When Money Speaks

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)

There was this girl who ‘loved’ a particular car. It had all the curves the girl craved. From very early in her life it was the car of her dreams. She knew she would be most fulfilled if she got to drive, or even better own that car.

She later got married and even the reality of marriage and family challenges did not dim the clarity of that dream.

As usual God is good and He was able to give her a car. Not just any car however but the car of her dreams. But it went even farther. Not only was it new but it was entirely hers as it was not on loan.

She was grateful to God for that miracle. She almost could not believe that God had finally let her walk in her dream. Any time she was driving that car was a worship experience for her. She intentionally made sure that all the music in that car complimented her gratitude to God.

Then one day she was in the middle of a traffic jam on the highway when she heard another driver hooting from the opposite side of the highway. As usual she decided to look and see what was making that driver hoot. What does she see?

Her classmate and best friend in high school was waving to her. But what she saw next changed her life forever. This woman was driving these huge monsters of the road. The car was huge. Even the distance between them could not hide the fact that it was completely dwarfing her small car. Then she zoomed away in the opposite direction.

‘That is the car I want’, she heard herself groaning. Gone was the gratitude. Gone was the worship. All because of a few seconds’ glimpse!

This is a true story I want you to keep in mind as we develop the thought that money speaks and that sadly, we listen.

It is important to note that money is just a tool just like a gun is a weapon. You will never see a gun taken to court as an accused but as an exhibit though it is the one that is capable of making a bullet accurate and fast enough to kill someone.

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness (exhibits) against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. (James 5: 1 -5)

We see the same with money as it concerns God. It shall be the exhibit for or against us in the Day of Judgment.

But I will hasten to add that money is a most potent weapon in the hands of the enemy of our souls. It is our ignorance (real or feigned) of that fact that we are heaping all that witness against ourselves especially when we develop keener ears for mammon than for God. And it is that single fact that makes this message timely.

When we look at money speaking, we must therefore take the responsibility where it lies. That it is mammon who is actually speaking using money just like a robber will steal using a gun. The devil will use the money we have or are pursuing to create a wrong reality in us just like a gun creates a false boldness in the gun wielding criminal. I am sure you know of people who will take a couple of drinks to develop enough courage to face a situation. That is exactly how the devil uses money.

Ever wondered why a businessman who is the epitome of economy starts developing wasteful ‘economic’ tendencies when the money starts pouring in yet becoming even stinger when dealing with people? How is it possible to take someone to an expensive restaurant and spend more than that friend’s house rent yet fail to give them even bus fare after your meeting? Money is speaking. The meeting is what you wanted and that is what you were paying for in buying that expensive meal. What happens after the lunch was none of your business whether they begged you or not. In short that was the language of money. You spend where you are getting direct returns.

Why is it that most off road vehicles are on the best roads? Why does one buy a vehicle that swills fuel like water to use it driving on traffic jams in the city? Incidentally they have no intention of ever taking those fuel guzzling off roaders outside those paved roads. Again mammon is speaking.

Why does someone take a loan to buy those kinds of vehicles that will serve no purpose apart from assuaging their pride that we know God resists? Many times the deposit required to get a loan to buy that vehicle can be able to buy a more modest vehicle and leave enough to fuel it for a long time. The annual insurance premium for the big car can also buy a more reasonable car and leave a sizeable balance. That happens because money is speaking and someone is listening.

Why is it that someone has the family squeeze into a saloon car yet when the children are all gone and money pours in drives a huge ten passenger car and will not even give a neighbor a lift? Does he expect the children to ride in that car? Never. But he continues driving that uneconomical vehicle because money has spoken and he has listened and responded.

Or take dressing for example. Why is it that when people are down the economic ladder they are very conservative in their dress yet become more licentious as the money ceases being a struggle? Why is it that many people are very devout when they are climbing the economic ladder that they will never miss any spiritually leaning activity from all night prayer vigils to sacrificial giving yet seem to become too preoccupied to attend church predictably when they ‘arrive’?

Why is it that people who were complete teetotalers start taking a social drink once in a while once they have comfortable money margins?  Why is it that people who in their earlier years knew that TV was a negative influence that they exiled it from their house decide to subscribe to paid TV channels once money pours in? How does one who was always available to his family that he was always home on time all of a sudden substitute that with gifts once the money pours in and start spending that time with the boys (men his age)?

Why is it that people who were pillars of virtue all of a sudden start playing games with the young of the opposite sex? How does a pastor who dreaded sin and was averse to any appearance of sin go to hotels to entice waitresses to become his concubines when the money pours in? How does a pastor who in his earlier years could not touch a coin from the offerings start to craftily persuade the church to buy him everything from a car to a mansion when the church is giving him more than enough support because the money is there? How does a pastor who earlier used to take great offense when the church is called his all of a sudden start treating the church as his personal property (some even dividing it to his wife and children) when the money comes in?

Money speaks. And it speaks so persuasively, the reason being that the devil is the one behind that voice. Just like he used the serpent to tempt Eve, he will use the security and ambition money appears to create to so subtly speak into our lives. And how we react to that voice determines for the greater part on who is running our lives.

All the preaching about prosperity for God’s people overlooks that simple fact. And it is sad, though not surprising that the source of all that preaching is mammon. We must be immersed in the Bible enough to discriminate God’s type of prosperity to the devil’s. God’s prosperity results in a worshipful relationship with God that is totally surrendered to His agenda. It also creates a detached relationship with that money. A few examples are worth looking at.

Abraham, though the one who ought to have ordered Lot chose to give him the lion’s share of the land that he had been promised and Lot had just followed him and so was legally entitled to nothing. He was not threatened that Lot chose the fertile land and left him the wasteland.

Samuel could dare all Israel to say whether he had taken any gift by virtue of his position yet he had served them all his life. Moses did something similar.

David transferred all the gifts he received and conquered for the building of the temple that God had told him he couldn’t build.

These are just a few of the people as the Bible is literally flooded with God’s people who had a detached relationship with money from Elijah and Elisha to Daniel.

But we also have those who are too close to home to ignore. Saul had been right with God until the success and the proceeds of his position got into his head as we say. He then started listening to the money and those who made it. Eventually he failed to care what God said or even whether He did.

Solomon was similar. So close to God initially that his prayer was noted by God. Yet when money came he failed to care to do what God’s word clearly said. Again the money spoke and he listened.

And we see the same with Uzziah, Hezekiah and several others of God’s people. They started very well, even worshipfully yet ended like people who had never come in contact with God or His word. There are verses that very few preachers of today are scared to read, leave alone preach from. This is especially when the rich start coming to their churches or begin giving those large gifts. They preach as if in the Luke 16 incident the wrong person was taken to hell since he was prosperous.

And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (Mark 10: 23 – 25)

Jesus does not hate rich people as He died for them too.

I will summarize by saying that money speaks a language contrary to the voice of God. It persuades us to live contrary to God’s revelation. Let us look at these verses. I have expanded some statements to help us understand how they relate to us today.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world (money and things that money can buy). If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh (selfish and self seeking human cravings for pleasure), and the lust of the eyes (greed and desire to amass), and the pride of life (a desire to show off and prove that I am better than the rest), is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. (1John 2:15 – 17)

And the more we continue listening to money the less we care to know what God and his word says. Then we will start neglecting even what we know God’s word clearly says. Eventually we start seeking the scriptures, though not to know what God would have us do. We will search the scriptures to look for the justification for what we are hearing from mammon. And this is the source of many sermons today. We think God is impressed when we defend money so vehemently using His word.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (James 4:4)

But it is not all hopeless. God has His remnant even in this adulterous generation though they will not parade themselves. Let me give an incident of some time ago.

As those who have been following my writing ministry for some time may know I was great friends with a team that got saved in the East Africa revival of 1939/49. They really loved me and we got on well. They waited for me to close school or college and they would send for me to join them if they had activities from camps to missions.

One day I arrive home and find a message that I was required to go to their base as there was a series of crusades that were planned. Just before I got to the base I met one of the team getting into his car. I need to state that even in those 80s he was a millionaire. He alighted to greet me and welcome me since that was far from our home. He then told me that he was leaving for a business trip.

‘But I was told to come for a mission.’ I told him.

He had forgotten in his busyness. But what he did next impressed me. Though there were no cell phones or e-mail to officially postpone the businesses he simply unpacked and started preparing for what he had forgotten. I do not know how much money he may have lost by that single decision. It reminds me of this.

LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. (Psalm 15: 1, 4)

It is possible to hear from God amidst all the noise money is making to attract our attention. But it is a worthwhile pursuit.

I am sure many always ask why I write these very ‘negative’ exhortations. I have said again and again that I write more for me than for you. I am writing a rebuke to myself in advance so that by the time God takes me where He purposes I will have no choice in the matter than obey or choose outright rebellion. I write so that I can’t use ignorance as my defense. I write so that you can use my messages to bring me back to the cross should I be tempted to veer of the straight and narrow for whatever reason.

Please save them to dash them against me when you even suspect that I am straying. And this is because I know that God’s call for me is taking me very far, farther than feet can walk or vehicles can drive. You need to save me from being enslaved to the resources God will bring my way to pursue the call He has placed on me.