Are Riches Absolutely Good?

Now, the next thing we need to do is ask ourselves about the subject that we are dealing with. Riches, wealth, prosperity, abundance—is it good? Is it absolutely good? I think it’s most important to ask ourselves this question because I think there’s a kind of religious tradition that’s very prevalent—maybe more in Europe than in America. But certainly in Europe, that anything nice is sure to be bad. You know, put it this way, the worse the medicine tastes the more good it does. I went through a tremendous personal struggle when the Lord saved me and baptized me in the Holy Spirit to get out of a background that I’d grown up with which, in essence, was if you’re going to be a Christian, prepare to be miserable. I remember hearing Pat Boone giving his testimony once in which he said that as a young boy growing up in high school he came to the conclusion if he were to become a committed Christian it would mean 70 years of misery and heaven at the end. He wasn’t sure that heaven was worth 70 years of misery.

Well, you can laugh at that and it may not be so true of all American Christians but it really is the basic attitude of east European Christians. That’s one reason why there aren’t many European Christians. I mean, I say that. Less than 5 percent of the people of West Germany attend any kind of church. I think less than 3 percent in Britain. That’s partly cause and effect. Who wants to go to a place to be made miserable? I mean, there’s enough misery without running after it.

I don’t want in any way to be sarcastic or negative but this past year, almost a year ago, some of us were in a tour in Italy and we went to Assisi, the hometown of St. Francis. I’ve always had a deep admiration for St. Francis but frankly, at the end of that tour I had to take exception with some of the things that he had said. Yet, I think that St. Francis as much as anybody has influenced tremendous numbers of Christians. I’ll just give you an example of some of the things that I could not accept. One thing, he called his body the ass. He, in a sense, I would say, deliberately abused it. Well, I find that the Bible calls my body the temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s a very different concept.

Then he called death his sister. I find the Bible calls death the last enemy. I don’t want death as a member of my family. I mean, I’m not being sarcastic or cynical. And then, he wanted to be married to poverty. I want to ask this morning is poverty good or bad? Are riches good or bad? I don’t want an emotional answer, I want a clear, logical, scriptural answer. I don’t want to be married to something bad. In fact, I want to get disassociated from anything that’s bad.

My thesis is that riches or wealth are essentially good, absolutely good. All right? I’ll say that again. My thesis is that according to scripture riches or wealth are essentially good. There are multitudes of scriptures we could look at but I want to content myself with very few. The first is in Revelation 5:12. This is the voice of the angels and the living creatures and the redeemed and the saints in glory. What they are saying is surely right. I mean, it doesn’t need to be edited or amended. They’re saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain [that’s Jesus Christ] to receive . . .”

And they list seven things. Seven, I believe, is the number of perfection.

“. . . power and riches, wisdom and strength, honor and glory, and blessing.”

My conviction is every one of those seven things is essentially good. They belong by eternal right to the Lord Jesus Christ. The second one mentioned there is riches.

Let’s look at the others. Power, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, blessing. That puts riches in very good company, doesn’t it? I mean, all of them are excellent things. On the other hand, nearly all of them can be misused and abused. Obviously, power can be misused and abused. Strength, riches—wisdom can be misused and abused. I believe Solomon is an example of a man
who had tremendous wisdom and misused it. He ended up in idolatry. So the fact that a thing is absolutely good in itself does not mean that it cannot be abused or misused.

But, we would be very foolish to refuse the thing because it can be abused. This is one of Satan’s frequent traps. For instance, I was with a Pentecostal missionary organization in East Africa for 5 years. And after about a year my wife and I realized that they practically never exercised any gifts of the Spirit. We said, “Why don’t we have any gifts of the Spirit?” They said, “Oh, in Canada they’ve been misused.” Well, you know, that’s not logical. So, they’ve been misused, does that mean we’re not to use them? If that’s the way the devil can stop us using good things then there’ll be nothing good left because the devil can always find people to misuse any good thing.

You’ll find multitudes of Christians are influenced to that point where they no longer appropriate what is good and what is theirs by right because somebody has misused it. I don’t care if the whole world misuses riches. If it’s good, I want it. Or wisdom, or power, or strength, or glory, or blessing.

Let’s read that verse. Verse 12. Not saying “with a loud voice,” let’s just say the rest. I’m sure it can’t be different in any of the translations.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”

After I’ve said those words out loud I feel wonderful. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything evil in any of those things in essence.