Ill Gotten Gain
Good Morning,
Jeremiah 17:11 “As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.”
Think about that verse. If you get wealth in a wrong way, God promises you will end life as a fool! It also promises that any money gained will be lost in the middle of life.
God places a giant priority on working and paying one’s own way. Our world loves the “free ride” or the goose that lays the golden egg. Yet, God values work and honest gain. Not only that, but God says, He will diminish gain gotten in a wrong way.
Proverbs 13:11 “Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase."
Proverbs 20:21 “An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed.”
Oh, the multitudes who covet “unjust gain.”
Proverbs 28:8 “He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.”
From another state, I heard of a faithful church member who was working at a bank. His church needed to finance a spring program, and the bank employee had an idea. He found a way to embezzle money from the bank. With that money, he financed some great bus promotion, and helped many people hear the Gospel, get saved, and get into church. To the delight of his pastor, he financed great promotion again the next year. For a few years, he had found a way to finance special events with money embezzled from the bank. The pastor obviously did not know where the money was coming from.
Eventually, the man was caught, jailed, and life became a big mess. Regardless of what he did with the money, it was not his, and his use of the money did not make his actions right.
“He that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.” Jeremiah 17:11
Wealth gotten by vanity will be diminished. God said it would be so. It is not about the good you might do with the ill-gotten gain, it is the way the money was gained. Do you not think that the drug lords or gangsters might, at times, use their money to be a blessing to family or friends? Would their nice deeds keep them from the natural judgment of God on their personal lives or the earthly result of wrongdoing?
Some young ladies from Iraq rode our buses. As they grew older, they told us that Saddam Hussein had visited their Baptist church during Christmas, and had brought gifts to the church for the children. They felt like he was not so concerned about the kids having a good Christmas as he was trying to win favor in the eyes of the church members. It was a political ploy.
You can be sure that the judge of all the earth will do right! No matter how noble a cause, someone might begin with ill-gotten gain. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro in all the earth, and he will execute judgment. It’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Pastor