Planey,


If you got 97 Million, does this mean you would post 3 times as much?

.....and that you would have to say it 3 times over?

me three!!! I would first payoff my house and my mom's home and my brother's home. Than I would be free to help out in all kinds of mission's, plus even go on mission trips myself, that would be my ultimate goal.

pkrause

HEY ALL

WELL if I had 97 million dollars I WOULD
go to differnt countries that had SDA
chruches and visit them and help them out

that way I WOULD be traveling around the
world seeing new places but also helping
my brothers/sisters out....

:-D :)


dgrimm60

No one has pointed out that these kind of stories encourage people to gamble. I know I would lose my salvation if I allowed myself to gamble, therefore I wouldn't gamble for all the money in the world, not because I'm such a good person, but because I want to inherit eternal life.



I guess I'm trying to get my ban from this site over with ASAP, so I don't get too attached.

Are you guys Rock 'n' Roll Adventist or what. Stuck in a jive to some funky rhythm?

Not sure why that would ban you..????

97 million is a large sum of money. And large sums of money that are procured in such quick fashion are usually from lottery winnings. The lottery is a entertainment device used to detract a person from the cares of this world. The $1 invested in such entertainment is usually worth the price as one dreams of what s/he can do with it. And one can usually pay far more for less time consumed in this distraction. Just look at the cost of a miniture golf ticket.



I am glad that you are able to figure out that you would loose your salvation over the price of a $1 ticket to a lottery. Perhaps you know that once you spent one dollar, it would open the flood gates to habitual spending on games of chance.

However, I doubt very much that anyone who occassionally spends a $1 on a lottery ticket would for entertainment purposes

A] loose thier salvation,
B] would be encouraged to spend thier money on habitual games of chance.

Oh yeah, those biblical texts....better re-evaluate them...Men who obtain thier riches/blessings are men who make calculated risks with thier money...And that is gambling in the allowable sense....

Not trying to advocate for gambling, but the Biblical case against it specifically as the one evil "get rich quick" idea is rather thin. There are other ready avenues to getting and accumulating wealth that are not condemned by the church even though Scripture takes an equally dim view. The context of the Mark 8:36-37 quote is a successful farmer saving and setting aside his wealth and retiring. The church certainly doesn't discourage either saving for the future or retirement. In fact the church tends to strongly encourage working hard and being successful in ones business and career even thought the same author of the Proverbs 28: quote also said in Proverbs 23:4 "Do not wear yourself out to get rich..." And the church encourages good estate planning and doesn't discourage accepting even large inheritances even though the author of Proverbs expresses a very similar warning to the 28:20 quote about that. In Proverbs 20:21 it says, "An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be a blessing in the end."

It is not wealth, or how one necessarily acquires wealth that is the evil to be condemned that might jeopardize our salvation. It is our attitude toward money and what we do with it that counts far more than the amount we have. One does not have to look too far to easily find greedy, stingy and selfish poor people hording what little they have and lusting for more including envying the wealth of others. And likewise it is not hard to find very generous unselfish rich people.

So does everyone think it impossible to gamble without being greedy? Would it be any more difficult for a lottery winner to manage and be generous with his wealth than anyone else for whatever they have?

Tom

Posted by Tom Wetmore: "Would it be any more difficult for a lottery winner to manage and be generous with his wealth than anyone else for whatever they have?"

IMO the answer is "Yes"... Usually lottery winners are not wealthy people and have no concept of how to handle large amounts of wealth. I understand that about 1/3 of them are bankrupt within a very few years.

I appreciate your logic, Neil D. That does make alot of sense. You could suppose maybe God wants to bless you, so go ahead and buy a ticket and perhaps it will happen.

If I go past a Casino and see old women there pulling that stupid arm over and over again, I blush. I would not want a business that feeds off of the people whom Christ died for, and holds them tight in the bondage of such addiction, so they cannot be saved.

If you produced a cure for the gambling addiction, those casino owners would have you murdered and destroy any knowledge of your discovery. The business of gambling depends upon and encourages gambling addiction. Can you share the sins of such a business? Would you take stock? Do you not see that it's evil?

I have to pretend that it doesn't exist in order to keep myself innocent. "..Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven..." (Mt. 6:10).

I will not begin to produce quotes from Ellen White about gambling, lest I burden you, but if you have WhiteEstate software, just look up "gambling", or go http://www.whiteestate.org/ . You get 80 hits, and none of them positive.

Do a study on that and tell me if you'd risk your salvation for a very slim chance to win $97M, or even for a sure thing, if that where possible.

So, are all gamblers addicted? Is the problem addiction or gambling? Do we condemn and avoid all things to which people become addicted?

EGW condemned pretty much all forms of amusement including playing checkers and bicycling. The rationale of much of what she condemns is that it may lead to excess. Playing checkers leads to gambling!?!?


Tom