Over the years, Milton Bradley’s Game of Life has gone through some interesting variations, which reflect the change in cultural values over the last couple of centuries.
In 1798, before Milton Bradley, a board game from England arrived in the United States and became popular. It was called The New Game of Human Life. Acquiring virtues sped you through the game while vices slowed you down. Parents were encouraged to play this game with their children. The game's main point was, “Life is a voyage that begins at birth and ends at death. God is at the helm, fate is cruel, and your reward lies beyond the grave.”
In 1860, Milton Bradley invented a simple board game and called it The Checkered Game of Life. The good path included Honesty and Bravery. The difficult path included Idleness and Disgrace. Industry and Perseverance led to Wealth and Success. Bradley described it as “A highly moral game… that encourages children to lead exemplary lives and entertains both old and young with the spirit of friendly competition.”
In 1960, the Milton Bradley Company released a commemorative edition, called simply The Game of Life. It sold 35 million copies. In this game you earn money, buy furniture, and have babies. Vices and virtues are non-existent. The winner of the game is the one who at “Life's Day of Reckoning” makes the most money and retires to Millionaire Acres.
In the 1990s Milton Bradley game designers tried to make the game less about money. They emphasized good deeds like saving an endangered species or solving a pollution problem. However, the only reward for these good deeds is cash. You can earn as much by winning at a reality TV show.
In the 2011 version, players can attend school, travel, start a family, or whatever they want. If they earn enough points, they can reward themselves with a sports car. There is no end or last square to the game. You can stop any time. The box says, “A Thousand Ways to Live Your Life! You Choose.” Values are up-for-grabs—you get as many points scuba diving as you get donating a kidney. The description on the website says: “Do whatever it takes to retire in style with the most wealth at the end of the game” (Jill Lepore, "The Meaning of Life," The New Yorker, 5-21-07; www.PreachingToday.com).
Sad to say, that’s the goal of many people in the real game of life today—Do whatever it takes to retire in style with the most wealth at the end of the game. So they pursue wealth and some become very wealthy. Now, you may not consider yourself “wealthy,” but if you had a hot shower this morning and a good breakfast, you are very wealthy compared to most of the rest of the world.
But wealth has its risks. There are very real hazards that affluence brings into your life—hazards like pride, which always goes before a fall, hazards like insensitivity to the needs of others, and hazards like justifying or minimizing your sin, which brings God’s judgment.
So, how do you avoid those hazards? How do you minimize the risks of the rich? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the Old Testament book of Amos, the Old Testament book of Amos—where Amos, a shepherd from Tekoa brings a message from God to the wealthy nation of Israel—the Old Testament book of Amos, chapter 1, starting at verse 1.
Amos 1:1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake (ESV).
Both Judah and Israel prospered during the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam, their respective kings. Then, an earthquake struck, which caused many to flee for their lives according to Zechariah 14:5. It was a sign of judgement to come. However, before that earthquake, Amos comes with a message from God.
Amos 1:2-5 And he said: “The LORD roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.” Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So I will send a fire upon the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad. I will break the gate-bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; and the people of Syria shall go into exile to Kir,” says the LORD (ESV).
Now, “a murmur of approval might have rippled” among Amos’ audience when they heard about God’s judgment on Syria, with Damascus as its capital. For Syria has been a long-time enemy of Israel, even to the present day.
Then, using the same formula—“For three transgressions… and for four, I will not revoke the punishment”—using that same formula, God pronounces judgment on each of Israel’s enemies—Gaza (Amos 1:6-8), Tyre (Amos 1:9-10), Edom (Amos 1:11-12), the Ammonites (Amos 1:13-15), and Moab (Amos 2:1-3). And with every pronouncement, you can hear Amos’ audience murmur, “Amen! You go get ‘em, Lord!” Then God hits a little closer home.
Amos 2:4-5 Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem” (ESV).
The murmurs of approval stop, because the people of Judah, the nation just to the south, are Israel’s relatives and allies. Then God hits Israel square in the eyes with the same formula He used on her enemies.
Amos 2:6-8 Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals— those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned; they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined (ESV).
They pervert justice for money. They commit indecent acts, and they pretend to be religious while exploiting the poor. So, they too, like their worst enemies, face God’s judgment. The same could be said about many rich people, people like us who live in America. So, if you want to avoid the hazards of wealth, realize that God will punish YOU for your sins, not just your enemies.
REALIZE YOUR NEED FOR SALVATION.
Understand your need for deliverance as much as the worst sinner. Recognize your own spiritual poverty and need for rescue.
York Moore, in his book Making All Things New, says, “Self-worship is at the heart of all kinds of evils. Greed, lust, selfishness, fear—all are forms of self-worship … [For example], In Phnom Penh, a father sold his twelve-year-old girl to a brothel. As a victim of her father's self-worship, she has been reduced to a solution for a desire or need that he has. She is the sacrifice to his self-worship. Every time she is raped for pay, the man raping her uses her to gratify his perverted sexual desires in an act of self-worship. The brothel owners who commoditize her flesh are worshiping self as they daily exchange her pain for their profit.
While this is most vivid in the red-light districts of Cambodia, the reality is that self-worship is at the heart of nearly every decision… that we make today. That same self-worship is at the heart of our decisions to go to porn sites and pay for the flesh of the downtrodden and oppressed, our decisions to purchase products manufactured by known violators of child labor laws, and our decisions to consume foods and beverages that come from people who receive little or nothing for their labor.
In the end, we are all Phnom Penh. We are all a part of the nightmare, and we are all unfit for the dream of God (R. York Moore, Making All Things New, IVP Books, 2013, pp. 21-22; www.PreachingToday.com).
Ouch! That’s a little too convicting. But that’s exactly the conviction you must have if you’re going to avoid the hazards of wealth. You must realize that you too are a sinner in great need of God’s great grace. You must realize that you are just like that father in Cambodia or the brothel owners who exploit a 12-year-old girl for profit.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). There is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10). All of us make decisions with self-worship at their heart, so all of us face God’s just judgment and desperately need His rescue. If you’re going to avoid the hazards of wealth, 1st, realize your need for salvation. Then 2nd…
REALIZE YOUR NEED FOR GOD.
Understand your need for all that God offers you. Recognize your need for His intervention in your life.
You see, when people get rich, they feel self-sufficient, so they ignore their need for God; they pray a lot less, if at all; and they close their ears to His guidance. That’s what happened to Israel in Amos’ day. Take a look.
Amos 3:1-3 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. “Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? (ESV)
God had a special relationship with Israel, but Israel stopped walking with God. Their wealth caused them to think they didn’t need God anymore. So God declares that He will punish Israel and destroy her pagan altars.
Amos 3:13-15 “Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob,” declares the Lord GOD, the God of hosts, “that on the day I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end,” declares the LORD (ESV).
They were living in the lap of luxury, in huge mansions. In fact, many of them had two mansions—one in the cooler regions for the summer and one in the warmer regions for the winter. But God declares He will knock their mansions down, because they ignored the special relationship He had with them. My dear friends, please, in your affluence, don’t do the same.
Instead, pay attention to your relationship with God. Cultivate that relationship and stay connected to Him. For, just like He did for Israel, God bought you up out of slavery. He redeemed you at the cost of His Son’s shed blood on the cross. Then three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, and now He offers eternal life to anyone who puts their trust in Him.
Please, if you haven’t done it already, stop depending on yourself, your own good works, or even your own wealth, and start depending on Jesus to save you from your sins, to give you eternal life, and to change you from the inside out. The Bible says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). Please, call on the Lord today before it is eternally too late!
Then, once you’ve trusted Christ with your life, enjoy your relationship with God and don’t neglect it. Talk to Him every day. Listen to Him by reading His Word, and spend time with God’s people at least weekly, so you can encourage each other to keep close to Jesus. Pay attention to your relationship with God. It will keep you out of trouble.
Stu Weber, author and pastor, talks about the year 1967. We were at war with Vietnam, and he was at the U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia. “It was brutal,” he says.
He writes: I can still hear the raspy voice of the sergeant: "We are here to save your lives. We're going to see to it that you overcome all your natural fears. We're going to show you just how much incredible stress the human mind and body can endure. And when we're finished with you, you will be the U.S. Army's best!”
Then, before he dismissed the formation, he announced their first assignment. Weber say, “We steeled ourselves for something really tough—like running 10 miles in full battle gear or rappelling down a sheer cliff.”
Instead, he told them to find a buddy.
“Find yourself a Ranger buddy,” he growled. “You will stick together. You will never leave each other. You will encourage each other, and, as necessary, you will carry each other.” It was the army's way of saying, “Difficult assignments require a friend. Together is better” (Stu Weber, Men of Integrity, Vol. 1, no. 1; www.PreachingToday.com).
Now, here is the good news—God’s Holy Spirit is your “ranger buddy” if you have trusted Christ with your life. Jesus said to His followers, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16). That word “Helper” literally means “one called alongside to help.” In other words, the Holy Spirit is your “ranger buddy,” who encourages you as a follower of Christ. He also carries you, and He will never leave you.
Please, cultivate your relationship with God’s Holy Spirit. Keep in step with the Spirit and live under His influence. Pay attention to your relationship with the Lord if you want to avoid the hazards of wealth.
More than that, pay attention when He warns you about trouble to come if you stray off the right path. Listen to His voice of caution when you start going in the wrong direction. That’s what Israel failed to do in their affluence. They blew past all the warning signs God had put in their path.
Amos 4:1 “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ (ESV).
The “cows of Bashan” were fat, well-fed cows. Well, that’s how God addresses the wealthy women of Israel. “Listen, you fat cows, to what God has to say.”
Amos 4:6-12 “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (ESV)
That is, prepare to meet your God in judgment. You have ignored all His warnings. You did not return to the Lord at any time He tried to get your attention, so God will come like a mighty army against you.
Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name! (ESV)
The “God of hosts” is the God of armies, who will tromp on your safe, noble, elevated lawns and turn your dawn into darkness. Israel ignored all of God’s warnings and suffered as a result. Please, don’t you do the same. Instead, pay attention to God’s warnings in your life.
Tim Hogan is the founder and CEO of SaferStreet Solutions, a firm which focuses on improving traffic safety. For years, he and his team were looking for ways to prevent distracted driving, which leads to as many fatalities as drunk driving.
Inspired by the signs that show your speed in no speeding zones, Hogan and his team invented the SmartSign last year (2024). The signs identify motorists who hold their phones while driving and display a message warning them to stop: “PHONE DOWN” it flashes.
Matt Gregory, a reporter in Washington DC, was skeptical when the SmartSign came to his city. Matt said, “So, I went for a drive with my phone in my hand. And sure enough, ‘Phone Down’!”
Hogan says the device works by using sensors to identify the unique combination of heat signatures that result from a human holding a phone. If the phone is cradled or resting elsewhere, the sign doesn’t light up.
Rick Birt, from the DC Highway Safety Office says, “Last year nationally, 3,500 people died from distracted driving-related crashes. The goal of these signs is to provide instantaneous feedback to motorists so that they have that opportunity to make a better choice” (Matt Gregory, “New DC signs will flag people who are driving and using their phones,” WSUA9, 4-4-24; www.PreachingToday.com).
In the same way, God puts signs along your path designed to help you make better choices. That sign may be a “check in your spirit,” your conscience telling you, “This isn’t right.” And if you ignore that sign, God may give you “cleanness of teeth,” like He did for Israel, that is a lack of food, which dirties the teeth. He may blight your crops. He may send disease and death, even destruction like he did for Israel.
Now, as I’ve said before, times of trouble are not necessarily signs of sin, but those times cause you to examine your life. At the very least, God uses trials to make you more mature (James 1:2-4), which might include a course correction if you’re going the wrong way.
Please, don’t ignore the signs God puts along your path. Instead, pay attention to your relationship with Him. Pay attention to His warnings.
And pay attention to His invitation to seek Him and live! Accept His offer to a better way forward. Israel ignored God’s invitation and suffered as a result.
Amos 5:1-3 Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: “Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up.” For thus says the Lord GOD: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel” (ESV).
90% of Israel’s population will die if they reject the Lord’s invitation.
Amos 5:4-7 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.” Seek the LORD and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel, O you who turn justice to wormwood and cast down righteousness to the earth! (ESV)
God invites Israel to seek Him, not their idols. For Jeroboam I had erected a golden calf in Bethel (1 Kings 12:26-30) to rival God’s temple in Jerusalem (Sunukijan, Bible Knowledge Commentary). Even so, God invites those who practice idolatry and injustice to seek Him, to return to Him and live!
Amos 5:14-15 Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph (ESV).
Even though God will judge the entire nation, He will save the few, a remnant of those, who repent, perhaps the 10% who escape death in verse 3. However, those who refuse to repent face certain judgment.
Amos 5:18-20 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? (ESV)
Israel looked forward to “the Day of the Lord,” which they thought would bring them deliverance from their enemies, but not if they refused to repent. In that case, “the Day of the Lord” would bring darkness and death, but that is only the beginning of their “woes” or griefs.
Amos 6:1 “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! (ESV)
God will take away their security.
Amos 6:4-7 “Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away” (ESV).
That exile started less than 7 years later when Assyria came in, killed most of the Israelites and took the rest away as captives. Even so, most of them ignored their impending doom and continued to live lives of luxury. They rejected God’s invitation to seek Him and live!
Please, don’t you do the same in your affluence. Recognize your need for God, and accept His invitation to a better way forward or else face His wrath.
Miroslav Volf, a Christian theologian from Croatia, used to reject the concept of God's wrath. He thought that the idea of an angry God was barbaric, completely unworthy of a God of love. But then his country experienced a brutal war. People committed terrible atrocities against their neighbors and countrymen. After that, he wrote these words:
My last resistance to the idea of God's wrath was a casualty of the war in the former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry.
Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandfatherly fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators' basic goodness? Wasn't God fiercely angry with them?
Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God's wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn't wrathful at the sight of the world's evil. God isn't wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love (Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, Zondervan, 2006, pp. 138-139; www.PreachingToday.com).
God loves you! That’s why He extends His invitation to you to seek Him and live! Please, don’t ignore that invitation, because His love also compels Him to judge your hurtful, evil deeds if you don’t change.
If you want to avoid the hazards of wealth, 1st, realize your need for salvation, 2nd, realize your need for God, and 3rd…
REALIZE THE RISKS AHEAD if you don’t repent.
See what’s coming to those who continue to ignore the Lord. Picture what God’s wrath looks like for those who refuse His salvation.
In Amos, chapters 3-6, Amos pronounced God’s judgment. In the next chapters (7-9), Amos pictures God’s judgment. Take a look.
Amos 7:1-3 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The LORD relented concerning this: “It shall not be,” said the LORD (ESV).
God’s judgment is like a devastating locust plague at the peak of the harvest season. However, at the time, God postpones His judgment.
Amos 7:4-6 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. Then I said, “O Lord GOD, please cease! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” The LORD relented concerning this: “This also shall not be,” said the Lord GOD (ESV).
God’s judgment is like a devouring fire, but God postpones that judgment, as well. However, God still holds Israel accountable for their sins.
Amos 7:7-9 This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” (ESV).
A plumb line shows how straight a wall is. In this case, God’s plumb line finds Israel to be crooked with idolatry, for which God will not withhold His judgment.
In the next section, Amaziah, an idolatrous priest, confronts Amos and tells him to stop prophesying.
Amos 7:14-17 Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now therefore hear the word of the LORD. “You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore thus says the LORD: “ ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land’” (ESV).
This farmer from Tekoa pulls no punches. He tells Amaziah that his wife will become a prostitute, his children will die by the sword, and he himself will die in exile. The fate of Amaziah and his family is a picture of God’s judgment to come on the entire nation.
In chapter 8, Amos pictures God’s judgment as a basket of summer (or ripe) fruit. It’s about to spoil and be thrown away. Then, in chapter 9, Amos sees God Himself standing on Israel’s pagan temple, smashing it to pieces, each piece of which shatters on the heads of the Israelis. There will be a few who escape that judgment, but God Himself will kill those with a sword no matter where they try to hide.
These are horrible pictures of God’s judgment—a devastating locust plague, a devouring fire, a plumb line, the fate of Amaziah’s family, a basket of overripe fruit, and God Himself smashing the nation to smithereens. However, that’s the fate of all those who refuse to repent and turn to the Lord for help.
Please, for your own sake, turn from your sin to the Lord today. Trust Him with your life, so you can avoid His terrible judgment.
If you want to avoid the hazards of wealth, 1st, realize your need for salvation, 2nd, realize your need for God, 3rd, realize the risks ahead, and finally…
REALIZE THE PROMISE OF RESTORATION.
See the renewal ahead for those who turn to the Lord. Grasp the assurance of your new life in Christ.
That was God’s promise to Israel, even though their sin brought God’s terrible judgment. Judgment is not the end of the story. Restoration is! Take a look.
Amos 9:11-15 “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the LORD who does this. “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God (ESV).
God’s promise of restoration to Israel is a picture of the restoration He will bring to anyone who turns to Him. Israel’s story teaches us that no matter how much you have ruined your life, God can renovate it to be better than new!
There is a program on BBC called The Regular Shop into which ordinary people bring their damaged, decayed, distorted, and nearly destroyed heirlooms for repair.
There, experts in woodwork and metalwork, mechanical work, furniture work, and musical instruments work their magic. They don’t just patch things up and hope for the best. On the contrary, they first deconstruct and only then reconstruct and restore the long-lost glory to the precious objects.
When the owners return for the unveiling, they see just an ordinary blanket. But when the craftsman lifts the blanket, revealing the fully restored object, the owners react with overwhelming gratitude, often shedding tears of joy (Sinclair Ferguson, “What is Our Theology?” TABLETALK, August 2021, p. 9; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s what God does for those who bring their broken lives to Him. Please, don’t let your affluence blind you to your own brokenness. Instead, realize your need for God and turn your life over to Him.
