Poor, Poorer, Poorest II

In the last post we looked at poverty using giving as the yardstick. According to the scriptures it is only the generous who qualify to be called rich. However, we need to clearly set the boundaries of that giving.

One who gives generously to a friend is disqualified. One who gives to a person with evident potential is also disqualified. One who needs to be convinced by the recipient especially about the benefit of that giving stands disqualified. One who gives to be seen is out of the picture.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:3, 4)

Simply speaking, the giving of the scripturary rich is the giving that gets its fulfillment from the giving and nothing else.

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

This giving gives not for the immediate or even foreseeable return. It is simply the overflow of their rich being. They can cast their bread on the waters, which looks foolish because not only does it make the same bread inedible to men, it scatters it in such a way that you simply have no capacity of knowing where any piece will end or who and what it will profit and how.

He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor. (Proverbs 22:9)

These give to those who have no capacity to hit back like Jesus said. They then open themselves to the reward of heaven. This brings us to their motivation.

They are secure. Simply speaking their relationship with their wealth can be called detached. Giving does not threaten their sense of security. This means they get their security from something other than their wealth. The fact that they own little or much does not affect their relationships with the world or God.

The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit. (Proverbs 18:11)

The contrast here is plain. Those who find their security in their wealth will value that wealth beyond anything else. They will therefore devote their best efforts in getting and protecting that wealth since it is their security. Unsuspectingly they divert their worship from their initial object of worship (the source of their security before accessing wealth) to their wealth and eventually to mammon, the god of this world.

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Luke 16:13)

Mammon is not really wealth. Wealth is the front that he uses to imprison people by directing their worship to objects that appear innocent, in our case worldly wealth. I need to say that he uses art in the same way, converting objects which may even have initially been used for the worship of God and simply redirected people to them as ends in themselves.

Remember Israel taking the ark to war? Or Nehushtan, the bronze serpent that Moses had made? Neither of them was at fault. It is the devil who used those objects that were meant to point to God and diverted man to make them objects of worship, something he tries to do with anything if we gave him half a chance. Look at the adoration of artistes and performers to get what I mean. A person starts by offering a very useful service that elevates his position in society. People then start treating them as more than humans, making them to slowly imagine that they are at the least supermen. In fact some go all the way to declare themselves gods. In the recent past we have had a talk show host and singer starting their own religions as deities due to their popularity in their fields.

I was doing some study on the new world order and especially the one world religion when I came through a topic on the deification of man, which is the agenda of the devil to raise the rebellion of man to the point at which the antichrist will easily run over the whole world as the Bible clearly says.

But what was shocking was not the doctrine but the fact that most of the very prominent international preachers have bought into that doctrine and are comfortably mixing it with the gospel they are preaching, in effect teaching that man is as much God as the creator is.

That is Lucifer’s game plan in these end times, creating so much confusion so that he will then bring some ‘order’ out of all that chaos, an order that is worse than the chaos because it is aimed at overturning the rule of God.

To get back to our topic, I want us to appreciate that money is the easiest tool used by the enemy to divert our attention from God to the devil. This is because it is the one thing whose power is most invasive. Ever heard of the popularity of this verse?

… money answereth all things. (Ecclesiastes 10:19)

Ever realized that most proponents of that speak as if money has the capacity to dwarf God? That they speak of God as if He is also subject to money? They use it as if it nullifies all the other verses in the Bible.

Has it occurred to you that that verse may have been a statement by a person who had run afoul of the divinely ordered life and was simply expressing the opinion that had led him from a person who had a rich relationship with God to one who had sunk to the depths of sin and debauchery as a result of living his life guided by that philosophy?

Does money really answer all things? Does it answer anything at all? Can money deal with self worth? Does is answer the sin question?

Money is not an answer to much, if anything at all. Money creates an illusion of a reality that does not exist. Money does not answer any life issues because it cannot deal with anything that goes beyond expenditure. The fact that money can buy this or the other does not make it have an answer to all things. Again Jesus could not have spoken this if money answers all things.

And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (Luke 18:25, 26)

If money answers all things, it is inconceivable that going to heaven will be this difficult for the worldly rich. Again remember Lazarus and the rich man. Who ended in heaven and who ended in hell?

Mammon seeks to divert scriptures for his own end, for our purposes the elevation of the usefulness of money a tool to mammon an object of worship. And this comes so slowly as to be almost imperceptible.

The second reason we find the divine assessment of rich and poor is different from the worldly is the worship aspect. Money directs its owners to the elevation of its value. Then it becomes, instead of a tool, into an object of great value. Then we will very easily change the focus of our lives to our new idol.

Reminds me of a news item I saw or read some time ago in a country dogs are a delicacy. Theft of dogs became so rampant that instead of becoming the watch dog it became the object needing defense. It is interesting that the bark of a dog would call the owners outside fastest so that the dog is not stolen. The guard became the guarded. With such a reversal of roles, insecurity will simply take another dimension. Sometimes even definitions can change.

I think this is what the devil succeeds in doing, changing the purpose from being a tool to something to be protected. We then fear more for the loss of money than even the loss of our own lives. That is why people are dying of deceases that can be connected to the pursuit and protection of money. There are three very wealthy people who died of hunger, people whose descendants I know. Simply speaking their stomachs were empty. Yet they were worth so much money that their descendants have not been able to finish it generations later.

Mammon takes a person who has money to the point at which money becomes the object of his life. Simply saying the man starts living for the purposes of getting and hoarding that money.

That is why giving becomes so difficult. That is the reason such giving must come with a price tag.

‘Get rich or die trying’ is one such worship anthem. This is many times the rallying call for those sold out to the worship of mammon. And they will be able to attract disciples because they have the means to demonstrate the success of that worship.

But it does not stop there. Just like a drug addict will not be addicted by a single intake of the drug, bowing to that introduction will slowly lead to other aspects of mammon worship.

The poor is hated even of his own neighbour: but the rich hath many friends. (Proverbs 14:20)

Money has its own way of creating classes out of people. Friends have a way of creating classes when money comes into play. I am sure most of you have at least one friend who distanced himself from you when they climbed up the money ladder. Some who had been soul mates simply became unreachable when they started handling vaster amounts of money. You then became a pest who had to be avoided at all cost yet initially it was an abomination if a week passed if you had not spent at least two hours together.

Of course mammon will bring around other friends, especially friends who understand that worship better. That is what happened to many of God’s people. We will sample just a few.

Solomon the king was introduced to the king of Egypt and given his daughter for a wife. Of course she could not be enjoined into Israel like Ruth and Rahab because their union was a compromise as she had not switched allegiance to the God of Israel. That is why we see her being moved out of the city of David because she had not changed the objects of her worship. He did the same with all the other princesses that he also married in the process of those connections.

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. (1Kings 11:3)

His was a gentle guidance into idol worship. And that is how the devil uses friends to lead someone to gradually start worshipping money which the leads to the worship of Satan.

Ahab was a tender king but was introduced into idolatry simply by being offered a very highly spiritual wife in the other direction. Due to his naivety he was very easily swallowed into Baal worship.

Another one was Jehoshaphat who formed an alliance with Ahab and we see that decision almost breaking the covenant David had with God through the woman who was the instrument of that alliance. By the way you realize that as the reason David was offered Michal.

What I am pointing out is that money and position attracts company that will initiate you into the worship of mammon. This will gradually lead you down, eventually leading you to the worship of the devil himself though you may never know.

But like I always say the devil really does not mind whether you are aware that you worship him. He is more interested in the aspects of that worship. Doing his will is for him more important than worshipping him as you will be worshipping him anyway, yet thinking otherwise. And that is why there is no religion that confesses to worship the devil yet everything they say or do clearly demonstrates that they are led by him.

That classification once someone connects to money is the route mammon many times uses to lead people down that path.

Ever realized how people who were outspoken concerning flimsy dressing become neutered once they access more wealth and join friends in that class. People who like me have trashed their TVs for uselessness all of a sudden become ardent defenders of even some of the filth TV spews. Or people who took their Bibles most seriously suddenly becoming very liberal in their interpretation of the same.

Worship has changed and the object of that worship is surely though slowly shifting. But the end is living life contrary to God’s revelation, in other words living a life just as the devil would have it.

I will jump to the conclusion of this by asking a few questions for our consideration.

·         Have you ever seen or heard of poor homosexuals?

·         How many poor pornography addicts have you ever heard of?

·         Have you ever heard of poor people involved in sex orgies?

·         Ever seen or heard of the poor swapping spouses as a hobby?

·         Have you heard of the poor visiting strip clubs?

·         How many poor pastors steal their neighbors’ wives?

·         How many poor churches do not mind a self-proclaimed Casanova or harlot in leadership?

·         How many poor churches will employ someone with serious sin issues?

Of course many will use their money to initiate the poor with potential into that lifestyle by offering the same money as bait. This is the same way religions look for Christians with greatest promise and potential using anything from marriage linkages (strategized compromise) to money to have them defect from true worship to their form of Luciferian worship. But potential is the key thing here.

Before you give up let me give you a few verses on riches so that you realize that inasmuch as it is extremely difficult for the worldly rich to get to the kingdom of God, it is not impossible. It is only very hard.

The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. (Proverbs 10:22)

The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination: how much more, when he bringeth it with a wicked mind? (Proverbs 21:27)

He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. (Proverbs 28:22)

He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not. (Proverbs 21:26)