INTRODUCTION
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Matthew 6:24.
Was Jesus offering His hearers a choice? Or was He emphasizing the impossibility of serving two masters?
Serving God must have priority over money-making, not priority in giving of money.
“Ye cannot serve God and Mammon” was said to Jews, the chosen people of God. The hearers knew God and the commandment to serve Him only, yet they were attempting to serve Mammon as well. Jesus, therefore, informs them that what they were attempting to do was impossible. If the Jews of the Bible could not serve God and Mammon, can we? Can we strike a balance between the service of God and Mammon? In Biblical times money did not play a large part in the lives of the Jews as it does in our lives today. If they could not do a balancing act with the little part they had to do with Mammon and Jesus said to them “…a man’s life consisteth not of the things which he possesseth.” Can we do so? We, who have so much more to do with money can we strike a balance?
Jesus said, we can only serve one master. He then narrowed the possible masters down to two, God and Mammon. Therefore, all worship is of God or Mammon. One represents the unseen and eternal, the other the seen and the temporal. Service to God is the obedience of love, happiness, and a knowledge of good; trust in Mammon is unbelief, disobedience to God, or a knowledge of evil, which in the end “drowns men in destruction and perdition.”
MAMMON WORSHIP TODAY
Mammon is a personification (grammatical tool) of money and possessions.
The word is said to be a mere figure of speech or byname used by Jesus to help us understand money and possessions. Preachers insist the Bible has more to say about money and possessions than heaven thus making money and Mammon much more important.
Present finance teaching includes the striking of a balance between God and Mammon, the pursuit of money and possessions.
The leading ministers teach that you must “strike a balance” between God and money. One bestselling book on financial management says:
“Our relationships in this life are so important. If we can maintain a balanced relationship with money and not let it affect our relationship with God and others, we will be able to live in joy, to help a lot of people, and God will receive all the glory.”
The worship of the true and living God is considered compatible with the pursuit of money and possessions. The Christian can arrange to pursue riches in the world system, while serving God in Church.
Serving mammon is about your attitudes to money and possessions.
If we love it, we “fall into temptation and a snare…” But if we made it to serve us and the Gospel, it will bring eternal benefits; we can lay up treasures in heaven. Money is neutral and we are to make friends of the “mammon of unrighteousness” to win souls for God. Mammon can be put to righteous or unrighteous uses. God wants us to use our money to win souls and build His kingdom, not to build “our kingdom.” God takes our money, “blesses it”, and turns it into “souls”. The more we give – the more opportunity for souls to be won. God is looking for people He can entrust with “much” money so they can save many souls for Him.
Christians are the stewards of money and possessions.
This teaching is from two parables of Jesus, The Talents and The Unjust steward. They are interpreted as having to do with money and addressed to Christians today. This view is held by those who believe that we must strike a balance between God and Mammon.
LIMITATIONS OF THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING
Our situation in the world
Living in the world, we feel compelled to devote much time, energy, thought, and attention, merely to provide clothes to wear, roof to cover our heads and food to maintain the life of our bodies. It can seem as though everything conspires and compel us to consider money first. Serving mammon catches us unawares, while in the exercise of some legal duty. It begins hidden, unnoticed by our conscience, but lurking in the inner man and may surface in acts of excessiveness, immorality, covetousness or infliction of injury on others.
Christians are stewards of the mysteries and the Grace of God. These are committed to us and freely we have received and freely we must give. We are not stewards of mammon, money and possessions.
Serving God or Mammon is not a matter of confession or profession.
It’s a matter of evidence. Is there any evidence of serving Mammon in your life? It is very easy to profess and confess Jesus’ while being driven by another spirit. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For it is the power of God unto salvation…
The patriarch Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel. He fared very bad in serving both for he ended up loving one and hating the other. How do we know this? Because of the evidence given in the Biblical account. So, it is with everyone who tries to serve God and Mammon. They end up hating God and clinging to Mammon. We will be mastered by one or the other, we choose, or we exercise our wills “for either he will hate the one and love the other…” The choice leads to a love-hate relationship with the two masters and these masters are diametrically opposite.
Evidence of your choice between God and Mammon is not by profession but by behaviour (Tit. 1:16). It is not what we say but what we do. Confession and profession are mere lip-service. People draw near to God with their lips, tongue and mouth but their heart being far from God (Matthew 15:8,9). In America there is a national profession about serving God; it is printed on the money “In God We Trust.” However, real service is evidenced by obedience,
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Romans 6:16.
The lives sacrificed to mammon in the accumulating of money and possessions are not considered.
Mammon worship no longer requires a temple or altar. Money has replaced all the Old Testament offerings and tithes; sin and love offerings are money or possessions. These things the Bible says were types and shadows of Jesus Christ. So, we can conclude that Mammon has replaced Christ in the Church today.
There is no understanding that serving God or Mammon requires love for the one and contempt for the other.
No man can master money and possessions without becoming its servant. The time, energy and effort it takes to master money is nothing more than Mammon worship or serving mammon. In addition, accumulating wealth brings no glory to God, but takes away time, energy and effort from the actual serving. What will God receive glory for? You are the one with the balanced relationship with mammon and helping a lot of people “with mammon”. The Apostles did not “leave of prayer and the word of God to wait on tables.”
The endeavour to serve God and mammon, to lay up treasures on earth and at the same time be rich toward God, is a spiritual mistake.
It’s the greatest spiritual error of our time. John Bunyan, in his spiritual masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress portrays this error in the character of Mr. Facing-Both-Ways, who kept one eye on heaven and the other on earth, who sincerely professed one thing and sincerely did the opposite. He tried to cheat God and Devil, but in the end cheated only himself and his neighbors.
Mammon does NOT compete with God for the service of man, rather, his jostling lies in the heart of man for man’s love, affection and service
(Mat 6:24). No MAN can serve two masters: it is the man who has the struggle. It is the MAN who attempts to serve two masters, money and God, and it is the MAN who finds himself hating one and loving the other.
Jesus told the Jews to seek “seek the kingdom first…” because this was not their priority at the time. The Jews were seeking to be blessed materially because they believed possessing wealth was the sign that you were blessed by God. (Deut. 8:17, 18)
Power to get wealth; power from koach meaning ability, “might” from otsem meaning body strength. This is not miraculous power but physical exertion, by the sweat of thy face, work.
How Mammon got into the Church?
The answer is through money! How did Mammon become an option to God? It began with betraying God for food in the Garden. Serving Mammon results in spiritual suicide or self-enslavement.
SUGESTIONS FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING
Read the Example of Israel
We must read repeatedly how the ancient Israelite forsook Jehovah and served mammon. These things happened unto them as ensamples to us. Jehovah gave no currency to Israel instead they were set apart to worship Jehovah the true and living God, but soon started worshipping foreign gods, particularly Baal, another name for Mammon. Baal was the pagan god of increase, fertility and prosperity.
Whenever worship of Jehovah was dominant in Israel, it soon became entangled with concerns of Mammon and worldliness. Mammon subjugated the more spiritual or intellectual aspects of the worship. Then God raised a priest, judge or prophet who led a spiritual revival of Jehovah worship. Such revivals occurred under Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel who all cried out against mammon worship into which the nation had sunk. These cries were an invitation to renounce Mammon and return to the true and living God, Jehovah. They were to give up materialism and formalism, of no value to a spiritual being and to have a devout attitude to God.
Many ministers of the Gospel do this same thing today; try to merge Jesus with Mammon, the god of money and prosperity. “But no one can serve two masters at the same time.” Notice the word is SERVE not BELIEVE IN. There are many who believe in Jesus but serve other gods. God does prosper, but He is not Mammon, He is not money.
First, you’ll try to love both money and God, but Jesus says you can’t do that. So, you’ll end up loving Mammon and hating God. Jehovah is jealous and won’t share. The more they went to Mammon, the more they hated God until they started hunting down the prophets and slaying them until Elijah challenged them on Mount Carmel. “If the LORD be God, then serve Him, if Baal be God, then serve him.”
Are you serving God or Mammon?
There is such a thing as devil-worship, both in history and present day. For the devil is the opponent, the antagonist, the enemy of God’s love to man. In part, worship of the devil consists in serving Mammon. When I first read of mammon worship in the Bible, I expected to learn of some vile abominations, of human sacrifices, fertility orgies and other pagan ceremonies. However, Jesus said service of Mammon is taking thought of the morrow, anxiety, or worrying about food, clothing and shelter.
The service of mammon is laid out in the sixth chapter of Matthew, verses 1-34. Dependence on anyone or anything for stuff provided by God is declared to be service to another master and hating Him in whom we live and move and have our being.
In these verses, Jesus was not just warning his disciples about losing reward in heaven, but He is making a distinction between those who live to please the world or Mammon and those who live to please God the Father.
We observe two groups of people doing the same religious activities. The key difference is that some settle for a temporal reward, Mammon, while others seek an eternal reward. Some seek to please their peers; this is also serving mammon. The reward of the hypocrites who practice their giving, praying and fasting is that they are well thought of and are praised by their peers, but that’s it. They have only an earthly reward, mammon. There is no heavenly reward. In this section I shall use “serve” and “worship” as synonyms.
The Christian serves Mammon in some of the following ways:
In our prayers.
Jesus instructed us how to pray, but if we pray using vain repetitions or much speaking, we are praying as “the heathens do” and thus worshipping Mammon. He said we must enter our closet and pray to our Father in secret; if we, do it openly, to be seen of men, then we are serving Mammon.
In our fasting.
Jesus instructs us how to fast; anoint thy head and wash thy face; that thou appear unto men to not fast. However, if we put on a sad countenance, disfiguring our face so men can tell that we are fasting, we are not fasting unto God but serving mammon in our fasting.
In our almsgiving.
Jesus instructs us to do our giving in secret, not in the synagogues (churches) and in the streets to be seen of men. Our right hands should not know what our left is doing. If we, do it publicly, sounding a trumpet, or on national television we are not serving God but serving Mammon.
In our valuing of possessions.
We are instructed not to treasure our earthly possessions but to seek and treasure heavenly things. The reason is earthly things may be stolen or corrupted. Instead, we should treasure our heavenly possessions that cannot be stolen or corrupted. When Christians value or treasure their money and possessions more than they value eternal life or their salvation, they are serving mammon.
Many Christians accumulate money and possessions, thinking they are the masters of them, only to find that maintaining, repairing, and storing these things requires so much time, energy and effort that these things have become the masters and they are the servants. They have little or no time for serving God.
When we do not recognize our property and wealth for what they are, temporary blessings to be used on this earth, we are serving mammon.
When Mammon is allowed to rule, he takes control of our perception, especially our value system. He seeks to persuade people that the only worth to be noted is monetary; everything and everyone has a price. Mammon also de-personifies people; instead of showing solidarity and building relationships, he treats people as expendable things to be manipulated and used then discarded.
In not considering who is God.
First consider what is “mammon”. This is a term which is used not only to describe a person’s wealth, riches or possessions but even more significantly, it describes the money and possessions or riches which a person would place his trust in. Mammon is anything which you trust in to see you through your daily needs and cares. It is just because you trust in your money and possessions to meet your daily needs that you are serving mammon.
The context (Matt.6:19-34) describes God as “your heavenly Father” who feeds the fowls of the air (v. 26), as the God who clothes the grass of the field (v. 30) and as “your heavenly Father” who knows all your needs (v. 32). He is the God who is in control of all the little things, and He cares for us who are more important than the fowls of the air and the grass of the field.
You serve someone or something by first placing your trust in that person. As a child of God, you trust your Father to provide for your needs and be a fair Master. Jesus was not offering His disciples a choice; He was declaring to the disciples that if they wanted to serve God, they cannot also trust in Mammon. He later said in Matthew 6:33, But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. By whom will “these things” be added, God or Mammon? God off course.
In continually “putting God first.”
When we serve God alone, He is always first, and there is no second place for anyone. When we serve God and Mammon, God may not be first, so we have to be encouraged by the Preacher to put Him in first position. Some only put God first when they get their pay checks; the rest of their time is given to Mammon.
In addition, God being in first position in your heart and life implies there are more than one master of your heart. You have already begun “to hate one and love the other.” Your whole heart must belong to Jesus; you must serve him with your whole heart. Our attitude in business is generally money first, and people second. I don’t believe the average man plans it that way, but the world’s monetary system causes him to think that way, but this is how it turns out.
In worrying and being anxious about things God has promised He would provide.
Today, many church-going people have their own Mammon whom they serve. They trust in their own possessions, wealth, or the means to these things (e.g. studies, or job security). They invest time, energy, money and even their whole life serving Mammon. They trust in them so much and pay little attention to God the Almighty. If we trust in riches, it is impossible that our trust will be in God. So, we cannot and must not trust in riches if we want to trust God. When you start trusting God, you will find yourself having no desire to trust in riches. When you God is your Master, you will trust Him, and when you trust Him, you will love Him, hold on to Him and serve Him. This service to your God will demand all your life. Mammon continues vying for attention, but your entire life is God’s. As Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).
In having an evil eye.
Wherever the term evil eye is used in scripture, it has reference to money or possessions. The evil eye has to do with how we view money and possessions. We can covet things for good or for evil purposes as well as covet good things or evil things.
Jesus did not mince words in laying down His perspective on money and material things. To the rich fool He said,
“‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:20, 21, NKJV)
This man, although blessed by the Lord, hoarded what he had, and what Jesus said to Him should put the fear of God in us all: Serving God and Mammon are mutually exclusive actions. It’s one or the other, God or Mammon.
It is fanciful to think we can have it both ways; there’s no living a double life, no balancing act.
The meaning of balancing is “to make equal”. If we are striking a balance between God and Mammon, then we are making Mammon equal to God. We might fool others, maybe even ourselves, but not God, we are either serving Him or serving Mammon. We must leave of Mammon and trust Jesus, and the longer we hesitate, make excuses, or procrastinate, the stronger will be the hold that Mammon and the love of money will exert on us. Focusing on who God is, what He has done for us, and what we owe Him should make our decision much easier.
Are you serving God?
We must be saved before we can serve God. A man in an unsaved condition cannot serve God, however, he can and does serve Mammon. The minds of unsaved men and women are carnal and therefore at enmity with God and He does not want to be served by enemies.
First, He must be saved; and salvation is all of Grace, all free. We do not pay by money or by good works; neither can we inherit salvation from our parents. “By grace are you saved through faith.” After He saves us, and as the result of salvation, we serve Him. We are saved to serve. He that is saved is a child of God and does childlike service in his Father’s Kingdom. That service too, is also all of grace and all free. He serves, not under the law of the old commandment, “This do, and you shall live,” for he is not under the law, but under grace. As our Father, God promises to take care of all our spiritual and temporal needs. There is no need, therefore, that a child of God should serve Mammon.
The Christian should say, “I received Jesus Christ, and I have a greater treasure than this world has to offer. I have this treasure now; I have all that is in heaven and upon earth. But I must serve this treasure only, for no man can serve God and mammon.” Either you must love God and hate money; or you must hate God and love money; this and nothing more. Our confidence can only rest in one master.
Either we will place our confidence in God or in possessions.
We can truly treasure one master and it will either be God, or it will be Mammon.
Either we will live our lives for a heavenly reward or an earthly reward.
Either we will seek to please God, or we will seek to please man.
Either we will spend our lives laying up treasure on earth or we will spend our lives laying up treasure in heaven.
A house to live in, money for food, clothing, shelter and other necessities is okay. Even Jesus and His disciples had these. It is the surfeit, the excess, the hoarding and not being generous; no longer depending on God for your daily bread. God is your God when you rely on Him, when you trust Him, you prove that He is your God.
This is Jesus’ concern when He announces that we cannot serve both God and mammon. It’s one or the other. Either we serve God, and accept what He offers, or we serve mammon and accept what he offers. God’s “yoke is easy, and His burden is light,” while that of mammon leads to ego and death.
A few examples will suffice.
MAN IN THE CROWD
A man asked Him, to speak to his brother, that he might have his share of their joint inheritance (Luke 12:13). On the surface it looked like a reasonable request, one recognizing the authority of the Lord! Yet Jesus turned down the request, claiming not be a divider of worldly goods. It was an attempt to make Him an accomplice in covetousness. Instead, He took the opportunity to lecture to His disciples on covetousness, “and He said unto them, Beware of covetousness!’’ Why? Because it is unlawful to desire another’s? No! But of covetousness itself; the desire of lawful, honest gain, of possession not polluted in its acquisition. “Beware of covetousness; for a man’s life consisteth not in the things which he possesseth!”
THE RICH FOOL
And He went on to speak a parable unto them, of the rich fool who tilled his ground honestly, and filled his barns thriftily, and pleased himself in the thought of his comfortable independence, till the voice of God came, and required his soul, and in irony asked him, who’s the things should be, which he had provided.
THE UN-NAMED WIDOW
When He saw a certain poor widow cast in, of her penury, all the living she had unto the offerings of GOD, He called the attention of His disciples to her deed, and pointed out it was more, in His sight, than the rich who were casting in large gifts out of their abundance.
From her actions, we can deduce that she believed in God, and trusted not in money. She trusted God to supply her poverty; and she trusted not in uncertain Mammon.
Her work displayed her faith while the faith of the rich, showed itself in the powerful grip with which they clutch money, be it much or little, that the father of lies is persuading them to make their god.
MARY OF BETHANY
Serving God and not Mammon, displayed itself in Mary’s use of the “very costly” ointment at the feast in Bethany. That deed received a mark of approval, wherever the gospel shall be preached and forever her deed will be remembered. Judas, called this act uneconomical. Mary believed in Him on whose head she poured the ointment. Her heart rested in Him. She cared for nothing, longed for nothing but His glory. She saw blessedness in an unspiritual act, the lavishing on His use a costly ointment. Faith like Mary’s, see no other use for worldly possessions; desire no other gratification than its employment in the worship of the Lord. She was not thinking of earning treasure in heaven but seeking His glory.
One of the most prominent features of our Savior’s teaching is, warning against dependence upon wealth and worldly possessions; denunciation of devotion to them as hateful in the sight of God and ruinous to the soul; inculcated by His own constant practice, and by direct and specific praise of instances in others, of what we call sacrifices of money, goods or opportunities of gain.
THE RICH YOUNG RULER
Matthew 19:16-22.
The Jews believed that being rich was a sign of having God’s favour. Being rich meant that God was pleased and was blessing him. So, when Jesus said to the young man, Sell all that you have and give it to the poor… He was saying to him, “give up all of God’s blessing to the poor and as a poor man, not blessed by God, come and follow Me!”
In this young man, we have a rich man who observed all the law from his youth. In addition, he had come to Jesus, the resurrection and the life, the right person to ask about eternal life. However, he refused to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus pointed out the way to enter, but he would not enter. The verb “enter” is in the middle voice, that is, the man performs the action for himself; no one does it for him.
This is the kind of stronghold Mammon can have over men. In this incident, we see how great a stumbling block riches is to light into a soul, and how it impedes the soul from entering the Kingdom and serving God. He came so close, face to face with his God, yet Mammon pulled him back to his miserable trust and confidence in his possessions. The Kingdom of God had drawn nigh unto him, nevertheless, he did not enter.
We may speculate and attribute all kinds of reasons for him not entering the kingdom, however, the reason stated by the Scripture will always be the only correct one; he had great possessions which he loved and trusted more than he trusted God. He came running to the saviour; earnest, determined, resolute, zealous desiring to serve God; but beneath and underlying all appearances, he was already employed in Mammon’s service. He was tenacious in clinging to his great possessions because Mammon had been in his heart throughout the entire episode.
Going away sorrowful proves the wisdom of Jesus’ diagnosis. There would be no strong discipleship such as He called men to if they loved their money more than they loved Him or more than they loved their time with Him. Peter, James and John could not have been properly instructed if they were continually returning to attend to their fishing business; nor could Matthew if he kept returning to the receipt of custom. Mammon would be continually trying to pull them back into his worship.
Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, spoke to this young man who obviously knew Jesus was someone special. And yet, what happened? He allowed his wealth, his love of material things, to separate him from the very person of God Himself. The love of the world and of material things blinded him so that even though he was sad, that sadness wasn’t enough to make him do the right thing. He wasn’t sad because he was losing his possessions, he had chosen to keep them. He was sad because he knew he had made the wrong decision; he had chosen Mammon over God.
I believe this is the most celebrated case in the New Testament of a godly, respected Jew deliberately choosing Mammon over God. He came to Jesus Himself, in whom was life, seeking for eternal life. The disciples who had been preventing children from coming to Jesus, did not stop him; even his wealth was not a stumbling block; and his position as a ruler was no hindrance, because there he was before Jesus who acknowledged Him as a “Master” in Israel, one with authority to speak in the Divine name and on behalf of God. Yet he was very sad at the Master’s response.
It is indeed impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. God is the only proper object of trust. You can’t have eternal life and you cannot have faith in Him while you put your faith in riches. The two are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist in the same person. The rich is likely to place his confidence in possessions, and this makes it difficult to enter the Kingdom of God. Yet it is possible through the Grace of God, for with God all things are possible. He can make a rich man willing to leave his riches at the door and enter the Kingdom of God. But without God’s Grace, where wealth is in the hand and heart as a possession, Mammon will also be in the heart as a power; and you cannot serve God and Mammon.
CONCLUSION
I believe Jesus answered this question in the text, but many preachers and writers today disagree. This disagreement makes the service of the true God impossible. On the one hand, there is a jealous God who requires us to serve Him with our entire being, and on the other is Mammon. Once granted some power, Mammon crowds out everyone and everything else, God and family, making the worship of God into empty rituals. The issue is not in how we acquire or spend money or property but about becoming influenced or even possessed by Mammon’s demonic powers.
In this blog, I have emphasized money and possessions as a part of the world system and insist that it is the PERSON possessing the wealth who comes under the demonic influence of Mammon, rather than the money being tainted. Biblical financial principles can only be rules on how to serve mammon.