One of the things that turned my stomach recently, and I trust that it was a divine thing, was going to the web site of a popular church in our city and finding prominently there on the Index page the heading “Product”, that is, things for sale. This unpleasant incident provoked me to further prayer and the reflections below. My sense is that what I raise here is something that God is very unhappy about and is something that requires a warning for the church in Perth.
One of the more disturbing features of Christian practice in some of its more contemporary forms is the emphasis on money. The well – known joke that some churches preach two sermons, the second being: “you need more money and the way to get it is to give to the storehouse of God”, exemplifies this trend. The problem is this situation is not funny. Amongst other things, the New Testament offers no precedent for such an appeal. Jesus was supported privately (Luke 8:1-3). The “collection” that Paul promoted was neither for his ministry nor for a congregation that he planted but for the “poor” in Jerusalem (Acts 24:17; Rom 15:26; 1 Cor 16:1-3; 2 Cor 8-9 ).
This tendency to focus on wealth is unfortunately not at all new. One of the distinguishing features of the evil kings of Judah was that they opened up the Temple to idols (1 Ki 15:12; 16:13; 2 Ki 17:12 etc.). These idols were worshipped, not for their inner goodness, but for their ability to meet the needs of their followers. They were gods of military might and economic advancement.
The prophets continually railed against these practices with an intense fiery passion: “within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (Jer 20:9). In this context the word of God was “like a fire… and like a hammer that breaks the rocks to pieces.” (Jer 23:29). Idols drew out from God a wrath that was not satisfied until Israel was a nation no more and had to be revived by the miracle of the return from exile (Jer 22:8-9).
This was not a strange or extreme reaction but something that reflected the very nature of God. Because God had always put his “eyes and heart” (2 Chron 11:16) in the Temple, it was his own very being that was wounded by the presence there of “abominable” and “loathsome” idols (Ezek 8:5-18). His wounded holiness must rise up and destroy all that defiles the land. “Therefore, thus says the LORD, assuredly I am going to bring disaster upon them that they cannot escape; though they cry out to me I will not listen to them.” (Jer 11:11).
Even though Israel never returned to visible idol worship after its exile to Babylon, the hearts of the people remained unchanged. Outwardly haters of idolatry, the religious rulers of Jesus’ day were bound by the love of money. Some of the Jews of the time twisted the law of God in order to control their finances (Mark 7:11). The most biblically learned men, the Pharisees, were “lovers of money” (Luke 16:14) and the rulers of the Temple, the Sadducees, were wealthy land owners. In this “money-grubbing” context the death of Jesus is easier to understand.
The Jerusalem Temple was the biggest economic hub of the eastern Roman Empire. The trade that surrounded the Temple through its services and sacrifices for Jews coming from throughout the empire was enormous. So, when Jesus, in typical prophetic fashion, came burning with the “zeal” of the fire of God against idolatry (John 2:17) and upset the money changers (Mark 11:15- 17) the whole economic framework of Judaism was threatened. Perversely, Jesus’ life had to be forfeited (Mark 11:18) because it was reckoned of less worth than the trade in animal sacrifices that he came to replace.
The spiritual rulers of the day refused to see that in the person of Jesus, God himself had come to his house to test the worth of what was practised there. He tests it and finds it wanting, just as has been prophesied (Mal 3:1). “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (Mal 3:2). The red – hot holiness of Christ in the Spirit burned against the synthesis of the spiritual and economic powers of his day. As the prophets of old predicted the destruction of the nation, he likewise knew Jerusalem must be destroyed (Mark 12:9- 12; Luke 23:28- 30). For this vendetta against false worship he was crucified under trumped up charges.
The hold of money over people is exactly the same as the power of visible idolatry. When Jesus said: “you cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt 6:24), he uses “serve” in the sense of “worship”. Spiritually, money can be an object of worship. Paul makes this totally clear when he twice warns Christians, “greed is idolatry” (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5).
Money and religion have always been a potent mix. Simon Magus tried to buy the power of the Holy Spirit and was warned of everlasting destruction for his sin (Acts 8:18 – 22). The letters of the New Testament consistently warn of the love of money, especially among Christian leaders (1 Tim 3:3; 6:10; 2 Tim 3:2; Heb 13:5; 1 Pet 5:2). Early false teachers were characteristically people greedy for gain (1 Tim 6:5; 2 Pet 2:3).
It is impossible to love God purely and at the same time have a comparable emphasis on material prosperity. Sooner or later, either God or money comes to prevail. The early Puritans, John Wesley and many others in the history of Western culture, have sensed that when wealth and spirituality have been fused together as something to be desired it is always money that has in the end prevailed. (The church of Laodicea clearly had this problem Rev 3:14 -22). In “Christian” nations of the West the love of money has led to general spiritual decline, itself a judgement of God upon a rebellious people.
As the standards of godliness and morality drastically decline, sooner or later a godly remnant cries out to the Lord for a visitation of holy power. Eventually, a spiritual awakening occurs, godliness increases the prosperity of a nation and then the cycle seems to repeats itself all over again. The only this that predictably keeps the church free from the plague of money–loving is relentless persecution. For example, some of the house–church leaders in China today are more fearful of the rising prosperity than of the opposition of the state.If this pattern is entrenched in the history of the people of God, where are we today?
I believe that we are in a bad place. For better or worse, I have been in a position to know that Christian personalities and performers can charge up to $10,000 per night. Some preachers will not do a series of sermons without a guarantee of a certain take.
Others insist on the offering. Some will only come on the basis of first class travel and five star accommodation. Not only is there no precedent for this sort of luxury in the lives of Jesus and the apostles, but it sends a very bad message to suspicious pagan Aussie culture.
To my mind, there are evidences of the divine disfavour for this sort of materialism. Why do we hear of miraculous healings in other nations but never seem to credibly witness them in western nations? God does not have any favourites (Rom 2:11; Eph 6:9), so we must be displeasing him by our sin. Someone might say (I am being sarcastic now), they have the miracles but we have the music. Not only would I say, give me the miracles any time because this is something I know only God can do, but there is not even the mention of music in the New Testament.
Things are even worse than I intimate above. As soon as something great happens in America, or the U.K. or Australia it seems to be “marketed”. Books come out, the church becomes a Christian tourist destination, and the senior pastor starts to tour the world and so on. This is a very long way from the apostolic environment when after Ananias and Sapphira were slain in the Spirit people actually feared to get too close to the apostles (Acts 5:1- 16).
Who is praying for this sort of apostolic anointing to come on the church in Perth? What we really need is not more money but a fire-storm of holiness. We need true priests in the house of God, those who will fearlessly and ruthlessly teach the people the difference between the holy and the unholy, the unclean and the common (Ezek 22:26; 44:23).
Zechariah prophesied that in the coming time of holiness there would no longer be “traders in the house of the LORD of Hosts” (Zech 14:20-21). I long for that day! Do you?
Let me issue a warning to the church in Perth. When God moves in this city in power he wants to move in a pure and mature fashion, for he is sick to the stomach by bartering in holy things. If the church in this city partakes of the characteristic sins of the culture, allowing the Babylonian spirit of trade for profit to prevail in its midst then the Lord himself will make sure that the characteristic woes of the age prevail even amongst his people (Rev 18: 4-19). A Pandora’s Box of trouble will flow out of any Perth revival that makes a few people rich and famous.
As I write these final words I am struck by my own slowness. My present experience of pastoral ministry teaches me that already all over this city the people of God are being overcome by the characteristic ills of the age – depression, anxiety, family dysfunction, disease, divorce and so on – that no number of books, videos, tapes, seminars or anything else they pay for seems able to cure. We are already in need of coming out of Babylon.
The only remedy for our idolatry, our love of money, is the cure of the cross, for the cross is God’s place of no compromise, the place where everything that is unclean is destroyed. “Only what the cross cleanses can the Holy Spirit fill.”