By Pastor Michael D. Halsey, County Line Congregational Christian
PROV. 3:13-18
One hundred and ten years ago, or thereabouts, Harry McClintock, otherwise known as “Haywire Mac,” wrote a song which became popular during America’s Great Depression. He called it, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” There’s a cleaned-up children’s version, but I’m going to give you the rated “R” rated, adult version of the lyrics as “Haywire” wrote them: “One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning. Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said "Boys I'm not turning, "I'm headed for a land that's far away, beside the crystal fountains. So come with me, we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains." In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright. Where the hand-outs grow on bushes and you sleep out every nightWhere the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day. On the birds and the bees and the cigarette tree. The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs. And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs. The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay. Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow. Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks. And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks. The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind. There's a lake of stew and of whiskey, too. You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoo. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin. And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in. There ain't no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks. I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day. Where they hung the jerk that invented work. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. I'll see you all this comin' fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
You say, “Hey, that’s just a song; so what?” Well, I want to tell you about a man whose father trusted that song and lived by it. His name is Wallace Stegner; he’s a writer; he says his father was a fool. He saw his father as a “sucker” who moved his family all around the American west, always searching for the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Sometimes he was a farmer, sometimes a speculator, at other times he ran illegal liquor.
In his search to gain, to get, and hold on to get-rich-quick money, he once bought land and cut down 2 acres of 200 year-old oaks to sell for firewood. Wallace said that his father would sing that song, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and always looked for a place where people could get something for nothing. And then he wrote, “My father died broke without a friend in the world in a fleabag hotel, having done more environmental and personal damage than he could have repaired in two lifetimes.”
In a TV interview, Wallace said, “I was trying to write my father out of my life.” The reason? Because, in his father’s search for the Big Rock Candy Mountain, his family became the losers.
Early in every morning, television is glutted with the Big Rock Candy Mountain philosophy; we call them infomercials. There are so many of them that if they weren’t on, I wouldn’t have anything to watch, since the Cowboys don’t play at 4 in the morning. As near as I can tell, the infomercials deal with three things 90% of the time: money and how to make it fast, usually through buying foreclosed houses for 300$; health and how to get it through exercise, a pill, or a potion; and cooking food in some technological breakthrough we just have to have. If someone who didn’t know anything about Americans and all he watched was TV from 1-5Am, he might think we’re fascinated with money, watching smiling, thin people exercise, and food.
People can get so obsessed with money, they’ll fall for anything. I can’t tell you how rich I’d be if I’d answer all those e-mails I get from people requesting my help to get millions of dollars out of their country. (“Christianity Today” did an article on ministers who’d fallen for the scam and had lost everything. It’s a good thing I’m independently wealthy and don’t need all those millions, or I could have been the subject of the article.) But when it comes to the possibility of getting money quickly, even pastors can leave wisdom in the dust. Sometimes after I see an infomercial, I go on the Internet to find the opinions of those who’ve sent off for the kit and I find that they’ve sunk thousands of dollars into the “deal” and are livid at being taken for a ride. They write about how stupid they were.
But wait; let’s go back to the three obsessions of the infomercials. Their obsessions are our obsessions. Those are three things we hold near and dear. Along comes Proverbs and says, “Hold off; there’s something more valuable than money and health and food.” The question is, do you trust God (Prov. 3:5) that’s true? In Prov. 3:14, God is telling us that wisdom, revealed by God in Proverbs, has a greater profit margin than silver, a better yield than gold; more value than rubies. Then he says emphatically, “Nothing can compare with her.”
This is a truth that we pay lip service to on Sunday morning, but out there in what they call the “real world,” which really isn’t real, we expend a tremendous amount of time and energy on money and our health and food. In regard to food, we see this when the chefs on TV are treated like rock stars.
But before we dismiss Solomon as being hopelessly out of it, let’s dig a little deeper. Money can get you a nice house, but it can’t buy you a happy HOME. We don’t realize this until we’re sitting in a nice house and it’s not a happy home. I remember talking to a lady who was saved in middle-age. She had all the money she and you and I together would ever need. She told me: “I’d give it all away if all my children were believers.”
When we think “doctor,” we think of a highly educated, wealthy somebody. Money bought one doctor an education and a great house, but money didn’t buy this one in San Francisco what he came to wish he had, wisdom. He’s making a call to his wife, she comes on the line and he says, “I need you to pick me up and don’t bring the girls.” His wife asks, “Why?”
He says, “I’ve done something really stupid.” He’s calling from the police department; he’s under arrest; just released on bail. While at work, he got online and started chatting with an underage girl who said that her parents were out of town and when he read that, he suggested he might come over and he told her exactly what he’d like to do when he got there.
He left the office went over, not knowing he had been talking to an undercover police woman. When he arrived at the house, they got him. Sting! He had purchased an education, but not wisdom. Don’t you think he’d trade all his money and education for what wisdom could have given him? I don’t think his money and nice house meant much to him as he placed that call.
(Continued next post)
PROV. 3:13-18
One hundred and ten years ago, or thereabouts, Harry McClintock, otherwise known as “Haywire Mac,” wrote a song which became popular during America’s Great Depression. He called it, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” There’s a cleaned-up children’s version, but I’m going to give you the rated “R” rated, adult version of the lyrics as “Haywire” wrote them: “One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning. Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said "Boys I'm not turning, "I'm headed for a land that's far away, beside the crystal fountains. So come with me, we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains." In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright. Where the hand-outs grow on bushes and you sleep out every nightWhere the boxcars all are empty and the sun shines every day. On the birds and the bees and the cigarette tree. The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs. And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs. The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay. Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow. Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks. And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks. The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind. There's a lake of stew and of whiskey, too. You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoo. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin. And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in. There ain't no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws or picks. I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day. Where they hung the jerk that invented work. In the Big Rock Candy Mountains. I'll see you all this comin' fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”
You say, “Hey, that’s just a song; so what?” Well, I want to tell you about a man whose father trusted that song and lived by it. His name is Wallace Stegner; he’s a writer; he says his father was a fool. He saw his father as a “sucker” who moved his family all around the American west, always searching for the Big Rock Candy Mountain. Sometimes he was a farmer, sometimes a speculator, at other times he ran illegal liquor.
In his search to gain, to get, and hold on to get-rich-quick money, he once bought land and cut down 2 acres of 200 year-old oaks to sell for firewood. Wallace said that his father would sing that song, “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and always looked for a place where people could get something for nothing. And then he wrote, “My father died broke without a friend in the world in a fleabag hotel, having done more environmental and personal damage than he could have repaired in two lifetimes.”
In a TV interview, Wallace said, “I was trying to write my father out of my life.” The reason? Because, in his father’s search for the Big Rock Candy Mountain, his family became the losers.
Early in every morning, television is glutted with the Big Rock Candy Mountain philosophy; we call them infomercials. There are so many of them that if they weren’t on, I wouldn’t have anything to watch, since the Cowboys don’t play at 4 in the morning. As near as I can tell, the infomercials deal with three things 90% of the time: money and how to make it fast, usually through buying foreclosed houses for 300$; health and how to get it through exercise, a pill, or a potion; and cooking food in some technological breakthrough we just have to have. If someone who didn’t know anything about Americans and all he watched was TV from 1-5Am, he might think we’re fascinated with money, watching smiling, thin people exercise, and food.
People can get so obsessed with money, they’ll fall for anything. I can’t tell you how rich I’d be if I’d answer all those e-mails I get from people requesting my help to get millions of dollars out of their country. (“Christianity Today” did an article on ministers who’d fallen for the scam and had lost everything. It’s a good thing I’m independently wealthy and don’t need all those millions, or I could have been the subject of the article.) But when it comes to the possibility of getting money quickly, even pastors can leave wisdom in the dust. Sometimes after I see an infomercial, I go on the Internet to find the opinions of those who’ve sent off for the kit and I find that they’ve sunk thousands of dollars into the “deal” and are livid at being taken for a ride. They write about how stupid they were.
But wait; let’s go back to the three obsessions of the infomercials. Their obsessions are our obsessions. Those are three things we hold near and dear. Along comes Proverbs and says, “Hold off; there’s something more valuable than money and health and food.” The question is, do you trust God (Prov. 3:5) that’s true? In Prov. 3:14, God is telling us that wisdom, revealed by God in Proverbs, has a greater profit margin than silver, a better yield than gold; more value than rubies. Then he says emphatically, “Nothing can compare with her.”
This is a truth that we pay lip service to on Sunday morning, but out there in what they call the “real world,” which really isn’t real, we expend a tremendous amount of time and energy on money and our health and food. In regard to food, we see this when the chefs on TV are treated like rock stars.
But before we dismiss Solomon as being hopelessly out of it, let’s dig a little deeper. Money can get you a nice house, but it can’t buy you a happy HOME. We don’t realize this until we’re sitting in a nice house and it’s not a happy home. I remember talking to a lady who was saved in middle-age. She had all the money she and you and I together would ever need. She told me: “I’d give it all away if all my children were believers.”
When we think “doctor,” we think of a highly educated, wealthy somebody. Money bought one doctor an education and a great house, but money didn’t buy this one in San Francisco what he came to wish he had, wisdom. He’s making a call to his wife, she comes on the line and he says, “I need you to pick me up and don’t bring the girls.” His wife asks, “Why?”
He says, “I’ve done something really stupid.” He’s calling from the police department; he’s under arrest; just released on bail. While at work, he got online and started chatting with an underage girl who said that her parents were out of town and when he read that, he suggested he might come over and he told her exactly what he’d like to do when he got there.
He left the office went over, not knowing he had been talking to an undercover police woman. When he arrived at the house, they got him. Sting! He had purchased an education, but not wisdom. Don’t you think he’d trade all his money and education for what wisdom could have given him? I don’t think his money and nice house meant much to him as he placed that call.
(Continued next post)