The Sunday Mail
Dr David Broom Define The Line
It is interesting to note that in the New Testament alone, there are 218 verses that talk about faith; 210 verses that talk about salvation and 2085 verses that talk about money! On this fact alone, it would appear that the prosperity preachers are talking about the right stuff. But why did Jesus talk about money? He tells us in Matthew 6:2 why – there is a connection
between your heart and your treasure. What you invest in, you will become attached to and what you are attached to you will invest in.
Jesus is after our hearts and was warning us to be careful about where we invest because our hearts will attach to it. He wanted to teach us to invest in His Kingdom so our hearts would be attached to it.
Have you ever noticed the cult-like devotion people have towards prosperity preachers? The reason is the preachers convince them to give through manipulation and then their hearts become attached. Understanding this, Jesus makes some interesting connections in verse 24. He sets up an inevitable master/slave relationship in regards to money. Whenever we deal with money, we must know this. We must determine who the master is and who the slave is.
As we serve the purposes of the King here on earth and deal with money, we must make money our servant to bring about the purposes of God on earth.
We are to make money a slave to God and the establishment of His Kingdom. If we do that, we make sure that we are not subject to the spirit of Mammon as we cannot serve both God and Mammon.
However, there is a flip side to this. If we allow ourselves to misunderstand money we can be in trouble. Money makes a good servant but a cruel master.
If we make God our goal and seek Him, we make money our servant. If, however, we make money our goal and seek it, we make God our servant to get us money. Enter the spirit of Mammon! The spirit of Mammon is the Philistine God that promises prosperity. It is the spirit that creates the desire to “keep up with the Jones”.If we allow the spirit of Mammon into our lives and churches, we end up with a huge problem. Again, Jesus set up a master-slave relationship with the spirit of Mammon and money.
How many times in prosperity churches are we encouraged that if we do not have enough we should sow so we can reap? Classic statements like, “if what you have in your hand is not big enough to be your harvest then make it your seed”, “If you have a need, sow a seed”.
All of these statements – in light of the servant-master relationship Jesus warned us of – make God the magician who is going to get us money! I dare say the spirit of Mammon is most dominant on Sundays and sadly in churches. The sad truth is that it removes God from our churches as we cannot, Jesus said, serve them both.
Money is needed in the world we live in. Managing money is important; therefore, principles related to it must be taught in our churches. However, the first principle we need to understand is that if our goal is never to get money, increase our wealth or multiply what we have, and not to press resources into use for the King, we are likely to end up being ruled by the spirit of Mammon whilst trying to look like a church.
Preachers who sell prayers, front row seats or prophesy are clearly being ruled by the spirit of Mammon as they are using God to get money.
Therefore, Jesus said they cannot be serving God at the same time. We need to warn people to avoid such false prophets and ensure that the servant of money never becomes a master or we will jeopardize the Lordship of Jesus in our lives.
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