06 August 2023
Let's make a distinction: It is not a sin to profit in business. It is a sin to worship Mammon. If you are serving Jehovah, you will not put profits first. You will put people first. You will be altogether willing to go bankrupt and lose everything if that's what the Father has in mind for you. The only question then is when and how.
Our Lord has commissioned some of His servants to gather wealth for any number of reasons. As long as you understand it's about His reputation and not about you, there's no problem with having or not having material means. The Prosperity Gospel is no different from the False Messianic Expectations of the Jews. It's not a demand made of God, but making a god of the demand for physical comfort. It's the a priori total rejection that God would dare to ask you to face discomfort in this life. It is hedonism dressed up as religion.
Another hideous lie from Hell is the notion that belonging to a community of faith subjects you to demands for your time and resources made by other members of the community. God granted you those resources for you to bless His name. You are responsible for making sure you use that wealth according to His divine moral purpose. Humans have no authority to demand anything from you. They can ask; they can make appeals if they feel moved, but it's critical that you not release those resources falsely.
In other words, it is a law of God that you follow your own convictions, not the convictions of someone else. Nothing stops you from taking advice from someone who clearly has no interest in the resources themselves. There are people of faith like that, though they may be rare.
I'm just like any other man of faith: There are things I would like to do that I cannot afford. We all have wishes of that sort. Whether they are good, bad or just ordinary dreams is for God to decide. If you are the one carrying that dream, you are too close to decide if it's a blessing. You must submit to the Lord and ask. And then you must wait until He answers in your spirit, or replies in some other way.
Most of us are prone to a false sense of urgency about such dreams. I cannot count the times I acted rashly with resources such that I now regret it. In these latter years of my life, I've become more cynical of my own motivations. It's not regret for the resources themselves, but I regret that I didn't wait longer to see how God was going to work. The resources aren't the point; God has an unlimited supply. The point is learning to listen to Him instead of your human passions.
Thus, as you might imagine, I had to dispose of stuff that was surplus, an unnecessary burden. I've given away a tremendous amount of wealth over the decades of my life. That's because My generous Father has often supplied things that it turned out I didn't really need. People had given me most of what I owned at various times. His patience and indulgence manifested as stunning when I realized what kind of mistakes I had made.
Yes, there were times I did without. Obviously, they weren't fatal. The honest truth is that I suspect God is going to keep me alive long enough to be very tired of living. I've already said I expect to be here for the solar catastrophes to strike in about twenty years. I can certainly mess up things to the point I die earlier, but barring major mistakes, I believe I'll be here to see the disasters get rolling. But that means living through an awful lot of man-made disasters before we get there. I was raised in deprivation, and I'll die in it. This is my natural element.
You don't need to hear the tales of my poverty-stricken youth. All I will say about that is it simply proves what the Bible teaches, that the poor struggle less with faith than wealthy. Faith was all we had when I was a child. I'm not flawless by any means -- some of you could help me fill some holes in my faith -- but trusting the Lord for stuff has been easier for me than most people I've met.
That in itself simply shows that God has called me to hang out with those of His children who struggle with it. I know for a certainty that I'm not alone in holding such an attitude about material property, but I've simply never spent that much time with such people. It's a rare treat when I do encounter them; it's like long lost family.
A related false doctrine is that God would never ask you to live with physical maladies. If you reject the notion God's will includes suffering from various disabilities and sorrows, then you need to rip Job out of your Bible. You'll also have to get rid of the part where the Lord told Paul, "My grace is sufficient." This life is supposed to suck. It's an unpleasant training camp for Eternity. If you tell me suffering is never God's will, you are a liar against Him.
When Jesus warned His disciples, as recorded in Matthew 24, that there would come a day in their lifetimes when Jerusalem would be under siege and the Temple destroyed, He said they should pray it not come in winter. Had it been a winter siege, the tribulation would be the worst in human history, and would stand unmatched to the end of time.
Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great suffering unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen. And if those days had not been cut short, no one would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. (Matthew 24:20-22 NET Bible)
Apparently, they did pray, and God granted their request, because the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD came in the spring, and ran through late summer before Roman troops finally broke through the last wall and plundered the city.
Thus, we cannot know if that was the pinnacle of human tribulation, but you can bet it came close to the limits of what God would allow. Whatever is coming between now and the End of Time won't be significantly worse than that year in Jerusalem. I rather suspect that the intensity will be rather low for a long time, rising slowly. That's based on what I believe about the people trying to bring that suffering to us, and because it's what we've seen so far, but also because of God's promises.
Folks, unless the Lord calls you home for whatever reason, you can survive what's coming. The final blow of solar catastrophes will surely finish most of humanity, but until that happens, we can make it by faith. And when that final testing does come, should the Lord have use for you in the aftermath, your faith will get you there.
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