Anxiety Merchants

"Buy gold! Buy silver! Our paper money will soon be gone!"'

"Stock your basements with food and guns before it's too late!"

"Make sure you have an escape route and practice getting to your bunker while you still can!"

"Buy two years of freeze dried food before it's too late."

"Do you have a plan to get off the grid when society collapses in chaos?"

Have you been hearing these things?  Are you a person who is filled with anxiety as you watch the world fall apart?

Do you believe anxiety is a gift from the Holy Spirit?...or does it come from the Prince of this Earth?

We continue with this last part of our series dealing with “Christian” fear-mongering and anxiety merchandizing.

To this point, we have established four main conclusions. First, that the Great Commission does not include the responsibility (nor sanctified ability) to warn Christians and the world of near-term financial and economic calamities.

Financial forecasts are not the purview of the Church. All those who attempt to do so (though they may be well-meaning) are likely to be “false prophets,” for the reason that their forecasts are almost sure to be false or inaccurate.

We indeed know that economic crises have been a normal feature of mankind’s systems, and will continue as such until the Lord comes. We also know, according to the Bible, that judgment and wrath will come upon the world, and that “total breakdown” and collapse of mankind’s financial systems will then occur.

Exactly when this will unfold, we cannot know today—other than to conclude that this will happen sometime in the second half of the Tribulation period. Until then, mankind (under the aegis of Mammon) will continue to build a humanistic world apart from God, increasing its insurrection and violence as in the time of Noah (Genesis 6:13).

There will be no total collapse before that time—economic, financial or otherwise. We can express these predictions because they are supported in the prophecies of the Bible. This underscores our second conclusion: We can rely on the foreknowledge (prophecy) written in the Bible, that it is all true and that all will be fulfilled.

It is these long-term “forecasts” of the realm of God’s actions and prophecies that can be employed to warn the world, but taking care not to go beyond what the Scripture says (1 Corinthians 4:6). We cannot consider forecasts of the short-term machinations of the “realm of mankind” as having the same reliability or value.

The third conclusion effectively is a derivative of the first two: That the only “systemic crises” that Christ and the Apostles concerned themselves with were spiritual in nature … i.e. the falsification of the gospel, doctrines of demons … etc.

The temporal ebb and flow of commerce, the possible eruption of a credit crisis and such matters did not merit their comment nor instruction.

A fourth conclusion is derived from the fact that saving grace is a free gift. It comes without monetary price (Isaiah 55:1-2). As such, to conclude that deliverance from the wrath of God during the Tribulation is dependent upon affordability couldn’t be more wrong.

Could it be that only those Spirit-filled Christians who can afford a large portfolio of gold bullion or a 7-year supply of nitrogen-packed food will be protected from last day crisis and wickedness? Could it be that poor Christians will have no access to such deliverance?

We concluded that this could never be true. Christ offers salvation and deliverance to all who would come. In the same way, Christ’s deliverance from God’s wrath does not (should not) have any monetary cost. We may indeed suffer monetary loss in a world prone to immoral monetarism and which is increasingly inhospitable to Christians.

However, salvation and deliverance from a wicked world is available to all without a monetary price. While some may peddle survival supplies for the future Tribulation period, only to those that can afford them, God has a much more equitable plan—not that we should deserve it. It is the great “snatching away” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-18) … the Rapture.

Here;  http://www.raptureready.com/featured/hahn/h144.html

I agree with the author 100%.

As many of you know, I am in the money business in that I'm a Chartered Financial Consultant.  I've seen and heard of so many stories about people and their love of money that some day I may have to write a book.  I have had conversations with some Christians who say half in jest, "So where's a good place to put our money?...and they are truly interested but they say it with a smile.  I have had other Christians ask me, "So where do we put our money?"....and you can see a look of fear in their eyes.

Friends, as the author says, Jesus warned a lot about money because he knew that we were going to fall in love with it.  We can't serve two masters.  We can't serve Mammon (god of money and material goods) and Jesus.

So let's all ask ourselves as we wallow in the decadent pit of materialism that has become America;  Are we spending so much time worrying about our what will happen if all of our Mammon were to suddenly disappear?  And are we actually repulsing people with our incessant worry about how we are going to make all our stuff survive?  Survive until what?

Are you joyfully looking for Jesus to return and going out everyday seeing how you can spread that awesome good news?....or are you locked in the basement watching Fox News wringing your hands about the miserable state of planet earth as you put the seal on your 5th drum of rice?

Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

Do I believe it's a wise idea to have some cash in your drawer and some food in a pantry?  Yes I do.

Why?

Because it's a prudent thing to do in light of the increasing amount of birth pangs that are hitting our planet.  Just think if your town has a power outage and a storm and your local Walmart goes empty. You don't want to be part of the problem as Walmart shoppers slug each other over the last case of Diet Coke.

Furthermore, what if you could invite your neighbor lady and her two young kids over to your house for dinner and maybe have an opportunity to tell her about the birth pangs and what they are announcing?

Just think if you could invite that neighbor lady over TODAY even if there isn't a storm and power outage?

"The harvest is at hand and the workers are few."

As we said yesterday in Adult Education, Jesus told us that the conditions before the rapture of the church would be as it was in the days of Noah BEFORE the flood waters came and took them all away.  People were eating, drinking, planning their weddings, shopping at Kohl's, booking cruises on Carnival, planning their dream homes, etc...  He didn't say that their society was in utter meltdown and people were running around looking for squirrels to eat in their backyards as they ran for their bunkers.

So let's all go live with the JOY that comes with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit living in us!

If you aren't filled with the JOY of The Lord...maybe you should test yourself?

2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?