Religion Money - Money Religion - The Big Buck$

by Bob Torango - robert.torango@thehouseofthelord.com

“I’ll never forget the time that I preached in a big-time church in Downy, California. This was in the early 1970’s and I was preaching the sons of God and restitution message at a little store-front church. It turned out that the people from the big church down the road started to hear the message and packed the little place out. After about a week of this, the pastor of the big church paid me a call and asked me to come to his church since most of his people were attending my services anyway. I prayed about it and the Lord told me to go. I was scared to death! T. L. Osborn was supposed to be following me the next week, and I hadn’t ever preached to so many people at one time in my life. Like John, I was viewing all of this with great admiration (Rev. 17:6). All the musicians were very professional, the people all dressed sharp, the pews were padded, the carpet was luxurious, the pastor and his wife looked like movie stars. I was in awe!

“I proceeded to preach for a couple of nights and about the third night the pastor got me alone in his study. He started out by telling me he knew I was preaching sons of God and reconciliation and that he believed in this message himself, but he couldn’t risk preaching it from the pulpit because he would lose his church. He then told me that he would like to sponsor me to start preaching on the big-time circuit, but I had to get some gimmicks incorporated into my ministry. He asked me if I couldn’t start some orphanage somewhere just so that I could present it to the people as something to give to, the understanding being that the money would never reach the fake orphanage, but would be used for my own needs. He said that he admired my ministry and that I had great potential on the ‘circuit’ of big churches he was affiliated with, but I had to do a lot of work on my offering taking. He said he would be willing to train me in the art of getting money out of the people, and before long I would be driving a big fancy car just like him and all the other big time evangelists. Needless to say, I shut my meeting down with him and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about losing his church because he had lost it already, along with any decency he might have had!

“When I left that office I was so sick I had to struggle to keep from throwing up. MONEY! More preachers have sold their souls for it than for any other single thing. The reason is simple. MONEY in itself is not evil, such as an act of fornication, drunkenness, and other vices. Everyone needs MONEY and therein lies the subtleness of its seduction. Don’t think that I wasn’t impressed with the splendor of that church, because I was! I actually thought God was going to allow my ministry to reach more people and that the message of life could be heard and believed upon by the masses. Along with this I got to thinking that maybe I deserved to live a better lifestyle, since my wife and I had struggled with our finances for so many years; and after all, the laborer was worthy of a greater hire. My eyes were fixed on the wonder of the Whore, and I was finding all kinds of justification for getting connected to the CIRCUIT! As a young evangelist, it was the invitation to the big dance, an offering of the big enchilada, and I could have arrived at the top of the world!

“The big wake-up call was when I realized what I would have to do in order to get that greater hire. Something happens to a person when confronted with riches. A change comes over us when put in a position of possible wealth. I know we all swear we would never change if we suddenly were made wealthy, but invariably we do. There is a root of evil in us all, and the Bible declares it to be ‘the love of money’! The church today has sold out its heavenly inheritance for a little earthly lucre. God has offered us a ‘far more exceeding weight of glory,’ but our eyes are filled with the things being offered to us by a seducing spirit that has convinced many a prophet to become her paid servant. Woe to the prophets that prophesy for money, and do not speak the words that come from God!

“The biggest money-making machine in the modern church is the world-wide satellite TV networks. They run twenty-four hours every day and reach millions of people with the message, ‘Tis more blessed to give than to receive.’ I know they do good works and all of that. I know that they reach souls for the Lord, but with what hidden motives? They look like one big happy family on television, don’t they? Smiling and joking and bragging on each other. Call me a cynic if you want, but I would dare to say that the conversation off camera isn’t quite so congenial! I would venture to say that their time is spent on the following questions. Who’s No. 1? Who’s getting more air time than the other? Who draws more money? Who gets more mail? Who’s on the host’s right hand this week and who is on the left, and who gets dropped because of poor ratings? Without question, these are the topics of discussion in the back rooms of the studios, and they involve positioning and posturing for the opportunity to make more MONEY!

“Cutthroat competition is on the religious shows just as much as on the worldly shows. That’s Entertainment! And it is money that speaks the loudest. When the bills come due, and we are talking millions of dollars here, then men and women do strange things to keep from losing the almighty dollar. Beg, borrow, and steal are just a few of the things. God help us all to guard against the stench of this Harlot system. Yes, they preach the word, they sing beautiful songs, they pray for the sick and the sick recover, but notice that nothing is done without the mention of MONEY! If we all knew how much money was brought in by the Christian Networks we would all be amazed. Bob Tilton, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and others have been thrust into the spotlight by their escapades in schemes to make more MONEY. They have opened up a Pandora's box in a system that produced mansions worth millions of dollars, bank accounts known and others never known filled with thousands upon thousands of dollars, and lifestyles worthy of the rich and famous. All of this is on public record. Why would we believe that anything is different with those that are in that same arena but haven’t been exposed? I hate to say it, but the present church system has sold itself out to MONEY!

“‘Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel...the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest’ (Micah 3:9-12). Notice that the word of judgment is to the Heads, Princes, Priests, and Prophets. It is the leadership that is making merchandise of the house of God! Mystery Babylon in Revelation 17 has made a league with the ‘merchants’ and the ‘kings’ of the earth. They all love Babylon because Babylon has made them rich! She is the answer to their lust for MONEY. The apostle Paul ran into this same love for money when the makers and sellers of idols in Ephesus caused a riot among the people because Paul’s preaching put fear in their hearts that their craft of making silver idols to the Goddess Diana would dry up. Their concern was the making of MONEY, not in truth or error. You can be sure that the same concerns are in the leaders of the modern Fundamental Church. When faced with truth that doesn’t profit them financially they will suddenly grow very fervent in their fight against heresy. In truth they are seeing a financial risk in preaching things that demand the people to do more than sit in their pews and ‘Amen’ the preacher and pay their tithes and offerings. The concern is over MONEY, not heresy!

“Everything that Babylon concerns herself with is a business venture cloaked in religion. She is a harlot. What is the difference between a wife and a harlot? They both have physical relations with a man, but one is an act of love and the other is an act of business. The act is the same, but the difference is the exchange of MONEY. Babylon is in love with only one thing — MONEY. She uses everything else to get more wealth and thereby she spends money to make more money. Think about it. Whenever a particular TV Network host and hostess have a guest speaker or singer on their program, they display the name and address of the guest on the television screen and urge the viewing audience to write to that address. This accomplishes two things. First, it indebts the guest to the hosts financially. In order to get more of this money, they must extol the virtues of the system that is feeding them. It is extremely hard to obey the Lord when He is telling you to bite the hand that feeds you! This is how Babylon keeps her secret motives secret. The unwitting ministry become an accessory to the crime and end up covering over the whorish aspects of the system.

“The second thing this accomplishes is the merchandising of the gospel. When they display the name and address of the guest on the screen it in effect puts a giant machine into motion. In the business world this is viewed as a financial bonanza. All of us get mountains of junk mail in our mail box. This mail is sent by companies that buy mailing lists and send out bulk advertising to thousands of people in hopes of getting a small percentage to respond. A response of four to six people out of every one hundred is considered enough to make a financial killing. The same thing on television. Companies pay an unbelievable amount of money for just thirty seconds of advertising during a show. With this in mind, you can see the financial consequences of having ones name and address displayed on a television screen where every telecast of this religious TV Network reaches millions of people world-wide. So you thought they were all just singing and preaching for the love of Jesus? The bare truth is that they are sitting on a gold mine!

“There have been some ministers who are supposedly preaching a kingdom-lite message (of the low-fat, low-substance variety) that have been allowed on this Network with high hopes of reaching many more people with the message of the Kingdom. Sadly, they start out full of alarming statements of truth, then after a period of time, just enough time to get used to a more luxuriant lifestyle, their message becomes milky and barely discernible as Kingdom. Oh, the power of MONEY! It must never be underestimated! If I could have the ear of every minister of Present Truth I would cry aloud to them of the danger of MONEY.

“I have seen the henchmen of the television networks that try their best to convince God’s people that Jesus preached we should all be millionaires. It would be downright hilarious if it wasn’t so sad to see these business people flashing diamond rings and Rolex watches at the screen while telling us that Jesus loved money and we should too. If we would just sow a little seed their way, in the form of cold cash, why we could have a harvest of Cadillacs and mansions in no time. A flash of white teeth, an honest Abe face, slick Hollywood settings, and who wouldn’t believe them and send in your name and address to receive your free set of teaching tapes, absolutely free, for a love offering of $50.00! Heaven help us. What will be these poor minister’s state of mind if the money market collapses? People threw themselves out of high-rise windows during the Great Depression. MONEY is their god, and if it is taken away they will be without hope. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God!

“If you doubt that the church is in this bad of shape, let me remind you that religion has the history of spawning some of the greatest con-men and con-women known to mankind. I knew a minister that came to Detroit who had the gimmick of having a cross appear in the middle of his forehead at a set time of the service. The people would go nuts and run up to the offering barrel with money in their hands. It was done with a chemical applied to the skin that caused blood to come to the surface in 45 minutes. Add to this the fact that one of the most respected ministers on the Christian Television Networks locked himself in a prayer tower and declared that God would take him home if he didn’t receive an amount in the millions of dollars, and it is plain that the love of money has had its toll on the leaders of the Charismatic movement.

“Our greatest test will not be devils, or men, or dragons. Our greatest test is going to be how we handle the finances of the Kingdom. One cannot imagine the lure of filthy lucre! It will cause your message to change, your ministry to lose its edge, your vision to dull. If not handled with extreme care, it will impair your judgment of right and wrong. Over the years my wife and I have had many preachers of the present truth tell us they are going to go to the harlot system and deliver it from its Babylonian ways. Unfailingly, each one has changed their message just enough to be accepted among the princes and merchants of Babylon. How easy it is to become a star to the lesser orders! The people are so hungry in the pews, you could throw them crumbs of the Kingdom and they would think they are eating steak. Each preacher that has gone to the Whore has been wooed by her compliments and favors. They soon end up driving better cars, living in better houses, getting larger offerings. What’s wrong with that? you ask. Don’t they deserve all those things? Yes, they do. My question is, from my own experiences, What did they have to do to get them?

“Let us be perfectly honest and frank about what we preach. It is a message that is contrary to the nature of men. It grates against the religious spirit. It reveals the man of sin in the temple, puts the spirit of Antichrist on the judgment seat of God, shines a piercing light upon the hypocrisy of a corrupt leadership, says ‘Woe, woe, woe’ to the prophets who prophesy to please the flesh of men instead of God, demands the beheading of every priest who stands in the Holy Place and declares himself to be the mouth-piece of God, expounds on the futility of men who preach about God without ever having a personal experience of His all-saving love and grace. This message calls the foolish and weak and rejects the wise and strong, leads the believer of it on a trail that crosses raging rivers, climbs horrendous mountains, winds through dry, hot deserts, careens through the camp of every giant and dragon in the land, takes us to the very mouth of death and hell, brings us within a heart-beat of certain destruction, walks us through the valley of the shadow of death, and drives us into the wilderness. Doesn’t sound like the kind of message you could build a mega-church on, now does it? The bare truth is, you can’t, and you won’t!

“God is out to get a generation for Himself. Let the children play, but you priests of the Most High get yourselves up into the mountain and wait upon the Lord! In the stillness, in the quiet of the secret place of the Most High, there is a Word that will change our lives. If we will avail ourselves of this word, Babylon will have no power over us. Our eyes will be for the Lord only. Our only purpose will be to bring honor and glory and majesty to His name. When we have been delivered from the love of money, then we will be ready to lead the people to the next summit. Otherwise we will only lead them to hell” — end quote.

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