Biblical Economics with Israel Wayne

Okay. And we are live streaming as well. So I'm Terry Camerizell and I'm here with Creation Fellowship Santee. We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how God created life and everything in just six days a few thousand years ago.

We've been meeting online in this format since June of 2020 and we've been blessed by a blend of presentations of creation science, other theology topics and even current events, various speakers and you can find links to most of those by visiting our webpage tinyurl .com forward slash CF Santee that's C like creation F like fellowship and Santee is spelled S-A-N-T-E-E.

You can also email us at creationfellowshipsantee at gmail .com so that you get on our email list. We don't spam and we'll send you links to all of our upcoming speakers. And tonight we're blessed not as I mentioned we do we do do a blend of topics.

Tonight is not a creation science topic. It's a different theology type topic. We are going to be looking at God's but specifically the biblical view of economics and we're blessed tonight to have as our speaker Israel Wayne.

Israel is a homeschool dad. He's an author and a speaker and he is the founder of a ministry called Family Renewal and basically you can find more information about him at familyrenewal .org. He also has a Facebook page Israel Wayne.

So Israel I'm happy to turn it over.

Creation, Genesis, and the Speaker’s Background

To you. Well thank you Terry and you know one thing I didn't get to share is we were chatting a little bit before going live here is that my wife and I actually visited Santee when we got married in January of 1999.

I'm a Michigan guy and so in Michigan in January it's freezing cold. My wife was born and raised in Arizona Scottsdale. So when we got married we had our honeymoon in Southern California and we were both homeschooled students ourselves and so one of the things that we desperately wanted to do on our honeymoon was to go visit the creation museum in Santee and so we made a trip down there.

It's a beautiful area. I know not all the people who are online are from that area but if you ever get a chance to go out there it's fabulous and of course I actually have a lot of roots in the creation movement that go back a long long ways.

The two founders of the creation movement were Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. John Whitcomb. Henry Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research which was the original founder of that museum in Santee that we were blessed to go visit.

He was also the founder of a publishing company called Master Books which is a company that many decades later he actually co-founded that with Tim LaHaye the guy who wrote the Left Behind series and whose wife Beverly LaHaye started Concerned Women for America.

Tim LaHaye and Henry Morris started Master Books back in 1975 the year that I was born and many years later they signed me as an author. I've been an author with them for a decade now and I have a great relationship with them.

They publish a lot of authors like Ken Ham and Dr. Jason Lyle and Michael Ferris and Kevin Swanson and Todd Friel and boy I can't think of everybody but I'd say Ray Comfort. Anyway a lot of those guys but yeah I just I have a lot of roots in creationism.

My dad was a seminary graduate. One of his professors was Dr. John Whitcomb who co-wrote The Genesis Flood with Henry Morris back in 1963. So I cut my teeth on young earth creationism and have been a staunch stalwart supporter of a literal interpretation of Genesis my whole life and so it's something I'm very committed to and I'm grateful to be invited tonight to get to speak to your group online.

It's a great honor. We're going to talk about biblical economics and so I will share my screen here we'll pop over to a powerpoint and walk through this. So as I was thinking about how to approach the issue of biblical economics there's several different approaches I think that we could take with this.

One is of course that we could go back and talk about the system of economics that they had in the old testament that the nation of Israel lived under and that of course would be very fascinating from a historical standpoint but maybe not quite as practical for us today in that their system of economics was very tied in with what we would call a theonomic system where they as the people of God living under the law of God had very special covenant promises that were tied to their identity as a nation and so there were certain economic promises and benefits that were given to them within God's covenant to the nation of Israel.

So anyway fascinating story there but we're not going to get into that tonight. I want to go through what the scripture has to say on the issue of economics and we're going to look at some principles from God's word that will help us to be able to think biblically about economics in a way that we can apply it today.

God Owns Everything and We Are Stewards

So the first thing that I want us to look at is the aspect of creation of wealth and what the bible says about being able to generate or create wealth. Deuteronomy 8 18 says you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.

So wealth is ultimately not something that is completely within the hands or the control of us as humans but it is something that really is within the sovereign hand of God. First Samuel 2 7 through 8 says the Lord makes poor and makes rich he brings low and he exalts he raises up the poor from the dust he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's and on them he has set the world.

And then Proverbs 10 22 says the blessing of the Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it. So we see again that provision is something that is a gift from God. He gives us the ability to generate wealth but it's also good for us to know that he doesn't add sorrow.

You think about some of the most morbidly depressed people in the world are some of those who are the most wealthy and the most famous. The things that the world tells us will bring us success oftentimes simply brings depression and so when someone has accumulated wealth from the hand of God by doing it the right way and following God's principles it doesn't have the same sorrow that goes along with it.

I would say the most important principle that you could understand about biblical economics is this principle and that's that God owns everything. This is absolutely pivotal to how we think about everything connected to money and finances and wealth.

So first Corinthians 10 26 says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Everything belongs to God. Job 41 11 says who has first given to me that I should repay him. Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

This is the Lord speaking to Job. Everything under the whole heaven belongs to God. Psalm 24 1 the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof the world and those who dwell therein. In Psalm 50 verse 12 God says if I were hungry I would not tell you for the world and all its fullness are mine.

So God created everything. He created it for his glory. He created it for his purposes and it all belongs to him. So the next principle that I want us to think about is the principle of stewardship and this really is I think the most important concept that we can develop as it relates to how we apply finances and that is that we are to be caretakers and stewards and so we remember the parable of the talents that Jesus talks about in Matthew 25 and verses 14 through 30 where there's this master who has great wealth and he entrusts his servants his stewards to invest his money and to try to multiply what they were given in terms of resources and so he gives to one of the stewards five talents and he gives to another two talents and he gives to a third one talent and then he gives them time to invest this and he comes back and he expects an accounting and the steward who has given five talents had multiplied it and he was able to produce ten and the other who's given two was able to multiply it and produce four but the one steward had simply buried his talent and he did nothing with it and so the master was very angry with him and you see the bitterness in the heart of the steward where he accuses the master and of course you know in the parable it's talking about God but he accuses him of being unjust and being unfair and trying to reap where he hasn't sown and to benefit in ways that are that are unjust.

And the principle though behind this parable the talents although there's probably many life lessons that we can draw from it is the concept that we are all stewards of the things that God gives us and so God in this parable is the master and we are the stewards and so nothing ultimately belongs to us and I think this is key this is pivotal for us as we move forward and we begin to think about ownership because ultimately God as we just saw owns everything and as his stewards or caretakers we own nothing.

So if you think about these three stewards which one of the three stewards was the most wealthy. Well it's a bit of a trick question because really none of them were wealthy they all had nothing. The person who was wealthy was the master because it was all the master's resources it was his wealth it was his money.

And so an illustration I would use for us would be you know suppose we work for a company and we had a mutual boss and the boss said I want you to take an account for the company and manage it. And so let's say that you are given a million dollar account and another co-worker was given a hundred thousand dollar account and I was given a ten dollar account.

Right. And we were told to manage this for the company. Well which one of us is more wealthy. Well intrinsically none of us are more wealthy than the other in terms of what we're given we're just given one's given much greater responsibility.

Right. So the person who's stewarding the million dollar account that's not their money. They don't have that money. That's not theirs. But they do have responsibility over that million dollar account.

So there's a greater sense of culpability liability responsibility. And so we're told in the scripture that to whom much has been given much will be required. And that's that concept of stewardship that we all are to carefully steward what the lord gives us.

So the principle of stewardship is that as bible-believing christians who belong to jesus we don't own anything. God owns everything we own nothing. We are simply stewards and caretakers of his wealth.

In luke 16 8 there's a parable of the dishonest manager and it says that the master commanded the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

And so jesus in this parable is not in any way condoning dishonesty. He's not setting that up as a model for us. But what he is saying is that people in the world are often better at knowing how to manage finances in a practical way and to know how to just be shrewd in the way that they do business.

Uh than are the sons of light. And those would be you know those of us who belong to christ. But but this is a rebuke to us. Um you know really as people who understand the word of god we should be better financial stewards than people who don't know god.

Because the god who has created the principles that govern economics that govern how the world is supposed to work has given us those lessons and those principles in the bible. And so when we align ourselves to the teaching of scripture and god's ways and his character and his nature we should be far more proficient in managing funds than people who disobey god and do not know god.

Um so in uh luke 16 first beginning verse 10 it says. One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful and much. And one who is dishonest and a very little is also dishonest and much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth who will entrust to you the true riches.

And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's who will give you that which is your own. No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve god and money. So there's a lot that we can pack into this. But we are told the importance of financial stewardship and how it often is a reflection of our values. And we see i think even with the qualifications for elders in first timothy 3 and titus 1 having a good reputation with outsiders probably has to do with our integrity and how we do business and how we relate to other people.

And so if somebody has been dishonest in their finances we wouldn't want to put them in charge of church leadership for example because it's a character issue. So the way that we spend our resources often exposes what is in our heart and it says you cannot serve god and money.

There was a great man of god who taught on financial principles for a lot of years who's now with the lord. His name was larry briquette. He started a ministry called christian financial concepts and later became crown financial ministries.

And larry briquette wrote a lot great books had a lot of great resources. But i remember one thing that he said that was really powerful is he said i can tell you what you love i can tell you what you value.

I can tell you what you worship by looking at two things your calendar and your checkbook. And he said the reason that is is because everything that you have in your life is allocated through those two means through the time that you have and through the resources that you possess.

In other words that's your life. How you spend your time and your resources is how you spend your life. And so there's often times where we lie to ourselves about what our true values are and we say that we we love god and we say that we love our family for example and that those are our number one and number two priorities in life.

But in reality oftentimes our time and our money lies or tells the truth about the lies that are in our heart. Just for example the u .s government in 2020 put out a research statistic from the department of labor statistics that said that the average mom today only spends one hour a day with her children and the average father only spends 29 minutes a day.

If you ask those parents what their number one value in life is a lot of them would say it's their children. And yet it's not those same parents watch four hours of television or netflix every night of their life.

And so their real value is themselves. They spend seven hours a day in multimedia including mostly social media. And so you know we we say to ourselves that we love god and that we put him first. But what we end up doing usually is serving ourselves and there's only one throne in our life you know.

And and if jesus is not enthroned in that life then then someone or something else is and it's it's usually us right. And so it's it's very easy to give lip service to saying i'm a christian and i love jesus.

But in reality oftentimes the priorities of our life show that we we love ourselves and we put ourselves first. So the scripture speaks about the principle of avoiding debt. Romans 13 8 says. Oh no one anything except to love each other.

For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law in the old testament. Deuteronomy 15 6 says. For the lord your god will bless you as he promised you. And you shall lend to many nations but you shall not borrow.

You shall rule over many nations but they shall not rule over you. So the principle here is that being able to give being able to share is biblical. But borrowing and being in debt and not being able to pay our own financial obligations is not a blessing.

Debt is always referred to in the either as a directly a curse or as something that we should seek to get out from under. And yet within our culture we're taught to apply for debt to pursue debt. But the scripture shows that we should seek to have money that we can lend and that we can we can give to others.

The scripture also speaks to us about avoiding greed and covetousness. And so i want to define those terms. Greed is wanting more and covetousness is wanting what someone else has. The billionaire john rockefeller was famously asked how much money do you think it will take to make you happy.

And his famous response was just a little bit more. And so first peter 5 2 tells us not to be greedy for money but instead to be eager to serve. When our contentment is found in money we will never be content.

We will never have enough. We'll always need just a little bit more. But when our contentment is in christ alone then we can certainly um you know manage much money or manage little money. Um and yet our contentment doesn't change.

The greed and covetousness is in an indication that we are not content in our heart with what god has given us that we. We aren't content with the level of stewardship that he has provided for us that we feel like we are owed a greater stewardship when in reality that's not true.

In reality we should be content with whatever level of stewardship god has given us. Bible also speaks against hoarding and accumulating wealth stashing it up and storing it for ourselves. Ecclesiastes 5 13 through 14 says.

I've seen a grievous evil under the sun wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner or wealth lost through some misfortune so that when he has a son there's nothing left for him. Psalm 39 6 says man heaps up wealth not knowing who will get it.

Matthew 6 19 says do not store up for yourselves treasures here on earth. Hebrews 13 5 says keep your lives free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. For god has said i will never leave you and i will never forsake you.

So having wealth is not the problem. It's about stewarding the wealth. Having resources is not what's problematic. It's about viewing it as belonging to us and using it selfishly for ourselves. Philippians 4 12 3 13 speaks to the issue of contentedness.

The apostle paul says i know how to be brought low and i know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and need. Paul so well balances the the imbalances that we sometimes have within the christian community.

We have a ditch. I always say there's a ditch on either side of the narrow road and one of the ditches is the ditch of prosperity gospel which is this idea that god wants you to be rich and he wants you to drive a luxury rolls royce or a lamborghini or whatever and flaunt your wealth with diamonds and mansions and all that kind of thing which is a false gospel.

But there's a ditch on the other side which is what i would call the poverty gospel mentality and that is that you are somehow more righteous or more holy if you drive a rusted out vehicle that's falling apart and that's you know constantly in the shop and it doesn't.

You don't have any guarantees that it's going to get you to work in the morning and your children run around in raggedy clothes. And you can't pay your mortgage for month to month. And you know that is not a biblical view of finances either.

You are not more godly when you live in in desperate financial situations. That's not you know neither one of those pictures is a biblical view of wealth and finance and i think it's it's very easy for us to as christians either have a poverty mindset which is not a biblical mindset or to have like a prosperity gospel mindset where we believe that god owes us something or that god is somehow contractually obligated to shower down money from heaven.

You know because we we want it we demand it. Paul is just so balanced in this that he says hey i've had times where i've had a lot and i've had times where i've had little. And in my circumstance it didn't change my serenity with god because god.

His peace with god was not predicated on his circumstance. It was predicated on who he was in christ and being in the will of god. The bible also speaks to the issue of generosity. Proverbs 22 9 says the generous will themselves be blessed for they will share their food with the poor.

And speaks of the proverbs 31. Woman in verse 20 and says she opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. Now we know this woman she's also caring for and stewarding for her own household so her children are taken care of.

She's not causing them to be in deprivation in order to reach out their needs are met their finances are their financial situation is covered. But they have an abundance. They have an ability to be able to give to the poor and the needy.

And this is seen as a as a symbol of godliness even for a christian woman. In first corinthians 16 2 the apostle paul is talking to the church there in corinth about the necessity of giving. And so he says on the first day of every week each one of you should set aside a sum of money according to his income saving it up so that when i come no collections will need to be made.

Uh this is a controversial point that i'm going to talk on here but i'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there. Um if you do a careful study through the new testament i think it is very difficult to sustain the idea that a 10 percent tithe to a local church is mandated in the scripture in the new testament the main concept for that actually comes from the old testament because of the tithes that were required for the support of the levitical priests in the old testament.

And so people have taken that concept in the old testament transferred it to the new testament and said well you know the temple of the old testament is now the church today. The priest of the old testament is the pastor today.

And you don't find that correlation. You don't find that transfer in the scripture itself. It's it's inferred. But you don't find any teaching that actually pushes us in that direction. The teaching of the new testament regarding giving is that um you know we see in this passage that you should set aside a sum.

It doesn't say how much. This is a sum of money. Then it says according to your income. So a percentage base you know makes sense that you save up. And then on the first day of every week you give it.

And why do you give it on the first day of every week. Well because if you if you keep it longer than that you will probably run into some financial crisis at least an imagined crisis where you'll you'll use it you'll spend it.

But when you are budgeting and you're setting aside that money each week and putting that to the work of the lord then you are you know keeping the right accounts with god as opposed to you know thinking well i'll let it build up until it's something substantial.

Not not a good plan. People who do that tend to not give. And so giving is required for the believer in the new testament. But there's not a specific percentage that is put upon it. For those who want to have a 10 percent tithe you know basing it off of the concept from the old testament.

That's fine. I mean a 10 percent uh tithe is a fine idea. There is a biblical requirement for those who teach the word within the church to be compensated for what they do and for them to have their financial provision met.

So that is mentioned in the scripture. We just want to be careful that we don't legalistically make laws and rules where the scripture itself does not make laws and rules. So the scripture is very clear uh on the necessity of the christian to give particularly to the poor.

Um but the concept of a 10 percent tithe and i encourage you study it yourself. Don't take my word for it. Um is it's not one that's directly taught in the new testament. A lot of pastors believe so a lot of pastors teach that it is.

Um and i i respectfully uh disagree with them on that. But it's also an issue on which christians thankfully can disagree. It's not a salvation issue. Um second corinthians 8 7 paul says just as you excel in everything see also that you excel in this grace of giving.

I love that term the grace of giving. Uh he wants us to be above average in this grace of giving. A couple of great examples of giving in more modern times within the 20th century. There's a guy named rg laturno who built earth moving equipment during the great depression and he became a millionaire at a time when most people were in poverty and he was able to do a reverse tithe.

He actually would keep 10 of his income and he would give 90 of it away to the work of the lord. He wrote a book called god runs my business. There's also another great book about his life published by moody publishers a classic book called mover of men and mountains by moody publishers.

You can still get a copy of that. But um he was asked by a reporter one time how is it that you can give away so much money. Because he gave away about 12 million dollars during the great depression. How can you give away so much money and still be a millionaire.

And he explained it this way. He said well fact is god shovels money to me and i shovel money back to god. And it just so turns out that god has a bigger shovel than i do. Another guy that is a great person to read about related to this was the founder of the u .s plastics corporation stanley tam and he wrote a book called god owns my business.

He actually approached the u .s government and said he wanted to incorporate his business with god being the legal owner of his company. And he was able to do that 1942 during world war ii. And he gave over 100 million dollars to christian ministry.

49 of all of his gross sales from the u .s plastics corporation were given to ministry causes. So these are men who are great stewards. They truly understood the necessity of being of being caretakers of what god had given them.

And seeing that that money was a means it was not an end it was a means to an end and the means was to serve the lord. In second corinthians 9 7 paul gives us a template for how charity should be addressed.

And i wish we had time to you know delve into this um with some length. Because there's an entire biblical theology of charity just as there is of everything there's a biblical theology of everything.

But in second Corinthians 9 7 paul says each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly key phrase here or under compulsion if you can underline that like or under compulsion for god loves a cheerful giver.

So this is one of the reasons why we need to understand that any type of quote-unquote charity that is being funded by tax dollars is antithetical to scripture. Because all taxation by definite definition is compulsory.

It's taken by force. It is taken uh you know if not literally at gunpoint. It's taken under duress with the threat that you could lose everything you own. You don't pay your income tax. You go to jail.

You don't pay your property tax. You have your home taken away from you. And so taxation uh while there is a biblical theology of taxation and there's a place for taxation jesus taught that paul taught that so that the government could do what god created it to do which is punish evildoers and protect the citizens.

Charity was never given to the government because the government doesn't have any money the government only has what it takes by force from one person to redistribute to another person. And so to do that for charity is always unjust.

And it's it's always on biblically unlawful and it's immoral. And yet you look at the government's involvement in health care that is government sponsored health related welfare of course you know standard welfare housing government housing government education whether that be k -12 public schools or whether that's state colleges and universities all of those things are funded through a forced redistribution of wealth.

And forced redistribution of wealth is a concept that comes out of marxism and socialism. It never comes out of scripture. Scripture teaches very clearly that charity is supposed to be given freely not reluctantly never under compulsion because god loves a cheerful giver.

So the question then is okay. So if we're being forced to give to government funded redistribution of wealth under the name of charity. Yeah even though it's not uh what do we do. You know do we have to pay that.

Well yes you do. Because if you don't pay it scripture tells us that they bear the sword and they will punish those who don't do what they want. And so you can lose everything and go to jail for not paying your taxes which is a stupid thing to do.

We're told that if we are arrested we should be arrested for something very noble like obeying god and you know preaching the gospel or something like that not for refusing to pay our taxes. So we should know though that there are taxes that are just taxes and there are taxes that are unjust taxes.

And we should not be fooled into thinking that this is a biblical concept. And so a lot of people have championed this idea that that jesus was a socialist and that jesus favored government sponsored welfare and forced redistribution of wealth.

And jesus and the apostles opposed it in their teaching. And so um there's a great article if you want to look it up by lawrence reed you can look it up. It's uh called is g was jesus a socialist. Uh was jesus a socialist.

By lawrence reed. R-e-e-d. He's with the foundation for economic education. A great article if you want to learn more about that. And there's the principle of sowing and reaping in the bible. Second corinthians 9 6 says whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly.

And whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Those of you who have ever planted a garden you know that in order to have something come up you have to plant seeds. If you plant a lot of seeds you're going to be more likely to have a bigger increase or bigger crop.

Plant a few seeds very sparingly. Then you're going to have a sparse crop. And so this is true with financial investment as well. Obviously you can risk a lot and you can lose a lot if you have bad financial investments.

But uh the more sparing sparingly that you invest the less opportunity you have for reward as well. And certainly um in terms of spiritual reward if you are giving sparingly then you're going to reap sparingly in terms of spiritual reward.

The bible speaks against the concept of usury. Usury is essentially charging people particularly god's people interest on loans. Some people say that it's any interest. Some people say it's excessive interest.

But at the very least it seems that anything over just a couple of percentage points in the bible is considered to be usury. So in nehemiah chapter 5 9 through 11 god's people were commanded not to charge their brethren interest.

In ezekiel 18 god condemned usury. Deuteronomy 22 25 says that you were not to charge any interest whatsoever to someone who was a brother. There were cases where the israelites were allowed to charge a small interest to foreigners but never to a fellow israelite.

And then leviticus 24 25 14 and then verses 35 and 39 the israelites were told not to take advantage of other people financially. So god hates you know unjust weights and measures and he hates usury. He wants us to be just.

And how we relate to other people. Another principle that we're warned against in scripture is the concept of surety which is essentially co-signing loans for other people guaranteeing loan payments for other people.

Proverbs 6 1 through 5 says. My son if you have put up security for your neighbor and have given your pledge for a stranger if you are snared in the words of your mouth caught in the words of your mouth then do this my son and save yourself.

For you have come into the hand of your neighbor go hasten and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber. Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter and like a bird from the hand of a fowler.

The reason for this is that you don't have any control over the decisions of another person. And so when somebody says i can't afford to buy this car i can't afford to buy this house i can't afford to start this business i need you to put up surety for me and sign a co-sign on a loan for me.

You can almost be assured that you will end up having to pay the whole thing off and probably get very little or no benefit from it yourself. It's just not a wise thing to do it's it's probably wiser if you actually felt to help a person in that situation just give them give them the money as a gift.

Because then there may not be the hard feelings that are associated when they fail to live up to their word and they fail to give back what they promise to give you. Um this can damage relationships. And so the bible gives us some warning against doing this.

There's a reason why that person can't get the loan and in most cases it's because they have a history of making bad financial decisions. I mean i'll just i'll say here i think there's maybe a place where if you have a a teenager who has no credit and they're trying to establish credit and get a house get a car and you co-sign on a loan for them you know maybe that's a good way for them to help establish some credit and be better for them to save up and pay cash for the car of course as opposed to going in debt for it.