Hustle – Part 4

Review

The Industrial Revolution was a “process of change” that shifted our economy from one based on agriculture and handicrafts to one based on industry and machine manufacturing. (Encyclopedia Britannica).

When you farm and make things with your hands, life moves at the pace of nature.

Why was nature so punitive?

1. Because the ground and everything that came from it was cursed
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Genesis 3:17 (ESV): ¹⁷. . .cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. 

Genesis 3:19 (ESV): ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread. . .

2. Because of sin

3. Because of the aftermath of the flood

Genesis 6:3 (ESV): ³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

Technology As False Savior

Technology is a response to the limitations of the natural world

• Humanity creates technology to improve the natural world without addressing the root cause of the world’s disorder.
• Mark 8:36 (ESV): ³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Modern Success as a False Positive

Last Days Culture

• Matthew 24:38–39 (ESV): ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
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• Matthew 24:12 (ESV): ¹² And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
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• 2 Timothy 3:1–5 (ESV): ¹ But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ² For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
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Reviewing the Concept of “Grown”

Addressing the Wounds in Our Lives

• Matthew 18:7 (NKJV): ⁷ Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!
  • • • We are often tempted to sin because someone has offended us.
      • Offenses are inevitable.
        • Matthew 18:21–22 (ESV): ²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
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        • Mark 11:25 (ESV): ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
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        • Matthew 6:12 (ESV): ¹² and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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        • Unforgiveness is a sin, and it leads to other kinds of sin.
      • Matthew 18:6 (ESV): ⁶ but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
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      • Ephesians 6:4 (ESV): ⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
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• Proverbs 4:23 (ESV): ²³ Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. 

• Leviticus 5:4–6 (ESV): ⁴ or if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him, when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; ⁵ when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, ⁶ he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat, for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2024