Man And His Money

I was preaching when we were preaching through the book of Acts about a man named Barnabas. And, there is great indication that Barnabas was a man who had money. He was a wealthy man, but he used his money for the Lord. Good old Barney, son of consolation. Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus, in whose home Jesus would frequently stay, must have been people of means because they had a large home. It was a place where they could have banquets, they had feasts, and they had guests come in, yet they were able to show their lavish love to the Lord Jesus Christ.

C. Bible condemns the hoarding of wealth/covetousness. Luke 12:15, Col. 3:5.

So, the Bible does not condemn wealth so much, but the Bible does condemn the hoarding of wealth—the loving of money—what the Bible calls that is covetousness. We would call it today, ruthless greed. Luke chapter 12, verse 15: “And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness…” (Luke 12:15). Now, listen folks, I have been a preacher for a long time and I have had people confess all kinds of sins to me, but I don’t ever believe I have ever had a man confess to covetousness…or a woman. It is a very deceptive sin. And, that’s the reason our Lord said, “…Take heed, and beware of covetousness…” (Luke 12:15). The Bible calls covetousness, “idolatry” in Colossians 3, verse 5: “…covetousness, which is idolatry…” (Colossians 3: 5). And, idolatry is no small sin. It could be that I am speaking to some today who little would dream that God is estimation of them is that they are idolaters. It is one thing to possess money and it is another thing for money to possess you.

D. Story of Hetty Green.

I was reading about a woman named Hetty Green. Hetty Green lived a number of years ago. When she was living she was reputed to have been the richest woman in America. When she died, old Hetty had one hundred million dollars, and that’s back when a million was a million. But, you know what this woman was like? Let me tell you some things I found out about her. Rather than buying thicker clothes, she would stuff newspapers into clothes to keep from getting cold. Speaking of newspapers, when she read her morning paper she sold it again that night to somebody else. That’s right. She thought, “Well, I can get a little bit for this newspaper so she would read it and resell the newspaper.”

She had a warehouse where she collected rags. And, old Hetty, herself, worth a hundred million dollars went in that warehouse and separated rags the white ones from the colored ones because she got a penny a pound more for the white rags. She had most of her investments in New York City. And, rather than paying income tax in New York, she lived in little hovels and apartments under assumed names so they wouldn’t know she had a residence there and tax her.

Now that’s the kind of a woman she was. When Hetty Green died she was on her deathbed and they wouldn’t let the nurses come in a regular uniform because she thought it would be a waste of money to hire a real, genuine registered nurse. So, they had to take the uniforms off the women. She couldn’t die in peace if she thought they were wasting money paying that much salary for nurses to take care of this woman.