WesleyGospel Ministries

Taken from Richard Baxter’s A Christian Directory, Part II: Christian Economics, XXVII: “Directions for the Poor.”

There is no condition of life so low or poor, but may be sanctified, and fruitful, and comfortable to us, if our own misunderstanding, or sin and negligence, do not pollute it or embitter it to us: if we do the duty of our condition faithfully, we shall have no cause to murmur at it. Therefore I shall here direct the poor in the special duties of their condition; and if they will but conscientiously perform them, it will prove a greater kindness to them, than if I could deliver them from their poverty, and give them as much riches as they desire. Though I doubt this would be more pleasing to the most, and they would give me more thanks for money, than for teaching them how to want it.

Direct. I. Understand first the use and estimate of all earthly things: that they were never made to be your portion and felicity, but your provision and helps in the way to Heaven.[100] And therefore they are neither to be estimated nor desired simply for themselves, (for so there is nothing good but God,) but only as they are means to the greatest good. Therefore neither poverty nor riches are simply to be rejoiced in for themselves, as any part of our happiness; but that condition is to be desired and rejoiced in, which affords us the greatest helps for Heaven, and that condition only is to be lamented and disliked, which hinders us most from Heaven, and from our duty.

Direct. II. See therefore that you really take all these things, as matters in themselves indifferent, and of small concern to you; and as not worthy of much love, or care, or sorrow, further than they conduce to greater things. We are like runners in a race, and Heaven or Hell will be our end; and therefore woe to us, if by looking aside, or turning back, or stopping, or trifling about these matters, or burdening ourselves with worldly trash, we should lose the race, and lose our souls. O sirs, what greater matters than poverty or riches have we to mind! Can those souls that must shortly be in Heaven or Hell, have time to bestow any serious thoughts upon these impertinencies? Shall we so much as “look at the temporal things which are seen, instead of the things eternal that are unseen?” 2 Cor. iv. 18. Or shall we whine under those light afflictions, which may be so improved, as to “work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?” ver. 17. Our present “life is not in the abundance of the things which we possess,” Luke xii. 15; much less is our eternal life.

Direct. III. Therefore take heed that you judge not of God’s love, or of your happiness or misery, by your riches or poverty, prosperity or adversity, as knowing that they come alike to all,[101] and love or hatred is not to be discerned by them; except only God’s common love, as they are common mercies to the body. If a surgeon is not to be taken for a hater of you, because he lets your blood, nor a physician because he purges his patient, nor a father because he corrects his child; much less is God to be judged an enemy to you, or unmerciful, because his wisdom and not your folly disposes of you, and proportions your estates. A carnal mind will judge of its own happiness and the love of God by carnal things, because it savors not spiritual mercies: but grace gives a Christian another judgment, relish, and desire; as nature sets a man above the food and pleasures of a beast.

Direct. IV. Steadfastly believe that God is every way fitter than you to dispose of your estate and you.[102] He is infinitely wise, and knows what is best and fittest for you: he knows beforehand what good or hurt any state of plenty or want will do you: he knows all your corruptions, and what condition will most conduce to strengthen them or destroy them, and which will be your greatest temptations and snares, and which will prove your safest state; much better than any physician or parent knows how to diet his patient or his child. And His love and kindness are much greater to you, than yours are to yourself; and therefore He will not be wanting in willingness to do you good: and His authority over you is absolute, and therefore His disposal of you must be unquestionable. “It is the Lord: let Him do what seems Him good,” 1 Sam. iii. 18. The will of God should be the rest and satisfaction of your wills, Acts xxi. 14.

Direct. V. Steadfastly believe that, ordinarily, riches are far more dangerous to the soul than poverty, and a greater hindrance to men’s salvation. Believe experience; how few of the rich and rulers of the earth are holy, heavenly, self-denying, mortified men! Believe our Savior, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And he said, The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God,” Luke xviii. 24, 25, 27. So that you see the difficulty is so great of saving such as are rich, that to men it is a thing impossible, but to God’s omnipotence only it is possible. So 1 Cor. i. 26, “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.” Believe this, and it will prevent many dangerous mistakes.

Direct. VI. Hence you may perceive, that though no man must pray absolutely either for riches or poverty, yet of the two it is more rational ordinarily to pray against riches than for them, and to be rather troubled when God makes us rich, than when He makes us poor. (I mean it, in respect to ourselves, as either of them seems to conduce to our own good or hurt; though to do good to others, riches are more desirable.) This cannot be denied by any man that believes Christ: for no wise man will long for the hindrance of his salvation, or pray to God to make it as hard a thing for him to be saved, as for a camel to go through a needle’s eye; when salvation is a matter of such unspeakable moment, and our strength is so small, and the difficulties so many and great already.

Object. But Christ doth not deny but the difficulties to the poor may be as great. Answ. To some particular persons upon other accounts it may be so; but it is clear in the text, that Christ speaks comparatively of such difficulties as the rich had more than the poor.

Object. But then how are we obliged to be thankful to God for giving us riches, or blessing our labors?[103] Answ. 1. You must be thankful for them, because in their own nature they are good, and it is by accident, through your own corruption, that they become so dangerous. 2. Because you may do good with them to others, if you have hearts to use them well. 3. Because God in giving them to you rather than to others, doth signify (if you are His children) that they are fitter for you than for others. In Bedlam and among foolish children, it is a kindness to keep fire, and swords, and knives out of their way; but yet they are useful to people that have the use of reason. But our folly in spiritual matters is so great, that we have little cause to be too eager for that which we are inclined so dangerously to abuse, and which proves the bane of most that have it.

Direct. VII. See that your poverty be not the fruit of your idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, pride, or any other flesh-pleasing sin.[104] For if you bring it thus upon yourselves, you can never look that it should be sanctified to your good, till sound repentance have turned you from the sin: nor are you objects worthy of much pity from man (except as you are miserable sinners). He that rather chooses to have his ease and pleasure, though with want, than to have plenty, and to want his ease and pleasure, it is pity that he should have any better than he chooses.

1. Slothfulness and idleness are sins that naturally tend to want, and God hath caused them to be punished with poverty; as you may see, Prov. xii. 24, 27; xviii. 9; xxi. 25; xxiv. 34; xxvi. 14, 15; vi. 11; xx. 13. Yea, He commands that if any (that is able) “will not work, neither should he eat,” 2 Thess. iii. 10. In the sweat of their face must they eat their bread, Gen. iii. 19; and “six days must they labor and do all that they have to do.” To maintain your idleness is a sin in others. If you will please your flesh with ease, it must be displeased with want; and you must suffer what you choose.

2. Gluttony and drunkenness are such beastly devourers of mercy, and abusers of mankind, that shame and poverty are their punishment and cure. Prov. xxiii. 20, 21, “Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.” It is not lawful for any man to feed the greedy appetites of such: if they choose a short excess before a longer competency, let them have their choice.

3. Pride also is a most consuming, wasteful sin: it sacrifices God’s mercies to the devil, in serving him by them, in his first-born sin. Proud persons must lay it out in pomp and gaudiness, to set forth themselves to the eyes of others; in buildings, and entertainments, and fine clothes, and curiosities: and poverty is also both the proper punishment and cure of this sin: and it is cruelty for any to save them from it, and resist God, that by abasing them takes the way to do them good, Prov. xi. 2; xxix. 23; xvi. 18.

4. Falsehood also, and deceit, and unjust getting, tend to poverty; for God doth often, even in this present life, thus enter into judgment with the unjust. Ill-gotten wealth is like fire in the thatch, and brings ofttimes a secret curse and destruction upon all the rest. The same may be said of unmercifulness to the poor; which is oft cursed with poverty, when the liberal are blessed with plenty, Prov. xi. 24, 25; Isa. xxxii. 8; Psal. lxxiii. 21, 22, 25, 26, 34, 35.

Direct. VIII. Be acquainted with the special temptations of the poor, that you may be furnished to resist them. Every condition hath its own temptations, which persons in that condition must specially be fortified and watch against; and this is much of the wisdom and safety of a Christian.

Tempt. I. One temptation of poverty will be to draw you to think higher of riches and honors than you ought; to make you think that the rich are much happier than they are. For the world is like all other deceivers; it is most esteemed where it is least known. They that never tried a life of wealth, and plenty, and prosperity, are apt to admire it, and think it braver and better than it is. And so you may be drawn as much to over-love the world by want, as other men by plenty. Against this remember, that it is folly to admire that which you never tried and knew; and mark whether all men do not vilify it, that have tried it to the last: dying men call it no better than vanity and deceit. And it is rebellious pride in you so far to contradict the wisdom of God, as to think most highly of that condition which He hath judged worst for you; and to fall in love with that which he denies you.

Tempt. II. The poor will also be tempted to over-much care about their wants and worldly matters;[105] they will think that necessity requires it in them, and will excuse them. So much care is your duty, as is needful to the right doing of your work. Take care how to discharge your own duties; but be not too careful about the event, which belongs to God. If you will care what you should be and do, God will care sufficiently what you shall have.[106] And so be it you faithfully do your business, your other care will add nothing to the success, nor make you any richer, but only vex and disquiet your minds. It is the poor as well as the rich, that God hath commanded to be careful for nothing, and to cast all their care on him.

Tempt. III. Poverty also will tempt you to repining, impatience, and discontent, and to fall out with others; which because it is one of the chief temptations, I will speak to by itself anon.

Tempt. IV. Also you will be tempted to be coveting after more:[107] Satan makes poverty a snare to draw many needy creatures to greater covetousness than many of the rich are guilty of; none thirst more eagerly after more; and yet their poverty blinds them, so that they cannot see that they are covetous, or else excuse it as a justifiable thing. They think that they desire no more but necessaries, and that it is not covetousness, if they desire not unnecessary things. But do you not covet more than God allots you? and are you not discontent with His allowance? And doth not He know best what is necessary for you, and what superfluous? What then is covetousness, if this be not?

Tempt. V. Also you will be tempted to envy the rich, and to censure them in matters where you are incompetent judges. It is usual with the poor to speak of the rich with envy and censoriousness; they call them covetous, merely because they are rich, especially if they give them nothing; when they know not what ways of necessary expense they have, nor know how many others they are liberal to, that they are unacquainted with. Till you see their accounts you are unfit to censure them.

Tempt. VI. The poor also will be tempted to use unlawful means to supply their wants.[108] How many by the temptation of necessity have been tempted to comply with sinners, and wound their consciences, and lie and flatter for favor or preferment (rapport), or to cheat, or steal, or over-reach! A dear price! to buy the food that perishes, with the loss or hazard of everlasting life; and lose their souls to provide for their flesh!

Tempt. VII. Also you will be tempted to neglect your souls, and omit your spiritual duties, and, as Martha, to be troubled about many things, while the one thing needful is forgotten; and you will think that necessity will excuse all this; yea, some think to be saved because they are poor, and say, God will not punish them in this life and another too. But alas, you are more inexcusable than the rich, if you are ungodly and mindless of the life to come. For he that will love a life of poverty and misery better than Heaven, deserves indeed to go without it, much more than he that prefers a life of plenty and prosperity before it. God hath taught you by His providence to know, that you must either be happy in Heaven, or nowhere;—if you would be worldlings, and part with Heaven for your part on earth, how poor a bargain are you like to make! To love rags, and toil, and want, and sorrow, better than eternal joy and happiness, is the most unreasonable kind of ungodliness in the world. It is true, that you are not called to spend so many hours of the week days in reading and meditation, as some that have greater leisure are; but you have reason to seek Heaven, and set your hearts upon it, as much as they; and you must think of it when you are about your labor, and take those opportunities for your spiritual duties which are allowed you. Poverty will excuse ungodliness in none! Nothing is so necessary as the service of God and your salvation; and therefore no necessity can excuse you from it. Read the case of Mary and Martha, Luke x. 41, 42. One would think that your hearts should be wholly set upon Heaven, who have nothing else but it to trust to. The poor have fewer hindrances than the rich, in the way to life eternal! And God will save no man because he is poor; but condemn poor and rich that are ungodly.

Tempt. VIII. Another great temptation of the poor, is to neglect the holy education of their children; so that in most places, there are none so ignorant, and rude, and heathenish, and unwilling to learn, as the poorest people and their children: they never teach them to read, nor teach them any thing for the saving of their souls; and they think that their poverty will be an excuse for all; when reason tells them, that none should be more careful to help their children to Heaven, than they that can give them nothing upon earth.

Direct. IX. Be acquainted with the special duties of the poor; and carefully perform them. They are these:

1. Let your sufferings teach you to despise the world; it will be a happy poverty if it do but help to wean your affections from all things below; that you set as little by the world as it deserves.

2. Be eminently heavenly-minded; the less you have or hope for in this life, the more fervently seek a better.[109] You are at least as capable of the heavenly treasures as the greatest princes; God purposely straightens your condition in the world, that He may force up your hearts unto Himself, and teach you to seek first for that which indeed is worth your seeking, Matt. vi. 33, 19-21.

3. Learn to live upon God alone; study His goodness, and faithfulness, and all-sufficiency; when you have not a place nor a friend in the world, that you can comfortably betake yourselves to for relief, retire unto God, and trust Him, and dwell the more with Him.[110] If your poverty have but this effect, it will be better to you than all the riches in the world.

4. Be laborious and diligent in your callings (hard working at your jobs): both precept and necessity call you unto this; and if you cheerfully serve Him in the labor of your hands, with a heavenly and obedient mind, it will be as acceptable to Him, as if you had spent all that time in more spiritual exercises; for He had rather have obedience than sacrifice; and all things are pure and sanctified to the pure; if you cheerfully serve God in the meanest work, it is the more acceptable to Him, by how much the more subjection and submission there is in your obedience.[111]

5. Be humble and submissive unto all. A poor man proud is doubly hateful; and if poverty cure your pride, and help you to be truly humble, it will be no small mercy to you.[112]

6. You are specially obliged to mortify the flesh, and keep your senses and appetites in subjection; because you have greater helps for it than the rich; you have not so many baits of lust, and wantonness, and gluttony, and voluptuousness as they.

7. Your corporal wants must make you more sensibly remember your spiritual wants; and teach you to value spiritual blessings: think with yourselves, if a hungry, cold, and naked body, be so great a calamity, how much greater is a guilty, graceless soul, a dead or diseased heart! If bodily food and necessaries are so desirable, oh how desirable is Christ and his Spirit, and the love of God and life eternal!

8. You must above all men be careful redeemers of your time; especially of the Lord’s day; your labors take up so much of your time, that you must be the more careful to catch every opportunity for your souls! Rise earlier to get half an hour for holy duty; and meditate on holy things in your labors, and spend the Lord’s day in special diligence, and be glad of such seasons; and let scarcity preserve your appetites.

9. Be willing to die; seeing the world gives you so cold entertainment, be the more content to let it go, when God shall call you; for what is here to detain your hearts?

10. Above all men, you should be most fearless of sufferings from men, and therefore true to God and conscience; for you have no great matter of honor, or riches, or pleasure to lose: as you fear not a thief, when you have nothing for him to rob you of.

11. Be specially careful to fit your children also for Heaven: provide them a portion which is better than a kingdom; for you can provide but little for them in the world.

12. Be exemplary in patience and contentedness with your state: for that grace should be the strongest in us which is most exercised; and poverty calls you to the frequent exercise of this.

Direct. X. Be specially furnished with those reasons which should keep you in a cheerful contentedness with your state; and may suppress every thought of anxiety and discontent.[113] As, 1. Consider as aforesaid, that that is the best condition for you which helps you best to Heaven; and God best knows what will do you good, or hurt. 2. That it is rebellion to grudge at the will of God; which must dispose of us, and should be our rest. 3. Look over the life of Christ, who chose a life of poverty for your sake; and had not a place to lay his head. He was not one of the rich and voluptuous in the world; and are you grieved to be conformed to Him? Phil. iii. 7-9. 4. Look to all His apostles, and most holy servants and martyrs. Were not they as great sufferers as you? 5. Consider that the rich will shortly be all as poor as you: naked they came into the world, and naked they must go out; and a little time makes little difference. 6. It is no more comfort to die rich than poor; but usually much less; because the pleasanter the world is to them, the more it grieves them to leave it. 7. All men cry out, that the world is vanity at last. How little is it valued by a dying man! and how sadly will it cast him off! 8. The time is very short and uncertain, in which you must enjoy it; we have but a few days more to walk about, and we are gone. Alas, of how small concern is it, whether a man be rich or poor, that is ready to step into another world! 9. The love of this world drawing the heart from God, is the common cause of men’s damnation; and is not the world likely to be over-loved, when it entertains you with prosperity, than when it uses you like an enemy? Are you displeased, that God thus helps to save you from the most damning sin? and that He makes not your way to Heaven more dangerous? 10. You little know the troubles of the rich. He that hath much, hath much to do with it, and much to care for; and many persons to deal with, and more vexations than you imagine. 11. It is but the flesh that suffers; and it furthers your mortification of it. 12. You pray but for your daily bread, and therefore should be contented with it. 13. Is not God, and Christ, and Heaven, enough for you? should that man be discontent that must live in Heaven? 14. Is it not your lust, rather than your well-informed reason, that repines? I do but name all these reasons for brevity: you may enlarge them in your meditations.

Why the Biblical financial ideal seems to be one of self-employment, saving, and investing in the lower middle class. Explains why I reject Republican capitalism; and I’m moving in the direction of a Biblical capitalism, which requires financial limits, ethical behavior, and generosity to the poor (David Chilton, Productive Christians, p. 40). A new book title for my e-book could be Biblical Economics: Wesley and the Puritans on Money. This would be a practical guide for Christians, who want to have an economic view, that has been brought fully under the lordship of Christ.

My view aligns the most with Gary North in Wealth and Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics, but I think Art Gish provides him with some necessary corrections, particularly in the area of living off the land and abandoning Corporate America and its egocentric attitudes about competition: see Gish’s book Beyond the Rat Race. Gish is more of a Jesus hippie.

Gary North has a website with free e-books and some of his books are on Amazon. He has some excellent material on Biblical capitalism from a Christian point of view. Among my favorites are:

1. Puritan Economic Experiments – this is how I became convinced that working at home is the Christian ideal.

2. Economic Commentary on the Bible: Proverbs – Solomon was the wisest and richest man in the world during his time; and Gary North comments on his economic proverbs. This is good stuff.

3. An Introduction to Christian Economics – I haven’t read this yet, but it looks very systematic.

4. Productive Christians by David Chilton – This book was admired by Gary North as the go to place for a Christian view of economics.

Another book I’d like to look at is Craig Blomberg’s Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions.

Puritan and Early Methodist Views of Economics

Baxter, Richard. A Christian Directory. Soli Deo Gloria Pub.

Kingdon, Robert. “Laissez-Faire or Government Control” in Church History.

MacArthur, Kathleen. The Economic Ethics of John Wesley. Abingdon Press, 1936.

Ryken, Leland. Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were. Chs. 2, 4. Zondervan.

Tawney, R. H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Mentor Books (Penguin).

Steele, Richard. The Religious Tradesman. Hess Publications.

Valeri, Mark. “The Economic Thought of Jonathan Edwards” in Church History.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Penguin Books.

7/21/19 – Update: It has been brought to my attention that basically all of the New England Puritans: Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, etc, all practiced Christian slavery! I will, as a result of this try to remove them from my theological approach going forward. The English Puritans, depending on their view of slavery, are still in good standing. John Bunyan’s Sighs from Hell being my now go to place for that doctrine. Richard Baxter preached against slavery as a heinous act; but said similar things that Paul said in the New Testament, for masters currently in that situation: to be kind to their slaves. But he hated the slave trade (David Davis, The Problem of Slavery, p. 338). Richard Steele spoke down to slavery, saying, “No woman woman would marry if she expected to be a slave” (p. 313). My priority is on such men, particularly Wesley, Baxter, and Steele, in my future view of Christian economics. However, to give me scope and historical background, I should think it necessary to include Ryken, Weber, and Tawney, so I can understand the general Puritan theology of economics: and examine their overall strengths and weaknesses.

Original title: New Leadership Taking Over Calvary Chapel

This is an episode of the old TV show Old Testament Scriptures, a 14-part mini-series released in 1958 and 1959.

Originally from here.

Luke 12:16-21

The central focus of today’s Gospel story is a problem a lot of us would like to have: what to do with too much money and too much of everything. It’s a story about a man who is so rich he doesn’t know what to do with all he possesses.

If you’ve ever been to a rock concert in an amphitheater or other outdoor venue, packed with throngs of noisy fans all the way from the stage to the front entrance gate, then you have some idea what life was like for the crowds that followed Jesus from city to city.

We forget sometimes that Jesus was beyond famous, even beyond notorious. He was first century Palestine’s equivalent of a major rock star in terms of fame and His ability to command an audience. A crowd of sometimes four or five thousand might follow Him across barren desert and up and down rocky hillsides, listening to His teaching and watching His miracles on any given day.

Saint Luke tells us that by the afternoon in today’s Gospel lesson, the Pharisees had begun to treat Jesus with open hostility, challenging Him with such sharp questions that Luke actually uses the Greek word for cross-examining a witness in court.

In this highly charged, dramatic atmosphere, Luke writes, so many thousands had gathered to witness the spectacle that they were stepping on each other as they jostled for a better view. Jesus had been sternly rebuking both the Pharisees and the lawyers, and the mood of the crowd was electric.

It was at that climactic moment that someone in the audience shouted out, “Teacher! Order my brother to give me my fair share of our inheritance.”

Jesus shot back, “Man, who appointed Me the judge between you and your brother?”

Then, like a surgeon, He cut right to the heart of the man’s question: greed. “Be on guard against every kind of greed,” Jesus warned the crowd. “Even when you have plenty, you shouldn’t let your life be all about money and possessions.”

Then He told today’s story. The farmer, whose crop exceeded his wildest dreams, exceeded even the space in his barns to store it, and instead of sharing with his neighbors, he was willing to spend a fortune building new barns to hold not only the anticipated bumper crop of grain, but all of his possessions as well.

Imagine a brand-new Jaguar, or better, a new Bentley or Rolls-Royce, parked in front of each grain bin, its front and rear seats and trunk overflowing with flat-screen TVs, iPods, designer clothes and jewelry, Playstation 3, and you’ll be close to a 21st century equivalent.

“You’ve got it made,” the farmer told himself. “Retire! Take it easy and have the time of your life,” or, literally, “eat, drink and be merry.” If you’ve ever wondered where that old saying comes from, it’s from our Gospel reading today; you can find it in Luke 12:19. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we…” What? Right! “For tomorrow we die!” And Jesus said that very night God appeared to the wealthy farmer and delivered the bad news, and He wasn’t gentle.

“Thou fool! This night shall thy soul be required of thee!” You old fool, tonight you die! And your barns full of grain and cars and all sorts of expensive toys who gets them then? What had the farmer done wrong? What was his mistake?

Was it that he filled the barn with possessions? Or that he filled his life with possessions? It’s that he had filled his life with himself and stuff, and not with God.

Don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtime, Jesus told His followers then, or what’s in your closet to wear, or what’s in your garage to drive. Look at the beautiful wildflowers along the road have you ever seen such colors? And they never fret about money or worry about tomorrow. If God takes such wonderful care of flowers that bloom today and are gone tomorrow, won’t He do the same for you and me?

A friend of mine was in Long Beach, California, recently. Long Beach is a seaport city. Its massive docks are busy around the clock with commercial shipping from every corner of the world. While he was there, a boat very similar to a tugboat was ferrying a crew of workers from an offshore oil drilling platform back to a nearby pier so they could go home.

He told me of a group of noisy seagulls chattering angrily on the railing of the pier because the tugboat had interrupted their fishing. Soon, the oil rig workers had moved ashore with their duffel bags and the tugboat fired up its diesel engines and roared back to sea.

My friend said the angry chatter of the seagulls seemed to change almost to laughter as the powerful propellers of the departing tug churned up the water near the pier, turning the murky shallows into a banquet of free fish for the birds, and they all dived down and enjoyed the feast as soon as the boat was gone.

Noisy, smelly, bad-tempered old seagulls, and yet their God provides in such abundance it’s almost comical. Our Heavenly Father knows that we need the essentials of life. And if we seek first His Kingdom, we are promised the other things will be added to our portion as well!

Then Jesus spoke one of my favorite lines from the entire New Testament, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

Don’t be afraid of missing out on any of the fleeting pleasures of this life. Place your concern on preparations for the next world — an eternity spent in the presence of God in Heaven, there with our precious Lord Jesus Christ and all the saints. The time to get ready is now! We may not have long!

Originally from here.

We know that pornography is an ugly and harmful sin. We know that those who indulge in porn have committed the sin of lust, but there is so much more to it than that. When you open your browser and begin to look at those images and videos, you are sinning in ways that go far beyond lust. Here are 8 sins you commit when you look at porn.

1. You commit the sin of idolatry. All sin is idolatry, an attempt to find joy and satisfaction not in God himself but in what God forbids (Exodus 20:3-6). Matt Papa says it well: “An idol, simply put, is anything that is more important to you than God. It is anything that has outweighed God in your life—anything that you love, trust, or obey more than God—anything that has replaced God as essential to your happiness.” In the moment you begin to look at porn, you have allowed it to replace God as essential to your happiness. You’ve committed the sin of idolatry.

2. You commit the sin of adultery. This is the most obvious sin you commit when you use porn. In Matthew 5:27-28, Jesus draws a clear connection between lust and adultery: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Pornography is lust and exists to foster lust. But lust is simply a form of the wider sin of adultery, the deed or desire to be sexually involved with someone other than your spouse.

3. You commit the sin of deceit. Deceit is the act of concealing or misrepresenting your actions. Because pornography generates shame, you will hide it, cover it up, or refuse to confess it. When you erase your browsing history to keep your parents from finding out, when you use it in secret to keep your spouse from learning about your addiction, when you refuse to proactively confess it to an accountability partner, when you participate in the Lord’s Supper even though you are unrepentantly given over to it, you are practicing deceit. And the Bible warns of the dire consequences: “No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes” (Psalm 101:7).

4. You commit the sin of theft. The porn industry is being badly damaged by piracy, by people illegally distributing copyrighted material. Some estimates say that for every 1 video that is downloaded legally, 5 are downloaded illegally. Fully 60 percent of all illegal downloads are of pornographic content. While we can be glad that the industry is in dire straights, we have no right to participate in such theft, for God says clearly, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15). When you use porn, you are almost definitely watching material that has been stolen and, in that way, you are participating in its theft.

5. You commit the sin of greed. Sexual sin is greed, a form of taking advantage of another person to defraud them of something that is rightly theirs. In 1 Thessalonians 4:6, Paul insists “that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter (of sexual sin), because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.” The word translated “wrong” in this context refers to greedily taking something from someone else. It is to allow greed to motivate fraud, to unfairly and illegitimately use another person for your ignoble purposes.

6. You commit the sin of sloth. We are called in all of life to “redeem the time,” to understand that we live short little lives and are responsible before God to make the most of every moment (Ephesians 5:16). Sloth is laziness, an unwillingness to use time well, and reflects a willingness to use time for destructive instead of constructive purposes. In that way pornography is a slothful, misuse of time. It is using precious moments, hours, and days to harm others instead of help them, to foster sin instead of kill sin, to backslide instead of grow, to pursue an idol instead of the living God.

7. You commit the sin of sexual assault. A person who drives a getaway car for a band of bank robbers will rightly be charged with murder for anyone who is killed in committing that crime. The person who voluntarily watches sexual assault for purposes of titillation is rightly guilty of that sexual assault. And a nauseating quantity of pornography is violent in nature, displaying men taking advantage of women. Sometimes these women have volunteered for such degradation and sometimes they are forced or raped into it. To watch such horrifying smut is to be a participant in it and to bear the moral blemish of it.

8. You commit the sin of ignoring the Holy Spirit. As a Christian, you have the tremendous honor and advantage of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. One of the ways the Spirit ministers to you is in giving you an internal warning against sin. Paul assures that the Spirit warns against sexual sin in particular, then provides a stern caution: “Therefore whoever disregards this (warning), disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:8). To commit sexual sin is to ignore the Holy Spirit, to actively suppress his voice as he warns that you need not and should not commit this sin. He provides everything necessary to resist this temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13). To resist the Spirit and ignore his ministry to you is a serious offense against a holy God.

It is sinful to lust after another person and to enable this lust through pornography. Yet the sin bound up in pornography goes far deeper than mere lust. It extends to idolatry, adultery, deceit, theft, greed, sloth, sexual violence, and ignoring the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:12 warns: “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.” Thankfully, what God demands God provides, and he does so through the Gospel. Those who have trusted Jesus Christ can have confidence that Christ has satisfied our account, that he has satisfied God’s wrath against our sin, that he has provided us with his own righteousness. Yet we must also know that he has done this not so we can remain in our sin, but that we can “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

36:40 – I just love this: “These people knew full well what Charles Finney was gonna preach–he was gonna preach the most piercing, eye socket blasting sermon they’ve probably ever heard in their lives.”

Taken from RevivalSchool.com mailing list.

I had a detailed dream where I was standing in a sea of people before the throne of God. I saw well known ministers, invisible ministers, people who had falsely accused me, people who had justly accused me, and many people I didn’t know. Weird, but everyone had a black spot on their chest. The numbers were too vast to count. I was standing pretty close to a televangelist known for $1,000 suits and for boasting of many healings. I had the distinct impression he was impatiently waiting for the Lord to finish speaking, to hand him a microphone!

We were all wearing name badges and (like military insignias) badges of rank. The Lord spoke to this vast group yet we each heard him as if he were only speaking to us individually, “Lay down your ministry, your vision, your promises. I have new assignments for each of you.” We all assumed a promotion. Then all went dead silent while the Holy Spirit ministered to each of us. To me he spoke, “I want you to become a field hand, a migrant worker. Go pick fruit.”

I was horrified. What is lower than a fruit picking migrant worker?

I burned with shame wondering what my family would think. How would we live? What about my hard won education? I have struggled with Lupus for years and cannot stand being in sunlight for long stretches of time. Such a call to work in the fields would surely kill me!

Finally, I bowed my head while weeping and said, “Thy will be done.” I stripped myself of my nice suit and donned the cheap clothing of a migrant worker. I told myself that if all I am capable of doing is harvesting fruit for the Lord, then I would do it with all my heart. I felt something inside of me begin to shake violently, burn, and finally die.

Though he slay me, yet will I serve Him, indeed! It occurred to me much later that migrant is just another way of saying “stranger and alien”.

Anyway, I looked up and saw a great separation take place. I realized that the Lord had whispered this exact same calling to everyone there. We were all being called to be migrant fruit pickers. This vast company were all ministers of the Gospel. The hard shock was that the great majority of those standing there heard this call to go be migrant laborers and had said, “No.”

I could hear the angry complaints: I built this church…I am too important…This ministry cannot survive without my leadership…If these fruit picking fools actually succeed, send the tithers to my church…and on and on. I could see sheep being culled from goats. It was like watching the birth of Gideon’s Army. Our ranks were greatly thinned and we were an unimpressive, motley lot. There was not a name tag, title, or rank insignia to be seen.

So there we were in our migrant worker clothes, like people you would glance at, and turn away from uncomfortably pretending that you did not see them. I noticed we all had a dark hole burned in our chests where the black spot had been and someone called out and asked about it. The Lord of the Harvest replied, “That thing that burned and died in each of you was your blinding pride.” And he breathed on us and the hole was filled with a kind of liquid light, His abiding presence and glory!

I thought, “Oh, you cannot fill that which is full. You can only fill a vessel that has been first emptied.” I looked back at the great company of ministers who had disqualified themselves from their true callings; and was suddenly glad to be in ragged clothes and holy company. The black marks on their chests were like a plague infection that suddenly began to ooze and spread. I thought, “They’re dead already and they don’t even know it.”

God is looking for those who will faithfully laborer for Him to bring in the great harvest of souls that the seed of His blood had spilled into the earth to bring forth. Faithful labor: There is no other qualification.

The Lord told us, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go forth. Be fruitful and multiply my kingdom!”

As our company marched off into the harvest field to be inglorious, nameless field hands, I could hear those left behind sneering in contempt, shouting out catcalls about what fools we all were. They seemed oblivious that the Lord of the Harvest was standing in their midst watching, listening, weighing their every word. And his eyes burned with holy fire.