"Our World and Our Wealth" by John D. Martin

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to Strength to Strength, and if it's your first time, we strive to bring topics on here that will make you think about how to conduct yourself in the kingdom and think about the work of the kingdom that's going on in the world today.

My name is Sam Baer. I come to you from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which we recently returned here from Boston after spending about a year there and, um, attending Sadler. Um, and we're back in Calgary to plant a church. There's a few of us families that are settling here, and if you think about us, pray for us. It's a city of about 1.6 million people. Um, from what my experience, there's not a lot of light in this city, so it feels like we're going up against the powers of darkness in a very real way in planting a church here.

So we would appreciate any prayer. Um, this morning we have Brother John Dee. Welcome back, Brother John. We've had you on here numerous times. We always appreciate the messages that you bring here. Um, I've gotten to know you quite a bit better in the past year, I would say, and Brother John was my mentor as I was at Sadler College, and I really appreciated his input in my life through that. And he's here to share on Our World, Our Wealth. Some of you will recognize that as a message, um, that is on YouTube, and I've listened to it myself a couple of times already. We recently listened to it as a church, and it always stirs me to the core of my being to hear this message, and I'm looking forward to hearing it again this morning.

Um, before we get started, uh, let's have a word of prayer.

Heavenly Father, thank you for taking care of us once again. Thank you for a good night's rest. Thank you that we can rise in the morning with joy in our hearts and hope because of the work Christ has done, because the kingdom has come. Thank you for the privilege of being called to work in this kingdom. We thank you for this gathering here this morning. Thank you for the technology that we can gather from many parts of the globe and be encouraged and shaped by truth. Be with Brother John as he shares this morning. I pray that his mind is sharp and he would speak in a way that would stir our hearts, that would wet our appetites, that would convict us, that would encourage us so that we can go forth from this meeting humbled and thinking seriously about the lives that we lead so that we can honor our King day in and day out.

Just be with each one. I thank you for your presence here. Just pray that you would touch each heart. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Go ahead, Brother John. Well, good morning. Can you all hear me well?

Good.

The story I'm about to give you, I understand, was a favorite story that Sigmund Freud, of all people, uh, considered his favorite. I'm not sure what he got out of the story, but it certainly speaks to us as Christians. The story is told of a sailor that was shipwrecked on a South Sea island, and, uh, he got to shore, and there he was seized by the natives, and they carried him to the middle of the island and put him on a rude throne.

And, uh, he was king of the island, and they told him he would be king for a year. Well, little by little, he began to wonder what happened to the other kings that were kings for a year. And so he asked, and they said, well, at the end of the year, uh, they take him to a deserted island somewhere, and there he's left to starve.

But this king was a wise king. He decided, well, he had a year to prepare for this. So he sent, uh, people to the island. He sent farmers there, uh, uh, irrigation engineers, uh, builders, uh, uh, all kinds of people, uh, to plant things. And by the time he was banished to the island, uh, there were beautiful buildings there, and there was an agricultural, uh, uh, economy there so that, uh, he actually was banished to an island of of wealth and riches.

Uh, you know, that's that's a very, very interesting story because the Bible makes it very clear that we're here to prepare for the future, and, uh, we are to lay up treasures in heaven. We're supposed to prepare for a a a wonderful future as well.

And Jesus made it very clear how we do that. He says, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven." And he said, uh, "We do it by doing this. Sell that you have and give alms. Provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not." So he told us to do exactly what this man did, uh, to prepare for the future.

Now, I'd like to give, uh, three points this morning. Uh, I'd like to talk about the world we live in. I'd like to talk about the reality. Then I'd like to talk about the requirement. I'd like to talk then about the resources, and finally, the response.

We live in a world of desperate opportunity. The world has between seven and eight billion people. We're told that one billion—these statistics come off the, uh, internet, so you can look them up as well. We're told that one billion, one seventh of those people survive on less than a dollar a day.

Two billion survive on less than two dollars a day. In other words, nearly half of the world is struggling to find enough food and water to survive just for another day. With the amount of money that we spend on French fries, uh, that's the world we live in.

Twenty-nine thousand children die every day from preventable disease or starvation. Now, they die in obscurity. We don't see the awful wide-eyed terror and agony of their death. To make this more real, there's a, uh, teenage—uh, an organization called Teen Mania. They put on an event every year to, to, uh, make people aware of what's happening in our world. And one year, they decided to put a goldfish in a bowl in front of the audience, and someone would go up and take the goldfish out of the bowl and lay it on the table, and the audience would watch it struggle and die.

In every, uh, event that they presented before the goldfish died, someone couldn't stand that and rushed up and grabbed the goldfish and put it back into the bowl. Now, the fact is, if that had been a human, it would have been a whole lot worse.

The golden rule is we're supposed to do as to others as we would have them do unto you. Suppose a starving child in another country knew that there was a rich country like the United States and that there were many people there who could have alleviated their suffering if they would have sacrificed to do so.

Twenty-nine thousand children a day, uh, will die as a result of preventable disease or starvation. Now, we have about that many people in the local town, so I try to think, what would I think if all of the people in Chambersburg died today? In fact, before this session is over, one thousand children will be dead, uh, of preventable disease or starvation.

Now, if a tsunami or an earthquake, uh, happened, the whole world would be mobilized. And if we heard about twenty-nine thousand deaths in that tsunami, uh, we would say that's terrible. But, uh, you know, the fact is that is happening every day, all day.

How much would it take to present this mind-boggling tragedy? Well, we're told that thirteen billion dollars a year would provide the basic nutrition to every starving person in the world. Now, thirteen billion dollars a year is a lot of money, but, uh, the Bible—we are told that American Christians spend twenty-one billion dollars a year on soft drinks.

They spend a hundred billion dollars a year on Christmas gifts. So that amount of money could be easily provided by just the Christians in the United States. Three billion dollars a year would save a half a million children from blindness due to lack of vitamin A. American Christians spend four billion dollars a year on cosmetics.

Nine billion dollars a year would provide safe drinking water to all in the world. American Christians spend five billion dollars a year on bottled water.

And that's billion. That's not million. The most heart-wrenching, though, is the slavery that happens. Twenty—two hundred forty-six million children are in child labor in slavery. And I'm going to read an account that I copied down. My sister is ten years old. Every morning at seven o'clock, she goes to the bonded labor man, and every night at nine, she comes home.

Now, you figure that out. That's about the—uh, I think that's about twelve hours a day. He treats her badly. He hits her if he thinks she is working slowly or she talks to other children. He yells at her. He comes looking for her if she's sick and cannot go to work. I feel this is very difficult for her. I don't care about school or playing. I don't care about any of that. All I want is to bring my sister home from the bonded labor man. For six hundred rupees, I can bring her home. That is our only chance to get her back. We don't have six hundred rupees, and we will never have six hundred rupees.

Now, many people contacted me after hearing this and wanted to do something about it. And so I checked into it a little bit. And the sad part is, even if you sent the money, that would not solve the problem. She would be back in slave labor very quickly, uh, even after, uh, she's freed one time. The family would soon have another emergency, and she'd be back again. And so it's a much larger problem than just paying the six hundred rupees. Uh, this is—this is a real, uh, heart-wrenching situation.

When a desperately poor family has a financial need, such as a medical emergency, a funeral, even just to put food on the table, they often have only one place to turn: the local money lender, whom we might call a loan shark. He will lend them money in exchange for their child's labor. Because they usually can't read the contract, they often don't know what they're agreeing to. The wages are so low and the interest rates so high that the loan can virtually never be repaid. All the money earned goes only to pay the interest. Some children work twelve to fourteen hours a day for many years to pay off a twenty-five dollar loan. The working conditions are usually horrendous.

Now, at the time of the report that I gave you about that girl, uh, she had been in bondage for one year in exchange for an advance of about ten dollars. She worked fourteen hours a day, six and a half days a week, and earned about eight cents a day.

That's a sad story. It is because of God's grace that you were born in the United States. Try to imagine your life if you had been born as that girl was born. How do you feel in the morning as you walk to work? Through no fault of your own, you're about to spend fourteen hours crouched over a basket of tobacco. Your hands and wrists will hurt, and you will be beaten if you roll cigarettes too slowly or talk to the child sitting next to you. You may have a matchbook put under your chin so that if it falls, the manager will know you looked up, and he will punish you. You're likely to grow up deformed, unable to live a normal life.

You may actually be chained to the wall. Think further. If you knew that there were people in another country who could free you, what would you want them to do? And what if they chose not to do it?

So that's the world we live in. And it's a—it's a greater problem than what you and I can solve. And God isn't looking, uh, for us to solve all the problems in the world. He's—he's only looking at what kind of response we make with the resources we have to the needs, uh, that come to us. So what is the requirement? God has repeatedly admonished us and warned us about our responsibility.

And I would like to just read a few verses from Proverbs. Proverbs 24:11 and 12 says this: "If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain, if thou sayest, 'Behold, we knew it not,' doth not he that ponders the heart consider it? And he that keepeth thy soul, doth he not know it? And shall he not render to every man according to his works?"

Now, there would have been a time when people would not have known the facts that I just gave you. But because of the information age we live in, we all know this is happening. And, uh, the question is, how do we live? I often think, uh, just use the example of the beds we sleep in. You know, most of the people in the world don't sleep in a bed.

They—they wouldn't have room for beds. They live in a one-room hut. So they have their bedding rolled up under the chairs and under the tables, and they get those out at night and sleep on the floor. Now, we have beds.

But the problem with with that is that beds usually are not enough for people. They have to have a bedroom suite, and it has to match the decor. And they have to have a mattress they spend hundreds of dollars on so it, uh, satisfies every, uh, ache and pain that they may have sleeping.

Uh, and that's what tends to happen if we're not careful. We don't think about our needs. We think about our wants. And—and that's the problem. Uh, let me read another verse from Proverbs. Uh, Proverbs 28:27 says this: "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse."

And I have to wonder, uh, if, uh, some of the things that happen in Christian families are not directly related to this situation. Proverbs 21:13 says, "If we stop our ears at the cry of the poor, God will not hear us."

Ezekiel 16:49 talks about the sin of Sodom. And I would like to just read that. Uh, we would all say the sin of Sodom was, uh, sodomy and homosexuality, and it certainly was. But it says in verse 49 of, uh, 16 of Ezekiel: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom.

Pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." And then the next verse talks about their abomination. So, uh, the sin of sex, homosexuality certainly was part of it. But it almost seems to me, reading these verses, that God puts that kind of selfishness in the same category as he puts sexual sin.

Uh, God takes our attitude toward the poor very seriously, is what I'm trying to to get across. In fact, in Matthew 25, we all know that at the final judgment, there'll be nothing said about whether you were born again. There will be nothing said about many of the things that we spend time preaching.

The only thing that's mentioned there is, "Did you feed the hungry? Did you clothe the naked? Did you visit people in prison? What did you do about the disenfranchised people all around you?" The whole judgment will be based on that. You say, "Well, what about the new birth?" Well, I have to imply from that chapter that if you didn't do those things, you were, in fact, not born again.

Uh, in fact, John the Baptist was baptizing, and, uh, people were coming to be baptized. And he said, "Well, I want to see evidence. Before I baptize you people, I want to see evidence that you repented." I don't know what kind of evidence you would have looked for, but, uh, when they asked John what he was, uh, looking for, he said, "If you have two coats, give away one. If you have extra food, do likewise." Uh, if that's really what repentance looks like, I have to wonder sometimes how much genuine repentance does actually happen, uh, in our circles and and in my own life.

Uh, in fact, uh, that's—we have Zacchaeus a few chapters later. Uh, Jesus comes to his house. I have no idea what they talked about, but Zacchaeus, uh, responded about in in relation to his stuff. He said, "I'm going to give half my goods away, and I'm going to restore everything that I took on dishonestly four times." And Jesus didn't say, "Well, Zacchaeus, you're getting the cart ahead of the horse. You need to get born again first." He just said, "This day, salvation has come to this house." So this is a very important subject, and and it has grieved me through the years that we don't hear much teaching on it. Luke 16, we know the story of the, uh, rich man and Lazarus.

Uh, as far as we know, he may have been an upstanding Israelite, obeying everything meticulously to the letter. There was only one reason why he found himself where he was. And it says, Jesus says, "In your lifetime, you had your good things and Lazarus his evil things." And that's the only reason given that he ended up where he did.

Uh, this is a great blind spot in American Christianity. And, uh, blind spots can be pretty devastating. There was a time when many Christians thought it was right to own slaves. And we say, "How in the world could anybody have been so blind as to justify and prove—try to prove from the Scriptures even that such an awful institution was right?" Well, somebody look back in the future and say, "How in the world did these Christians that had to have their bedroom suites and their lavish, uh, lifestyles and, uh, dream houses and, uh, expensive cars, how in the world were they so blind? In light of all they knew from the information age they lived in, how in the world did they justify living that way?"

We all know that James 4 says that faith and works have to be together, or the faith doesn't mean anything. 1 John 3:17 and 18, it says, "If you, uh, uh, harden your heart against the needs around you, how is the love of God dwelling in you?" In other words, that it's impossible if if you've gone after your own things and have been selfish in the light of the tremendous needs around us. Uh, God's love doesn't do that. So, uh, if we live that way, we're proving that we don't have the kind of love that God has. We really don't have his love.

James 1:27 says, "Pure religion undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the widows and the fatherless." There are 143 million orphans in our world.

They say there's a Christian site, I've never been able to find it, uh, where you can see an atheist group playing the song "Jesus Loves Me," and all the time they're showing pictures of emaciated, starving children from all over the world.

And, uh, they also have a picture of the cross with a a a cancellation sign over it. And at the end, they say, "He is your God. They are your rules. Go to hell." In other words, you're not doing what God told you to do.

So that's our world. Let's talk about our resource sources. The U.S. is the richest nation in history. There's never been a nation like this. We have 5% of the world's population and one half of the world's wealth. 160 million Christians, American adults claim to be Christian.

If each of those 160 million Americans gave $15 a month, that would literally feed all the starving children in the world and provide safe drinking water for all of them and educate every child who's not in school. Just $15 a month. 2 Corinthians 8:9 to 15 says, "God has entrusted us with the things we have to try to provide some equity. It's interesting to me that the word iniquity also could come from the word inequity.

He's trusted us with this wealth. And the only reason he entrusted it to us is so that we would use it to meet the needs of other people. It's the only reason for the excess that we have. It's not to get ahead." I was talking to a friend one time, and I was talking about a man in our community who farms very simply. He has very old equipment. He grass feeds his cows. They don't produce as much milk as they would if he tested everything and had everything perfect. And this brother, this was a Christian brother, said to me, "Well, yeah, you can you can live on a farm like that, but you can't get ahead."

And I said, "Well, what do you mean by getting ahead?" "Well, you can't buy another farm." In other words, you won't make enough money to get ahead.

Well, we live in a world of unbelievable opportunity. So what is the what should be the response? Well, 2 Corinthians 9:16 to 15 says that God's people are cheerful givers. The word cheerful there is the word hilaros in the Greek.

In other words, God's people are hilarious givers. They love to give. They they that's the thing they are hilariously committed to. I tell people that when we take up offerings in churches, we should hear chuckles all up and down the pews because it should be a hilarious experience.

Matthew 6:1 to 14 says that those who give and do it secretly shall be rewarded openly. I sometimes think that the Protestant revolution had us all reacting against means of grace because, you know, the Catholic Church says when you take that wafer, you're taking grace when you all the things they tell you to do are means of grace. And it almost seems to me like we reacted against the idea that we could do anything as means of grace.

But that passage talks about three things that give us, uh, an open reward. You can call that grace if you want to. Giving alms, which by the way, the word alms, uh, in the Septuagint often is the same word that is used for righteousness. And I understand that the Jewish people considered, uh, okay, the three pillars of Jewish religion were almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. And I'm told that almsgiving was the one that they considered the most important, that your righteousness was determined by your generosity with the things that you had. In fact, it's interesting to me that, uh, Matthew 5 gives us the kingdom morality, but almsgiving is not in chapter 5. That's not part of the kingdom morality, uh, precisely.

You find that in chapter 6, which is the kingdom piety, uh, which, uh, shows the spiritual motivation behind the people who live the way people live in chapter 5. And it's interesting to me that almsgiving is in chapter 6. And not only is almsgiving in chapter 6, but it's the only one of those three that Jesus gave, uh, an elaboration on. Uh, over half of chapter 6 is devoted to this whole subject of wealth, which is an elaboration of almsgiving. And so it's very interesting to me that most of chapter 6, which is about the kingdom piety or the kingdom dynamic behind the kingdom morality, most of that chapter is taken up by a discussion of almsgiving and what we do with our wealth and laying up treasures in heaven and not laying it up here on this earth.

I think it's very interesting how that's placed in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 6 rather than in chapter 5. So we will be rewarded in proportion to how much we give. Uh, the Bible teaches that very clearly. Uh, uh, let's see. We I think we have to look at giving not as an expense. I think we have to look at it, uh, according to the way the Scripture teaches it, as an investment. You know, some people think that when they put money in in the offering, it's like paying the telephone bill. They'll never see that money again. The fact is, that's the only money they will ever see and enjoy through all eternity.

And if we ever if we ever would get our heads around what it really means to give, I think it would solve this problem, uh, tremendously. I went to visit my rich uncle one time. He was a multimillionaire, and he drove us around in his, uh, uh, Lincoln Continental, and, uh, we did all kinds of things. And so he knew what I believed. And so one day he said to me, uh, in our visit, "Well, Johnny, you can't take it with you. You might as well enjoy it here."

And now he was a devout believer. Uh, he helped establish the, uh, Baptist church in the city where he lived. Uh, it was a very, very, uh, devoted member of that church. And I said, "Uncle, you're wrong. You can take all of this with you, but you have to give it away. You have to give it before you die."

Uh, so that statement that you can't take it with you is not true. Jesus made it very clear we can, in fact, take it with us, but he told us how we have to do it.

Isaiah 58, verses 10 and 11, this is a chapter on fasting, but it also talks about giving, and it says, "If we do, our light will rise in obscurity." God does promise, uh, a tremendous response to our giving. Uh, he says we will be rewarded openly. Now, one of the persons that I like to give as an example of what that really means is John Wesley.

When we were in England, there was only one place when we visited there that I wanted to see, and that was the Wesley Museum. And interestingly, almost nobody goes to that museum. When we were there, we were, I think, the only people visiting at the time. Well, uh, they originally worshiped in the foundry, but that foundry was too small, and they went up to town and built a church. And that was where Wesley spent the last 15 years of his life.

In that basement of that church is the Wesley Museum. And if you ever visit England, by all means, don't miss that museum. And you will be overwhelmed at the heart of Wesley. Uh, nobody who was in need missed his attention, whether they were slaves, whether they were criminals condemned to death, whether they were, uh, just poor people. Wesley had a real heart for the poor. In fact, we are told that in today's money, Wesley made about $160,000 a year. He published about 200 books. Many of them were small, but, uh, he made quite a bit of money from his books that he sold. Uh, and they say that in today's money, he earned about $160,000 a year.

We're also told that in today's money, he took a salary of about $15,000 to $20,000 a year in today's money. And if you read his journal, it's obvious that much of that he gave away.

He was just an amazing person. He provides us with an example of how he saw his possessions in the light of the needs around him. And I'm going to read a little portion of of his life. Wesley had just finished buying some pictures for his room when one of the chambermaids came to came to his door. It was a winter day, and he noticed that she had only a thin linen gown to wear for protection against the cold. He reached into his pocket to give her some money for a coat and found he had little left. It struck him that the Lord was not pleased with how he had spent his money. He asked himself, "Will thy masters say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.

Thou hast adorned thy walls with the money that might have screened this poor creature from the cold.' Oh, justice, oh, mercy, are not these pictures the blood of this poor maid?" Were the pictures that Wesley had hanging in his room wrong?

Absolutely not. But it was wrong, very wrong, to buy unnecessary decorations when a woman was freezing outside without a coat. At his death, Wesley left the world to quote somebody else. This is what somebody said. At his death, Wesley left to the world a battered hat, a worn coat, a tattered Bible, and the Methodist church.

It didn't just happen. That was by by design. Wesley lived that way.

Um, yeah. You know, if you turn to to Luke chapter, uh, why can't I think of the passage right now? Oh, Luke 16 is my favorite parable. Uh, that's the parable of the unjust steward who gave away his Lord's money, uh, when he was, uh, accused he was going to be thrown out. So what did he decide to do? Give away more of his Lord's money because he said, "If I do that, then then when I have needs, they'll meet my needs. I'll I'll stack up a bunch of IOUs." And his master, even though he shouldn't have done that, that was wrong. He was continuing to be dishonest with his Lord's money. His master commended him.

He said, "He's a wise person." And then the Bible says, "The children of this age are wiser than the children of light." Everybody knows that if you give away things and create a bunch of IOUs, it's to your benefit.

Their masters do not want them to do that. That's dishonest. But we have a master that tells us to do that. He says, "Give our things away." And we're not smart enough to see that that it's to our benefit to do what Jesus told us to do. In fact, I want to turn to that passage, and I want to read a few verses. In fact, I think Wesley is an example of what happens.

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." Now, here's the verse. "If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?"

Well, what are the true riches? Well, I think they're the kind of gifts that a man like Wesley had, uh, in ministry. And I wonder how many people are impoverished spiritually and cannot have a fruitful ministry spiritually because they didn't pass the test. God says, "I'm going to give you this stuff that really isn't worth anything, and then I'm going to watch what you do with it, and I'll decide whether I can trust you with things that really, uh, are valuable." Uh, that's what he's basically saying. "If you there if therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own?"

So this is a very sobering reality. Uh, the Bible has more to say about this subject, somebody has said, than it has to say about prayer.

At Hurricane Katrina, Christians flooded the city with food, water, supplies, labor. It was obvious that the Christians were the ones who came to the relief of the people in New Orleans. A Jewish doctor said at the end, "There are no more agnostics in New Orleans."

We had a man visit our church some years ago. His name was Eric Camille. I call him occasionally. He never joined one of our churches. He loved the singing. He loved the preaching. He loved the lifestyle. He loved everything about us. But he said, "You people refuse to take the gospel to the streets." Now, what did he mean by that? Well, he and his wife are people of modest means, but they go down to the streets of the city they live in, and I forget where it is, uh, frequently and, uh, simply take a hot plate down there and food and fry eggs and provide breakfast for for people in the poor part of the city.

Uh, there are times that they have, uh, taken loaves of bread and hung a loaf of bread on every door, uh, in in the in the, uh, slums of the city. And, uh, he did not see us doing that. And he did not join our churches because of it. In fact, every time I call him, he asks me if, uh, if there's been a change in that respect. Uh, and he probably would join one of our churches if he saw that happening.

Uh, that's very sobering. John 15:9 to 12 tells us, uh, that we are to abide in Christ and we will be fruitful. And then he says, "These things have I written unto you, that your joy that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full." I think what we forget is all of the commands of Christ are intended to put us in the center of reality and give us abundance of joy. And, uh, this one especially. One man told, uh, this story. He said, "We were studying Mark 10 in Sunday school." And, uh, after the class, uh, a few days later, he received an email from one of the, uh, uh, members of the church.

And in that, uh, passage, it talks about selling what you have and giving to the poor. And here's what the email said. They went home from the Sunday school lesson about that. And he says, "My wife and I went home, emptied all of our clothes into the bed, onto the bed, got several bags of canned goods and all the baby clothes our son had grown out of in addition to the toys he doesn't play with anymore."

Uh, when he said he emptied all our clothes, I think he means the extra clothes. "I took several hundred dollars cash that I was saving to upgrade the front lawn and drove over to the projects downtown and prayed. I prayed for the people I didn't know who were about to receive what I had too much of. In the first house was a man of 30 who had a baby and needed some work clothes. Perfect. I had my clothes to give him and the baby toys and clothes. He needed money for groceries, so I gave him $100. The next house had a couple who needed some clothing for the wife and money for a car payment, so I gave her my wife's clothes and $100.

We prayed with each family and told them we came with God. I got such a rush from this that we got home and got more things together to give away. My wife and I are now consistently serving at the homeless center downtown, and I'm going to start teaching art and graphics at the homeless learning center." And what he's saying is they got such a rush out of doing that. Uh, what do you do for the rush that, uh, you experience? What do you get your kicks out of?

Why don't you take $200 in extras and try it? Let's see what happens. All right. Tertullian said that the outpouring of sacrificial love was the key factor that led multitudes to Christ in the first century. And it's interesting that after Christianity basically had taken over in the Roman Empire, Julian the Apostate, who was raised by Christians, later tried to restore paganism, uh, because he believed that, by the way, Rome fell after Christianity was established in Rome. It didn't fall under paganism. It fell under, uh, uh, when Christians had basically become predominant.

Uh, so anyway, Julian saw that Rome was falling and declining, and so he thought, well, the reason for it is because we've forgotten the pagan gods. So he tried to restore paganism, and he failed. And, uh, he gave the reason for the failure. He said, "These Christians not only take care of their own poor and needy, they take care of ours." And, uh, he he chided the people in his society that they were not givers like the Christians were. We often ask why we don't have the effect that, uh, Christians have had in the past as far as people responding. Uh, I think this is maybe one of the reasons we, uh, we do not have the outpouring, uh, of sacrificial giving like we should.

Now, I want to hasten to say that our plain people are very, very, uh, generous people. Uh, you have, uh, organizations like CAM, uh, but it's not in the end, I think, what we give. I think in the end, it's the problem of what we have left, what we keep for ourselves, and how we the lifestyle we still maintain in spite of our giving.

So Tertullian identified an outpouring of sacrificial love as the key factor that led multitudes to Christ in the first century. Albert Einstein said, "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

And we are to overcome evil with good. I think that applies here. Gandhi was asked by E. Stanley Jones, "What is the greatest hindrance to Christianity in India?" And his answer was, "The Christians." Suppose the Anabaptists repented of their materialism and became known for their sacrificial and extravagant generosity and obedience to Christ. What might happen in the United States?

We're talking now about the response. Coupled with our non-resistance, suffering love, we would probably have the most powerful testimony to the world. My question is, will we be remembered as the generation that rose up to conquer world poverty and answer the tragedies of worldwide greed and oppression with Christ-like compassion? Is that what our people will be known for? Or will they be known for their good food and for their lavish lifestyles?

Or will we be the most selfish generation yet that loved its soft drinks, fancy cars, cosmetics, extravagant clothes, expensive electronic gadgets, oversized houses, and costly vacations? Is that what we'd be known for? Will we fiddle while Rome burns? God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Will we insist on a few moments of pleasure or invest in eternal pleasure by rescuing lives of those God loves? Somebody has said, "It's not the high cost of living. It's the cost of high living." That's the great hindrance to the kingdom.

I give this as an example. When I was a boy, my our family was not poor, but we certainly did not have any extra. There were 11 of us children. My father was sick. We tried to eke out a living on a 92-acre farm. Uh, and we worked hard. We had a lot of work to do. Uh, my mother washed on Monday, uh, a large washing day. And, uh, then my father decided, well, he'd like to make work easier for mom. And so when he was able to afford it, he bought her an automatic washer and an automatic dryer, and he put a bathroom in the house.

Well, then, whereas we had, uh, basically taken a bath on Saturday and changed our clothes on Saturday, and mom washed on Monday, now we took a bath every day and changed our clothes every day, and mom had more work to do.

Uh, someone has said, uh, another example is grandmother had one carpet in the house. All the rest of the floors were bare or had linoleum, but one room had carpet. That was the, uh, front room, the parlor. And, uh, that didn't get much maintenance. Uh, she went in there and picked up some lint every now and then. And in the spring, she would take up all the tacks. That carpet was not Waldemar carpeting. It was tacked down around the edge. She took up all the tacks, took it outside, put it over the clothesline, and beat the dust out of it, put it back on the floor. That was about all the maintenance that carpet got.

So somebody says, well, let's make work easier for grandma. Let's buy her a vacuum cleaner. Well, it's not very long before there wasn't just the carpet in the front room that people had. It was carpet in every room of the house that needed to be swept every every couple of days.

So that shows us what happens. Uh, it's not the high cost. It's not the cost of high. It's not the high cost of living. It's the cost of high living. When I was a boy, despite all the work we had, we visited, uh, our relatives and many people several times a year. We visited on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, any time of the week. We children came home from school, said, "Hey, if we get the work done, can we go visiting?" And we would go visiting.

Now, I people visit almost never except on Sunday. And there's not nearly the visiting that gets done that did when I was a boy. We visited all my mother's eight brothers and sisters and their families. And my father's, uh, I'm sorry, my mother had, uh, 10 brothers and sisters. My father's not eight brothers and sisters. I know we visited all those families at least twice a year, plus, uh, most of the families in our church. And so this is what's happening. Uh, instead of the, uh, simple bed, we have to have the luxurious bed and, uh, the luxurious mattress, which we didn't, by the way, when I was a boy. Uh, most people wouldn't sleep in the beds that we slept in when I was growing up.

So that's what's happening. And, and I think that's why fasting is such an ingenious part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, "Every now and then, you need to push the reset button." Instead of finding another gourmet restaurant to, uh, uh, for your, uh, jaded senses, just quit eating.

And then you will enjoy potatoes without salt or butter. Uh, sleep on the floor, and then you'll enjoy the bed that you have, and you won't have to have more. So I just think that fasting is one of the most ingenious parts of the Sermon on the Mount. I call it the reset button for this, uh, luxurious living that we're all tempted. And it happens to all of us. It just tends to go the way of the flesh. And every now and then, we have to push the reset button and get back to a more simple way of living and have more resources and more focus for other people.

We are in a battle. We are in a battle. And Matthew chapter 10 is a chapter that you should go and read after this message. Matthew chapter 10, verses 5 to 42. In this chapter, Jesus is sending his disciples out, uh, to witness two by two.

And, uh, the chapter is a picture of a military commander. He says, "I'm sending you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves." And he gives the tremendous challenge they're going to face as they go out. So Jesus is a military commander sending soldiers on a mission.

In the 1940s, we have a military ship being built. And this is sort of a parable of what's happening.

The U.S. government commissioned William Francis Gibbs to build a ship with the United States lines. $80 million was to be put toward building a troop carrier for 15,000 troops.

And this this carrier was supposed to be able to deliver them as speedily as possible anywhere in the world. In 1952, the SS United States was completed. It could travel 51 miles per hour. It could travel 10,000 miles without stopping for food or supplies. It could travel anywhere in the world in less than 10 days. It was the fastest, most reliable troop carrier in the world.

The problem is it never carried any troops. It became a luxury liner for heads of state and celebrities. Instead of 2,000 passengers, it eventually carried, instead of 15,000 passengers, it eventually carried only 2,000 passengers. It had 695 staterooms, four dining salons, three bars, two theaters, five acres of open deck with a heated pool, and it was the first fully air-conditioned passenger ship in the world.

In the end, it had been refitted. It was not a vessel for battle, but a means of indulgence for wealthy patrons to coast peacefully across the Atlantic. I think this is a tremendous parable. The church was designed for battle. We're in a war. It was designed to mobilize people to accomplish a mission. Have we turned the church into a luxury liner? Are we willing to change it into a troop carrier for battle? Are we willing to obey the orders of Christ? To be like him. It says in the feeding of the 4,000, after he had preached to these people, it said he had compassion on them. He saw that they were hungry.