Like it or not, there is ample evidence that Satan is the
temporary ruler of this world, and he gives enormous wealth, pleasure, fame and
power to those who serve him! With this in mind, it makes me wonder why there
is so little difference between the way a Pop Music Star might live, and many
Leaders in the Church today. Despite protestations otherwise, many Preachers
seem to live in great luxury, and to care little for the poor and needy that
adore and bless them for giving them FALSE pleasure and empty hope. For these wicked people, this Maxim holds true:
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for
which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced
themselves through with many sorrows.” ~ 1 Timothy 6:10
One biblical test of whether or not a wealthy person is a
servant of God or Satan can be found in how they acquire and handle their
wealth. Satan’s minions are those who acquire their wealth by making false
promises to people, or that offer them fleeting pleasure like most Politicians,
Pop Stars and Prosperity Teachers! Satan’s minions are also those who do not
sell all that they do not need and give the proceeds to the poor and distressed
people who love them, but hold onto the majority of their wealth. As Yahshua
said in Luke 18:18-23:
“Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is
good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’
‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your
father and your mother.’ “
And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.”
So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still
lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was
very rich.” ~ Luke 18:18-23
Based on this Scripture, a wealthy person who is proud,
stingy and selfish is likely NOT serving God, but Satan! Despite all the lip
service that they may pay to God, this includes many Church Leaders, who live
in great luxury while many of those they minister to are suffering without all
the basic necessities of life. By wealthy I do NOT mean someone who may own a
nice house and a nice car, can afford a nice vacation every now and then, and
has enough money saved for emergencies and their retirement. I am talking about
people who have thousands, millions or even billions of dollars in assets that
they simply do not need to be happy, or to be looked after.
As alluded to in the Gospel of Luke 18:18-23, the Word of
God tells us that those who are blessed with wealth within the Church should be
generous with others. Those blessed with great wealth should not be stingy with
their excess, but should be ready to give out of their excess to all within
their community of believers that might have need. This is also echoed in the
Book of Acts:
“Now all who believed were together, and had all things in
common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as
anyone had need.” ~ Acts 2:44-45
In my opinion, this is the greatest and most overlooked
teaching in the New Testament! As laid forth in Acts, believers shared
everything with one another as there was need, so that no one went without! Yet
its message seems to be completely overlooked by the majority of today’s
Churches. Indeed, many professing believers within the Church don’t really know
or care about the people that they might sit next to every Saturday or Sunday in
Church.
There are, of course, exceptions to this. Even when Church
leaders may be deaf to the cries of their needy parishioners, many fellow
parishioners are not! They often hear and respond accordingly. In fact, before
I had a ministry of my own, other believers extended this sort of generosity to
me on several occasions. One time this happened was in 1990, when my husband
and I were given several hundred dollars in cash by our church friends when we
did not have enough money to pay for rent or to buy food. Another time this
happened was in 1994, when we needed to move and could not afford to pay movers
or even rent a truck, and many in our Church family gladly helped us without
charge. How blessed I felt at these times when our friends in the Church truly
exemplified the teachings of Yahshua toward us!
This has also happened very recently when I have suffered
from a lack of funds that were needed to pay for the basic necessities of live
that help me to retain a home base in order to keep my ministry alive. Several
of my brethren in Yahshua have come forward with financial gifts repeatedly to
help me when I have asked for it, and I am truly grateful for their continual
help, prayers and love! These people have shown me that there truly are
believers in the Church today who have embraced all of Yahshua’s teachings, and
do their best to live by them.
Sadly though, in almost every case where I have had need and
found help among my brethren, Church Leaders have NOT responded, but only my
friends. But even friends within a congregation can fail to minister to the
needs of those around them at times. Another example from my past illustrates
this point:
For a time when I was younger and a new believer, I found
myself trying to reconcile my new found faith in God with the pain of my past.
I was trying to deal with my negative emotions and personality traits that were
a result of being raised in a completely codependent environment by cruel
alcoholic parents and siblings, and I found myself reaching out to my new
church family at home-group meetings. But many of my new friends in the Church
had no idea how to deal with the huge amount of pain that I had
experienced.
As a result, many of them brushed it off with platitudes
like “That’s all in the past now, and you shouldn’t dwell on it.” or “You are a
new creation in Christ, and the past can no longer affect you, so why are you
letting it?” Some of them also referred me to the Church counseling office, and
told me not to share these hurtful experiences or ask for prayer at my home
group because it was “disrupting” the meetings. There were no offers to
intercede with prayer or private counseling and mentoring, and no sermons about
how to deal with loss or shame - just ostracism and more pain.
This is why I eventually turned to some leaders in my Church
to find the emotional help and support I needed. Fortuitously, the Church that
I attended at the time ran a professional counseling therapy clinic. However, I
initially could not utilize it, as a one hour session cost $65 to $85 an hour
even back then (this was between 1993 and 1994), and my husband and I were
living below the poverty level at the time. But because I wasn’t able to find
emotional healing or intercessory prayer in the home groups I attended, I finally
went into their office in an act of desperation and asked if there was some way
they could help me anyway. To my surprise, they did not turn me away as I had
expected, but gave me some forms to fill out, and said I could submit them to
see if they would give me therapy sessions for less.
They did finally agree to see me for $35 a session, which
was still beyond what we could pay. I was happy about this, but soon learned
that the counseling sessions themselves left much to be desired. They consisted
of me talking about my past hurts, and the counselor psychoanalyzing the
underlying causes of my pain without offering me much via prayers to say or
Scriptural teachings to think about. In fact, they failed miserably by not feeding
me spiritually with wisdom from the Bible or with prayer. As a result, they did
not nurture me to grow, or give me practical solutions to my problems that I
could have found through intercessory prayer, and in a working knowledge of
Scripture.
So after almost a year of me crying in pain and them patting
me on the back and taking my money, I had had enough and canceled my sessions,
saying that I could no longer afford to go there. As an interesting side note,
absolutely none of the people in the counseling center, who were all members of
the same parish, showed me any sympathy or concern after that, or tried to help
or comfort me in any way outside of the counseling office.
Since then, God has laid it on my heart that these sorts of
deplorable situations happen constantly in Churches all over the world,
especially historically in the Catholic and Protestant Churches
in the wealthy Western nations that were once considered to be Christian
nations. There is very little love and charity being taught or shown, and many
people within the Church are suffering needlessly because they are not being
taught how to preach and teach from God’s Word about how to love, pray and
give! This is especially true of Mega-Churches and Pastors, where the amount
that they take in everyday is completely disproportionate to the amount that
they give in return on a daily basis.
As an example, there was a recent story about how Joel
Osteen’s church safe was robbed of the offerings earned just on that weekend,
which were in excess of $600,000! How much of that huge amount of money do you
think goes back into taking care of the poor and needy within their church? I’d
wager that very little of it does, despite whatever charity programs or
missions they may have.
My message here today is extremely unpopular, and I know
that in many cases, it will fall on deaf ears and cause people’s hearts to
harden toward me even more. But this is the truth of the Church today, and God
will not be mocked by Pastors who are wolves fleecing their sheep, or by sheep
that are blind, deaf and dumb to the truth of the Gospel because they refuse to
study the Bible or pray on their own, or to seek wisdom directly from God!
Let’s face it! The message that I needed to hear back then
in counseling, but which was never preached to me by any Pastor or Counselor
that I have listened to, is the reason why we suffer! Despite the great
evidence to the contrary, most people suffer enormously due to their own sins
committed in ignorance, and the sins of those that have been entrusted to care
for them. In addition, Yahshua made it clear that those who truly love and
follow Him will suffer unjust persecution in this life. Furthermore, there are
many hints in Scripture that believers need to continually pray to God in
repentance, and for protection against the attacks of the enemy.
Sadly, however, not one of the Pastors or Counselors I knew in
the past ever told me that, or showed me how to protect myself by utilizing the
Intercessory Prayers that are found throughout the Psalms, and which I only learned
about very recently from several concerned and loving brethren. These are
called Imprecatory Psalms, and I wrote two blog articles about protecting ourselves
with these psalms, as well as another blog article about not casting Spiritual Pearls
before Swine that every believer ought to read. Here are the Titles and Links
to them:
BELIEVERS CAN BE CURSED,
SO LEARN TO PROTECT YOURSELF!
~~****~~***~~****~~
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE
CAST OUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE
~~****~~***~~****~~'
SPIRITUAL WARFARE - PSALM 91, PSALM 140,
AND TWO SAMPLE DELIVERANCE PRAYERS
As an example of this in the Bible, unrepentant sin was
behind the sufferings and great losses that the children of Israel experienced
as they fell further and further away from serving the One True God, and committed
spiritual fornication with other gods. This truly began on a national scale
with King Solomon, who - in his later years - had a weakness for pretty women.
As a result, he sinned greatly against God because of allowing the foreign
women in his harem to worship whichever god they chose and to teach others to
do so - a sin that he apparently never repented of.
Sadly, Israel
paid dearly for those sins when they followed after Bathsheba’s Hittite gods
and the strange gods of Solomon’s foreign harem women, which the people of Israel
never fully repented of. That is why both the Kingdom
of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah
eventually fell to foreign powers, and the Israelites lost EVERYTHING,
including their wealth, their freedom, their power, and their land. Their folly
is a testament to all future generations that God’s mercy, love and forgiveness
do NOT cancel the debts we owe when we sin, and there will always be
consequences that need to be paid for our sins unless we repent.
There are also many passages in the books that David and
Solomon wrote where the wealth and enjoyment of the enemies of Israel
are mentioned in relation to the SUFFERING of God’s servants, including
themselves. They talk of how the wicked prosper and have every good thing,
while the children of God go without and are cursed.
Part of the reason for this that was sometimes acknowledged
by the writers of the Psalms and Proverbs is that there are curses attached to sin
by God, and since no one in Israel
could keep the Law perfectly, they suffered for it. They all sinned, and were
eventually cursed by God with sorrows - both within their families, and
nationally as foreign powers began to antagonize and then attack Israel. As
God firmly announced to the Israelites:
“Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27
the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command
you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord
your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after
other gods which you have not known.” ~ Deuteronomy 11:26-28
What most believers do NOT realize, however, is that the
same curses that God listed later in the Book of Deuteronomy (See
Deuteronomy Chapter 27) hold
true for sinners today, even if they claim the Blood of Christ for redemption. Unless
we repent and plead for mercy after we have sinned, and make amends to those we
have sinned against, there are dire consequences that must be paid for all sin
that include the loss of property and relationships, and can even cost us our health
and our lives.
In fact, despite many false teachings to the contrary, even
belief in Christ does not erase the curses that these sins bring upon a person
or their world. Furthermore, it does not matter if a professing believer has
previously repented of their sins, accepted Christ, been baptized, or even if
they currently serve within the Church! For proof of this, read the story of
the married couple called Ananias and Sapphira in Acts, Chapter 5! These
supposed servants of Christ were both baptized believers within the Church, but
they paid dearly for lying to their Church leaders. They also were not given a “fair
trial” or a “second chance”! Instead, they died without mercy:
“But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife,
sold a possession. 2 And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being
aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3 But
Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit
and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? 4 While it remained,
was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why
have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to
God.”
5 Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed
his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. 6 And the
young men arose and wrapped him up, carried him out, and buried him.
7 Now it was about three hours later when his wife came in,
not knowing what had happened. 8 And Peter answered her, “Tell me whether you
sold the land for so much?”
She said, “Yes, for so much.”
9 Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed
together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look, the feet of those who have
buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Then
immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. And the young men
came in and found her dead, and carrying her out, buried her by her husband. 11
So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.” ~
Acts 5:1-11
This story is in the Bible for a very important reason. It
is there to convict people of the seriousness of their sins even under Grace,
and their need to learn that the whole Gospel of God never promises riches,
wealth, happiness or freedom from hurt or want for anyone in this life, even
the most upright and sterling in character among them. We live in a world full of
sorrows and tribulations, and the only real comfort we will find in this world
either comes directly from God Himself, or from those who truly serve Him and
His people out of love. As Yahshua said:
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it
hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet
because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you.” ~ John 15:17-19
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have
peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world.” ~ John 16:33
Yet despite the fact that the world hates those who love
Yahshua, our Father God Yahweh is an ever-present help in trouble for those who
have faith in Him. As for how this plays out in the lives of believers, it
depends on their level of faith and ability to call out to God for help and
direction before things get impossibly out of hand. Most often, help comes in answer to our prayers, which have the power to change things on our behalf.
The late Corrie Ten Boom shared her perspective about God’s
help while suffering in a German concentration camp by saying that we are
always in tribulation when we are true believers because the world hates us.
But we find grace and peace to endure it through Yahshua, who is our strength
and help in trouble. So even if we are to be martyred, He will be there with us
if we ask Him to be, and He will give us the courage and strength we need to
the end, when we go to be with Yahshua in Heaven.
In fact, suffering tribulation is one way God uses to
develop our character to be more Christ-like. As Paul taught in his letters:
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by
faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that
tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and
character, hope.” ~ Romans 5:1-4
“We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it
is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of
you all abounds toward each other, 4 so that we ourselves boast of you among
the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and
tribulations that you endure, 5 which is manifest evidence of the righteous
judgment of God, that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for
which you also suffer.” ~ 2 Thessalonians 1:3-5
So, as we strive to be worthy of our citizenship in the Kingdom
of God, we all need to learn to bear one another up in love, and to serve each
other as best we are able until Yahshua comes for us, whether by death or in
the Rapture.
~ * ~ Bear One
Another In Love! ~ Ephesians 4:1-6 ~ * ~“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk
worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and
gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing
with one another in love, 3
endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There
is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your
calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who
is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
Your Sister in Yahshua,
Helena Lehman of the
Pillar of Enoch Ministry
~~****~~****~~****~~
This article was published simultaneously on Facebook here:
