AP

Ezekiel 7:19-21  They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be treated as a thing unclean.  Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath.  It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs, for it has caused them to stumble into sin.  They took pride in their beautiful jewelry and used it to make their detestable idols.  They made it into vile images; therefore I will make it a thing unclean for them. I will give their wealth as plunder to foreigners and as loot to the wicked of the earth, who will defile it.

My education in the field of business and economics is sadly lacking.  I love the challenge of difficult mathematical problems, but if there is a ‘$’ among the figures on the page I am totally out of my depth

 Although I don’t have a clue how to move towards a solution, I do know that, if I can believe what I read in the media about the current international economics situation, we are facing a crisis, with the name ‘Trump’ featuring fairly prominently in the discussion.

With this in mind it seems the Lord’s warning to Israel through the Prophet Ezekiel nearly three millennia ago should give us pause. The Church in the West has allowed itself to become very influenced by the gross materialism of the culture in which it is immersed, and all of us as Christians need to assess our own attitude today by Ezekiel’s words, and also by our Lord Jesus Christ in his Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. …  No one can serve two masters.  Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money.  Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the flowers of the field grow.  They do not labour or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:19-21, 24-34).

– Bruce Christian