Rich Christians should repent

Why is the Dead Sea dead? It is because, although the Jordan river flows in, there is no outflow.

The water runs into this great lake, but there it stays until it simply evaporates under the heat of the middle-eastern sun. The Dead Sea is left with high concentrations of salt in which nothing can live. Its salinity is something like 34%. Instead of being a place of life it is sterile.

Rich churches

When churches fail to give to the poor and the Lord’s work elsewhere they, like the Dead Sea, lose spiritual life. God’s blessing flows in, but they keep it all for themselves. They build a bigger sanctuary. They pay larger salaries to their staff. They make things very comfortable. ‘Business’ appears to be booming. But it is a church that is declining spiritually. It is taking a very different path from the way of the Saviour who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him (Mark 8:34). Many churches are rich, while others cannot even afford a pastor and many different Christian works barely survive. Research indicates that today’s younger people – Millennials – are good at giving to causes which touch them emotionally. There is nothing wrong with that. They will give when they are moved by footage of starving children in Africa – as we all should. They like to give ‘one-offs’ and to things that aren’t ‘boring’. Okay. But step back a moment. If this is true, such a pattern of giving is not going to provide for a pastor and his family or keep a missionary on the field. These things are just too everyday. This is very serious for the long-term future of the gospel.

But it is not really the young people who are the problem. Many middle-aged and older Christians need to look at themselves. The so-called ‘baby-boomers’ are the post-war generation born between 1946 and 1964. They are now in their mid-50s through to mid-70s, and make up 21.3% of the UK population. They are the people with money. And they are also the age range who make up the majority in our churches.

A statement from the National Office of Statistics in April 2018 made me sit up: ‘The net household property wealth of those aged between 60 and 62 is 17 times greater than those aged between 30 and 32.’ Seventeen times more wealth! Therefore it seems that many older and retired Christians are those with the greatest responsibility for the finances of Christ’s kingdom. Jesus taught: ‘From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked’ (Luke 12.48).

Spurgeon’s blistering comment

In a message on ‘Labouring and Not Fainting’, from Revelation 2.3, Spurgeon makes a blistering comment on wealthy congregations who on the Lord’s Day sing hymns about holding nothing back for Christ – I suppose today’s equivalent is ‘Once again I thank you, once again I pour out my life’ or ‘Let every effort of my life, display the matchless worth of Christ; make me a living sacrifice; be glorified today.’

This is what he says: ‘If any ordinary person who was not a Christian, went in there and heard them sing [such things], he would say to himself , “I was at the theatre on Saturday night, and I saw a farce, but if I want a screaming farce I must come here on a Sunday!” … Would God these eyes might live to see a church that really laboured, putting forth all its strength with all its might, using all the force in its possession for the propagation of the gospel of the Lord and the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom.’