"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."
Jane Wagner, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe"[1]
You would expect that the richest man who ever lived would have something to say about money, and, in Solomon's case, you would be right. He has plenty to say. There is a wealth of wisdom about wealth in Proverbs. With money, there is not only much to earn, but there is much to learn.
In fact, the entire Bible has much to say about money. Howard Dayton, the founder of Crown Ministries has counted about five hundred verses in the Bible on prayer, but over 2,350 on how to handle money and possessions.[2]
There will be little problem in making this chapter relevant for fathers or families. A 1987 Gallup poll indicated that fifty-six percent of families consider economic problems the biggest problem they face. The next highest category is health problems and health care at only six percent.[3] Everybody seems to agree that money is not important until you do not have any! As Joe Lewis, the fighter, put it: "I don't like money actually, but it does calm my nerves."
You will be reading a lot about wealth, riches, the wealthy, the rich, etc. Don't check out just because you think you may not fall into that category. The amount of hard cash lost each year in the United States amounts to about $75 per capita. The total average income for most of this planet comes to about $69 per person annually. In other words, the average American loses more money each year than almost anyone else in the world earns.[4]
Money is like nitroglycerin: handling it is not morally wrong, but, especially if you do not know what you are doing, it is extremely risky. It seems as if everywhere you look, there is a warning label of some kind on toys, cigarettes, diet soft drinks, even air bags! Perhaps it would be a good idea to put a warning label on dollar bills, certificates of deposit, and credit cards. Perhaps nothing has been the ruin of more people, marriages, and friendships, than the failure to handle money properly.
Dad, next to teaching your child how to walk with God, you will never teach him a more important life lesson than how to handle money. I am well within the mark when I say that well over ninety percent of Americans do not have a clue on how to manage money. Like nitroglycerin, handling money can cause an explosion that can blow apart a marriage, a home, a business, and even a life. So, pay attention!
I. The Making of Money
Yet, Solomon tells us that there is a right way and a wrong way to make money. First, money should come by hard work, as the following verse shows:
Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase. (Prov. 13:11)
To labor God says, "Give a good days work." To management God says, "Give a good days wage." Both labor and management are to make money. Labor helps to make management a profit, and management helps labor make a salary. Neither a profit well earned, nor a salary honestly made are displeasing to the Lord.
But money is also to be earned by honest work. There are grave warnings given to those who get their money dishonestly. There is a warning against oppressing the poor.
He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he who gives to the rich, will surely come to poverty. (Prov. 22:16)
As I read this verse, I take comfort in the fact that one day the heat of God's fiery wrath will be felt by those who became millionaires by the addiction of the "poor" to drugs and alcohol.
Also, a warning to cheating innocent people. This can be done by charging excess interest on loans, or artificially inflating prices.
One who increases his possessions by usury and extortion gathers it for him who will pity the poor. (Prov. 28:8)
It can also be done through dishonest business practices like padding expense accounts. Listen to Eugene Peterson's translation of Proverbs 20:10:
Switching price tags and padding the expense account are two things God hates.[5]
God makes it plain: Winners never cheat and He will see to it that cheaters never win.
II. The Mastering of Money
You are either master over your money or a slave to it there is no in between. As I walked through the rich grain fields of financial wisdom in Proverbs, I gleaned six keys to helping you to master your money lessons you can pass on to your children that will be "worth their weight in gold."
Principle No. One: Being poor is a problem, but being rich isn't the answer. The New Living Translation renders Proverbs 8 this way:
The rich can pay a ransom, but the poor won't even get threatened.[6]
The poor man may get no mail, but the rich man may get "blackmail!" The good news is, that the rich are worth kidnapping. The bad news is, they are able to pay the ransom. For the poor, the bad news is, they are not worth kidnapping, but the good news is, they don't have to worry about ransom.
Principle Number Two: Remember the difference between "needy" and "greedy." We have all heard, when it comes to cars, "speed kills." When it comes to money, "greed kills."
So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners. (Prov. 1:19)
We Americans pledge allegiance to "One nation under God," and then live as if we believe in "One nation under greed."
A greedy man is just like the heroin addict. It takes a "hit" to satisfy him, but the effect soon wears off and he needs another "hit." When John D. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world, he was asked by an employee, "Mr. Rockefeller, how much money is enough?" To which Rockefeller replied, "Just a little bit more, son, just a little bit more." A Greek sage once said, "To whom a little is not enough, nothing is enough."
Principle Number Three: Family comes before money, both in the dictionary and in life.
He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house, but he who hates bribes will live. (Prov. 15:27)
Any man who puts work, career, money, and possessions, above his family, is asking for big trouble. J. Paul Getty, at one time, owned an estate that exceeded $4 billion in net worth. He was considered in his day the richest, most "successful" man on planet earth. Years ago, the Los Angeles Times quoted something he wrote in his autobiography:
I have never been given to envy...save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily. It's an art I have never been able to master. My record: five marriages, five divorces. In short, five failures.
I am not trying to imply that being rich guarantees family problems. I am simply saying that Solomon is right when he says putting money first and family second, can make you simply a successful failure.
Principle Number Four: Be satisfied with needs, not consumed with wants. In the brilliant section of Proverbs, penned by Agur, we find a prayer loaded with financial wisdom.
Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die):
Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches Feed me with the food You prescribe for me;
Lest I be full and deny You, and say, ‘Who is the Lord?' Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God. (Prov. 30: 7-9)
Agur did not want to be either wealthy or poor. He just wanted to be "middle classed." He didn't want to drive a rolls royce, and he didn't really want to walk, he just wanted a good used car!
I would venture to say that in his own way Agur was a rich man. He was like a man I heard of who lived on a very modest income. He was talking to one of the big business tycoons who owned his company, who was greedy, grasping, always trying to get more and more. They were sitting together at a lunch one day and the employee looked at him and said, "I am richer than you are."
With a sneer, the tycoon said, "How do you figure that?"
The laborer said, "Because I have all the money I want, and you don't."
Principle Number Five: Money will never totally satisfy your deepest needs, or all your wants. You would think that as a culture became more affluent and wealthier, that people would become happier if money is the cure-all for all of our problems. But listen to this:
When John Galbraith was about to describe us as the affluent society, our per-person income, expressed in today's dollars, was less than $8,000. Today it is $16,000 making us The Doubly Affluent Society. Compared to 1957, we have twice as many cars per person; we have microwave ovens, color TVs, VCRs, air conditioners, answering machines, and $12 billion a year worth of brand-name athletic shoes.
So are we happier than we were thirty-five years ago? We are not. In 1957 thirty-five percent of Americans told The National Opinion Research Center they were "very happy." In 1991, with doubled American affluence, thirty-one percent said the same. Judged by soaring rates of depression, the quintupling of the violent-crime rate since 1960, the doubling of the divorce rate, the slight decline in marital happiness among the marital survivors, and the tripling of the teen suicide rate, we are richer and unhappier. How can we avoid the shocking conclusion: Economic growth in affluent countries gives little boost to human morale.7
Dad, neither you nor your children will ever learn a greater lesson than this (if you have not learned it already) money is not guaranteed to make you happier, it may make you sadder!
Principle Number Six: Money has wings.
Do not overwork to be rich; because of your own understanding, cease!
Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make them-selves wings; they fly away like an eagle toward heaven. (Prov. 23:4-5)
To put this verse another way:
Money talks, I'll not deny
I heard it once, it said, "Good-bye."
I don't care how much money you make, how much money you save, how much money you invest, and how much money you keep. Eventually, either your money will leave you, or you are going to leave your money.
III. The Managing Of Money
Managing money is not so much a matter of smarts as it is obedience and sanctified common sense. You don't have to be a Wall Street broker or a financial swami to manage money. I want to give you what I call Merritt's methods of money management. They are all based on the counsel of a king who saw everything he touched turned to gold.
There are basically four simple rules I have followed from the time I was married, up to the present day, all based from the book of Proverbs, consistently followed, that I guarantee anyone will work. If you follow these rules you will insure that you manage your money rather than your money managing you:
a. Believe that giving is more important than getting then give.
Solomon goes against the grain of all financial thinking when he says, the key to getting is not getting, the key to getting is giving.
Honor the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. (Prov. 3:9-10)
Keep in mind that this was written to an agrarian culture. The income of the readers would have been tied to crops and livestock. Whenever a farmer or a rancher would reap a harvest, or birth some calves, they would take the first sheaf or the firstborn of the flock, and commit it to the temple and commit it unto the Lord. In fact, the firstborn of their children were committed to the service of the Lord. These were called "firstfruits."
There is not a more important money-management principle you will ever hear than this one: Give God the firstfruits of your income, not the leftovers.
Unfortunately, as wealthy as Americans are, God mostly gets the leftovers, and with most people, doesn't even get the crumbs! Households earning $100,000 a year in 1990, gave on average 2.9% of their income to charity; while households with incomes of less than $10,000 gave 5.5%.8
What is even worse is as America becomes more prosperous, she's also becoming more stingy. In 1933 at the depth of the great depression, church members gave an estimated 3.3% of their disposable income to the church. If this trend continues, by the year 2000 church members will be giving a scant 1.94% of their disposable income to the church.9
I read a story recently of a man named Dan Gangaram Mahes. He is a criminal, but a most extraordinary one. Although he has been arrested nearly three dozen times, you would never be frightened by his presence. That is, unless you own a classy restaurant.
He is known in New York as the "Cereal Eater." This immigrant from Guyana, loves eloquent dining, but doesn't have the budget to pay for it. But rather than deny his appetite, he simply walks into a fine restaurant, orders the best meal on the menu, top-shelve liquor; eats and drinks to his heart's content, and then when the check arrives, simply informs the waiter he is neither able nor willing to pay the bill.
The police then come and arrest him, and he ends up with at least a few days of free meals in jail.10
Our churches are filled with people who drink the milk of God's blessing, eat the steak of God's goodness, and enjoy the dessert of God's love; then won't even "tip" God 10%!
b. Cash out or you will cash in.
What do I mean? Well, put another way (and many of you are not going to like it): except for a house, a car (maybe), or an absolute emergency, pay cash or don't buy it. There are too many people finances have become a matter of "life and debt."
Today people can be divided into three classes:
- Haves
- Have-Nots, and,
- The Have-Not-Paid-for-What-They-Haves
Americans are the most indebted people on earth, with household debt averaging $71,500, twice that of Great Britain, and eighty-nine times that of Switzerland. 11
The credit card boom has triggered the creation of a self-help group entitled, Big Spenders Anonymous for Compulsive Debtors.12
You see bumper stickers all the time that read "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!" It reminds me of a handyman who had been called out to a millionaire's mansion to refinish her floors. The woman of the house said, "Be especially careful of this dining room table. It goes back to Louis the XIV."
The handyman said, "Lady, don't feel bad." He said, "If I don't make a payment by Friday, my whole living room set goes back to Sears the sixteenth."
Someone has described a modern American as a man who drives a bank-financed car, over a bond-financed road, on gasoline he bought with a credit card, to a department store to get another charge account open so he can fill his house, that is mortgaged to the Savings and Loan Association, with furniture that has been purchased on an installment plan.
Having said that, understand the Bible does not condemn debt, the Bible cautions about debt. Solomon makes an oft-quoted statement about borrowing money that is misunderstood and misused:
The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Prov. 22:7)
Contrary to popular opinion, this verse does not condemn debt, it merely states a fact. The borrower is a servant to the lender in the fact that he is bound to pay the lender what he owes him. There is an obligation he is to fulfill. He is to pay what he owes. It is not wicked to borrow money. It is wicked to borrow money and not repay it. As Solomon's father said, "The wicked borrows, and does not repay." (Psalm 37:21)
But there are times that debt is wrong. I want to give you the following conditions which, if any or all are met, debt is indeed wrong:
- Debt is wrong when it is beyond your ability to repay it on a timely basis.
- Debt is wrong when it prevents you from giving to God what He demands.
- Debt is wrong when the burden is so heavy you cannot save for the future.
- Debt is wrong if it puts your family under financial pressure. (Financial Counselor, Larry Burkette, says that credit is the motivating factor behind perhaps 80% of all divorces.)13
- Debt is wrong if it is used to pay for the luxuries of life.
- Debt is wrong if it is generated by co-signing a note. (See Prov. 6:1-6; 11:15; 17:18; 22:26-27)
As a rule of thumb, just keep this in mind. It is all right to borrow for necessities, but you should pay cash for luxuries.
c. Save for that rainy day.
I was astonished to read that eighty-five out of one hundred Americans end up with less than $250 in cash savings when they reach sixty-five.14
Can you believe that America's savings per household is $4,201 less than one-third that of Germany, and less one-tenth that of Japan.15
One man had been sitting at a calculator for about three hours not saying a word. Finally, he looked up and said to his wife, "Honey, if we continue to save at our present rate, by the time I retire we are going to owe $700,000. Keep in mind that debt is the opposite of savings. The reason is simple: You either earn interest or you pay interest. Savings earn interest, debt pays interest.
I know it is difficult for many families to save. But I want to encourage you to begin right now. The fact is, if we got by with less today, we could save up more for tomorrow.
d. Don't keep up with the Jones's.
Will Rogers said, "People borrow money they don't have, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't even like!" That is true.
I can save you a lot of sleepless nights and anxiety if you will just learn that not only should you not keep up with the Jones's, but if you ever do catch up with them, they will just refinance!
There is nothing wrong with having things money can buy, as long as you don't lose the things that money can't buy. Never forget that money can buy anything that is for sale, but the greatest things in life are not for sale.
Somebody observed that there are seven ages of man:
First age: A child sees the earth.
Second age: He wants it.
Third age: He hustles to get it.
Fourth age: He decides to be satisfied with about half of it.
Fifth age: He would be satisfied with less than half of it.
Sixth age: He is now content to possess a two-by-six foot section of it.
Seventh age: He gets it.16
Your children are at the first or the second age. Before long, they will enter the third and fourth age. Dad, if you can, exhilarate them through it and get them as quickly as you can to the sixth age, because before they know it, they will be at the seventh age.
In 1923 there was a meeting of the world's most successful businessmen at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. These movers and shakers controlled over half of the wealth of the United States. They were: Charles Schwab, the President of the largest steel company in America; Samuel Insull, President of the largest utility company; Howard Hopson, President of the largest gas company; Arthur Cutten, the greatest wheat speculator; Richard Whitney, President of the New York Stock Exchange; Albert Fall, the Secretary of the Interior in President Harding's cabinet; Jesse Livermore, the greatest "bear" on Wall Street; Ivar Krueger, head of the world's greatest monopoly; Leon Fraser, President of the Bank of International Settlements.
Rich, wealthy, affluent, with more money than they could ever spend in five lifetimes. Yet, twenty-five years later here is where they were:
- Charles Schwab went bankrupt and lived the last five years of his life on borrowed money.
- Samuel Insull died in a foreign land, a fugitive from justice and penniless.
- Howard Hopson was insane.
- Arthur Cutten became insolvent and died abroad.
- Richard Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing Prison.
- Albert Fall had just been pardoned from prison and died at home broke.
- Jesse Livermore committed suicide.
- Ivar Krueger committed suicide.
- Leon Fraser committed suicide.
Dad, if you want to be "fiscally fit" put God first, family second, church third, money a distant fourth, and let God give you what you need, and be satisfied with what you have. You will not only die a happy man, but if you can pass these truths along to your kids a successful father.
[1] The Atlanta Journal, September 2, 1996, 813.
[2] Patrick Morley, The Man in the Mirror (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 130.
[3] Morley, op. cit., 110.
[4] Norman Cousins, Human Options (Berkeley Press, 1983), 103.
[5] eugene Peterson, The Message: The Wisdom Books (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 1996), 324.
[6] The New Living Translation (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1996), 669.
7 "Whose Happy?", Christianity Today, November 23, 1992, 24.
8 Religious Faith: Firm Foundation for Charity, Christianity Today, 19 November 1990, 63.
9 John Ronsvalle and Sylvia Ronsvalle, "Giving Trends and their Implications for the 1990s," a paper presented at the North American Conference on Christian Philanthropy, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 24-27 September 1990, 1-6.
10 In Other Words, May/June, 1994.
11 Michael Wolff, Where We Stand: Can America Make It in a Global Race for Wealth, Health, and Happiness (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), 24.
12 John Naisbitt, Mega Trends, (New York: Warner Books, 1984), 166.
13 Larry Burkette, Answers to Your Families Financial Questions (Pomona, California: Focus on the Family Publishing, 1987), 77.
14 Bill Hybels, Honest to God? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervon Publishing House, 1990), 162.
15 James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Second American Revolution (New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1994), 79.
16 Dr. James Dobson, Straight Talk to Men and their Wives (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1980), 147-148.
