We have to ask ourselves a question.  “Yeah, but we have a different culture here in twenty-first-century America than they had at the time this was written.  They’re not living in Northern Virginia where it’s so expensive to live.”  It is expensive to live, but we also have the highest median income in the nation.  Yes, I would love to pay the price for a home here that they’re paying in Butcher Holler, Kentucky.  Homes in Butcher Holler are probably going for less than they are here.  So, I’d like to make the same amount of money but pay the prices of Butcher Holler.  That doesn’t work, does it?  “Here we are, and it’s expensive to live.  Therefore, we shouldn’t have to obey the Bible, and God should understand.”  Well, maybe our values need to change, and we take on some other biblical principles.  This sounds something like this: with food and raiment we’re to be content; amen?  We don’t even have to have single-family homes to live in.  “God forbid!”  You know, I’ve even seen it here in our fellowship.  There is almost this attitude when talking about renting an apartment.  It’s like—pshh!  “We’ve got three kids, so we have to have at least five bedrooms.”  I never thought I’d get this old to speak back to when I was a child, but we not only didn’t have our own bedrooms, we didn’t have our own beds.  How many of you remember sleeping with your brothers and sisters?  Do you remember them peeing on you?

“But godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).  Having food and raiment, be content.  You can live on one salary in this county that we’re living in.  Many of you have proven it by your obedience to the Word of God, and God has blessed you.  Some He hasn’t blessed by multiplying to you more stuff.  He blessed you by changing your outlook on life; amen?  Thank God for it.  He can do the others, too.  There are many testimonies of us being blessed as you, as a people, have chosen to go in this direction.  I’m not bringing reproof to us this morning over this subject.  I’m bringing this subject up to bring commendation to you and say, “Well done, good and faithful servants.”  Praise God!  It was a tough adjustment for many.  It was a tough psychological adjustment for many.  Walking according to the biblical worldview causes us to be mocked and even despised by others.  I know one of those people called and tried to sell us stuff.  I heard my wife from the other room.  She was on this phone call, and I heard her talking.  It was kind of a strange conversation.  She said, “Well, I wouldn’t be able to make this decision anyway; I would have to check with my husband first.”  The person on the other side of the phone almost passed out.  Do you know how subtle Satan was in that garden?  He is using the same subtlety today, through the pressure of those who are at work, those we deal with as we go about our business of managing the home and in the stores.