March 18, 2001 2 Kings 4:1-7
“Breaking out of debtor’s prison”
INTRODUCTION
In the American religion of materialism, there are two words more sacred than any other: "Charge it!" Yet, consider the following two scenarios in evaluating the intelligence of using plastic:
1. Ellin is 30 years old. She has a $3,500 balance on her Citibank credit card at 18% interest. She makes the minimum payment each month. How old will she be when she has her credit card paid off? [70 years old]
2. Susan and Tom needed a new washing machine, so they went to Sears and found one for $299. They got a Sears charge card and made the minimum payment each month. By the time the washing machine was paid off, how much did Susan and Tom actually pay for that washing machine? [$1,199]
When people used to be in debt with no means to pay, they would get thrown in jail for physical bondage. We don’t have that in the U.S. anymore, but we still have financial bondage. It’s to credit cards and high interest rates. And credit card companies are more than happy to get you into that bondage. They know that once you are there, it is awfully difficult to get out. rates. Here is a stack of the credit card and loan applications that I received in the mail just this week. Each of them has some specific way of trying to entice me to apply for their card. [give examples of some of them] Maybe some of you here have fallen into this trap and have gotten into some financial bondage. You are not alone.
In the book of 2 Kings, we are introduced to a woman who was going through a serious debt crisis. Let’s take a look at her situation and see what God’s answer to her need was. I think that we will be able to see some principles which will help us break out of the financial prison that we are in.
1. Evaluate the need.
In order to help you evaluate exactly what your need is, you must ask yourself 4 questions. What is your situation? What brought you to the situation that you are in? What will you lose if the situation doesn’t change? What is your attitude toward the situation?
What is your situation?
In this mother’s case, her situation was very desperate. Her husband was dead. Normally in that society, when the husband died, the sons took over the responsibility of providing for the family. But obviously, her sons were not old enough yet to take on that responsibility. The family was in deep debt with no means to pay. The person that they owed money to was not understanding or forgiving. He had probably come to the house, banged on the door, and said something like this: “Give me my money, or tomorrow, I’m coming to get your boys and sell them as slaves!” She had lost her husband; she was getting ready to lose her boys. She may not have even known about the debt that was owed until she was confronted by the creditors.
Many women are totally in the dark about the family finances or the finances of their husbands if they have separate bank accounts or separate credit cards. Then when their husband dies, they not only have the grief of the death to deal with, but they also have the financial mess that their husbands left behind to deal with as well. [That’s what happened to Judy Morris. When Jim, her husband, died, she found out that his life insurance and pension were still in the name of his first wife. Judy had been counting on that money to pay off some debts. Now it was unavailable.] That was the situation here.
She needed to do something about this immediately. There was no time to waste. To top it all off, if her sons were gone, then she would have no means of providing for herself in the future either. She would be forced to borrow, beg, steal or prostitute in order to just survive. It was a big downward spiral.
Debt is like that. It gets worse and worse. Its hold on your throat gets tighter and tighter so that you are never able to get away. Just when you think that you’re going to be able to catch your breath, another bill comes due, and the air is knocked right back out of you again.
In order for you to figure out what your financial situation is, you and your spouse together, need to sit down and total up all your monthly expenses [list some of them]. Then you need to total your monthly income. If you work on an hourly basis, get the best estimate that you can. Then compare the two with one another. If your expenses are higher than your income, then you are in the process of going into debt. You need to either increase the level of your income or cut some of your expenses. You need to know where you are before you can figure out what to do about it. This is a process that you need to do as a couple. Don’t let it be just the spouse who usually writes all the checks. Both persons need to know exactly where you stand as a family. Otherwise, if one spouse doesn’t know how desperate the situation is, they’ll go out to Wal-Mart, see something that they like and buy it. Then they’ll bring it home all excited and wonder why the other spouse is so upset about their new purchase. It’s all part of the process of communication. No one likes talking about finances because it’s usually bad news. But the only way to turn the bad news into good news is to find out where you are, decide you don’t like where you are, and agree to do something about it.
Salvation is like that. No one likes to hear the bad news about where they are. No one likes to be called a sinner. But according to the Bible, that’s exactly what we are (Rom. 3:23). We are spiritual debtors to God. We owe a debt that we cannot pay on our own. Our creditors are standing at the door yelling, “If you don’t pay up, I’m going to take your soul and make you a slave in hell for all eternity.” That’s our spiritual situation. Until we come to a realization of that, there is no way that we can change it.
What brought you to the situation that you are in?
We are not told in the passage exactly how this family got themselves into such a mess. We do know that the father of this family had been a member of the “company of the prophets”. This man was a preacher. Now, I can tell you from personal experience that preachers don’t make much money. We don’t know if her husband had used funds badly, or if he had just never made enough to provide for his family when he was gone. There was no life insurance or social security back then. Even though he was a godly man, that doesn’t mean that he knew how to handle money well. For us, too, just being Christians or even being godly Christians does not guarantee that we know how to handle money. In fact, sometimes, we handle it worse than our worldly neighbors. Since we place less value on it, or at least we’re supposed to, we don’t take as much time learning how to use it well. Or maybe because we figure that our heavenly Father has already promised to provide our needs, we don’t take as much care in how we handle it. We get lazy. In Luke 16, Jesus told a parable in which he commended a worldly man for his wise use of money. He used his example to teach us, the children of the light, the necessity of learning to use earthly resources well so that we can influence people for the kingdom. This father and husband had not learned how to use money well, and had not been able to adequately provide for his family after his death.
When we are trying to get out of a debt situation that we are in, it is necessary that we figure out how we got there to begin with. Otherwise, we will always be treating the symptom rather than fixing the underlying cause. The problem that probably got you where you are was not a lack of funds. It was probably a failure to recognize the difference between needs and wants, and a failure to put aside resources during the good times for when the bad times would come. Until you learn to do those two things, you will always be in danger of going back into debt regardless of how much income you have coming in. You must learn the difference between needs and wants. And you must learn to set aside a portion of your income in preparation for the needs that you will encounter in the future.
Do you know what got you so in debt to God that it put you on a one-way trip to hell? It wasn’t that you went out and murdered someone. It wasn’t that you robbed a bank, that you raped someone, or even that you stole a candy bar out of Wal-mart. It was that you were born. All of us were born sinners. That’s what brought us to where we are. You say, “How in the world do I change that?” You change it by being born again. You change it by turning your whole life over to Jesus, and letting Him give you a new life.
What will you lose if your debt situation doesn’t change?
It is obvious from this mother’s words that she knew exactly what she was going to lose if she could not find a way to pay off her debt. She was going to lose her boys. Can you mothers think of any worse situation than facing the prospect of someone coming to your door tomorrow and taking your children away from you?
Here in the United States, we don’t really have to worry about someone coming to take our children if we don’t pay our debts – that is, as long as our debts are to the I.R.S. or to legitimate businesses. If you make the mistake of doing business with a loan shark, the loss of your children may be a possibility. But you could still lose things that might put your children in danger. You can lose your credit rating, your car, and under the new bankruptcy laws, you could even lose your house depending on what size house you have. You could lose your job if your boss discovers that you are a bad risk. You lose peace of mind. You could lose your marriage. In marriages, money and money problems is one of the biggest causes for divorce.
What will you lose if you don’t deal with your spiritual debt? You’ll lose your soul. You’ll lose your family. You’ll lose everything.
What is your attitude toward the situation that you are in?
Knowing what you will lose if you don’t do something about your debt has a great deal to do with your attitude toward that debt. This mother, knowing that she was getting ready to lose her sons, was desperate to find a solution. In the particular situation that she was in, it would have been very possible for this woman to have reacted to the whole thing with great anger. She might have been angry at her husband. She might have been angry at him for spending some much time serving God that he didn’t take time to make adequate preparation for his family. “You spent all your time saving souls, but it is your boys and me that need saving now. You made sure that they were prepared for eternity, but you didn’t make sure that we were prepared for your death.” She could have been angry at God too. “My husband gave his life to you and your work. But you took him. And you took him before his boys were old enough to provide for themselves or me! You promised to take care of us. Now what?!” People often get angry at God when they experience losses. It puts them in debt emotionally. They have a void that needs filling. They figure that God is in control of life and death, which He is, so it must be God’s fault that they are going through this emotional debt.
How do you react to your debt? Some people are totally unconcerned. “Everybody’s in debt”, they say. “What’s the big deal? My debt isn’t is high as my neighbor’s. I’m doing pretty good compared to him.” Others try to blame their debt on the system or their boss or their kids. That doesn’t help to resolve the situation. That just makes everyone miserable. Still others react with paralyzing fear. It’s the kind of fear that makes them wrap up in their own little shell. How you react to the realization of your debt is greatly determined by your awareness of what you will lose if you don’t get out of debt or what you will gain if you do get out.
This woman was desperate to get out of debt because she did not want to lose her boys. So she reacted properly. She sought wisdom from someone else.
2. Seek wisdom.
When this woman was seeking help and wisdom about what she needed to do about her situation, she went to the right place. She didn’t go to the creditor and beg for mercy. She went to Elisha – God’s spokesman. Elisha was probably the head of the company of the prophets – the group that this woman’s husband had been a part of.
When she went to Elisha, she gave him all the information that he needed in order to accurately understand the situation and give her good counsel. She didn’t try to hide anything. What she was getting ready to lose was too valuable to her for her to play around with the truth. Many people who know that they have a deep enough problem to seek help/wisdom still try to hide things from their counselor. This is true with financial problems, marriage problems, and family problems. There is that pride about us that doesn’t want somebody else to know all the dirt about us even though it is that dirt that has gotten us into the mess to begin with. And it is that dirt that we’re going to have to get rid of if we’re going to find resolution to the problem. We would rather look good than find a solution. It works this way in spiritual indebtedness too. We come to God for help, but we’re not willing to face up to or admit the wickedness of our own souls and hearts. You can’t hide anything from God, so why try?
One piece of wisdom that you will receive from a financial counselor is to cut back on expenses. You will never get out of debt if you try to live like a person who makes $30,000/yr when you actually make $25,000/yr.
Take a sack lunch instead of buying your lunch. It may seem like a small thing, but small things can multiply – in savings, or in debt.
How do you get into debt? A little bit at a time. How do you get out of debt? A little bit at a time.
It doesn’t make sense to go deeper in debt (borrowing jars) to pay off an existing debt. She could have said, “Wait a minute. My problem is debt, and you want me to do what?!”
Sounds like a person who maxes out a credit card, applies for and receives a new one, gets a cash advance on the new card to pay what they owed on the existing card. Doesn’t make sense.
The issue is not whether or not it makes sense. The issue is obedience. Are you going to follow the wisdom that the counselor gives you, or are you going to continue to do things the same way that you’ve always done them, even though that was what got you into the mess to begin with?
Most people wait too late before they seek help from someone. Even when they see that there is a need, they think that they can handle it on their own.
In debt financially, spiritually, or in relationship to your spouse and kids. Don’t wait too late! You know when people come to me for marriage counseling or counseling about their kids? It’s when it is virtually already too late. There’s not much that can be done. If I had been able to intervene at an earlier stage, I might have actually been able to help them.
It is a sign of strength to seek wisdom or help; it is NOT a sign of weakness.
At Burger King, when you’re working boards, you want to do it all or your own and prove what a great, capable worker you are. But they are all the time telling you to yell for help if you need it. You try and catch up, but you end up just getting further and further behind.
When people do look for help, they look for help from the wrong places. They turn to people who are messed up – maybe more messed up than themselves.
Bill, a fellow-worker at Burger King, comes to me with some of his marriage problems. But I know that he talks to other people there about his problems too. Many of their marriages are already over or are on shaky ground just like his is. When you’re in debt, don’t seek advice from another debtor. The only safe place to seek help is from someone who has it all together – namely God.
3. Take advantage of what is available.
When persons can’t find the job that they want that pays what they want that has the level of respect that they want, they discount it as being worthless. “That job only pays minimum wage!” The issue is not how small the jug of oil is or how beneath you the job is or how insignificant your skill is, use it. Take advantage of it. Turn it over to God. And then watch Him work a miracle.
Examine what resources you have at your disposal now that might help increase the level of your income. Some of you have skills that you can use. You can work on cars, tutor, sew, do crafts, bake. Jerilyn Smith, the wife of our associational missionary, baked little cookies that she sold for $3/dz. It may not seem like much, but it helped to meet needs that the family had.
Your debt may not be financial. It may be a time debt. You ever said, “Just seems like there’s not enough time to go around to do all that I need to do”? Are you taking full advantage of the time that you have? This sermon was planned and thought out on the back of napkins on my breaks at Burger King. While I’m waiting on my water to boil for coffee in the morning, I’m either doing laundry or loading/unloading the dishwasher. Your debt may be an energy debt. Are you getting enough sleep, or are you staying up late watching TV? It may be a friendship debt. Are you taking advantage of the relationships that you have now, or are you waiting for the big one to come along?
It’s easy to concentrate on the negative or always be wishing for what someone else has.
Find what’s positive in your finances or your relationships and build on that.
It may seem like the only positive thing is something very insignificant, and it may take work to find it, but find it.
The woman said, “All I’ve got is just this oil.”
However small, anything turned over to God, becomes extraordinary.
God asked Moses, “What do you have in your hand?” Moses answered, “just this stick”.
4. Work hard.
I don’t know what this mother was expecting Elisha to do when she came to him. Maybe she was expecting him to work a miracle so that she could get free of debt situation. Elisha could have worked a miracle. He could have asked God to tell him where a chunk of gold was so that he could dig it up and pay off the woman’s debts for her. Or he could have gone to the creditor and told him that he was going to ask God to give him a case of leprosy if he didn’t forgive the debt. But he told her that she was going to have to work in order for her debts to be paid.
She had to go to all of her friends and neighbors and ask for jars. Can you imagine what it would have been like? What was the neighbors’ reaction when she told them that she needed the jars to fill them up with oil? Elisha told her to not just get a few, so she went to every house. Can you see it in your mind? A couple of jars in each hand of mother and boys. Have to be careful. The jars are clay, not plastic. You bang them together or drop them and they break. After you can carry no more, you take that load home, put them in the house and go out and get some more. After several trips like this, and you have hit every home that you can think of, and all you want to do is go home and crash, then comes the next step. You take your little jar of oil, and you pray a prayer of faith, and you start to pour. You keep expecting that the oil will stop, but it doesn’t. The first jar is filled, so you pour into the next one, and the next, and the next…and with each jar, you’re getting more and more excited. Maybe it really is going to work. Maybe you won’t lose your boys. You fill and you fill and you fill. Maybe it takes all night after you’ve worked all day gathering all the jars. After you’ve filled every jar that is around you, you tell the boys to bring you more. They do, and you fill it. Then you tell them to bring you more until you tell them to bring another, and they say that there are no more. Every jar that you have is full.
Then you sit back, look at your house full of jars of oil…and you get sick. Now what? Now on top of your debts, which have just gotten greater after you borrowed all those jars, you’ve got a house that is a mess. There are jars on the floor in the living room. Jars on top of the TV, the refrigerator, the counter in the kitchen, on top of the washer, the stove, the computer desk…jars are everywhere! And it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. Just imagine if the dog gets out and starts running through the house! And your debts still aren’t paid!
So you carefully make your way through the jars, being careful not to knock any over which would start a domino effect and knock a lot of them down, and you head out the door to go and find Elisha.
She found Elisha and said basically, “Now what”. It is interesting me to note that at every step of this process, she sought counsel from a man who was in touch with God. And he said, “Sell the oil.” That meant more work. You ever tried to sell stuff…and make a living at selling stuff?!
Some people are looking for the easy way out when it comes to getting out of debt (i.e publishers clearing house, tax refund, winning the lottery, or bankruptcy)
This week, the laws concerning bankruptcy in the United States have been changed. “Personal bankruptcies in the United States reached a record 1.4 million in 1998, up more than 300 percent since 1980. The [new] legislation applies a new standard for determining whether people filing for bankruptcy should be forced to repay their debts under a court-approved reorganization plan rather than having them dissolved. If a debtor is found to have sufficient income to repay at least 25 percent of the debt over five years, a reorganization plan generally would be required. Some proponents of the legislation have insisted that the real issue is not money but fundamental values such as fairness and taking responsibility for one’s actions. “I think that it is a moral question,’’ said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. It is an “unhealthy value’’ to encourage people who can repay their debts to walk away from them, he said.” The article quoted instances of some persons who declared bankruptcy but were still allowed to keep homes and mansions that were valued at millions of dollars. [March 15, 2001 Compuserve Interactive Services]
(2 Th 3:10 NIV) "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
(Psa 37:21 NIV) The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously
If you get yourself into debt financially because of poor decisions, mismanagement of God’s resources, or because you used money on selfish desires instead of meeting the needs of your family, don’t expect God to work a miracle and drop money from the sky so that you can pay off your debts and never learn the lesson of responsible use of God’s resources.
In this mother’s situation, God was using her desperate need to teach her and her boys. He could have provided the miracle without her lifting a finger. But He wanted to teach her how to fish rather than just giving her a fish for a day. And even more important than that, He wanted to test her obedience even in desperate times even when she just really didn’t understand.
If you’re going to pay off your financial debts, you’re going to have to work hard. If you’re going to pay off the relational debts that you have built up between you and your spouse, or your kids, or your friends, it’s going to take work. Are you willing to be obedient to God, take the hard road, and do what He says even when it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense?
CONCLUSION
In a spiritual sense, we are all debtors. We are all sinners. Some of us try to pay off our debt through working hard. But this is one debt that we can never pay off on our own. It’s kind of like trying to pay off a credit card that you keep on using. In the example that I used at the start of today’s message, it would take 30 years to pay off a relatively small debt if all that is paid is the minimum. But that’s if the credit card is never used again. How many of you will probably end up sinning some time this week? That’s all of us. How long will it take to pay off a debt that we keep on adding to? It will take an eternity in debtor’s prison – it’s called hell. Our only hope is to declare bankruptcy – admit that we have no means of paying and throw ourselves on the mercy of the court. But that doesn’t mean that the debt goes unpaid. It means that the debt has been paid by someone else - namely Jesus. When he shed His blood on the cross, He did so to pay for your sins and mine. He paid our sin debt. Some of you may not have had your debts paid yet. You either didn’t recognize the desperateness of your situation or you’ve been trying to pay it yourself. Come to Jesus this morning, and let Him pay the debt for you.
There are others of you here though who have had your debts paid, but you’ve stopped at that point. The last part of Elisha’s instructions to this mother were to go and sell the oil so that she could pay her debts AND live on the rest. God was interested in more than just paying her debts. He was interested in giving her life. God is interested in more than just paying your way out of hell and into heaven. He wants to give you full and abundant life right now! But you refuse His offer. You’re not willing to walk in obedience to Him which is evidenced in your refusal to handle your finances in a way that honors God. Don’t stop with just the erasure of your debts. Let the overflow of the oil of God’s joy flood you with life in all its fullness.
