right? Would you like to change positions with one of them? Before you decide, let's look at the picture 25 years later -- in 1948:

1. Charles Schwab was forced into bankruptcy and lived the last five years before his death on borrowed money.

2. Samuel Insull not only died in a foreign land, a fugitive from justice, but was penniless.

3. Howard Hopson was insane.

4. Arthur Cutten became insolvent and had died abroad.

5. Richard Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing prison.

6. Albert Fall had been pardoned from prison so he could die at home -- broke.

7. Jesse Livermore had died a suicide.

8. Ivar Kreuger took his own life.

9. Leon Fraser also committed suicide.

Now, are you still impressed with this group? A vast amount of talent and potential went down the drain with these men. What happened? Their lives were out of balance!

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Another version from Fredericksburg Bible Illustrator Supplements:

A few years ago, a friend of ours visited with hotel entrepreneur Conrad Hilton. As they separated, an exchange of calling cards took place. Our friend shares Mr. Hilton’s quote, “Food for Thought,” which appears on the card:

“In 1923, a very important meeting was held at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending this meeting were nine of the world’s most successful financiers. Those present were: The president of the largest independent steel company; the president of the largest utility company; the president of the largest gas company; the greatest wheat speculator; the president of the New York Stock Exchange; a member of the president’s cabinet; the greatest “bear” in Wall Street; head of the world’s greatest monopoly; president of the Bank of International Settlements.

Certainly we must admit that here were gathered a group of the world’s most successful men. At least, men who had found the secret of “making money.”

Twenty-five years later let’s see where these men are: The president of the largest independent steel company -- Charles Schwab -- died bankrupt and lived on borrowed money for five years before his death; the president of the largest utility company -- Samuel Insull -- died a fugitive from justice and penniless in a foreign land; the president of the largest gas company -- Howard Hospson -- is now insane; the greatest wheat speculator -- Arthur Cutten -- died abroad -insolvent; the president of the New York Stock Exchange -Richard Whitney -- was recently released from Sing Sing Penitentiary; the member of the president’s cabinet -- Albert Fall -- suicide; the president of the Bank of International Settlements -- Leon Fraser -- died a suicide.”

“All of these men learned well the art of making money but not one of them learned how to live.”

________

S. K. Evans

===============

In "Success, Motivation, and the Scriptures," William H. Cook describes a meeting in 1923 of a group of business tycoons. Together these men controlled unthinkable sums of wealth, and for years the media had trumpeted their success stories. On this day in Chicago they assembled to enjoy their mutual success. Dr. Cook relays what happened to these men in the years that followed:

Charles Schwab, the president of the largest independent steel company, lived on borrowed money the last five years of his life and died penniless.

Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock exchange, served time in Sing Sing Prison.

Albert Fall, a former member of the President's Cabinet, was pardoned from prison so he could die at home.

Jesse Livermore, the greatest bear on Wall Street, committed suicide.

Leon Fraser, the president of the Bank of International Settlement, committed suicide.

Ivar Krueger, head of the world's greatest monopoly, committed suicide.

The success they celebrated proved illusory.

========================================

Another take on the lesson to be learned from these rich men:

Now more than 55 years later, do you know what has become of these men?

The President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, died a pauper.

The President of the largest gas company, Edward Hopson, went insane.

The President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was released from prison to die at home.

The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Cooger, died abroad penniless.

The President of the Bank of International Settlement shot himself.

The Great Bear of Wall Street, Cosabee Rivermore, died of suicide.

The same year, 1923, the winner of the most important golf championship, Gene Sarazan, won the U.S. Open and PGA Tournaments. Today he is still playing golf and is solvent.

Conclusion: Stop Worrying About Business And Start Playing Golf!

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Barbara Mikkelson's research, found at , turned up these facts:

• Charles M. Schwab (not to be confused with the similarly-named Charles R. Schwab, who founded the Charles Schwab & Co. discount brokerage in 1963) was the Steel Titan: a young man who worked his way up from an entry-level job in an Andrew Carnegie steel mill at age 17 to become president of Carnegie Steel at 35. Schwab also served as president of United States Steel before taking over Bethlehem Steel in 1904, where his business acumen and perceptive risk-taking made him a millionaire many times over by 1923.

Although a combination of bad investments, the 1929 stock market crash, and the prolonged economic depression of the 1930s greatly diminished Schwab’s wealth, he didn’t exactly live the life of a “pauper” — he continued to spend lavishly and maintained a 900-acre estate in Loretto, Pennsylvania, and a $3 million Renaissance palace on Riverside Drive until his death in 1939. He lived his last years on borrowed money, however, and left behind an insolvent estate with debts and obligations totaling over $1.7 million. Ironically, had his executors waited a little longer to liquidate his investments, the rising pre-war market would have increased their value sufficiently to cover all his debts.

• Howard Hopson was a former New York utility regulator who, along with John Mange, bought up Associated Gas and Electric Company (AGECO), a conglomeration of electric and gas companies in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the early 1920s. By 1929 Hopson had turned AGECO into one of the country’s largest utility holding companies; unfortunately he did so largely through fraud, as AGECO essentially became a huge pyramid scheme which always managed to stay one step ahead of its lenders and stockholders. Hopson’s financial shenanigans were one of the driving forces behind the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) in 1935 and the establishment of regional, regulated utilities.

AGECO declared bankruptcy in 1940 and was reorganized after World War II as General Public Utilities (GPU).

In 1941 Hopson was sentenced to five years in prison on seventeen counts of mail fraud for bilking AGECO investors out of $20 million, and later that year he was sentenced to another two years (to be served concurrently) for income tax evasion. He lost most of his estimated personal fortune of $74 million and lived out the rest of his life in “obscurity and ill health,” dying in Brooklea Sanitarium at age 67 in in 1949. (Whether Hopson could be accurately characterized as having “died insane” is difficult to determine. His 1940 trial was delayed several times by claims of poor physical and psychological health, and he was twice sent to Bellevue hospital for psychiatric evaluations to determine whether he was mentally fit to stand trial. Although Hopson died in a sanitarium, any inference drawn from that fact would not be conclusive because such facilities treated patients for both physical and psychological illnesses.)

• Richard Whitney was the Harvard-educated son a Boston bank president who went to work in a banking house, bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at age 23, became principal broker for J.P. Morgan & Co., was elected to the governing board of the NYSE, and on 24 October 1929 (also known as “Black Thursday,” the day the stock market crashed) performed one of the most famous feats in the history of Wall Street: strolling across the floor of the exchange and placing generous orders for a variety of blue chip stocks in order to halt the panic by convincing frightened brokers and investors that bankers still had confidence in the market. He was proclaimed a hero in the next day’s headlines after the market rallied, and for his efforts he was rewarded with four terms as the president of the NYSE. (This item introduces an anachronism into the list, because Whitney did not become president of the NYSE until six years after the purported 1923 meeting at the Edgewater Hotel described in the examples above.)

Unfortunately, Richard Whitney proved to be a very poor manager of his own financial affairs, living it up to the tune of $5,000 per month even at the height of the Depression. As he fell deeper and deeper into debt he turned to embezzlement to keep himself afloat; because he cooperated with authorities when he was eventually caught in 1938, he was tried only on a single count of grand larceny (for misappropriating funds from his father-in-law’s estate) and given a sentence of five to ten years in Sing Sing prison. The statement that Whitney “spent the rest of his life serving a sentence in Sing Sing Prison” is way off the mark, and the claim that he was “released from prison to die at home” is grossly misleading. Whitney was paroled after serving less than three and a half years of his sentence, and he lived on for another three decades before passing away at the ripe old age of 86 in 1974.

• Arthur William Cutten, of Guelph, Ontario, left home at the tender age of 18, hopped a train to Chicago, and found work as a bookkeeper with A.S. White and Company, a brokerage firm where he learned the rudiments of grain trading. Cutten managed to save up enough money to buy a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade, and within ten years his prowess in the grain trading market had made him of one America’s most successful speculators and a millionaire to boot. By the 1920s he was one of America’s richest citizens: in 1924 he earned a profit of $2 million, and in 1925 he reportedly paid a whopping $540,000 in income tax.

Cutten was suspected of being the ringleader of one or more insider consortiums which artificially boosted the stock market to an all-time high in the spring of 1929, leading to the Great Crash in October of that year. (His syndicate, working with another, was reported to have turned over half the stocks bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange on some of its heaviest trading days.) He was called to appear before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency which investigated the stock market collapse, but he professed to having a poor memory for details and was not charged with any market-related crimes. Cutten did lose a great deal of money in the stock market crash (reportedly up to $50 million), but he remained far from a pauper, later mentioning that he was down to his last $17 million. In 1936 Cutten was indicted on a charge of evading over $400,000 in income taxes (and two more indictments on similar charges were pending), but he passed away a few months later before being brought to trial. Cutten died of a heart attack at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago (not “abroad” as claimed) at age 66 in 1936.

• Leon Fraser was a Ph.D. graduate of Columbia University (he later added a law degree to his résumé) who worked as a reporter for the New York World, was admitted to the New York bar (even though he did not yet hold a law degree), and returned to Columbia to teach public law at his alma mater. Fraser’s support of pacifist causes in the years before America’s entry into World War I caused Columbia to drop him as an instructor, but when America declared war on Germany, Fraser enlisted in the Army as a private. He rose to the rank of major by the end of the war and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his efforts; after the war he held a variety of administrative positions in both government and private industry, and he served as a director, trustee, chairman, and treasurer for a number of businesses and charitable organizations.

Fraser and another American, Gates McGarrah, served as the first two presidents of BIS, the Bank for International Settlements. (Fraser is another anachronism in this piece: the BIS was not founded until 1930 and Fraser did not become its president until 1935, so he could not accurately have been described as “president of the Bank for International Settlements” in 1923.)

In 1945, while the 55-year-old Fraser was president of First National Bank of New York, he shot himself in the head at his summer home in North Granville, NY. He left behind a suicide note stating that he had been “depressed mentally and [had] suffered from melancholia that gets steadily worse.” Obituaries noted that he had been in “low spirits” since the death of his wife two years earlier.

• Jesse Livermore, also known as the “Boy Plunger,” the “Great Bear,” the “Wall Street Wonder,” and the “Cotton King,” was one of the most flamboyant and successful market speculators in the history of Wall Street. During his three-decade career as the King of the Speculators he reportedly made (and lost) four separate multi-million-dollar fortunes, was the subject of a best-selling biography (Reminiscences of a Stock Operator) and authored the classic 1940 work How to Trade Stocks. He was also one of the prominent speculators later blamed for having precipitated the Great Crash of 1929, during which he claimed to have made over $100 million.

Livermore committed suicide at New York’s Sherry-Netherland Hotel a week after Thanksgiving in 1940.

• Albert Fall was a New Mexico rancher, lawyer, prospector, miner, legislator, and (after the New Mexico territory was admitted to the Union as the 47th state in 1912) a U.S. Senator. He was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Warren G. Harding in 1921, but his tenure in that cabinet office was short-lived, as he resigned in 1923 after being implicated in the Teapot Dome oil fields scandal. (Fall leased two government oil reserves, Teapot Dome and Elk Hills, to private oil companies.)

A 1926 trial on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government acquitted Fall, a 1927 prosecution on related charges was declared a mistrial amidst charges of jury tampering, and a 1929 trial convicted Fall of accepting a $100,000 bribe from oilman Edward L. Doheny. Fall was fined $100,000 and sentenced to one year in prison. (He was released without ever having paid his fine, presumably because he could not afford to pay it.) Although Fall was paroled (largely for reasons of ill health) after serving ten months of his one year sentence, he was not “pardoned from prison so that he could die at home” — he lived on for another twelve years before passing away at age 83 in 1941.

• Ivar Kreuger was the “Match King,” a Swedish businessman who founded and ran Kreuger & Toll, a multi-billion-dollar match conglomerate. Kreuger, like other financial crooks of his era, was essentially running a huge pyramid scheme through a complex structure of hundreds of subsidiary shell companies, hiding his manipulation by cooking the company books and insisting that financial statements not be audited.

Kreuger & Toll securities were among the most widely held in the United States, and when the company went under in 1932 (nearly $250 million worth of claimed assets were found to have never existed) investors lost millions in the largest bankruptcy of its time. The scandal led to the passage of laws requiring mandatory audits of all companies with listed securities.

Kreuger shot himself on 12 March 1932, although rumors have persisted that his death was a case of murder and not suicide.

• Samuel Insull was another utilities giant, an English immigrant who served as private secretary to inventor Thomas Edison and managed the company that would become General Electric. After moving to Chicago in 1892, Insull assembled an empire of utility and transportation companies including Commonwealth Edison, People’s Gas, and the Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and he acquired several electric railways in Indiana and Illinois.

The Great Depression brought Insull’s empire crashing down in 1932 due to an overly leveraged financial position of his main holding company, and Insull lost his utilities holdings (once rated at $3 billion) and his personal fortune (estimated at somewhere between $75 million and $300 million). He fled to Greece to live on a meager income of $18,000 per year but was returned to the U.S. to stand trial on charges of mail fraud, embezzlement, and violation of the bankruptcy acts. He was acquitted in three separate trials, but his ordeal left him in poor health. Six years after his fall, at age 78, Insull died of a heart attack in a Paris subway station with twenty cents in his pocket.

• Gene Sarazen was the first golfer (and one of only five men) to win all four of golf’s Grand Slam titles: the U.S. Open, the British Open, the Masters, and the PGA championship. He won 38 PGA titles altogether (most of them in the 1930s) and invented the sand wedge, introducing it at the British Open in 1932. Although Sarazen did capture the PGA championship in 1923, he did not also win the U.S. Open that year as claimed in the first example above. (An amateur, Robert T. Jones, Jr., took the title in 1923.) Sarazen did win both the U.S. Open and the PGA championship in 1922, however.

Gene Sarazen passed away in Naples, Florida, in 1999 at the advanced age of 97.

Ecclesiastes 6:2 - "A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth not for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease."

In his book, "The Rockefeller Billions," Jules Abels says that John D. Rockefeller had an income of approximately a million dollars a week toward the end of his life. Yet his doctors allowed him to eat only a bare minimum. One of his biographers said he lived on a diet a pauper would have hated. "Now, less than 100 pounds in weight, he sampled everything (at breakfast): a drop of coffee, a spoonful of cereal, a fork full of egg, and a bit of chop the size of a pea." Rockefeller was the richest man in the world, but he didn't have the ability to enjoy even his food.