As the first teaching of the series unfolds, Pastor Don uses the Israelites as our example of what not to be, or not to do, as the wealth of the world is given to the Church (God’s holy nation, royal priesthood, special set-apart ones today).
He urges us not to use the world’s pattern of use of wealth. He warns, however, that more of that pattern may be in our mental framework than we imagine. He takes a look at Israel, and how much of Egypt remained in them after they were given the plunder and spoil of all of Egypt’s wealth.
He encourages that God will make our personal lives, and that of the Church, extremely glorious with a brilliance and excellence the world has never seen. In the world, the wealth of the wealthy is hidden away, horded out of view of the rest of us. The world doesn’t see what glory that wealth could be like if it was released into life.
The World Bank report issued this month, in October, 2021:
“The World Bank estimates that about half of all global wealth is held by just a few, with the rest held by only a small fraction of the remaining global population.
The World Bank has been studying how people in developing countries manage their wealth, and its report this week is based on the first ever global survey of wealth held by individuals.
Its researchers analyzed data from the world over, including information about the wealth held in private companies, financial institutions, pension funds and non-financial corporations.
This survey is different from the one that has been conducted in the past, the World Bank says, because it used a database of 1.5 million individuals from around the world.
Forbes published an article concerning the world’s wealth as follows:
“The world's total net wealth has hit $431 trillion, nearly half a quadrillion dollars, and over half of it is controlled by multi-millionaires. The reality is that figure is closer to 60 percent of all wealth.
That $431 trillion figure includes "the sum of financial wealth and real assets, net of liabilities," explains Anna Zakrzewski, author of a new report from Boston Consulting Group.
High net worth individuals (HNWIs), or people worth over $1 million, own a quarter of the total, approximately $126 trillion, according to the Global Wealth Report, which was published on Thursday.
When it comes to financial wealth (which includes investable assets such as cash, equities, funds and bonds), the share controlled by HNWIs is even larger at 70%.”
These reports reveal a startling fact, that only about 30% of the world’s wealth is represented in tangible, usable goods.
Think what glorious change would be wrought in the earth if that 70% of “horded wealth” should find its way into tangible things of life, given exclusively to Christ-believers, the body of Christ for the good of humanity instead of locked up in vaults and receipts representing that wealth.
Of course, not all of that wealth is held by the wicked rich, however, most of it is indeed, and it is that wealth that the New Testament Apostle, James, speaks of in James, Chapter bringing a woe of vengeance upon during this period of wealth conversion about to take place. Verses 2 and 3 speak of the wretchedness of their hordes. Verse 4 convicts them of issuing fraudulent money for wages of labor and reveals that the cry of those wages cries out for vengeance into the “ears of the Lord of hosts (Jehovah Tsaba):
James 5:1-8 “COME NOW, you rich [people], weep aloud and lament over the miseries (the woes) that are surely coming upon you. (2) Your abundant wealth has rotted and is ruined, and your [many] garments have become moth-eaten. (3) Your gold and silver are completely rusted through, and their rust will be testimony against you and it will devour your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped together treasure for the last days. (4) [But] look! [Here are] the wages that you have withheld by fraud from the laborers who have reaped your fields, crying out [for vengeance]; and the cries of the harvesters have come to the ears of the Lord of hosts. (5) [Here] on earth you have abandoned yourselves to soft (prodigal) living and to [the pleasures of] self-indulgence and self-gratification. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (6) You have condemned and have murdered the righteous (innocent man), [while] he offers no resistance to you. (7) So be patient, brethren, [as you wait] till the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits expectantly for the precious harvest from the land. [See how] he keeps up his patient [vigil] over it until it receives the early and late rains. (8) So you also must be patient. Establish your hearts [strengthen and confirm them in the final certainty], for the coming of the Lord is very near.
A last-days event (verse 3), all of this coming as “the coming of the Lord draws near” (verses 7 & 8).
Get ready for much biblical prophetic revelation in this teaching.
