Ash Heap Lives — Francis Schaeffer

Christianity in the Post-Christian World

Our theme for this morning is Ashheath Lodge. One thing that we would all agree on, and that is that Christianity is losing ground throughout the world. Large numbers of countries that were considered, in some sense anyway, as Christians in the past, say the United States and our northern European countries explicitly, Canada being included, of course, are now in the post-Christian world, with the Christians being not just a small minority, but a total minority in an absolute sense.

And then, of course, as the population of the world grows, the proportion of those who are Christians in any sense has decreased, and surely among those who are named as Christians, there are the largest proportion wouldn't be Christians at all, which is sometimes merely of external saints, or in relationship to a group where the doctrinal position is not clear at all.

Right. So here we stand now, in this place, of all places, we wrestle with the question of the Christian in the post-Christian world. We discuss it, we talk about it, we ask what it means in our art form, how we are going to communicate.

We wrestle in the area of literature and painting, poetry, so many different areas, looking to see what's wrong with what is being presented and asking ourselves, how can we do something in the midst of this post-Christian world, and the decrease of Christianity in that world?

We mustn't ever talk about these things, however, merely abstractly, to carry something with it in a very definite nature, and I'd suggest two things are carried along if we're going to really show any real seriousness about living in a post-Christian world and being concerned for it.

The first one I'll mention very briefly, and then spend time on the second. The first one, of course, is that our doctrinal position must be right. The kind of thing that I would have emphasized is that Berlin Congress on the practice of truth must also be right, and that is, we must be united with those who are holding a clear position and not confusing the thing by saying we believe something and yet showing that we really are not so serious about it by being united with those who hold a position which is anything but clear in its typical sense.

We can't expect to go out into the post-Christian world with all its tough fiverness. We just can't expect to do this and present an uncertain sound. We can't go out in the epistemological world today where no one thinks the truth is even thinkable and then present less than a practice of truth and expect anyone to take it seriously.

Surely this cuts like a knife down over many of our questions of church affiliation, boards we will work with, missions we will work with, who we will cooperate with and what. And it must be taken seriously, the practice, the holding, and the practice of truth.

Practicing Orthodoxy Through True Spirituality

But it must go deeper than merely being orthodox, and this is the second point. It must go really deeper than being orthodox. It is perfectly possible to be completely and even obnoxiously orthodox, if I could express it so, and still have absolute nothing in what we present into the teeth of a tough, the non-Christian, post-Christian world, not to diminish the necessity of the orthodoxy either in what we hold, what we confess, or what we practice in our cooperation.

But we can say we can do this unhappily in such a harsh way and such a merely external way that it has no real meaning in the 20th century anyway, and the orthodoxy might as well be non-orthodoxy as anything as far as a real cutting-edge goes in such a generation as our own.

Rather, we must go into the practice of our orthodoxy, because, as you know, it is one of my very strenuously held beliefs that every doctrine is meant to be practiced, that even such a doctrine as the Trinity is meant to be practiced in the concept that we must show the seriousness of personality in our daily living to show that we really understand what the heart of the final great beginning was and environment is, and that is personal rather than impersonal.

So we must be practicing our doctrines. In the midst of doing this, and therefore practicing our doctrines, we must understand that along with the orthodoxy there must be true spirituality, and my thought in this direction would be the last chapter, for example, in Death in the City, the concept of two chairs living in a supernatural chair.

But this morning, now, I want to take it and look at it from the other side, and that is look at it from the side of something that stands in antithesis of spirituality in the Christian's life, in the hope that we might then, all of us together, feel something more of what it means to be practically spiritual, and that is I want to talk about materialism.

Philosophic and Practical Materialism

Now, as soon as we talk about materialism, of course, our mind falls in a place like this, where many of us are philosophically orientated and where we're trying to help some of the rest of you who haven't been to be.

It falls naturally into the concept of philosophic materialism, and it's perfectly true, of course, that philosophic materialism stands as an absolute antithesis of Christianity. If you have a philosophic materialism, religion can only be a psychological or a sociological tool.

It's all can be. It can't really deal with truth, in the real sense of truth. Or we might think, and we reject this, of course, the Christian rejects this, that if he's a Christian he cannot be a materialist.

On the other hand, from a philosophic viewpoint, on the other hand, many of us, our mind would jump into the practical kind of materialism represented by the communist count, and the communist world, and communist philosophy, and we react to this, and we say, is this not horrible, that here are these thousands and thousands of people, and especially the children, being raised in a situation where the limitation of their view is a practicing materialist?

And all this is carried with it of the subordination of the individual to the state, all these other things. And we as Christians say, isn't that horrible? So we say, oh, we're talking about materialism, down with philosophic materialism, down with communist materialism.

But there's another kind of materialism, which all too happily, none of us, perfectly, and all too many of us living this way, do practice. And this materialism which a Christian often does practice, tragically, and we all do sometimes, we must acknowledge, is certainly just as much materialism and just as much in its practice the antithesis of true spirituality as would be, in its practice now, as would be, let's say, the other forms of materialism that I have discussed, and that is simply our materialism tends to be that we do live Ashley's life.

That is, that most of us spend most of our time and most of our money in what is going to end in the city dump, and we live this way. Now we must understand, in thinking of these things, that material possessions, let's begin this way.

So it's the least important, but let's begin this way. Here we are, we're going along, we live in the midst of the affluent society, a society that has as its system, in the establishment, in the syndrome, the concept that what is really important is material possessions, and what is important is technology, in one form or another, and the products of technology.

And of course, even in the unbelieving world today, there is coming a conviction that technology is not always good. We've given up our innocence in relationship to technology. We no longer think that everything man can make, that he should make, because everything he should, because if he made it, it would necessarily be good.

So even in the intellectual world, in the non-Christian intellectual world, there is a huge discussion today of the problem of technology, and this falls down in the area where I've just spoken. But I'm saying, do we really feel it in our bones?

The understanding that material possessions, in themselves, are not necessarily always good. One can visualize that we came to the mission field, first of all, in 1948, and even a little sharper still in 1947, when I first visited Europe, and went into the various mission fields.

And of course, Europe in 1947, and even in 1948, was exceedingly poor. And if you were working, except for a very, very few, very, very few wealthy people. So here you came into Europe as a missionary, and you were confronted with a poverty-stricken people.

And I was very struck in the misuse of material things among some of the missionaries in 1947. For example, I remember being in Italy, and maybe happily thinking of Italy today, there were not many automobiles running around Rome in 1947.

But there weren't many there. And then you would visit a missionary, and he would invite you into a great big American car and drive through the streets of Italy. It was no good for the world. It was a misuse of material possessions.

It was a complete denial, not only of spirituality, but a complete denial of sensitivity. To think that the big American automobile shipped over a titanic expense on a boat, and landed in the docks of, let's say, Genoa, and driven to Rome, would automatically increase the missionary's effectiveness.

It didn't. It diminished it. It sunk. It was awful. And I just came back wounded with a lack of sensitivity. That here was a real materialism. These people, some of them, would not have understood philosophic materialism, but they were materialists.

Were they Christians? Yes, they were Bible-believing Christians. But they had no sensitivity. They had failed to understand that material possessions are not necessarily good. That was true in 1947. It was true in 1948 in Europe.

Another experience. I've mentioned many of them. But I went to Spain. And Spain in 1947 was bitterly poor. Bitterly poor. It was still poor. But it was bitterly poor. And I was invited. People were living in the most dreadful ways, except for the very, very wealthy, who were completely up there, and in contrast to the people.

And yet I was invited to a missionary's apartment in Spain, in one place, which was overwhelmingly luxurious. It was tremendous. It wasn't luxurious, mind you, in comparison to what the same man would have as a pastor in America.

But it was just as luxurious. He had brought all his luxury with him from America into Spain. I want to ask you something. What do you think happened when he invited the poor people of his community into that apartment to give them a Bible study?

It would be a complete antithesis of anything that would be useful. It was the very opposite. One could run down through these things. Now, of course, there are still countries in the world where this is true.

Many of the countries in the world where this is true, many, many countries where material possessions on the use of a Christian make the we and they situation, which can't possibly help and which can't possibly make the people to whom you talk believe that you're serious about trusting your Father in heaven and sharing your things with your fellow men.

But in Europe, this is not so true now. Now we, the shapers, are the ones who are procured because we don't own an automobile. So you come then to our own country, and the missionary countries, this is what Europe was in this other situation.

Now it is somewhat different. These things do not stand out like a sore thumb. To own an automobile today, especially if it's a Deux Chevaux, is no problem in Switzerland, let's say. But now when you come to this, we must realize this isn't our problem in exactly the same way in Switzerland, and for most of you coming from various well-developed countries, not all of you, but most of you, that isn't your problem back home.

You are not going to stink in the presence of the people to whom you're trying to work merely because you have an automobile. The way it would be true, it's been true in Europe in 1947. But I want to ask you something.

Contentment, Technology, and Human Fellowship

In the midst of our own countries, whether we're living here in Switzerland or whether we are living in one of the other well-developed and rather affluent countries, do we really understand that even in such a situation, even for this life, because now what I'm talking about is this life, that even in this life material possessions are not necessarily good in themselves?

Let me give you two illustrations from here in Switzerland in earlier days. Switzerland's experience has changed tremendously in the last 20 years. But when we first came, most of the women still washed at the village pump, and this was not just something you saw and something that was on a picture postcard for the tourists.

Very few women washed anywhere except at the village pump. When we first came, all these places that you see set up for washing were still being used. Very largely. And as I came into Europe and I saw these women working in the village pump, working down by their village fountains, and the water was cold, and they were out here in the weather, as an American I reacted, and I thought, isn't it a shame, isn't it too bad, isn't it going to be wonderful if these people could just have more material possessions in this life so that these women didn't have to work in the village, work at the village fountain?

I don't think this anymore. I want to ask you a question. Remember now what we're discussing. Material possessions in the present life, are material possessions in the present life always necessarily good?

It's a question of value very often. Here you have a woman and she works in the fountain, and it takes a lot of her time to work in the fountain, and it takes up a lot of her day. And she's there in the fountain, and the time all laid out nicely in the village, she's with the other village women, and she's working away in the fountain, she's doing her job, she's talking, and she's here in her own cellar.

It's a very human setting. Is that really necessarily worse, and is it really necessarily better for a woman then to suddenly have, let us say, I'll choose my own country, the United States where she has all these labor-saving devices where she merely pops the roaster in the oven, can set the timer and come back at night, and the thing is all nicely cooked, erratically anyway, and the, or pop a washer, a wash into the washer, and then it goes away, it goes away and it comes back.

Well the whole question is what to do with the time she saves, isn't it? If she spends her whole time being alone and being lonely, if she spends her whole time being, being, just doing nothing, or if she spends her whole time, this is a modern suburbian woman most of them, getting into trouble, wouldn't she really rather, wouldn't it be much better not to have the material possessions and do washing at the village pump?

I think so. It depends what you do with it. Material possessions are not necessarily in themselves good in themselves, it's what you use the material possessions for, even in this life. The same thing can be true, the same thing can be true with the women working in the fields.

When I first came to Europe, all the women worked in the fields, and there was no such thing, there were very little farm machinery in 19, in the era of 1947, 48, 1950 in Europe. Even on the larger farms, most of the work had to be done by hand, and surely so out here in the small farms of Switzerland, and I came, and in those days the work was hard.

Now all the Swiss have their lovely little tractors made especially for Swiss mountainside, and it isn't very hard. I'm intrigued to see the little balers they're making now, the bale hags, this is a revolution.

But in those days, cutting the hay, somebody took the scythe, somebody turned it by hand, somebody loaded the wagon, it was hard, hard, hard, hard work, and I saw these women out here working with their husbands, turning the hay, sometimes doing the hard work of pitching the hay, doing what was a desperately difficult situation as well, and then I thought, of all American women who didn't have to do this, and I thought, my, wouldn't it be wonderful, repeating the same, if they just had increased material possessions, and I changed my mind completely.

The women up here who work with their husbands in the field, and then go to sleep with them at night, have the greatest riches in the world. What is more poor than our American situation where the wife and the husband have no share in the real life of the man?

Nothing could be more poor. Is it really true that material possessions automatically always, always are good in themselves? The answer is an absolute negative, and of all the people who should know this, without merely observing it, we should, because God tells us this, that the material possessions in themselves can be good or bad, and if you take them in themselves and for themselves, and it's the same with time, incidentally, as money, the two things go together, money and time, and the mentality, the philosophy of the use of money and time.

It depends how you use it in the perspective of the importance of things and what one possesses. So as I think of Ashley's lives this morning, the first thing I would place down very strenuously is don't get caught in the feeling that material possessions are necessarily good for themselves in this present life.

Earthly and Heavenly Treasures

But let us notice the second point now, point two, the first point was this present life. The second point is that the Bible's perspective, which it presents to us, is that we must never live in the perspective of this present life.

In other words, if you only take the material possessions in the present life, if there were no future life, this would be true. But if you ascend it into the biblical perspective that we are never to live in the perspective of the present life.

The Christian is a man who is to live constantly in the perspective of the horizontal ascension into the life to come. A cause and effect relationship between the now and the then. These are not separated, they stand in a causal relationship one to the other.

What we do now has a result in what will be the eternal then. So therefore as we look at the biblical position we must realize it is more, it is that we are told that our perspective concerning material possessions is that it is not true that you can't take them with you.

Did you ever think of that? Everybody gives us a truism, you can't take it with you. It isn't true. You can take it with you if you're a Christian. Let's look at some of the verses. Matthew 6, 19 and 20, Matthew 6, 19 and 20, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moss and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moss nor rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. Now of course the liberal theologian with his concept of realized eschatology, and this would include personal eschatology, would merely phrase it as an optimistic way to stir up some kind of motivation for the present life.

But that isn't what the Bible says, it isn't the perspective of the Bible. He only says that because he doesn't believe the Bible and doesn't have the biblical perspective. The biblical perspective is simply this, and that is, as I've said, there is a horizontal projection.

From this life into that which is to come. Now look at those verses where your Bible is open. Notice what it says. You can lay up your treasure in one of two places. In one place it's going to rot away.

In the other place it'll never rot away. You can lay it up in land, in verse 19, or in the bank, or investments. But the Bible clearly indicates it is just as realistic and objective of laying it up in heaven.

In other words, from the biblical viewpoint there are two places where you can put your treasure. They are both equally real. One is, it isn't just a psychological adjustment. It isn't just inside of your head.

It is something very, very specific, that there are two banks, and it's specifically from Jesus' viewpoint as much as, though, instead, the first national bank in opposition to the bank suite. And you have two banks, and you make your choice whether you're going to make your investments in America or whether you're going to make them in Switzerland.

And here you have two possible banks to bank them in. Jesus' mentality is exactly the same, the Christian perspective. There are two places where you can bank. You can bank in the places in this life, or you can bank in the bank which carries over in a horizontal extension into the days to come.

This is meant to be taken totally literally. If you make it less than literally, you reduce the Bible to merely some kind of a pious, in the bad sense, expression. And this is what it's meant to be. Notice further, in the book of Luke, in the 12th chapter, verses 15 through 21.

The Rich Fool and the Futility of Earthly Wealth

Luke 12, 15 through 21. And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness. For a man's life consisteth not of the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth planifling.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room wherein to bestow my fruits. And he said, This I will do. I will pull down my barns, I will build greater, and there will I bestow my fruits and my goods.

Enriching his pleasant place of store, on the one side of the ledger, on the ledger of the here. Now, Jesus goes on, and I will say, and he continues, And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much good laid up for many years.

Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merit. Now, Jesus responds, But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall those things be whom thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. A very strong word. A man is a fool to lay up treasure in a bank that isn't going to last, when there is a bank that will. Now, it's perfectly true, most of us as evangelicals tend to use this as kind of an evangelistic verse, and say that a man is a fool to lay up everything in this life and forget that one day he is going to have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ concerning heaven and hell.

And undoubtedly, this is involved. It's not a wrong use of it. But let me point out to you, it's not the only use of it. It's not all that is meant in it. It is spoken for Christians as well as non-Christians.

The man who lays up all his treasures in the now, and is not consciously laying up his treasures for heaven, either really doesn't belong in heaven, or belong, pardon, either he does not really believe in heaven, or he's a fool.

He's a real fool. And Jesus is speaking here not only to the man who spends all his time, like some of our family, all their time accumulating wealth, and we know they're going to die and they're lost, and we cry out to God for them.

He isn't only speaking to them, he's speaking to you and to me if we are Christians, and saying either we don't really believe in the horizontal extension into the future life, we really don't believe it, or we're fools if we spend all our energy laying up money in a bank that is going to just leave it open to the thieves, instead of the place where it really is going to count.

Where it's going to count in time, where it's going to count in the area of importance as well. Thinking of this which Jesus says about thou fools, and this matter, and the verse, so that he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God, let me repeat again, and notice how Jesus' words fit into this in Matthew 6, 19 and 20, lay up not for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust are corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust are corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal.

Notice that these plus this loop passage makes one thing. It makes one thing. The rich man who is a fool cannot be applied only to the non-Christians, it must be applied to us. Notice on Luke 12, 33, the end of the verse, Luke 12, 33, the end of the verse, provide yourself bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approaches, neither doth moth corrupt.

You notice again it's exactly the same thing as the Matthew passage, Matthew 6, 19 and 20. You can choose two bags. It's as simple as this. Jesus is being very explicit. Here's a man and he's going to carry 35 ,000 francs in gold coins, and he has two choices of bags.

One bag is made out of cheesecloth and won't last very long, and pretty soon the coins will be dribbling out as he walks over the mountain field, let's say if he's trying to get over the frontier in the time of war, and he can choose a cheesecloth bag and his money is going to drip out, so by the time he gets over into Italy or France or wherever he's trying to go and he needs his money, it will all be gone.

The other, he can get a good heavy leather bag, which when he gets there, the money is going to be inside. Jesus is being just as explicit. When we lay up our treasures, only in this life we've chosen a stupid bag.

We've chosen a stupid, stupid bag, a container to carry it in, in contrast to the bag which is strong and light, and when we get where we're going, because we're going someplace, you know, we're really going someplace, when we get where we're going, our riches are still in the container.

This is Jesus, this is Jesus' balance here. Notice how practical this is in the beginning of that verse. So what you have and give on. Now, this is a very important thing to notice, that the scripture does not make a distinction between giving to those who need it and missionary work.

Giving to the Needy and Christian Stewardship

To the evangelical mind, money is given to the Lord when we give to missionary work, and I'm not minimizing the giving to missionary work. Certainly it is altogether true that Christians do not give enough to missionary work.

There's no doubt about this. It's shameful that a country like the United States, a country like Britain, even with this financial need, gives such a small amount of the Christian's income into God's work.

And God scolds us for this, and we will one day answer to God. We will one day answer to God for this. There's no doubt about this. But let us notice that in the Bible, giving to God is not shut up absolutely to giving to missionary activity.

Remember, I'm not minimizing it, anything else. But at the same time, you can give to God not only by giving to missionary work, but giving to people who need it. There is a very, very practical humanitarianism in the scripture.

We have an importance to being our brother's keeper, and not just in other areas, but in his material needs. You read in the book of James, the Bible is very tenuous at this point. It's a horrible thing for Christians to fail to understand we have a responsibility for the material needs of our brothers and of our fellow men.

To love our neighbor as ourselves even beyond the church includes a care for his material needs. If the church had remembered this and preached it in the rise of the industrial revolution, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.

We simply have been poor. We have been poor in our comprehension. I do believe in capitalism, as long as it's a biblical kind of a capitalism. I don't believe in the state owning everything and everybody being a slave.

But having said that, there is a very peculiar kind of capitalism in the Bible. It's a capitalism that cares for people, and that is what we have forgotten. The choice is not between a harsh capitalism, which is hard and cold and unloving, and not giving one care for anybody else and amassing great fortunes, and on the other side, the state owning everything.

The Christian choice is not between these two, but a third thing entirely. I know a man who has made $150 million and has a granddaughter who has spit on the floor about the whole thing and refuses to wear shoes.

I don't blame him. What in the world can you do with $150 million to keep to yourself? You can't do anything with it. It's ridiculous. It's wicked. And as you have here, we must understand the biblical, biblical form of laying up our treasures in heaven includes not only the missionary giving—remember, I'm not minimizing the missionary giving—but they'll go somewhat hand-in-hand, too.

We in the evangelical Church in our affluent countries are poor in our missionary giving and we're poor in our other use, our wider use of money for God's purposes, the caring for people. And I will repeat, I'll repeat.

If the Church had preached this message, and it is a biblical message, just read the Old Testament, if you loan something to a man and he gives you as the collateral his cloak, be sure to return it before night or he'll be cold.

That's a very, very special kind of capitalism. And poor capitalism, let me repeat, in contrast to totalitarian situations, either in rule or economically, but it's got to be a Christian thing or it soon becomes ugly and real.

The Parable of the Unjust Steward

Now, notice Jesus has something stronger still to say about this in the book of Luke, in the 16th chapter, and now we'll read responsibly, Luke 16, 1 -7. Luke 16, 1 -7. You will read this responsibly and then I'll go on and give a quick exegesis of 8 -14.

Luke 16, 1 -7. And he said also unto his disciples, there was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the same was accused unto him that he wasted his goods. Then the steward said unto himself, What shall I do?

For my Lord taketh away from me my stewardship. I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed. So he called every one of his Lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my Lord? Then said he unto another, And how much owest thou?

And he said, A hundred measures of wheat. And he said, Take thy bill, and write for store. Now, let me say that the exegesis I'm going to give is the one Alfred gives for this, and I think it's right.

If you think another one's right, it doesn't change anything about the message, however, because what I'm going to say is certainly what the Bible teaches. But I think it's what Jesus is saying explicitly here.

Now, keep your Bibles open and follow along. The 8th verse. The Lord. The confusion here often comes that people think that this is Jesus speaking. It isn't Jesus speaking, it's the steward's Lord speaking.

So the steward's Lord commended the unjust steward, not because he was unjust, because by this time the unjust steward is a technical term referring to the man. If he had been called John Smith previously, it would have said his Lord commended John Smith.

Why did he commend him? Because he had done wisely. What he did was a wise thing. What he did was a wise thing. What did he do that was wise? Well, Jesus then takes and applies it, beginning in the 9th verse.

So Jesus' application begins in verse 9. And I say unto you, make for yourselves friends. How make for yourselves friends? Why, by the wise use of the present world's riches. You are to make friends, says Jesus, if you're going to be as wise as this wicked man, who is wicked but wise.

You are to be wise, not wicked now, but wise. You are to be wise by the present use of your money. That when you fail, and I do think what's being talked about here is when you die, they, who is the they?

They are the ones of whom you have been made friends by the use of your money. And these then now are pictured here as already having gone before you, and they're in heaven. So therefore you are to use your present money now in such a way that when you die and when you get to heaven, they're already going to be there, and they will receive you into everlasting habitation.

They will receive you, that is, with joy in heaven. Very realistic. It just happens that's the Bible's mentality. The Bible's mentality is heaven isn't an upper story situation. It isn't an LSD trip. That heaven is just as real as the year.

That it is not merely something you teach people so that they can stay in the present problem, but you're really going to be there. And when you get there, it's just going to be as real as this, that some of the people you now know are already going to be there.

And Jesus is picturing something, and you say it's simplistic. I want to tell you, the Christian profound philosophy is not simplistic, but simple. And that is that there is a continuity, a horizontal continuity of cause and effect between the present and the future, and the future is just as real as the present.

And when you get there, you're going to meet some people up there, and they're going to speak to you about what you did down here. And it's a nice thing to meet somebody and say thank you very much, thank you very much for that money you gave to me when my children were starving.

I didn't have a chance to thank you then, but I thank you now. And that's just what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying be careful how you use your money now. Remember what he said to the rich man? You're a fool if you don't keep this in mind.

Remember what he said about the bags? You're a fool if you choose a bag that's going to be all leaked out by the time they put you in a box, put your body in a box and bury it. There's a way to lay up money now so that you can take it with you, is the whole point that Jesus teaches.

True Riches and the Lordship of Money

Now he goes on further, and he emphasizes this in 10 and 11. He says another facet. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust or unfaithful or unrighteous in the least is unjust also in much.

If you therefore have not been faithful in the unrighteous manner, that is just plain money, what jingles, who will commit to your trust the true riches? Any Christian ought to know, as we've covered today, that the true riches would not ever be just money.

And we're talking about, remember how we started this sermon, and that is we're talking about how to live in a post-Christian world so we can see something accomplished in the midst of the awfulness of the present post-Christian world.

How can we do it? Well, we need true riches. We need spiritual power. Remember what I said? I was examining the fact that it's not only necessary to be orthodox but spiritual, and I wanted to come to the question of spirituality through the problem of materialism.

All right, now, what we need is spiritual power, but Jesus is saying, if you don't have enough sense to use money correctly, why do you think you're going to be given any spiritual power? It's a very nice question.