What is the biggest problem of the world?

1 Timothy 6:9-12, But they that are minded to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. (ASV).

The earth we are living in today is as old as thousands of years and we know not how many more years ahead will it still be in existence. So far we have had two world wars, several conflicts of great magnitudes. Disease, ignorance, corruption, inequality, gender disparities, failing economies among many other plagues. In the developing world it is poverty that remains the biggest of all troubles.

The problem of poverty has given rise to the preaching of a different Gospel all together.  The third world countries have been a great dumping ground of the wealth and health teachings from the west especially America. This religious junk rides on what has come to be known as the liberation theology. The proponents hold on to the premise that God wants everyone to be blessed beyond measure and live healthy and wealthy lives here on earth.

 They thrive on giving promises and prophesies like, ‘you will never grow sick, lack or be in want.’ All of a sudden everybody has turned God into Santa clause, we want the goods that God can offer and yet not the God who offers these goods. It disheartens to see how poor people are taken advantage of by the many people who call themselves ‘the men of God’ and yet they are ravenous wolves hungry for their engorgement with money and wealth yet leaving their congregants as lean as never before.

The wealth and health teachers have always taken advantage of the Biblical ignorance of their hearer’s. Man is religious always having the consciousness of a deity; the world of Christian religion has experienced an influx of people claiming to be Christians. These Christians are not rooted in their faith but have found the opportunity to join mega churches and Christian gatherings that teach less of the orthodox historical Christian doctrines but what they want to hear. Among the things they want to hear are blessings, breakthrough and great health. Their teachers have realized this and have a tailor made philosophy to handle this hunger for the knowledge of a God who will fix all discomfort in this world. The teachers have great minds and appeal to the original languages of Scripture like Greek in their teachings, always quoting Scriptures out of context and twisting them to say what their hearers yearn to hear.

These are men of charisma, good in public speaking and would convince anyone with their smooth talks. Their nature is characterized by hubris, arrogance and always clamors for praise. They have great titles, always living large, with expensive clothing, private jets, and big homes and enormous wealth. Their followers worship them, everything they say goes. The end result is the nature of people we are seeing in our societies. Many people seem to have drunk from this religion and are even fully confused and do not know anything like hard work, facing the realities of suffering and hardships in life.

People are taught that they are king’s kids, they belong to a kingdom and God will make them kings and royalties, they will always be heads and never tails. Cheap talk and hot air taking away reason and logic convinces these people that God will give them all the gold and silver, all they have to do is to give to God and it will be shaken together, pressed down and soon and very soon they will be living in an overflow of blessings. These people have been hurt by these teaching, many poor people have been fleeced of their little resources, families have been torn apart, even lives have been lost as people have been charged and sent into a suicidal frenzy of chasing after their birth rites. Greed and the love for money and affluence have seen many people strive to get what they want from God. These people do not have any changed lives, any humility and kindness or honesty and sincere love for God and the things of God.

The mantra again is and has always been God loves you so much and wants you happy and rich in this life. Let us have a little heaven down here.

Is Poverty the greatest problem of the world?

Jesus said: ‘The poor will always be with us’, such is the reality.

The gap between the poor and the rich is always widening. The solution to poverty is hard work and diligence and it has nothing to do with religion. Yes poverty is bad and poverty stings, but false religion is equally worse and it intoxicates. You do not sleep all day, seven days a week and go to church on Sunday to get blessings. It is unethical to give bribe, and this is exactly what the health and wealth teachers are propagating. Their God is a miserable old man in the sky who is always at their mercy. He longs for them to tell Him what they want and even so they can arm twist Him with money and thus unlock their blessings.

Poverty therefore to them is the enemy and the victory is gaining reaches, the argument is you cannot do whole lots of things without money. Religion then is the means to an end and God is the ticket to the land of wealth. The whole world is grappling with poverty; we have thousands upon thousands of charitable organizations all fighting poverty.

We have seen a lot of philanthropic efforts from the rich and the mighty; always out to make a name for themselves. But still we have millions of human beings living in abject poverty and are treated like vermin by the rich; these are always seen as the good for nothing scum of the society. The reaction then from the poor has been that they should work towards amassing lots of wealth and they will be treated with respect and honor. Philanthropy in and of itself is not wrong but the motives behind such efforts have always been questionable.

For the poor man in the modern world, religion, more so Christian religion is the vehicle to God’s blessings. Many are ignorant of historical Biblical Christianity and thus anything goes for them. As long as we continue to see God as Santa Clause we will continue to see Christian religion as the wealth and health enterprise.

Now I introduce you to the greatest poverty of all.

Romans 3:23	for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
24	being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25	whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God;
26	for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus. (ASV)

The greatest poverty of all is in the hearts of men. This is what Christian theology teaches. Yes God will bless us but not just in this life alone. This is what the wealth and health preachers fail to realize and to teach. All men both rich and poor are naked, wretched and blind without God. The Bible teaches that this is sin, disobedience against God. Whether we give alms and practice philanthropy with selfish motives or not, we can never be right with God.

Sin has made us more than scum and vermin, sin has killed us all, the mighty and the weak. We are dead men walking and our death is Spiritual that we cannot know God in our own terms. Then because of sin we will die physical deaths. And upon our physical death we will be sent to hell forever. Our true riches then are in Christ Jesus, the man that God has appointed to redeem us from sin and give us the blessing of eternal life.

Do we want to be rich and blessed, let us run to Jesus Christ today in repentance and pray to God to forgive us of all our disobedience towards Him.

Conclusion:

There is nothing wrong with making money and wealth in the rightful way but there is everything wrong in using religion as the means to gaining material wealth and hoarding money as the ultimate end. When all is said and done we will one day die and leave everything behind and without salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ all our efforts to gain wealth for ourselves are futile.  The chief end of man is to honor God and worship Him.

Written by Bonface Ochieng (GBC-K)