Sermon Tone Analysis

“Gambling or Giving”

           I.

The Purpose Of The Collection

              A.

It Benefits The Receivers

              B.

It Blesses The Givers

          II.

The Procedure Of The Collection

              A.

It Is To Be Punctual

              B.

It Is To Be Personal

              C.

It Is To Be Proportional

         III.

The Practicality Of The Collection

 

     So he begins chapter 16 by saying, Now concerning the collection.

If you want to kill the joy in the average Baptist meeting you just start talking about the collection; that is probably the saddest time of the service.

In fact normally you have to get people standing up and singing a song when the collection is taken.

In fact there are some Baptists that when the offering plate is passed we ought to sing the song, “When We Asunder Part It Gives Us Inward Pain.”

It certainly is not a subject that normally is associated with great spirituality, and yet the apostle Paul lays before us the subject of the giving and he does it right in the context of the great theme of spiritual matters.

Now of course you know that God’s children live in two realms: our hearts are in heaven and our feet are on this earth; we are rejoicing in the sweet by and by but we also know that the Christian life applies to the nitty gritty of the here and now.

The Bible is a wonderful Book, it is a wonderful book because it shows us that we are to be deeply spiritual but we are also to be definitely practical.

The Christian life lays warm sympathetic hands on the daily issues of life.

The parables of the Lord Jesus Christ, there are over thirty_five in number, and about sixteen of those parables of our Lord have to do with material possessions.

Our Savior understood that money and the use of money and the abuse of money are vital matters that have to do with daily life.

Most of you spend the majority of your waking hours dealing with how to make a living: making a living, earning a salary, earning your money in order to pay for the things you need, and to meet your responsibilities.

So it would be unthinkable that the Bible, which is such a practical, down_to_earth book, would not spend a great deal of time talking about the subject of giving and the proper relationship of God’s child to the matter of money.

Now having just introduced these verses in that matter we raise the question, What does this have to do with the subject of the gambling?

Why do we relate what we are told in these verses to the subject of the gambling?

Well I think it is because in the gambling and in these verses of scripture here we have a contrast between a lottery lifestyle which is based on greed, and a Christian lifestyle which is based on grace.

Now the gambling of course has been a very major topic of conversation for the last several days; it’s almost as if there has been a feeding frenzy going on.

Hysteria almost has developed.

People by the thousands and the tens of thousands have been purchasing gambling tickets.

Now there’s the prize, they say it’s going to run around 105 million dollars for the prize.

Some people stood in line for five hours buying tickets and waiting to buy tickets.

One man I read about in the paper today spent seven hours purchasing for himself and for his family eighty thousand dollars worth of gambling tickets.

The odds that you would win the gambling are 1 in 14 million.

Now your odds of dying in a car crash are much greater than that.

In fact you have a greater chance of being hit by a falling object than that.

The odds of your dying with syphilis are greater than the odds that you would win in the gambling.

Yet three out of every four people in America gamble in some form; eighty percent of the people in America are in favor of a state form of gambling of some kind.

Is it wrong for a state to have a gambling?

and is it wrong to play the gambling?

And the answer to that is, Of course it is.

You do not have to have a Phd.

from Harvard to know that the gambling is wrong.

In fact if you have an IQ just a little above the level of water buffloe you know that it is wrong for there to be a state¬supported lottery and for people to play the gambling.

Now there are many reasons.

Let me just quickly give you four reasons why the gambling is wrong.

++NUMBER --++ONE, --++--++GAMBLING --++IS --++WRONG --++BECAUSE --++IT --++ENABLES --++COMPULSIVE --++GAMBLERS --++TO --++PURSUE --++THEIR --++ADDICTION.

--There are ten million compulsive gamblers in America.

Probably the one that has been most prominent in the news, the most well_known in recent days, is baseball great Pete Rose.

We’re told that Pete Rose spent between eight thousand and ten thousand dollars per day in gambling.

He owes bookies between five hundred thousand and seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, he is a compulsive gambler, he is addicted to gambling.

Now of those ten million compulsive gamblers, listen to this: 20 percent of those are teenagers and 34 percent of those are women.

It used to be men who were addicted to gambling but now the preponderance, the large majority, are teenagers and are women.

Studies have been done about the effects of compulsive gambling on their spouses and also on their children.

For instance, the effect of compulsive gambling on the spouse: 67 percent of the spouses have been harassed by creditors, 61 percent have become violent toward the gambler, 78 percent suffer from insomnia, and 11 percent have attempted suicide.

The effects of compulsive gamblers on their children: 25 percent of the children of compulsive gamblers have exhibited behavioral and adjustment problems in school.

So the gammbling is wrong because it is government feeding on the habits of the compulsive gambler and preying on his addiction, so it enables the compulsive gambler to pursue his addiction.

++NUMBER --++TWO, --++--++GAMBLING --++IS --++WRONG --++BECAUSE --++IT --++ENSNARES --++THE --++ECONOMICALLY --++DEPRIVED.

--What I mean by that is is that those who++’0~*á(á(__+are in the poverty level spend disproportionate amounts of their money to their number in the purchase of lottery tickets.

This is why you will always find a larger concentration of stores that are selling lottery tickets in the economically deprived areas.

The lottery is a form of economic immorality, it appeals to those citizens that are least able to afford it, it is a regressive form of taxation.

Studies have been done in lottery states and here’s what they’ve discovered among other things: they have discovered that those whose incomes are under $5,000 per year spend an average of $6.80 per one thousand dollars of their income; those whose salaries are over $25,000 per year spend only $1.46 per thousand of their income, and yet government, which preys on the poor with this kind of regressive form of taxation never sets aside any funds for the poor.

Gambling, lotteries, breeds new gamblers, it draws organized crime, it brings illegal forms of gambling into a state, it makes a state dependent upon the weaknesses rather than the strengths of its citizens.

So instead of calling it a lottery it ought to be called a lootery, it ensnares the economically deprived.

++NUMBER --++THREE,--++ --++GAMBLING --++IS --++WRONG --++BECAUSE --++IT --++ELEVATES --++MATERIALISM --++TO --++IMPROPER --++LEVELS.

--Now the Bible never says that things are wrong, in fact the Bible teaches us that God has given us things.

The Bible says God has given us things richly to enjoy, all things richly to enjoy.

There is nothing wrong with things, things become wrong when they become ends in and of themselves.

Jesus said man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Now what Jesus was saying is is that there is more to life than the material.

The material is important but it must not be elevated to an improper level.

The lottery teaches a materialistic lifestyle, the lottery teaches people to believe that the sunnum bonum of happiness in life is the acquisition of material things.

So the lottery is wrong because of that elevation improperly of materialism.

++NUMBER --++FOUR, --++--++GAMBLING --++IS --++WRONG --++BECAUSE --++IT --++ENCOURAGES --++A --++SOMETHING --++FOR --++NOTHING --++VALUE --++SYSTEM.

--It encourages a something for nothing value system.

Now the debate is on as to whether or not the lottery indeed aids education and the debate is on and there are those who say it does and there are those who say it doesn’t  .I will not involve myself in that particular discussion but I would say that we are sending an ominous message to your people in our school system when we are suggesting that the way to fund education is to do it by means of a chance instead of a designed program of responsibility on the part of the citizens.

You see, lottery teaches people to depend upon chance instead of upon hard work and instead of trusting in God.

Now the Bible says that God will meet the needs of your life.

If you will put your trust in Him, if you will depend upon Him, He will meet your needs in life.

But the lottery is wrong because it encourages a something for nothing value system.

Now then, the question is raised, What about the Bible?

Does the Bible condemn the lottery?

Well absolutely the Bible condemns the lottery.

I mean you don’t have to be a Phd. in theology to++’0~*á(á(__+know the Bible condemns the lottery.

You say, Oh, I’ve got you now, Preacher; nowhere in the Bible does the word “gambling” occur.

You are exactly correct.

Nowhere in the King James Bible does the word “gambling” occur.

Nowhere in the King James Bible does the word “pornography” occur.

Does anyone in this building tonight deny or would doubt that the Bible would condemn pornography?

Nowhere in the Bible do the words “child molestation” occur.

Does anyone in this congregation tonight deny or doubt that the Bible condemns child molestation?

So the fact that the Bible, in the King James Version, does not use the word “gambling” does not in any way suggest or imply that the Bible is silent on the subject of gambling.

Of course the Bible condemns gambling.

Let me give you seven scripture verses, there are many others I could use.

The first one is + +Exodus 20:15- - Thou shalt not steal.