God and Caesar, money and mammon.

Text Luke 16:10-13; Mark 12:13-17

Money is needed, but it is one of the problems of life ( Ecc. 10:19; 1 Timothy 6:6-10 )

Money and mammon (Luke 16:13)

Money is mammon, a god. Jesus tells us that you cannot serve God and mammon.

Money is a worldly system, like the slave trade in the past, not God’s plan.

God’s arrangement: every family has their land, to farm and eat what it produces (Gen 2:15-17; Lev

25:8-12).

To serve mammon is to do things according to mammon principles: greed, dishonesty, anti-god agenda,

pride, arrogance, sacrifices to appease the gods, etc (e.g., Luke 16: 1-9).

N.B. Some people give gifts as sacrifices to appease their gods. Such gifts won't do you any good.

To serve mammon also means you use the money mammon gives you for the mammon agenda.

To serve God means worship, righteousness, faithfulness, and obeying kingdom principles to get money

(hard work, honesty, tithe, offering, etc), e.g. Luke 16:10-13.

God, Caesar, and money (Mark 12:13-17): Jesus says, give to God and Caesar what is due them.

Caesar is our government, we pay taxes and services to. Caesar will punish you if you don’t pay tax.

God is the creator and the Father of all. We must give to God what is God. In the context of money and

services, we give God a tithe and offerings. He has promised to bless those who give a tithe (10%) and to

protect our resources from the devourer (Mal 3:8-10; Matt 23:23). And God is faithful; he will do it.

Every human being gives what belongs to God for blessings or refuses to give and wastes it with suffering.

1. Lessons from the Babylonian captivity. God told the people to allow the land to rest every 7th year (Lev

25:2-7). But the people never observed this for almost 490 years. And so God sent them away into captivity

for 70 years, to atone for all the years they had never observed the commandment (2 Chron 36:20-21).

2. Lessons from the rebuilding of the temple (Haggai 1:5-11).

3. Warnings from the prophet Moses (Deut. 28:47-48).

Conclusion

You either, you choose God’s way of doing things, or you choose anti-god’s way of life.

Those who follow God’s ways never begs, they always have and their children are blessed (Psalm 37:25-27),