Get Rich Quick

Proverbs 1:10 to 19
10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not give in to them. 11 If they say, "Come along with us; let's lie in wait for someone's blood, let's waylay some harmless soul; 12 let's swallow them alive, like the grave, [b]and whole, like those who go down to the pit; 13 we will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder; 14 throw in your lot with us, and we will share a common purse"- 15 my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths; 16 for their feet rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood. 17 How useless to spread a net in full view of all the birds! 18 These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay only themselves! 19 Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain; it takes away the lives of those who get it.

It’s not every day that someone comes up and says “hey, let’s go rob someone” or “let’s go and beat up someone and steal their money” not unless you were in a gang that is. So on first glance, these verses seem like advice which is not really relevant to me. After all, I would never think of doing something like robbing a bank or stealing a car.

I’ve heard this a lot of times from my own friends, “hey, what are you so worried about”, “you’re not breaking a law”, “everybody does it”, “Just once won’t make a difference”, “nobody will notice a thing”. Things like, adding a little more than you actually spent for on your office reimbursement form or changing data in reports to make your final report look good, or exaggerating facts during appraisals. These verses warn us against running after ill-gotten gain.

One of the best examples of greed would be, those mails we get from people asking for help in retrieving millions of dollars of some dead man, with no relatives. There are many foolish people, who actually reply to them and then end up being swindled out of their own money and sometimes put their lives in danger, just because they believed a 'get rich quick scheme'.

The world is full of schemers and conmen, thieves and tricksters; Proverbs warns us that “These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay only themselves!” . If it’s not an honest way of earning money then we need to stay away from it.