In the past couple of days, I have been prompted to revisit this from my more recent money book, Are You Worried Yet…:
What I saw was a choice between two kinds of “time-shares,” two places to rest, two places to live, even a choice between two kingdoms. How can we leave the one, without entering the other? Getting out of Babylon, it seems, is a call to every one of us, but where are we to go if we are given no alternative? Does “the gospel” consign us to some kind of mental holding pattern until Jesus comes back? Why should people living in darkness want a piece of that action?
We need to live in the Spirit’s alternative to Babylon; we need to live there now. My experience tells me that this is well within reach of the faith once delivered to the saints, and still available even in our own day. What we are presently calling “church” isn’t fooling anyone, except perhaps ourselves.
As my revelation that day in Mexico became clearer, I found myself wanting to share about the work of the cross, not only as a remedy for sin, but as a kind of bulldozer for spiritual urban renewal. I was reminded that the Apostle Paul wanted to go where the gospel had not been preached. No wonder. A great deal of demolition work needs to be done on the half-way houses that our understanding of the gospel has offered in the name of the Lord.
The way things are now, people haven’t the faintest idea of what the Bible is really offering us in Christ. People living in darkness need very badly to know that there is another place to live, another place to rest. If I understand it right, believers were to be a demonstration in that darkness. “Oh well, maybe next time – NOT!”
What Jesus offers us is bad for business, any business:
…To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children who sit in the market place. . . .¹
We sit in a market place with an eye to doing business. We have business on our mind. It is this “what’s in it for me that I can buy” mentality that stands in opposition to our ability to enter the Kingdom of God. It is a change of mental location that we need in order to come out of Babylon and enter another place.
The book of Revelation is a strange kind of letter. It tends to scramble our sense of “past” “present” and “future.” A “beast” is revealed there who will burn Babylon in the future.²
The book of Revelation also reveals another place to live. This other place is called “The New Jerusalem.”³ The problem is that what’s calling itself “church” has been so locked into futureness that we have missed the burning that is going on in the present. This burning is the result of a fire Jesus kindled at the cross. This is to say, we don’t have to wait until the eleventh hour to get out of the burning tower. The fact is, the fire Jesus set at the cross has already gutted the building.
One way of indicating where the gospel takes us, as contrasted with where we have been, is to summarize the contrast between two economic “systems.” One system finds its expression in a market place, a place where people go to buy and sell. The rock bottom object of the market place is a redistribution of the necessities of life. The economy of God does this by the blood of Christ. This is the transaction of the cross, where we exchange our garbage for His love.⁴
Love!
¹ Luke 7:30-32
² Revelation 17:16
³ Revelation 21:2
⁴ This summary was first suggested to me by Lisa Weger, co-author of Not Left Behind.
- By Jay Ferris, originally posted April, 2011
Loving Like God 
”The rock bottom object of the market place is a redistribution of the necessities of life.” Can you unpack this a little more?
Hello,
Thank you for your insightful question. I want to be careful in speaking for Jay Ferris, who isn’t here to explain himself. So I will do my best to “help” with an understanding, but not because I have it in full.
In Wikipedia, there is a physical definition to work with:
“Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law.[1] The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.
Interpretations of the phrase vary, depending on personal perspectives, political ideologies and the selective use of statistics.[2] It is frequently used in politics, to refer to perceived redistribution from those who have more to those who have less.
Occasionally, albeit rarely, the term is used to describe laws or policies that cause redistribution in the opposite direction, from the poor to the rich.[3]”
Jay often compared the economy of the world with the “economy of the Kingdom of God. In the former, the medium of exchange comes down to money. But with God, and among His children, the exchange is love.
The difference between God’s and man’s economies, reflects the difference between grace and works.
Jesus said “everything I have is God’s, and God’s is mine” (paraphrase from John) … the same ideal is seen in the parable of the prodigal son when the father says to his oldest “everything I have is yours”. Whatever we need is there by the love, grace and provision of God. “Consider the lillies of the field …” and “you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” And of course Jesus who said “freely you have received (from Me), freely give (to others)”. For a time, such was even practiced by the church in Acts 2 and 4, where it says ‘they shared everything, claimed nothing as their own, and through their giving and sharing there were no needy persons among them’.
Man’s system says you have to work hard for your “piece of the pie” and if at the end of the day you can’t pay the bill, you go hungry. Man’s system makes merchandise of everything – which frankly – is theft from God for it says in scripture “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” and “Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine”. He also said “The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine.”
I remember once doing some video work for a doctor (or was it a lawyer?) who went to the same church I did – scanning and editing photos and rendering them to a DVD slide show for his son who was graduating high school. The pay for my full day of work, was less than he charged for a 15 minute office visit. He asserted his time was more valuable because he’d learned a more valuable trade. I mused that in God’s economy we were equal; He had appointed each of us for 1 life of not more than 120 years. In God’s economy of things, those who exalt themselves, will be humbled – and those who humble themselves, will be exalted; the first will be last and the last will be first. Man can’t begin to wrap his hard-headedness around an economy such as God’s … they just take a little of what belongs to God and use it in trade – a system of redistribution that I’m sure God holds in utter contempt.
Well said!
-Pamela
‘Creation subjected to frustration … in hopes of … freedom …
Surely my flesh chomps at the bit to be free, but living in this world makes it seem like slavery is the only option … to figuring out some way to live here, and provide for our physical needs. Consequently I find myself thinking (I can’t say whether right or wrong) that the only place I can seize that wonderful freedom, is in the kingdom within me – within my understanding. That to the best of my strength and empowerment, I will NOT yield my head to the wisdom/rule of the world, but submit myself to Christ. That I will NOT put my hands to work for the beast, but put them to work for Christ.
Where I find it most frustrating being a physical being in a physical world, is the matter of healing – of health. There are serious issues for which we’ve prayed years without result and as often as my wife is overcome with pain, I pray and find myself deeply frustrated, even angry with the Lord. Then just last night I was led to make a subtle change to my prayer – instead of praying for complete and permanent healing – I asked Him to heal her today – for the day – and this is a funny prayer for me – brusk man that I can be – to give her an “easy breezy” day. After prayer, we fell asleep and had a good night’s sleep. Today she awoke with minimal pain and discomfort.
Perhaps that’s a better approach to healing, where the Lord taught us “give us this day, our daily bread …” – to pray for the day and no more. If He would answer my ‘do it now for all time’ prayer, perhaps He knows that would allow me to wander off from Him with everything – my complete inheritance – in hand. He wants us to come back to Him again and again …
I don’t have the answer, obviously, still searching, ‘spit-balling’ if you will … nevertheless, hoping for grace and relief today. Perhaps that’s a better kingdom view than the younger son’s give me everything now approach …
I love that testimony of Karen’s “healing for the day.” It certainly requires a greater, ongoing courage to lean on Christ through a healing process, trusting Him to be enough for each day.