Quotes About Materialism

The Pilgrims . . . put their ideals ahead of all material considerations. It is not surprising that the Pilgrims had little and succeeded, while we have much and are in danger of failing. No civilization can make progress unless some great principle is generously mixed into the mortar of its foundations in life.

Christ taught that in the sight of God one soul is worth the entire materialistic world! In God's sight the individual is all-important. When Christ calls a man to follow Him, He calls him "out" from the "group." Christ can fill the vacuums. He can restore your personal identity. He can become the truth to your generation.

What I find disturbing in America is the consuming desire for leisure, convenience, and fun. It seems we, as a nation, have traded God for gadgets. We have traded eternal truth for momentary self-gratification—worshipping false gods of materialism and humanism instead of the Creator of all things.

The American Dream became America's god; wealth and abundance have become the measure of America's success. But—as recent events have shown—we have been living an illusion.

Pride consists not in wanting to be rich, but in wanting to be richer than your neighbor. It is not in wanting to be noticed but in wanting to be the most noticed. It is not in wanting to have things but in wanting more things than others.

Regardless of our cleverness, our achievements, and our gadgets, we are spiritual paupers without God.

A century ago man's chief concern was his spiritual life; today his chief concern is with his physical and temporal affairs.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. 1 JOHN 2:15

Parents do overindulge their children, giving them a profusion of material things . . . without the stabilizing effects of earning one's way, of making decisions, of sweating hard to attain some kind of goal, young people are grievously handicapped.

Too many times we are concerned with how much, instead of how little, like this [world] we can become.

In our world, we give most attention to satisfying the appetites of the body and practically none to the soul. Consequently we are one-sided. We become fat physically and materially, while spiritually we are lean, weak, and anemic.

America and Western Europe are on a moneymaking, pleasure-mad spree unparalleled in the history of the world. God is generally ignored or ridiculed. Church members in many cases are only halfhearted Christians. Judgment is coming.

The more worldly pleasure we enjoy, the less satisfied and contented we are with life.

The Bible sees greed as a form of idolatry, because a greedy person worships things instead of God. Greed and envy have their roots in selfishness.

Everything that we see about us that we count is our possessions only comprises a loan from God, and it is when we lose sight of this all-pervading truth that we become greedy and covetous.

We have tried to enthrone the false gods of money, fame, and human intelligence; but however we try, the end is always the same: "It is appointed unto men once to die" [Hebrews 9:27 KJV].

Life is not a matter of dollars and cents, houses and lands, earning capacity and financial achievement. Greed must not be allowed to make man the slave of wealth.

Money takes our minds off God.

In the world in which we live, we give most attention to satisfying the appetites of the body and practically none to the soul . . . We become fat physically and materially, while spiritually we are lean, weak, and anemic.

It is not wrong to want to work and earn a decent living; in fact, God has given work to us. But this legitimate desire can very easily cross the line into greed—especially in our materialistic society.

Greed is an unreasonable or all-absorbing desire to acquire things or wealth. One test of greed is that it is never satisfied. Greed is repeatedly condemned in the Bible.

We need to be on guard against greed . . . above all we need to make sure our lives are centered in Christ and not things.

Today we are putting our hopes in materialism, in technological progress, and in freedom from moral absolutes. They have all failed. They've failed because they've been powerless to change the human heart. What is the answer? There is hope, if we will turn to God.

If we allow our Christian faith to be adulterated with materialism, watered down by secularism, and intermingled with a bland humanism, we cannot stand up to a system that has vowed to bury us.