Here is Jim’s Observation for today
The late Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931 to 2005), Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis , Tennessee , offered the following observation several years ago and it bears poignant significance today:
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the rich out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend is about the end of any nation.
You cannot multiply the wealth by dividing it. “
.
“He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich — both come to poverty.”
– Proverbs 22:16
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?”
– 1 John 3:17
“For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
– 1 Timothy 6:7-10
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . .For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.”
– Matthew 6:19-21, 24
“‘Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, ‘You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.’ They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, ‘Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?’ ‘Caesar’s,’ they replied. Then he said to them, ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.'”
– Matthew 22:17-21
“When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘You still need to do one thing. Sell everything you have and give the money to the destitute, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come back and follow me. For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.'”
– Luke 18:22, 25
You would think that someone like Rogers, who believed in biblical inerrancy, would have tempered his comments with these passages, but then again, he also opposed the use of alcohol – whose abuse, not consumption is prohibited – and tobacco – whose arrival in Western Europe happened 1600 years after the last books of the Bible were written. But hey, when you have an axe to grind, who cares who wrote what in which central religious text?