from Watson's Web 12/1/09
American Church-In Hock to Mammon
Why have America's Churches been so ineffective dealing with the scourge of evil that stalks America? Why are so many Churches filing for bankruptcy, having their buildings foreclosed upon or having other big financial problems? Well, these are not the real questions Christians should be asking. While surely these are big problems, they are only the result of worldly and satanic ties to the world system the Churches should never have made in the first place. Anyone who knows anything about tangling with satan will tell you that when you make a deal with him, he will always come out the winner. This is why we are to have no association with him, his imps, his emissaries and make no deal with satan, even if it seems like it is such a good idea to us. It never is. The sad part is tens of thousands of pastors across America have made a deal with he infernal one, and never truly understood it.
But Churches are indeed falling into the trap for them laid by satan. What was that trap? It was the trap of debt, borrowings in order to front 'prosperity' which was really just plain old greed. The result is that the false prosperity borrowing from the devil always comes with a price.
"Who gives $700,000, 700, 700?" he called out. One man, a representative for a local bank, raised his finger. The auctioneer tried in vain to nudge the price up. "Sold!" he cried. St. Andrew Anglican Church had just been bought by the bank that had started foreclosure proceedings against it. -WSJ
Is this in your Churches future? If it has a lot of debt and cannot pay it off in the next couple of years, the answer is yes, it is quite possible, probably likley. Why? It is because it is as I have tried to warn my readers for many years now but the Church would not listen, this economic crisis is going to devastate America. I choose my words carefully and devastate is exactly what I mean.
dev·as·tate (dv-stt)
tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates
1. To lay waste; destroy.
2. To overwhelm; confound;
Pastors and Priests looked at me and other watchmen like me and said, 'who is he that I should listen to him'? I have my godless banker, I will listen to him and not pay attention to those watchmen God has raised up to warn God's sheep. So the Churches went into hock, some to the tune of millions of dollars. These Churches, I am sorry to say, do not stand much of a chance of surviving what is coming. The second wave of the economic collapse is coming.
But one must wonder about any Church that ignores biblical admonitions about debt, is unequally yoked to the world system (satanism) and their refusal to hear those whom God has sent to warn them. They instead took their marching orders from their real father, mammon who is really just a disguised version of the devil. The pastors and Churches were claiming to be working for God, but in reality were doing the devils work.
The prosperity gospel is a cobbled-together theology that runs through the Pentecostal Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, and is especially popular in immigrant communities. Researchers began to note that the gospel's growth tracks closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. And many of the churches were built among fringe suburban developments in the '90s and 2000's - the same neighborhoods now filled with foreclosure signs. A series of lawsuits this summer revealed how banks teamed up with pastors to win over new customers for sub-prime loans. - NHPR
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. (Joh 15:20-23)
Who were Christ's most ardent persecutors? Who eventually conspired to have the Lord murdered? It was the religious leaders! Christ constantly attacked their doctrines of devils and blindness to his person and work and most importantly attacked their unholy sources of revenue (temple incident). Dear brethren, let us all judge these things with scriptural, rather than worldly admonitions. Those who do God's will are of God, those who don't are of the world. There is no middle ground and any and all who tell you otherwise are also, not of God. But Americans want their religion to service their interests rather than God's and that is at the very root of the problem. It is endemic to modern American Christianity.
America's churches always reflect shifts in the broader culture, and Casa del Padre is no exception. The message that Jesus blesses believers with riches first showed up in the postwar years, at a time when Americans began to believe that greater comfort could be accessible to everyone, not just the landed class. But it really took off during the boom years of the 1990s, and has continued to spread ever since. This stitched-together, homegrown theology, known as the prosperity gospel, is not a clearly defined denomination, but a strain of belief that runs through the Pentecostal Church and a surprising number of mainstream evangelical churches, with varying degrees of intensity. In Garay's church, God is the "Owner of All the Silver and Gold," and with enough faith, any believer can access the inheritance. Money is not the dull stuff of hourly wages and bank-account statements, but a magical substance that comes as a gift from above. Even in these hard times, it is discouraged, in such churches, to fall into despair about the things you cannot afford. "Instead of saying 'I'm poor,' say 'I'm rich,'" Garay's wife, Hazael, told me one day. "The word of God will manifest itself in reality." Many explanations have been offered for the housing bubble and subsequent crash: interest rates were too low; regulation failed; rising real-estate prices induced a sort of temporary insanity in America's middle class. But there is one explanation that speaks to a lasting and fundamental shift in American culture-a shift in the American conception of divine Providence and its relationship to wealth. - Did Christianity Cause The Crash?
"Not only do the American practice their religion out of self-interest, but they often even place in this world the interest which they have in practicing it. Priests in the Middle Ages spoke of nothing but the other life; they hardly took any trouble to prove that a sincere Christian might be happy here below. But preachers in America are continually coming down to earth. Indeed they find it difficult to take their eyes off it. The better to touch their hearers, they are forever pointing out how religious beliefs favor freedom and public order, and it is often difficult to be sure when listening to them whether the main object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the next world or prosperity in this." Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. II, Part 2, ch. 9 - Toqueville (Democracy In America)
These verse all seem to fly in the face of the modern prosperity gospel and its accompanying mammonite accouterments. The acquisition of worldly wealth is something that should not concern us and those that are obsessed with worldly prosperity are not walking with Christ, they are walking after the spirit of this world. What did Jesus Christ have to say about this subject? Quite a bit but here is one verse that really sums up his teachings on it.
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luk 6:24-26)
Well is this really what Christ taught? Is this materialistic 'mono-mania' scriptural? No it is not and it is that very lust for the material things of this world that has put many Churches very existence at risk as many more will declare bankruptcy and or be foreclosed upon before this crisis is over.
Many, many more.
But they all should have known that making a deal with these banksters was bad business. Anecdotal evidence (I cannot verify this but talk radio has mentioned this) that some Churches have clauses in their mortgage agreements that if they do not keep a minimum balance in their bank accounts, they get fined, thousands of dollars PER DAY and that this is one reason some Churches are going under. They have not been able to maintain that minimum balance and get into real trouble when donations and tithing drops off.
But I have to say this, it is one thing to have a mortgage on ones own domicile, it is quite another to put the house of God into hock with one of the most vicious and cruel representatives of the kingdom of darkness. Owning ones own home has many advantages. For many people of color it is often not easy to rent and rent can and always does go up, owning your own home is one way of controlling those costs.
Yet mega-churches were often trying to out do one another and borrowed and borrowed to get the flashiest buildings in order to obtain the wealthiest parishioners, who would give more than economically challenged Christians.
The Church is not doing its real job, but rather has become the best spiritual placebo in the devils arsenal. People keep taking it, rather than the real cure for their spiritual ills and that is why American Christianity is dying. No one wants to actually DO what Christ commanded.
It appears the clergy, in a pick-and-choose manner, have ignored Biblical admonitions to avoid debt (2 Kings 4:7: "Pay thy debt." Romans 13:8: "Owe no man anything") so as not to incite financial anxiety among their members for fear of seeing Sunday offerings dwindle further than they already have. The current economic collapse has already produced about a 10-15% drop in church giving.
Despite the many evidences of an unprecedented worldwide financial collapse, a faction of the church preaches the prosperity gospel. An article published in The Atlantic magazine blames the current financial crisis on the likes of pastors Joel Osteen and Fred Price, who preach a prosperity gospel. However, the Bible also teaches that "the Lord sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts." (I Samuel 2:7) "For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)
The Christian church has ducked its head on this issue and is on the verge of becoming an irrelevant institution in modern society. - Impending Economic Cataclysm: The Organized Christian Church Has Buried Its Head in the Sand
