The Truth Behind Mammon

Foreign. [Music] Luke chapter 16 and verse 10. And like I said before, you, uh, you ought to have a dent in your Bible there right now. I can remember the time we're in church, somehow another, people became fearful of having things. And you would hear quite often people would say, "Well, I, I knew I shouldn't have got all that money, and that money got a curse on it, and that's why I'm in the situation I am in right now because of all that money." Was it the money that did that? Is, is the, can you blame the stuff for what happened?

And so we're gonna, we're gonna look at the truth behind this. And I'm going to bring up a lot of different things to help you to really realize that no, don't be careful not to blame the stuff. Christian people who have a mission like we have need to have some stuff so we can minister and be effective in this planet. We still live in the physical realm. Now, everybody else when it comes to money, want to talk about, you know, well, heaven is a place that's rich in wisdom and rich in love. Now, it's also got streets paved with gold. But I want you to listen to me, because if that spirit of Mammon has not been, been disturbed so far, it will be today. You may want to get you a little paper sack just in case you throw up something today.

Let's begin again in Luke chapter 16, verse 10. He says, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in the much." Now, remember, and this is so important for today, that context is king. Say that, context is king. The application of a scripture is going to be based on the context that it was found. Now, if you take it and just lift it out of its context, and all of a sudden you're starting, you're now telling all kinds of things about that one scripture that you took out of context. Oh, dear God, there's no telling what we may end up. Well, even in verse 10, for example, I could, I could take verse 10 and lift it up and say, "You know what? You know, if you're not faithful in the least, uh, then you're not going to be faithful in much." And then I can say to you, "You know what? If you hadn't been faithful in taking out the trash, then you're not going to be faithful in, you know, uh, sitting in an office." Now, is that the truth? That is the truth. That is a truth. But is it, what is it the truth that Jesus was talking about here in context? No. That's the truth, but it's not what Jesus was talking about here.

And so that's the thing you got to deal with. That is the truth that, you know, you start off small, and if you do good small, then you'll most likely be able to do good with the greater things. But that's not what he's talking about here. Here he is talking about a steward and his unfaithfulness dealing with money. And he is now called money the least. He didn't use the least as a category word that says, you know, here's a category, and then you can apply whatever you want to do. No, no. He said that the least, in context, the least is money. In context, the least is money. And what he says in context, he says, "If you are faithful with money, which is the least, then you'll be faithful with the much." Now, money is never going to be the much, because he just said money is the least. So when he's talking about the much, he's obviously referring to all those other areas of our life, areas of relationship, areas where healing is concerned, areas where promotion and all the finished works and the things you're believing for. And what Jesus said here is that we're going to learn a whole lot about your future based on how you handle money.

Now, for years, this has been hidden. It's been covered up. The spirit of Mammon has just continued to come up with a way to make it seem like the last thing you ever want to hear about in church is the subject of money, because that is all demonic thing. Now, the demonic thing was the demon that told you not to hear about money. And I'll show you why in a moment. But Jesus here, in context, says, "He that is faithful or he that can be trusted in, in that which is least, he that can be trusted with money." And your scriptures, as we go on, the test is always, let's see how he does with money. The test is always, how are they going to, how are they going to handle the money? Every time you see in the New Testament Jesus talking about money, it's always an issue of trust. Can they be trusted? And so now, here's the, here's the place where you get that answer. Let's see how they can do with money. That'll let us know where their trust is. "He that is faithful in that which is least," the money, "is faithful also in the much." And he that is unjust in the least, the money, that's what it is. And religious people hate hearing you even say that, but you cannot argue with the context. You cannot argue with the fact that the whole context is talking about a steward who was not faithful with his master's money, and Jesus called that money the least. And he says, "If you're unjust with the least, then you're going to also be unjust with the much."

Verse 11. And so he comes in and he says, "If, therefore, you have not been faithful in the unrighteous Mammon, now again, the word Mammon is a word that derived from the Aramaic language. And you know, in some Bible translations, you will see the word Mammon translated money or riches, money or riches." And so what he is saying is that most money and riches that are in the world are under the influence of Mammon. "Unrighteous Mammon," he says. "Now, if you can't be trusted with the unrighteous Mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?" So the issue of trust, can your trust be successful? Can you be trusted with money? Will determine if you'll be trusted with whatever is true in life. And it's going to be based on, can you be trusted with money?

Listen to me. He goes to the next verse and he uses a, a, a, an illustration here. And he says, "If you, therefore, have been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? If you've not been faithful in that which is another man's, who's going to give you that which is your own?" Dude, if you take a guy and you, and he can't be trusted with two dollars, you do not make him the vice president of your billion-dollar industry. Why? Because you know everything you want to know about that guy when he was left with two bucks. You know everything you want to know. Now, you can fool yourself and put on blinders, well, let's give them another chance. But when it goes down the way that it's supposed to go down, then don't talk about you don't know what happened. If you can't, if a guy can't be trusted with money, why put any other trust in his hands? You know, in leadership, one of the things I pay attention to in leadership is, let's see the God's giving record. Because if he can't be trusted with money, why are you putting him over people? He's already told on himself. We already know what's going on.

But now here's what we're looking at today. Verse 13. "No servant can serve two masters." Now, you can serve one or the other, but you cannot serve two masters. Now, follow this very carefully. No servant can serve two masters. Now, Jesus said, "No, you can't do it." Jesus says, "You cannot serve two masters at one time. You're going to have to choose, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God." Now, according to this scripture, he talks about two masters. So it's easy for me to conclude that God is one of those masters, and Mammon. Now, I looked at this and I says, "Now, is it really money?" And the answer to that is yes. But why is the money the problem? Because it's not really the cash that's the problem as much as it is the spirit behind it. Now, listen to me carefully. If the cash was the problem, then there's no way that God would at any time want you to have it. Not at any time would God ever be for you to have it. He would never say stuff like, "I'll give you the power to get the wealth so that you and can fulfill the cup." He would never say that if the money or the material was the problem. So this has got to go deeper than this. And since he says you can't serve two masters, one being God, who is a spirit, he must be referring to the spirit behind ungodly money, which is the spirit of Mammon.

Mammon is a spirit. It is the spirit that operates in this world. In this, in these United States of America, it is a spirit that may operate in your home. It is the spirit that you may have been trained in. It is the spirit that was behind the fall of Babylon, where Babylon, in its day, in its heyday, had a very unhealthy relationship with the material realm, where God was absolutely not their source. They totally depended on the, the materials and the money in that world to meet their needs. But there was a spirit behind that money that was a spirit that influenced how materials were going to be used. And what he is saying here is, you are standing between two spirits. You are either going to make a decision to serve the spirit of God and his influence on money, or you're going to make a decision to serve the spirit of Mammon and its influence on money.

If you take this money, I put this money right here. And on this step, this money is neither good or bad. Somebody said, "All that money is a wicked thing." That money ain't wicked. That money, that money ain't on that step is not wicked. Now, what determines if that money is going to be wicked? It determines who will come and pick it up, and what spirit have they chosen to provide influence in their life. And whatever influence is happening in your life is going to get on that money. If you have chosen to live your life directed and influenced by the spirit of Mammon, then that's the spirit that's going to get on that money. Chosen to live your life under the direction of God and allowing God to influence your life and God's word to influence your life, then that will get on that money. But to say that that money, that material, that cash by itself is the root of all evil, that's incorrect. That's not it.

In verse 14, so Jesus is preaching this contrast between Mammon and God, and he's warning people, "Make sure you disconnect from this Mammon. Make sure you connect with God." This Mammon is going to take you into places that you ain't going to want to be. Now, the journey, it might be fun, but you're not going to like where it leaves you. And Mammon always abandons you. You're going to see this morning, the spirit of Mammon always abandons you. The spirit of Mammon is always going to promise you that that only God can give you.

And so the Pharisees were listening to Jesus preach this sermon. And look what they said. The Bible says, "And the Pharisees also who were covetous." That's important. They were covetous. The word covet, when you covet something, you have this covetous spirit. It's, it's closely associated with the word greed. And when you're covetous, you're greedy, but you're not only greedy to the point where you try to get more of it, but you're also trying to keep everything you get. And so imagine Jesus showing up and preaching this sermon. All of a sudden, they are afraid. "We're getting ready to lose what we got, and I'm concerned about about us keeping what we get." So here's how they responded to it. They heard all of these things, and they derided him. In other words, they begin to scoff at him. They begin to laugh at it, like, "Man, it's got trivia. Y'all don't believe that, do you?" Because all of a sudden, the spirit of Mammon is being confronted with the truth. And we can't let these people hear this truth, because if they hear this truth, they might start trying to take what we covet.

Thank you. And that's why some preachers are afraid to tell you the truth about the area of money. They want to get up and tell you, "If you don't give, you're going to go to hell. If you don't tithe, your life is going to be miserable." And all that stuff. And I'm telling you right now, ladies and gentlemen, that is an attempt to control people with fear and out of fear try to motivate you to give, because they're afraid they're going to lose out if they tell you the truth. And I'm telling you the truth right now in the name of Jesus. That spirit of covetous, which is based in the spirit of Mammon, is designed to want to get you to hold on to stuff. You know, the Bible says, "Your tradition has made the word of God of no effect." Be careful that you're not holding on to an old tradition in this area, and it's even hard for you to hear the truth about it. That's the spirit of Mammon working real hard. Hold on to it. Don't listen to that. And that's what they were saying. Don't listen to what Jesus said. Don't listen to what he just preached.

It's amazing, you know, when we talk about equality, there's a tradition about the man being in control and the man doing everything, and the woman's just a piece of nothing. You just sit there and look pretty and be quiet and do as I say, like she's a trained dog or something like that. And most of the church has brought that to the point that now you're trying to talk about equality in marriage, and men can't hear it because they're used to having the control and having the say-so. And you do what you need to do. And the woman said, "You're trying to be the Christian woman," and saying, "Yes, baby, whatever you want me to do. Yes, sir." And then they're going to congratulate, "Now, that's a good little Christian woman right there because she's real obedience." That is a bunch of crap from the pit of hell. A woman is not some trained circus dog. She was created equal to the man. And listen, the domination that that came from came as a result of the fall. And she, nobody, God didn't create man or woman to be dominated by one another. Nobody's supposed to be dominating you. You don't like to be dominated. Men, when somebody dominates you, you tell them, "I don't like being disrespected." Well, you've been disrespecting your wife all this time. What do you mean you don't like me? Nobody has been created to dominate the other person. That is wrong teaching taken out of context. That is a part of the curse that happened as a result of the fall. And Jesus came to fix everything that happened as a result of the fall. And when he showed up, he dealt with the issue of dominance. And he says, "Now that we're in Christ Jesus, there's no more male or female, but we're all one in Christ. There's an equality in Christ Jesus." So the men doesn't get to dominate, and the wife doesn't get to dominate. We get to walk together and find out what God wants us to do. And most men hate it because you are afraid you're going to lose control, just like the Pharisees here. And all of that inequality is Mammon-based. You're afraid, "Oh, that little poor woman, you know, she's the weaker vessel." Dude, read the scripture. Ain't nothing weak about a woman that can push a baby out. Never ever. If having babies go up to men, you would not touch me. You would not put your hands on me. There's no way. If God reversed it and something happened and a woman got a man pregnant, I would never. It wouldn't even be up for discussion. Family, you should have met somebody else because I ain't having no kids. That's not even what that's talking about. That's talking about a young girl who was not yet to the age of maturity and couldn't do certain things because she hadn't reached that age of maturity, and she was weak because of her youth at that time, because dudes were marrying young girls at that time. Excuse me.

So is that what it's talking about? We gotta, we gotta get free from the spirit of Mammon because it's even not only trying to get us to hold on to riches, it's trying to get us to hold on to bad tradition. The spirit of Mammon is playing an intellectual part. Now, keep you in bondage by keeping you in bad tradition of the stuff that was lifted out of context. Even the word context, if you take the text out of context, you're left with "con." And most of the church has been conned. That's what happens when you lift stuff out of context. You're conned. And the Pharisees here are saying, "Yeah, you hear what he's saying? Y'all know that ain't true. What I mean, come on, man. It's Jesus. I mean, you know, you know we've been talking about them all over the place. You can't trust what he's saying. I mean, come on." Yeah, I understand that because they made me feel like that. I'm talking to them people like that. "Oh, that, you know, that's purple dollar. You know, you know, that that's the man who got that jet. That crumpled dollar, man. That's a better. Don't listen to it." Discredit the messenger to try to discredit the message. That's Mammon driven. Mammon attempting to try to protect its doctrine. And what is its doctrine? Its doctrine is a doctrine of the world. Mammon is the spirit that operates in the world. Mammon is the spirit that operates in the world. It's the worldly spirit. It's been hiding behind the norms and values of society. Mammon shows up and says, "It doesn't have to be Bible in order to be right. All it takes is a lot of people that say it's right, and then it's right." That's what norms and values are. Norms and values of the world just simply say, "It doesn't have to be scripture. If we say it's right, and if enough of us say it's right, then it's right." That comes straight out of the book of Mammon. Are you listening to me?

In fact, let's go to the spirit of the world. First John chapter 2, verse 15 through 17. You know, this stuff just peeling the layers back and just peeling the layers back. I, I could preach this and then at the same time have another pastor, and he'll preach another layer, and then another one come in and see something else. And right now, some of you are seeing other things, and you're putting, you just keep, because once you, it's revealed to you, you said, "Man, I can see this everywhere." Man, why? Because it is, it is the very fabric of the American dream. It's the very fabric of everything that that happens in our society, in this country, and around the world. First John chapter 2:15 says, "Love not the world." Now, this is so much. You know, he's not talking about the physical earth, the system. "Love not the system of the world." And the worldly system is operated by a Mammon, that spirit that operates the world system. The world system is a way of thinking and a way of doing. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world's system, then the love of the Father is not in him." See, that goes back to Luke 16 again. Who you're going to choose? The world's way of doing things or the Father's way of doing things? And I says, "Once you make the choice, if you choose Mammon's way of doing things, then the love of the Father is not in you." Because you can't serve them at the same time. You can't choose the world system of doing things and God's system of doing things. And it, if they're offset, you can't. It won't happen. You just get zero. Nothing happens.