Money 1 Issue 14 | 1987 Purchase this issue

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else. The antidote for affluence is reconsecration. Consecration is by definition the “setting apart of things for a holy use.” Affluence did not keep Borden of Yale from giving his life in Egypt. Affluence didn’t stop Francis of Assisi from moving against the tide of his time….

When will we recognize the fact that the wrath of God spoken of in the Bible is far less directed at those who sit in darkness than it is against those who refuse to share what they have?

How hard have we tried to save others? The $700 million per year Americans give to mission agencies is no more than they give for chewing gum. Americans pay as much for pet food every 52 days as they spend annually for foreign missions. A person must overeat by at least $1.50 worth of food per month to maintain one excess pount of flesh. Yet $1 .50 per month is more than what 90% of all Christians in America give to missions. If the average mission supporter is only five pounds overweight, it means he spends (to his own hurt) at least five times as much as he gives for missions. If he were to choose simple food (as well as not overeat) he could give ten times as much as he does to mission and not modify his standard of living in any other way!

Where does this line of reasoning lead? It means that the overall lifestyle to which Americans have acquiesced has led us to a place where we are hardening our hearts and our arteries simultaneously. Is our nation not described by Isaiah?

My people are like the dead branches of a tree…a foolish nation, a witless, stupid people…The only language they can understand is punishment. So God will send against them foreigners who speak ...