When we look into Scripture we see that it presents to us what is good and what is bad. Scripture is an ethical guidebook, revealing to us what is moral and what is not. But Scripture does more than that. It not only shows us what is ethical, it shows us what is most important. As a matter of fact, this might be Scripture’s foremost teaching. Once we get our priorities straight, our ethics—our morality—will likely fall into place.
For instance, think of Coach Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy Johnson was the coach of the Dallas Cowboys. I believe he is currently a football announcer for Fox Sports. But Johnson began his career as a college football coach. He coached at Oklahoma State University and the University of Miami. During that time he had married Linda Cooper and had two sons. He said it was important at that time to be a father and a husband. It was important because parents needed to know that he would take good care of their sons when they went off to college.
But in 1989 he was called to coach the Dallas Cowboys. Less than a year later he divorced his wife. His marriage didn’t have any purpose anymore. He didn’t need his wife because he didn’t have the same recruiting responsibilities.
You see, Johnson’s priorities organized his ethics. It provided the framework for how the rest of his life would be lived. And it just goes to show that what you value most will be the pacesetting force in your ethical code.
And that’s one of the reasons why Scripture seeks to impress upon us the fact that God needs to be our highest priority. If we are going to live the right way, the Lord needs to be our highest desire and chief end.
Our text today is just one of those Scriptures that encourages us to prioritize. The text, we could say, has a theme that shows us the supreme advantage of making the fear of God your highest priority. In other words, it is most highly advantageous—it is in your best interest-- to fear of God and make that one of the foremost priorities in your life.
What is better? Fearing god, or making money? Which should be your priority? Which is more important: your spiritual life or your temporal life?
I recognize that I’m making a little bit of a false distinction in setting the spiritual against the temporal. Spiritual things are not separated from temporal things. Temporal things are spiritual things and spiritual things always involve temporal things.
For instance, a lot of look at the offices of the church this way. They say that elders should be spiritual people. Deacons, on the other hand, they don’t have to be all that spiritual. The rationale is that deacons deal with temporal things, so they don’t need to be all that spiritual. But the exact opposite is true. They need to be spiritual exactly BECAUSE they deal with temporal things. A deacon needs to be a man who fears God and evidences some depth of character because he is handling the church’s purse.
So when I ask, “which is more important: that which is spiritual or that which is temporal?” don’t think that I’m pitting the two against each other. What I’m saying is this: Your priority needs to be your walk with Christ & your intent to serve him, rather than your desire to get rich and be well set in this life.
Again, we’re talking about the grand advantage of fearing God and making obedience to him your priority. And our text says that it is supremely better than having a bunch of money without it.
And in order to understand how much better it is to fear God, we have to recognize just how dismal the comparison is.
I. The dismal conditions of poverty
Our proverb begins by talking about being impoverished. We are presented with someone who doesn’t have much. As a matter of fact, he is so poor he can only afford a dinner of herbs. His condition is so desperate that the only thing he can manage to scrape together a meager salad.
There have been some throughout Christian history who have glorified poverty. You can think of the Benedictine Monks of the 6th century. They took vows of poverty and established it as a way of life. They saw it as a road of virtue and a means of great spiritual development.
There are still some today who see poverty as something that God wants us to embrace. A lot of it today flows from a belief that the things of the world are evil and should be rejected. Someone is labeled a worldling if they make money, buy nice things, or accumulate possessions of any kind.
But we should not glorify poverty or make it into the ideal state. Scripture makes it clear that poverty is a wretched estate. It is mainly due to the fall that it even exists and it is to be avoided if at all possible.
So we should not glorify poverty. It is a miserable state. It is a way of life that is fraught with difficulty. Poor people have at all times concerns that weigh heavy upon the heart: How will the bills be paid, how will food be provided, how will we ever get out of this situation? What’s going to happen when we can’t pay the bills? Where are we going to live? How will we get a job without a phone or a car?
A number of years ago I got to know a homeless guy. I was trying to disciple him and help him get on his feet. I can’t tell you all the problems he face. Every time we got together there was some new problem. He would go to an interview and they would ask for an address or number where they could contact him. And he couldn’t get a job because he didn’t have an apartment. He didn’t have an apartment because he couldn’t get a job.
There was one time he was living in an abandoned house. The police actually came and cited him for trespassing. They gave him a ticket and he had to pay a fine because he was living in an abandoned house. He couldn’t get over the irony of it. He didn’t have any money and they were making him pay a fine. He was more angered by the cats. The place he shacked up in had a bunch of cats in it. But the cats didn’t get cited. They were allowed to sleep there at night, but he wasn’t.
So poor people have all kinds of concerns that weigh them down all the time. But beyond the emotional and mental toll of it all, there’s the physical toll.
Now, granted, we live in a world today where you can be poor and not do anything. Because Marxism has become so pervasive and we freely redistribute wealth (taking it from someone who works hard and giving it to someone who doesn’t work at all), we live in a day where a lot of poor people are able to be couch potatoes. This is all a bunch of wickedness.
But still, even today, where there is poverty there is typically a physical toll on the person. He’s maybe working two jobs to make ends meet. He’s trying to put in extra hours here and there in order to scrape together his salad.
So you have to remember that poverty can be a real grind on the physic. It can take a physical toll on you.
We could go on and on about poverity and how dismal it is. We really haven’t even scratched the surface. We could talk about living conditions and how woeful they are. I’m not just talking about not having a mattress to sleep on either, though that is a thing. Poorer people and poorer societies usually have more diseases, a lot of which are due to sanitary issues that are beyond their control. There can be overcrowding. That just sounds like a hell in and of itself for me. I like my space.
Flip over to Proverbs 31 with me. I want you to notice what it says there. Proverbs 31:6-7 gives us an insight into just how dismal it is to be poor.
Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress;
let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
Here you go. Poverty is so bad that God says, “Give this guy a couple shots, just so he can escape his misery for a little while.” Maybe if he has a strong drink maybe, just for a little while, he’ll be able to forget about just how terrible his life is.
Now I say all this to help us get an understanding of how miserable it is to be poor. It is a wretched condition.
Yet, the testimony of this Scripture is that someone who finds himself in this pitiful condition, yet has the fear of God, he is much better off than someone who is who has a lot of money and no spiritual inclination.
Don’t miss this. This poor fool who probably can’t even get a crouton or some salad dressing for his plate of herbs, he is in a much preferred state than a guy who is rolling in dough but doesn’t revere God.
Let’s turn our attention to talk about this guy. Let’s think for a second about the guy who has great treasure. And I want us to see just how grim his situation is.
You thought the poor guy had it bad, that’s nothing compared to the guy with the big fat wallet.
II. The despairingly grim state of the godless man.
Now we would want to say that the guy with great treasure has it pretty good. After all, he’s probably got a rather cushy life. He’s going to have some nice clothes. His living conditions are probably pristine. He’s likely got some real high class digs. He doesn’t have any worries about food. Probably his only worry is that he eats too much because he has so much at his disposal.
But if that’s the case, you just buy a membership to a fitness gym. You have extra recreation time anyway. You have a pretty good income, and you have people working for you. So you can afford some extra time to relax or head out for a jog.
But even if you do put in some long hours. Let’s face it, rich people got rich because they were working. So perhaps they had a rough day, what do you do? You come home and you kick back in your chair. Maybe take a soak in the hot tub to unwind a bit.
All in all, it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
But notice what it says here. The passage says that this godless guy may have great treasure, but he has trouble with it.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Oh that I could have such troubles.”
This reminds me of the scene in the Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is talking with Perchick, his soon to be son in law. Perchick says, “Money is a curse.” And Tevye says, “If only God would smite me with with this curse.”
We associate riches with a life of ease. More money does often afford you a more comfortable life. And that’s true for the most part. When you have more cash in the bank, your quality of life typically increases.
So we recognize that the rich man does not have the problems that the poor guy has. At least not the physical ones, maybe.
That’s the interesting thing about this word, “trouble.” The NIV translates it as turmoil. But this word is used a fair number of times in the Bible, and often it is translated “confusion” or “panic.” It means a wildly chaotic disorder, and the sense is that this chaotic disorder is found in one’s mind.
The thing about riches is that they may make life a bit more comfortable in some respects, but it cannot solve all your problems. It cannot solve the mental and philosophical problems that you have. As a matter of fact, gaining money without gaining the fear of God only makes your life more miserable.
Let’s look at a few examples together. There are a few other texts of Scripture that I want us to look at. First of all, let’s turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes was written buy a rich guy. And it gives you the “under the sun” perspective, that is, the perspective of one who does not have the fear of God. And we find something very interesting in Eccl. 2:10-11. It says…
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 ESV
And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Here is a guy who looks at all he has accumulated and he is still faced with a supreme philosophical dilemma. He had so much, yet he was completely empty. All that he got may have filled his garage, but it did not fill him with meaning or purpose or happiness. You can tell his heart and his mind are in turmoil over this.
Skip down a few verses. He continues on in verse 18-19 to highlight another painful stigma.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-19 ESV
18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
Is he satisfied? Absolutely not. His work was, first of all, a bunch of toil. But on top of all that, everything was going to be left to someone else. And he didn’t even know who that might be. It could be a worthless fool for that matter.
We could then flip over a few chapters to chapter 5. In verse 10 it says…
Ecclesiastes 5:10 ESV
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
Here’s a guy who has made money his god. He has no fear of the true God. He’s made material things the true priority, now he’s enslaved to it. There’s no end to the pit he’s digging. He cannot be satisfied because there’s always more. It is like Krispy Kreme donuts, you can never get full off of them. It is just a continual chasing. You’re always craving. You’re always yearning for more. You’re always getting. But you’re never satisfied. It is a treadmill that never ends.
This loss of contentment is like a worm that eats you away from the inside.
There’s more we could say on this. Certainly these few verses do not exhaust it. And I’m sure you may still be saying, “Would that God would be pleased smite me with this curse.”
That’s why we have to examine the word “trouble” a little more.
It is important to take note of this word. I mentioned that this word is used quite frequently in the Bible. What I didn’t mention is that almost every single time it is used in the OT it has to do with the Lord bringing disaster upon His enemies.
Deuteronomy 7:23 ESV – talking about the enemies that the People of God will meet with once they enter the Promised Land.
But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:20 ESV – this is that famous chapter that outlines all the curses that will fall on the people of God if they forsake the Lord.
"The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.
1 Samuel 5:9 ESV – the passage about the Philistines when they stole the ark of the covenant.
But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic (i.e. confusion), and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.
There are other passages we could look at, but that’s sufficient to make our point. The point being that those who do not fear God are going to have a time of it. If you don’t make the fear of God your priority, God will strike you with His curse. You will find yourself stricken with a terrible anxiety. Panic will grip your soul, your mind will be filled with turmoil. You will become delirious and wild mayhem will overwhelm you in such a horrid fashion.
Jesus told the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had all his comforts in this life, while Lazarus had a miserable life. But when it came to the next life, their situations were not just reversed, they were multiplied a hundred fold in degree. Lazarus had perfect enjoyment and satisfaction in the bosom of Abraham. But the Rich man was vexed to no end. His misery was such that he longed for a drop of water to be placed on his tongue. He also had the concerns of his brothers. Remember he wanted Lazarus to be sent back to warn his family.
Think about how he felt at that first moment in hell. Wild chaos filled his mind as he opened his eyes to behold where he was. He was no doubt thrown into a panic as the pains of perdition tore into him. The mayhem that fell upon him would as God poured out his wrath have strickened him at once and filled him with trouble.
This is ultimately why the rich pagan is worse off than the poor fellow who fears God. He experiences the magnitude of God’s wrath.
I cannot remember exactly who it was, it may have been Robert Murry M’Cheyene. He gave a sermon entitled, “The Mental Agonies of Hell. Interesting title for a sobering message. And I think that is the essence of what is being talked about here. For all eternity the one who denies God and lives not in the fear of him, he must face the virulent sting of his foolish life. He put the comforts of this temporal life ahead of the comforts of the eternal one.
Thus the case is made for why the poor God fearer, in all his misery, is much better off. He who is wise will give ear and begin to make the Lord Jesus Christ his chief priority.
Application:
Make the Fear of God your highest Priority--
Where do your priorities stand? What does the fear of God mean to you? This passage rails against the easy believism that is rampant in the evangelical world today. Many believe in God or profess to be saved by grace, but there is little to no fear of God—that awe & reverence that works itself out in true submission to His word. Saved, but going on in your sins is a form of atheism. It is a denial of the fear of God and shows that your priorities are not truly ordered aright.
God demands that we fear him. And this is what we must examine first. Do we? Is He the supreme object of our lives? Are we trusting Him and seeking to live by faith.
This question is the question that needs to be answered first.
Examine the role of wealth in your life--
We are not to reject wealth or live as if it did not matter. We should seek to work and build wealth. But the way we go about it is always in submission to God. Our aim in life is not the wealth itself, but it is the service to God. We build wealth by serving one another. The wealth that we build is a byproduct of our service to God.
This is where modern education has gone awry. Modern education says you need to get a good education. And you need to get a good education because you need to get a good job. And you need to get a good job so that you can make money. And you need to make money because that’s what life is all about.
This is thoroughly unbiblical. The Bible says that you need a good education because you need to serve God. And your education is always in subservience to your service to God. You don’t need to go to college. You do need to serve God. If college helps you serve God and take dominion, then, by all means, do it. Take the classes you need.
But a passage like this reminds us that the sole purpose of all our actions is to be the glorification of God and not money. If our lives are lived with the intention of chasing dollars, then we are going to find ourselves chasing the wind and experiencing much trouble.
There is dignity in poverty--
Poverty is not a condition we glorify or seek, but if we find ourselves bankrupt, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived in poverty. He lived a life of poverty and suffering. As a matter of fact, he lived this way for our redemption. It was part of his undergoing the wrath and curse of God.
But this passage reminds us that should we come into a similar estate, there may still be contentment and satisfaction in life. Our life does not consist in our possessions, our life is found in God.
This is important to understand as poverty has come upon God's people throughout history, particularly in times of persecution. You young people need to be aware that this could be your lot. If our culture continues in the direction of apostasy, you will find yourselves ostracized. You will be turn out of good paying jobs. You will be subject to fines and fees because of your profession of faith. Unless God moves the events in a more godly direction, you may find yourselves oppressed and having to do your best to scrape by.
But if we learn anything from this proverb, it is this: And if we have nothing else but God and a plate of leafy greens, that is all we need in life. We have an abundance that will last into eternity.
But in 1989 he was called to coach the Dallas Cowboys. Less than a year later he divorced his wife. His marriage didn’t have any purpose anymore. He didn’t need his wife because he didn’t have the same recruiting responsibilities.
You see, Johnson’s priorities organized his ethics. It provided the framework for how the rest of his life would be lived. And it just goes to show that what you value most will be the pacesetting force in your ethical code.
And that’s one of the reasons why Scripture seeks to impress upon us the fact that God needs to be our highest priority. If we are going to live the right way, the Lord needs to be our highest desire and chief end.
Our text today is just one of those Scriptures that encourages us to prioritize. The text, we could say, has a theme that shows us the supreme advantage of making the fear of God your highest priority. In other words, it is most highly advantageous—it is in your best interest-- to fear of God and make that one of the foremost priorities in your life.
What is better? Fearing god, or making money? Which should be your priority? Which is more important: your spiritual life or your temporal life?
I recognize that I’m making a little bit of a false distinction in setting the spiritual against the temporal. Spiritual things are not separated from temporal things. Temporal things are spiritual things and spiritual things always involve temporal things.
For instance, a lot of look at the offices of the church this way. They say that elders should be spiritual people. Deacons, on the other hand, they don’t have to be all that spiritual. The rationale is that deacons deal with temporal things, so they don’t need to be all that spiritual. But the exact opposite is true. They need to be spiritual exactly BECAUSE they deal with temporal things. A deacon needs to be a man who fears God and evidences some depth of character because he is handling the church’s purse.
So when I ask, “which is more important: that which is spiritual or that which is temporal?” don’t think that I’m pitting the two against each other. What I’m saying is this: Your priority needs to be your walk with Christ & your intent to serve him, rather than your desire to get rich and be well set in this life.
Again, we’re talking about the grand advantage of fearing God and making obedience to him your priority. And our text says that it is supremely better than having a bunch of money without it.
And in order to understand how much better it is to fear God, we have to recognize just how dismal the comparison is.
I. The dismal conditions of poverty
Our proverb begins by talking about being impoverished. We are presented with someone who doesn’t have much. As a matter of fact, he is so poor he can only afford a dinner of herbs. His condition is so desperate that the only thing he can manage to scrape together a meager salad.
There have been some throughout Christian history who have glorified poverty. You can think of the Benedictine Monks of the 6th century. They took vows of poverty and established it as a way of life. They saw it as a road of virtue and a means of great spiritual development.
There are still some today who see poverty as something that God wants us to embrace. A lot of it today flows from a belief that the things of the world are evil and should be rejected. Someone is labeled a worldling if they make money, buy nice things, or accumulate possessions of any kind.
But we should not glorify poverty or make it into the ideal state. Scripture makes it clear that poverty is a wretched estate. It is mainly due to the fall that it even exists and it is to be avoided if at all possible.
So we should not glorify poverty. It is a miserable state. It is a way of life that is fraught with difficulty. Poor people have at all times concerns that weigh heavy upon the heart: How will the bills be paid, how will food be provided, how will we ever get out of this situation? What’s going to happen when we can’t pay the bills? Where are we going to live? How will we get a job without a phone or a car?
A number of years ago I got to know a homeless guy. I was trying to disciple him and help him get on his feet. I can’t tell you all the problems he face. Every time we got together there was some new problem. He would go to an interview and they would ask for an address or number where they could contact him. And he couldn’t get a job because he didn’t have an apartment. He didn’t have an apartment because he couldn’t get a job.
There was one time he was living in an abandoned house. The police actually came and cited him for trespassing. They gave him a ticket and he had to pay a fine because he was living in an abandoned house. He couldn’t get over the irony of it. He didn’t have any money and they were making him pay a fine. He was more angered by the cats. The place he shacked up in had a bunch of cats in it. But the cats didn’t get cited. They were allowed to sleep there at night, but he wasn’t.
So poor people have all kinds of concerns that weigh them down all the time. But beyond the emotional and mental toll of it all, there’s the physical toll.
Now, granted, we live in a world today where you can be poor and not do anything. Because Marxism has become so pervasive and we freely redistribute wealth (taking it from someone who works hard and giving it to someone who doesn’t work at all), we live in a day where a lot of poor people are able to be couch potatoes. This is all a bunch of wickedness.
But still, even today, where there is poverty there is typically a physical toll on the person. He’s maybe working two jobs to make ends meet. He’s trying to put in extra hours here and there in order to scrape together his salad.
So you have to remember that poverty can be a real grind on the physic. It can take a physical toll on you.
We could go on and on about poverity and how dismal it is. We really haven’t even scratched the surface. We could talk about living conditions and how woeful they are. I’m not just talking about not having a mattress to sleep on either, though that is a thing. Poorer people and poorer societies usually have more diseases, a lot of which are due to sanitary issues that are beyond their control. There can be overcrowding. That just sounds like a hell in and of itself for me. I like my space.
Flip over to Proverbs 31 with me. I want you to notice what it says there. Proverbs 31:6-7 gives us an insight into just how dismal it is to be poor.
Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress;
let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
Here you go. Poverty is so bad that God says, “Give this guy a couple shots, just so he can escape his misery for a little while.” Maybe if he has a strong drink maybe, just for a little while, he’ll be able to forget about just how terrible his life is.
Now I say all this to help us get an understanding of how miserable it is to be poor. It is a wretched condition.
Yet, the testimony of this Scripture is that someone who finds himself in this pitiful condition, yet has the fear of God, he is much better off than someone who is who has a lot of money and no spiritual inclination.
Don’t miss this. This poor fool who probably can’t even get a crouton or some salad dressing for his plate of herbs, he is in a much preferred state than a guy who is rolling in dough but doesn’t revere God.
Let’s turn our attention to talk about this guy. Let’s think for a second about the guy who has great treasure. And I want us to see just how grim his situation is.
You thought the poor guy had it bad, that’s nothing compared to the guy with the big fat wallet.
II. The despairingly grim state of the godless man.
Now we would want to say that the guy with great treasure has it pretty good. After all, he’s probably got a rather cushy life. He’s going to have some nice clothes. His living conditions are probably pristine. He’s likely got some real high class digs. He doesn’t have any worries about food. Probably his only worry is that he eats too much because he has so much at his disposal.
But if that’s the case, you just buy a membership to a fitness gym. You have extra recreation time anyway. You have a pretty good income, and you have people working for you. So you can afford some extra time to relax or head out for a jog.
But even if you do put in some long hours. Let’s face it, rich people got rich because they were working. So perhaps they had a rough day, what do you do? You come home and you kick back in your chair. Maybe take a soak in the hot tub to unwind a bit.
All in all, it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?
But notice what it says here. The passage says that this godless guy may have great treasure, but he has trouble with it.
Now you’re probably thinking, “Oh that I could have such troubles.”
This reminds me of the scene in the Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is talking with Perchick, his soon to be son in law. Perchick says, “Money is a curse.” And Tevye says, “If only God would smite me with with this curse.”
We associate riches with a life of ease. More money does often afford you a more comfortable life. And that’s true for the most part. When you have more cash in the bank, your quality of life typically increases.
So we recognize that the rich man does not have the problems that the poor guy has. At least not the physical ones, maybe.
That’s the interesting thing about this word, “trouble.” The NIV translates it as turmoil. But this word is used a fair number of times in the Bible, and often it is translated “confusion” or “panic.” It means a wildly chaotic disorder, and the sense is that this chaotic disorder is found in one’s mind.
The thing about riches is that they may make life a bit more comfortable in some respects, but it cannot solve all your problems. It cannot solve the mental and philosophical problems that you have. As a matter of fact, gaining money without gaining the fear of God only makes your life more miserable.
Let’s look at a few examples together. There are a few other texts of Scripture that I want us to look at. First of all, let’s turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes was written buy a rich guy. And it gives you the “under the sun” perspective, that is, the perspective of one who does not have the fear of God. And we find something very interesting in Eccl. 2:10-11. It says…
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 ESV
And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.
Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Here is a guy who looks at all he has accumulated and he is still faced with a supreme philosophical dilemma. He had so much, yet he was completely empty. All that he got may have filled his garage, but it did not fill him with meaning or purpose or happiness. You can tell his heart and his mind are in turmoil over this.
Skip down a few verses. He continues on in verse 18-19 to highlight another painful stigma.
Ecclesiastes 2:18-19 ESV
18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
Is he satisfied? Absolutely not. His work was, first of all, a bunch of toil. But on top of all that, everything was going to be left to someone else. And he didn’t even know who that might be. It could be a worthless fool for that matter.
We could then flip over a few chapters to chapter 5. In verse 10 it says…
Ecclesiastes 5:10 ESV
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.
Here’s a guy who has made money his god. He has no fear of the true God. He’s made material things the true priority, now he’s enslaved to it. There’s no end to the pit he’s digging. He cannot be satisfied because there’s always more. It is like Krispy Kreme donuts, you can never get full off of them. It is just a continual chasing. You’re always craving. You’re always yearning for more. You’re always getting. But you’re never satisfied. It is a treadmill that never ends.
This loss of contentment is like a worm that eats you away from the inside.
There’s more we could say on this. Certainly these few verses do not exhaust it. And I’m sure you may still be saying, “Would that God would be pleased smite me with this curse.”
That’s why we have to examine the word “trouble” a little more.
It is important to take note of this word. I mentioned that this word is used quite frequently in the Bible. What I didn’t mention is that almost every single time it is used in the OT it has to do with the Lord bringing disaster upon His enemies.
Deuteronomy 7:23 ESV – talking about the enemies that the People of God will meet with once they enter the Promised Land.
But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:20 ESV – this is that famous chapter that outlines all the curses that will fall on the people of God if they forsake the Lord.
"The LORD will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me.
1 Samuel 5:9 ESV – the passage about the Philistines when they stole the ark of the covenant.
But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic (i.e. confusion), and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.
There are other passages we could look at, but that’s sufficient to make our point. The point being that those who do not fear God are going to have a time of it. If you don’t make the fear of God your priority, God will strike you with His curse. You will find yourself stricken with a terrible anxiety. Panic will grip your soul, your mind will be filled with turmoil. You will become delirious and wild mayhem will overwhelm you in such a horrid fashion.
Jesus told the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had all his comforts in this life, while Lazarus had a miserable life. But when it came to the next life, their situations were not just reversed, they were multiplied a hundred fold in degree. Lazarus had perfect enjoyment and satisfaction in the bosom of Abraham. But the Rich man was vexed to no end. His misery was such that he longed for a drop of water to be placed on his tongue. He also had the concerns of his brothers. Remember he wanted Lazarus to be sent back to warn his family.
Think about how he felt at that first moment in hell. Wild chaos filled his mind as he opened his eyes to behold where he was. He was no doubt thrown into a panic as the pains of perdition tore into him. The mayhem that fell upon him would as God poured out his wrath have strickened him at once and filled him with trouble.
This is ultimately why the rich pagan is worse off than the poor fellow who fears God. He experiences the magnitude of God’s wrath.
I cannot remember exactly who it was, it may have been Robert Murry M’Cheyene. He gave a sermon entitled, “The Mental Agonies of Hell. Interesting title for a sobering message. And I think that is the essence of what is being talked about here. For all eternity the one who denies God and lives not in the fear of him, he must face the virulent sting of his foolish life. He put the comforts of this temporal life ahead of the comforts of the eternal one.
Thus the case is made for why the poor God fearer, in all his misery, is much better off. He who is wise will give ear and begin to make the Lord Jesus Christ his chief priority.
Application:
Make the Fear of God your highest Priority--
Where do your priorities stand? What does the fear of God mean to you? This passage rails against the easy believism that is rampant in the evangelical world today. Many believe in God or profess to be saved by grace, but there is little to no fear of God—that awe & reverence that works itself out in true submission to His word. Saved, but going on in your sins is a form of atheism. It is a denial of the fear of God and shows that your priorities are not truly ordered aright.
God demands that we fear him. And this is what we must examine first. Do we? Is He the supreme object of our lives? Are we trusting Him and seeking to live by faith.
This question is the question that needs to be answered first.
Examine the role of wealth in your life--
We are not to reject wealth or live as if it did not matter. We should seek to work and build wealth. But the way we go about it is always in submission to God. Our aim in life is not the wealth itself, but it is the service to God. We build wealth by serving one another. The wealth that we build is a byproduct of our service to God.
This is where modern education has gone awry. Modern education says you need to get a good education. And you need to get a good education because you need to get a good job. And you need to get a good job so that you can make money. And you need to make money because that’s what life is all about.
This is thoroughly unbiblical. The Bible says that you need a good education because you need to serve God. And your education is always in subservience to your service to God. You don’t need to go to college. You do need to serve God. If college helps you serve God and take dominion, then, by all means, do it. Take the classes you need.
But a passage like this reminds us that the sole purpose of all our actions is to be the glorification of God and not money. If our lives are lived with the intention of chasing dollars, then we are going to find ourselves chasing the wind and experiencing much trouble.
There is dignity in poverty--
Poverty is not a condition we glorify or seek, but if we find ourselves bankrupt, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Our Lord Jesus Christ lived in poverty. He lived a life of poverty and suffering. As a matter of fact, he lived this way for our redemption. It was part of his undergoing the wrath and curse of God.
But this passage reminds us that should we come into a similar estate, there may still be contentment and satisfaction in life. Our life does not consist in our possessions, our life is found in God.
This is important to understand as poverty has come upon God's people throughout history, particularly in times of persecution. You young people need to be aware that this could be your lot. If our culture continues in the direction of apostasy, you will find yourselves ostracized. You will be turn out of good paying jobs. You will be subject to fines and fees because of your profession of faith. Unless God moves the events in a more godly direction, you may find yourselves oppressed and having to do your best to scrape by.
But if we learn anything from this proverb, it is this: And if we have nothing else but God and a plate of leafy greens, that is all we need in life. We have an abundance that will last into eternity.