SF560 - Timeless Truths for Terrible Times - THE BIBLE AND GAMBLING (Matthew 27 35)
SF560
Timeless Truths for Terrible Times
THE BIBLE AND GAMBLING
Matthew 27:35
INTRODUCTION
Does the Bible really have anything to say about Gambling?
No verse that says "Thou shalt not gamble"
No verse that says, "Thou shalt not drive through a school zone at 110 miles per hour."
The Bible is not a book of minute rules but a book of principles.
It would be too big - too many situations.
The rules and laws that applied to the first century do not necessarily apply to ours.
People can find loopholes in laws but they cannot find loopholes in principles.
Gambling Defined
Gambling and risk taking are not the same
Gambling leaves everything to chance, while risk-taking tries to minimize chance.
Gambling is destructive and is built on the principle that in order for someone to win, someone else has too loose. Risk taking is positive in that it produces income and jobs and promotes winning.
So whether it is buying a lottery ticket, playing poker, matching for cokes, or betting on a football game, let me tell you three things that are wrong with gambling:
1A. The Principles Gambling Violates
1B. The Principle Of Absolute Honesty Exodus 20:15,17
Gambling is a desire to get into my possession that which belongs to you and is a form of theft ‑ it is robbery by mutual consent.
When two men gamble, they are simply stealing by mutual consent. They are both agreeing to become thieves. One will become a successful thief, getting what belongs to the other person without giving anything in return. The other will simply become an unsuccessful thief. He will lose without getting anything in return.
Someone has said, "He who gambles and wins is a thief. While he who gambles and loses is a fool."
Suppose two men meet in a dark ally. One of them has a gun and he comes out of that ally with what belongs to the other man. What do we call him? We call him a thief.
Now, suppose two men meet in a back ally and they have a pair of dice, and one comes out of that ally with what belongs to the other man. What do we call him? We call him a gambler. But what is the major difference? In the first instance, there was one thief. In the second there were two. You see, both of them had the same spirit that the man has with the gun. The fact that there's mutual consent makes no difference.
2B. The Principle Of Unconditional Love
Matthew 22:37-40
Romans 14:13
Gambling violates the golden rule
Gambling requires that the winners pleasure can only come if some one else suffers...
Gambling takes - Christianity gives
Gambling based on selfishness - Christianity unselfishness
G. Hurts people - C. helps people
G. Is based on greed - C on grace
3B. The Principle Of Honest Work
(2 Thessalonians 3:10) ...: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
(Ephesians 4:28) He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
We are to work for what we have and live on what we earn.
We are to work and earn so we can help others not rob from them.
Gambling tears down one of the great principles of free enterprise in the American system, that to make money the old‑ fashioned way "you earn it."
2A. The Problems Gambling Creates
1B. It Is Morally Destructive
It rots the community.
According to a United States commission on law enforcement, "law officials agree almost unanimously that gambling is the greatest source of revenue for organized crime."7
Nevada, considered the gambling capital of the nation, has a per capita crime rate double, and a suicide rate triple the national average.
After opening casinos in Deadwood, South Dakota, crime rose 250% in the first year.
The organized crime section of the Department of Justice, has found that "the rate of illegal gambling in those states which have some legalized form of gambling, was three times as high as those states where there was not a legalized form of gambling."
It robs the poor.
Just under 33% of the people who play the lottery, are at or below poverty level.
The poorest citizens‑‑those with household incomes less than $10,000‑‑were seven times more likely than middle class people to spend a significant fraction (at least 5%) of their income on lottery tickets. Of the members of the poorest families who did gamble, a third spent more than 20% of their incomes on the Lottery.
It ruins the family
One out of every twenty people who gamble, and one out of ten who play the lottery, will become compulsive gamblers? In our country, there are ten million compulsive gamblers, people who are uncontrollably hooked on gambling.
Studies have been done about the effects of compulsive gambling on their spouses and also on their children. The effect of compulsive gambling on the spouse ‑‑ 67% of the spouses have been harassed by creditors. 61% have become violent toward the gambler. 78% suffer from insomnia. 11% have attempted suicide. The effects of compulsive gamblers on their children ‑‑ 25% of the children have exhibited behavioral and adjustment problems in school.
2B. It Is Monetarily Deceptive
H. Roy Kaplin of the Florida Institute of Technology, spent sixteen years studying the lotteries, and he said, "A lottery is an inefficient and ineffective source of revenue. It raises up to 3% of a state's source of revenue, but a more predictable source of income would be a one‑ half percent increase in the sales tax."
Harry Reid, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Commission. Any state trying to follow Nevada's lead will find the social costs far outweigh any economic benefits.
Herbert Jenkins, former president of the International Association of Police Chiefs, said, "For every dollar received in gambling taxes, government spends ten dollars fighting problems directly related to legalized gambling...
You are more likely to be struck by lightening than you are to win the lottery!
3A. The Providence Gambling Desecrates
1B. Gambling Teaches Us Not to Trust God
(Philippians 4:19) And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
2B. It Encourages Us Not To Obey God
(Matthew 6:33) But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
3B. It Replaces God with Luck and Chance
(Isaiah 65:11) "But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,
There are two times in a Christian's life when he should not gamble: When he can't afford to and when he can.
Application
No where in the Bible does the word, gambling, occur. No where in the Bible does the word, pornography, occur. Does anyone in this building deny or would doubt that the Bible would condemn pornography. No where in the Bible do the words child molestation occur. Does anyone in this congregation deny or doubt that the Bible condemns child molestation.
Gambling is still a vice today. A vice is any activity which feeds moral depravity and corruption. This vice violates the biblical admonition to do whatever we do in word or deed, for the glory of God (Col 3:17). God gets no glory from gambling. Gambling has no place in church life and consequently it should have no place in the life of God’s people....