Don’t Sell Things in God’s House. Mark 11:15-17, John 2:15-16
By Matthew Robert Payne Mark 11:15-17 (New King James Version) 15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 16 And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. 17 Then He taught, saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves. John 2:15-16 (New King James Version) 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said to those who sold doves, Take these things away! Do not make My Fathers house a house of merchandise! We live a long time from the days of Jesus. Its quite interesting to read that Jesus overturned the money changers tables not once but twice. He did it in his first week in the public ministry and in the last week before He was crucified on the cross. Its not the sort of thing that would be done these days unless and man of God was out of his mind. (or ordered by the Lord to do it with a camera crew) In my city of Sydney I have two churches that are quite big churches that have a book store in their lobbies. In one of the churches at every service they promote a book and a CD set that are on sale at the bookshop. Part of the promotion involves a few of the books and CD sets being given away to the audience. This blatant promotion is selling in the Lords house. In advertising a good way to find hot prospects for a service is to offer a competition for six months supply of the product. All the people that clip the coupon want the product. The same goes for the people in the audience that put their hands up to get the free product that the minister promotes. Many of the people that wanted to get the book for free will soon find themselves in the bookshop purchasing what they couldnt get for free. Sure we havent got doves in the church and money changers, but there are certain churches that have a mini sermon before the offering is taken up each week. The sermon is on giving and how we will be blessed if we give. Each week the people are told to give and to give and each week the tithing message is right after the praise and worship as though the people have been whipped into a frenzy so that they might give. Giving is an act of faith on the person who is giving. Similar to healing it is up to the person giving to have faith that God shall supply all their needs with 90% of their income rather then the 100% without a weekly tithe to the house of God. It all comes down to faith. There are some mega churches that have been built from the generous giving of righteous and faithful people and there are some mult-millionaire rich and wealthy preachers of the Word who have become rich from the giving of the widows. Titus 1:10-11 (New King James Version) 10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. When a person sees the fruit of tithing and has testimony of Gods faithfulness they are not often swayed from it. Surely the testimonies of normal folk would solve the tithing issue once and for all. Its just faith; its the personal faith of the giver that is in question and their faith need to be strengthened. My brother at the moment does not like going to his church because of the tithing message each week. He tithes but he resents the preaching of it each week in the service. Selling God is not something God had in mind when he had the Bible written. The Word of God should be preached for free from the pulpit without a person feeling guilty because they are not tithing. There are hundreds of books out there and there are hundreds being writing today all around the world. Much money is being made from the gospel even millions being made on the subject of tithing. Jesus would possibly object to the tithing message and the promotion of books at each church service. He would object to people publishing books and making millions when the same books could be free online and able to be read online until the person simply buys the book as they get sick of reading off a monitor. There is so much information out there and so few Christian ministries offering information that is worthwhile for free on the Internet. Yet the Internet is a medium that has made, Freely you have received freely give, a living reality. If you have written a chapter for a book, it only takes a few minutes to put that on an Internet site. Today a man could go into a church and with a camera following him could go into the lobby of that church and start to rip up books and tear down CD racks and music CDs and have the whole video given to the world news services. He could pull out a whip and start to whip the bouncers who are sent to stop him and the world news would make a good story of it. In my sadder days I have contemplated being that man as long as I could take a laptop to prison. We have to be careful to tread a line between suggesting and selling. I know some books have transformed my life and if asked to speak on the subject I would include a reference to the book I loved and suggest people buy it. But when we have a five minute sales plug in every service we really are selling in Gods house of prayer. Matthew shares his heart in these articles and can be found at http://www.online-prayer.net You can read more of his articles at his link below. If you want a copy of his upcoming book of articles which will have the first sixty of the articles on this web-site called “The Musings of a Mad Prophet” please contact Matthew via email so he can contact you around February 2007 to tell you of the progress of the book. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Robert_Payne http://EzineArticles.com/?Dont-Sell-Things-in-Gods-House.-Mark-11:15-17,-John-2:15-16&id=381854 pharmacy online tramadol buy link pharmacynet top ultram tramadol online no prescription buy ultram online without a prescription
