Copyright © 2006 by The Voice of Prophecy

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God’s Antidote to Greed

The day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. 2004 was one of the blackest of Fridays in terms of sales volume. It was an eight billion dollar day. Black Friday is called that because it is the day that stores get out of the red and into the black because so many people buy so much stuff on that day.

The term Black Friday USED to mean something quite different. In the past it referred to several specific days in history of financial panic. There was a Black Friday of 1869, when the price of gold collapsed. There was another Black Friday in January, 1939, when a firestorm swept across Victoria, Australia, and 71 people died. But now Black Friday is just when common sense collapses and bargain fever sweeps over the huddled masses yearning to buy free and rack up ever more credit. Many people have finally realized that money can't buy happiness, so now they're trying credit cards. America is swimming in an sea of debt. If the credit debt keeps accumulating, some economists say we may have another Black Friday of the old kind.

Some couples need plastic surgery, if you know what I mean. They need to cut up some credit cards. They need to post a sign on the inside of their door: "Leave home without it!"

I heard a story about one teenage daughter who lost her credit card but was too embarrassed to report the loss to her father. After six weeks, she could stand it no longer. She went to her dad and confessed, “Daddy, you know that credit card you gave me? I am so sorry, but I lost it. Please forgive me and get me a new one.”

Dad was very calm. Very cool. He said, “I already knew. Someone found your card and has been using the card for several weeks. I've been tracking the purchases right up through this morning.” The daughter was perplexed. “But Daddy, if you knew someone had my card, why didn't you stop it and get my card back for me?” Her father responded, “Why do that? The thief spends a lot less than you. I'm saving money.”

One credit card has a motto: “Membership has its privileges!” Well, today I want to talk about an even greater privilege, that of membership in the family of God. In this family “membership IS a privilege!” And one of the privileges that go along is that is the gift of giving.

Now if you are like most Americans, then you have at least a little bit of Affluenza in your blood. All of us like new stuff, new dresses, new gadgets. Most of us have a slight problem with greed.

A reporter once asked the elder Rockefeller, “How much money does it take to satisfy a person.” The billionaire snapped back, “Always a little more!”

Philip Yancey had an interesting article in Christianity Today, September 2004, entitled “Forgetting God.” He cites Gordon Cosby, who has discovered a damaging cycle that operates in the Christian church over time, a cycle that starts out with thrift and leads to decadence. Cosby observes that high-commitment Christian communities begin with a strong sense of devotion, which expresses itself in a life of discipline. This devotion and discipline tend to produce abundance. Wonderful. But then things begin to go downhill. Financial success breaks down discipline and leads to decadence.

Cosby termed this pattern the "monastic cycle." He noticed that the movements led by idealists such as Francis of Assisi and Benedict of Nursia all went through the same cycle. In the sixth century, early Benedictines worked hard to clear forests and cultivate land, investing their surplus in drainage, livestock, and seed. Six centuries later, according to historian Paul Johnson, “Benedictine abbeys had virtually ceased to be spiritual institutions. They had become collegiate sinecures reserved very largely for members of the upper classes.” The abbots absorbed about half the order's revenue in order to maintain their luxurious lifestyles, becoming “unenterprising, upper-class parasites.”

Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans duplicated the cycle: an initial burst of devotion and discipline, a resulting period of abundance, then a drift toward indulgence until some reformer came along to revive the ideals of the founder.

And it’s not just a Catholic problem. Protestants face the same challenge. John Wesley warned upwardly mobile Methodists: “I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches.”

As the Old Testament shows, entire nations can fall into the same pattern. Hebrew prophets sounded the loudest alarms during times when ancient Israel appeared to be thriving. Whenever the economy boomed and peace prevailed, the Israelites attended less and less to spiritual matters and looked instead to military power and alliances for their security. They forgot God.

Phil Yancey goes on to say that this cycle applies to individuals as well as to religious movements and nations. People just can’t seem to handle prosperity. We turn to God out of need and forget God when things go well.

So what, then, is the antidote for greed? Well, God’s antidote for greed is generosity.

There’s a story in the Bible about an encounter Jesus had with a wealthy but dishonest tax collector by the name of Zacchaeus. The story is told in Luke 19. Zacchaeus wanted to meet Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd that always surrounded Jesus, so ran ahead along the road and climbed up in a Sycamore-fig tree. Then something happened that changed his life.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”

Now keep in mind that in that day you weren’t supposed to eat with disreputable people such as tax collectors, who were lower on the moral total pole than lawyers and politicians and used car salesmen are now. But Jesus saw something in Zacchaeus that Zacchaeus didn’t even see in himself. He saw a glimmer of generosity. And He was right, because, as the story continues, Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house.” (Luke 19:5-9).

Something happens when people meet Jesus. Suddenly old skin-flint Scrooge became generous. He had been on the downward cusp of the “monastic cycle,” milking the people for all they were worth and taking more than his share. But suddenly he rediscovered the privilege of giving.

Giving is just being honest with God. Everything is His. So it is returning to Him something that is His. We don't usually think of giving as a privilege but an obligation. But it's really a privilege. You don't HAVE to give to the Lord, you GET to give to the Lord. Think of your offerings as a farmer thinks of seed. 2 Corinthians 9:6 says “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” So generous giving is a privilege, because it sows the seed of generous receiving.
Pauline Nichter was 46 and her husband, Tom, was 44. She was a warehouse supervisor, he a warehouseman. Then they both lost their jobs. Now they were homeless and living in and out of motels with their 11-year-old son, Jason. They were in danger of losing their car for failure to make payments on it.

One day in 1993 Pauline found a wallet containing a credit card, an airline ticket to New Zealand and $2,394 in cash at a shopping mall in the Los Angeles suburb of Buena Park.

Now what Pauline was holding in her hand was a security blanket. If she kept it, it would cover her needs for awhile. But it also represented a greater opportunity. She could demonstrate what she was made of by what she did with that money. She could position herself for blessing or for curse. Pauline could keep her security blanket or give it up for something even better: integrity. She understood that God sometimes puts money in our hands, to test us to see if we are worthy of greater responsibilities down the line.

"For a second I thought about taking the money," she said later. "But only for a second." Instead, she took the wallet to the nearest police station, where the owner reclaimed it.

Word of her honesty quickly got out, and a grateful community responded in kind. The Nichters received more than ten job offers and an apartment rent-free for six months. Others gave cash. One elderly couple walked into the police station where Pauline had turned in the wallet and asked how much money had been in it. When they were told the amount, the man said, “Then that's what they deserve,” and wrote out a check for $2,400.

At a news conference, a tearful Pauline said, “Never in a million years would I have thought this would happen to us. What we have received is far more than what was in the wallet.”

That's how it works. As we are honest with God in our tithes and offerings, God gives us more. Give, and it shall be given to you. Not always in money. But in blessing. In love. In hope. In joy. In the peace of God that passes understanding.

Tomorrow we'll tell you how you can be an Artesian well—always flowing with sweet,
life-giving, thirst-quenching water to make your world a better place and make your friends glad
that you’re alive.