15Then he said, “Beware! Don’t be greedy for what you don’t have. Real life is not measured by how much we own.” New Living Translation
This morning’s subject is about what Charlie McDowell called the interesting moral notion that if people are inclined to waste their money, the government should make it fun for them. And take a profit.(1)
Today I am asking you to “smell the coffee”. The reality of a state-run gambling lottery is on the horizon – and closing fast!
If you have a doubt that this is so, I want you to hear a couple of excerpts from recent issues out of the governor’s mansion:
First – a newspaper quote from February, 2001
With South Carolina voting yes and a budget crisis looming, N.C. legislators will likely consider a lottery when they return to Raleigh early next year.
Gov.-elect Mike Easley has pitched a lottery as a key to reducing class size in public schools. (2)
Second – from the State of the State address by our governor 4 weeks ago:
Now, there’s no free lunch. It takes revenue. And in this tight fiscal environment, it is going to take some creative solutions to continue funding real progress in education.
The truth is, North Carolina is already funding smaller classes and education improvements. Unfortunately, we’re funding them in other states...in Virginia, in Georgia, and soon in South Carolina and Tennessee. We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars - North Carolina’s dollars - to build new schools in other states, while we’re packing our kids in trailers at home. We are the only state that plays the lottery and gives away the proceeds.
I want to keep North Carolina’s money in North Carolina’s schools for North Carolina’s children. Those resources could, and should, stay home.
Now I am not saying a lottery for education is the only solution, it’s just one solution. If anyone has a better idea...if anyone has another way to find the $400 - $500 million for education, I am open to it.
But you can’t just say "no" we’re against a lottery - finish the sentence - tell me what you’re for, because next year 100,000 five-year olds will show up at the schoolhouse door, and they deserve more than an overcrowded classroom and an overworked teacher. (3)
I am glad today to answer the governor’s question – finish his sentence: I’m for raising children without teaching them that gambling is the high ethical road! We don’t need a lottery educating our children – we need responsible fiscal management and ethical leaders to set the example.
When those 100,000 five-year olds show up at the schoolhouse door they deserve the best – they don’t deserve a society filled with gambling and the crime, more prisons and gambling addictions it will bring.
They don’t deserve to grow up and pay for the “therapy” 3% of their neighbors will need to get off their gambling addiction!
If more money is needed for education, Mike, North Carolinians will pay the taxes – an honorable way of funding the needed salaries and supplies for educating our children. We don’t need another Las Vegas in Raleigh!
There was an old farmer who came into the hardware store, and threw down the new chain saw he’d bought at the feet of the storeowner. "You told me I could cut down 40 trees a day with that saw, but I couldn’t cut down more than three."
"Well now," said the store owner, "let me sharpen the teeth and you give it another try." The farmer agreed. Three days later the farmer returned and demanded his money back. "That saw is junk! I still can’t cut down more than three trees a day!"
The storeowner looked at the chain saw, and said that he needed to try it for himself before he gave the farmer his money back. He pulled the starter cord on the saw, and it roared to life on the first pull. The farmer was startled, and yelled, "What’s that noise?" Some things in life are like that.... we do not understand the power that goes along with things we get into. Luke 12:1-34 says a lot about the Christian response to gambling.
I would like to share with you the reasons why I will not participate in the lottery, or any other form of gambling....
1. ADDICTION IS POSSIBLE
The evidence for this is in experience itself. Paydays are enlightening. If you walk into a Florida convenience store you will see lines of folks waiting to buy a lottery ticket (or 20)! Are these folks winning? No...they’re exercising their constitutional right to throw away whatever portion of their paycheck they care to!
If gambling weren’t addictive, why would millions of consistent "non-winners" continue to play against incredible odds? The National Council on Compulsive Gambling has stated that there are approximately 8 million compulsive gamblers in the United States alone. On average, when a compulsive gambler finally seeks help for his addiction he is in debt for over $80,000.
The evidence suggests strongly that the addiction is at least as strong as alcohol or drugs. A natural question that follows is: How long does it take to get hooked on gambling? If crack cocaine is an example...one experience could do it.
In 1990 one man spent $46,000 for a weekly drawing in the Florida lottery. (4)
In 1990, Americans placed legal bets of over $286 billion dollars. That’s equivalent to 5 percent of the Gross National Product. That’s one-third more than the total amount spent on elementary and secondary education in this country. It is nearly four times the amount given to religious institutions. (5)
What’s the allure, the draw? The promise of great wealth. Listen to this old verse about our attitude towards the promise of possessing wealth:
"Dug from the mountainside, Washed in the glen.
Servant am I, Or master of men.
Steal me, I curse you; Earn me I bless you.
Grasp me and hoard me, A fiend shall possess you.
Lie for me, die for me, Covet or take me --
Angel or devil, I am what you make me."
Author unknown
Our attitudes toward money say a lot about our spiritual health. A common "Christian" excuse you will hear about gambling is: It’s only a game. What harm can there be? It’s just for fun. Besides others play it without getting in too deeply.
Well, all those statements may have an element of truth. But I learned a long time ago that every lie Satan ever whispered had an element of truth in it. And anything that is only half-true is ALL lie.
Paul reminds us (Romans 12:2) that we are not to conform to the thinking or ways of this world, but we are to be transformed....not walking the edge where sin is concerned.
In the mid-1800’s a wealthy nobleman who lived in the hills of Western Europe wanted to hire a new driver for his families’ carriage. The position was important, as the mountainous roads were winding and dangerous. One mishap could send the carriage down the side of a mountain. His family was at stake.
The interviewing question for each candidate was, Is your driving skill sufficient to come close to the edge of the cliff without going over? One by one the applicants talked of their skill in putting the wheels of the carriage ever so close to the edge of the mountain roads. One by one they were sent on their way. Finally a driver was hired. His answer to the question…Sir, I would never dream of bringing the wheel to the road’s edge. Your family must be kept far from the edge on roads like that!
What’s the wise thing for a Christian who wants to live like one? Stay as far from sin as the Holy Spirit warns you. We are not to spend our lives living as close to sin as we can while still keeping one foot in the church. Gambling is addictive – that’s the edge of the road!
Secondly, gambling is....
2. DECEPTIVE
Sin has always promised the "good life"; while delivering its own special wages. In Atlantic City, NJ, the heralds of prosperity through gambling are now singing a new tune. According to a study by Temple University’s School of Business and Management, Atlantic City and 68 surrounding communities have experienced an unprecedented increase in crime in the 10 years since casino gambling began there.
Violent crimes have gone up 127%, while non-violent crimes (the gambler’s specialty) have increased 266.8%.
The rest of the state has only experienced a moderate increase in violent crimes (43%), while the non-violent crime rate has remained virtually unchanged.
Well, we’re not having casinos – this is only a lottery. Friends, don’t be naïve about this. It’s like the camel and the Arab out on the desert. The night was falling, and the wind was whipping, so the camel stuck his nose in the tent in an appeal to keep the sand out of his eyes. The Arab let him. Then the camel stuck a hoof in, hoping to keep a little warmer. The Arab let him. Then it was another foot. The Arab let him. Soon the Arab was begging to come inside the tent!
The lottery is only the camel’s nose. Once the lottery is approved, you can bank on other forms. It happened in New York/New Jersey; I watched it unfold in Florida; It will happen in North Carolina.
The "get-rich quick" mentality is not Christian! Instant wealth is seen as the end to problems and worries. Not only hasn’t that been the case with most "big-winners". It is usually the opposite that’s true.
I know personally of a winner who splits a $194,000 annual payment with a relative, but can’t even pay the modest insurance premiums he had before the win.
"The Big Windfall" is really materialism at its cruelest. In Pennsylvania, a young man whose parents were facing financial problems took the family’s life savings of $6,000 and played the lottery hoping to win 2.5 million. What he won was $36.50, and a case of depression so severe he went home and attempted suicide.
In 1997 a 19-year-old boy got in his car and drove erratically so the police would stop him. When they did he jumped out waving and threatening with the pistol. The police were forced to shoot, thinking the gun was real. The note found in his car read, Tell the police I’m sorry, but I wanted to die. A girlfriend later told investigators that the boy had been so upset over not being able to pay a $6,000 World Series gambling loss. Researchers have concluded that 9.9 to 14.2% of young people in America, ages 15-20, displayed problems in gambling behavior. And, 4.4% to 7.4% meet the diagnostic criteria for compulsive gambling. (6)
Addiction’s "common Christian excuse" was that it’s only a game....Deception has one also: "Think of the good I could do with all that money."
GIVE ME A BREAK!
That smacks of "pseudo-righteousness" (skunk). The gambling cartels sold that big lie in Florida, and now the state has its own "what would you do" commercials.
The hook in Florida was education. $300 million for our kids, they said. Even tenth-grade math tells me that is only 5% of the education budget in that state....IF it even gets there.
The fact is that once the lottery was put in place in Florida, they certainly channeled that money to education – and in the very next legislative session, they pulled the plug from the other side. They de-funded education from the tax-side, saying the lottery was providing education for our kids. The net result? Pay cuts for teachers – larger class sizes, Florida’s education process in the hopper once again!
The incredible audacity in this approach is that even if the state got that $300 million, the lottery had to take in over $630 million to do it...(55 cents on the dollar go for prizes and administration). If the state raised the money through taxation, it would have only cost 2 cents on the dollar...a total cost of $306 million.
The darker sided folks have always used some wonderfully beneficent causes as a hook for plying their nastiness.
And if you think it’s only the gangsters and politicians, remember, I’m a pastor, and I know you (and me)! If you won, would you go right out and give that money to the Lord’s work or the homeless? Most of us don’t do that with the little money we already have.
Thomas O’Brien, head of the New Jersey Division of Gambling Enforcement says: "We’re creating a whole generation of gamblers in this country." The deception in it is that our young people are increasingly bombarded with how much good is being done by the lottery, and other form of gambling that produces revenues.
In 1986, just before the vote on the lottery in Florida, the Gainesville Sun reported that more than 50% of people in their survey believed that education would significantly benefit by the lottery.
Gov. Martinez said he believed that health care for the elderly and indigent would also profit by the lottery. In addition, the Sun reported that nearly 60,000 jobs would materialize in South Florida if the lottery paved the way for casino gambling. Instead they got lottoholics and quick-cash-itis. North Carolina does not need this!
Paul warned the Galatian church (6:7)
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Addictive, deceptive, and …
3. EXPLOITIVE TO THE POOR
Anything that promises great wealth as if it is actually a possibility for most people, yet has odds of 10 or 20 million to one is dealing in false hope.
I checked the Internet for some hard facts. InfoPlease returned the following answer from the New York Lottery official website:
Today’s Question: What are my exact odds of winning the New York State lotto jackpot?
The Answer: Your chances of winning on a $1 bet are 1 in 18,009,460. (7)
As has already been noted, the Lottery is deceptive. It leads astray. The folks most severely affected are the poor and undereducated. They are also the ones who can least afford it. They are also most easily led astray.
A spendthrift fellow named Sy,
Who charged everything he could buy,
Said when hauled into court,
With his bank account short,
The government does, why can’t I?
(by Joey Adams)
The point is self-evident. Addictive regressive gambling robs the poor of needed self-respect and dignity by using their agonizing circumstances as a lure towards riches that are non-existent.
A recent survey by the Chicago Sun Times showed the average per capita lottery purchase was $221 in the ten Chicago zip codes with the lowest incomes. That’s almost three times greater than the $76 spent in the Chicago zip codes with the highest incomes.
The Des Moines Register reported that lottery ticket sales surge when welfare checks arrive. A supermarket’s records show that on Thursday, July 31, only thirty-seven instant tickets were purchased. Welfare checks arrived on Friday, and on Saturday the store sold 348 tickets. A nine-fold increase. In effect, what the state is doing is taking back its welfare through the lottery system. (8)
In California a grocery chain carefully surveyed its receipts after installing lottery sales. Their lottery take was over one million dollars. But their food sales went down by exactly the same amount. The game literally takes the food out of poor mouths.
A person who gets ahead by oppressing the poor
or by showering gifts on the rich will end in poverty.
Proverbs 22.16
New Living Translation
That this is intentionally directed at the poor cannot be denied. Prove it, you say? If you analyze the distribution of ticket sales outlets for the Florida lottery, it tells the story. In upper class neighborhoods the outlets average one for every 17,000 people. By contrast, in the poorest parts of towns the average is one outlet for every 1900 people.
I stood in a convenience store on the poor side of a town one day. It must have been payday....One after another they laid down dollars for "Cash 3" and next to the dollars were food stamps.
Way back in the 16th century they knew better. In the English lottery held in the South there was a minimum of $10 to play. That’s like saying $250 today. It was designed to keep the poor folks from spending what they really couldn’t afford. Yes, gambling exploits the poor immeasurably....and I won’t be part of it.
Again, there is a common "Christian excuse": I’m not forcing anyone to participate. Well, like God told Cain in response to the question, "Am I my brother’s keeper?", He said: "You got it, Bubba" (Brownworth version).
Ezekiel 18:4 tells us that all souls belong to God. And your actions have an effect on the soul of your brother. And your brother’s Owner won’t be happy if you mess with His property!
Gambling is addictive, deceptive, exploitive, and…
4. SPIRITUALLY DESTRUCTIVE
The whole spirit that envelops the gambling mentality is expressed in the Biblical word "covetousness". The word "covet" comes from two words that mean a hot or passionate desire. It is a fixation on something that the heart, mind and soul craves.
Morals do not enter into this. It is simply the animal craving to have at all costs. I recall watching the original "King Kong" movie. When that big gorilla was just about to pick up the lovely young woman there in the jungle, the hero stepped up and waved his arms, taking the overgrown monkey’s attention. And when Kong turned to look at the hero he was not happy. There was a fire in his eyes. He coveted having the hero in the palm of his mitt.
Covetousness is condemned in the scripture. Of that there can be no doubt. Our problem is matching the Bible’s ideals with what conflicts in our everyday lives.
In this case I want to submit to you that gambling is destructive to your spirit, and to the call of the Spirit of God in you. I base that on the fact that the underlying truth about participating in gambling lies in the carnal nature which covets.
For the Christian who is serious about following Jesus, the coveting nature should not be catered-to, it should be combated. If not, it is sin. (James 4:17).
Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.James 4:17 (NLT)
The only forms of gain that are approved by Scripture do not include gambling. "Something for nothing" is an anti-christian attitude.
28If you are a thief, stop stealing.
Begin using your hands for honest work,
and then give generously to others in need.
Ephesians 4:28 (NLT)
11Like a bird that hatches eggs she has not laid,
so are those who get their wealth by unjust means.
Sooner or later they will lose their riches and,
at the end of their lives, will become poor old fools.
Jeremiah 17:11 (NLT)
We are to work for a living, and that should be honest work.
A question that keeps coming to mind is: How can we teach our children that they must work honestly to provide a living, and be responsible stewards, if we demonstrate a personal attitude that says, "C’mon dice, let the good times roll"?
The fact is that Satan will use our fascination with the "quick gain" to undermine any ministry that we might do in the name of the Lord.
10Those who love money will never have enough.
How absurd to think that wealth brings true happiness!
Ecclesiastes 5:10 NLT
10For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.1 Timothy 6:10 NLT
There is a cost we should not be willing to pay.
We can also see that our ability to worship is stunted when we are bound up in covetousness (Ezek 33:31).
31So they come pretending to be sincere and sit before you listening. But they have no intention of doing what I tell them. They express love with their mouths,
but their hearts seek only after money.Ezekiel 33:31 (NLT)
The common "Christian excuse"? "It’s only a dollar." Well, it’s amazing how small a dollar can look when you’re in the grocery store, or buying a car, or adding to your IRA. But, my how humongous, how gigantic when we are in the vicinity of the offering plate!
Let me tell you as kindly as I am able....If the few dollars you dispose of are so small, and you wouldn’t miss it, I have just the place for you to put it to work where it will mean a lot.
We sing "Little Is Much When God is In It" But if you "give" only $5 a week to Mr. Lotto, try to get this thought out of your head tonight before you go to sleep.....$5 a week for the last year? ………
You could’ve built a whole church building
for a Latin American congregation.
The little dollar may not be missed from your pocket, but think what Jesus could do with it here. You may remember He does things like feed 5000 people with only a boy’s sack lunch!
Bottom line:
I cannot change everything.
I cannot feed all the starving people in the world....
clothe all the naked...
visit all the lonely....
I cannot repeal all the bad legislation on the books.
But I can be responsible for what I do daily as I follow Jesus.
What Can We Do?
Two things:
1. Come lay your promise on God’s altar that you will never participate in the dragging down of yourself or your brother by participating in gambling.
2. Contact your elected officials – exercise good stewardship over this privilege we have to be citizens who support righteous actions in our government. Don’t sit back, or the immoral gambling bosses will have their way in our fair state. Our children don’t need that!
A lottery was held a long time ago. The military men gambled and cursed. The prize was a seamless white robe.
That lottery was held at the foot of the cross.
I was there – vicariously, because of my sinfulness, participating...
But I don’t have to do it again!
----------
March 25, 2001
Dr. Russell Brownworth, Pastor
Cedar Lodge Baptist Church
Thomasville, NC
Footnotes:
1. Quoted in Tampa Tribune (Oct 21, 1987),
Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no.2.
2. Raleigh Bureau, The Charlotte Observer, Anna
Griffin
3. Mike Easley, State of the State Address,
2/19/2001
4. WBBM-TV news, 10/14/90. To Verify, Leadership
5. Rick Ezell, The Problem with Gambling, Preaching
Today, Tape No. 160.
6. Florida Baptist Witness, March 26, 1998, Between
the Lines, p2.
7. http://aolscv.aol.infoplease.com/askeds/12-26-
00askeds.html
8. Rick Ezell, The Problem with Gambling, Preaching
Today, Tape No. 160.
