As we think about how it is God would have us to live and enjoy His glorious world we need to rest in two truths. First, that what matters is of God, not of man. Cars, trucks, TV’s, vacations, hunting camps, etc… are all good and right in their own way. But they ain’t more than they are. If we seek the material and forsake the spiritual we are impoverishing our soul, and our future.

The twin enemies of biblical religion have always been materialism and skepticism. The early apostates, Jubal-cain and Tubal-cain, descended from a man who built a city and named it after his own son. An act of hubris which illustrates the hope the materialist relies on when he places his future faith and trust in those things of steel and wood. Lamech in Genesis 4 boasts that he will avenge seventy-fold those who stand in his way, especially the weak and the young. A destroyer questioning the power of God to order His world according to His ways. It is what we would expect from a son of Cain. The attitudes which motivate the skeptic surround a lack of desire to see the world through the eyes of God. They would rather make decisions from their vantage point in the spiritual underground. Darkness leads to more darkness.

For our prayer and worship help today we are going to spend a moment explaining how these two ways of approaching life only lead to damnation. Our goal should be, as those who love our neighbor as ourselves, to see all men come to the knowledge of truth, to have the shroud of the devil removed from over their eyes. It may seem as if we are jumping around from the previous two weeks where we talked about creation, agrarianism, and the considered life. However, the reason why we need to define these words is to helpfully teach others what the good and true is.

Materialism is a word which means a way of looking at life that believes that only what can be touched and moved has any value to human life. A good example of the hope found in materialism is the lottery. While we understand scratch tickets and the Powerball to be a violation of both the third and eighth commandments many people spend their dollars in the expectation that their Abe Lincoln or George Washington will turn into many Benjamins. My dad always referred to this kind of activity as a tax on people who can’t do math well, or as Solomon says it, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.” (Prov. 13:11). If you have some free time, check out the documentaries on folks who won the Mega Millions. Around 75% of them are bankrupt within two years of their victory. There is no permanence to money. It not only loses its value, but the love of it is the root of all evil, and why is that? It is not because coins and paper are bad in themselves. We all need money to function. It derives from the fact that as the rich young ruler found out, and as the rich man found out in Hell, you can’t take it with you, and you can’t purchase your salvation with it. Riches may prosper for a season, but greed always leaves pain and anguish in its trail. Abandoning the Lord for the glory of stuff leads to nothing.

A large part of the desecration of our hills and valleys comes from the mindset that more is more, and that you can never have enough.

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