Bible Study At Keswick Convention

Let's commit this time to the Lord in prayer. Father, we do thank you for this glorious day and we thank you for the food that we have already received, this virtual food from you. And we take this time now, this afternoon, and commit it to you Lord, ask that you will speak to all of us as we listen to Charles bring your word to us on this subject. We pray that we will have receptive hearts and minds and that we will go from here determined to know you and to know you better and to live for you only. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. I probably don't even need to introduce the speaker this afternoon. Many of you will know Charles and many of you will have heard him on Saturday night. Let me just say Charles that there is a day in the year when my husband Nigel and I think of Charles and in fact it was earlier on this month. Yes, and my husband was speaking at the Keswick in Derby with a pastor friend, Tim Gunn, who was there also, and they share the same birthday. And Charles shares that same birthday and so does George Burwell share that same birthday. And last year, and Steve Goldcroger, and last year when my husband was in Poland, he met the Prime Minister, or President actually, of Poland, and he shares that same birthday and so does Mrs. Thatcher. So how about that? Anyway, welcome Charles. Well thank you Tricia, just different years, but same date, especially with Mrs. Thatcher. I didn't know that, is that true? That's Mrs. Thatcher's birthday. 3rd of July, there's a film called Born on the 4th of July, but this is Born on the 3rd of July. Well it's good to see you this afternoon. Oh, there's one down here as well, look at this, well done, this is this very beautiful looking lady, of course, 3rd of July people are. Your wife, you're a long way from her, what's happened? Okay, well when the weather was so beautiful as it is today, I wondered how many might be here this afternoon, because I probably wouldn't have been if I wasn't on the program. So I'm glad you're here, but I'm interested, how many are day visitors, you're just visiting the convention for the day, very often the afternoon meeting is a special time when folks for the day would be, that's good, that's quite a number of you, well very especially glad to see you, and hope you're here in time for the Bible reading, they're a little later these days, 11.15, especially so people who visit for the day can get here in time to participate in that and stay through to the evening. Well if you've got a Bible, we'll turn to 1st Corinthians chapter, sorry, 1st Timothy chapter 6, and during the afternoon meetings this week, we're going to be looking at various ethical and personal issues that confront us in day-to-day living, and I've been assigned this theme, what if I win the lottery? Well I must confess to gross ignorance about the lottery, I wouldn't even know how to fill in the ticket, I'm sure most of you wouldn't either, and I was once sitting in an airport in Chicago waiting to get a flight back home to England, and there was this booth where they sold lottery tickets, and it was saying the prize is now $22 million, and this lighted message was circulating, and I had a few spare coins in my pocket, and I thought now, what I could do at $22 million, I mean we could get the Keswick Convention really on a different level, we could do all kinds of things, but I didn't fall for the temptation. But I'm sure you've faced that, and we're going to talk about that this afternoon, let me read first a few verses, 1st Timothy chapter 6 and verse 6, Paul writes, "...but godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness." And to verse 17, "...command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they'll lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so they may take hold of the life that is truly life." Well, that's as far as we're going to read, and this chapter of course talks about this whole question of godliness and riches, and an attitude to riches. Can you be godly and rich at the same time? Jesus did say on one occasion, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. He went on to elaborate and say it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom. But the Bible never says it's wrong to be rich. It may provide all kinds of difficulties, particularly as it refers to them here, the tendency to arrogance perhaps. He implies that in verse 17, if we feel that materially we're prosperous and become self-sufficient in that way. But the Bible never says it's wrong to be rich, it does warn it's dangerous to be rich. And if I have a text for this afternoon, it's verse 6, godliness with contentment is great gain. But before we look at this text and the context of these verses, let me just say some preliminary things. Why do millions play the lottery anyway? You're more likely to be killed on the road driving to work any day of the week than you are to win the lottery. We don't build in huge protection about the possibility of dying on the road, but 30 million is it every week play the national lottery, some twice a week? Very, very few of course become beneficiaries by winning. The lottery companies always win. But why do people do this week after week, twice a week? I'll tell you why. Because we're not content. One of the most important things in life is learning to be content. Paul speaks of it as having learned the secret of being content. In Philippians, I might refer to that verse a bit later. You see, God has not made provision for us to be totally satisfied if you ever realize that. None of us in this tent are totally satisfied. There's a person in the Bible who had everything, and I mean everything, but it wasn't enough. Her name was Eve. What did Eve lack in the Garden of Eden? She had a husband, beautiful surroundings, was sinless, had daily communion with God when he came and met with them. When the devil whispered in her ear, did God say you shall not eat? If only you do eat, you'll actually become like God, knowing good from evil. It was too much for Eve, and she ate. Because even Eve, in perfection in the Garden of Eden, could find something about which to be dissatisfied. And before Eve, Lucifer himself. People say, how can a good God create an evil devil? The answer is, of course, that God didn't create an evil devil. He created a beautiful angel. We read passages in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 which begin to speak about the king of Tyre or the king of Babylon, and then very clearly after a while he's talking about something far bigger than either of those two men. We recognize this to be a revelation given to us of the origin of Satan, the most beautiful of all God's angels. It seems there is a hierarchy of angels. We know the archangel Michael, seemingly above the archangel Michael was Lucifer, whose name means morning star, the brightest star. Often the Bible refers to angels as stars. He was the brightest star in the sky. He had everything. It says, don't turn to it, but describes him as being, let me just find it here, in the passage in Ezekiel 28, you were the model of perfection. You were full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone adorned you. Your settings and mantings were made of gold on the day you were created. They were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God. You walked amongst the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created. What a wonderful description. It's a description of Lucifer. And then it says of him, but you said, I will ascend to heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself the most high God. I, I want more, said Lucifer. So you've been brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit, says God in response to that. And that's why, you can choose to be dissatisfied no matter what your circumstance. And it's a choice. Your circumstances may never completely satisfy us, satisfy you. Your relationships may never completely satisfy you. Your income will never completely satisfy you. And basically I want to say this, get used to that. Learn to live with that. Learn to live with a sense of contentment, otherwise you'll discover, of course, the devil can whisper in your ear as he whispered in Eve's ear, there is more. And we may relate that to material things. The book of Ecclesiastes, of course, is a good commentary on this because Ecclesiastes is written about the meaningless of life lived under the sun. That is, life at the end of my nose, life from a humanistic perspective. And the writer of the Hebrews, I think the key to Ecclesiastes, the writer of Ecclesiastes says, chapter 1 verse 2, meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher, utterly meaningless, everything is meaningless, which is a great memory verse to have. Everything is just meaningless. He says, what do I do with this meaningless life lived under the sun? What is its purpose? And if you read to Ecclesiastes, he says, I began to find pleasure, to seek amongst pleasure for satisfaction, I couldn't find it there. I began to look at building projects, I couldn't find it there. I amassed great wealth, he says, I didn't find it there. I turned to music, I didn't find it there. I began to get hundreds of slaves, I didn't find satisfaction there. I looked for women, and if Solomon wrote this, there's some debate about that, of course, but if Solomon writes this, he had a thousand women, 300 wives, 700 concubines. And he says in Ecclesiastes, I denied myself nothing my heart desired. He paid himself 666 talents of gold every year. That works out in today's rates as something like 22 million dollars a year, pounds a year. I worked out in dollars actually because the only exchange that I could find was in dollars. But pounds works out 22 million. It's a lot of money, he had all the money, he was like winning the lottery every week on that kind of income. But he says, although I denied myself nothing, yet when I surveyed all my hands are done, everything was meaningless. It was a chasing after wind. It didn't satisfy. Why? He gives his own answer. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 10, God has set eternity in the hearts of men. There's something money cannot buy, there's something material things cannot satisfy, he says. It's a sense of eternity. Paschal described it as the God-shaped blank. Bill Wyman, who was the bass player in the Rolling Stones, so he left them about three or four years ago. He said, getting to the top was fun, but when we got there, there was nothing there. It was empty. And materialism and the desire for the accumulation of more material things is actually a symptom of a deeper spiritual need that we cannot be satisfied just with material things. You know the story of King Lear, Shakespeare's play, when Lear says to his daughters, when they're going to strip him of all his possessions and turn him out into a storm out into the heath, and Lear says, I beg that you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food. In other words, give me something to wear, somewhere to sleep, something to eat. Then I'll be okay. But he wasn't. And out in the storm, he looks up into the sky and screams, there's man no more than this, such a poor, bare-forked animal. I've some clothes on my back, I've somewhere to sleep, I've food in my stomach, but is that all man is, he cries out. And of course, he isn't just a bare-forked animal. He's not a human being. And there's an appetite in the heart of every human being that can only be satisfied with God, we know that. But that appetite begins to find its expression in seeking to find satisfaction, as the writer Ecclesiastes did, in trying to accumulate material things that leaves us empty. It was Dean Hunter who wrote a book two years ago after the first three years of the lottery in which he followed the lives of about twenty people who'd won the lottery over the two or three years after their winning of the lottery. They'd all won the lottery in the first year and he'd followed them for these next two or three years and wrote his book. And although some of them had handled it well and wisely, it seems, the majority in this book had discovered it had broken friendships, marriages had fallen apart, old friendships had disintegrated, and there were a number who were saying at the end of it, it was not the best thing that ever happened in my life, though I thought it would be when I had it, when I won it. Now this chapter in 1 Timothy 6, which we're going to just look at for a few minutes, talks about the relationship of wealth to godliness. I want to talk about three things from these verses. The limitations of riches, he speaks about first of all. Then he says something about the love of riches, and then something also about the legitimacy of riches, or possessions. First of all, regarding the limitations of riches, he makes the statement in verse 7, we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out of it. It's pretty obvious that, isn't it? But we don't live as though it's obvious. Some years ago, there was a famous Greek multimillionaire named Aristotle Onassis. Many of you will know his name, of course. He became famous because he married John Kennedy's widow, Jackie. Aristotle Onassis died some years ago in New York City. I happened to be in New York City the day he died. I was there to speak at a week of meetings. The day that he died, the headline of the newspaper that I read that morning was about Jackie, his wife, and Christina, his daughter, meeting or going into the hospital at the same time to be with Aristotle Onassis. He hadn't yet died, of course, when this was published. The headline was, you know, is there a reconciliation between Jackie and Christina? Apparently it had nothing to do with each other since Christina's father had married Jackie Kennedy. Of course, that's rather a naive interpretation of the event because we all know where there's a will, there are relatives, and he was about to die. There's an insert in the page that said, how much is he worth? And they tried to estimate the value of Aristotle Onassis' possessions. Well, that morning, after that paper had been published, Onassis died. And I was in somebody's home that evening, and there was a late edition of the same paper with the headline, Onassis Dead, and the same insert that had been in there in the morning, how much is he worth, was there in the evening edition, but one word was changed. The headline was, how much was he worth? It was past tense. They estimated his value that morning when he was alive, and it was actually enormous. They estimated it that afternoon, same amount, but it was past tense now. And I discovered that Onassis left exactly as much as I'm going to leave, which is very encouraging. Do you know how much he left? Everything. That's how much I'm going to leave, so much you're going to leave. And Paul says here, we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of this world, that is material things, money, possessions, have currency, that is valid only for now. And this life doesn't last long. As the book of James says, what is your life? You're like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. You get up in the morning and there's a mist and you see it, you notice it, by 10.30 it's gone, it's burned off, you didn't see it go, you just realize it's gone. He says life is like that, it's incredibly fast. They say the older you get, the faster it goes. Some of you will bear witness to that, I'm sure, better than I can, but it's still true for me. Billy Graham was asked by Larry King on the Larry King Live CNN program, what has surprised you most about your life? Billy Graham as quick as a flash came back with this answer, it's brevity. Doesn't last long. And we've got to get this into perspective, particularly if godliness with contentment is great game, we've got to learn to be content by understanding things are limited in their currency, they don't last very long. And this life is not about three, four years of 10 down here and then it's all over, it isn't all over. Not only that, but the limitations of riches are in verse 9, the people who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. Now the appeal of riches are, this will bring me security and freedom, that's the appeal. That's why folks who have hardly any money at all will put their pound in the lottery once a week in the hope because this will release me. But the warning here is those who want to get rich actually expose themselves to temptations and traps and harmful desires that end in what he describes as ruin and destruction. You see, materialism is found on illusion. The illusion is the more I get the more content I will be. The reality is the more I get, the more I have to look after. The more I have to look after, the more I'm in danger of losing. The more I'm in danger of losing, the more worried I become about losing it. The more worried I become, the more insecure I become. So the very thing which promised me security actually breeds insecurity. The complete opposite. And materialism is founded on that illusion. That's why Paul says there in verse 11, you man of God, flee all of this. Not because riches or material things are in themselves wrong, but because they are potentially dangerous. At least they become dangerous when you begin to search for them, begin to love them. Now that's the limitations of riches. He talks about in those verses. He talks about the love of riches in verse 10 where he speaks about the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, some people, some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Now the love of money can become an all-consuming, insatiable power in life. It'll take priority over everything else just about. People give up friendships in the pursuit of money. People give up family in the pursuit of money. People give up God in the pursuit of money. He says that there where many have wandered from the faith in their love of money. If you just turn to Matthew 6 for a moment, if you've got a Bible there, this is the passage in which Jesus, speaking during the Sermon on the Mount, says in verse 19, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not break in and steal. Now he talks there about treasures on earth or treasures in heaven. And in fact all of us are laying up treasures in some place. We're investing our lives in something, either that has material return or immediate return or it has spiritual return or eternal return. But if you're not sure what your treasure is, Jesus tells us how we can find out. Because in verse 21 he then says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In other words, if you're not sure what your treasure is, ask another question. What do I love most in life? What do I spend my spare time doing? What do I spend my money on that is spare money? I can spend anything I might choose. What do I spend it on? And if you're not sure what your heart is set on, read on a bit further. And in verse 22, Jesus says the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body is full of light. If your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. In other words, he's talking here about a sense of vision. What are your eyes set on? What is your vision in life? What do you dream about? What are you looking for? If you're not sure what that is, then in verse 24 he says, no one can serve two masters. He'll love the one and serve, he'll love the one, he'll hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Now notice this progression in what Jesus teaches here. What begins as our treasure, in verse 19, that's in which serves us, occupies our heart, in verse 21, that means it captivates us. It becomes our vision, in verse 22, that is it motivates us. And it becomes our master, in verse 24, that is it controls us. And what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying there, that what you think is your treasure will actually be your master. What your treasure is, your heart will be set on. What your heart is set on, your vision will focus on. What your vision focuses on will master you. Treasures look attractive because they serve us, but then they captivate us, says Jesus. Then they motivate us, says Jesus. Then they control us. As our master, that's why this is not some incidental little thing. This is a crucial issue in life. What is your treasure? What is your master? It's the same question. What is your vision? It's the same question. What motivates you? It's the same question. And that's why every one of us need to make sure that our master is right. We talk about free will. Our free will is rather limited. I suggest to you it's basically limited to a choice of who's going to be your master. From then on, everything we do is because of that mastering principle in our lives. And it's either God or it's a material thing. And the love of money becomes the root of evil because it begins to set us on a pursuit of material things, which will override then people, override spiritual realities in the pursuit of that greed. So he warns about the destructive power of the love of money. It's the root that lies behind so much evil, he says. But the third thing we'll talk about from these verses is the legitimacy of riches because riches are not in themselves wrong. They have their limitations. They have their dangers. But material things are necessary to us. We need not be embarrassed about them. It says in verse 17, the second part of verse 17. Well, let me read the whole verse. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. God does provide us with material things. There are some things that are necessary and legitimate. We need homes to live in. We need clothes to wear. We need vehicles to get around in. We need money to make this possible. There's no virtue in poverty in itself. In the history of the church, of course, there have been some who have thought that there is virtue in poverty. Those who have taken vows of poverty, and that may be a healthy thing for an individual to do, but there is no special virtue in that. In the New Testament, it's a freeing thing for those who do that, but it's no special virtue in that. In fact, under the Old Covenant, poverty was a sign of God's curse. Prosperity was a sign of God's blessing. That's under the Old Covenant. But like most things, we need to get these things into perspective. And probably the biggest lie of our day is the idea that a man's life consists in the abundance of things he possesses. Jesus said the reverse of that. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesses. But in our society, a person's status in society, his sense of importance, the measurement of his or her success is directly related to their material prosperity. But that is not the value that governs the life of a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're to learn to resist that as a value and as a criteria for measuring our success. And verse 6, where I began, where we're going to finish and talk about for a few moments, godliness with contentment is great gain. Learning to be content with the things that God has given to us. Paul in Philippians 4, I don't chapter later in the week, but Paul in Philippians 4 and verse 11 says, I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. Then he elaborates, I know what it is to be in need. And I know it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Now he says, I've had to learn this. It was not instinctive to me. I had to learn it. He describes it as a secret. I've learned the secret of being content. And I've been in situations, says Paul, when I'm well-fed. I'm not embarrassed about that. I don't feel guilty about that. I enjoy the well-feeding and I've been in situations where I'm hungry. I'm not embarrassed about that either. What happens to me in material terms is irrelevant to my sense of contentment. And he goes on to say, of course, in the next verse, that this secret, I can do everything through him who gives me strength. That doesn't mean, of course, I can do all things through Christ. That doesn't mean I can do anything. I can jump over the moon through Christ. Of course, this has a context. I can live in any circumstance. I can learn to be content. Why? Because my sufficiency, my security, my contentment derives not from what's happening to me. It derives from what's happening in me. And what's happening in me is that Jesus Christ lives. He's my security. He's my strength. And that's why godliness with contentment is great gain. What's the antidote to greed? I suggest it's godliness. Because later in 1 Timothy 6, let me read again verse 18. He says, command those, command them, this is those who he tells not to become arrogant and put their hope in wealth, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and be generous and willing to share. He says the antidote to greed is generosity, that is giving instead of wanting. And one of the things that the Lord Jesus Christ does in our hearts when he lives and reigns within us is create within us a desire for the well-being of others, the care for others, the love for others. And in Ephesians, Paul says on one occasion about those who have stolen, tell them, I think it was in Ephesians, not only not to steal, but actually tell them to go and give away to other people, do the complete opposite. The best antidote to stealing is giving away, says Paul there. Learning to be content by learning to be generous, by learning to do good deeds instead of greedy deeds, which is the context in which he says that. Why do people play the lottery? It's an evidence, isn't it, of a discontent within the heart. Isn't the fact that 30 million or whatever it is who play the lottery every week not symptomatic of a crying spiritual need deep in the heart of every man and woman and young person? God has set eternity into the hearts of man, as Ecclesiastes says. Augustine famously said, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. It sounds crazy, doesn't it, to the world at large? If we went down into the center of Keswick this afternoon instead of meeting here and announced a big open-air meeting and said that he wanted to tell you about not to play the lottery, they'd say, it's my only hope of getting out of the rat I'm in. My only hope, changing my circumstances. If somehow I could win the lottery, people said every week. Wouldn't make sense to them, but you see, we're marching to a different drumbeat. That's the theme this week, isn't it? Marching to a different drumbeat. We're marching to a drumbeat that says material things are our servants, not our masters. It's the spiritual reality of knowing Christ. It brings us our contentment, brings us our security, and we're glad for the material things that help us to live comfortably. We're not embarrassed about them. We don't love them. It's not the pursuit we follow. I often say to our students at Caponray, many of them who are still determining where they're going in life and what they're going to do in life, I say to them, try and go into some career that you would do even if you were never paid for it. You'd still want to do it because your motivation is the benefit that that will bring to other people. That's your motivation. We need to be paid, of course. We need to earn money. We need money. But your motivation is something bigger than that, something different to that. And so Paul's warning to Timothy here in Ephesus, where he is located when Paul writes this letter to him, and saying, just watch, there's some people there in the church in Ephesus, and clearly there are some rich people there, and command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, don't take their riches too seriously, don't allow them to measure the value of them as people by those riches, nor to put their hope in their wealth. Rather, he says, teach them to be generous, teach them to do good works, teach them to put their hope in God, and their wealth, whether it's little or much, will be immaterial to them as far as their deep security is concerned and their sense of purpose and meaning is concerned. Does that make sense? You play the lottery, it's a symptom of a problem, and the problem is you were made to know God in his fullness, and your heart is restless until you find that rest in him. Let's not criticize people for playing the lottery, let's read the symptoms. Where we can introduce people to a relationship which satisfies them deeply, but I'll tell you this, even if you know Christ, even if you are not only born again, but living in a daily communion with Christ, the devil can still whisper in your ear as he did in the ear of Eve, it isn't enough. Just resist him at that point. Let's pray together. Lord, we're grateful that your Word is designed to put our feet on the ground, not our heads in the clouds. It's designed to help us to live in the real world of which we're a part, with all its temptations and all its pulls in different directions, and in this area of the love of money, the love of material things. We pray we'll get that into its right perspective. Like the Apostle Paul, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want, we can say I've learned the secret of being content. What a wonderful secret. What a wonderful condition of life to put our heads on our pillow at night and go to sleep and couldn't care less what we own, because our security is in Jesus, his sufficiency, his presence. Thank you for this. Help us to live in the good of it, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you very much for coming this afternoon, and when does the choir rehearse? Is it half past? Oh, four. You've got time to get a cup of tea before the choir rehearsals. Remember that for those who wish to be part of the choir for the BBC Radio 4 recording, you need to be here at four o'clock, and you'll be led in that this afternoon. Thank you.