Engaging Culture with the wisdom and power of Christ!
Finally I found a bit of software called Vodpod which has allowed me to embed this video. I am preaching on Mark 4, and being beautifully introduced by a good friend and wonderful man of God, Pastor Emmanuel. Enjoy!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
The Deceitfulness of Riches
Mark 4.19 tells us that one of the things that will choke the Word of God out of you and that will stop it producing results in your life is the deceitfulness of riches. Today we will look at the deceitfulness of riches and find out what it is and how to stop it choking your prosperity and success in every area of your life.
Firstly, it is vital to understand that it not riches that will choke the Word. The Word working in your life and producing a harvest has nothing to do with how much money you have. A rich person can have the Word of God produce in their life and so can a poor person. A famous quote that isn’t even in the Bible is: “Money is the root of all evil”. The correct reference is “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6.10). Even a poor person can love money. Money is a great slave, but a lousy master.
It is vital to understand this because a lie infiltrated Christianity that says that money is evil. It lead to many horrible situations and caused many dreadful things to happen. It has many faces that I simply cannot go into due to time constraints. Some Christians have even taken vows of poverty. This is ridiculous – God is a good God and a giving God. Poverty is a curse, it is a horrible thing to be in. But praise God, Christ redeemed us and set us free from poverty.
The problem is not having money, but listening to it. Even the world is bright enough to know that “money talks”, but what the world has failed to tell us is that money lies. You can have as much money as you like – prosperity is part of your inheritance in Christ – but just don’t listen to it.
Wealth is deceitful. You could say it this way: money lies. The main lie that money will tell you is that it is all you need. Money will lie to you. It will tell you that it will make you happy and that without it you will fail in life. It is a lie.
You might be in a situation where your boss wants you to tell a lie, and money will tell you to do it because otherwise you will lose your job and lose your money, so you break the Word of God because you listened to money. You ignored God to listen to money.
Money will tell you to accept a promotion several hundred miles from home when you know there is not a strong Word-teaching, love God love people church anywhere near there and you are part of a great church. You ignored God to listen to money.
Money will tell you not to spend time in prayer, in intimacy with the Father, but rather worry about how your bills will be paid or how you will feed the children. You ignored God and listened to money, and worried rather than meditated on the Word.
A young preacher is struggling to survive so at offering time he makes a long drawn out offering, highlighting Scriptures on giving and the benefits of giving.
The Scriptural truths might be true, but using them to manipulate people to give when the Lord loves people who are cheerful givers, not those who walk out the church feeling they just had a wallet extraction, is plain wrong. Money talked, and the preacher listened. And this goes on all across Christianity, even in major ministries. Here is a rule of thumb I have: I never give to a ministry that preaches faith for finances unless they appear to actually have faith for their own finances! And if they are begging for bread, they do not have faith for finances, simple as.
This is how the deceitfulness of riches works: it lies to you and makes you make wrong choices. Choices based on mis-information.
The solution is threefold:
1. to spend time in the Word of God. If you can hear the voice of the Lord clearly and know His Word, you will not be deceived by the lies of money. Learn the Scriptural truth about money. Find out what Jesus said about money, and study it out.
2. to cultivate a generous spirit. If you are continually giving money away, it cannot speak to you. Ensure you are generous to your local church and to Christians who are lacking or going through difficult times.
3. Speak back to money. If it says “if you give that in the offering you will go broke”, tell it to shut up. Tell it that if you give it will be given to you, pressed down, shaken together and in good measure (Luke 6.38). If the bill comes in and you cannot pay it, say out loud “God will provide the money.” You may think it is strange to speak to money, but I think it is a lot stranger to listen to it, and many Christians do.
Deal with this issue and you will allow the Word of God to multiply in your life and produce results. A life of victory and peace is on its way – so get excited.
Blessings,
Ben
I was listening to a radio preacher this week who quoted Hebrews 11.6: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
The preacher then said after reading this Scripture that he didn’t know why it was that we needed faith to please God.
That surprised me because I always considered that it was obvious why it is that you need faith to make God happy: you need faith to please anyone you are in a love-based relationship with.
Can you imagine marrying a wonderful person who says that they will love you always, serve you without hesitation, tell everyone I meet how wonderful you are, always cook your favourite meal for you, go on holiday where you want and let you control the remote every night? But – they will not believe a single word you say!
That would not please you, and it wouldn’t please anyone. We all want people to know when we speak that our words are honest and we can be trusted.
But that is how many Christians treat God – I will serve Him with all my heart, I will go to church, I will pray and fast and work and serve, I will evangelize, I will do this and that and this and that, but I refuse to believe His Word.
Don’t do that, because you won’t please God. If He says that “By His stripes you were healed” then you were healed and you are healed. Take Him at His Word! If He says “I will supply all your needs” then get excited – your needs WILL be met. If He says He will be your Shepherd then you don’t ever have to worry about getting lost.
Not only will you please God, but if you take Him at His Word, then you will simply walk in peace in your life. Now that makes God really happy – you being at peace. He loves you so much and you having peace makes Him really happy,
Blessings,
Ben
You can now watch the full sermon of me preaching at Worshipville Christian Centre here.
I have tried to embed the video into this blog and completely failed. If anyone has the wisdom to help me achieve this, then I would be grateful.
The camera man has a job to follow me during the preaching – I do like to move around when I preach. In the next week I hope to add the sermon, and some others I have previously preached, to the church website as mp3 downloads.
Blessings,
Ben
“Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the HIDDEN MAN OF THE HEART, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet SPIRIT, which is in the sight of God of great price” (1 Pet. 3:3-4).
No one knows what you look like! They may think they do, but they don’t. You, “the real you,” are a hidden man. You are a spirit; you have a soul; and you live in a body (1 Thess. 5:23).
What people see is only the “house” you live in.
I’ve heard ministers quote two-thirds of First Peter 3:3 and say that women shouldn’t fix their hair and shouldn’t wear gold. But if that’s what Peter meant, then women shouldn’t wear clothes, either!
Because if Peter told women not to plait their hair and not to wear gold, then he also told them not to put on apparel. (Apparel is clothing.) No, Peter is really saying “probably because women are more prone to do this, don’t spend all of your time on your hair, on your clothes, and on the outward man.
See to it, first of all, that the hidden man of the heart that’s the spiritual man, the real man, the inward man, is adorned with a meek and a quiet spirit.”
Confession: I am a spirit. I am a child of the Father of spirits. I have a soul. And I live in a body. I see to the adorning of the real me, the hidden man of the heart.
– Kenneth Hagin
One cannot grow in righteousness. He may grow in Righteousness consciousness, but he already is the righteousness of God in Christ.
One cannot grow in sonship. One may grow in sonship consciousness and learn to enjoy his privileges and rights in the family.
We can grow in grace. Grace is the first fruits of love. Grace is the love bearing fruit.
“I am the vine; you are the branches.” The vine is love, the fruits are grace.
We are the grace of God unveiled. We are sons of God, and as such we grow in fruit bearing. We increase in usefulness. We can grow in gentleness, in tenderness, in the beauty of the Master. We may grow in love.
– E. W. Kenyon, from The Hidden Man
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The book is called Rivers and Wells and is about the fact that the anointing of God is available to every single Christian. You can buy the book from Lulu Marketplace for £3.49, or you can download it as a PDF document for £1.95. Both these options are available from the link above.
This is the blurb from the back cover:
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You can contact Ben through the Tree of
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I think that is one of the most radical, yet true, statements I have ever heard. I am still processing it in my life and will do for some considerable time.
Andrew Wommack has just taught on his TV show on Self-Centredness being the root cause of all grief. It has been some very powerful, yet very clear Biblical teaching, and I have enjoyed it and been challenged immensely.
I firmly recommend it to all of you: http://www.awmi.net/tv/2008/week53
Blessings,
Ben
Firstly, thanks for your patience in waiting for part IV of our series on the Sower Sows the Word. I know I said I would be able to continue tomorrow and that was about ten days ago, however, we went to Wales for Christmas and New Year and did not really have access the internet.
But the issue of dealing with the thorns that choke the Word of God is vitally important at this time of the year. As people make New Year’s Resolutions, they normally make the mistake of trying to succeed in the flesh with willpower.
Realizing the truth of the Sower Sows the Word means that you are going to understand how to make choices that lead to permanent and effortless change.
Let’s use weight and diet as an example, as most New Year Resolutions are based on this. Not only that, I want to lose weight this year – and these are the principles I will be using myself.
In the world, what we do is make a pledge to lose a certain amount, or give up cakes, or stick to a diet. We then use all f our willpower to resist what we have decided to give up, and we inevitably fail. Just like the person told not to think of an elephant, the first thing that comes into our mind whenever we have a free moment is the very thing we want to give up. It is only the third of January, but I believe entirely that there will be people reading this who have already broken their resolutions.
However, Jesus does not leave us in condemnation or fighting the calories, or the smoking, or the pornography, or the anger in our flesh. He gives us the Word. When we sow the Word of God in our heart, there will be a harvest.
If we sow words of purity and love and freedom into our heart, and speak the Word over ourself, then we will have a harvest of purity, love and freedom. We will not be struggling in the flesh, in condemnation and feeling like death all the time – we can have the joy of victory.
Mark 11.24 says that you can have what you say. Rather than say “I am never going to make it, I am never going to win.” say “I am free from this, I am alive to God, I am more than a conqueror.” Say it again and again. We have in previous articles on the Sower Sows the Word spoke about meditating on the Word and how to put the Word in your heart. This is the key to change. Filling your mind with the Word will lead to victory.
But sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. We meditate on the Word and we feel great, but then it doesn’t seem to produce results. It doesn’t seem to change our lifestyle, or bring the peace, the prosperity or the healing we are expecting.
Well, one of the main reasons this is the case is due to the thorns. Mark 4.7 says:
And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
I am sure that like me you have felt at times that even though you know the Word, are meditating on the Word and speaking the Word, you feel choked and unfruitful. You feel that it just isn’t going right for you, and you can’t seem to get it right. If that is you, rejoice! The solution is in the Bible:
And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. – Mark 4.18,19
We are choked by three things:
1. The cares of this world
2. The deceitfulness of riches
3. The lusts of other things
If you can remove these three things from your heart then the Word will NEVER be choked again. Do you understand – you will never be unfruitful again. You will always bear fruit. You will ask and receive, you will walk in victory.
In the next two posts I want to look at 2 and 3. I might decide to spend several posts on the deceitfulness of riches, because this is one of the biggest issues in the church today.
However, for now I want to deal with the cares of this world. Most Christians have had the word of God choked due to the cares of this world.
The word used for cares in this verse is merimna which literally means different directions. The world tries to distract you by drawing you in different directions.
We go to church, hear a great sermon on the power of God to heal and we are focused and ready to receive. But the world distracts us by leading us in different directions: try medicine, try acupunture, try panicking, try anything. These distractions choke the Word and stop it working.
Or in the instance of New Year Resolutions. The Word says you change by changing your heart by what you hear. So you need to speak out and say “I am only going to eat what I need, I am in control of my appetites, my god is not my belly, my God is the Lord Jesus Christ.” But the world distracts you – you need to try Slimfast, this pill, this diet, this fad, that strategy, and the thorns will choke out the Word.
The sooner we realize that the Word of God plus something leads to nothing, but the Word of God only leads to something the more successful we will be.
Do not let the world distract you and lead you in many directions this year – choose one direction: the direction of the Word of God. If you do not know the direction of the Word then go and read it until you see its direction to you and then obey it. The Word will keep you right and bring a harvest of peace and freedom. The world will lead you back into the same world of hurt and confusion you have been in before.
Often one of the distractions of the world is impatience. The Word will grow, but sometimes it does not happen instantly. Do not let the world pressure you into a get-rich-quick or a get-slim-quick scheme, you will be conned. Let the Word have its perfect work in you…
It is your choice – choose life!
Blessings,
Ben
There is not a single Scripture to show that the early church was to be endued with miraculous spiritual gifts but that later these gifts were to be withdrawn. You cannot find such a Scripture. . .
We one day came by accident upon some stamped addressed envelopes scattered on the ground in a remote part of the Congo forest. We gathered them carefully and enquiry proved that a native postal runner, finding his mail-bags heavy, had deliberately extracted some of the letters and thrown them away, lightening his load. Of course he received severe punishment. Do you think that we can go unscathed if we set aside the plain statements of God’s Word – if we lighten our load by discarding portions of revealed truth?
Our only picture of the Church in its everyday life is in the Acts of the Apostles. That is the normal church life and the epistles of messages of the Spirit to the seven churches in Asia only confirm it. Had there been some other sort of church life, short of miracles, we should have been told about it. Right up to Paul’s letters to Timothy just before his death, we read “Stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1.6). The Acts of the Apostles should still be continuing. Thank God there are churches where they are still continuing.
How pathetic it was that the Pharisees before whom a withered arm had just been restored (Matt. 12.13), and a blind and dumb demon expelled (Matt. 12.22), should still follow the Lord Jesus asking for a sign (Matt. 12.38). The fact is unbelief was blinding their minds to the signs wrought in profusion befre them. Is it not the same in these days? “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matt. 13.58).
I can only account for opposition to healings and tongues in a similar way, for thousands of humanly incurable people are being healed in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and even the highest authorities in the medical profession admit it.
– W.F.P. Burton, 1949.
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