Christ's Object Lessons - Chapters 19 & 20: The Measure of Forgiveness / Gain That Is Loss

Pastor David Asscherick discusses Chapters 19 and 20 of Ellen White's Christ's Object Lessons, which examine the parables of the unmerciful servant and the rich fool. In Chapter 19, David explores Ellen White's commentary on the measure of forgiveness, emphasizing that Christ never wearies of forgiving and neither should we. The ground of all forgiveness is found in God's unmerited love: as we are forgiven 10,000 bags of gold, so we should eagerly forgive others their hundred pieces of silver. In Chapter 20, David examines the parable of the rich fool, highlighting how the man's selfishness and covetousness led to his spiritual death. Ellen White powerfully argues that the only remedy for society's evils is Christ, not political systems. Both chapters underscore that we are to be in the distribution business—receiving God's grace, forgiveness, and resources, then freely passing them on to others. The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God, but living generously for His kingdom is true wisdom.Scripture References: Matthew 18:21-35, Luke 12:13-21

Covers: Chapter 19: The Measure of Forgiveness, Chapter 20: Gain That Is Loss
Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4C6PeRSdMY
Light Bearers

Transcript

Greeting and Announcements

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to With DA. David Ashrik here, back for our month-long study through the parables of Jesus. Welcome to those of you that are tuning in via YouTube and those of you that are signing on right now on Instagram. I see that people are a little bit slower signing on on Instagram because I'm about five minutes early. Great to see you, Chad. Love you, brother. Hello, Lolo Lux15. Hello, Linda. Hello, Sassy Cassie. Hello, Faith A. Chavez. Hello, Anna. Hello, SD. Hello, FarmGirl Forever. Hello, Frank. Hello, Westy. June, great to see you. West and I was just thinking about you today, brother. Literally thinking about you today, missing you. Let's see, Ampere71 says, hello. Hope you are feeling better. Yep, feeling a lot better. Maria says, How are you feeling? I'll talk about that in just a second. Faith says, I just started playing Wingspan and I love it. Yeah, we love it. Our family loves it. We have all of the uh extensions. And if you don't have all of the extensions, Faith, you want to order every one of them. They're all outstanding. And a brand new Wingspan extension just came out. We literally got it in the mail today, and it's South America. We haven't played that one yet, but we've played all of the others. Highly recommend. It's an amazing game. All right. Hello, BukaBP. Hello, this is Valens. Hello, Maris Goos5193. Hello, Hazel Grace. Maria King 186 says, We love that game as well. Get the extensions. All of them, trust me. Every one of them. They are so good. All right. Yeah, you want to get the Europe extension, the Oceania extension, the Americas extension, and there might even be one more. There are at least three extensions. Get all of them. Let's see. Pac R828 says, that's where I'm from. Peru. All right. Well, I'm so glad you are here. Hello, Tanya. Hello, Landy. Hello, CDR PST20 says greetings from Germany, where it's the middle of the night. Laura Mapes says, How are you feeling? More on that in just a second. Hello, Vladimir Miranda19 says, good to see you, brother. You as well. That on the fly guy, Patterson Cookie joined. Great to see you. Tennessee Quiltbug says, tell us about this game. Never heard of it. Well, it is a board game, and I highly recommend it. It's our family's favorite game, and it's called Wingspan. Wingspan. And as you might have guessed, it's a bird board game, and it's amazing. It's a total blast. It's so fun to play. And it comes with the basic game, but then you can also order a bunch of extensions. And the game gets better and better and better with each of the extension sets. So there's like the North American set, then the European set, the Oceania set, and then I think the America set. There might be one more. But highly recommend it. Order it, everybody. It's fun. Super fun. It's actually one of those rare games that's quite fun to play with just two people, but it's also a total total blast with four or five or more. Maria King says, uh, we love it. It's super fun. All right. Hello, Deb. Nicholas Smith says, is it a board game? Yes, it's a board game. Called a wingspan. Uh Deb says, I still sound a little stuffy. Yep, yep. I am still a little stuffy, but I feel amazing. Uh 303 Scissor G says, you have the expansions? Yes, we have all of them. In fact, we just got the America expansion today, the South America expansion. It just came out and we just got it in the mail today. We haven't played it yet, but I just told Violeta, I was like, Violeta, figure out how to play this additional set because it comes with uh new rules. Hello, Meyerwire, hello, Cindy, hello, Colin, Sapria Star, Coral R N. All right, Witz Messi, Marge C. James. Pac RA28 says, I don't know much about birds. Well, I know how to play. Yes, you don't need to know anything about birds to play the game, but you will learn about birds in playing the game. All right, so several people asking about how I'm feeling. The short answer, the short answer is I feel great. A little tired. And uh the reason that I'm a little tired is we've just had, I mean, since the start of with DA, we've had guest after guest after guest after guest, which I love, by the way. And that's not what's tiring at all. But I did just have a guest, Violet and I, we had overlapping guests. Uh Johnny Suarez was here, as you know. He did our last two with DAs. And then I had a dear friend of mine who we've known each other since we were teenagers. His name is Luke, and uh he's now 46. I'm I'm, of course, 53. And uh we've known each other again since we were both young skateboard kids, and he came to hang out for basically three days, and we climbed every single day because he's he goes, goes hard. And so I was trying to keep up with him first day, I was totally fine. Second day, I was kind of feeling it a little bit, a little run down, because I don't generally climb more than one day in a row. And then he went for a third day, and then this morning before I took him to the airport, we climbed a fourth day in a row. Now I didn't climb today, and I did climb yesterday, but not the day before. So I was on, off, on, off. And Luke was on, on, on, on and trying to keep pace up with trying to keep pace with him, staying up late talking to Johnny Suarez and doing the with DAs. Uh, it was really, I just got run down. I just got tired. And I knew I wasn't sick, I just knew I was worn down. And yesterday it was windy here, like 30 degree, 40 degree gusts, and we were in the wind all day. And I don't know if you've ever had an experience where you're outside in the wind for hours on end, and it was kind of cool, and it just it like gives you a headache and it makes your eyes burn. And I'd lost my my voice somewhat because I think the dust was going in my uh mouth and in my and I my lips were so chapped. I just made an executive decision last night at like five o'clock. I was like, there is no way I can do this, and thank God I didn't do it because I got a great night's sleep last night. As I mentioned this morning before I took Luke to the airport, we did a quick rock climbing trip at a nearby spot, and uh I didn't climb, but I helped him carry the pads and I spotted him and stuff. And uh then he took off, then I came back and took a nap. I mean, I like needed to recover because tomorrow morning uh at about 11 o'clock, we go to pick up two more guests. And uh I can't wait. I can't wait. These are guests that have never been to our house before, and they have never been on with DA before. So these are gonna be first-time guests. I'm not gonna say any more than that except to say that we are absolutely excited to have them on. And as Providence would have it, even though we skipped a night yesterday, uh skip the day, the two chapters that we're gonna do together tonight are amazingly similar. And I made the decision before I knew what the second chapter was, the one today. And when I was going over them today earlier, I was like, these chapters fit together perfectly. So, and they're both short chapters, and I told Violetta I was gonna do the unthinkable. We were gonna get through two chapters in the time that it typically takes us to get through one chapter. So that's the goal for tonight. We're gonna do two chapters. We're gonna be in The Measure of Forgiveness, chapter 19, and then chapter 20, which is titled Gain That Is Loss. So tonight, chapters 19 and 20, we're gonna do everything. We're gonna go through the chapters, we're gonna do two rubrics, two words. By the way, I absolutely love my words on both of them, especially the second one. And I'm gonna be interested to see. I think several people at least will have the first word that I have for chapter 19, but I'll be so interested to see if anybody ended up with the same word that I have in the second one. Because I'm really excited about it. All right, welcome everybody. So glad that you are here. We are now in uh well, we're almost in the last third of Christ Object Lessons, right? Because there's 29 chapters tonight. We do 19 and 20. And so by the time we start tomorrow in chapter 21 with our first time guest, can't wait for you to see who that is. Um and I'm really looking forward. We've had several first-time guests around. It's been so good. Kylie was a first-time guest, Tadia was a first-time guest, Deb was a first-time guest, and we have at least two more lined up. So it's it's gonna be absolutely great. So tonight we're in chapter 19 and chapter 20. I'm gonna start with prayer and uh let's get into this. And I'm just thanking Jesus. Number one, that I feel fine, and number two, that these chapters are so similar in their basic points, uh, that it's gonna be easy to go from one right into the other. And uh thank you all, by the way, for your prayers. When I put up the post on Instagram saying we weren't gonna be able to do a with DA last night, and I said, please pray. Man, just dozens and dozens and dozens of people praying or saying they would pray or putting the emoji hands. So thank you all for that. It's probably why I feel fine. And I actually do feel great. I know my voice is a little hoarse, but uh I'm I'm not worried about it. I I feel amazing. A little stuffy in my nose, but I'm just so happy. Let's start with prayer and let's get into chapter 19. What a great chapter, the measure of forgiveness.

Prayer

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Father in heaven, what a blessing to be here tonight. And I want to thank you for the with DA family, my people. I want to thank you, Father, that each one of them loves you, has a desire to live for you, and to live in the light of your love. And Father, tonight, in these two chapters, chapters 19 and 20, as we learn more still and better still, how to live in the light of your love, may you show up in a really wonderful and timely way. Lord, you know for me this second chapter was especially timely. And you've done that many times in this with DA reading, where it's been like, that was just for me, that was just for me, that was just for me, and you did it again today, and I know you're doing it again in the lives of the hundreds and thousands of people that are following along. So be with us now, Lord, as we spend time in your word, as we sit, as it were, at the feet of Jesus, learning from his stories, from his parables, from his life, from his ministry. And then, Lord, we want to take those principles by your spirit, and we want to embed them in our own lives. We don't want these just to be abstract ideas that we sort of loosely cling to or generally or generically believe in. Lord, we want these to be the way we live, the way we think, the way we treat others. And so be with us now is my prayer in Jesus'

Discussion

SPEAKER_00 10:57

name. Amen. All right, welcome everybody. Let's go. Chapter 19, The Measure of Forgiveness. Now, this is based on Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 to 35. And just to save my voice tonight, I'm not gonna read it in two translations. I'm just gonna read it in one, and I'll read this first one in the NIV. Okay, so Matthew chapter 18, beginning in verse 21, and I'm gonna read all the way down to verse 35. Here we go. The parable of the unmerciful servant. Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to say, seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times Well, this actually says seventy-seven times, but a lot of translations, seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began this the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold. That's an enormous amount of money, was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and children, and all that he had, should be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him, be patient with me, he begged, and I will pay back everything. The servant's master took pity on him, and cancelled the debt and let him go. But when the servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. Pay back what you owe me, he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, Be patient with me, and I will pay it back. But he refused. Instead he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. Now, when the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged, and they went and told their master everything that had happened. Then their master called the servant in. You wicked servant, he said, I cancelled that debt of yours, remember, ten thousand bags of gold, because you begged me. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all that he owed. I don't know how he's going to pay back ten thousand bags of gold, and I don't know how torturing him is gonna make him be able to pay it back. Verse 35. This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or your sister from the heart. Now, this is an astonishing parable here. The parable is about forgiveness, obviously, and it's it's a really practical parable. Not all of Jesus' all of Jesus' parables are practical, but not all of them have this kind of on the surface, obvious point of practical application. This one is unmistaken, right? Like a number of the parables that we've looked at here, it's like, yeah, that one's pretty clear. Like the two worshippers, the Pharisee and the tax collector. That one's straightforward. Uh the prodigal son, very straightforward. This parable, very straightforward, does not require any sort of theological, particular theological insight to know what's going on here. And again, in the interest of being timely and in preserving my voice, I'm not going to read as much as I would normally read. But join me on page 286. This is 243 of the original for the start of chapter 19. The title chapter that Ellen White gives to this is The Measure of Forgiveness, the Measure of Forgiveness. Um So the first about three pages is Ellen White just kind of retelling the story in her own language. She often does that. And I broke this particular chapter down, Ellen White's chapter 19, into four parts, four simple parts. Here they are. Number one, the retelling and expansion of the parable. Number two, the gospel as the ground of God's forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. That's part two. Part three, forgiveness doesn't encourage lawbreaking or indolence, and Christians should live in orbity with each other. Very practical. And then finally, number four, grace and the ground of forgiveness and mercy. And this is kind of like the last two pages, which is gold. Every paragraph, every sentence of the last couple pages is pure gold. Okay, so I broke it down into four sections. And I'm just going to highlight a couple things here in the first section, uh, which is really Ellen White retelling the story. But there is one line in the first paragraph that's pure gold, and we have to focus on it for a moment here. So let's read the first paragraph. Peter had come to Christ with the question: how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times. The rabbis limited the exercise of forgiveness to three offenses. Peter, carrying out, as he supposed, the teaching of Christ, thought to extend it to seven, the number signifying perfection. But Christ taught that we are never to become weary of forgiving. Underline that phrase. That's crucial to the whole chapter. Christ taught that we should never become weary of forgiving. In other words, the seven times seventy is not 490 times. This is obviously a reference to Daniel chapter 9, right? The 70 weeks prophecy. But the idea here is you have the number of perfections, seven, times the number of perfections, seven, times ten. The idea is you should never be tired of forgiving. It's not like you're itemizing each opportunity to forgive your brother. And if he somehow managed to exceed 490 times in a single 24-hour period, then you finally lose your patience for forgiveness, and you cannot forgive him the 491st time. That's not what she's saying. Clearly, the point, or that's not what he's saying. Clearly, the point that Jesus is making here is again, we are never to become weary of forgiving. Write that down. We should never become tired of forgiving. Now that doesn't mean it's easy. I mean, it's not easy to forgive the first time if somebody's really wronged you or really hurt you, uh, much less the second, third, or fourth or fifth time. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying we should not tire. We should not grow fatigued of forgiving others. Well, why? Why might that be? Well, as we're going to see in this chapter, because the ground of our forgiving others is that Christ has forgiven us. And what Christ has forgiven us is 10,000 bags of gold. And even for the person that has sinned against us, it's closer to a hundred silver coins. So if God can forgive us 10,000 bags of gold, right? And this is the contrast, then we should be willing to forgive a hundred species of a hundred pieces of silver, a hundred pieces of silver, a hundred pieces of silver, a hundred pieces of silver over and over and over again, and never tire. And never tire. Okay, that's the point she makes in the next paragraph. Then he showed the true ground, underlying the true ground, if you haven't already done so. Then he showed the true ground upon which forgiveness is to be granted, and the danger of cherishing an unforgiving spirit. Okay, then she goes through and unpacks the parable itself. And I'm just going to highlight a couple things here. First of all, over at the bottom of page 287, she's talking about when the other servants find out that the servant that had been forgiven was not similarly forgiving of his servant, right? So you have the king, and then this man occupies a position of some considerable significance because he's given charge over a lot of money, and his accounts are not, they're not uh uh uh coming up clear and clean, right? Is not that'll look good. I mean, like, where did that money go? Was he corrupt? Was he negligent? Was he laundering money? We're never told. But to come up short on your account, 10,000 bags of gold is not a mere oversight, where this man had then subordinates himself, right? So you have the king, and then this man in a higher position, you know, some managerial position, and then he had subordinates, and his subordinate owed him, like, you know, a hundred pieces of silver, and he's not willing to forgive. Now, the other servants see this and they immediately sense that there's a fundamental unfairness to this, an asymmetry. And this is a point we've made before. There is a scaffolding of fairness and of justice to the world. We know this. We know when something's not quite right, when it's unfair, when it's unjust. It doesn't sit right with us. Right? C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity uses the illustration of uh somebody cutting in line. I mean, that's just a small thing, right? It's an impolite thing to do, but we're like, hey, wait a minute, that's not fair. That's not right. That's not just. There's a line here, and you're not allowed to cut in line. Or imagine a situation where an able-bodied person doesn't give up his seat to an older woman, or a woman with a child, or a or a handicapped person, or worse still, imagine a woman with a child or a handicapped person, or an older woman who is forcibly removed by a young, strapping lad who could have no problem standing on a bus or on a train, he physically removes her so that he can sit down. Right? We're all in agreement that that's not okay, because again, the universe has a moral scaffolding to it. For example, when Jesus healed the woman in Luke chapter 13, and the people, the woman that was bent over, and the religious leaders, the people in the synagogue complained about Jesus healing, he said, Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, be loose from this burden on the Sabbath day? Listen to the language there. Ought not? In other words, isn't this the right thing to do? This is clearly the right thing. Remember when in Genesis chapter 18, when God discloses to Abraham that he's gonna go investigate what's going on in Sodom and that Sodom will pay for their immorality, Abraham immediately protests. He's like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Will not the judge of all the earth doom right? What if there are 50 people there that are righteous? What about 45? What about 40? What about 35? What about 30? What about 25? So see, so there's a moral scaffolding to the universe, and the reason there's a moral scaffolding to the universe and to the world in which we live is that we are made in the image of God, and little children do not have to be taught the oughtness or the shouldness of the world. A child just knows instinctively at a very young age, five or younger, that's not right, that's not fair. He got two, I only got one. Like little children. This is something that happens all the time. You'll figure it out. If you had children, you'll already know this is true. You know, you'll have two children and you'll say, one, hey, it's time to go to bed, and they'll say, Well, how come how come my brother doesn't have to go to bed? How come my sister doesn't have to go to bed? Right? That there's a fairness to the universe that we understand instinctively. Intuitively, we don't have to be taught this in some ethics class in a college. We don't have to even read it in the Bible. We just know, hey, that's not fair. That's not fair. And these servants are like, hey, wait a minute. That doesn't square at all. We know the story. This guy was forgiven 10,000 bags of gold. This his subordinate owed him 10 pieces of silver or 100 pieces of silver, and he wouldn't forgive. So they go and they report it back to the king. Why? Why do they report to the king? They're looking for justice. They're looking for fairness. They're looking for an equitable judgment. Okay, so I want to make that point that this parable undergirds something that we all know to be true, and that is that the universe and that the world has a moral scaffolding to it. There are things that should happen, that ought to happen. There are things that should not happen, that ought not to happen. And God, by his spirit, is appealing to all kinds of people, whether or not they read the Bible. God appeals to us through the oughtness or the injustice or justice of the world. Okay, now turning a page. Then we get to do a really cool little brief theological section. This is uh middle of page 288, 245 of the original paragraph begins. The pardon granted. Here's where Ellen White starts to make theological application of the parable. It's really good. The pardon granted by this king represents a divine forgiveness of all sin, 10,000 bags of gold. Right? And again, you'd have to ask yourself the question: how exactly did that happen? That cannot be mere oversight. Right? I mean, if 10,000 bags of gold is missing, you're either embezzling it, or you're paying off somebody, or you're funneling it away, or you are completely negligent in your responsibilities. It's not the kind of thing that a king would just forgive lightly. The reason is if he forgives this person, then what about this person? What about this person? What about this person? And then suddenly you have mismanagement across the whole of the royal administration. No, that's not going to work. So this is highly unusual. And I imagine that many in Jesus' listening audience were like, whoa, really? No king I know would do that. Right? I'd be off with your head. Right? And the head would be the last thing they'd chop off. First your feet, then your hands, right? And then they'd finally chop off your head after you'd endured a lot of pain. So then she makes the application, the pardon. The pardon granted by this king represents a divine forgiveness of all sin, underline all sin. Christ is represented by the king, who moved with compassion, forgave the debt of his servant. Man was under the condemnation of the broken law. He could not save himself, and for this reason, Christ came to this world, clothed his divinity with humanity and the incarnation, and gave his life, the just for the unjust. He gave himself, which we've noted before, is a famous, consistent, Pauline phrase. God gave himself. Husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. Right? I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul loves this phrase. He uses it repeatedly. He gave himself for our sins, and to every soul he freely offers the blood-bought pardon. With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is abundant redemption. Psalm 130 verse 7. And then this phrase, crucial phrase, here is the ground. Underline it. Here is the ground upon which we should exercise compassion toward our fellow sinners. Well, it's easy. We have been forgiven much, so we can forgive others comparably smaller for smaller amounts or smaller infractions. And then she says, if God so loved us, we also ought. There's the oughtness or the shouldness of the lesson. Right again, the scaffolding of the universe is moral. We ought to love one another. Matthew chapter 10, verse 8. Freely you have received, freely give. You could say that this way Freely you have received, freely you ought to give. Freely you should give. Now, she goes on to say that she after she makes the theological application, she goes on to basically say that the man that was forgiven 10,000 bags of gold was kind of clueless. And it does make sense that he was kind of clueless. I mean, somehow he had let 10,000 bags of gold go missing and his account could not be reconciled. So you kind of get the sense that he's careless, highly careless, and he's kind of silly as well. It's like he doesn't understand the size of the debt or the gracious, merciful magnanimity of the king. Right? Middle of page 289, paragraph begins, how many today? How many today are manifesting the same spirit? When the debtor pleaded with the Lord for mercy, he had no true sense of the greatness of his debt. He did not realize his helplessness. He had hoped to deliver himself, but how's he going to deliver himself? 10,000 bags of gold? I mean, he's overseeing royal accounts. He doesn't the idea here in the parable of Jesus is that this is an astronomical, vast sum of money that could not have been repaid by one man. Right? When he says, have patience with me and I will pay you all, he doesn't really have the means to pay all. He's just buying time and he's pleading with the king, and the king, because he's good, because he's gracious, because he's kind, because he's magnanimous. And again, this is no way to run a kingdom, except that this is the way that God runs his upside-down, grace-filled kingdom. God has mercy on him. But the man is, this is a this is so important. The man is forgiven so quickly, so thoroughly, so enthusiastically that he thinks that what he's been forgiven is actually much smaller than it is. That's a key point in this parable. Right? Anybody that was listening to the parable that Jesus told in the first century would have been like, what? 10,000 bags of gold? What king would do such a thing? And that's the point. Jesus is purposefully making these enormous sons of money. And the ease and the freedom and the mercy and grace with which the man is forgiven makes him think, well, I guess it's not that big of a deal. But it's a huge deal. And because he doesn't understand how much he's been forgiven, because he thinks it's kind of a small thing, then when it's time for him to forgive, he thinks that this is a really big deal. Ah, this is a big deal. You owe me a hundred pieces of silver. And she makes this point here again. She talks about how he did not realize his helplessness in repaying such a large debt. Then she globalizes the application and says, they do not, people that act like this, do not accept the grace of God as a free gift. They're trying to build themselves up in righteousness. Their own hearts are not broken and humbled on account of sin. They are exacting and unforgiving toward others. Their own sins against God, compared to their brother's sins against them, are as 10,000 bags of gold to one hundred pieces of silver. Nearly one million to one. Yet they dare to be unforgiving. Jump down to the middle of page 290. This is 247 of the original, this line. He who refuses to forgive is thereby casting away his own hope of pardon. Now, Ellen White hasn't yet mentioned the mechanism for this yet. Why is that the case? Is it because the king does something like this? Is the king doing something like this? Hey, if you're unforgiving, then I'll be unforgiving. If you're unkind, then I'll be unkind. If you're mean spirited, I'll be mean spirited. Is that the lesson? Is that the takeaway here that Jesus is trying to teach us that God is nice when we're nice, but mean when we're mean? That God is forgiving when we're forgiving, but unforgiving when we're unforgiving? God is merciful when we're merciful, but unmerciful when we're unmerciful? I mean, is God that capricious, that whimsical? He just turns on a dime depending on how frail, faulty, finite human beings respond to him? Is that the lesson here? It is clearly not the lesson. But Ellen White doesn't tease out the mechanism, or she doesn't make the punchline until the last two pages, which we're about to get to. Now, there is a section here that I want to just deal with briefly. Let me see if it's here. There is a section that I want to deal here with briefly, deal here with briefly, and I'll pick it up in greater detail, I think, even in the next chapter. Again, these two chapters go together so well. It's providential that I would have missed yesterday and had these two chapters go together. Thank you, Jesus. Okay, so bottom of page 290, that paragraph begins, but the teaching of the parable should not be misapplied. And she basically says this should not create a looseness or a laxness in the way that we treat others, shouldn't create an indolence or a propensity to lawbreaking. In other words, grace is not license, mercy is not license to behave in ways that are ungodly and unkind and unloving. So right at the bottom of that, she says, the parable does not teach us to encourage indolence or laziness, right? Like inattentiveness in your accounts. Hey, you just lost track of 10,000 bags of gold. Don't worry about it. It's all fine. No, that's not what the parable is teaching. It's not about indolence is okay and inattentiveness is okay, or corruption and embezzling. It's fine, it's fine, don't worry about it. No, it's saying you have incurred a debt because of your own stupidity or unkindness or inattentiveness, and God is re God has forgiven that amazing, amazing debt, that enormous debt. The Word of God declares that if a man will not work, neither shall he eat, 2 Thessalonians 3.10. The Lord does not require the hard-working man to support in idleness, to support others in idleness. With many there is a waste of time, a lack of effort, which brings to poverty. And what? If these faults are not corrected by those who indulge in them, all that might be done on their behalf would be like putting treasure into a bag with holes. Yet there is an unavoidable poverty, and we are to manifest tenderness and compassion toward those who are unfortunate. We should treat others just as we ourselves, in like circumstance circumstances, would wish to be treated. So she's basically now making a really cool little zig on the application here. And the application is: look, just because God is forgiving doesn't mean that we have to be similarly loose with our finances. We need to pay attention and use our monies in a way, use our money in ways that are God-honoring. It's kind of an interesting application, but it is an important one because somebody could be tempted to be like, ah, God doesn't really care about money. God's going to forgive. You know, I should just be showering my money anywhere and everywhere and just giving money to anybody and everybody that asks for any reason that they might ask. It reminds me reminds me years ago when I was living in uh Portland, Oregon, or excuse me, Eugene, Oregon. And I literally one day saw a completely able-bodied young man. He was like, I don't know, 23. 23-year-old man standing on the corner, obviously homeless, looked disheveled, but he was fine. He had a dog. He had he looked fine. I mean, he was homeless. He's got the cardboard sign. And his sign says, need money for pot. Marijuana. Need money for pot. Yeah, no. Not my money. I mean, I understand that you think you need money for cannabis. That's that's a recreational choice that you're making. In my view, cannabis should definitely not be legal. This is one of the worst decisions that many of these states have made in the recent history is to legalize marijuana. Now, there's medicinal use of marijuana, which is a totally different thing, glaucoma, depression. It's okay, I'm not talking about that. Talking about the recreational use of marijuana, schizophrenia is way up. Uh marijuana-related um uh uh mental illnesses, way up. I mean, there's a lot of evidence to show that this is a public health disaster. But anyway, if this guy wants to smoke marijuana recreationally, that's his business, but not with my money. And I'll tell you another little story about this. We there at Arise, for about three years, we I might have told the story before, but if I haven't, you're gonna like this. We used to feed people the homeless in downtown Eugene. We did this for three years as a part of our Rise uh ministry outreach in the community. So we would not only knock on doors and give Bible studies and hold evangelistic series, but we also did like service projects. And it was great. It actually was pretty good. But the problem was true story here, and I'm not saying this is the case in every city and in every context, but in our context, it definitely was the case. So we were one of several organizations that were working with a kind of umbrella organization that provided food, and we would provide food like on Thursday, and then another organization, like a church or some would provide uh, say on Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday. So ever all seven days, people would come and they would provide foods correct. It's a wonderful thing. Except that here was one of the major problems. Um a full 50 to 70 percent of the people that were coming to the place that we were feeding, there in Eugene, Oregon, were young people under the age of 30 and in some cases under the age of like 25, like lots of teenagers, lots of people in their early 20s, completely able-bodied, with dogs and guitars and bongo drums, just living the homeless lifestyle. No question. I mean, you can just see it. You're there like serving them up, and they're talking about the party, they're gonna go do that and that. Now to be clear, there were others in the mix, but not more than half, probably closer to 30%, that were, you know, often there was mental illness or there were veterans or they were just really in a bad situation. These people genuinely needed our help. But we got to the place after three years, we were like, I don't think we're doing what we think we're doing in this particular case. By the way, this is not a statement writ large about homeless ministry and soup kitchens and that. No, in this particular situation, we decided to put our efforts elsewhere in service because we felt like at some level we were just enabling uh basically indolence. And again, a high percentage. Even my son, my teenage son, he'd come in to say, Dad, why don't these people get jobs? By the way, he's not making a like Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative statement. He was like 13 serving up food year after year after year. I guess he was even younger than that because we moved to Australia when he was 12. So he's like nine to twelve serving food into these kids' trays. And he's like, Dad, why don't some of these people work? It's like, it's a good question. And even many of the Arise students were like, can we do something else? We feel like like because some of the guys were like hitting on the Earl's girls. It was all a bit much. So here's my point. We are not under obligation to support people personally in their indolence. Now, my sister, Elizabeth, who worked for Colorado Coalition for the Homeless for many years, and who's a social worker and who I love very much. Uh, we she and I have had lengthy conversations about the homeless problem, the homeless epidemic, and there is going to have to be some kind of a solution, and it'll be a multi-pronged approach. We'll talk about this in my next chapter, by the way, I'm going to say more about this. But in that particular case, in that setting, in that town, in that situation, after three years, we decided we're going to find some other way to serve this community. Because, as a famous sociologist said years ago, at either end of the social spectrum, there is a leisure class. So the uber wealthy, leisure class, the uber poor, leisure class. Now, again, that doesn't mean that there are real people that have actual needs and we should be serving them, but we need to figure out how to target those people and not to empower and enable indolence. And that's what she's talking about here. And that's what we felt like we were doing, and we pulled back and we found other ways to use the resources that we had with these like 40 RIS students, 50 RIS students. It's a lot of man hours. We're like, man, we want to funnel this somewhere else in this community where we feel like we're doing good. Okay, I'm gonna say more about that in the next uh chapter. Okay, so then she basically is making the point here that the man who was forgiven much did not understand the size of the debt that he was forgiven. Jump over to page 293. Page 293. There's a paragraph there, bottom of page 293, looks like 250, maybe of the original. Paragraph begins, we ourselves owe everything. Let's go there. We ourselves owe everything to God's free grace. Underline that. I mean, that's the parable in a sentence. We owe everything, not just 10,000 bags of gold, everything. Everything that we are, our life, our breath, our happiness, our food, our family, our freedom, everything we owe to God's free grace. Now let's keep reading. Grace is the covenant, or grace in the covenant ordained our adoption. Grace in the Savior effectuated our redemption, our regeneration, and our exaltation to airship with Christ. Let this grace be revealed to others. So five times there, grace, grace, or four times, excuse me, grace, grace, grace, grace. And she even says God's free grace. Now she's making the obvious application. This is a variable about grace. And once we've received incomprehensible grace, again, a king just randomly, kindly, magnanimously forgiving 10,000 bags of gold in somebody who was entrusted with stewardship, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah unheard of. But we have been forgiven something even greater than 10,000 bags of gold. What we have been forgiven cost the life of Christ himself. Right? This is why Jesus, as she says there in that opening paragraph, never wearies of forgiving. And so we shouldn't weary of forgiving. Now let's keep reading. Um, this is okay. I'm just gonna read like most of the last two pages because it's just gold upon gold. Talking about 10,000 bags of gold. There's 10,000 bags of gold in this chapter. By the way, I didn't mention this. I I forgot to mention this. Just quickly back to the poverty thing. Ellen White identifies two kinds of poverty. Okay, two kinds of poverty. The poverty of indolence or laziness, and the poverty that is unavoidable. So you might want to write that down if you didn't do so. The poverty of indolence and the poverty that is unavoidable. We can and should support people that are in situations that are tragic and unavoidable. I mean, Jesus himself said, you will always have the poor with you. That sounds like there's a certain unavoidability to poverty, right? That the poverty epidemic will never be fully saved or solved, and not every person will be saved out of it. There's a world of difference from the indolence, poverty that that is the poverty of indolence and laziness and a lack of planning. Okay, so just highlight that. Now, I'm gonna read all this. Go to the paragraph, give the erring ones, the paragraph after the one we just read on grace. Grace, grace, grace, grace. Now watch this. I'm gonna read almost all of this. Give the erring one no occasion for discouragement. Somebody made a mistake, don't let them get discouraged. Suffer not a pharisaical hardness to come in and hurt your brother or your sister. Right? A pharisaical hardness, wow. Let no bitter sneer rise in mind or in heart. So he's not even just talking about the sneer of the mouth, the sneer of the face. Don't even let a sneer arise in your heart. Let no tinge of scorn be manifest in the voice. If you speak a word of your own, if you take an attitude of indifference or show suspicion or distrust, it may prove the ruin of a soul. You could really discourage somebody if they are, to use the words of the prophet, a smoking flax. Right? Like just a barely, a wick that's just barely smoldering and burning, or a bruised reed. The last thing we want to do as instruments of Christ, as representatives of Christ, and ambassadors of Christ, is to be breaking people's last thread of hope. That's what she's saying. Don't do that. Do not do that. She continues, he needs a brother with the elder brother's heart of sympathy. Elder brother, capital E, capital B, Jesus. Unlike the elder brother and the parable of the prodigal son, by the way. Right? Who was not at all happy about his brother's recovery and restoration. Now, this is Jesus, the elder brother. He needs a brother with the elder brother's heart of sympathy to touch his heart of humanity. Let him feel the strong clasp of a sympathizing hand and hear the whisper. I love this. Let's pray. I've told you before on these with the A's, instead of saying, I'll pray for you, which very often we say we will and we forget to do it. Not that we're purposely lying, we just forget. Instead of saying, I'll pray for you, say these words. Let's pray.

unknown 43:43

Right?

SPEAKER_00 43:43

If somebody's like, oh, hey, can you pray for me? Da da da da da say, let's pray. Right? And that's what she's saying here. She's like, put your hand on that hurting brother, put your hand on that struggling brother, put your hand on that helpless, hopeless brother or sister and say, Let's pray. Let's pray. And then by the way, Great little pastoral tip here. Always, always, always, always, always pray for the person by name. Ask them if you don't know their name, say, what's your name, sister? Mary? Okay, I'm gonna pray for you. Father in heaven, I'm here with Mary. And say the name throughout the prayer. Hey, brother, I'm so sorry. I missed your name there. What's your name? Kenneth? Okay, let's pray. Father in heaven, Kenneth and I are here. And I just want to lift up Kenneth to you. Pray by name. It's important. It's absolutely important that you pray for people by name. Um, for them. God knows who you're talking about, but for them. I can't tell you how many times I've had people with tears coming down their cheeks after a prayer like that. They've said, I've never had somebody pray for me by name. And if you're praying for their children, get their children's names. Pray for them by name. Means the world to them. She says, God will give a rich experience to you both. It'll be good for you and good for them. Prayer unites us with one another and with God. Amen to that. Prayer brings Jesus to our side. Amen. Gives us, gives the fainting, perplexed soul new strength to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Prayer turns aside the attacks of Satan.

unknown 45:13

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Underline it. And write this right next to it. Because we've said it before. Prayer is an act of war. I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says prayer is an act of war. Well, what does that mean? I mean, what does that mean? That's exactly what that means. Prayer turns aside the attacks of Satan. Uh yeah. Yeah. That means it's an act of war. Right? If there's an attack coming from the enemy, the adversary, the Satan to me, and prayer turns it aside, then prayer is an act of war. I'm going to keep reading. I'm going to read all of this. It's too good. When one turns away from human imperfections to behold Jesus, a divine transformation takes place in the character. Exactly right. The Spirit of Christ works upon the heart and conforms it to his image. Then let it be your effort to lift up Jesus. Let the mind's eye be directed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, John 1.29. As you engage in this work, this work of encouraging and uplifting and helping those that are discouraged and downcast. As you engage in this work, well, what happens is I engage in this work. Remember that he who turns a sinner from the air of his way will save a soul from death and convert a multitude of sins. James 5.20. But if you do not forgive their trespasses, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses, quoting from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6.15. Nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit, underline it. The whole chapter here, she's talking about the ground of forgiveness, the ground of mercy. The ground means the reason for it, the logic behind it. What's underneath the grace? What's underneath the mercy? And the answer here is the inimitable, inestimable, infinite grace of God. That's why we should never weary of forgiving, because God has forgiven us. 10,000 bags of gold times 10,000 bags of gold. Nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit. He who is unmerciful towards others shows that he himself is not a partaker of God's pardoning grace. And that's the key. That phrase right there, that sentence right there is the whole chapter. In other words, it's not God says, if you're mean, I'll be mean. If you're unmerciful, I'll be unmerciful. If you're unkind, I'll be unkind. If you're unforgiving, I'll be unforgiving. The reason that the person is unforgiven is that they don't understand what forgiveness is and how it works. If they truly understood what forgiveness was and how it works, and what the ground of forgiveness is, which is the inimitable, infinite grace of God, they would be happy to be in the distribution business of passing on the forgiveness that's been lavished upon them. Oh, don't worry about that. I know you owe me 10,000 pieces of silver, figuratively speaking, but I owe God 10,000 bags of gold times 10,000 bags of gold, and he forgave me. I'm happy to forgive. Don't even worry about it. Don't even think twice about it. You are fully and completely forgiven. No sneer, no grudge, no uh attitude of indifference. Right? No uh uh suspicion or distrust. No way. Nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit. He who is unmerciful towards others shows or manifests or demonstrates that he himself is not a partaker of God's pardoning grace. That's the reason that they're not forgiven. It's because they don't understand what forgiveness is and how it works. They themselves don't believe the gospel, so they can't extend the gospel. It's not that God is capricious and arbitrary. It's that we have to understand the gospel in order to receive the gospel, in order to believe the gospel, in order to distribute the benefits of the gospel. That's what this parable is about. That guy in the parable, he should have been like, oh, dude, dude, dude, dude, no problem at all. No problem at all. You owe me a hundred shekels. Hey, listen, don't think twice about it. Let me tell you a story. Let me tell you what just happened to me. I was just forgiven 10,000 bags of gold by the king himself, who could have had me instantaneously executed. I mean, I deserve death. So for you to owe me a hundred pieces of silver, don't even think about it. I mean, it's a pittance, it's one million to one compared to what I owed. And if you're ever given the opportunity to forgive somebody that owes you something, whether small or great, please remember this. Remember this and pass it on, or as we say today, pay it forward. That should have been the attitude. But the guy himself, remember, didn't understand the size of the loan or the oversight that had been forgiven him. And I think again, there had to have been criminal activity here, which would be like us. I mean, we're criminals in the universe as sinners. We do need to be forgiven because we've not just made mistakes. It's not just that we're neglectful and inattentive, we're rebellious. Continuing on. In God's forgiveness, I'm on the last page here, page 295, 251 of the original. In God's forgiveness, the heart of the erring one is drawn close to the great heart of, here it comes, infinite love. Underline it. Infinite love. The tide of divine compassion flows into the sinner's soul and from him to the souls of others. From him. So we're in the distribution business. We've talked about this quite a bit in this with DA through Christ's object lessons. We distribute to others what God has given to us. The tenderness of mercy that Christ has revealed in his own precious life will be seen in those who become sharers of his grace. You got it right. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his, Romans 8.9. He is alienated from God and fitted only for eternal separation from him, correct? Eternal life is for those that have received the gospel, that understand the gospel, and that are then living out the gospel both horizontally and vertically. If we choose to live selfishly, and this is what the next chapter is about, if we choose to live selfishly, hoarding whether it's finances or resources or talent or forgiveness to ourselves, well then we're not going to enjoy the company of Christ throughout eternity, who laid down his life for others. Greater love has no man than this, and a man would lay down his life for his friends. No, we would not find eternity to be enjoyable. And so we, not God, we bring about a necessary separation between us and God. By the way, that's Ellen White's whole theology of damnation and condemnation and even destruction. Her entire theology is summarized in this idea here that we separate ourselves. How many times in this book, as she already says, God destroys no man? People destroy themselves by separation, voluntary, willful, rebellious separation from him who is the source of life, which is exactly where she goes. Let's keep reading. It is true that he may once have received forgiveness, but his unmerciful spirit shows that he now rejects God's pardoning love. In other words, he can't pass on the gospel because he doesn't believe the gospel. She hasn't received the gospel. He has separated himself from God and is in the same condition as before he was forgiven. He has denied his repentance and his sins are upon him as if he had never repented. But the great lesson of the parable lies in the contrast between God's compassion on one side and man's hard-heartedness. Exactly correct. In the fact that God's forgiving mercy is to be the measure of our own. And that's the chapter title, the measure of forgiveness. That God's forgiving mercy is to be the measure of our own. We've been forgiven 10,000 bags of gold, so it's nothing for us to forgive 100 pieces of silver. We should never weary. In fact, we should look for opportunities. Let me say it this way: we should be chasing opportunities to forgive people. We should be racing to find every possible opportunity to forgive somebody who has wronged us. And by the way, that's why I reached out to my biological father. This isn't a story I tell very often. But after I got converted at the age of 26, I had never met my biological father, never met him. And I reached out to him. He was living in the town that my grandparents were living in. I was staying the night at my grandparents' house, they were still alive. Two of the best people that ever lived in this world, Rita and Charles Atkins, Charles Oakley Atkins. And uh I pulled out the old phone book. Remember the phone book with the white pages and the yellow pages? Pulled out the phone book, looked it up, Cross. C-R-O-S-S. That was my birth name, David Cross. Looked it up. Frank Cross. Looked it up, dialed my phone. You remember these? These phones? Dial it up. Pick up the phone. I'm calling. I'm 26 years old. I'm a new believer. Been a follower of Jesus now a couple of years. And I just want to let my dad know, my biological father, who's living in that town, who still works at the same place that he worked at, that my grandfather got him a job at uh at you at the Union Pacific Railroad because he got my mom pregnant.

unknown 54:17

Right?

SPEAKER_00 54:17

That's where I came from. I was unplanned. I just wanted to tell him it was fine. That I'm okay, that I've got a dad now, I've got a life, I'm a follower of Jesus, I've been forgiven, and I forgive him. I literally called him with one purpose in mind to tell him I didn't know if he was wrestling with guilt or shame. But I just I knew he was remarried, I knew I had kids. I knew that I knew this from my granddad. My granddad had told me I had no contact with him. Zero for 26 years. He left three weeks after I was born. Or maybe it was a couple months after I was born. So I just called him up. I wanted him to know that I forgave him. And I wanted to meet with him and look him in the eye and tell him that I forgave him. And uh he was not interested in meeting. He could not believe who it was on the phone. He just was over and over again. He kept saying, Oh my God, oh my God, oh, oh my God. In fact, he was so upset and so unexpected by the call that he asked me if I could call him back the next day because he needed to process it. I said, sure, of course, I'll be at my grandma-grandpa's house. He knew where that was. It was the same house that my mom was at. He'd been in that house. So I called him back the next day and he's like, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think it would be good for us to meet. And I was like, Well, I just wanted to sit down and I there's a couple things I'd like to tell you. Maybe he thought I was gonna rip him up and down, but I was very kind. I was like, hey, listen, uh, it'll be short. We don't even have to get a meal or anything. I just want to, there's a couple things I really want to tell you. And the main thing was I wanted to tell him that I forgave him. I was chasing an opportunity to forgive him. And he said he didn't want to meet, which is his business. I mean, I understand. I by that point I had a dad. But I I'd had a dad since I was in my uh preteen years. I just wanted, I was chasing an opportunity to pass on the forgiveness that God had given to me. Had he wronged me? Yeah, he was an absentee father. Had he wronged my mother? Yeah, absolutely. But God has forgiven me so much more, and I wanted to pass that on. That's the very point she's making here. Look at that last, let's read that sentence again. But the great lesson of the parable lies in the contrast between God's compassion and man's hard-heartedness. In the fact that God's forgiving mercy is to be the measure of our own. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you? And then I love this last paragraph. We are not forgiven because we forgive in some meritorious sense. But as we forgive, as we forgive, and she puts because and as in italics. The ground of all, this is the punchline here, the ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God. So every time we are unforgiving, unforgiving, we are effectively saying, I don't fully believe and practice the gospel. I don't think the gospel's for everyone. I think the gospel is just for me. That's effectively what we're saying. But if we remember this, the ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God, but by our attitude toward others, we show whether we have made that love our own. Therefore, Christ says, with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you use, it will be measured back to you. What a great, encouraging, powerful reminder of the gospel, and that the gospel is not just an abstract idea. The gospel is to be lived, the gospel is to be shared, the gospel is an action, it's a verb, it's a way of life, it's a lifestyle. Okay, let's quickly do the rubric here for chapter 19. The point. Page 295. The gospel is the ground of forgiveness. Forgiveness of others demonstrates that we truly understand and practice the gospel. That's the point of the chapter. It's unmistakable. The person, how about this one? Christ never wearies of forgiving. Christ never wearies of forgiving. We know this because how could he teach us? That's what she says in the opening paragraph. Christ teaches us that we should never weary of forgiving. Remember, Peter said seven times, and Jesus is like, no, seven times seventy. In other words, never. Because every time we forgive, it's a reminder to us, even if it's hard, even if it pains us, even if somebody has really wronged us, like an absentee father. By the way, forgiveness and trust are not synonymous. We can forgive somebody and not trust them. We know we have forgiven somebody if we want what's best for them. That's the litmus test of forgiveness. Right? You don't have to have them babysit your children and stay the night in your home in order to have forgiven them. No. You can still distrust somebody that you completely forgive. And the way you can test if you have forgiven somebody is to ask yourself this simple diagnostic question: do I want what's best for this person? Do I want them to come to Jesus, to receive forgiveness, and to be eternally saved? And if you're like, yes, I want that for them, even though they deeply hurt me and hurt others and hurt my family, I want what's best for them. You have forgiven them, and you do not have to trust them. They do not have to be your friends. You don't have to hang out with them. Now you don't need to be disparaging them and you know, throwing them under the bus and calling them toxic and all kinds of mean names. You don't have to say anything about them. Just let that be between Jesus and them. Okay? Christ never wearies of forgiving, and neither should we. Chase opportunities to forgive. Uh, the prayer. Uh for me, I'm just going to remember this great promise, page 294. Prayer turns aside the attacks of Satan. Prayer turns aside the attacks of Satan. And then the practice: forgive others with the same unhesitancy, enthusiasm, and consistency that God has forgiven me. That's what I want to do. I want to be able to forgive others with that same energy, that same unhesitancy, that same enthusiasm that God has forgiven me. And then finally, um, for me, the promise was that grace paragraph on page 293. We ourselves owe everything to God's free grace. Grace is the covenant that ordained our adoption. Grace and the Savior affected our redemption, our regeneration, our exaltation to airship with Christ. And let this grace be revealed to others. That's a promise. Jesus wants to distribute his inimitable, inexhaustible, never-tiring grace to the world through me and through you and through the church. Okay, everybody, what was your word? Let's do this quickly here. What was your word? In fact, let's do the words at the end. We'll do both words at the end. Okay, because we've got to we've got to keep moving. Let's go to chapter 20. Chapter 20, gain that is loss. Gain that is loss. All right. Um, gain that is loss, short chapter, and we're gonna do it quick. We're gonna do it really quick, because I don't want to tire out my voice. This is based on Luke chapter 12, verses 13 to 21. And I'm gonna read this one in Wright's translation. So, gain that is lost, chapter 20, and this is the parable of the rich fool. The parable of the rich fool. Uh Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 13. By the way, these two parables, these two chapters go together so well, because they both revolve around the idea of selfishness, right? Not giving to others what God has given to us. In one case, it's forgiveness and mercy, and in the other case, it's abundant blessings. Right? In in the case of the rich fool, it's it's monetary, it's wealth. Here we go. Uh Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 13. Someone from the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Tell me, my good man, Jesus replied, who appointed me as a judge or an arbitrator over you. Watch out, he said to them, and beware of all greed. Your life does not consist in the sum total of your possessions. He told them a parable. There was a rich man whose land produced a fine harvest. What shall I do? He said to himself, I don't have enough room to store my crops. Whew! I know, he said. I'll pull down my barns and I'll build bigger ones. Then I'll be able to store all the corn and all my belongings there. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you've got many good things stored up for many years. Take it easy. Eat, drink, have a good time. But God said to him, Fool, this very night your soul will be demanded of you. Now who's going to have all the things you've got ready? That's how it is with someone who stores up things for himself and isn't rich toward God. Okay, another parable that is quite easy to understand, but also has broad applications. We're going to hustle through this one. Um, she sets the context here, and she's basically saying that in Luke chapter 12, Jesus is lecturing, he's teaching, and this is um toward the second half of Jesus' public ministry. And so Jesus is a fairly well-known person at this point. He's a fairly well-known commodity. People are following Jesus. They like the way he speaks, they like the integrity of his character, the healings. There's a certain kind of authority in the way that he talks and the way that he teaches. He's not like the mealy-mouthed kind of religious leaders of the day. In fact, that's what it says there at the end of Matthew chapter 7, right? Just after the Sermon on the Mount, he didn't teach like the scribes and the Pharisees. He taught as one having authority. So for this reason, and this is very important, people started to think to themselves, well, Jesus could help me with some situation. Like I could use his authoritative language and his wisdom and his insights. If he could just come, he could help me out. And so this guy kind of like just blurts out, blah, blah, blah, good teacher. Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Almost get the feeling that the brother was like right there, and like they're having this family quarrel, and like, let's go see what Jesus has to say. And here's what I wrote on page 299, 253 of the original. There's three paragraphs here. The first paragraph begins, but there were many who desired. The second paragraph, the next paragraph says, Then one from the crowd said to him. Then the third paragraph begins, in the midst of the solemn instruction that Christ had given, this man revealed his selfish disposition. In all three of these paragraphs, and the next paragraph, actually on page 300, that begins, the Savior's mission on earth was fast drawing to a close. Okay. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times in these four paragraphs on pages 299 and 300, I wrote the word means. M E A N S means, as in the means to an end. And here's what I mean by that. This man, and then she uses other examples of it, see Jesus not as an end in himself, but as a means to some other end. So, hey, Jesus, we're going to use your wisdom, your insight, your authoritative voice to mediate and adjudicate this dispute I have with my brother. So this is very important because Ellen White makes the point here that Jesus is not going to be co-opted into somebody else's project for him. She says in this section, Jesus stayed on mission. He stayed on point, and there's a great lesson in this for us. God has given each of us a mission, something to do, something to say, something to accomplish. And we need to stay on mission, right? Like the builders in the book of Nehemiah. We need to stay on mission. We need to build the wall. And there might be opportunities to get co-opted into other things, even things that might not be bad in and of themselves, but we need to stay focused. We need to stay calibrated. We need to stay on mission. We're not here to do everything. You can't do everything. We only have so much bandwidth. What has God put us here to do? And that's build up his kingdom. Now, this is amazing. So over and over again here, she's talking about how this person was trying to treat Jesus like a means to an end. Now, she then also basically says that the dispute between the brothers was relational, not legal, that they that like there might have been a legal dispute, but really what was needed was the gospel. But anyway, this is my favorite point. She then transitions out of this like means to an end way of thinking about Jesus rather than seeing Jesus as an end in himself. Right? She says here, uh, for example, top of page 300, Jesus, the king of glory, who was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, was opening to him the treasure of divine love. Jesus is an end in himself. And yet this guy's like, hey, Jesus, I need your help mediating between my brother and I on this property dispute. And Jesus is like, Are you kidding me? We're talking about property? That you want to talk about property when I'm here talking about the infinite, eternal, illimitable love of God and how you can have access to it. Wake up, young man. I'm not just a means to some other end. I am the end, capital E, in itself. You should be listening to me. If you really understood what I was advocating for, you would just say to your brother, listen, do whatever you want.

unknown 1:08:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

Just like he said, if somebody slaps you on your right cheek, turn to them the other. If somebody says, hey, you gotta walk with me a mile, some Roman insists in keeping with Roman law, just go two miles. Jesus is like, are you not hearing what I'm saying? People want to use Jesus for some other means. And by the way, that is so much of the story of church history. People don't want the biblical Jesus. They want the Jesus of their own invention and imagination and idolatry, the Jesus of their own crafting. They want to manipulate the Jesus. They're doing it today, too. There's all kinds of versions today. There's the like prosperity gospel Jesus, there's like the Christian nationalism Jesus, just throwing the name Jesus around like confetti. It's like, no, what about the biblical Jesus? The biblical Jesus has some really great things to say, and he wants to save you. But just taking the name of Jesus or the religion of Jesus and co-opting it for your political ends or for your church ends or for your personal ends, Jesus is not a means to an end. Jesus is the end. And we should resist every opportunity to co-opt Jesus into some larger structure and purpose that is not the purpose that he gave. And that's what she does. Look at page 301. Remember, I said I would come back to the point about indolence and the two kinds of poverty, the poverty of indolence and the unavoidable poverty. Ellen White has this chef's kiss masterful section here on page 301, 255 of the original. We're going to read all of it. In Christ's treatment. Join me there. In Christ's treatment. I'm a Christian. You're a Christian. You're a member of the church. I'm a member of the church. We've taken the name of Jesus. So there's a lesson here for us. Okay, what is it? Let's see what it is. When he sent forth the twelve, he said, as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's here. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely have received, freely give. Matthew 10, 7, and 8. That's what he said to the disciples. By extension, we're called to do the same. Preach the gospel, practice the gospel. Now watch this. They were not to settle the temporal affairs of the people. Let me translate that. They were not to get co-opted into some what somebody else wanted them to do, either personally or as a church or as a Christian. We're not here to settle settle the temporal affairs of the people. Now watch this. This is incredible. Such great insights. Their work was to persuade men to be reconciled to God. They're doing a different thing here. That's why when the guy's like, hey, have my brother, tell my brother to settle the inheritance with me more fairly. Jesus is like, me paraphrasing here, are you kidding? You want to talk about that? I I'm here giving you, I'm talking about an eternal inheritance. And you want to drag me into some interfamilial dispute? Watch this. Their work was to persuade men to be reconciled to God. In this work lay their power to bless humanity. And as I'm reading this, I want you to be thinking about the political world and the political context and the political divisiveness that we live in today. The only remedy for the sins and sorrow of men is Christ. That's it. It's not the Republicans, it's not the Democrats, it's not whatever the political parties are in your country. No, man. It's Jesus. Do you really think if the Republicans had 100% of power in the United States that they could solve the problems of America? You believe that? Do you believe that the Democrats controlled every seat, every state? That all of a sudden the problem there would be no murder, no unwanted pregnancies, no drunk drivers, no injustice, no corruption, no war. Give me a break. I mean, come on, it's just it's just all so laughable. And again, you can have whatever political opinions or perspectives you want. But what we're called to do, we live in a different world. We're operating on a different plane. We're not supposed to see the world in these Republican-Democrat distinctions or labor and liberal distinctions. That's the distinctions, the parties that they have, two of the main parties in Australia. We see the world like follower of Jesus, not follower of Jesus. Or I should say follower of Jesus, not yet a follower of Jesus. Man, she goes hard here. The only remedy for the sins and sorrow of men is Christ. The gospel of his grace alone can cure the evils that curse society. Correct. Only individual conversion can transform an individual. An individual can then transform his family. A family, a group of families can then transform a neighborhood. A group of neighborhoods, uh, as uh neighborhoods could then transform a larger community, a larger community could transform a city, a city could transform a county, a county could transform a state, etc. But the only way this works is not if like the Democrats are in power or the Republicans are in power. Are you kidding me? It's not saying that both political parties are equal. I'm not saying they are equal. I'm just saying the idea that if you suddenly just if every single political position in the United States could be handled, handed to either one of the parties, we would not have fewer political problems than we have right now. Are you kidding? But what if every follow how about this? What if every single person in the United States of America right now was suddenly a devout follower of Jesus Christ? Imagine that. Every single problem disappears overnight. Every one. Every single problem disappears overnight. If ever if 380 million Americans were devoted, obviously there's a lot of infants and youth there, but to the degree that they were able to be followers, committed followers of Jesus Christ, problem solved. That's what she's saying. The only remedy for the sins and sorrows of men is Christ. The gospel of his grace alone can cure the evils that curse society. The injustice of the rich toward the poor, the hatred of the poor toward the rich alike. Notice she says this door swings both ways, this knife cuts both ways, has their root in selfishness, and this can be eradicated, underline it, only through submission to Christ. If you're ever tempted to get overly invested in politics, just go read this section and remind yourself that none of these political parties can solve the problems of the world. I'm going to keep reading. He alone, he alone, for the selfish heart of sin, gives the new heart of love. Let the servants of Christ preach the gospel with the Spirit sent down from heaven and work as he did for the benefit of men. Then such results will be manifest in the blessing and uplifting of mankind that are totally impossible of accomplishment by human power. Impossible. So if ever you are looking for something to quote from Ellen White to the effect that we should be focused on preaching the gospel, helping people, blessing individuals, families, homes, getting people to become followers of Jesus, committed followers of Jesus. What did Jesus himself say? Uh, my kingdom is not of this world. That's what he said to Pilate. Or my servants would fight. And by the way, this is not a total equivalence between the political parties. I'm not saying. There are some really good ideas on one side and bad ideas on another. I got political opinions. But you know what? Who cares? People need to become followers of Jesus. That's the fix. That's the fix. And I can't fix the world, but I can fix my world. I can witness in my world. I can forgive in my world. I can bless in my world. I can witness in my world. I can't, what am I gonna do? Call up President Trump or J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio and give them my perspective on U.S. foreign policy? No, I can pray, and I do pray. Pray for our leaders. We should be praying for them. Pray for them. Pray that God will give them wisdom and insight and that they'll be just and people of integrity. You should pray. I prayed for Obama just like I prayed for Biden, just like I prayed for Bush, just like I prayed for Trump, just like I'll pray for the next president. But I can't, I'm not changing that world, except through prayer. Prayer is an act of war, but I can change my world. And do you know what I'm trying to do in my world? Preach the gospel, friends. Preach the gospel. Whew! Come on now. I love it. Jesus was not going to get co-opted. Jesus was not going to get co-opted into somebody else's idea of what Jesus should be doing. Jesus stayed on mission. Jesus stayed on task. Jesus stayed focused. Okay, then page 302, Jesus tells this parable, and the parable is basically like, look, why are you overworried about your inheritance? Let me tell you a story about a rich man who got everything that he ever wanted financially, and then he got even more, and then he got even more, and then he got even more. And he was like, what should I do? I got an idea. I'll build bigger barns and bigger barns and still bigger barns. And then he thought, man, I got years. I'm gonna retire now. And let's say he got all of his biggest barns. We'll be really generous here by the time he was 50, or maybe even 40. So he's gonna have a long retirement. Though in the days of Jesus, people died much younger than they do today. But let's just imagine. 40 years old, he's got his retirements all laid out in front of him. He doesn't know that. Car accident, cancer, disease, bucked off a horse. He can die in a moment, man. You should not be thinking about this world primarily. Okay, you can be sensible. It's nothing wrong with having some barns and a life insurance policy or a retirement plan or a 401k or an IRA. Fine, whatever. But we should really be thinking about our eternal retirement plan, and that's the point. And that's the reason that Jesus tells this story. Um she talks about how this man with these incredible abundant resources could have become, this is uh bottom of page 302, he had a blessed opportunity of becoming God's almaner, God's almaner. But he thought only of ministering to his own comfort. I was like, an almaner? What's an almaner? A-L-M-O-N-E-R. I looked it up. It's a distributor of alms. Alms, charitable gifts. He could have been, now we're in the distribution business again. In the last chapter, we're distributing the forgiveness, the mercy, the grace, the patience that's been shown to us. We were forgiven 10,000 bags of gold, so we can forgive somebody else a hundred shekels of silver. Here, we've got abundance. By the way, it doesn't just have to be financial abundance. You can have the abundance of resources, you can have the abundance of time, you can have the abundance of talents, you can have the abundance of an ability to teach, you can have the abundance of there's lots of ways to have abundance, including, but not limited to, finances. Well, we should distribute those to others who do not have abundance, not under government compulsion. Again, that doesn't work. By the way, I'm gonna say something here. I'm gonna wade ever so briefly into the political waters because I've had lots and lots and lots of in-depth conversations with over the years, because I don't mind talking politics, I'm happy to talk politics with my friends and family. Um, but here's something I've noticed. I've mentioned before that I have friends that are on the right, you know, on the right end of the political spectrum, and I have friends that are on the left end of the political spectrum. Uh one of my dearest friends in the whole world is a lifelong Democrat, family's lifelong Democrats. And I have friends that are all the way on the right. I got- I I don't mind. Now, here's an interesting thing that I've noticed. And by the way, do this for yourself right now. Do this little test for yourself right now. And I have identified in dozens and dozens and dozens of these kinds of political conversations that can sometimes get a little heated, right? Get a little intense. Um, and when I'm in them, I don't let them get heated or intense. I just I try to be inquisitive, I try to understand, I try to ask questions. But here's a very cool litmus test. I think you guys are gonna like this. I think you're gonna like this a lot, actually. Try this on yourself and then try it on others. And give me credit. You'll have to give me credit, but but I'll tell you it's an interesting, it cuts through a lot of foolishness in these political debates and arguments. You ready? Here it comes. When you're dealing with somebody, say, on the left end of the political spectrum. So in America, we would say the liberals or the Democrats, the liberals and the Democrats tend to have a lot of opinions about, we'll just take economics. Okay, they have these strong opinions about economics. So the rich should be taxed, and uh we should have more money in government social programs and welfare programs, and there should be a strong social safety net. We should have uh obviously Social Security, if people are down and out on their luck. The wealthy should be paying significant taxes in order to bring up. Okay, fine. I pay taxes, you pay taxes, we all pay taxes if we make enough money. And then on the right, you're gonna hear people say, well, yes, taxes, but also something even more important than taxes is like creating businesses and jobs and opportunities. The entrepreneur creates the job and hires a thousand people. Those thousand people then pay taxes, right? Or or the the you know, the Jeff Bezos of the world, for example. You know, he creates a company. It's called Amazon. They have tens and tens of thousands of employees. I don't know how many employees there are on Amazon, probably a hundred thousand employees or more. And then that's the way they're helping. They're helping by giving jobs and providing services. And so on one side, you have more of a kind of uh an emphasis on business and entrepreneurial um investment notions, and this is how you make the economy better. And then on the other end, it's like, yeah, but these people are making too much money, and the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is too okay, fine. Now here's the here's the knife that cuts through all this. Ask this question. Two questions. I'll give them to you here. Ask your friends, your liberal friends or your conservative friends, in your world, what should be the absolute highest tax bracket by percentage of income. Okay? This this is this is great. It cuts right through a lot of stuff. So, you know, your liberal friends, you just say, look, a guy that makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year in profit. Now, there's a difference, I know there's a difference between corporate profits and individuals. We're gonna say an individual. So, like I just saw the other day that the CEO of Starbucks, I think, makes like $92 million a year plus bonuses. That's a lot of money. So we're not talking about corporate profits, those are a little different. We're talking about individuals. So, for an individual, just ask the question what should be the highest tax bracket for somebody that makes $100 million a year? I have friends who will say 90%. 90%. Okay. That's a lot to state the obvious. 90%. Yeah, if you make over a certain threshold, whatever that threshold is, 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, a million, whatever it is, 90% of your income back into the government. Okay. Now ask the question of your conservative friends, your Republican friends. What do you think the highest tax bracket should be? And you're gonna hear generally, and I've asked this question of dozens of people in different social settings, most will say something like 40% or 30%. Right? And some conservatives will even say something as high as 50%, and some liberals will even say something as low as 50%. So actually there, if you but this is a great way to sort of gauge the conversation. And then you might find that you're actually kind of close. But this isn't even the best question. Here's the question. This is the question that cuts through everything. Are you ready? Say to the people that you're having the conversation with and ask yourself this question right now what's your level of trust in the government's ability to effectively use the tax revenue that they receive? This is the question. What is your personal level of confidence in the government's ability to effectively use the tax revenue that they get? So they get X revenue. So what's your level of confidence, one to ten, that the bureaucrats, whether at the state level or the federal level, are actually using your money well? And here's something very interesting. You're gonna immediately see. Try this. Try this. Your liberal friends are going to give a high number, over 50%. They're gonna say, in fact, I can think, I can hear his name, I can hear it echoing in my head right now, a dear friend of mine. He'd say 75%. And then you know what your conservative friends are gonna say? 10%, 20%. Right? They're gonna say, I have almost no confidence. Now watch this. Now that you've done these two things, what's your highest tax bracket, and you find out how close you are, and then you say what's your level of confidence in the government to spend? Like in other words, but let me before I give it. Then you say this, check this out. Then you say to your conservative friends, you say to your conservative friends, look, what if, imagine, let's do a thought experiment here, what if there was a world in which your money was being perfectly spent? The government was so efficient, so good at their job, that your money was being basically perfectly spent. Every dollar that you gave was spent so effectively, so efficiently, that it was actually making real-world changes, not just lighting the pockets of lobbyists and politicians and others. Let's say that you get like a 90 to 95% efficiency for every dollar that you would spend. Would you be happy to pay higher taxes? And guess what? Every one of them will say yes. Every one of them will say yes. And then if you say to your liberal friends, hey, what if, what if, just imagine, let's do a thought experiment here. What if you found out that the government was only spending your tax, our tax revenue with like a 10% efficiency? Like you put in a dollar, but 90% of that just disappears into the air or into even maybe outright corruption. And only 10% squeaks through into programs and situations that actually help real people. I'm not saying this is the case, but just Do this thought experiment. Okay? How much money would you say you'd be happy to pay with your taxes then? Do you know what the Liberals will say? Ten percent, zero percent, five percent. So now, and I know I've gone a long time on this, but now you've done something really cool. You've figured out what's actually going on, and I've done this so many times, and I wish I was in a room right now with 10 people to just demonstrate it. Five Republicans, five conservatives. When you actually cut through, and I'm not saying there aren't differences, of course there are differences, but a high percentage of these differences come down to how much you actually trust the government. And people on the left, the Democrat end of the spectrum, liberal end of the spectrum, tend to have a much higher threshold of governmental trust. And people on the right tend to have uh uh higher individual freedom, they want a smaller government, and they have a lower threshold of governmental trust. And that is a high percentage of the political argument and conversations going back and forth revolves around that. And you just ask these diagnostic questions, and before you know it, you might find that in a world where you do these little thought experiments, well, what if the money was spent extremely efficiently? Okay, I'm happy to pay higher taxes. What if the money is being spent extremely inefficiently? I want to pay lower taxes. Okay, so now we agree. We actually agree. Now we're gonna disagree on particular policy. Okay, I say all of that to say, friends, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is the way that you fix the world. Republicans don't fix the world, the Democrats don't fix the world. You can have political opinions, I don't care, it's up to you. There are some things I think are just immoral. I think abortion is a more immoral. That's to me not a political issue. That's a that's a theological issue. I'm immovable on theological issues, on ethical issues that are informed directly by scripture, but tax policy, U.S. foreign policy, some of this stuff, it's like, okay, whatever. All right, there are things I think are immoral, right? I think I could go, I could go long here, but there are things, and maybe we could have another conversation about this, I've already gone a little long, that are straight up immoral and should not be allowed. The idea that is now falling out of favor, praise God, that you can remove the healthy breast tissue from a young girl to sort of magically transform her into a boy by giving her testosterone. This is evil. It's evil. And the people that did that should be sued or imprisoned. I I have that that but to me that's not a political opinion. I don't I don't understand how that is political. It's insane. No one would have thought that was a reasonable position 10 years ago. But we get caught up in the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist. So a lot of this stuff, for me, there might be political uh parties that adhere or grab onto these ideas, but for me, I don't hold to these ideas because I'm a politician, because I have a political affiliation, excuse me, but because I'm a Christian. And Jesus said, whoever causes one of these little ones to my stumble, whoever causes one of these little ones of mine to stumble, it would be better that a millstone were hung around their neck and they were cast into the depths of the sea. Yeah, I don't think we should be messing with kids. I mean, come on, how that's a political. I know it's become political, but to me that's crazy. Okay, now look the the parable here is this. The guys accumulated all this stuff, all of this stuff. Rather than the government coming in and taking his 90% taking 90% or 70% or whatever, the point that she makes is the man himself, and I'll just quote it here, bottom of page 302, the situation of the poor, go find that, bottom of page 302. The situation of the poor, the orphan, the widow, this is 256 of the original. The situation of the poor, the orphan, the widow, the suffering, the afflicted was brought to this rich man's attention. There were many places where he could bestow his goods. He could easily have relieved himself of a portion. Not all. Yeah, the wealth the wealthy, they deserve to be wealthy in some cases. They've made good money, they've made good decisions, they've made good investments. So she doesn't say he could have easily given up all of his inheritance. No, he could have been relieved of a portion of his abundance. And many homes would have been freed from what? Many who were hungry would have been fed, many make clothed, many hearts made clad, many prayers for bread and clothing answered, and a melody of praise would have ascended to heaven. And what's interesting about this is jove down. Well, actually, I'm just saying this. What's interesting about this is there's no mention here of government intervention. This is just the man. This is not like a coercive communism where, hey, you have to give because everybody has to be equal, right? Or a or a, you know, uh an attempt at socialism. The government's not involved here. This is just the guy could have spent his monies in ways that would have helped real people in real situations, like a one-to-one relationship. I helped that family, I helped that guy, I helped that, I helped them, I built that house, I did this, I did this. Philanthropy. Right? He could have, but she says his aims were no higher than those of the beasts that perish. He lived as if there was no God, no heaven, no future life, as if everything he possessed were his own, and he owed nothing to God or man. In other words, he was a functional atheist. He was not passing on the abundance that had been given to him, and the abundance that he had received were direct. The abundance that he had received was the direct result of God's blessings on him. God makes the rain, God makes the sun, God gives opportunities. And a great example here is the story of Boaz in the book of Ruth. In the book of Ruth, Boaz is a wealthy man. He's a business owner, he's highly respected in his community, and he saves Ruth and Naomi. That's what I'm talking about. No government interference, no government filter between Boaz and this uh uh widow and her daughter-in-law. Oh, he just shows up. He just shows up and he's generous and he's kind and he's magnanimous. And we have many instances in the Bible and in church history, I've already talked about this, of wealthy people using their considerable resources to forward the gospel, to be charitable, etc., etc. It's beautiful. Right? Um, then I love this. Jump over to page 304. But the wisdom, we're right at the end here. But the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, 1 Corinthians 3.19. While the rich man is looking forward to years of enjoyment, what he imagines is years of enjoyment, the Lord is making far different plans. The message comes to this unfaithful steward, Fool! Fool! This night your soul will be required of you. I don't think he's saying, I'm gonna kill you. What he's saying is you didn't know that tonight was the night you were gonna die. You'd made all these plans, but planned for the future, but not your eternal future. Here is a demand that money cannot supply. The wealth he has treasured can purchase no reprieve. In one moment, that which he has toiled through his whole life to secure has become worthless to him. This has very much got an Ecclesiastes feel to it. This whole parable, this whole chapter, feels very much like the book of Ecclesiastes. And then this great section here, jump down to paragraph that begins, the only thing, the only thing that would be of value to him now, he has not secured. In living for self, he has rejected that divine love which would have flowed out in mercy to his fellow men. That's the very point of the chapter before. We receive the forgiveness, the mercy of God, and we distribute it to others. We chase opportunities to forgive. And here, if we have resources, again, not just financial resources, but all the resources that God has committed to us, we chase opportunities to distribute those resources. They would have flowed out in mercy to his fellow men. Thus he has rejected life itself. Oh, for God is love and love is life. For God is love and love is life. Underline it, for God is love and love is life. And this sounds a lot like all the way back on page 101. Do you remember this? All the way back on page 101, we've heard this. So in human life, to give is to live. To give is to live. Right? And to keep back selfishly for oneself is to die. To give is to live, and to keep back selfishly for oneself is to die. And she makes that very point. Back to page 304. For God is love and love is life. The man who chose the earthly rather than the spiritual, and with the earthly, he must pass away. A man who is in honor yet does not understand is like the beast that perished, Psalm 49, 20. He who lays up treasure for himself, top of the last page, page 305, 259 of the original. So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. This picture is true for all time. You may plan for merely selfish good, you may gather together treasure, you may build mansions great and high, as did the builders of ancient Babylon, but you cannot build a wall so high or a gate so strong to shut out the messengers of doom, that is to say, your own mortality. You can't do it. Belshazzar the king feasted in his palace and praised the gods of gold and silver and bronze and iron and wood and stone, but the hand of one invisible wrote upon his walls the words of doom, and the tread of hostile armies was heard at his palace gates that very night. Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain, and an alien monarch sat upon his throne. Well, he didn't see that one coming, just like we might not see the car accident coming, or the cancer coming, or the diagnosis coming, or getting bucked off of a horse, or falling off of a rock. There's a lot of ways to die. Most of us don't know the day we're gonna die. It just kind of comes on us. To live for self is to perish, which is the opposite of to live is to give, and to give is to live. Covetousness, the desire to benefit for self's sake, cuts the soul off from life. It is the spirit of Satan to get, to draw to self. It is the spirit of Christ to sacrifice self for the good of others.

unknown 1:38:34

Whew.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:36

If I hadn't already used the word self, my word for this chapter would have been self, but I have an even better word. And this testimony that God and this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5, 11 and 12. Therefore he says, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in

Rubric

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the abundance of the things that he possesses. Let's do the rubric and then the words. The point generosity and other centeredness is the way to life. Selfish, greedy isolation is the way to death. Both chapters make the same point. We receive forgiveness and mercy, we distribute them. We receive resources of various kinds, we distribute them. We're in the distribution business. Number two, the person. Jesus is not a means to some other end. He is the true end in and of himself. Stay focused, stay calibrated, don't get caught up in the cultural moment. Okay? Stay on task, stay on point. The thing that God has called you and me to do is to preach the gospel, to help people be reconciled to God, to become sons and daughters of the Most High. That's the way to change families, that's the way to change communities, that's the way to change schools, that's the way to change the world. And to the degree that the world will ever be changed for the better, it's not going to happen through politicians. Okay? It's going to happen. Not that some politicians aren't good people. I think there are some good politicians out there for sure. But political systems are too insulated, they're too wrapped up with lobbyists and selfishness and money and incumbency. There's just too much, it's too much meh there. But the gospel cuts straight to the root, gets to the point. The real thing, changing a person's life, changing their focus, forgiving their sins, giving them a new lease on life, and then they become mechanisms of distribution. And then the ones that they win to Christ become mechanisms of distribution. And then the ones that they win become mechanisms of the distribution of the kingdom of God, the goodness of God, the grace of God, the love of God. Whew, that's what I'm about. That's what I'm doing. That's what David Ashrik is doing. The prayer, Father, give me a generous spirit like your own. Help me to be an almaner on earth. That word almaner, a distributor of alms. And while my financial resources are not considerable, though we try to be generous with what we have, I do use my talents and my resources and my energies to try and win people to Jesus and to teach them about Jesus, about Scripture, about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I've dedicated my life to this. And I hope you will do the same in your capacity. Practice. How do we practice this chapter? Easy. Give, give, give, live, live, live. Say it with me. Give, give, give, and live, live, live. Give, give, give, and live, live, live. We can give financially, we can give forgiveness, like we talked about last chapter. We can give of our time. We can give of our smiles. We can make a meal. Give, give, give. Live, live, live. I love it. And then finally, the promise. God's love can and will flow through me toward those around me. I don't want to be selfishly hoarding the resources that God has given me just to build up my little kingdom. It's like, come on. What are we doing? You're only going to live 70 or 80 years, maybe more. But then what? We need to be thinking long term. And not just in terms of our IRA or our 401k or our retirement, or we need to be thinking long term. Like eternity.

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Woo!

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That's what I care about. All right, let's do our words here, everybody. Let's do our words. Let's do the first. Well, let's do both. Just put up both of your words. So for chapter 19, the measure of forgiveness, what was your word? And put them up together so I can see them side by side so I'm not confused. And then what was your word for this chapter? And then I'll tell you mine. So put your word slash other word. Word slash other word. Okay. Coral, great job. So she says grace and means. Excellent. Pardon and remedy. My first word, others. Second word, foolishness. Yeah, that's my word as well. Foolishness. We'll come back to that. Partake and I, mercy and give. Well like that. Freely and temporal. Oh, very good. Bob, uh, grace and give, free and remedy. Forgive and remedy. Oh, lots of remedies. Debt, very good. Grace and temporal. Cancelled and alminer. Love it, Deb. Never and alminer. Oh, quite a few people with alminer. As, as, right there, right. That's my word for the first chapter as well. As. As you are forgiven, forgive others. And then my second word is foolishness. So mine were as and foolishness. Okay. Same remedy. Grace, alminer. Oh, a lot of almaner. Freely, steward, grace, reconcile. Earl, Brent, great to see you guys. Love you both. Um, divine priorities. Ooh, I like it. Forgiveness, alminer, whole abundance, mercy, stewardship, debt, almaner. Wow, so many almaners. Oh, there's another as, aka Shaggy 99. As others love it. Grace, almaner, inexhaustible commitment. Didn't have one for the first one, and then distribute. Love it, says Sarah. Um, out, flow, forgiving, distribute. Ooh, Tanya. You know I'm gonna like distribute. Debt, uh, surplus, since he was forgiven, he had a debt to forgive others. Love it. Um, says Sarah. Grace and goods, material goods, moral goods, divine goodness, love it. Have and bless, forgive and self, covetousness, says Terrible Terry. Mercy and almaner. Wow, so many almaners. Cassandra says, whole. God's forgiveness is through whole. We are to fully forgive. Forgiveness makes us whole. Ooh, I love it. Covetousness and almaner, all and many. Jennifer says, so much love, all of you and David. I gotta go night and night. Jennifer, we love you so much. Almaner is such a good word. I'd never heard that word, I guess. Maybe I'd heard it before, but I'd forgotten. Debt of grace. Yeah, my first word was as, as you are forgiven, forgive others. And then my second word was foolishness. And did you notice this? She uses the words fool, folly, foolish, and foolishness. But I love the play on foolishness because she quotes 1 Corinthians 3.19. I'm sure you picked up on this. But the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. I love that foolishness works both ways. The man was acting with foolishness in not planning for that which really matters, that which is eternally consequential. But also, when Christians live into the generosity of God, the kingdom of God, not for this world, but for the world to come, a lot of people think it's foolishness. That's what I'm after. I'm after what this world regards as foolishness, but what God regards as wise planning. So I loved the play on words there with foolishness. I don't want to be a fool in the eyes of God, but I do want to be a fool in the eyes of this world. All right, everybody, we will be back tomorrow night. Same time, same place, God willing, chapter 21. Is it the Rich Man and Lazarus tomorrow? Rich man and Lazarus. One of my favorite parables, and probably one of the two or three most difficult parables that Jesus ever told. By the way, spoiler alert, some people don't think this is a parable. We'll talk about that tomorrow night, but I definitely think it's a parable. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16. Cannot wait. We will have a first-time guest tomorrow night. And I can hardly wait. Love you all so much. Let's pray. God in heaven, what a great night. Thank you that we got through two chapters and basically the same amount of time it normally takes us to get through one. Thank you for the Wittier community. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you that we have been forgiven 10,000 bags of gold. Help us, Father, now to forgive all the people that owe us a hundred pieces of silver. Help us to chase those opportunities to forgive. And Father, help us not to be building and hoarding and accumulating just for this world, but to be thinking about the far more important world to come, the new heaven and the new earth. Lord, we want to be planning for that, long-term planning. And Lord, I want to pray for every person on here. You know their situation, their circumstances, their health, their family, all of it. Father, please watch over those that are watching now, live, those that are watching tomorrow, the weeks, days, months, and years to come. We want to live in the light of your love, and we pray all of this in the saving and powerful, merciful, and forgiving name of Jesus Christ. Amen.