Dangers Of Wealth And Comfort — Zac Poonen

Perseverance and Encouragement Through Scripture

It's a wonderful word we read in Romans in chapter 15 and verse 5 and 6. May the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.

So that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must always remember God in verse 5 as the one who gives us perseverance to endure unto the end no matter what may happen around us and who always encourages us to press on.

If you fall to get up and run again, if you fall ten times to get up again, if you fall a hundred times to get up and run again, he gives us perseverance and encouragement. So none of us must ever feel discouraged or condemn ourselves.

Never. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world. John 3 17. So we must never forget that because the devil would like us to forget that. Many Christians live under feeling that God is there to condemn them and so they get discouraged.

Then it also says in verse 4, whatever was written in earlier times, that is for us the Old Testament, was written for our instruction. Why? Should we read the Old Testament? Sure. So that from their examples through perseverance and encouragement.

The same two words in verse 5. Through perseverance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. So in verse 4 we get perseverance and encouragement through reading God's Word and verse 5 it says the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit gives us that perseverance and encouragement.

And so there are lessons that we can learn from the Old Testament and I want to try and show you some of them this morning. Please turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 8. This is a wonderful chapter from the Old Testament and one of the main reasons being that this is the chapter where you read man shall not live by bread alone.

Verse 3, the last part, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. That's the first word that Jesus spoke in his ministry and the temptation and that is from Deuteronomy chapter 8 and so this is a very important chapter.

Jesus knew it in his mind. He had read it memorized it, meditated on it and he could quote it immediately. So chapters like that are very important for us and this was at the end of the 40 year wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness and Moses was recapitulating all that happened in those 40 years and he was telling them in verse 1, when you go in to possess the land, be careful to obey all the commandments that I'm commanding you today and when you go there, don't forget verse 2, the way the Lord led you for 40 years in the wilderness and you know they suffered a lot in the wilderness with the heat and not much good food and to just eat one piece of manna every day.

That was their meal. Often thirsty, bitten by snakes and walking through the rough desert for 40 years. Why did the Lord lead his people through those very difficult paths? Why does he lead his people through difficult paths today?

It says here, first of all to humble you. God has to do many things to humble us. He humbles us through poverty, he humbles us through sickness, he humbles us through disappointments, things we want that we don't get.

He humbles us through failure and even sin. That is a last resort. But in it all, what the Lord is testing, you need to understand what the Lord is testing. He's testing you, verse 2, to know what is in your heart, whether you will keep his commandments or not.

That was the test which God gave Adam. Only one test. Will you keep my commandments or not? And at the end of 40 years in the wilderness, Moses says, that's what the Lord's been testing you all these 40 years too.

Will you keep his commandments or will you not keep his commandments? Or will you treat some of those commandments as trivial, unimportant? What did we read in Romans 15 verse 4? That all these things written in the Old Testament are to give us instruction so that we can also persevere and be encouraged.

So the example of the Israelites going through the wilderness. But God is a merciful God and even though they failed him so many times, it says 10 times they rebelled against him. And that's why they were punished with 40 years in the wilderness.

But finally he still took them in to the land and he humbled you, verse 3, and let you be hungry to teach you that the most important thing is not food but the Word of God every day. Manna is not the best type of food to have every single day for 40 years.

It can be pretty boring, whatever it is. And there was nothing else. I mean there were no curries or anything else with it. It's just a little bit of manna. It was enough to sustain them but not very comfortable.

In other words we can say that they were like believers who were living a very simple rugged life. They couldn't buy new clothes, same type of food every day. There are many poor families even today of believers who don't have much variety in the food they eat every day.

Those who are rich can have a variety of meals but those who are poor live on the same food like these people, the same clothes, the same food for 40 years. But the Lord made sure that their clothing did not wear out in verse 4 and their feet did not swell.

And thus you know that the Lord your God verse 5 was disciplining you like a man disciplines his son. A good father will always discipline his children. A father who does not discipline his children does not love his children.

And the Lord your God was disciplining you. How was he disciplining them? By allowing them to be poor, allowing them to eat the same food every day. They couldn't afford anything else. Like I said many families today and no chance to buy new clothes or shoes or all the things that rich people and their children can say I want this, I want that, I want the other thing, I want this, that and the other.

I mean poor families even in the CFC churches in the villages can't afford that. That's how God disciplines people. We got to face that. And therefore remember it's not food or clothing. Man shall not live by a lot of variety of food or by extra clothes or shoes or anything.

Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And if you have learned that lesson then you've learned the most important lesson in the Christian life that life can come to us only if we listen and obey every word that comes from God's mouth.

That's why I say read the Bible regularly. That's why I've told you many times to get a copy of that commentary through the Bible and read three pages every day. I read three pages myself. I wrote it.

I find I'm reminded of things in God's Word and I'm encouraged again to meditate further on the passages I've already, God's already spoken to me on. You never, the Bible is like a well that never runs dry.

I would encourage you learn to live by every word that proceeds from God's mouth. And then he says the Lord will not allow you to keep on like that. The Lord is going to bring you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs.

It won't be like the wilderness flowing and land of wheat verse 8 and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates. It was from poverty to plenty, from being poor to being very rich. A land where you will eat food without scarcity in which you can have variety, no lack of anything.

You have metals, you can have industries there, you can dig copper and when you have eaten and are satisfied. Bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you. And now comes the warning.

Wealth, Comfort, and the Danger of Forgetting God

Just let me tell you, here is a warning that everybody in CFC has to take. Because you don't have to go to the Old Testament to learn it. We look around at Christendom, the churches that have been here for so many years.

This is where they fail. So listen carefully, beware that when you become rich and you have plenty of money to throw around, you can buy what you like and live as you like. Beware that you don't forget the Lord your God and you don't keep his commandments and his ordinances.

Otherwise when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them and in today's language we can say in verse 13, when your business prospers, when your salary in your office increases and you have a lot of savings in your bank accounts and your children are healthy and strong, doing well, they are married perhaps, they've got good jobs and then your heart becomes proud.

That danger was not there when they were poor, when they couldn't buy new clothes, when they had to eat the same simple food every day. That danger of becoming arrogant and proud comes especially to the next generation, to your children.

When they become rich, when they get jobs where in one month they earn more than their parents earned in one year. Did you hear that? Where our children earn in one month more than the parents earned in one year.

When that happens and that's happened, that is the time to be careful. Not in the years when you were struggling. Oh no, those years you cling to the Lord. Those years you don't have time to watch movies because life is a struggle.

You probably don't have money to pay for the monthly internet. Maybe there was no internet. But now you're wealthy, you get what you want and in the comfort of your home with nobody watching except God, you can live as you like.

Beware, you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of a life of sin. There's a verse in 2nd Peter 1 which says, if you forget, let me paraphrase it, if you forget your past sinful life from which you were saved, you will become spiritually blind.

Read that. 2nd Peter 1, I think it's verse 9 or somewhere there. If you forget at any time the wretched sinful life that God saved you from, you will become spiritually blind. And that's happened to numerous people.

That brokenness is gone. That is an indication of pride. I've seen it in a number of young people, children of parents who are in CFC, children who grew up as babies from in CFC and where they are today.

But I thank God they're not all like that. I've also seen a few young people who grew up as children here, who are examples of humility and who are not taken up with their salaries and their wealth, who don't mingle only with the elite educated but who are mingling with the poor and uneducated.

Those of you who are in high jobs and your children can go to good schools and get a good education, I want to ask you, do your children mingle with the really poor people in CFC? In conference time, do your children go to talk to the poor people who come from the villages in Tamil Nadu?

Ask yourself, do you want to save your children or do you want to raise an arrogant bunch of people who will only mingle with the elite upper-class Christians? I've seen it happen here. They'd like to talk to the foreigners more than the poor villagers from Tamil Nadu.

Okay, I don't go stopping it. I say we have preached enough in this church for people to know. We only say, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. If you want to bring up your children that way, go right ahead.

But I'll tell you this, the Word of God does not change. The way you bring up your child, mark my words, Proverbs 22 6, when he is old or she is old, they will not depart from it. And if you see children going astray, you can be sure you brought them up like that in childhood.

If you see them not serious about spiritual things and if the things of the world mean more to them now, it's because you brought them up that way. I'm not trying to bring you under condemnation. God is a God of encouragement.

But if you repent, I've heard people come to me and say, brother Zach, please pray for my children. They're going astray. I say fine, we'll do that. I believe God can work even with children who are not grown up, who grew up in CFC and who are not wholeheartedly.

God can still work with them, provided I tell those parents, you do one thing. First kneel down before God and say, my children are not wholehearted today Lord, because the Word of God is being fulfilled in Proverbs 22 6.

That's the way I brought them up and they became like that when they grew up. It's my fault. It's our fault. We take the blame 100%. Then you can ask God, Lord please forgive us. Please make them radical wholehearted disciples at least now and keep praying, you and your wife, until they change and you'll see a miracle happen.

But it has to begin with honest acknowledgement of your failure and your sin. As long as you say, no, it's like that, it happens like that, the world is bad and they got bad friends and bad company and some children turn out like that.

Okay, I've got nothing more to say. What will you stand before the Lord and say in the final day? You can justify yourself for the next 50 years, but what do you tell the Lord in the final day? Nothing.

Humble yourself. Verse 15, Deuteronomy 8, he led you through the great and terrible wilderness with his fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty water and those days you didn't backslide. He fed you with manna to humble you and now when you enter the land of Canaan and you have all this wealth, you say the power and strength of my hand made me this wealth.

Do you say that? That I worked hard and I was intelligent and I made all this money. That's why the company gave me a promotion because I'm smart. I'm not dumb like these other fellows in the company.

May God have mercy on you. You shall remember the Lord your God verse 18, for it is he who gives you power to make wealth because he loves you, because he wants to confirm his covenant with you and it shall come about verse 19, if you ever forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and today those other gods are money, pleasure, ease, comfort, laziness and you serve them and worship them.

Moses says I testify against you today. Whichever church you belong to, even if you're in CFC, you will surely perish like the churches before you that perished. So you shall perish because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.

It's a wonderful chapter. I take it very seriously. I remember in my own life, my wife and I, the years when we struggled, when we couldn't get much, even our food was very very simple. We couldn't get by hardly anything for our children or for ourselves and we say Lord I never want to forget those days and I want to be devoted to you today just like I was in those days.

There must not be even the slightest drop in devotion to you because there are warnings in Scripture of godly men. Don't think because I'm a godly man and I've kept going till now I'm okay. No you know that the children of Israel, they went astray when comfort came or when relative comfort came.

Israel's Idolatry After Deliverance from Egypt

Let me turn to Exodus in chapter 32. For 430 years they had been slaves in Egypt. They never worshipped idols then. Where was the time? Where was the money to make idols? Where was the time to worship idols?

They'd go to work at 6 o 'clock in the morning and come back at 9 o 'clock at night. They were slaves and they clung to God. They cried to God. The Bible says they sighed in Exodus chapter 2 the last word.

They sighed and Oh God have mercy upon us. They prayed but then they got delivered. That was a tremendous and they saw miracles of the Red Sea splitting open and a pillar of cloud and fire leading them and that you know when you experience a few answers to prayer and miracles it can go to your head and you can begin to think that boy I'm a special child of God and that's what they felt.

Now it was there was no slavery. They didn't have to get up at 6 o 'clock in the morning and carry bricks and stones. There was nobody whipping them on the back saying come on do your work. They were free and not only they were free, God had told them to get their wages from the Egyptians.

The Egyptians had made them serve for 430 years without paying them and so before they left God said go to every Egyptian and collect gold and silver from them. See God didn't tell them to ask for money.

He was saying give me a salary. Give me my salary for 430 years in gold and silver. They were only collecting their salary. There's no sin in going to the office and saying can I collect my salary. That's all those Israelites were told to do.

Go to every Egyptian house and collect your salary. Collect all the gold and silver and they got it. 430 years of salary which was not paid to them and they came out and when they came out with all this gold which they never had before.

They were poor but now they had so much gold and Moses had just gone up. They were scared as long as Moses was there. Oh boy he was a very strict man but once he had gone away just for a little over a month, just one month and it says in Exodus 32 Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain.

The people assembled to Aaron. Aaron was also a leader but he was not at the same quality as Moses. Not the same degree of strictness. He was a God appointed leader. Definitely God said Aaron is one of the leaders but he was not like Moses and they said to him come make us a God who will go before us because this man Moses I don't know what's happened to him.

Okay Aaron said quickly he wants to be popular. You know leaders who want to be popular. He said fine. Tear off the gold rings. Where did they get gold rings from? These slaves. They got it. Suddenly they got 430 years salary and they became wealthy, bonus and everything else and they put gold rings in the years of their wives and their daughters and even in their sons.

Amazing. Tear it off and bring it to me and the people tore off all the gold rings in the years and brought it and Aaron listened to this. He took it and with a graving tool he melted all this. This is Aaron and some people who helped him shaped it into a molten calf.

Can you imagine a leader doing this? Who had seen all the miracles they'd just seen from God and Aaron tells them this is your God. I just made it. Who brought you out from the land of Egypt, this wretched golden calf.

This is your God and what is the name of this God by the way? What is the name of this golden calf? Aaron said I'll tell you. Tomorrow we're gonna have a feast to this God and verse 5 he's called Jehovah.

Tomorrow we'll have a feast for this calf Jehovah. How quickly this backsliding came. So quickly. They've hardly come out of Egypt and they're already backsliding. The next day they rose up and of course they went through the religious exercise of burnt offerings and peace offerings before this golden calf they called Jehovah and then they sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play and the Lord said go down Moses the people have corrupted themselves they've turned aside from the way they are worshipping a golden calf and the Lord said I've seen this people.

Verse 9 they are an obstinate people. Let me alone that I may destroy them. I'll make you a great nation. There you see Moses heart. He says Lord I don't want to be a great man. This people descended from Abraham.

Let it continue. Let it never be said it descended from Moses. I don't want to be a great man. I don't want you to make me a great nation. There you see the greatness and the humility of this godly man.

He wanted nothing for himself. He only wanted for God's people. That's the type of man you and I should be. That's the type of man God uses who will never seek anything for himself but is always concerned for God's people and the testimony of God and the Lord said why have you why do you burn anger burn against them?

You brought these people out of Egypt. Why should those worldly people say that there's corruption in the midst of your people? Why should those world what will the Egyptians say when they see all this?

Please protect your testimony. Remember Abraham Isaac and Jacob verse 13 and verse 14 so the Lord changed his mind about the harm which he said he'd do to his people. Does God change his mind? He does.

He wanted to destroy them but one man stood there between God and the people and said forgive them Lord. The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much because Moses is a righteous man. God heard his prayer and said okay I won't destroy these people and they were saved.

It's amazing. We read that God wanted to destroy Nineveh in Jonah's time and it was the Word of God. 40 days and I'll destroy this nation and 40 days later he didn't destroy them. Does God change his mind?

Yes. He changes his mind when sometimes when he sees one man, at least one man who stands up for him and who will stand in the gap for the land. There's a verse I want to show you in Ezekiel chapter 22 and verse 30.

This is much later. This is just before the Israelites went to Babylon in captivity. God was very patient with the Israelites for a long time but they had gone astray and the prophets, verse 28, were whitewashing all the sins.

Ezekiel 22 verse 28. The prophets were just whitewashing everything and covering it all up and making false visions and the people of the land, verse 29, committed robbery and did all types of wrong things and in the midst of all this corruption, their rulers, verse 27, were wolves tearing the prey and the priests did violence, verse 26.

Priests in verse 26, princes in verse 27, prophets in verse 28, ultimately the people also in verse 29 and the whole Jing Bang lot and the Lord said in the all this crowd I searched for one man who would not compromise.

You know what that very often God looks like that. He looks for one man who will build up the wall and stand in the gap before me so that I will not destroy it. Moses stood in the gap there and said Lord don't destroy this people and so he didn't destroy them but in this time, in Ezekiel's time, he says I found none so I poured out my indignation on them.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel lived around the same time and the Lord said even to Jeremiah in chapter 5, they were contemporaries, they lived around the same time. Jeremiah was also called by God. Forty years he preached to try and save Israel from going to Babylon and the Lord told Jeremiah in chapter 5 in verse 1, go through the streets of Jerusalem, look now and take note, seek in her open squares and see if you can find one man, one man who will do justice, who seeks the truth without compromise and I will pardon her.

In Sodom and Gomorrah Abraham prayed Lord if there are ten people, will you spare the land? He said okay if there are ten, I will spare the land. The Lord was more merciful in Jerusalem. He said if you can find one, I'll spare the land.

I don't need ten, one but he couldn't find one and that's why Israel went to Babylon. God has raised up many churches through these 20 centuries. Many of them started like Jerusalem and ended in Babylon.

Spiritual Drift in Churches and the Loss of the Lampstand

Christian history is full of such stories. Even the day in the first century, the Apostles built churches that were holy before God like Jerusalem but by the time it comes to the end of the first century, you read in Revelation chapter 2, chapter 3, so many of those churches have drifted away.

They just got a name that they are alive. They got the doctrine, they got the singing but they don't have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They don't have purity and zeal for God, compromise and the Lord says I'll remove the lampstand from your midst.

I'll de-recognize you as a church. He said I'll spit you out of my mouth. I'll remove your name from the book of life. These are some of the warnings in Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3. What type of churches?

Churches planted by the Apostles. So it happens and when Moses came down, he saw all this, it says in verse 19 of Exodus 32. Moses thought there's a war going on when he heard all that sound and Exodus 32 in verse 19, Moses came near the camp and he saw the golden calf.

They were worshipping money. They were not worshipping money in Egypt. Now they started worshipping money and dancing and Moses anger burned and he took those tablets which God had written with his own hand, Ten Commandments and he shattered it at the foot of the mountain saying why should I give you these Ten Commandments?

You bunch of people, you have no gratitude to God for what he's done for you. It's something like Jesus getting angry when he saw people in the temple worshipping money and taking money from the poor, selling doves and sheep.

So he took the calf and burnt it. Just see what he did. Moses was such a strong man. He took the calf, verse 20 and burnt it with fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and said now you children of Israel drink this water, this calf that you worshipped.

Is that cruel? He was a man of God and then Moses said to his co-worker, why did you do this? That you brought such a great sin upon them and Aaron said don't get angry. The people said make a God for us and he puts the blame on others.

This is a habit of Adam. God asked him something, he points at his wife. Moses asked Aaron, he points at the people, these people, not me and I told them to go and listen to this. This is interesting.

Verse 24, they gave me all the gold, verse 24 middle and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf. Wow what a miracle that is. As if he thought Moses would be so stupid to believe that. I threw all the gold and out came a calf.

This business of self-justification has been there from the time of Adam. Did you eat the tree? Lord my wife gave it to me. In Jesus day he said you are those who justify yourself before men but that is an abomination before God.

Aaron was like that and the people were out of control and then Moses said is anybody here on the Lord's side? Anybody in this camp and out of all those two million people, the sons of Levi said yes we are on the Lord's side.

Then he called those sons of Levi and said I want you to go into the camp and don't spare anybody. Take your sword, verse 27, idol worshipers must be killed. That's a law in those days. Kill every man even if it's your brother.

Don't spare him. He may be your good friend. Don't spare him. Every man his friend and every man his neighbor. Don't look at his face and be partial. Take your sword and chop off his head. You think that was easy?

Would you have done it if you were there? I mean in the new covenant we don't do it but that was old covenant. But if the Lord said you got to go and do that. Chop off the head of these people who worship the idols and purify the camp.

Would you do it or would you be compassionate? No, let's be merciful. More merciful than God. That's been the tragedy of Christendom in 2 ,000 years. People don't know God. They don't know the holiness of God.

The sons of Eli did that and have you ever and it says verse 29, dedicate yourself to the Lord that he may bestow a blessing upon you. You know why did God choose the sons of Levi to be the priests? Have you ever wondered?

That is a greatest honor out of the 12 tribes. He didn't just pick lots and say okay Levi. No, in this moment of testing only the tribe of Levi stood with the Lord. God said okay you guys will be the priests.

Throughout your generations, your children, grandchildren, they'll be blessed because you stood for the Lord and you did not compromise. You will be the priest. So remember that the priesthood was given not arbitrarily without any reason.

It was because they took a stand for the Lord. What we learned from that is you know this already happened once. They came out of Egypt and then they drifted away with all the gold. That's why Moses warned them later on in Deuteronomy 8.

Noah's Fall When Comfort Replaced Vigilance

But one very interesting thing we see that after this one event and because of this very strict action that Moses took, you know chopping off people's heads and a number of people died that day. For the rest of their wilderness journey for nearly 40 years, they never worshipped idols.

It's very interesting. One strict treatment and they never worshipped idols again. If Moses had been lenient here, they'd have been worshipping idols for the next 40 years. But now they were going to enter Canaan and now it is going to be comfortable again.

That's when Deuteronomy 8, he said be careful. Now this struggle and time of poverty and struggle is over and you're going to come to a comfortable life. Be careful. That's the time you will backslide.

You see an example of that in Genesis in chapter 9. We read in Genesis and about the flood and at the end of the flood you know everybody was destroyed and then Noah came out and as he came out of the ark and it says in verse 8, chapter 8 verse 20, Noah built an altar and then God blessed Noah.

Verse chapter 9 verse 1, be fruitful and multiply he said. I will establish my covenant with you and what a tremendous blessing. There was a rainbow and I will establish my covenant with you and your children will be blessed and then what happened?

Verse 20, chapter 9 verse 20, Noah began farming. The time of trouble, the flood is over. Now he had been preaching a hundred and twenty years. Opposed, opposed, persecuted, opposed, opposed, opposed and he stood true to the Lord.

Built the ark single-handedly just with his sons, true to the Lord but now the Lord had blessed him and he built a vineyard. Then what happened? Then he became drunk and took off all his clothes and lay naked in the tent.

He never did that in all the 600 years before that. He never did that when people were opposing him and persecuting him for 120 years when he preached in the wilderness. See what comfort and ease and the blessing of God does to a man if he doesn't fall on his face before God and say Lord I'm just dust and ashes.

You blessed me but I'm nobody, I'm nothing. These are warnings, the things written in Scripture are for us brothers. As long as you're opposed and persecuted and you're struggling. Think how hard Noah would have worked in those days getting up early in the morning and working till late at night building the ark and preaching, going out preaching and opposed by everybody.

He never got drunk in those days but now the nobody's opposing him. He's popular, he's famous, the whole world is his and God has blessed him and rewarded him in so many ways and made a covenant with him with a rainbow.

He was a great man of God. That's when he fell. These things are written for our instruction that can happen again and what is the result? It ends up in one of his grandchildren being cursed because Ham, his son came and saw his nakedness, verse 22 and reported it and when Noah woke, verse 24, he said Ham's son was Canaan.

Verse 25, curse it be Canaan, a servant of servant shall he be to his brothers. That's how the Canaanites got cursed and those are the people whom Israel drove out of the land of Canaan. That's here, it begins here.

Curse that came upon them because Ham had now come out. Till then he was faithful, he helped in building the ark. He helped in building the ark and now see what's happened to him and his children. Yeah that can happen.

When ease and comfort come in our children can go astray unless there are strict fathers who keep correcting them even after they have grown up and got married. You don't have to control your married children but if you're a father you still got to warn them when there's a danger and I keep doing that.

My children are all married but doesn't mean I give up my right as a I don't interfere in their life at all but if I see them going astray I don't care, I will tell them the truth. Not after they've gone completely astray but I see a drift one degree off the straight path, that's when I warn them.

I hope you do. Love the Lord more than you love your children if you want to be a disciple. Maybe you started out like that, are you still like that? Let me give you another example. We read in 2nd Samuel and chapter 11, there was a particular season in the year when war used to take place.

It was probably the summer time, winter is difficult to go and fight battles. So this was a springtime. Chapter 11 verse 1, the land was getting warmer, that's the time when kings go out to battle. It's consistent in that area of the world and David who was always the leader in the battle, you know those days the kings would lead the army in battle.