Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Deuteronomy 28:1-14

Deuteronomy 28. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, that thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face.

They shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou setest thine hand unto, and he shall bless thee in the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee.

And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord swore unto thy fathers to give thee. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto the land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand. And thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.

And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail. And thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath, if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe, and to do them. Thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods, to serve them.

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These words from the book of Deuteronomy are almost enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. Actually, they probably are enough to bring tears to one’s eyes. It’s probably only our insensitivity to God’s promised blessings, to the culpability of our own sins for God’s cursings upon our nation that fails to bring those tears to light. We live in a day and age that is in radical rebellion against God as we all know.

And we also know that these blessings of the covenant are not written simply for the nation of Israel. They’re written for God’s church throughout history. And history moves in relationship to Deuteronomy 28, blessing and cursing upon God’s people, keyed to their obedience or disobedience to observe all his commandments. We’re going to talk again this afternoon about debt. I’ll apologize upfront for confusing Kent and the announcements.

I don’t know if we’re going to be talking about debt next week or not. Tell the truth. We may move on to gluttony. It really depends a lot on what you would like to see me talk more on this subject next week. But I do want to return to it at least one more week to kind of pick up where we left last week and sort of try a different angle on what I was trying to do with an overview of the scriptures relative to debt last week.

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I think that too often we can deceive ourselves in our sin through various mechanisms. Through closing our eyes to the curses that God brings upon us to rationalizing away our sin frequently to looking at the scriptures as an intellectual exercise instead of the purpose of the scriptures which is to cleave our hearts to cause us to come to repentance for areas in which we failed to come to conformity to God’s word and then to amend our ways.

And that’s all what Jeremiah 7, the call for worship we read last week and this week and we’re reading a few more weeks. It’s all about that. Come to worship God. You come to hear the message that you need to amend your ways. In a very real sense, the scriptures are supposed to cut us apart. You know, the scriptures tell us that they are sharp as any two-edged sword and able to discern the thoughts and intents of a man.

And hopefully that it’s a light to us then to illumine us in our own actions of obedience or disobedience to pierce our hearts is the reason to hear biblical preaching and to read the word of God. Ultimately, it’s not for an intellectual exercise. It’s not to try to push the envelope on definitions and concepts. Ultimately, it’s to let the word of God, the Spirit of God, do his work upon our hearts by exposing ourselves to the scriptures in a corrective fashion.

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Now, I bring all this up because one of the things we want to address just really briefly here at the beginning of this talk is the definition of debt. There was a question during the question and answer period last week that I handled rather technically and I think that was the intent of the question was a technical definition of the term debt and it is rather difficult to try to pin that down precisely in all instances. Generally, of course the general concept is known that debt is an obligation to pay somebody something plain and simple and that’s the way I’ve been using the term yesterday last week and this week and if may need be next week as well.

And that’s the way the term is normally used in the scriptures. Romans 13:8, owe no man anything. The point is don’t be in debt. Debt is owing somebody something. And for our purposes in this relationship to greed, it’s owing something that is material to somebody. It’s owing people money. And so if you borrow something, if you buy something on time, then you’re in a position of debt. The way I’m using the term now, it’s okay to try to define all the parameters of what is what is and what is not proper debt.

I’ll be quoting this afternoon from a book called The Tools of Dominion by Gary North. Big 1400 page new book covering the case laws from the book of Exodus. And excellent to have as a commentary. Very few commentaries in that portion of scripture. I would caution you to read it with understanding where the authors are coming from, the author is coming from. For instance, in the discussion of dowry, he seems to be saying that the dowry in terms of the New Testament is met by the church’s examination of the husband or the proposed groom rather for the bride of the church member and I don’t agree with that.

I agree that those laws are still in place and that is the family that oversees that process and not it’s not been shifted to the institutional church. Having said that the book is an excellent book for resources and he tries in there in various points to give some sort of pushing the envelope definition of debt and it can get a little confusing frankly in a couple of the sentences but it’s a difficult thing. But for our purposes to expose ourselves to the teaching of God’s word relative to our economic discipline and to ask ourselves, should we correct our ways?

I want you to think of debt in terms of an obligation to owe somebody some money to buy today with tomorrow’s resources essentially. Now, this is important because as I said, our hearts are desperately wicked. All of our hearts are desperately wicked. The scriptures tell us that’s remember we talked before about the Puritans, the importance they placed on the covenant community to encourage each other, to examine our lives and to help us examine our lives.

We can’t see our sins frequently. They we hide them from ourselves. Sometime one of the examples I thought of for instance would be if a man is committing adultery with somebody and you go to him and accuse him of falling prey to the sin of lust for him then he could try to avoid the implications of that statement by saying well what is lust exactly? Maybe when we’re talking about looking at a museum piece in a sculpture is that lust?

Well the point is that can be discussed but for most of us today in America and unfortunately for most of us in the church of Jesus Christ today our problem is not out here our problem is in here. Most of us have indebted ourselves for consumer items for things that have been pawned off as investments which really aren’t and we’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. We need to correct the simple areas of our life and if we do that then God will continue to show us increasingly from the scriptures the more intricate implications of economic policy in our lives and the lives of the country.

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Okay, having said that, as by way of introduction, what I’ve decided this morning is to give you a series of reasons why I believe the scriptures tell us to avoid debt.

Debt being to owe people money. So, I’m going to go through here a series of biblical reasons to avoid debt.

The first reason, and a lot of this will be reviewed from last week, as I said, I’m kind of trying to come from a different tangent to make sure you understand what I was trying to express. last week. First reason why biblical debt is to be avoided is that biblical debt is normatively related to the poverty or to curses.

Deuteronomy 28 that we just read gave examples of obedience induced blessing, the ability to lend as a result of obedience to God’s word and his then moving circumstances so that our crops are increased etc. So we’re then in a position to benefit from that. Deuteronomy 28 goes on however later in the text in verses 43 44 etc to tell us that the results of disobedience are God’s curse of indebtedness and so he tells us in Deuteronomy 28 a little later on in verses 43 and 44 we read the following we read that if and this follows a series of things that will happen if we do not carefully obey all the words of God’s law read that the stranger that was within thee shall get up above thee very high and thou shalt come down very low.

He shall lend to thee and thou shalt not lend to him. He shall be the head and thou shalt be the tail. So, one of the reasons the scriptures tell us in these passages here and again in Deuteronomy 15 for debt is that it’s related to disobedience and sin and related to God’s curse for that.

Now, remember I said last week, I don’t believe that it’s really proper normally to speak of debt as sin. I think it’s proper to speak of debt as the result of sin in other aspects of our lives. And as we get down to the lower part of this outline you’ll see where some of the seven deadly sins cause us to become indebted and as a result then the debt is a reminder by God. It’s a chastisement by God to clear up these other areas of our life and as a result get out of debt. Okay.

So the scriptures tell us that condition of debt is induced is brought about by curses and additionally is brought about by poverty.

And we went over some of these verses last week. Exodus 22:25 tells us we’re not to charge interest on a poor loan. Leviticus 25 33-38 tells us there’s no interest loans to be made available to the desperately poor brothers in the land. So we have there clearly from God’s case laws in the verses I list on your outline that there has be no interest to charge to a poor brother. Now if you correlate this with the fact that no interest is the norm in terms of biblical life, Old Testament life as pointed out in the various passages of scripture on your outline, if you see there that the norm is to not be one who assumes or gets to himself interest on a loan and you put one and one together and you get two which is that normally debt in the Old Testament was a result of poverty.

and I list again some verses on your outline but I’ll just make reference to them now a couple of them. Deuteronomy 23:19 says thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother usury of money usury of victuals usury of anything. anything that is lent upon usury. Again, in Psalm 15, remember Psalm 15, the entrance requirements of God to his holy temple, similar to Jeremiah 7 that we read at the call of worship.

Similar to the psalm we sing as a processional as we come before God’s presence in worship at the beginning of our worship services, there are requirements listed in those things as to who can get in the door so to speak and literally in the case of the temple, who could get within the doors to enter into the various as various places in the temple to worship God. And so, Psalm 15:5 says that one of the conditions is that he putteth not out his money to usury nor taketh the reward against the innocent.

And so we have there and again in Ezekiel 22 I mentioned last week the passages from Ezekiel and the prophets that show that usury is considered a sin a despicable sin on the part of the believer. So if you take the two things together that usury was specifically prohibited to a brother who was poor and then that the normal life for the believer was not to be a getting into interest back on loans in the covenant community.

Then what you end up with is the seems to me the plain teaching of the scripture that the normal method for giving loans was only to those poor people. And then they reminded very distinctly when that occurred not to exact usury from the poor when you are put in a position of loaning money to a poor person. So in the scriptures debt is to be avoided because normatively it is related to one of two conditions either to poverty and as a result we need to go into debt to get basic essentials for life or because of God’s curse upon our lives.

If we’re financially irresponsible, if we break God’s laws, we suffer the curses of Deuteronomy 28, we end up not being able to lend. We end up instead being indebted both individually and then as a society moves that way culturally and as a society and as a covenant group as well. And so the two conditions for debt that are only two that are mentioned in the Old Testament, I believe, and in the scriptures is poverty and the curse.

So if we want to live a life that is consistent with the scriptures, we want to avoid all debt in our lives.

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Secondly though, there’s another positive obligation instead of this negative one that we want to avoid being in a position of poverty or being cursed and as a result we shouldn’t have debt in our lives because those things are what lead to debt in the scriptures. Secondly, our role positively is to lend money, not to borrow money.

All non-poor Hebrews according to the case laws that I mentioned from 22 in the book of Leviticus were to be lenders. So if a man came to you and you had the means, you were supposed to lend him money. And so the idea was if you weren’t in poverty, you’re obeying God’s law and was were blessed, you should have money then to lend to other believers. Again, Exodus 22:25 demonstrates that. And in the Psalms, we have several verses that talk about how the righteous lend.

Psalm 37:26, he that is the righteous one is ever merciful and lendeth and his seed is blessed. Psalm 112:5 says that a good man showeth favor and lendeth. He will guide his affairs with discretion. So if we want to aim at the mark of being the righteous man described in this alter and in other places of scripture and in Deuteronomy 28, then we’re going to want to be in a position to lend people money.

So this positive admonition to be able to lend is another reason why we should avoid according to the scriptures all debt. After all, if you have money that you’ve gotten from a debt and you owe that money to somebody else and turn around and use that money to lend to somebody else, you really are not acting in accordance with the biblical requirements there because you’re using somebody else’s money to lend money to.

Clearly, these verses talk about using your own money to lend to those who are poor in the midst of the covenant community.

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Third, there are a variety of strong warnings against debt and suretyship. We went over many of these last week. and again, in Deuteronomy 28 and Deuteronomy 15, we have debt and slavery coupled together in both those passages. In Deuteronomy 28 throws in the concept of disobedience.

And so the scriptures when you read Deuteronomy 15 and 28, you read the law of the covenant, you read the sections of the covenant. What God wants to impress upon your mind are these correlations between debt, sin, and slavery. And that’s to be a strong warning against us, a warning to us rather to avoid any form of indebtedness. Debt is related in Deuteronomy 28 to the curse. And anything related to the curse is not something we want to take upon ourselves as a result of our own volitional will.

We don’t want to have to do that. We want to avoid those things that are associated with the curse. The curse is death. The blessing is life. A debt economy is essentially a death economy, as we’ll talk about a little later as we go along in this talk. Debt and the curse are linked as a result of that. Debt and death are linked. Debt and dominion are opposed one to another. The passage we just read when the blessing is dominion loaning to many nations, the curse is death.

they’ll loan to you and you’ll be the tail and not the head. Debt and slavery is linked as well. Additionally, as we mentioned last week, the sabbatical year of release shows us that the norm and the goal for the believer’s life is to be in a position of no debt. And so that release was provided in the sabbatical year. Proverbs 22:7, of course, is another very well-known verse that talks about how the borrower is servant to the lender.

And so these strong warnings against debt.

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Additionally, I mentioned last week and I want to read a few more of them this week the dangers in the scriptures of suretyship. Now suretyship is going is becoming a guarantor of another man’s debt. So you got a loaner, somebody borrowing money. You come along and the guy’s going to borrow money. You become surety for him by a covenantal arrangement to say I’ll take his debts upon myself if he fails to pay them.

And the scriptures are replete with numerous admonitions as to the dangers of suretyship. For instance, Proverbs 11:15 He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it and he that hateth suretyship is sure. Proverbs 17:18 a man void of understanding striketh hands and become a surety in the presence of his friend. Proverbs 22:26 be not thou one of them that strike hands nor of them that are sureties for debts.

If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee? Proverbs 6, my son, if thou be surety for thy friend. Now, he’s not talking here about a stranger. He’s saying your friend. If you be surety for your friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, thou art neither stranger or a friend here. There are thou art snared with the words of thy mouth. Thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself when thou art come into the hand of thy friend. Go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

So there are these strong biblical warnings to avoid suretyship. It turns to debts. Now suretyship is just one step and the reason pointed out here in these proverbs to avoid it is because you may enter into a debt relationship because of it. If the person defaults, you’re going to be in debt now for the for the money that he was supposed to have paid. And so the warning against suretyship is a warning against something which even brings us close to a position of debt. It is a strong biblical warning against even approaching near unto debt.

And so if suretyship is warned against in such strong terms, no wonder then debt itself is linked to death and the curse and slavery and dominionlessness, powerlessness politically and nationally in Deuteronomy 15 and Deuteronomy 28.

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Additionally, we have the summary statement as I pointed out last week in Romans 13:8. Owe no man anything. And as I pointed out last week, the specific context is speaking of various obligations in terms of obedience to the civil authorities, taxes to the IRS, etc. But he goes on from the general there in Romans 13 or the specific rather Romans 13:7 to give a summary statement in Romans 13:8 of the entire biblical teaching on debt and that is owe no man anything.

He goes on from the specific examples to say, “Owe no man anything,” including the magistrates obviously, but including everybody else as well if no man means no man. And not only does he make it sure by saying that we are to owe no man something but he says owe no man anything except the obligation to love him. So he goes to the general case in both the subjects of whom we may have debt to as well as the concept itself which is to owe no man anything at all and certainly that would include monetary things as well.

So the summary statement in Romans 13:8 says the same thing. The term as I mentioned last week for owe normally in the secular Greek ethic implication of being an economic amount due. It was used for other things as well. But the normative use was to be in debt for an amount of money. The Septuagint shows us that at that same period of time, the Old Testament was interpreted by the Jews who wrote the Septuagint in the same way.

They used this same Greek word in Romans 13:8 for owe no man anything. Opheilō to translate passages from the scriptures that we’ve just made reference to that prohibited interest on loaning people money. And so again there the terms you is used five times specifically in the Septuagint and in every one of those it seems to indicate an economic amount. And so the summary statement gives us an economic term although it has wider implications.

It tells us that we’re not to owe anybody anything which is a real broad term as a summary statement of all the scripture teaching on debt. And so we have various biblical reasons then to avoid all debt in our lives.

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Additionally though, what we have to realize then in instead of just stopping at the abstinence of monetary debt, what I’ve been trying to do and why we’re linking this into the seven deadly sins and greed is to help us see beyond that the root sins that cause the material indebtedness that we find ourselves in this nation individually and as a nation and in all too many households as well.

So, we’re going to talk now about curing the root causes of debt. I don’t think it does any good to focus ultimately simply on your economic affairs. Your economic affairs indicate your approach to life in much broader areas as we’ll see as we go through this real quickly.

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Now, getting to the root causes of debt. Debt is avoided by first of all dealing with the effect of the deadly sins in our lives. Debt is a manifestation or can be frequently of giving into some of the seven deadly sins.

The one we’ve talked about specifically up to now. First, an absence of greed in our life will help us to avoid debt. Remember we said that greed is essentially placing ultimate value upon material objects instead of the on the creator who made those things. And so it is idolatry. It is worshiping the created order rather than the creator. It’s swearing by the gold of the temple instead of by the one who sits in the temple.

And so puts ultimate value in the things that God has given us and are good and proper in themselves. There’s nothing wrong with gold. Gold is to be highly valued according to the scriptures. but it’s putting ultimate value upon them in instead of the one who created all these things with the word of his mouth. Now, it’s interesting that the scriptures tell us very explicitly not to do that. And it gives us in very concrete some concrete statements in the Psalms that God’s word indicating his communication to us is to be viewed as much more precious than fine gold.

The purest gold you can find is nothing compared to the counsel of God that the Holy Spirit gives us through the scriptures. So, it’s an attempt to under help us understand that gold is be highly valued but in terms of God and his revelation to us it is nothing. The greedy man doesn’t understand that or he understands it. He doesn’t want to be obedient to it. He puts ultimate trust in the material thing itself.

And that’s when people get into debt. If we need assurance, we don’t go to the one who gives assurance. We give we go to things instead that reassure us. As we said a couple of weeks ago, when the going gets tough, the greedy, the materialist goes shopping to his place of worship ultimately where his sense of value and optimism is renewed by the bright lights, by the ringing of the cash register, by the exchange of the credit card and by the bundles of debt goods under his arm.

He really does get satisfaction and relief from that and that you’ve got to understand that to understand the phenomena of why so many people shop in malls today. It really has become almost a place of worship to get bolstered up in our confidence by purchasing goods. And so greed leads directly to indebtedness by wanting grasping after more and more material goods to give ourselves assurance instead of the one who created those goods.

In other words, what I’m saying here is that we need if we ever in a position of having incurred debt at some point in our lives, we need to examine our motive for the incurring of that debt. And all too frequently today in America and in the church, the motive is greed. The motive is the goal rather is possessing material objects instead of doing kingdom work. As I said, the heart is desperately wicked and it would be good for us to examine our motives whenever we are considering a debt purchase with those whom God has brought into the context of our covenant community to help us avoid such sins.

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Secondly, the absence of sloth will produce an avoidance of debt in our lives. If the motive must be pure, additionally the means to the end must be pure as well. We may have a good motive for wanting material possessions, for wanting a house for instance, or wanting an automobile. and transportation to work. But the scriptures tell us that not only must the motive or the goal rather be good, the means we take to get to that goal must be good as well.

And all too often people are slothful. Remember the slothful man rejects the idea of adding value slowly over time to what God and his providence has given him. He rejects first the blade and then the ear and then the full corn in the ear. He rejects gradualism. He wants the full corn in the ear today and he’ll pay for it tomorrow. And in terms of food, you can actually do that now. I guess I think it’s Burger King or McDonald’s or problem.

You can charge things your credit card. It’s like was it Wimpy in the old Popeye cartoons who always said, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” You can actually do that now in our culture. Remarkable. The slothful man fails to add value to what God in his province has provided him in hunting. Remember, we talked about that verse in the Proverbs. And if God has only given us resources to rent, then maybe what he wants you to do is to focus on adding value to that rental property that he has.

given you stewardship over before you think you’re ready to handle the responsibilities that go with ownership of land. And if you’re not in a position where you’ve added value to whatever God and his providence has brought you into in terms of your domicile or where you live, then don’t expect God to provide the resources to give you a greater responsibility in terms of owning a home. You got to prove faithful in small things to add value to what God has given to you.

And that means the rental in that case. It may mean that you have enough money to buy a plot of land. but don’t have enough money to build a house. And it may be that God in his providence has given you those means to get that land and then to slowly add value to that land, improving it slowly, building up a house, putting a trailer on it, whatever it is, and moving slowly to a position responsibly to a position of working diligently the property that God has given to you and the value he’s given to you.

Remember, the slothful man doesn’t have ears to hear. The clear counsel of God’s word is to be very cautious about incurring any kind of debt. The slothful man doesn’t have a heart for God’s goal in his life. And the slothful man who incurs in debt doesn’t have a heart doesn’t have a real desire and a longing for debt-free living. We’re called to have that kind of longing. The slothful man doesn’t have the stomach to face the battles that come up in his lives to do what he’s supposed to do.

The slothful man who incurs debt doesn’t have the stomach to plan long term, to work hard and diligently, extra hours if need be, for instance, to buy a house long term. The slothful man is doesn’t have the hard hands, the busy hands. That is, he has slack hands who fails to work hard and trying to accomplish what God has given to us accomplish.

Now, I should point out here I kind of talking about homes a little bit and I don’t want to get totally into discussion of that, but it’s important that we understand as well that renting can be a slothful activity, too. Renting could be an acquiescence to a failure to own property and a failure to plan diligently, to work diligently, and to be not slothful relative to eventually achieving some sort of property ownership for the believer. Clear? I think it’s clear from the scriptures that property ownership is a real good thing. And that long term, I’m sure that every person in this church believes and wants their children to be able to own property and own a home.

Now, the fact is that in the history of America up until the last 60 years, it was not uncommon for many people to rent for a long time before they could save enough money up to put a down payment even on a house which at that time was a third to a half of the purchase price or to buy a lot and try to do it debt-free. But today we all are impatient. We want these things quickly. We want them as a result of sloth.

Want them immediately instead of the long hard pull. The article that I re-looked last night at the article in the old Journal of Christian Reconstruction on the 30-year mortgage, a simple four-page paper and you know it really wasn’t that bad. I thought it was pretty good. and stressing the need to have a plan to go through the scriptures to have a plan financially for your for your house you want to accomplish getting a house if you don’t have one how you can be responsible in the small things making a plan according to God’s word praying about it diligently and then working hard to accomplish the goals that you believe God has led you to through his scriptures through the council of other church members and then presenting it before God for his blessings.

Remember that Deuteronomy 28 doesn’t just say that if you’re obedient everything will mechanically work along here and God will bless you and you’ll be able to loan to other people. What he says is if you’re obedient, God is going to increase your ability to produce wealth. Your cattle are going to have more offspring than the disobedience persons over time. Now, that’s what God’s word says here. It says that you’re you’re you’re going to have lots of children and the disobedient maybe only have a few children.

So, you’re going to have more hands to help you perform work over the long haul to save money, to be able to lend, and to be able to remove indebtedness from yourself as well. And so, slothfulness is a great disincentive to people today to avoid debt or to even move toward trying to purchase land and a home long term.

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We should plan to get out of debt. First of all, if you’re in debt now, I would encourage you to think through a plan. Present that plan to God. Get counsel from other people in the church over that plan to get out of debt over a period of time. I don’t think you’re in sin because you’re in debt.

But I think that all too often we’re in debt because we sinned at some point in the past relative to our priorities. And part of your plan has to be repenting to God for any kind of sin that you engaged in as you in incurred indebtedness. Now, it isn’t always sin. I didn’t say that. Remember what I said here. There’s a couple of different reasons why indebtedness comes about in our nation. But all too often it is a result of these sins we’re talking about.

And so, part of your plan should be repenting before God for those things and then taking steps, diligent steps to order your affairs correctly to remove that debt from your home and from your life. And then don’t just be content with being in a rental of course move on to try to develop a plan long-term multigenerational is not a bad thing to try to accumulate enough wealth to purchase land in a home.

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Okay. So the absence of sloth will help us to avoid debt. The absence of covetousness as well this gets back to the motivational aspects. as I said before it was once common in our country for folks to rent. The majority of people used to be renters not homeowners. Today it’s not like that. Today there’s a tremendous amount of peer pressure to own a home, own it quickly, and own a good-looking home and in the right neighborhood, etc.

And there’s a general reluctance to do things gradually over time. And covetousness, looking at the Jones’s house, wanting to keep up with the Joneses, no offense to Robert or Joan, but the proverbial Jones is one of the reasons why people become indebted into home mortgages, for instance, or car mortgages, or, you know, a bigger and better lawn mower like the neighbor has or whatever it is. Covetousness is at the root of much debt in our country today.

And we’ve got to be careful to root covetousness out of our lives and be content with God’s providence.

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You know, it’s interesting that loans used to be fully collateralized frequently and they are no more. Gary North has in his book Tools of Dominion talks about how he built up a huge pyramid of debt that will eventually collapse leaving millions of ruined lives and wasted supposed fortunes in its wake. What’s happened from the time when people used to rent and used to have to have a third to a half down payment for a house and now where you can put down 5% down or nothing down with many home mortgage programs financed by the federal government is that we’re now involved in a debt economy.

And because we’re involved in a debt economy, there’s going to be tremendous motivational aspects that the state and debtor agencies such as banks want to put upon you to incur debt. Now, you’ve got to know that. You’ve got to know that you’re going to be tempted in many ways by this covetousness aspect to incur debt. You’ve got to know that you’ve got to steel yourself against it.

You’ve got to deliberately before God try to obey these economic principles we’re laying out of not incurring debt and avoiding the covetous attitude that would call us into that kind of debt.

Loans are no longer collateralized by just about anything. Loans are collateralized today by simple promise to repay on the part of the debtor. And there’s a reason for that. That’s because they want to loan more money than could be collateralized by people with their existing possessions. And that’s why we have this huge debt pyramid that Gary North and R.J. Rushdoony and other men are warning us about.

There’s no collateral. Used to be collateral was a built-in protection against too much debt in the society. You would have enough resources in some sort of positive collateral. The bank would say, “If you can’t pay the money, we’ll take this collateral and everything will be even.” It’s not like that anymore. You need to know that in most states in the union, there are things known as, for instance, as insufficiency judgments against houses.

You buy a house at when at the top of the price surge, you try to sell it then when it’s not worth about half as much. The bank may well, if you give it back to them, sell it for what they can get out of it and come back to you then for an insufficiency judgment for the rest of the money you owe them.

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Brad Beers, Harriet’s son, well, I haven’t talked to him for probably five or six years about this. He used to be involved in a banking agency that was heavy into mortgages. And this was just a common occurrence for that bank to issue insufficiency judgments against people because the bank couldn’t get what they had invested in the house out of it when it was turned back to them by people. You see, the home in almost every state in the union does not fully collateralize the loan anymore.

And if the home doesn’t, you can bet your car isn’t going to fully collateralize your car loan. Same thing will happen. They’ll pay what they can. They’ll sell the car if you give it back to them for whatever they can get out of it, and you’re responsible for the rest. The result of all that then is there’s no internal checks and balances in the amount of debt. society can incur and so there’s tremendous temptation to enter into debt and as a result a coming great collapse.

Well, in any event, avoiding covetousness helps us to avoid debt.

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The absence of anger also is related to debt. It may not seem so obvious that one. Remember that when I spoke about anger, I said that essentially anger is a result of two things. Anger is a result of denying God’s justice. So, we want to take justice ourselves or it’s the result of denying the providence of God, his loving kindness shown toward his people. Remember, for Balam’s donkey. Balam’s donkey wouldn’t let him proceed.

Balam got angry at the donkey. Well, often time our circumstances, the providence that God has in his world brought into our lives doesn’t allow us, for instance, to own a home or to own a shiny car or to own a big lawn mower or to own who knows what these days. I suppose these days those things are pass now it’s the beach house and everything else. in God’s providence, he may not have given us ability to do that and We want to take the matter on our own flesh as it were against the council of God to avoid indebtedness and incur indebtedness.

Then what we’re saying is that God somehow wasn’t loving enough to us. We’re angry at God for not providing those things. We deny God’s providence. When we do that, we find ourselves in a situation that is harmful to us because, you know, in point of fact, God does love us. If we become Christians, repented of our sins, and come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, God does love us. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for our good and that means our inability to have that shiny car for instance.

It’s like the Balam’s donkey. It may be a problem to us riding a bus or having a car that breaks down and we may curse God because of it or curse the car because of it, but that’s foolishness. God says that he does take care of us. His providence is beneficial and gracious to us and a result of his love for us.

And so anger is another thing. Anger toward our possessions that don’t meet up with the standards of the culture we live in. Anger with God for failure to provide us the means to buy these things and as a result then that anger we may well incur debt and as a result move into even a further position of being harming ourselves and bringing upon our own head the curses of debt and bondage.

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Ultimately of course we said before the seven deadly sins stem out of pride and the absence of pride is an important precursor to being satisfied and content with the material possessions God gives us. I thought of this subtitle for the absence of pride is that old TV show, Father Knows Best.

God knows best what we need. God knows best when we are responsible enough to handle possessions and when we’re not. And when we try to on our own understanding and in violation of God’s principles of economic providence etc. and contentment when we take upon ourselves debt and we fall into pride normally we talk we start thinking in terms of the wisdom of the world instead of the wisdom of the word. All too often today of course we have a tempt to think that way, to think that these principles that are in the scriptures are foolish, that what you can really do is spend your way into prosperity, that what you can do is incur indebtedness and as a result make all kinds of money.

Use other people’s money, as the world says. It’s foolish financially to rent, people will tell you, because after all, you’ve got to be investing in something and a house is always an appreciating asset. And so, you’re foolish to rent. It’s just throwing money away. But, you know, it’s not throwing money away if you’re doing it in obedience to God. I’m not saying you have to do it that way. Okay. But if you are and if you’ve thought through God’s scriptures relative to debt and you’re convinced the way to do this and to buy a house is to save long-term for a piece of land, etc., and do things slowly, and you’re renting because of it.

Don’t let people accuse you of being foolish financially. The wisdom of God is frequently foolish to those who are perishing. You know, God had some offerings in the Old Testament and libation. You just pour it out on the ground. Took great wine and just pour it out on the ground. What a waste, huh? But see, it’s not a waste because it’s something God’s commanded us to do. And God commands us to be provident and to not let our own reasoning or the reasoning of the world lure us into actions that seem contrary to the clear warnings of the scriptures.

Don’t listen to the world. Listen to God’s word. Okay. So by avoiding the seven deadly sins, we can avoid debt. And by positively promoting godly character in our lives, we also can avoid debt.

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Contentment is rather obvious in relationship to these things. I am not suggesting here and you want to be careful that you don’t read laziness or sloth in place of contentment. I don’t think we should be content long-term to be renters and to be dispossessed from the land and to be in a position of some servitude to landlords, for instance.

I don’t think we should be content to have homes that are paid off and yet have property taxes that mean the state owns the land ultimately in the house. I don’t mean we should be content in that sense lazy and as a result not doing anything. But I mean, we should be content in the fact that this is what God has brought into our lives. And it’s not going to turn about tomorrow. It’s not going to turn about because we get angry.

And it’s not going to turn around because we ignore God’s principles. It’s going to turn around as we apply God’s principles and as we diligently move to conform our lives and our thinking to this word of God. And as we let it pierce our hearts to discern the hidden sins thereof and move in repentance then and in obedience to God’s truth. You see, you can you can be content with the situation of indebtedness we’re in if you’re willing to pledge to move in a positive direction in the future out of it.

And here’s why. Deuteronomy 28 makes evident that God’s curses come upon people. Is that bad? No, it isn’t bad. It’s good. Remember we said that the material world is given to us to teach us spiritual truths. The spiritual truth is that curses, indebtedness, slavery to the government is what God brings to our lives to remind us of our disobedience to him. We reject God. We reject his word and his commandments.

And God then turns us over to pagan rulers because he in his love and kindness for us is bringing us to a point of realization of what our sin has produced in our lives. The worst of all worlds would be a world where we could ignore God’s laws of economics, ignore the proper means of worshiping God, and still forever have things in a good shape around us and not have a financial collapse eventually.

Financial collapses, taxes, etc. are judgments from God to lead us back to righteousness. They’re corrective actions to his people. They’re chastisements. They’re not ultimately simply to hurt us. They’re to bring us back to correction. Contentment to build godly character.

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Build contentment into your lives and the lives of your children. And a provident lifestyle. After all, the word provident comes from God’s providence. God in his providence has provided certain things for us. And those things are the means that God in his providence has provided for us. A provident lifestyle means that we live within those means.

If debt’s the only way to finance something, almost always the thing probably shouldn’t be bought. Now, if you believe a house is a legitimate emergency purpose, I can give you some recommendations here as to how to structure that sort of purchase.

First of all, as I said, since the bank will no longer collateralize the loan with the house. Try to find a seller who would do so. Who will collateralize the loan with the house? And if you can no longer make the payments, he takes the house back. Contracts can be written that do that. Those can be accomplished today. So try to buy a house on contract of the seller totally collateralized by the seller by the house rather that you’re buying.

Try to try as well to pay off the home in six years. The sabbatical principle is a good one. It’s a reminder to us that we don’t know what going to happen the rest of our lives over 30 years. We can make plans and diligently make plans for six years. Frequently be wrong there, too. But to try to predict the future 30 years in advance is really a foolish thing for us to do. So, try to make it a short-term six-year loan.

Buy from a Christian. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes here. But, you know, as I said last week, the term for a financial debt transaction really means to join together, to cause to come together as one. That’s what you do when you incur debt. And that’s why being in debt to the pagan nations was such a horror to the people that understood Deuteronomy 28 and the concept of what debt was. Don’t enter into a debt covenant with a pagan. That’s the worst thing you can do. so try to make the co the contract you enter into with a Christian, try to pay it off in six years. Try to fully collateralize the loan with the house.

above all things, if you think that a house may be a proper emergency loan, as it were, since it’s a domicile or a dwelling, Don’t let that thinking then and that experience turn you into a debtor for the rest of your lives. All too often people take homes, leverage the debt, buy other homes, continue on in a pyramiding sort of process. That’s the way to make money today according to the world. If you want, if you think that there is a legitimate one legitimate time in life to incur debt, six-year contract debt to a Christian for a home, then do it.

Get out as fast as you can. Go for that goal of debt-free living and blessing before God and covenant before God not to get back into debt like that again. Live providently within your means. If you can’t afford something, if you can’t afford the car with today’s wages that you might be able to afford it next month, wait till next month. Save the money first. That’s provident living.

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A love of liberty is really behind a lot of