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A Better Montana Without Gambling |
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Two
Sermons on Gambling
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Gambling is Covetousness-
Exodus 20:17
Author: Barrett Duke is director of denominational relations, conferences and
seminars for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The sermon is copyright
1998, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist
Convention. The sermon came off their Internet site www.erlc.com.
INTRODUCTION
Every parent attempts to teach his children good manners. He teaches them to
eat with their forks instead of their fingers, to cover their mouths when they
cough, to say "please" and "thank you." These are just part
of good behavior. They also make for good relationships. After all, who would
want to spend much time with someone who coughed in his face all day? The desire
to teach proper behavior doesn't stop with parents. God is also acutely aware
of the importance of appropriate behavior.
Take the 10 commandments, for instance. It is no accident that God issued these commandments to His people shortly after they left Egypt. They were critical instructions for good relationships, whether people's relationships with each other or with God. Without these rules of conduct the people were doomed to failure, in their responsibilities toward God and toward each other. In fact, God was so certain of this that He took it upon Himself to speak the commandments out loud for all the people to hear (Ex. 20:1, cf, Deut. 5:4,22). To make sure the people had them, He wrote them on stone tablets with His own finger (Ex. 31:18). Then after Moses broke the tablets because of the people's sin, God had Moses write them again (Ex. 34:28)! To drive home their importance, Moses repeated the 10 commandments to the people just before they entered the promised land (Deut. 5:21). Obviously, these commandments were very important.
Today, these commandments are still important. Though Jesus taught us that it is impossible to satisf~ the full requirements of the 10 commandments (Matt. 5:21-48), and that salvation can only be achieved through faith in Him, He did not say that they were not valid for the Christian to observe. God has not changed. His expectations of His people have not changed, and the foundations for appropriate behavior in society have not changed either.
The 10 commandments are still valid. They remain the guide to appropriate conduct. Obedience to them pleases God and assures healthy relationships. This truth has a direct bearing on the issue of gambling. Gambling violates the 10th commandment, not to covet that which belongs to your neighbor. Now, the question that some people might ask is, "How is gambling covetousness?" The answer to this question is found right in the commandment itself This commandment tells us three ways that gambling is covetousness:
1. Gambling is Materialism at Its Worst
In the tenth commandment God condemns the desire for that which belongs to another
person, whether people or things. The commandment focuses on improper emphasis
on material things. For some people material gain is the crowning achievement
of life. For some, the ultimate trophy of success is to have the most beautiful
wife or the most handsome husband. Others measure success by the amount of money
they have in the bank, or the number of cars in the garage, or the size of their
house. Whatever standard of success that people use, if it is based on the accumulation
of possessions, it is a poor standard. Jesus asked, "For what is a man
profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' (Mart. 16:26).
Gambling's strongest appeal is to the inordinate materialism that drives some people's lives. Gambling promises great wealth with little effort.
The publication American Demographics reported on a survey of people who gamble in casinos. It stated that "winning money is the most important reason why people say they visit a casino" (American Demographics, May 1997, p.Y7). The Casino de Montreal in Quebec has discovered that more people will play the slot machines if the grand prize is a car. They are consumed with an irrational desire to have that beautiful car. Sometimes these kinds of people will gamble away everything they have and everything they can get their hands on for one more chance to get something of material value.
Those who gamble must remember that Jesus said, "Labor not for meat which perishes, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life..." (Jn. 6:27). Paul said, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 32). We would all do well to remember these instructions and put them in practice.
II. Gambling Reveals Dissatisfaction with God's Provision
The Hebrew word for covet in Exodus 20:17 is chamad. The lexicon by Brown, Driver
and Briggs defines the
Gambling represents this same kind of attitude. It is the direct expression of people who are not content with what they have and who are determined to get what they do not have. Indeed many gambling advertisements appeal to this very dissatisfaction. A recent gambling advertisement showed a person driving a new car that he had won because of gambling winnings. The ad said: "This could be you." The appeal factor of the ad was to feelings of dissatisfaction that people have with their current station in life.
For the Christian, this is an affront to God. God provides us with what we need. He knows what place in life He wants us to fill.
It is not God's intention to make us all rich in material things. If He did, who would there be to witness to the poor and struggling people in the world? God assigns each of us to a place. Dissatisfaction with His choice for our lives is the same attitude that resulted in God's judgment on Adam and Eve. Such an attitude still disturbs God. Paul declares, "Godliness with contentment is great gain" (I Tim. 6:6). Now, this does not mean that we should not work hard, and apply ourselves to succeed and advance, but it does mean that any advancement that is borne out of dissatisfaction with God's choices for us is wrong.
III. Gambling Seeks What Belongs to Someone Else
In the tenth commandment, God does not condemn the desire to improve one's life
through hard work and discipline. What God condemns is the desire for that which
belongs to someone else. God says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's
house.. .nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
A person who covets has seen something that belongs to someone else and has decided that it is more important for him to have it than for his neighbor to have it. Gambling represents this kind of attitude. It is an anonymous form of wealth redistribution. There is no money to win except what other people have lost.
But the greatest tragedy is that those who gamble are often trying to get the money that belonged to those who could least afford to lose it. It is an established fact that the poorest people in society are the most likely to gamble. Whatever someone wins through gambling is won at the cost of someone else's loss--perhaps even, the loss of a child's milk or shoes. People may say that they do not gamble in order to take what someone else has, but it is only by other people losing that some people win. Once we become aware of this, we are certainly no longer innocent of attempting to steal from others when we gamble. Any advancement that takes place at the expense of another is wrong.
Every time a gambler reads that someone has killed himself because of gambling losses, or that a family has been destroyed because of gambling losses, that gambler should understand that he participated in that tragedy, and that any money he has won through gambling may very well have been money lost by that person whose life came to terrible tragedy.
The celebrated author Joseph Conrad stated, "All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind" (A Personal Record, 1912).
CONCLUSION
For Jack, a video poker machine was the answer to all his money problems. He
would sit in front of the machine for hours, every chance he could get, pouring
in money, sometimes $120 a day. He said, "It was the thought of easy money.
It's probably hard for a lot of people to understand, but it's the constant
thought that the next game might be the one." It was this thought that
kept Jack coming back. Soon checks started bouncing and Jack's life was thrown
into a nightmare, but he continued to play. He said, "You get in so deep,
it's had to get out. I just kept hoping I'd hit it big." But he never did.
When reality came crashing in, Jack was more than $14,000 in debt. He says,
"I'll be paying for this the rest of my life." If only Jack had understood
that gambling is covetousness. Today his life would be much better. Perhaps
today someone else's life will be better because he understands this connection
for the first time. What gambling promises is easy money. What gambling delivers
is destruction. God says, "Do not covet." That includes gambling.