WHAT IS WRONG WITH LOTTERY

Part I

To know how a Christian should live, has never been easy. Each new situation in our life requires a new and justified answer or decision. Especially in our days Christians have enormous problems, because the world changes every day. After the second world war and the several wars after it, which have influenced us so much, many questions have come up in our society, which seem to be unsolvable. What was taken for granted in former days, became doubtful or was completely rejected in these last years. It is for us and our children fundamentally very difficult to live in this world. We live in the world, we must go through this world, but we may not become one with this world. The decisions, which we must make, must be made in the light of God’s Word. There we find an answer for our problems. Not always in the letter of the Word, but when we may feel the Spirit of the Word, then it is different and we will find an answer, with God’s help. So we will try to write something about lotteries which have become a phenomenon lately and seem to be questionable for many.

Lottery belongs to the games of hazard, which is from the Arab word “assar”, which means dice. This immediately shows the relation with lottery. In Webster’s Dictionary I found the following definition of lottery:

1; a drawing of lots in which prizes are distributed to winners among persons buying a chance.

2) an event or an affair whose outcome is or seems to be determined by chance.

Both explanations end with the word “chance”. This word we must keep in mind.

When we write about the lot or the lottery, we will divide it into 3 parts:

1) the lot in the Bible; 2) the lot in our Society; 3) the lot in the life of the Christian.

First: what does the Bible say about the lot?

The lot was given by the Lord to make known His will to mankind in certain circumstances. This was not necessary in Paradise, for Adam and Eve, because they had a perfect knowledge of the will of God. They were image bearers of God, which image consisted in knowledge, righteousness and holiness.

By the fall and sin of men we have lost God’s image, and also the true knowledge of God and His will. Still it has not pleased the Lord to leave us to ourselves, but to make something of Himself known to mankind, and also what His will is, how we must live before Him.

The will of God was revealed in different ways: by appearences, dreams, visions, verbal commandments, but the Lord also used the lot in special occasions. Some explain that the Urim and Thummim were given to this end. A few words about these important objects in Israel’s history are also related to our subject:

The Urim and Thummim were kept in the high priest’s breastplate, (Ex. 28:30), Lev. 8:8), a pouch fastened to the ephod, and sometimes, with it, simply referred to as the ephod. By the Urim and Thummim, the High Priest could declare the will of God to both the leader and the people.

We will now consider two passages which speak of the oracular use of the ephod. When Abiathar fled to David, he brought with him an ephod. When David required guidance of the Lord, then he asked direct questions, eliciting a simple affirmative or negative. This suggests that the Urim and Thummim was a form of casting lots.

I Sam. 14:3, 41 presents similarities, when the guilt of Jonathan and King Saul, or the guilt of Israel, must be known.

However, man could not compel God to speak, for we find in several places (I Sam. 28:6), that the Lord answered not.

This is the special lot, which the Lord gave to Israel.

Also we find several occasions mentioned in God’s Word, where this lot is apoken of, but not through the use of the Urim and Thummim.

a) In the Old testament the lot was cast to discover God’s will for the allocation of territory. (Josh. 18 & 19)

b) The choice of the goat to be sacrificed on the Day of Atonement. (Lev. 16)

c) The detection of a guilty person. (Josh. 7:14)

d) the allocation of temple duties. (I Chron. 24:5)

e) the discovery of a favorable day by Haman. (Esther 3:7)

This last example was of a heathen, not counting with God, and he is ashamed.

f) The division of the spoil. (Joel 3:3)

h) To make known the cities of the LEvites. (Josh. 21:4)

In the New Testament Christ’s clothes were allocated by lot. (Mt. 27:35) The last occasion in the Bible on which the lot is used to divine the will of God is in the choice of Matthias (Acts 1:15-26), and, there may be a significance in that, this is before Pentecost.

From these things we can see, that under the Old Testament the lot was used frequently, but when the will of God is made known, when the canon of the Bible is complete, then the use of the lot decreases, then it is not as necessary as before.

The casting of the lot is an extraordinary religious act in difficult circumstances or decisions in matters, which cannot be solved by men.

So we have seen three kinds of lots in God’s Word:

1) the lot of revelation about future things. (Numb. 27:21 and Ex. 28:30)

2) the lot of counsel in difficult circumstances. (Josh. 7)

3) the lot of division.

The lot made known to man what the will of God was, according to his eternal decree. That decree is worked out in time; what the Lord has created in the beginning is kept in existence. The providence of God is over all things, small and great. So we believe in the Government of the Lord, even in the lot, as it is written in Prov. 16:33: “The lot is cast in the lap, but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord.”

Now we have seen that casting the lot is a religious work, wherein we request the Lord to make known His will, so we ask the Lord for His guidance.

In certain circumstances the Lord gives permission to use the lot. So we may use the lot in the fear of the Lord; but as it is in so many things, under the influence of Satan and our sinful heart, the holy use is forgotten and instead of that we come to misuse it which displeases the Lord very much.

So it is with the Sunday, which is set apart for the service of God, but now it is misused in sin as never before.

Think also of prosperity: it is given by the Lord to honor Him, but the outcome is, that it is used to dishonor God and to live in the pleasures of the sinful world.

So it is with the lot, too: it is misused all over, which brings us to the second part.

(to be continued)

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