April 13 - You cannot serve both God and "______________" (insert anything other than "God" here)

Joshua 7:16-9:2

Luke 16:1-18

Psalm 82:1-8

Proverbs 13:2-3

You cannot serve both God and money.  When first I read that, I thought "money" meant, literally, "money".  But the older I got, the more my understanding changed.  

When one thinks of money today, one equates it with security - the ability to secure a future, with money to pay for a house, food, clothing, the children's education, a comfortable retirement, medical care when necessary.  And in the pursuit of money, one effectively proclaims to all who see, that that person's security lies not in God, but in the accumulation of material things to satisfy one's selfish wants.  By its very nature, the decision to serve money, or anything we might think we could derive from it, demotes God to something or someone that is not as great as money - and that is tantamount to saying that God is not, in fact, God.  For after all, if one believed He was God, then by definition, one would choose God over money.

What makes this so insidious is how easily one can justify the choice of something or someone other than God.  There are so many things we can use to justify choices apart from God.  Bizarrely enough, insurance fraud comes to mind, where the criminal weighs the benefit he or she (or his or her family) might derive against the impersonal, inhuman, infinitely wealthy insurance company.  I mean, c'mon - who's it really going to hurt, right?

This reminds me of the story of a former colleague of mine, from 3 years back.  Those of you who know me know I am a stockbroker, and in my line of work, one of the greatest betrayals of our client's trust is called insider trading.  Three years ago, that colleague called the office one morning to inform us he was getting on a plane and leaving the country and oh, by the way, he was resigning.  We knew nothing more till a couple of months back, when we found out that he had come into some "insider information", had shared it with a couple of friends, and they had bought stock on the illegal information.  While his friends made almost a million dollars in illegal profits, he made less than ten thousand dollars. 

Now you should know, insider trading is easy to recognize.  We go through repeated, regular training to supplement the common sense that tells us if the information is a secret, then you are not supposed to use it.  Period.  But I believe my colleague, who is in most respects a good man, was enamored with the comfort the money he would make would buy him.  To his mind, it wasn't going to be excessive - so who's it really going to hurt, right?

We read yesterday how Achan might have thought the same way.  He saw the devoted things - a beautiful robe, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels - and may have thought "these will not be missed.  And it's not like I am going to use them to worship other gods...and my family will enjoy having a souvenir of God's triumph over Jericho.  It's just a little thing.  I mean, c'mon - who's it really going to hurt, right?"  But God's instructions were clear, and in choosing to disobey them, Achan chose to serve - well, whatever you might think - money, family, ego...any number of things, all of them other than God.  And Achan and his family suffered the punishment for disobedience which, at that time, was death by stoning.

My former colleague is suffering the consequences of his actions as well.  The US government filed charges and caught up with him in Hong Kong, where he was jailed for three months pending extradition, most of that time spent in a cell smaller than a classroom, with sixty other people awaiting trial, many for violent crimes, murder included.  After what was a reasonably successful career in our industry, he was flown back to the US in handcuffs, between two US marshals.  He awaits trial, knowing he is going to spend a few months, possibly a couple of years, in prison.  And all for less than ten thousand dollars.

Disobedience, which is really the decision to put something above God and His will for us, always has consequences, sometimes severe ones.  The good news is that, after we have made atonement, we can expect forgiveness and reconciliation.  The Israelites did to Achan and his family what God commanded them, and the Lord then led them to victory against Ai.  My former colleague is likely going to go to jail, after which he will regain his freedom, having been deemed to have paid his debt to society.  And for us, mercifully, tremendously, so generously, Jesus has suffered the penalty for all our sins, relieving us of the burden we deserve to suffer.  Praise and thank God.