The Dangers of Materialism
The soul is a spiritual thing, riches are of an earthly extract, and how can these fill a spiritual substance? How man does thirst after the world, but, alas, it falls short of his expectation. It cannot fill the hiatus and longing of his soul. THOMAS WATSON
The type of man most likely to grow very, very rich is the type of man least likely to enjoy it. MAX GUNTHER
The poorest man I know is the man who has nothing but money. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Surrounded by wealthy socialites, a beautiful young woman sat at a dinner party on a luxury boat. To her surprise, a millionaire sitting near her passed her a note asking, “Would you go to bed with me tonight for ten thousand dollars?”
Blushing, the woman paused for a moment and then wrote back, “Yes.”
A few minutes later the two left the party. When they were alone the man asked the woman, “Would you go to bed with me for ten dollars?”
Outraged, she asked him, “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
Matter-of-factly he replied, “We’ve already determined what kind of woman you are. Now we’re just trying to find your price.”
Idolatry and Adultery
Satan works on the assumption that every person has a price. Often, unfortunately, he is right. Many people are willing to surrender themselves and their principles to whatever god will bring them the greatest short-term profit.
The Old Testament portrays Israel as a bride who has turned into a prostitute. She abandons her rightful husband, God, and sells herself to the highest bidder. The prophets develop this metaphor to embarrassing extents (Isaiah 57:3-9; Jeremiah 3:1-10; Ezekiel 16:1-48). The nauseating descriptions of Israel’s waywardness exemplify God’s hurt and horror at the spiritual adultery of his people as they chase after other gods.
The New Testament tells us that “greed . . . is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Idolatry is worshiping and serving anything other than the one true God. Everything material we have, including money, is either a tool or an idol. If we fail to use it as a tool for God’s intended purposes, it mutates into an idol. For the Church, the bride of Christ, idolatry is the same as adultery—a wanton betrayal of a husband who loves us enough to die for us.
Herbert Schlossberg addresses the idolatrous nature of materialism:
The common expression that describes such a value system as “the pursuit of the almighty dollar” is soundly based in the recognition that the exaltation of possessions to the level of ultimacy is the end of a religious quest, one that seeks and ascribes ultimate meaning. Like all idolatries, it finds ultimate meaning in an aspect of the creation rather than in the Creator. And like all idolatries it finds outlet in destructive pathologies that wreck human lives.
Scripture speaks of these destructive pathologies:
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
Note the self-destructive nature of money love. It’s a life of self-mutilation in which we repeatedly pierce ourselves with grief after grief. The good we seek destroys us. We load our idols with expectations they cannot deliver. The happiness we try to wrest from them can only be found elsewhere.
Jesus said the rich are at a spiritual disadvantage (Matthew 19:23-24). The problem, of course, is not that God doesn’t love the rich. The problem is that the rich don’t love God. They simply have too much else to love. Who needs God, we think, when we’ve got everything? This is why Jesus didn’t say, “You should not serve both God and Money,” but “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24, italics mine). Why? For the same reason a woman cannot have two husbands. When we carry on a love affair with the world, we commit spiritual adultery. We place God in the role of the jilted husband. He loves us and longs for our return but will not allow us in his intimate chambers when we are prostituting ourselves to another. God will not be a half husband. He will not be comforted by the fact that we call him “Savior” when we refuse to follow him as Lord.
Materialism consists of the two things God hates most—idolatry and adultery. The magnitude of God’s abhorrence for materialism surfaces in the final act prior to the return of Christ—the destruction of the money-loving system of this world, called “Babylon the Great.” It’s said of this Babylon, “The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.” A voice from heaven pleads with God’s people—a voice that we would do well to heed today:
Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. (Revelation 18:4-7)
The images of the World Trade Center—that towering symbol of our financial prosperity—falling to the ground are forever etched in our memories. As terrible a tragedy as it was, the collapse was a reminder of the truth that, one day, God in his justice will bring down all the centers of human achievement and prosperity that do not humble themselves before him. When financial Babylon comes down, the merchants who gained their wealth from this corrupt materialistic philosophy will say, “Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!” (Revelation 18:16-17).
We might expect all heaven to mourn at this devastation. But in fact, all heaven will rejoice at the destruction of materialism’s stronghold: “Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you” (Revelation 18:20). God will eventually break the stronghold of materialism, but we must seek for it to be broken now.
I was scheduled to preach on giving at my church. I was overwhelmed with a sense that many people would not be ready to hear the message because of Mammon’s grip on their lives. I was scheduled to begin this series the week after Easter Sunday, when more than one hundred people had come to Christ in our services. During one of the Easter services, Nanci and I had been part of a prayer group in a little room off the front of the auditorium. We experienced God’s power through prayer. We learned how the prayers that morning dramatically affected what happened in people’s hearts. A week later, I couldn’t imagine getting up to preach without knowing that people would be in that little room praying. A friend recruited fifty-five people to pray, divided among the six services I’d be preaching.
Why was prayer just as important that weekend as the weekend before when the gospel was being shared? Because there’s a battle over ownership and lordship of our lives that’s just as intense as the battle for salvation. The grace that saves us is also the grace that sanctifies and empowers us. God’s power isn’t just needed by unbelievers to be converted. It’s needed by believers to be obedient and joyful. The grace that has freed us from bondage to sin is desperately needed to free us from our bondage to materialism.
Alcorn, R. (2003). Money, possessions, and eternity.
The soul is a spiritual thing, riches are of an earthly extract, and how can these fill a spiritual substance? How man does thirst after the world, but, alas, it falls short of his expectation. It cannot fill the hiatus and longing of his soul. THOMAS WATSON
The type of man most likely to grow very, very rich is the type of man least likely to enjoy it. MAX GUNTHER
The poorest man I know is the man who has nothing but money. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER
Surrounded by wealthy socialites, a beautiful young woman sat at a dinner party on a luxury boat. To her surprise, a millionaire sitting near her passed her a note asking, “Would you go to bed with me tonight for ten thousand dollars?”
Blushing, the woman paused for a moment and then wrote back, “Yes.”
A few minutes later the two left the party. When they were alone the man asked the woman, “Would you go to bed with me for ten dollars?”
Outraged, she asked him, “What kind of woman do you think I am?”
Matter-of-factly he replied, “We’ve already determined what kind of woman you are. Now we’re just trying to find your price.”
Idolatry and Adultery
Satan works on the assumption that every person has a price. Often, unfortunately, he is right. Many people are willing to surrender themselves and their principles to whatever god will bring them the greatest short-term profit.
The Old Testament portrays Israel as a bride who has turned into a prostitute. She abandons her rightful husband, God, and sells herself to the highest bidder. The prophets develop this metaphor to embarrassing extents (Isaiah 57:3-9; Jeremiah 3:1-10; Ezekiel 16:1-48). The nauseating descriptions of Israel’s waywardness exemplify God’s hurt and horror at the spiritual adultery of his people as they chase after other gods.
The New Testament tells us that “greed . . . is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Idolatry is worshiping and serving anything other than the one true God. Everything material we have, including money, is either a tool or an idol. If we fail to use it as a tool for God’s intended purposes, it mutates into an idol. For the Church, the bride of Christ, idolatry is the same as adultery—a wanton betrayal of a husband who loves us enough to die for us.
Herbert Schlossberg addresses the idolatrous nature of materialism:
The common expression that describes such a value system as “the pursuit of the almighty dollar” is soundly based in the recognition that the exaltation of possessions to the level of ultimacy is the end of a religious quest, one that seeks and ascribes ultimate meaning. Like all idolatries, it finds ultimate meaning in an aspect of the creation rather than in the Creator. And like all idolatries it finds outlet in destructive pathologies that wreck human lives.
Scripture speaks of these destructive pathologies:
People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
Note the self-destructive nature of money love. It’s a life of self-mutilation in which we repeatedly pierce ourselves with grief after grief. The good we seek destroys us. We load our idols with expectations they cannot deliver. The happiness we try to wrest from them can only be found elsewhere.
Jesus said the rich are at a spiritual disadvantage (Matthew 19:23-24). The problem, of course, is not that God doesn’t love the rich. The problem is that the rich don’t love God. They simply have too much else to love. Who needs God, we think, when we’ve got everything? This is why Jesus didn’t say, “You should not serve both God and Money,” but “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24, italics mine). Why? For the same reason a woman cannot have two husbands. When we carry on a love affair with the world, we commit spiritual adultery. We place God in the role of the jilted husband. He loves us and longs for our return but will not allow us in his intimate chambers when we are prostituting ourselves to another. God will not be a half husband. He will not be comforted by the fact that we call him “Savior” when we refuse to follow him as Lord.
Materialism consists of the two things God hates most—idolatry and adultery. The magnitude of God’s abhorrence for materialism surfaces in the final act prior to the return of Christ—the destruction of the money-loving system of this world, called “Babylon the Great.” It’s said of this Babylon, “The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.” A voice from heaven pleads with God’s people—a voice that we would do well to heed today:
Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. (Revelation 18:4-7)
The images of the World Trade Center—that towering symbol of our financial prosperity—falling to the ground are forever etched in our memories. As terrible a tragedy as it was, the collapse was a reminder of the truth that, one day, God in his justice will bring down all the centers of human achievement and prosperity that do not humble themselves before him. When financial Babylon comes down, the merchants who gained their wealth from this corrupt materialistic philosophy will say, “Woe, O great city, dressed in fine linen, purple and scarlet, and glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls! In one hour such great wealth has been brought to ruin!” (Revelation 18:16-17).
We might expect all heaven to mourn at this devastation. But in fact, all heaven will rejoice at the destruction of materialism’s stronghold: “Rejoice over her, O heaven! Rejoice, saints and apostles and prophets! God has judged her for the way she treated you” (Revelation 18:20). God will eventually break the stronghold of materialism, but we must seek for it to be broken now.
I was scheduled to preach on giving at my church. I was overwhelmed with a sense that many people would not be ready to hear the message because of Mammon’s grip on their lives. I was scheduled to begin this series the week after Easter Sunday, when more than one hundred people had come to Christ in our services. During one of the Easter services, Nanci and I had been part of a prayer group in a little room off the front of the auditorium. We experienced God’s power through prayer. We learned how the prayers that morning dramatically affected what happened in people’s hearts. A week later, I couldn’t imagine getting up to preach without knowing that people would be in that little room praying. A friend recruited fifty-five people to pray, divided among the six services I’d be preaching.
Why was prayer just as important that weekend as the weekend before when the gospel was being shared? Because there’s a battle over ownership and lordship of our lives that’s just as intense as the battle for salvation. The grace that saves us is also the grace that sanctifies and empowers us. God’s power isn’t just needed by unbelievers to be converted. It’s needed by believers to be obedient and joyful. The grace that has freed us from bondage to sin is desperately needed to free us from our bondage to materialism.
Alcorn, R. (2003). Money, possessions, and eternity.
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