The Burden of Riches

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If you want to take out your Bible, turn with me to James.
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And we're going to go to James chapter 5.
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We're in the last chapter, so we're in the home stretch.
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Get to the end here.
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Still got several weeks, though, because there's a lot of things in this chapter.
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I don't want to rush too much.
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But before I read the text, I just want to give a few introductory comments before we actually read what it says.
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Throughout the pages of Scripture, and particularly in the New Testament, there are several warnings placed at the feet of people who are wealthy, people who are rich, people who have a lot of what the world has to offer.
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And that's really interesting if you think about it, because most cultures and most civilizations have exalted the wealthy.
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They consider the wealthy the blessed.
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They're the well-off.
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They're the well-to-do.
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They're the ones that God favors.
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In fact, if you look through the Bible, you'll often see anytime somebody's suffering, they'll say, well, why is God punishing them? Or if you see somebody who's rich, they would...
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Oh, my brother.
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Is that for me? God bless you.
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Thank you.
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Yeah, I'll let it cool off for a second.
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Thank you.
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That's a real blessing.
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Thank you.
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So a lot of cultures look at the rich and they say, if you're rich, you're blessed by God.
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And if you're poor, you're cursed.
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Think about modern day prosperity preachers.
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Got that BMW, got that Maserati, got that thousand dollar suit.
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And I'm blessed by God.
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How do I know I'm blessed by God? Because I got the money.
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How do I know I'm blessed by God? Because I got the stuff.
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How do I know I'm blessed by God? Because I got the pretty wife.
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Right? It's always material that we're looking at for blessing.
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And yet at the same time, the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy that the love of money is the root of what? All kinds of people.
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All kinds of people.
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That's an important connection there because the love of money is not the root of everything.
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The love of money is not the root of rape or incest, things like that.
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But the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
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All kinds of evil come from the love of money.
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Matthew 6 tells us, do not lay up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but lay for yourself treasures in heaven.
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Right? I heard one Pentecostal charismatic Word of Faith guy.
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He said, well, if the treasure's in heaven, it doesn't say I can't take it out early.
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And I'm going to take it.
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Yeah, he said, I can get my deposit early.
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But here's the issue.
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Luke 6.13 says, no one can serve two masters.
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He'll either hate one and love the other, or he'll be devoted to one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and money.
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And the one passage that should remind us all of the dangers of wealth is Matthew 19.24.
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Jesus himself speaking, said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
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Now, this passage has been debated as to its meaning, because some people have said that what it's talking about is that there were several gates that went around the wall of Israel.
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And there was one small gate called the eye of the needle.
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And a donkey could just barely get, not a donkey, but a camel could just barely get down and crawl under that hole.
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And that's why it was called the eye of the needle, because it was such a small hole.
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That's actually not something that is historically founded.
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That story is a story, but there's no archaeological evidence that that existed.
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I personally think that when Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, I don't think he was talking about a hole in a wall.
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I think he was literally talking about the eye of a needle.
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And I think he was using what's called hyperbole.
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You know what hyperbole is? Exaggeration.
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Yes, it's an exaggeration.
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You know what a parable is? Parable is when you set something along something else.
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It means to have an equality or an equal.
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A parable, a parable is what it is.
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And a hyperbole is an extreme example that you set.
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This is a hyper thing that you set beside something.
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It's hyperbole, right? And so when Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, what he meant was that's impossible, right? It would be you'd have to shove that thing one little bit at a time.
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And he said that's how hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
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And that's important for us to think about because it is very difficult for somebody who has great wealth in the world to enter the kingdom because of this.
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Most men don't own their wealth.
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Most men are owned by their wealth.
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Most men don't possess what they have.
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What they have possesses them.
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And with that in mind, I want to read verses one through six of James chapter five.
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James chapter five, verse one.
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Come now, you rich.
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Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
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Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth eaten.
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Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
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You have laid up treasure in the last days.
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Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your field, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you.
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And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
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You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self indulgence.
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You fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
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You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
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And he does not resist you.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for a word like today that's going to be so important for us to hear.
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It's going to challenge us on many levels.
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And Lord, I know that many of us today in this room don't have the world's wealth.
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In fact, some of us don't have very much at all.
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And yet at the same time, this passage is going to speak to us, not because we're rich and wealthy from the world standards, but so many men still rely on themselves.
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And what little they do have rather than trusting in you, they're still willing to defraud even if they don't have much to defraud with rather than trusting in you.
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And Father, we're going to see this text, Lord, and I pray that you'd open our eyes to pray that you'd open our heart to it.
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Pray that you would inspire each and every one of us to follow what you have to say here.
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I pray for the believers in the room, Lord, that you would draw them closer to you by the preaching of the word.
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And Lord, for the unbelievers, Lord, the ones who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, I pray that you would convict them under the weight of your word.
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Pray that you would draw them to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, that they would come on knees, Lord, to him in obedience and faith to what he has done.
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And we pray it, Lord, in his name.
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Amen.
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As we open this chapter, James is giving a warning against people who have a lot of wealth.
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We've already mentioned that, but he's not just giving a warning to people who have wealth.
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If you read the whole passage, verse one through six, he's actually giving a warning to people who have wealth and are oppressing the poor.
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That's the that's the the additional.
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It's not just that they have wealth, but it's that they're also oppressing the poor.
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And I want you to notice something.
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Look here in verse one.
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It says, come now, I knew come now.
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That's the the word there.
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And I want you to look back at chapter four, verse 13.
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And you'll notice in the ESV it's the same language.
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It's come now.
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Do you notice that? Did they have anything different rather than come now? Or is everybody got come now? Four, 13 and five one.
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It's the same.
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I'll get news in the Greek.
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Now, listen, that's that's a more modern expression.
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What's that? The new living? Yeah.
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And I mean, now, listen, that's the same thing.
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The idea is that we're seeing a connection between four, 13 and five one.
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We're seeing the same language that's being used in four, 13 and five one, because both of these are dealing with people who are living.
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And this expression that I use, they're living as practical atheists.
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What is a practical atheist? Well, a normal atheist is a person who says God doesn't exist.
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A practical atheist is a person who lives like God doesn't exist.
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They might say God exists.
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They might mention his name in their prayers.
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They might mention his name at their parties.
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They might mention his name in their poems, but they don't believe in it.
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They don't live like he exists.
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In chapter four, he talked about the person who says, come now, you who say you're going to go here and there, you're going to do this or that.
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You're going to you're going to you're going to earn this or that.
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Don't you know that you should say if the Lord wills, I'm going to go here, there, do this or that and earn this or that.
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Right.
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That person lives as a practical atheist because they live as if God doesn't exist.
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Well, the same thing is happening here in chapter five, verse one.
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It's a person who lives as a practical atheist.
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It's a man who makes his life and his plans apart from the consideration of God and a man who sees his wealth as his God rather than God himself.
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He's trusting in what is fading.
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What's that? Yeah, that's a that's a term I use.
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That's not a theological term.
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That's just something I made up.
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Practical atheism, for me, is what most people in America live with.
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Most.
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Oh, man, that's good.
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Most people in America, what I call CEOs, go to church on Christmas, Easter only, you know, CEOs and they and they live their life with a with a mouth towards God, but a life towards the world.
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Boy, that's right.
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That's absolutely true.
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And so their life is not lived for God.
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But when but when somebody dies, they want a Christian funeral or somebody gets married, they want a Christian wedding.
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And like I said, on Christmas and Easter, they want to go celebrate the birth and the resurrection, even though they really don't believe it.
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That's the problem.
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Practical atheism is is really just the way the average folk live.
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I do funerals for a funeral home.
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In fact, Saturday, I could do a funeral for a young man who committed suicide.
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That's going to be tough.
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And I do funerals for people who I've never met before.
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And I have to learn all about their life in three days.
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Usually they call me three days from now.
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We need you to come and speak at this person's funeral.
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And I go and I talk about their life.
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And then I talk about Jesus.
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I said, as long as I can talk about Jesus, I'll come.
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If I can't talk about Jesus, I'm not going.
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And normally that's not a problem.
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Didn't have one family that wouldn't let me speak about Jesus.
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I said, well, I can't come.
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They said, we can't come.
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I said, I won't come.
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OK, that was easy enough.
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Find somebody else.
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But anyway, I do all these funerals and people want a Christian funeral.
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They want to have that end of life, you know, send off.
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They want Christian death.
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They don't want Christian life.
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They want Christian dying.
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They don't want Christian living.
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Yeah, they want somebody to say something good about.
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There was a Catholic priest in Mexico that had to bury a drug lord and he stood in the pulpit.
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And you know how I feel about Roman Catholicism.
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I got a lot of issues with Roman Catholics, but this guy, I was proud of this guy.
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He stood up in the pulpit and he said this guy was a mongrel and a hater and he's going to bust hell wide open.
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I'm surprised.
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I'm surprised he survived.
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But a lot of times in cultures like that, the pastor has a little bit more, almost superstition around and people won't touch him because of who he is.
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So he was able to say he's going to bust hell wide open and the family just.
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I say, amen.
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One of the biggest lines I ever told him, just say what the people want to hear.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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That's why I always divide.
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When I do funerals, I say I'm going to spend time talking to people.
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I'll be talking about your loved one and I'll say that he was a person who loved his family.
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I'll say he was a person who worked hard, whatever.
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I won't say he's in heaven because I don't know.
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And I won't say that, you know, he was a faithful Christian if he wasn't.
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But I will say it was, you know, whatever.
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But then I always at one point in the sermon, I say, OK, that was for them.
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Now this is for you.
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Funerals are for the living, not for the dead.
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He can't hear us, but you can.
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So I'm going to talk to you now.
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And I always make that shift and say now we're going to talk to you.
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That sort of took me off my point there, but the point is people live as practical atheists until they die.
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They want to know they have something to look forward to at death, right? Well, anyway, getting back to the text here.
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What we're seeing in this text is a prophetic announcement.
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And you guys understand how prophetic announcements work.
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If you go back to the Old Testament, sometimes there were prophecies that weren't necessarily intended to call to repentance, but instead were to bring a word of judgment.
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This is what is going to happen to you.
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This is what God has determined is going to happen to you.
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This is who you are and this is the result of what you are and what you have done.
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I say that because I believe that's what James 1 through 6 is.
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I don't think James is talking to people in the church.
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I think James is talking to people outside, or rather, let me say this again.
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I don't think he's talking about people in the church.
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I think he's talking about people outside the church that the people in the church would naturally envy.
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People that have not a lot tend to envy those who have a lot.
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You see the guy in the nice car? Boy, I wish I had that.
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See the person with the nice clothes? Boy, I wish I had that.
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See the person with the fine family and the good looking wife? Boy, I wish I had that.
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We tend to envy what we don't have.
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So James is in these six verses reminding the church of what is going to happen to those people who have all of that but don't have Christ.
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He's reminding them of the judgment that's going to befall those who have all those things but don't have Jesus.
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In fact, I want to quote John Calvin.
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This is his commentary on this passage.
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He says, they are mistaken, I think, who consider that James here exhorts the rich to repentance.
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It seems to me to be a simple denunciation of God's judgment by which He meant to terrify them without giving them any hope of pardon.
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For all He says tends to despair.
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He therefore does not address them in order to invite them to repentance, but on the contrary, He has regard to the faithful, that they, hearing of the miserable end of the rich, might not envy their fortune.
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You understand? When you hear what's going to happen to them, you don't want to be like them anymore.
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You say, oh boy, look at what a great life he has.
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He's got the great car, he's got the great clothes, he's got the great wife, but he's going to hell.
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He's got all these things, but his end is destruction.
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You see the point? See, the point is to say, if you're envying that, stop.
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If you're looking at that and wanting that, stop.
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Because that's not what should be the pursuit of this life.
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Riches should not be the pursuit of this life.
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Christ should be the pursuit of this life.
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And if you live for Christ and die in poverty, you've not died in vain.
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But if you live for riches and you die in riches, but you die without Christ, you will open your eyes in hell.
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Luke 16, the rich man who feasted sumptuously every day, and he wore fine purple clothing, and he was the guest of honor at the feasts.
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When he closed his eyes here, he opened his eyes in hell.
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And everything that he had in this life bore witness against him in hell.
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You understand? Don't envy the rich if they don't have Christ.
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And don't feel like you are less if you do have Christ.
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If you have Christ, you're much better off than any man who has anything.
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So with that in mind, let's look at verse 1.
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We're going to just walk through the text as we normally do, just verse by verse, making comments as we go.
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He says, Come now, you rich.
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Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.
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Now and again, make a point.
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Who is he talking to? He's talking to the rich.
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And I think he's talking to the people that are unsaved and rich.
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Can you be saved and be rich? Yes.
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You know, there's a lot of debate about that.
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Rare.
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Yeah, it's rare.
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But even in church history, there was debate.
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Some people believed to be saved you had to become a monk.
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You had to become an ascetic person who separated himself from everything.
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Lived out in the fields and didn't have anything.
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Begged for everything.
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I really don't believe that that is necessary.
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Because if that were so, there would be no Christian businessmen.
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There would be no Christian bosses.
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There'd be no Christian politicians.
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And there might not be.
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But can't we hope that there are people who know Christ in all of those things? Wouldn't it be great to work for somebody who knew Jesus? I have a man in our church.
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He's one of our elders.
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His name is Mike and he owns a painting and drywall business.
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He has, I think, 20 employees that work for him.
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And all of his employees, he has to be able to pay them a wage that's able to support their families.
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And so not only does he have to put food on his own table, but he's got to put food on 20 other men's homes' tables.
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And so he has to go out and work to get jobs and to provide for those men.
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Yes sir, you can ask the question.
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Well, this place wouldn't exist without people donating and giving.
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That's a good point.
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That's absolutely true.
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That's absolutely true.
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And a lot of those people do have money.
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That's how they're able to give money.
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Truett Caffey, the guy who owned Chick-fil-A.
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You know, he had money and that's how he was able to build that business.
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And he gets one-seventh less than all other businesses because he closes every Sunday.
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He gets one-seventh less than all the other businesses and his business is booming.
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Yes sir, I'm sorry.
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Missionaries oftentimes have to have somebody finance them and send them to go and do the work that they're going to do.
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Absolutely.
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We call that holding the rope.
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Right? Imagine somebody going down into a well.
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Somebody's at the top holding the rope.
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The guy down the well is obviously the guy who's more invested because he could die.
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But the guy holding the rope is also important because if he wasn't holding the rope, the other guy would die.
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So we say not everybody's called to be sent, but some people are called to send.
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Right? If you're sending, you're holding the rope.
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If you're sent, you're the guy on the other end of the rope.
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Right? But both are important.
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Right? You've got to have both.
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So, absolutely.
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Yes, and there's different kinds of riches, obviously.
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I would say that a man who loves Jesus and has a family and is able to provide even a little for them, it can be a joyful man, it can be a happy man.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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Can be rich in that.
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So when he says, come now, you rich, weep and howl.
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I think he's speaking to a specific type of people, and we see this really in verse 2.
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Because he says, your riches have rotted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidenced against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
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You've laid up treasure in the last days.
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What's he talking about there? He's talking, huh? He's talking about judgment.
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He's talking about the fact that all of this that they have is going to go away.
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You know the old story, the old saying, you don't put a U-Haul in the back of a hearse.
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Right? You can't take it with you.
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Right? Oftentimes, I'll see caskets and guys there in the casket, and they come up and they put stuff in the casket.
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And I understand a picture or whatever, you know.
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Yeah, but sometimes they put really nice stuff in there.
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I'm like, hey, he can't enjoy it.
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What are we doing? This is no good.
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He's dead.
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He's not going to enjoy this.
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He's either in heaven and he's not needed, or he's in hell and he can't use it.
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Either way, he's bad off.
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Or he's not bad off, he's in heaven.
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But this is no use to him.
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And what's interesting about this is he says this in the past tense.
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Sometimes you need to understand when a prophetic announcement is made.
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Remember I said this is a prophetic announcement.
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When a prophetic announcement is made, from God's perspective, it can be made in the past tense, even if it's in the future, because God is saying something from his perspective that's already certain.
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I'll give you an example.
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For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
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For whom he predestined, he also called.
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Whom he called, he justified.
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Whom he justified, he glorified.
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Right? From God's perspective, if you're called, you're justified.
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And if you're justified, you're glorified.
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It's a past tense action, even though you're not there yet.
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Even though you're not in glory yet, from God's perspective, it's a done deal.
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From God's perspective, it's already finished.
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Because God doesn't work in potentialities.
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God works in actualities, and he's the actual one who's actually determined what's going to be.
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God doesn't wonder about tomorrow.
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He knows for sure.
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Brother, you had your hand up.
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I'll let you go ahead and take it from there.
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And they, you know, they got a big sketch at first, and then they come back home, and I'm like, what happened? And it's like, you know, they don't believe in God and Christ and stuff, but it's like when they get there, they forget that it's God that gave them the talent.
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And you see it all the time, even in sports, where guys just start, you know, when they blow up, they start glorifying their self instead of God.
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And so it's kind of like, can you break down like, when you come from nothing, and then it's just like awesome to get all that money.
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But how did they, you know what I'm saying? Because it's just like, boom, it's like.
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So they believed in God, and then they didn't believe in God.
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Well, they do, but it's just like, they take their eyes off of it, and because the money comes, and then boom, you know, over here, the energy might come.
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I was like, what happened? It's just like, man, you know, the world got caught up, you know, whatever.
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And it's just like, they can lose it too.
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So it's just like, if you do get a blessing from God, say you just win the lottery, you just play the lottery one time, and you get all that money.
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It's just like, how do you maintain, like, if something like that happens? Is it a blessing from God, or is that chance? You know what I mean? Well, one, I don't believe in chance.
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Right.
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Ain't no such thing as chance.
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But here's what does happen, and it kind of goes along with what you're asking.
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The Bible talks about the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, right? The three things that, you know, we talk about the world, the flesh, and the devil as our three great enemies.
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If a person is genuinely a Christian, he is the object of Satan's desire to make him ineffective.
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If you are genuinely a believer, Satan can't have you, but he can make you ineffective.
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He can't make you a non-believer, but he can certainly rob you of effectiveness.
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And so we see this in men, don't we? We see this in God.
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I've always said Satan will give you good if he keeps you from getting what God has that's best for you.
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Satan will give you something good to keep you from getting what God has that's best for you.
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And that talent and all those things may be good.
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And those things that he's able to do may be good from a world perspective.
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But it may be keeping him from what God wants.
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I'll give you an example.
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And I'm not a big football guy.
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I don't watch football.
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Sorry, that is not my thing.
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But that guy who was a big Christian young man...
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Tebow, right? He didn't make it in the NFL.
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He didn't make it in baseball.
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That ain't what God has for him.
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He's not unsuccessful.
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He's a successful young man.
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But you know his daddy was a missionary.
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He was homeschooled.
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And I think God has something different for him and I don't think it's out throwing a ball.
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Not that there's anything unnoble about throwing a ball.
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As talented as he is, I think God has something different for him and I think he sees that.
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I think he's willing to go where God wants him to go and do what God wants him to do.
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Again, I don't know him from Adam.
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I only know what I see on the television.
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But I'd like to believe that that's what he's doing is listening to the Lord and going where God wants him to go.
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Some people, they get caught up in the world's delights.
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They grow up in church.
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They know the Lord.
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They know the Word.
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And the Bible talks about in Proverbs like the whorish woman who comes to steal the man away.
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And even though your mom and your dad have told you don't go after the whorish woman, she sure is delightful.
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She smells good.
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She looks good.
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She feels good.
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And so you want to go after that.
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And the world comes in so many different ways.
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Whether it's money, or power, or the feeling of euphoria that comes with alcohol and drugs and sex.
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All of those things are opportunities for us to go away from the will of God.
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And so like I said, it's all there.
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And why people do it, it's either they're not saved, or they are at that moment, they've fallen away for whatever reason and the Lord's going to bring them back.
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You know, the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession, two confessions that I teach from, talk about the fact that a Christian can fall into sin, but they won't stay there.
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And that's the difference.
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You know, what was the difference between Peter and Judas? They both fell into sin.
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Peter denied Christ three times.
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Judas betrayed Christ.
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Judas betrayed Christ and he went and hung himself.
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Peter betrayed Christ by denying Him three times, and Jesus came to him and gave him restoration.
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Do you love Me? Yes, Lord, You know I love You.
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Do you love Me? Yes, Lord, I love You.
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Do you love Me? Three times he asked, Do you love Me? Why? Because he denied Him three times.
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It was an opportunity for restoration.
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Can Christians sin? Yes.
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Can they be restored? Yes.
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So that's the difference, right? And oftentimes we see it later, whether or not a man's going to be restored, or whether or not a man's going to demonstrate that he was never saved in the first place.
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1 John tells us if a man goes out from us, he was never of us.
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For if he had been with us, he would have stayed with us.
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But he went out from us to show that he was not truly of us.
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So when somebody departs forever, it's a demonstration that they were never truly of us.
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Jesus talks about the seed that falls among the rocky soil.
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It springs up for a time, but then what? It dies because it had no root.
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Right? It was not truly rooted.
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Alright, so this is...
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And I don't mind going away, but we've got to get it back to the text.
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Because basically what he's saying here in verses 2 and 3 is the assurance of what's going to happen to these rich man's wealth.
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Their riches are going to be rotted and moth-eaten.
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He says they already are.
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Because from God's perspective, it's already a done deal.
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These people, their riches are moth-eaten, they're rotted, their gold and silver are corroded, and all of this is just going to be evidence against them on the last day.
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Look at what you have.
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Look at all that you have.
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And this is going to bear witness against them at judgment.
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You had no reason not to believe in God with all the blessings of material wealth that you had.
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You had no reason not to believe in God, and yet you didn't.
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Yes? So it's basically a wrap.
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God already knows.
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He says prophetic announcement with this right here.
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So there's no chance for...
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Well, the people here are talking to at this particular time, that it's a wrap.
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Your money's already corroded, everything that you work hard for.
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Is it because they were using...
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Like unlawfully said, like holding back...
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Yeah, we're going to see that in verse 4.
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But yeah.
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But yeah, but again, I'm not saying there's no chance for repentance for any of them.
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What I'm saying is this is not a call to repentance.
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This is a call of judgment.
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This is a pronouncement of judgment.
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But you remember, though, when Jonah preached to Nineveh, he pronounced judgment too, but they repented.
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So even though it's a pronouncement of judgment, if one of those rich people hear it and say, oh, I don't want that to be me, and they repent and fall on their knees before the Lord, it's not like the Lord's going to say, no, you can't come.
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You know what I'm saying? When Jonah went to Nineveh, he didn't preach repentance.
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He preached in 40 days the Lord's bringing judgment.
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They responded to that in repentance.
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And Jonah was surprised and angry.
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He didn't want them to repent.
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He hated them.
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The Assyrians had destroyed his people.
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They had attacked his people.
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They were his enemies.
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That's why he didn't want to go in the first place.
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And when God did bring them grace instead of judgment, he got angry.
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Jonah's really a great...
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People always think of Jonah, all they think about is the whale.
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The whole story of Jonah is a city that was evil, a prophet that didn't want to bring them the good news.
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He brings them the good news.
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They repent, and then he's angry because they repent.
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It's really a wild story.
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I mean, it's true.
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It's not a story.
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It's a true narrative.
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But it's really a wild situation.
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Can you explain the parable of the two sons? Hold on.
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What are you talking about? The prodigal son and the other son? No, the vineyard and he said, I will not go, but he repented and went.
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And then the second son said, I will go, but he didn't go.
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Yeah, it's a parable about obedience.
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Delayed obedience is still obedience.
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Verbal acquiescence without true obedience is not obedience.
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I mean, that's the difference, right? If you tell me you're going to do something and you don't do it, that's worse than if you tell me you will and then you don't for a while.
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That's the difference.
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It's an issue of obedience.
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I'd have to go to that text and walk through it with you, but the issue there is...
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The repentance thing is good though.
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Well, like, look, if you get a chore and say, and there's a guy who says, I'm not going to do it, but then he does the chore, that's better than someone who says he's going to do it and never does it.
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That's right.
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And again, that kind of takes me off the path that I'm going on, but that's really, again, it's an issue of obedience.
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Are we going to be obedient or not? Are we going to be obedient to the Lord or are we not? You said two sons.
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I was thinking the prodigal son.
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Because you know the prodigal son has got two sons too.
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People often think of just the prodigal son.
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The story is actually about the other brother.
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It's not about the prodigal son.
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It's about the brother who was mad that his dad was willing to accept the other one back.
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Oftentimes we miss those little side parts.
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But anyhow, I want to just...
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Looking at verse 4.
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Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you.
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And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
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What's he talking about? Again, he's talking to the rich.
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He's saying your riches are going to be destroyed or are destroyed.
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Why? Because you are evil in your riches.
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You have people who work for you and you are defrauding them.
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Notice again.
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It says you've kept back their wages by fraud.
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And that action is crying out against you.
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And he says in verse 5, you've lived on the earth in luxury and self-indulgence.
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You've fattened your hearts.
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Excuse me.
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You've fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
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By the way, the picture of the judgment of God on the wicked is always one of absolute severity.
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The day of slaughter.
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An amazing thought.
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The judgment of the wicked.
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You go back and read Revelation.
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Death and hell give up.
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They're dead.
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And they are cast into the lake of fire, which burns forever.
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They've fattened their hearts in the day of slaughter.
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It's just like you take an animal and you set that animal aside and you feed it good grain and you feed it corn and you get it good and fat.
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The animal's happy.
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The animal's excited.
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I'm getting fed every day.
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I'm getting three squares a day.
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It's just like Wilbur from Charlotte's Web.
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He's excited because he's getting fed every day.
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Not realizing he's soon going to be bacon.
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He's soon fixing to be sausage.
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That's the rich person.
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He's living the life of luxury.
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He's fattening his heart for what? The day when his heart is going to be laid bare before the Lord and it's going to be destroyed.
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Slaughter.
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So that's the picture.
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You live your life in self-indulgence.
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You fatten your hearts in the day of slaughter.
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Now verse 6 is a little hard.
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I want to make sure you understand.
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It says, You have condemned and murdered the righteous person.
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Now I want to say this.
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I do think that this is a figure of speech in the same way when Jesus said if you've hated someone, you've murdered them.
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I don't think that these rich people are literally murdering people.
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Even though they might have murdered someone.
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In the ancient world, if you robbed your neighbor of his livelihood, that was considered a type of killing him.
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In fact, even in the old American world, when America was founded, you realize if you rustled cattle, you could be hung.
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If you stole someone's livelihood, you could be killed because that was considered an attack against their livelihood.
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You were attacking their well-being.
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You stole cows, you could be killed.
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Right? They didn't have long prison sentences.
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If it was that long, you'd just go to the tree.
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Right? That's how it ended.
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Well, that's a different story.
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But the reality that I'm saying is this.
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They've condemned and murdered the righteous person.
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Their worker in this scenario is the righteous person.
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He's come to work.
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He's cut their grass.
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He's tended to their fields.
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He's done what he's supposed to do.
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And instead, at the end of the day...
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And by the way, they would pay him at the end of the day.
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You remember that parable of Jesus where He said He paid the guys that came in at different times.
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They all got the same and the guy got mad.
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So they were getting paid at the end of the day.
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And at the end of the day, He says, I'll pay you tomorrow.
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And then He doesn't pay him tomorrow.
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He says, I'll pay you at the end of the week.
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He doesn't pay him at the end of the week.
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This rich person is not just a rich person, but he's a rich fraud.
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He's an evil rich man.
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And he's a rich man who's willing to get his fortune off the backs of others' misfortune.
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He's willing to raise himself up by standing on someone else.
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Even to their own destruction.
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This entire statement of judgment is against those who have replaced God with wealth.
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And they've replaced His command to care for others with a desire to care only for themselves.
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And James is offering up a judgment call against them.
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Come now, you rich.
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Weep and howl.
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For destruction is coming upon you.
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And what does that say to the church? Do not envy them.
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Do not seek to be like them.
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I can't tell you, beloved, how many people in the church, they raise their kids up.
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And they raise their kids up with one mindset.
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We've got to get you into college so you can go get a good job and have a good life.
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We've got to get you into a school where you're going to make a lot of money.
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And the whole focus is money, money, money.
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My wife grew up in a house where her father told her she was a ball player.
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She actually went to college to pitch.
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She was an underhanded, fast-pitched softball player.
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But the whole reason why her father would drive her to all of these practices, the whole reason why he stood out there and held the glove for her day in and day out, the whole reason why he had her.
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And I used to stand there talking to her because when we were dating, I would just stand there and watch her.
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And she would sit there and practice this pitch.
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And she'd pitch.
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And she'd get into a wall and it'd bounce back to her.
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And she'd pitch hundreds of times every day.
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The whole reason was that her father wanted her to be wealthy.
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Because he said, if you become a good pitcher, you can go to a good college.
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If you go to a good college, you get a good job.
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You get a good job, you become wealthy.
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And the whole idea was wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth.
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But they didn't know Christ.
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Her father still doesn't know Christ.
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Unfortunately.
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We pray for him every day.
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We witness to him when we can.
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But the idea is, here's a man who sees wealth as the great thing to pursue.
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And James says, don't make wealth your pursuit.
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Don't make riches your pursuit.
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Don't make those things your pursuit.
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Make Christ your pursuit.
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If you pursue Him, you will never, ever be disappointed.
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And if you pursue wealth, even if you're not disappointed in this life, when you close your eyes in this life, you will be disappointed in the next.
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Because one day that wealth will rot.
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One day those riches will corrode.
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One day those garments will be moth-eaten.
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And one day your flesh will be in the dust.
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And you will stand before your Lord.
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Yes, sir.
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I've been out of this place one time, just like this man just right here.
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I was in North Carolina Stateville.
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I was watching these movies one time.
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And I like what you asked here, but I'm pretty sure I told you the same thing.
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I'm pretty sure I was all into money, for money and everything.
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Yeah.
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And he showed up in Dr.
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Mountain.
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He went back to the Great Depression in 1929, when it had already been 1945.
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When a lot of rich people started running out of money, how they started killing themselves.
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That's right.
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Killing themselves out of windows.
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They had a lot of Christians on the side, praying for them and stuff, you know what I'm saying? A lot of people fell weak during that time.
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The president went to the United States.
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You know, sometimes you got to tell him, because he brought a lot of stuff back up again.
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Now, do you know who Ernest Hemingway is? Yeah.
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Y'all know who Ernest Hemingway is? Yeah.
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Ernest Hemingway was an author.
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And let me tell you something.
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If there was ever a man who you would call a man's man, it was Ernest Hemingway.
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This guy, he wrote seven novels.
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He had four wives.
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He fought in three wars.
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He was in two plane crashes, survived three days apart.
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Plane crashed, he got off that plane, got on another plane, it crashed.
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He walked away from both plane crashes.
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His house was in South Florida.
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It is still a landmark to this day.
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On June 2nd, 1961, he woke up, left his wife in bed, walked down to his basement, pulled his favorite shotgun out of his closet, put both barrels into his mouth, and turned his head into a mist.
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The world's wealth he had.
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He had fame.
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He had a story of a life that lived the life of ten men.
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He had notoriety.
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He had friends.
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He had it all.
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But he didn't have Christ.
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Beloved, do not envy the rich.
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Do not envy those who have all this world has to offer, but have no hope.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the reminder today that we should not envy those who have a lot because they have a lot to answer for.
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But Lord, we should only seek You and seek Your Son.
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And know that in Him there is satisfaction.
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In Him there is full and complete redemption.
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And in Him there is joy.
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And outside of Him, though there may be wealth and riches, the end is only destruction.
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Father, I pray for every one of these men.
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I know that many of these men, Lord, may not have a lot in this world right now.
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But Lord, there may come a day when the world comes a calling and gives them an opportunity for something of great wealth, something of great opportunity.
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And Lord, if it's something that would take them away from You, I pray they would have the strength to say no.
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I pray that they would keep remembering, Lord, that there is a wide and broad street that leads to destruction.
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But there is a narrow path, and the narrow path leads to life.
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Father, may we follow that narrow path.
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In Christ's name, amen.