From Riches to Rags
Heart to Heart • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you!
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.
Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a famous quote by the 19th century English historian Lord Acton
1. Consternation from wealth
1. Consternation from wealth
: amazement or dismay that hinders or throws into confusion
(5:1)
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus' name
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.”
2. Corrosion of wealth
2. Corrosion of wealth
(5:2–3)
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock:
and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand:
and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
3. Condemnation in wealth
3. Condemnation in wealth
(5:4–6)
“Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”;
But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
4. The Antidote
4. The Antidote
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
The United States is a remarkably charitable nation. The Giving U.S.A. Foundation estimates that Americans donated nearly $557.16 billion in 2023, making our giving the number 26 country in terms of GDP)–more than the gross domestic product (the annualized value of goods and services produced within a nation) of all but 25n countries in the world. More than three-quarters of this came from private individuals. Additional research suggests that between 65 and 85 percent of Americans give to charities each year.
