Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
You’ve probably heard it said that money talks, and when it does most of the world listens. If people would listen to God the way they listen to the call of money God would have a grand audience.
Don’t get me wrong, money is not bad, but the love of it as Paul said in I Tim.6:9-10 is a root of all kinds of evil. Jesus Christ said in Matt.6:24 that man cannot serve God and money at the same time. If you love the one you cannot serve the other and you will even grow to hate the other. Wealth can do for people what nothing else in this world can do. It can provide for most temporal needs. It can provide physical comfort, a temporary peace of mind, nice things, and it can also provide power. Solomon said there was nothing new under the sun. Because he was the world’s wealthiest man he could buy anything money could buy. He bought wine, women and song with his money. But when it was all said and done he was miserable. He said he, the wisest man in the world, had become the biggest of all fools, Ecc.2:15.
Life became an endless circle, as our former Pastor, Dr. Richard Frampton used to say referring to Solomon, “Life was like a merry-go-round and all Solomon wanted to do was get off.” Money did not buy Solomon peace; it bought him vanity and vexation of spirit, Ecc.5:10.
The lure of money continues to have the same affect on individuals, communities and even nations, and there is a time coming when the lure of wealth is going to bankrupt the entire globe.
With the strong push toward a global economy and a one world economic currency the world will be set up for a universal stock market crash. Years ago before the age of the Internet, and rapid telecommunications and rapid travel; before the age of outsourcing of manufacturing and services, before the age of off shoring of entire companies to other countries, each nation had some control over its financial stability. But today with companies, not just farming out work to third world countries such as Mexico, but also shutting down factories here in America and setting up shop in China and other countries America is a sitting duck for whatever the rest of the world wants.
And now businesses in China are outsourcing their work to even poorer provinces of China. China is even sending work to poorer nations. Japan has gone to sending much of its productive work to other nations, including China. Thomas Friedman says in his book, The World is Flat, that with all the tax incentives, education incentives, and subsidies, on top of cheap labor this is encouraging even more companies’ world wide to off shoring their manufacturing facilities. The economies of the world are being flattened day by day. Friedman says there is a race to the bottom. Who can get the most for the least, and whoever does wins. The China price is a term used today to describe how low can you go.
What we must ask ourselves is “What is driving all of this change?” It doesn’t take long to answer this question when we realize Americans are the number one consumer of these cheap goods, and fascinating gadgets. We live in excess in our nation. Is capitalism the problem and was Karl Mark and Fredrick Engels right in their Communist Manifesto?
No, capitalism is not bad as some would have us to believe, but the Bible does say covetousness is sinful. Covetousness is a form of idolatry. One of the New Testament Greek language adjectives for covetousness is philarguros.
This is a compound word which is translated from philos, fondness plus arguros, silver,
II Tim.3:2.
Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament words describes the person who possesses this trait as most often “cruel as well as grasping.”
When the trait of covetousness grips an entire nation, and people worship the almighty dollar then judgment is coming. This is one reason I believe the repealing of the Blue Laws has hurt our nation. Now businesses are open on the Lord ’s Day and people miss church. Where the temptation was not there before it is now. If we will learn to live on less we will have a lot less headaches and a lot less temptations to forsake God. Loving God more than things will eliminate an awful lot of sorrow in this life.
Many times believers do not have the mastery; the control over the details of life and subsequently the details of life have the mastery over them. Our temporal priorities seem to always push aside our spiritual obligations to God. God becomes an after thought to our personal wants.
During the tribulation period judgment will also come upon the god of materialism. The rush toward political and religious control of the world will go hand in hand with the rush for economic supremacy.
Today’s message is part of the introduction to Rev.18 as it deals with the downfall of commercial Babylon.
In Revelation 17 we saw how God allowed the Antichrist to take down religious Babylon, but now in Rev.18 we see God himself taking down commercial Babylon.
Commercial Babylon represents a man made economic system, demonically inspired, used to control the world and the lives of those living in it. Today it represents not just money, but also culture and most notably the stars of the world with all their fame and fortune. It is what young men and women aspire to. They want to imitate the rich and famous. They want to imitate commercial Babylon with its fashion and boardwalk models and designer bags and shoes and accessories and high end life styles. It is idolatry and it feeds people a false sense of self-importance and superiority over the rank and file of humanity. This culture chokes out the goodness of God.
Commercial Babylon becomes the servant of the Beast as his mark must be upon those who want to buy and sell. It is a place of evil corruption and uncleanness. Whether this Babylon is a rebuilt city on the Euphrates River or not it represents the third century B.C. philosopher Epicurus. He taught a philosophy which says, “Pleasure is the chief aim in life; that the gods do not want to be bothered with the affairs of man, so do not worry about them.”
The world is certainly filled with folks who agree with Epicurus, even Christians forsake the word of God as they delude themselves into thinking Christ doesn’t mind if we ignore him.
The wealthy church of Laodicea which John spoke of in Rev.2:14-19 describes a church increased with goods and in need of nothing. They were defeated by the details of life. Our Lord said they were poor and blind and naked. They were spiritually bankrupt. They had so much of this world’s goods that they had lost any fervor for the Lord. They were excited about things of which the Lord is not impressed. Sometimes believers tell me about some new car or house or possession or gadget they recently purchased and their eyes are all aglow, their speech is rapid and their heart rate soars. But when it comes to such an excitement about a biblical truth or weekly faithfulness to the local church their countenance is quite subdued.
There is no excitement, and no rapid heart rate. We know our Lord knew what he was talking about when he said, “For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.” Matt.6:21.