In his sermon 'Pillars of a Righteous Economy,' Peter Allison explores the biblical foundations of a righteous economy, setting Proverbs 20 within the greater context of Scripture. He explains that the purpose of creation and the work of humanity is to glorify God and fulfill His mandates, such as subduing the earth and being fruitful. Allison highlights four pillars essential to a righteous economy: wisdom and godly character, self-government, use of God-ordained means, and consideration of others' interests. Wisdom is prized above material wealth and requires investment in human capital and godly counsel. Self-government involves patience, delayed gratification, and not acting impulsively. The means ordained by God, such as capital and wise counsel, must be used faithfully. Lastly, a righteous economy necessitates looking out for others' interests, as demonstrated by Christ's example. Allison emphasizes the role of work as a form of worship and obedience to God's commands.

Proverbs chapter 20. I'd like to read beginning at verse 12, pick up verse 12, Proverbs 20. The hearing ear and the seeing eye, Jehovah has made them both. Do not love sleep lest you come to poverty. Open your eyes and you will be satisfied with bread.

It is good for nothing cries the buyer, but when he has gone his way then he boasts. There is gold and a multitude of rubies, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. Take the garment of one who is surety for a stranger and hold it as a pledge when it is for a seductress. Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel. Plans are established by wise counsel wage war.

He who goes about as a tale bearer reveals secrets. Therefore do not associate with one who flatters with his lips. Whoever curses His father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness, and inheritance gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end." Thus far the reading of God's Word. Almighty Father in Heaven, please give to us seeing eyes and hearing ears and sanctify these sinful lips that through a vessel of clay your riches, your wisdom, your excellencies may be proclaimed to us, that you might be glorified in our midst, that you might be exalted, that you might be worshiped and revered, and not any man. This we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, this passage gives to us some of the pillars of a righteous economy, but we need to set this passage in the greater context of the Scriptures themselves and how the economy fits into them. Because as you know, the Proverbs are very succinct, pithy statements, and do not provide a lot of explanation and context in many cases for the things that they say. So I'd like before we jump into this section which provides these pillars of a righteous economy, set the whole idea of economy in the greater context of the word of God and the calling that God has given to all of us as people. He has called us, this is our duty, this is in a sense the purpose for which we were created.

When God created Adam and Eve, He put them in the Garden of Eden and He commanded them to subdue the earth, to rule over it, to exercise a godly rule over the fish and the sea, the birds and the air, everything that creeped on the ground. And so Adam, even before the fall, even before there was sin and weeds and bugs and all these things that make life toilsome, make our labor toilsome, Adam and Eve were called to work in this garden of Eden. And so the garden was perfect in the sense of being good, where there was no, it wasn't fallen, it didn't have the effects of sin, but it was not complete. But Adam was to use the resources that God had made and create beauty. He was to raise food.

He was to build with the tools that God had provided. He was to complete and extend this garden to which he was placed. So he was to take the trees for example that God had created and to make of them musical instruments, to make tools for working in the earth, to make tools for making metal that God has put into the earth, to care for animals, making tools to care for animals, making tools to care for animals, making tools to erect buildings and structures, tools to shape metal and so on. All these tasks build upon one another, and They are part of this mandate, this direction, this order that God has given to us. God's creation has always needed somebody to care for it.

It has always needed somebody to look after it. It's not complete on its own. It wasn't meant to run on its own, contrary to what Some today would have us believe that nature is pristine and nature is supreme and man harms it and destroys it, but we just need to let nature have its way. We just need to let the forests and the animals alone, untouched, and they will do wonderfully well. That's not what the Bible says.

God created man and put him in this perfect garden to tend it and to care for it because the natural world that God has created, when we talk about nature I don't mean it as a replacement of God but rather as what God has created, nature is simply what God has created. This natural world needs men, needs people to care for it, to tend it, and to extend it and to beautify it and to build in it. Now fallen man can certainly destroy what we are supposed to care for. And we can certainly look around and see many examples where fallen sinful men who are to be stewards of this creation are in fact destroying what they are supposed to be caring for. That's not right.

But redeemed man cares for nature as stewards of God, as stewards of God's creation. And we as stewards exercise the power of life and death over this creation, over the animals, over all of the world, all the created world. And since the fall, God has given to man that authority over the life of animals. Because creation itself suffers from the effects of the fall. And so we then even before the fall were created to work.

We weren't created for an endless vacation as nice as they are. Nor were we created for a monastic life of simply just praying 24 hours a day, and meditating on the Word of God. As important as that is, that's not what we were created to do continually. We were given six days to work in the world that God made. Six days to work with our hands as stewards of God's creation, to make tools, to build things, to be creative, to think, to beautify, to erect structures and instruments for beauty, for glory, and for utility.

And we were given one day of the week to set aside as a day of worship, as a day of prayer, as a day of praising and focusing on the sacrifice of praise. Six days though we are to work. As important as this is, and this is, we can say this is the most important thing that we do, yet we are only given one day each week for it. We are given six days to present our bodies as living sacrifices in our work. Our personal fulfillment is tied to our obedience and faithfulness to God in our work.

Paul said that we have been saved so that we can be obedient to the faith. We've been saved so that we can be obedient to the faith. God is redeeming all of His creation, culminating in a new heavens and a new earth. Not just a new heavens with no earth, but a new heavens and a new earth. God is redeeming creation and we have been saved so that we can be obedient to the faith, which means working, working six days a week in the creation that God has given.

That dominion extends, as we've said, not just over the dry land, but over the sea as well, over the ocean. Because we've been given dominion over the fish that are in this ocean. And it extends into the heavens, because we've been given dominion over the birds that fly in the heavens. And we need to develop human capital as well. The other part of that mandate that God gave was to subdue the earth, but it was also to be fruitful and to multiply.

Raising children, if God so blesses us, is a significant part of a righteous economy, a very significant part. So children are a blessing for which we ought to pray. Now I recognize that Any of the things that God gives as a blessing can become a judgment. The rain in too great a quantity and too short a time is a flood, and that's a judgment. As a consequence of Adam and Eve's sin, God multiplied conception.

But that doesn't alter the fundamental fact that we are commanded to be fruitful and to multiply. And that children and grandchildren are a blessing for which we ought to pray. Now the fall has radically affected our ability to be obedient to this mandate, This calling that God has given to all of mankind. The work of God's work of redemption is to restore us to be able to fulfill this mission for which we were created. See the very words of the great commission which Jesus left his apostles as he ascended into heaven teaches us this.

We are to make disciples teaching them to observe all that God has commanded. That's part of the Great Commission. The Great Commission is the means by which the world is enabled to carry out the cultural mandate. Because it's only people who know Christ who can worship God rightly. It's only people who know Christ who can be righteous stewards of the creation that God has made.

It's only people who know Christ who are ruled through Christ as He rules in our hearts who are able to be righteous stewards, caring for the creation the way God intended for it to be cared for. And so the great commission is that we are to make disciples of Jesus Christ, teaching people, teaching the nations to observe everything that God has commanded. Everything that God has commanded. Well, the fourth commandment requires that we work six days a week. That's what God has commanded.

And this section of Proverbs gives us some pillars of a righteous economy. The economy is a running of the house. That's where that word came from. If you look it up in Webster's dictionary, his old one, his 1828 dictionary, that's what he relates it to. The economy pertains to the running of a household.

And we don't think of economy that way, we think of economy as the president and his cabinet and all the secretaries of the treasury and the decisions that they make. But that's really not the way it's been for most of the history of the world. The economy is the running of the house, and if you think about it, if you think about this, Every single business, no matter how big of a business it is, the very biggest businesses, you could just tick off the top five biggest businesses in the United States or the world, What do they exist for? They exist to fulfill our need for food, for clothing, for shelter, for rest and healing. Every single one.

That's ultimately why they exist. It doesn't matter who they are, how big they are, how far removed they might seem to be from your house. Every company that I've ever encountered, there may be some I don't know about, but everyone I have ever encountered exists for one of those purposes. It exists to fill the need for food, for clothing, for shelter, for rest, for healing. Why do the big oil companies exist?

They exist to get oil out of the ground so we can go places. So we can get to the doctor, so we can get to the grocery store, so we can plow our fields and grow food. Ultimately Everything comes back to that, every legitimate business. And the rise of corporations is relatively recent. It's relatively recent in the history of mankind.

The rise of corporations has created a situation where the economy has been taken from the house primarily and shifted to entities fictitious entities that have that exist in perpetuity and You know I I grew up in a good American family and capitalism was a good thing in the world I grew up in. But I years ago read an article by Robert Dabney and he was critical of corporations and I was a little bit incredulous about it. I saw some merit in what he was saying but over the years, over the next couple several decades, I've begun to see more and more wisdom in his criticisms of corporations. And I'll just give you one little snippet, it's not the intent of this tech-pricopy of God's Word, but corporations create a fictitious entity that exists in perpetuity. And why does a for-profit corporation exist?

Well, Anybody, any of them will tell you they exist to make money. They exist to make money. And I have heard countless executives who run these companies equate moral good, what is good? Well, for a company, What is good is what makes money and What is bad is what doesn't make them money? I mean that's that's what how a corporation was created.

It's a fictitious entity What is its purpose its purpose is to make money so by definition then? The what is good in the eyes of a corporation is what makes money, what is evil is what doesn't make money. And I have heard corporate CEOs of some of the Largest companies in the world say exactly that in so many words. Morality for them is defined in terms of what makes money and what doesn't. Because that is the purpose of a corporation, A for-profit corporation.

What is our purpose as creatures made in God's image? It's to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It's to fulfill the cultural mandate. It's to work with our hands to create what is good and beautiful, to create what is artistic, To extend the world that God has made. You see, a corporation can get off on a wrong path as they follow a different morality than what the Bible gives to us.

And for that reason alone, and that really wasn't even the reason that Dabney brought out. Dabney brought out the escape of liability that a corporation could take, in his view, could take the wealth of a widow and if they lost it all there was no responsibility to it. Whereas if a widow had invested that with a person, there would be more of a personal connection there, and a personal obligation that you were working with a person's money. In any event, this section of Proverbs gives us the principles, the pillars of a righteous economy. And the first pillar that we see is the cornerstone of wisdom, the importance of wisdom.

Gold and silver are not the most important element of a righteous economy. They are very important. God has created gold and silver for a purpose. It's amazing all the different properties that metals have that fit specific needs that we have. Needs for structural strength, needs for resistance to corrosion, needs for resistance to acids and other chemical attack Being light and yet strong and being hard and so on being soft Metals are amazing and gold and the silver are no exception.

They have been created, I believe, by God for our use as money. That's their purpose. That is what they have been used for since the beginning of time. People recognize the value of these metals. Their characteristics, if you want to study economics, are ideal.

They have characteristics that are ideally suited to being used as money. They are reliable and a storehouse of value, and always have been. When the dollar starts crashing today, what do people do? They tend to run to safety in the money that God made. But it is not the most important thing in an economy.

There is gold and a multitude of rubies, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel. Knowledge, wisdom, remember all wisdom and knowledge is hid in Jesus Christ. Knowledge and wisdom is more valuable than gold and silver. That takes training, teaching. Remember part of the context we gave was the need to invest in human capital.

We are to be fruitful and multiply. And we have to teach our children train them up in the fear of the Lord Instruction in righteousness and that takes time Away from what we are doing to to train people whether it's our children or whether it's employees and servants in outside the home. That takes time. It takes capital, it takes resources, but it's important. And if we are not faithful in this calling or this duty to train the next generation, we are hurting ourselves and we are destroying the economy.

Training takes time away from what we are doing right now. You know, it was a lot easier for me to do it myself than to work with my children and teach them to do it. It was a lot easier for Alice To get supper on the table if she just prepared all the food herself But she would take the time to train The little ones to do that those cutting jobs and it it went slower And I know many of you are doing the same thing, and that's a good thing. This investing in godly character is important. It's a cornerstone of a righteous economy.

And That's a lot of the arguments for going off to college, for gathering and studying under people who have knowledge. The only problem is today that there isn't much wisdom in most universities. We need to invest in wise counsel or godly character because wise counsel is critical in deciding matters of great importance. Plans are established by wise counsel wage war. When we need to make big decisions, when we need to make life altering decisions, we need council.

Those are how plans are established. We don't know what we don't know. If we knew what we didn't know, we could go look it up on Google. But if we don't know what we don't know, we need counsel. We need the wisdom of people who have gone before us, who have walked the road that we're trying to walk.

We need a plurality of insight. Not just one person, but counsel from many. In a plurality of counselors there is safety. Because we're finite. We have a finite set of experiences.

We need a plurality. We need to be surrounded by a plurality of counselors and a plurality of wise counselors. So we need to invest in developing Godly character. We need to invest in those things that will provide wise counsel to us. Because it's too late to try and find that wise counsel at the moment of need.

We have to be those who are investing in it all along so that it is available when we need it. Invest in Godly character. One of the things I've realized over the experiences that the Lord has led our family through is the need to have wise medical counsel, wise legal counsel, wise spiritual counsel. There have been times when I have most needed the counsel of wise elders that we haven't had wise elders, or had elders that had been in a situation where there was availability of that counsel. And so I have learned from those mistakes and make it a priority to be in a church where there is access to counsel.

But that extends to other areas as well, medicine and law, or two other areas where wise counsel, godly counsel is important. And that takes an investment, it takes forethought, it takes preparation. Proverbs talks about a wise man sees a problem in advance, anticipates it, and is prepared for it, and is able to hide himself. And with this investment in godly character, it's something we have to look down the road and see ahead, because counsel isn't there if we haven't taken the steps to provide for it, if we haven't invested in godly character. The second component of this cornerstone of a righteous economy is to divest ungodly character.

We need to invest in godly character and divest ungodly character. A tale bearer. He who goes about as a tale bearer reveals secrets. Therefore, do not associate with one who flatters with his lips." Somebody who reveals secrets, you know, it's very nice to be on the receiving side of secrets sometimes. And yet we have to realize that if we're on the receiving side of somebody else's secrets, that person is probably revealing our secrets to other people and the Bible says do not associate with such a person.

Where there is no wood the fire goes out and where there is no tail bearer strife ceases as charcoal is to burning coals and wood to fire, so is a contentious man to strife. We need to divest ourselves of ungodly character. He who curses his father and mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness. That is not the kind of person that we want to be associated with. Character matters.

Character Matters in our economy. God blesses obedience. God judges disobedience. We don't want to be associated with people who curse their father and mother, people who are godless, who are ungodly, who are wicked. Our business partners matter, our partner, our friends matter because bad company corrupts good morals And we can't expect God's blessing when we are allied with those whom God is judging.

So we need to divest ungodly character. On Godly character. Now the second pillar of a righteous economy is self-government. Self-government. First is patience, being able to wait on God's timing, being able to wait on God's provision.

Delayed gratification is an important concept for Christians to learn. We need to delay our reward. We need to be willing to work now in order to reap a reward later. The Christian life is not one of self-sacrifice for no reward. Not at all.

It's one of delayed reward. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive, Paul told the Corinthians, his own reward according to his own labor. Paul told the Colossians, bond-servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh not with eye service as men pleasers but in sincerity of heart fearing God and whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ." There is a reward, but in the future it's delayed. We serve the Lord Jesus Christ and God is a rewarder, Paul says, of those who diligently seek Him. And so we need to have patience.

We need to have patience. An inheritance gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end. Inheritance gained hastily, The way that God has ordained the building of capital and wealth is over time. It's over time, it's gradually in most cases. Because If you simply got wealth overnight, we wouldn't have the wisdom to manage it.

And many people that win the lottery, you know the statistics better than I do. Many of them, in fact most of them, But not all, but most of them are poorer and worse off than they were before they got their lottery. Because without the ability to manage that wealth and to handle it as a wise steward, they aren't able to hang on to it. And so an inheritance gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end. We need to be willing to wait.

We need to be willing to labor day in and day out, six days a week, week after week, 52 weeks a year, year after year for an inheritance. And to build line upon line, item upon item, and to wait patiently. We need to be patient. It's easy to get offended and want to run off to battle. But this proverb says, By wise counsel wage war.

By wise counsel. In other words, there needs to be some thought, some time. We need time, we need patience to wait and to let things sort out. Time is often very helpful. And especially when we are undertaking significant decisions, we need to have time to think about them.

Now that doesn't mean We can't be thinking about something in advance, so when we see it, we are ready to act immediately. But we are only ready to act immediately because we have been thinking about it and planning in the time leading up to that. We prepared in advance. We have been praying about it, because that's how we get wisdom. Now secondly, the second part of this self-government is that we are governed by time.

So we wait on God's time, but we are also governed by time. The godly building of capital takes time, but also time is one of the means that God governs. We need to recognize and accommodate ourselves to God's government through time. The God ordained purpose of the heavenly bodies, the stars, the sun, the moon and so on, is to mark time. God has created bodies, planets, moon, to mark time.

That's their purpose. Just like we've been created to worship God, they've been created to mark the passage of time. And when we don't follow them, then we are really kicking against God's government, against His providence. The day is for working, the night is for resting. Bible says it's vain to stay up late for God gives to His beloved sleep.

So we need to be governed by time. We need to be those people who are able to follow a clock and to keep a plan, keep a schedule. Third, Self-government involves not acting on impulse. Plans are important, as verse 18 says. The more important the activity, the more important the planning, and the more detailed an effort needs to go into plans.

War is not something to rush into. We need to only wage war after we've very deliberately planned and looked at the consequences and what the Effect will be if we do go or don't go, we have to count the cost. Because not doing so, lacking this kind of planning, wastes what God has provided. We're not good stewards if we're wasting what God has provided. Planning is one of the means that God provides to do good work.

Jesus said, who begins a project without first counting the cost? I remember growing up in the Silicon Valley, the land of Google and Apple, there was a freeway, right? So the Bay Area looks kind of like this, and where the San Francisco Bay is here. And right down in the bottom of that bay, there was a freeway that went around. And for years, right in the middle of this freeway was a real tall bridge that went nowhere.

The pillars were there, the road was in place, it was maybe 100 feet long, and it was about 30 feet up in the air and that's where it just sat there. Somebody had started a project to build a bridge over this road, this highway, and didn't count the cost and so all that stuff was just sitting there wasted. There was a road 30 feet up in the air that went 100 feet, dropped off on either end, nobody could use it, and just sat there and everybody, it was just a part of, it was just a landmark that everybody drove by. But, nope, inadequate planning, improper planning, didn't count the cost, didn't take into account something, wasted resources. Okay, third principle, pillar, then, of a righteous economy is that God ordains the means.

God ordains the means. Remember the hearing ear and the seeing eye God made we read last week. And so in verse 13 it says, open your eyes and you will be satisfied with bread. God gives us eyes. God gives us a mind to think and to plan how we can accomplish the task.

Open your eyes. God has given us eyes. God is the one who has created these seeing eyes. Open them, Solomon says, and you will be satisfied with bread. God has provided seeing eyes.

We need to use the seeing eyes, the means that God has provided. We need to pray for God to open our eyes because it is God who makes the seeing eye. The ability, this ability to open our eyes comes from God. God provides money as we talked about. God has provided gold and silver to be used as money.

That's the means we need to use, the means that God has provided. It's an important tool. It's an important means. The Bible has a lot to say about gold and silver and the use of it. But this is another, this is God has provided in the creation, God has provided the means of a medal for our money.

God has provided capital and He has given to us wisdom, the means to enforce what is just. Look in verse 16, take the garment of one who is surety for a stranger and hold it as a pledge when it is for a seductress." This is an exact duplicate of Proverbs 27-13, so it's repeated twice. Those who assembled these Proverbs under the inspiration, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, put this exact proverb in the Bible twice, because it must be important. God provides capital and the means to enforce what is just. It's a rather difficult proverb to sort out, but I think tentatively that this is what it's saying.

There are, I think, at least three people in this proverb. Okay, there's three people There is the stranger that's a foreigner That same word is used to also speak of a strange woman who is a stranger to the covenant of marriage, but here I believe it's just talking about somebody who's a foreigner, somebody maybe that you, that doesn't have a home who isn't from this area, their ties are elsewhere. Okay, so that's the, that's one person. Then there is someone who is surety for that stranger. Meaning they have come alongside and guaranteed a debt of that stranger.

They've co-signed a loan, you might say. In some way they've become collateral for this stranger and Then there is the person who being addressed here Which is take who is to take the garment of one who is surety for a stranger, and hold it as a pledge when it is for a seductress. And so I think that in the light of the other Proverbs in chapter 6, where it talks about the folly of being surety for a friend or a stranger. My son, if you have become surety for your friend, if you have shaken hands in a pledge for a stranger, you are snared by the words of your mouth, you are taken by the words of your mouth, so do this my son and deliver yourself. Go and humble yourself.

Give no sleep to your eyes until you do this." So the Bible tells us not to be surety, collateral for other people's debts because we endanger ourselves. And so somebody who does that, somebody who does provide surety for a stranger, we are to regard as not wise and so it's saying take the garment. So when you made a loan, you took collateral for that loan. And if somebody was very poor, all they might have is their garment, their cloak. The Bible says that If you've taken the garment of a widow, or somebody who's very poor, you're to take it back to them at night, because that's all they have to sleep.

Now you might say, well why should you take it at all? Why even take it? Why not just give them a loan and not take it? Well, because preservation of capital is important. We're not a wise steward if we do not care for the capital that God has given to us.

And to give that capital to people who are not able to handle it or have shown they're not able to handle it, that's not wisdom. At least not without a pledge. And so the reason you take that garment at all is because people are sinners. We're all sinners. And if you didn't take any pledge, then what's to stop that person from going to person one and saying, I'd like to borrow a dollar and I have a garment as pledge, and if you don't take that garment as pledge, you just loan the dollar, they can go to the next person and say, I'd like to borrow a dollar and I have this garment, I'll put up this pledge.

If you don't take the pledge, they can go to a third person. You see, they can go to any number of people then and borrow lots of money on the basis of one garment. And so by taking that garment during the day and returning it at night, you prevent that kind of fraud. That's, by the way, exactly what our Federal Reserve does with our money, is they do exactly that. So some of these ancients maybe were wiser than we give them credit for, writing under the inspiration of God.

Okay, thirdly, fourthly, so capital, we need to preserve capital. God has given us the means of capital and the means to preserve it. And fourthly, counsel. Council. God provides means, and one of those means is wise counsel.

Plans are established by counsel. Now fourthly, the fourth and final pillar we will look at this morning in a righteous economy is that we look out for the interests of others as well as our own. We look out for the interests of others. It is good for nothing, cries the buyer, but when he has gone away then he boasts. This is talking about price haggling, price negotiating.

And what does the buyer do? He comes and he points out all the things that are wrong with what he wants to buy, how terrible it is, So that he can get as low a possible price. And then as soon as he goes away, he brags to his friends, look at the great deal I got on this car. That's why In Christian cultures, in nations where the gospel has flourished and righteous economies have been established, prices are often typically placed on items. It's only in cultures that do not have a Christian foundation to them where there are no prices and everything is by haggling.

Why is that? Because if you are a sinful merchant, you don't put a price on it because you want to get whatever you can get out of that next sucker that comes by. And if you can get three or four times the value of that item because he doesn't know any better, then that's good. And so you don't put a price on it because You want to see if somebody is foolish enough to not know what it's worth and pay you far more than it's worth. You're not going to sell it for less than it's worth, so you're not worried about that.

But you don't put a price on it so that people that don't know might pay you a lot more. See there's an inherent greed there that's not looking out for the interest of others. As a buyer, we should want to pay our brother, whom we're buying from, a fair price. Buying from a fair price and not take advantage of their weakness. And the same as a seller, we want to sell for a fair price.

And if we thought about what that price is then we are willing to mark that price on an item. Now I'm not, obviously if you have a garage sale and you just throw stuff out there, I'm not saying we have to mark every price on it or that it's always wrong not to put a price on something. I'm just saying if you go to the store, most stores in our country, they have the prices marked on them. If you go to a store in Asia or in Africa or other places, they often don't have a price marked on them because they expect a haggle. They expect a negotiation like this where they expect you to come in and try and get it for as low as you want, as you can, and they want to get as much as they can, way more than it's worth if they can.

That's not looking out for the interests of others. What is a fair price? A fair price is what two informed people are willing to pay for something. I need to comment here, in hurricane season, merchants will raise their prices on valuable commodities and and that's often criticized. In fact some places it's outlawed and yet that is not what we're talking about.

That's actually a good thing. We want those prices to go up. We want the price of water to go up when a hurricane is coming because when the market is allowed to function in that way, it preserves and maximizes the resources for everybody. If the price of water doesn't go up, then what happens? Hoarders come in and they empty the shelf because it's cheap and they can buy a lot of it and they buy way more than they need.

But if the price goes way up, then they only buy exactly what they need. And that leaves the bottle on the shelf for you and me to come along behind. And so the market, When it's allowed to function biblically, it will maximize the goods and services that are available. So this isn't talking about socialism here or the government fixing prices, or This is speaking about a fair price. And a fair price is what a buyer and a seller agree to.

Jesus made that point in His parable of the man, the farmer, who hired the servants. Remember, He hired some at the first hour in the 6 a.m. And he hired them throughout the day and he hired some at 5 p.m. And they only worked an hour and he paid them all the same and the first people remember complained They said well you're paying the people who work one hour the same as you're paying us who work 12 hours And what was the answer Jesus answer? Then Aren't I paying what we agreed on?

Didn't you agree to come and work a day, 12 hours for Daenerys? And they said, yes, well then I've paid you the wage that we agreed on. What's wrong with that? If I want to pay these other people a different wage, what's that to you? So a fair wage, a fair price is what a buyer and a seller, an informed buyer and a seller agree to.

We have to be willing to inform, provide proper information and not mislead. But that goes to bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth will be filled with gravel. That applies to our looking out for the interests of others, not just ourselves. Looking out for the interests of others as well as ourselves goes to the preservation of capital again. We talked about that.

It's a biblical part of our stewardship. The love of a neighbor does not mean that we enable them in their inability to handle capital. Remember the parable of the virgins that Jesus told. They guarded their capital, they had enough oil because they had foresight, they had enough oil for their lamps, and the other foolish ones said, give us your oil, and they said no, because we need it for ours. If you need oil, you need to go get it.

And of course they did and they were too late. But we don't help others by ruining ourselves. But in all of this then, Christ is our example of what it means to look out for the interests of others and not merely our own. Christ who was the Lord of Glory, the King of Kings, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, took to Himself a human nature and came to Earth for our benefit, not for His. He suffered the wrath of God on the cross, the wrath of Pilate and Herod and the Jews, their humiliation for our sake.

He was our example in that, in what it is to look out for the interests of others and not just ourselves. Let us pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wisdom of your Word that speaks to every area of our life. Lord, we want to walk in your ways in all that we do, and we ask that you would sanctify us in our work, as well as in our thoughts, in our words, in our worship. We pray, Lord, that our work, our day-to-day work, might truly be a pleasing sacrifice to You.

We offer to you what you have first given to us. We love you, oh Father, and we do want to serve you with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength. We ask that we might do so with an understanding heart, that we might do so with an understanding heart, that we might do so with knowledge and with wisdom. Through Jesus Christ we ask, Amen.