And They Will Make Merchandise of You

by Michael Clark and George Davis " A Wilderness Voice" Could Ownership Be Our Source of Trouble?     There is a curious observation made about the early church relating to ownership and the power it once had. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer. Fear came on every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need. Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. The Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47 WEB) The multitude of those who believed were of one heart and soul. Not one of them claimed that anything of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common. (Acts 4:32 WEB) This first century community of believers lived out, by the Spirit of God, the values of the kingdom and lived the words of Jesus, "Sell your possessions…." Jesus left everything He owned, His trade, and His family to be about His Father’s business. He left all privileges and gave up all possessions. When asked where He was staying, he answered, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Jesus was a homeless person (Matthew 8:20 WEB). The believers were of one heart and soul, and because of this oneness, none of them clung to their possessions. Instead, they viewed them as belonging to the entire body of believers and God Himself. Constant watchfulness was required to preserve this heavenly economy, protecting it from the greed of Cain. God was very serious about this, so serious that he struck one couple dead over it (see Acts 5:1-11). Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, sold a piece of land, but they kept back part of the price. Ananias brought the rest and laid it at the apostles' feet. Peter said to him, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? While you kept it, didn't it remain your own? After it was sold, wasn't it in your power? How is it that you have conceived this thing in your heart? You haven't lied to men, but to God." The Greek word for lied here is pseudomai. There is no record of Ananias saying anything to Peter or to anyone. Ananias was bringing the good business sense of Cain to the early Church and God would not tolerate it. He and his wife Sapphira were pseudo or false in their intentions. Their actions were designed to deceive and mislead others to believe that they had given all while they were hiding a wedge of gold in their tent. As a result they fell down dead and the young men came and carried them out and buried them. We cannot find anywhere in the New Testament where anyone else was struck dead by the Holy Spirit for lying. Why did God take this incident so seriously? We know from Peter’s own words that Ananias and Sapphira could have kept it all for themselves, but they could not keep half under pretense. God obviously detests those who live a lie in this area. He would have us hot or cold, going all the way or not at all. He wants us flat out as servants in His kingdom or totally in the world. Although Ananias and Sapphira may have thought they were deceiving Peter and the saints, they were lying to the Holy Spirit. They were being false and acting inconsistent to the Spirit of Truth that brought the love of God that manifested itself in great overflowing generosity. God would not allow the corruption that brought judgment on the descendants of Cain and the citizens of Sodom to take root in His fledgling Church. Obviously God wanted to drive this point home and it worked! "Great fear came on the whole assembly, and on all who heard these things" (Act 5:11). Later in a Samaritan village a man named Simon who had practiced sorcery came to Christ by the ministry of Philip. When he saw that the Holy Spirit was given to the new converts by the laying on of the hands of Peter and John, he offered to buy the gift so he too could give this power by the laying on of his hands. To this Peter replied, "Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity." Merchandising here is seen as a bitter poison that was trying to make its inroads into the infant church. It is evident that Satan finally succeeded once the first apostles were gone. Today, it is accepted practice to hold great conferences for large sums of money, where the attendees are told that modern "apostles and prophets" will lay on hands and impart spiritual gifts and ministries. How is this any different than the sin of Simon? Does a true minister of God buy his gift, and make gain from selling it? Does he even own this gift that he has been made steward of? Not if we read the parables of Christ concerning stewardship correctly. A dear brother who prefers to remain anonymous recently wrote with rare insight. The present world-system is based in a conceptual framework where owning represents investment of our life, our time, our name, our character, or any other aspect of our being, for the sake of control over the thing owned. It is difficult to realize the depth of devastation this has brought to humanity, but every historical record that presently exists attests to the visible devastation wrought in wars of conquest and subjugation of peoples for the sake of ownership. If we own something, we have something to trade for other things to own, which takes us further down the path of investing our soul in merchandise. This concept of ownership and its follow-on, merchandising, is what separates us from God and our fellow man. The ultimate deception is that we own our own soul, our being, which is really just on loan from God the Creator of all. Satan thought he owned something that could make him greater than God—his gifts, his glory, his being—whatever it was that caused him to be uplifted in the pride that finally destroyed him, he thought he owned it. The final straw was when he claimed a naïve humanity as his own to dominate and control as his slaves. If we look at the kingdom of God from the viewpoint of what is revealed in the scriptures, we see an entirely different model being portrayed. God owns everything and if we need something, all we have to do is ask for it, based on our relationship to Him. In the parable of the prodigal son, when the prodigal’s return was celebrated by the Father, the son who had stayed home was told, "All that I have is yours." When Paul was instructing the saints at Corinth, he said, "…all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s". (1 Corinthians 3:22-23 NKJV). What is mine that God didn’t give me? And what may I take with me when I leave this world of form? "God set up the kingdom of Israel to showcase His ways to the nations., and in the statutes and ordinances provided that the land could not be sold in perpetuity, debt must be retired every seven years, slaves were to be freed at jubilee, and so forth. Ownership had limits for the sake of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the powerless. Although not equal to the kingdom of God, and only a compromise with what we think of as real-world realities, these things provide an insight into God’s ideas about ownership. The kingdom of Israel could not survive the idolatry of man, however, and God’s ways were sidestepped and ignored." Here again we see the meaning of God’s word to Lucifer, "By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within" (Ezekiel 28:16). The movement of God’s Spirit brings believers into a state of great love and generosity, leading to righteousness, peace and joy. The movement of Satan and his hordes is toward individualism, merchandising and violence. The Holy Spirit is at enmity with the social injustice, war, violence and bloodshed of mammon, yet in the same gathering where the Spirit of generosity is stirred in the saints of God, there are people who take advantage and lust after gain in His name. What are the implications of all this? Should we have nothing to do with mammon whatsoever? When looking at the teachings of Jesus on this matter, one thing becomes very clear. Nearly all His teachings on money were negative. You cannot read far in the Gospels before you realize that Jesus viewed money as filthy and unrighteous. Jesus approached the subject of money with unnerving indifference. He really had no time for it. In the one parable where the unjust steward was commended about his use of unrighteous mammon, it was because he used it to lessen the burden of debt that others were under, not because he used it for his own worldly gain. The only correct use of unrighteous mammon of this world is to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free. We are not advocating that anyone should presumptuously go out and establish communities and start having all things in common. What happened in the book of Acts cannot be contrived by implementing certain methods and life styles, but is the fruit of the Spirit of God being poured out on those who are willing to die to their self centered ways and be filled with His love. We need a personal visitation from heaven that will make the things of earth grow strangely dim. We desperately need the Spirit of God to birth an expression of His Kingdom once again. What we see around us today is not God's kingdom! In 1970, I, Michael, went to a Jesus People park-meeting and God visited me there in a life changing way. As a result I was filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time after a thoroughly purging time of repentance. At this same time a local county-rock band named the Wilson-McKinley came to the Lord in these meetings where their peers ministered to them. As a result of their conversion, they totally threw them selves on Jesus and forsook their former life-style of drugs, sex and rock and roll. There was another man I will call Bob who came on the scene at that time. Bob was an older Christian who had a background in marketing and was quite the Bible teacher. We all were impressed with his knowledge of the scriptures and his personal charisma gave him great leverage over us in a short time. When Bob found out that he had a rock band on his hands, it wasn’t long before he rebuked them for hocking all their instruments and "wasting their time" witnessing on the streets to the lost youth of our town. They could have been doing it in grand style from the stage. It was not long before a hasty first album was recorded with a hand held cassette machine at one of their live gigs and the die was cast. Marketing this group became the goal, as they were booked with their new Jesus songs to play all over the U.S. and parts of Canada. More albums followed and Bob finally conformed them into the image of what he wanted. Trouble was, the Holy Spirit in them was totally quenched and they had lost all their former appeal as simple saints who just loved Jesus and wanted to serve Him with all their hearts. This is so typical of what caused the decline of the Jesus Revolution of the early ‘70s. Men found a way to harness and market the energy and talents of these young people and build churches and businesses out of them. What once was a move of the Spirit that converted thousands of street kids to Christ and all but shut down the drug industry in many cities in the U. S., became another spirit-numbing commercial venture of businessman and clerics alike. The resulting abuse of these young believers caused many to turn and fall away from their faith. Once again the woman with a crown of twelve stars (see Revelation 12) gave birth into the mouth of the Great Red Dragon. A move of God that was turning the world upside down for Jesus was quenched by greed.