Paul then proceeds to single out the love of money as another sign of the last days. Not money, but the love of money. Men will be lovers of money willing to compromise their principles, betray their Lord and King, omit the truth, and preach outright lies, all because the love of money has taken root in their hearts and has become their idol.
If you compromise the truth for the sake of money, then you
love money over God. If you teach lies contrary to scripture because your
bottom line would suffer if you started to preach the truth, you love money
over men’s souls. If you compromise your ethics, morals, and values for the
sake of money, money has become your defacto god, one for which you are willing
to go to any lengths to obtain.
1 Timothy 6:10, “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.”
It’s not as though the love of money was new or unheard of
even as early as Paul’s ministry. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul mentions
some who have strayed from the faith in their greediness, but what was once the
exception, a handful of souls who gave in to their love of money, will become standard
practice in the last days and something that will a bane upon the church, and
so prevalent as to become a danger for the household of faith.
When your convictions are for sale, and the doctrine you
present can be decided by the highest bidder rather than the Word of God, what
follows is disaster on a grand scale, culminating in despair for the individual
and bitterness toward God Himself.
When the love of money is the driving force of your
convictions and not love for the truth, you’ll say anything, do anything, hock
anything, co-sign anything as long as it turns a profit, and as long there are
a few extra shekels in your change purse at the end of the day. The lovers of
money prey upon the sheep like starving wolves, and the sheep seem not to
notice, or if they do, they ignore it because the promise of a lump sum on the
back end is just too enticing to pass up.
Supposed men of God are selling their souls one piece at a
time until they wake up one day, utterly soulless, trying to talk their
congregations into some pyramid scheme, or the little old ladies into a reverse
mortgage from which he gets a kickback. The underlying cause of all these
schemes and scams, the root of every twisted thing that leaves a bad taste in a
church’s mouth once the dust settles, is the love of money.
Usually, the love of self and love of money are fast friends,
even bosom buddies, because the one facilitates the comfort and material
well-being of the other. If you love yourself, you treat yourself to the finest
the world has to offer, and in order to treat yourself, you must have the
financial wherewithal to do so. It’s not as though people love money for the sake
of money; they love money for all the things it can buy and the illusory
security it provides.
Since we had to distract from the void in our hearts, we told
ourselves that he who dies with the most toys wins in the end, not realizing
the utter foolishness of that particular rationalization. Whether rich or poor,
dead is dead, then judgment. There is only one God, one throne of judgment, and
no man can buy themselves an exemption from it. The prince will stand in the
same spot as the beggar, and God will not show deference to someone because of
their net worth.
It’s funny how those who serve a God who judges without
partiality show it in the most blatant of ways when it comes to people they
think can help further their ministries, whether by proximal influence or an
injection of funds. We’ve all seen the pictures of prominent pastors posing for
photos with individuals whom they know to be antagonistic toward the Gospel
just because they’re famous. Eventually, it comes back to bite them when they
least expect it, but in the moment, they revel in the idea of rubbing elbows
with the influential.
Because they are used to being treated differently, whether
having a front-row seat reserved for them at church, being led out through the
side exit when the service is over, being pointed to and named by the pastor
and told that their mere presence is an unequaled honor, such people have taken
to believe that God will likewise treat them with the same deference, show them
undeserved respect, and tweak His standard to accommodate them. He won’t. He
never has and never will because God is no respecter of persons.
You can buy a lot of things with money. I’d be lying if I
said you couldn’t, but there are things money can’t buy, and they happen to be
the most important things in life. Whether love, health, or more time, the
things that truly matter cannot be purchased, no matter how much someone is
willing to spend. We’ve seen it time and again wherein men with seemingly
endless resources couldn’t buy their way out of a terminal diagnosis or add a
minute to their existence on earth, even though they were willing to trade all
they had just to see another sunrise. Every other day, we hear of people who
deem themselves wealthy and in need of nothing spiral into depression because
the love they thought they had turned out to be a well-orchestrated deception,
and the person they believed loved them shatters their heart and takes half
their stuff in the process.
Standing head and shoulders above all else when it comes to
things men can’t buy is salvation. Were you to have the wealth of Solomon
himself, you still couldn’t buy your way into heaven. It is exclusive, members
only, and the only way to get in is through Christ Jesus. Anyone who tells you
that writing a check will square you with God is lying in the most contemptible
of ways. Repentance, surrender, rebirth, continually walking in His way,
denying yourself, and picking up your cross daily are the only means by which
we can attain that which money cannot buy. That salvation is free does not make
it cheap; it is free because it’s priceless, and no man could ever buy himself
entrance therein, though he might gain the whole world.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea, Jr.
Posted on 15 July 2024 | 11:17 am
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