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RIVAL MASTERS, RIVAL KINGDOMS (1)No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon (Luke 16:13).
The theocentric focus of this passage is service to God. A person must serve either God or mammon. He has no third option. There is no neutrality. The legitimate goal is service to God.
What Is Mammon? Mammon is man's greed. The Greek word can also be translated "confidence." Of all the false gods honored by covenant-breaking men throughout history, mammon has been by far the most common. In Isaiah's day, this god of abundance was undermining men's faith in God. "Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant" (Isa. 56:12). Ezekiel castigated Israel for having adopted the chief sins of Sodom, which were the sins of mammon worship. "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy" (Ezek. 16:49). The people of Sodom had sought and achieved the lifestyle of the rich. This led to the city's destruction when these sins of autonomy led to flagrant covenant-breaking in other areas (Gen. 19:4-6).
Men usually trust in the things which they accumulate. They worship those aspects of the creation that are under their authority. What do I mean by worship? Above all, I mean "sacrifice for." That to which you savrifice your life -- your time, your dreams, your reputation -- is your god. You invest your emotions and efforts in this god. You also expect something in return. It might be happiness, pleasure, fame, power, respect, or any of mankind's long list of personal goals. Men sacrifice to their gods for the sake of rewards -- positive sanctions.(2) Men ask themselves, "What's in it for me?" Then they decide which god to worship. A god that offers no rewards is not taken seriously.
The worship of any god involves making estimates. "Which rewards are worth sacrificing for? Which rewards are actually available? What is the likelihood of non-payment by the god? What is the past performance of the god in question? How much is expected of me? What happens if I promise to pay but fail to deliver?"
Then there is the question of loyalty. "Is there a bond other than legal between me and this god? Is there a personal relationship? Is there grace? Does this god extend mercy to all of his worshipers?"
There can be no question of service. A god that has no servants is not a god. To gain what man wants from his god, he must serve. He may receive something for nothing from a gracious god, but not everything for nothing. No god extends all of his blessings gratuitously. Jesus made this plain in this passage: choose wisely which god to serve.
Jealous Gods The Old Covenant repeatedly warned men that the God of the Bible is a jealous God. "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Ex. 20:5). "For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Ex. 34:14). "For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God" (Deut. 4:24). "God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies" (Nahum 1:2). He tolerates the worship of no rival gods.
Jesus made it clear in this passage that the gods in question need not be physical idols or demons or the fantasies of men. All rival gods boil down to one: mammon. Men pursue their own goals through service to something that can reward them. The God of the Bible can surely reward men. On their own authority, rival gods promise to reward men. This promise is a lie. These other gods are nothing apart from the one true God. They are all creatures. They posses no autonomous authority. They have only the scraps of power which God grants to them for His own purposes. "For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods" (Ps. 95:3).
God and mammon are mutually exclusive, Jesus warned. Neither god tolerates the claims of the other. Each comes before man with a claim: "Worship me, and I will reward you." The God of the Bible makes His claim exclusive. Mammon excludes only God, because God excludes mammon. God and mammon do not tolerate each other's claims. God's exclusivism is intolerable for mammon. Mammon's polytheism is intolerable to God. Mammon may publicly invite men to worship both him and God, but the invitation is spurious. Mammon treats God as if God were one among many. God rejects all such challenges to His exclusive authority.
So, men face a decision. In which god will they put their trust? Which will they serve faithfully in their quest for rewards? Which god's name will be on their tongues and in their hearts? They cannot consistently serve both.
Worship as Freedom from Worry In the parallel passage in Matthew 6, Jesus added: "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Matt. 6:25). This is odd language. The whole point of worship is to gain rewards. Here is Jesus, telling His listeners that they should take no thought about what they shall possess, from life itself to food, drink, and clothing. Did He mean that such things are not important? On the contrary, they are very important. Life is surely important, and life is sustained by food, drink, and clothing. What is not important, He said, is worrying about such matters. It does no good to worry, for neither man nor mammon has any ability to gain them on his own authority or by his own efforts.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things (Matt. 6:26-32).
Our Father in heaven knows our needs. Is this not enough? When He calls us into His service, He provides the tools of this service. The tools of service are the very rewards that men seek. Conclusion: seek to serve; stop seeking the tools of service. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. 6:33-34).(3) This passage lays it on the line. Our first priority is the kingdom of God. This is what we are supposed to seek. All the other things that are presented before us as objects worth seeking are afterthoughts, or better put, tools of more effective service. They come as part of God's program of worldwide dominion. Because God demands complete servitude, He provides His servants with the implements of comprehensive service. All of these things shall be added unto us as rewards for faithful service. But everything that we receive from God adds to our responsibility. "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:48b).(4) We receive more in order that we can achieve more. The kingdom of God thereby extends its influence across the earth.
An expanding kingdom implies growth and development in history. As the kingdom of God grows, it extends the division of labor. More hands and minds are brought into His kingdom. More servants mean greater wealth for every servant, for it implies greater output per unit of resource input. This is the blessing of the division of labor. As dedicated servants of God are added to the kingdom, day by day, the kingdom of God gains knowledge and wealth, as the newcomers bring their skills and capital in with them. The wealth of the kingdom increases. This means that there is less and less to worry about. The safety net of God's kingdom is there to catch any man if he falls.
Worrying about a lack of food and raiment is like worrying about one's lack of height. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" It does no good to worry about such matters. God is the source of all of these blessings. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17).
"Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." These are among the most difficult words in the Bible to accept emotionally. When we find someone who lives in terms of them, we generally refer to the person as a saint. Yet Jesus spoke these words to a crowd, not to an intimate circle of initiates. He made it clear that all of His followers are to cease worrying about their economic condition. The greater their faith, the less their worry.(5) The mark of an immature faith is worry about economic matters, or even a life-and-death sickness situation. It is all in God's hands. God is sovereign; man is not. God is sovereign; mammon is not.
The Religion of More Mammon has a kingdom. His religion is the religion of never-ending more. He who worships at the shrine of more can never be satisfied. He is addicted to more as a heroin addict is addicted to heroin. C. S. Lewis once wrote that it would be a terrible curse to eat food that makes us hungry. Yet mammon's food is precisely this kind of hunger-producing food.
In the 1970's, there was a television commercial for a brand of potato chip in which Burt Lahr, the actor who became famous as the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz, was dressed in a devil's suit. He holds a bag of the potato chips. He reaches in and takes one out. "Bet you can't eat just one," he says to the viewer. The imagery implied evil -- forbidden fruit. Yet it was a light-hearted ad; it used a lovable comedian as the devil. It implied that it was perfectly all right to eat more than one. How much more, the ad did not say. But if you are in business to sell potato chips, you surely want to get people to eat lots more than one chip per sitting. The advertising jingle for Schaeffer's beer had a similar message: "Schaeffer's . . . is the . . . one beer to have . . . when you're having more than one!"
God has a kingdom. It grows over time. God's religion is the religion of temporally bounded more. God wants his kingdom to expand to the ends of the earth. Sin reigns nowhere that is not God's target for escalating victory. God seeks the redemption of sinners. As part of this goal, he provides His people with tools. They can use more tools. The spread of the gospel is not achieved free of charge. We live in a world of scarcity.
Then in what way is mammon's religion of more different from God's religion of more? In many ways. First, God's offer of more is trans-historical. The primary goal is eternity: a world beyond time. This goal is extremely future-oriented. Second, God's goal has a time limit: the final judgment (Rev. 20:14-15). Technically, so does mammon's: the heat death of the universe.(6) But this theoretical event is so far in the future that time might as well be endless succession. Third, God's goal is His glory. To achieve this, He grants grace to men: something for nothing. Mammon's deceptive goal is the glory of man, either collectively or individually. In fact, greed destroys men. It is Satan's seductive tool. Satan grants something for something and sometimes nothing for something, if he can get away with it. But he never grants something for nothing except as bait to lure men to destruction.
The ultimate reward is eternal life. Compared to this, gaining the whole world for oneself is less than nothing. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36). So, the biblical pursuit of more has limits. We are warned that even if more meant everything in history, it would not be enough to compensate us for the loss of eternity. This puts more into proper perspective. If everything on earth is insufficient, then "more for man" has temporal limits. Life is not unbounded.
It is sometimes said that men's desires are unbounded -- infinite. Better put, given the limits on each man's life, his unfulfilled desires are beyond his means. At a lower price, he will buy more. But his greatest desire -- more time -- is surely bounded. He who forgets this fact in making daily decisions is a fool. "And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:16-21).(7)
The desires of men are not limitless; they are merely beyond men's means. Everything finite is bounded. Creation is finite. Creation is beyond our ability to measure, but God measures it. So, mammon's religion of more is ultimately a religion of man's deification. It is a religion of "more for me in history." It is an assertion of each man's divinity.
Rival Economic Orders The man who worships God legitimately seeks rewards for himself, but this search must be in the context of better service to God. Service to God through the creation is the mark of his salvation. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:8-10).
Free market economic theory relies on an analogous insight. A man gains what he wants by selling at a profit to others. He must offer something they want in exchange for something he wants. Each party gains from the transaction. Most free market transactions are not zero-sum transactions.(8) They are not examples of "I win; therefore, you lose." A representative of one kingdom can lawfully do business with a representative of the other kingdom. Both parties benefit. Both parties expand their wealth. Each party extends his god's kingdom. God can afford to let Satan extend his kingdom in this way because of the eschatological structure of inheritance. "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). God's people ultimately inherit the earth.(9)
Satan cannot be equally magnanimous to God. Eschatology is against him. He is running out of time. Satan operates with stolen goods. He is a squatter in history. He lured Adam into a transfer of allegiance and therefore a transfer of assets, but Adam owned nothing of his own. He was merely a designated steward of God's assets. So, mammonism is inherently a religion of theft: stealing from God to benefit man. It is self-centered greed. Its ultimate goal is "more for me and less for you." One man grows in stature by exceeding his fellows. While he may pursue "more for me and more for you, too" in the short run through voluntary exchange, he ultimately seeks to convert these gains into capital for covenant-breaking conquest. The religion of autonomy seeks to enslave others or kill them. This is what autonomy means.
Conclusion Serving God means learning to be content with whatever God supplies today. The faithful man thinks, "there is more where this came from." God will supply the tools that His people require for faithful service to Him at any point in time. These tools include such things as life, food, drink, and clothing. This outlook was the basis of Paul's warning: "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness" (I Tim. 6:7-11).
What do covenant-keepers need? Whatever God gives them. No more than this? No more. Later, they may receive more, for the kingdom's sake and the covenant's confirmation. "But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day" (Deut. 8:18).
What do men want? Usually, they want more than God has given to them. In the modern world, where the worship of economic growth is the most widely practiced religion, men want far more than what God has given to them. They are trapped on mammon's treadmill to oblivion. Their religion is expressed on a humorous tee-shirt: "He who dies with the most toys, wins." Substitute any aspect of the creation for "toys," and the meaning is the same. It is a false religion. "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
The top priority in this passage is service to God, which is also its theocentric principle. The mark of this priority in our lives is contentment with whatever wealth God has provided. What must be avoided at all costs is service to mammon: the god of "more for me in history." This god of man's self-confidence and accumulation is a false god -- the false god. It is the worship of man's would-be autonomy and therefore his would-be divinity. Men place confidence in the things they can accumulate. They sacrifice their lives to the accumulation of things. Yet the things that were supposed to serve man become his slave-drivers. Like Pharaoh's task-masters, these dumb idols cry out: "More! More! We demand more!" Most of all, they demand more of men's time, the irreplaceable resource.
Footnotes:
1. This is adapted from Chapter 14 of Gary North, Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, electronic edition (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 2000).
2. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), ch. 4.
3. Gary North, Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, electronic edition (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 2000), ch. 15.
4. Chapter 27, above.
5. Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, [1648] 1995).
6. Gary North, Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the Christian Worldview (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1988), ch. 2.
7. Chapter 24, above.
8. An exception is a commodity futures transaction, where one investor gains at the expense of the other.
9. Gary North, Inherit the Earth: Biblical Blueprints for Economics (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
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