Ep. 064 - The Dangers of Wealth - Part 4 - The Paradox of Prosperity

Episode Transcript

Austin
For the last couple episodes, we've been talking about the dangers of wealth and looking at key biblical figures. Over the next two episodes., we're going to shift it just a little bit. We'll still look at some biblical figures, but we're going to take a look and see what is the paradox of prosperity today. And then our next episode we’ll really take a look at seeing when wealth accumulates,
what it does to you, how we interact with those around us, and the ease that it becomes to try to deceive them, to maintain our wealth.
All right. So, Spencer, today we want to talk about the paradox of prosperity. You want to lead us off, this came from a talk that you heard, and we're kind of going to expound on that a little bit. So, lead us off, tell us what we're going to talk about today.

Spencer
So, Kingdom Advisors has a series of conversations on a month to month basis. Doctor Kelly Rush did a really nice job unpacking the story of Abraham and Lot and we wanted to be able to bring that to you because it has implications for how we think about the accumulation of wealth and the trade offs that we really face, that oftentimes we don't think too much about.

Austin
Right. Well, because the reality is we think when wealth rises, it's a good thing. And sometimes it is if you are in abject poverty and you go from abject poverty to actually having something, being able to meet your daily needs, that's a good thing. But when we go from being able to meet our daily needs to having an excess to having an abundant excess, oftentimes if we are not honest with the Lord and giving back to the Lord and really having people around us that are going to call us towards generosity, then that prosperity can actually start to erode our faith and our trust in Jesus.
So today we want to take a look and we’ll be in Genesis 13 and Genesis 19. So we’ll start off in verses one and two and then five through seven. So it says: “So Abram went up from Egypt. He and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him into the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold.”
And then in verse five: “And Lot who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together, for their possessions, were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.” So what do we see here, Spencer?

Spencer
Well, we have two wealthy patriarchs back in the ancient Near East, and we've got Abram and he seems to have a tremendous amount of wealth. You can see, he was very rich in livestock in verse two, and then silver and gold. And then we get down to verse five, and it's kind of like Lot also had flocks and herds
And tents and so, he also was wealthy, but he wasn't wealthy to the same level that Abram was. But I think the key here is we come back to the paradox of prosperity is for both of them, the land could not support them together. Their possessions were so great. There was strife that then emerged between the herdsmen. So just the sheer fact that they have so much is creating friction among their peoples, and they're starting to realize why it will be difficult for us to stay together.
Now, that had been a very good relationship, a familial relationship. And Lot, being the younger of the two, probably had a mentor in Abram who was giving him a lot of wisdom. So you think about just the sheer value of his herds, now it's creating a problem because he's got to make a decision here. And the trade offs are not easy either way.
So we can relate to the paradox of prosperity. The more that you have, the less real freedom you have. And we see in particular that happiness is not going to be dependent on having more, like you said, if you're very, very poor, a level of wealth gives you choices that are really helpful. It gives you opportunities.
You go beyond that, though, and the choices can start to feel like a big weight.

Austin
Yeah. Well, and we see this that we've talked about Philippians 4:11-13 plenty of times. But this idea that contentment really is a choice. Paul says: “I have learned that every circumstance, whether in plenty, abundance or need, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It's that contentment that he knows that his provision comes from Christ, and whether he has abundance or need, whether he is hungry or he has plenty, it's not this, this circumstances of hunger or plenty.
It's the contentment in Christ that gives Paul the strength to be able to do anything. It's not that he is looking for more or less. It's that the telos of his life is not aimed at prosperity. It's aimed at Jesus. And I think if we aim our telos, our end being our end state that what we aim for in our life, towards prosperity, it deviates from Jesus.
And that's where we really start to see some bad decay, right?

Spencer
If our goal is just to have more, it's never going to be enough. And we see this really as we go to the second set of verses here, Genesis 13:8-10. Abram said to Lot “Let there be no strife between you and me, between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me.
If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you take the right hand, I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the valley, the Jordan Valley, was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord. Like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar.” So we look at that and just a couple of points I think, that we want to make here.
Abram, even though he is the elder, even though he has more. He's coming and he's saying, “You can make a choice here. You can go to the left. You can go to the right.” He's recognizing that we do have strife and his solution is “Okay, we need to split here.” But he's being very humble in the sense of he's not taking his position and using it to push Lot in a different direction.
So he's open, it sounds like, to whatever Lot would have, whether it's the left or the right, or if we read between the lines, perhaps some other third solution that might have been available there.

Austin
Right. And to contrast that, Lot looks at the land and he's like, “Which is going to be the best for me?” He isn't looking Abram and saying, “Okay, how can we make this equitable?” He's saying, “Okay, it kind of looks like the Garden of Eden, maybe. Or, it looks like the land of Egypt.
The potential for richness or the potential of, untarnished fellowship with God if we look to Eden, we see these two places that he compares it to, and it looks as though he sees it as an opportunity to have everything: to be both near to God and to have riches. And I think that's the tension that we see with Lot is that he's not looking externally to others, he's saying “What is going to be best for Lot?”

Spencer
Yeah. And we see this, you know, in Genesis 13:11 it plays out: “So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.” So, you know, to your point, I think we could say there's really three facets of this poor decision-making process for Lot. You know, the selfishness that you highlighted there.
He's just saying, how do I get mine? How do I make sure that I have the land that's going to be abundant here? And we see that in in other ways in our culture. There's this idea that the opportunity for effortless, low risk wealth, can be really enticing for folks. We talked about it as we talked about portfolio construction.
But if we come back to one principle over the last 60, 70 years, that's really taken hold; and it's probably not just in the last 67 years, it's probably always been there, but it's been very articulate, very clearly articulated: In wealth management, it's “How do we get as much as we can for as little risk as possible?”
How do we see maximum risk-adjusted returns? And if we look at the example here from the ancient Near East, that's Lot’s focus here. “How do I get maximum risk-adjusted returns? How do I keep the risk low and the return really high?” So it's a selfish choice. He journeyed east. This is one of those points that is kind of a, it's embedded within the cultural thought of the time,
but you journey east, you’re turning away from the Lord. When Adam and Eve left Eden, they journeyed east. And so when we look at the biblical references, anything that goes east to west is moving back towards the Lord. Anything west to east is typically moving away from the Lord. And we see this play out.
And then finally, as we've kind of hinted at, he separates himself from Abram. So he cuts himself off from godly counsel. So those three elements, really contribute to a very, very poor decision. And he's not recognizing that, of course, in the time it's got to play out but, but we see Lot, a very wealthy man, with an intact family, with all kinds of good relationships,
make this decision and we'll talk about what happens as a result of this particular decision in the end.

Austin
Right. So we'll go ahead and move on to Genesis 13:12-18 and 12 and 13 says: “Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley, and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked great sinners against the Lord. And then in verse 14, ”The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward, and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.
I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring will also be counted. Arise, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.’ So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron.
And there he built an altar to the Lord.” So we see here a contrast of two different places where they are putting their dwelling places. So Lot chose to dwell in the cities of Sodom as close as he could there. But the Lord said it was a wicked place. Sodom was defined by sex and money. Its people were poor stewards.
They were inhospitable, which is contrary to the heart of an abundantly hospitable God. And so we see both of this going on. The Lord calls them wicked. The Lord has always been hospitable and saying, “How can I be generous with people?” And if people are saying, “Okay, I'm going to take that from you, but I'm not going to be hospitable in return,”
it shows that there is a tension of moving away from the Lord. And so if we surround ourselves, I think any time that I surround with myself, with people, I'm going to take on the characteristics and the nature of the people that are surrounding me. So Lot surrounds himself with people that are away from the Lord, sinners.
And so he starts getting pulled in that direction. We see in Ezekiel 16:49-50, “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them.
Then I saw it.”

Spencer
And we see this so often, both in culture around us, in the biblical witness, a level of continued excess and increase of wealth often leads to sexual sin. They go hand in hand because there's this sense “I'm moving away from the Lord. I can do whatever I want. I'm my own master.” And so, again, wealth is often tied to sexual sin.
And we see it here and we see it noted, even there in Ezekiel. So I think the next thing we look at is the hinge point, really in the story, when the two angels show up at Sodom, says: “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.” Now, this is one of those details that's kind of, not easy for us to pick up maybe in our cultural reference, but as a man sitting at the gate of the city, Lot was a leader.
He had a place of honor. So he's one of these guys that, people are looking to, that, he has some level of wealth, obviously. And he's using that to build relationship, probably to do trade, probably to enhance his level of wealth. We see in verse 14 there of Genesis 19: So Lot went out and said to his sons in law, who were to marry his daughters: “Up! get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.
But he seemed to his sons in law to be jesting.” So the angels come, they say, “We're going to bring down fire on the city. Everyone is going to perish. You better get out.” What we see is that Lot goes to his sons in law. So he has two daughters, they’re married, his sons in law, do not listen to him at all.
They thought he was jesting. He had affluence without influence. He had all of this wealth, but it didn't mean anything at the most important point, because it was ungodly wealth. It was not wealth that was built on character. It was not wealth that was built on relationships, true relationships of people that would listen to one another in times of crisis.
So what we finally see in verses 15 and 16, there in chapter 19 “When the mourning arose, then the angels hastened to Lot saying, ‘Arise, take your wife and your daughters, so that you are not consumed in the iniquity of the city.’ And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him.”
So we see the Lord's mercy even in this. He's commanded them to go away again. And finally he just he grabs them and says, “Go.” You know, it's almost like when we have a child and the child is not listening to something that needs to be done, even maybe that's putting them in danger. And then finally we have to say, “Okay, you've got to get out of here.”
It's kind of like we're crossing the street and we've got 15 seconds to cross, you know, before the light changes and the child tarries and tarries and tarries, and so finally it's about to change. And you just take the child by the hand and say, “Out. We're getting out of this because it's easy to get hit, you know, here.”
And it's, it's really what the Lord is doing and being gracious to Lot and getting him out of this. But, again, we come back to a few ideas here that Lot, I think, had such a tough time because he realized he was giving everything up.


Austin
Yeah.

Spencer
You know, he had let his self-worth be defined by his net worth. And that's a really, really dangerous spot to be in, because you can make all kinds of mental adjustments and you can justify things if your whole perspective is “My identity is built upon my net worth.”

Austin
Right. Well, and I think we'll see this more in our next episode, but it's this posture of “Are my hands open to the Lord or closed to the Lord?” And if they're open, then it's just stuff. But if my hands are close to the Lord,
And I see my stuff is mine, then it's going to be so much harder to break if the Lord calls me to break with him. But if I always have an open hand toward the Lord, if my posture is open handed and saying, “God, this is all yours, just help me steward it well, then if He calls me to give it, then I give it. If He calls me to leave,
I leave. Because I know that my stuff that I steward is not my own. It's the Lord's. I know this place that He has given me is not my home. It is the Lord's. And when I die, it's going to go to somebody else. And so I can't live with such closed fists. And I think that's what we see here with Lot is there's such a tight grip and he's afraid of losing in some ways.
And so he's got to tight grip. He doesn't want to lose it.

Spencer
Well, and as his wealth is accumulated, you would expect that his identity gets more linked to that, and we see kind of the opposite in some ways with Abram, when he left his original homeland, the Lord was calling him to go to a place he didn't know, and to take on tremendous risk. But as a steward, you kind of see him in that setting saying, “Well, you know, do I own any of this?
Do I own my own life? I'm supposed to do what the Lord tells me to do.” And so even though there is a potential velocity that up and goes and the exact opposite with Lot. Here, even in the midst of impending doom.
He has to be pulled away.

Austin
Yeah. And we see that in verses 24 and 25 of chapter 19. “Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of the heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” And so we just see if we look back at all the verbs that are used throughout, we just see these examples of lifestyle creep.
It's typically the most are lifestyle decisions, what we spend on a day to day basis on our living is typically the most significant use of our money. And if we allow lifestyle to creep, then it's going to drive our use of debt. If we think we need the nicest home, in the nicest neighborhood with the nicest cars, and our income doesn't support it, then we're going to take on higher and higher and higher levels of debt to be able to maintain that lifestyle that shows to the world around us that we have affluence, while maybe we don't have influence.

Spencer
Well, and even if we don't use debt to fuel it, even if we just buy those things, they still are very, very difficult to leave behind. At the same time, we want to note that even though Lot makes a terrible decision, the Lord's grace towards him is present. And this is, a beautiful picture, I think, of the Lord pursuing us.
We see Lot here as kind of a prophetic picture, actually, of a lukewarm Christian. And we might think, “Okay, well, Lot, his plight is so dire. As he leaves, I mean, his wife turns to a pillar of salt, his daughters end up living in a cave with him doing abominable things. He ends up basically penniless.”
And yet the Lord's grace continues to be present to him and pursue him. Because we see this in 2 Peter 2:7-9, which, Peter says, “And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them, day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds,
that he saw and heard, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.” So essentially Peter saying, “Okay, he did things that were not good. He aligned himself, with wicked people. At the same time, the Lord went and pursued him and rescued him.”
And there was a tremendous, distressing of his soul in the midst of this. We don't see this as much in the story, but he had to, you see it as you've got the men of the city beating on his, you know, household and, and trying to do all kinds of abominable things, both to his guests and then to his daughters.
So we see the level of distress there, but maybe not in other ways of just the day to day “Hey, I'm at the city gate. I'm making a lot of money,” but is this actually, doing anything beyond that? So, but God still pursues him. He is saved in the end, according to 2 Peter

Austin
Yeah. Well, then I think as we take a step back and we say, “Okay, if prosperity is a paradox, if it looks good on the outside, but on the inside, unchecked wealth leads us away from the Lord,” well we have to say, “Okay, what does it look like to orient our hearts back to what the Lord would desire?”
And we look at Romans 12 or 1 Thessalonians 4, we're Exodus 20 and we say, “Don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We have to come back day after day after day. I cannot look to the world's values to signify my value. I look to the Lord to say, “Okay, I want to be transformed by the Gospel, by the goodness of God in the land of the living, not by the goodness of the house in the neighborhood of my friends.”
It is all about what is the Lord provide? How do I celebrate and rejoice and be content in what the Lord provides. And being able to live simply, like we talked about in, Philippians 4, but first Thessalonians 4 as well: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. You should mind your own business and work with your hands.”
Just this reality of like, “I don't need to live in abundance. I can live in simplicity, whether in abundance or need, whether in hunger or plenty. Those are where I find my contentment. Because my contentment is in the Lord, not in my stuff.”

Spencer
Well, and as we pursue the potential for more, if where that more goes is just back into, building God's kingdom, then there are some guardrails there that seem to help that to be a little bit safer. Maybe not completely safe, but, a bit safer because we end up again having open hands and saying, “Well, it's not going to line my pockets and it's not going to give me an extra trip or, a bigger house or a nicer car.
If I make more than if I have finish lines set up, then I've got an idea of where I can push resources. Obviously, that Lot, that was not, his view that was, was, not the his direction. You know, we see that as well in Exodus 20:17 where in the Ten Commandments: “But you shall not covet your neighbor's house.
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey or anything.” And as we look at that in particular; wealth, one rationally would think that as you accumulated more, that you would have less potential to covet because you've got more. But in practice, that's not what happens. Oftentimes we have more,
and then we realize that we can have even more. And it's that vicious cycle of you just never have enough. Because when you took the first step of saying, “Well, I want to have a little bit more,” you go down that path rather than saying, “I have enough. The Lord has given me enough from the outset, and trusting in Him being an steward of those resources.”
The arc is much different.

Austin
Right? So, Spencer, let's go ahead and just take one big step back. Can you review the entire arc narrative of, the story of Lot and Abram?

Spencer
Well, in particular with Lot. I mean, he started with wealth. He started with, an intact family, with good relationships. He had lots of choices. He could go this way, this way. He probably even had a third choice, which was to say, “Hey, you know, I know that we've been having some strife, but let's just bring everybody back together.
Let's make sure that everyone knows how important our relationship is, how important our family is here. And let's figure out a way that we work things out.” So Abram was avoiding conflict. We also see him avoiding conflict at other points in time. Namely, you know, even, defending his wife against, you know, the advances of other men a couple of times.
So we see that is one of the character traits that he has challenges with, Abram is avoiding conflict again here in this part of the story. But Lot’s, he’s in an amazing spot, lots of wealth again, all kinds of goodness given to him in so many different ways. But that wealth in particular, because he wants to enhance it, he wants to grow it in the easiest way possible,
it leads to that poor choice of being moving away from the Lord, moving away from council, moving towards, again, just maximum risk-adjusted returns. And he ends up as a result; a widower living in a cave, deeply marred relationships with his daughters and neighbors and no real choices. So he gets hamstrung because he goes towards that wealth and he allows that wealth to define who he is and the choices that he makes,
and the consequences are severe.

Austin
Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for walking us through that story of Abram and Lot, Spencer. Next time we're going to take a look at Ananias and Sapphira and the contrast between them and Barnabas, Acts 4 and 5. We hope you'll join us and see how wealth can lead us to being deceitful, both with our brothers and sisters and with the Lord.
If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. We look forward to seeing you again next time! If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclaimer
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.