How’d The Sheep Gate Become A Sheep Market?

John 2:15 “ And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;”

John 2:16 “And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

Jesus Christ and the things of God are not a commercial venture and enterprise… although that is what, in many cases, it has become. Where it is meant to be about seeing people saved and sealed to God, Christianity has instead been turned into a marketplace where souls are the commodity. It has become a business with a marketing team… and the poor old sheep never make it through the gate.

Every child of God needs the wisdom of God to navigate this world, and the snake pit we live in. We are going to need something higher, from above, and you can have the wisdom from above if you want it… and you can’t say it’s not available, because the wisdom of God is literally crying out to you in every place you’re at if you had an ear to hear it “Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?”

We have churches nowdays which are being run like a business, because that’s what they are … and that is the stuff that angered Jesus. Souls of men and women that he came to save and set free from sin, that are HIS, are not an object of the commerce of man, but they are being made to be, and read Revelation 17 & 18 and you find what spirit is really behind it all (not the Holy Spirit).

Young Christians not yet rooted in God’s word, not yet knowing Christ for themselves, they particularly get easily sucked into the giant Christian commercial juggernaut, and get devoured by Satan in it… because they didn’t know the seriousness of the stakes “and knoweth not that it is for his life.”

It’s on in earnest early folks. The Bible says to remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, and the wisest thing a young person can do according to the wisdom of Solomon, that God gave him, is “Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” Live according to God, get to know God for yourself, get in the Bible for yourself, obey what God’s word says to do. You are not given liberty to sin, you’re given liberty to serve your Saviour.

Oh, but that’s so legalistic in your mind isn’t it, because Mystery Babylon already has got you! PR and marketing has already filled your head with so much mumbo jumbo that the ruler of God’s word could never be allowed to straighten you out! Because you’re their commodity, not God’s chosen in Christ Jesus “My sheep hear my voice”.

===

Midway through the book of Genesis, we read in chapter 32 where a young Jacob leaves home and in chapter 33 he meets a man of greater life experience than he… a fella called Laban.

Laban has a thing that we know in business terms as “capital”. He’s got the girls, and he’s got cattle, sheep, goats, accommodation, job security… a purpose and a plan for Jacob’s life… and along his path has strolled a young man with some great attributes who he can use to benefit himself.

He has what Jacob needs, and that puts him in the position of power. Power that he will use to great effect. Up the rung in churches, they may not have the power of God, but they do have a power advantage, which they can leverage with the numbers they have, the experiences that they can provide, the friendships that they can facilitate, the resources at their disposal, and the opportunities they can grant or deny.

And so Laban sits old Jacob down, and outlays Jacob’s career pathway and progression to him, and we have business terms like those in churches now, and it seems pretty good to Jacob, but it should perk your ears up when someone sits you down with their vision, but not God’s for your life. It sounded good, but it didn’t turn out so good! Because promotion comes from God… and these were feigned words from Laban… but Jacob went for them. Sign me up!

Laban was not a man of God. And you’ll be surprised and inevitably disappointed in life when people in position and power aren’t what you thought they were, would be or said they would do. Many people are in positions of authority in churches who are not men of God, and that goes for women too… increasingly emboldened to and justified in positions not prescribed by God according to his wisdom… but permitted by their shiny new gender neutral Bible. It’s quite an amazing 21st century phenomenon to see most of many Christians incapable of reading a Bible because of correct renderings of thees and thous, only to then show incredible ready wieldiness and proficiency in personal pronouns when it comes to recognizing the colourful personal preferences that have become the rage of the age.

So Laban has a clear advantage over Jacob. And you’ve gotta really be careful who gets an advantage over you in life. Because I know we think everyone’s lovely and got a little good in them, but reality is we are all wicked sinners, and without the grace of God, to be left in the hands of man, and the limits of his limitlessly wicked imagination, that’s a bad place to be. God gave king David a couple of bad choices to choose between in the Old Testament and David said it’s infinitely better to be at God’s mercies than in the hands of man! To be in man’s hands and at the mercies of man’s goodness and grace was a bad deal, that’s what David thought!

But so Jacob is going to have the Laban experience… which many young Christians have. And he will drip feed enough incentives in front of Jacob to keep him there for… twenty years! But what he’s doing is just using Jacob. And he keeps Jacob poor so that Jacob won’t ever leave him, so he can use him for every bit he’s worth. Yeah, human beings are mean, and Jacob was related to the guy in the end! What better way to intertwine you into the system than be married in, right? He’s really got him now. Are you where God wants you to be or are you where someone else wants you right there to be and staying there.

Laban does to Jacob what many churches will do to you if they could. They keep you spiritually poor while you pour your life into their church… to make them look good. You make them relevant when they really are not. Jesus talked about the uselessless of salt that has lost it’s savour, it’s “saltness”… and really just how good for society our churches have become is evident in how steamrolled our society has become by literally every ungodly antichrist movement.

To digress slightly, but one major branch of the new Christian business model is Christian counselling. Everyone’s become a psychologist and counsellor these days, and if you care about people that’s great. Do it God’s way though. Look, if you need to keep going back to Christian psych and counselling… which if it’s not opening the Bible to you and rebuking your sin as well and exhorting to faith and obedience, that kind of counselling is not even provided for in scripture to be done… if you need to keep going back and you never grow up as a Christian and you can’t function without them, because you’re as poor and dependent upon them as Jacob was Laban… you really need to get out of some of those relationships.

Jesus is called “Counselor” in the Bible, and it’s a topic for another time, but most Christian counselling is a complete and utter scam designed to make the counsellor feel important and look good, and it’s administered by people who are not even remotely qualified to do so. We have scores of people who don’t know Jabal from Jubal handing out advice, when God’s word and a heart broken over your sin in surrender to his truth is only the ever the way forward. Why not go to Jesus? Most counsel is a substitute to you repenting of your sin and taking your burden to Christ.

And yes, some people have real hurts and pains and problems and fears and worries. Even moreso, what makes you think your counsellor can take it away when they’ve got issues too? Only God can deal with the hurts and horrors of life… the Bible says the lot is cast into the lap but the WHOLE DISPOSING thereof is of the LORD. Cast all your cares upon him… for HE careth for you. Why not take it to Jesus over someone who has about as much of a clue as you do? Noone ever cared for me like Jesus as the old song says… and godly counselling will point you that way make no mistake.

Back to Jacob though, he had the problem we all had which consigned him to twenty lost years and which will consign us all to an indefinite amount of time lost… which is that he thinks he knows something, when he doesn’t know anything.. Laban had far more life experience than him… and Jacob finally learnt a truth for life, which is that there is ALWAYS someone smarter than you. But noone is smarter than God. That’s why you trust in God’s word in every part of life, even against our own wisdom if they conflict… because his ways are not our ways, but his ways work.

And so poor old Jacob gets sucked into the literal Laban business for twenty years… it’s a long time before eventually he returns to the only trusted voice in his life… his Lord and Saviour’s, and the direction of God’s word, which will once again set him on the strait and narrow path of life.

… so if you are a young Christian… don’t get sucked into the giant Christian commercial machine! You’re more than a marketplace, you were born for God’s purpose. Don’t be used by man, surrender your life to God, let him mould and make you, find your identity, hope and purpose in him… why let your life be just about making someone else’s religion look good “They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.”

So many people end up serving the church, not God. And they have great attributes, but they got caught up in the business model. Look, you can have all the fire and energy and enthusiasm in the world, but if it is not subject to the bridle and reins of the Lord Jesus Christ, the wisdom of his word, someone will redirect that all into you benefiting them… as happened to Jacob.

Eternal life is knowing Jesus Christ, and the right church for you is the one that pours God’s word into you, encouraging and enabling your personal walk with God, for you to step out in faith and obedience to God, so you can do what God has called you in life. So your life can make a difference and you’re not just another peon to fill a pew. Grow in the Lord and you’ll have true fellowship, dear Christian.

And whatever ability you have been given, that’s great, but it must be surrendered to God’s wisdom. David had a mighty man called Asahel, he was young, he was fast, he outran everyone, and his gift is what got him killed. Wisdom from above is not a suggestion, it’s a mandate.

===

We have run some side trails, but essentially today we are talking about people turning Christianity into commercial enterprise and business of man, where you are the merchandise “And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you”

Look, they know how to do it, because you have a thing called “the flesh”. And good marketing knows how to allure the flesh. They’ll hook your flesh, and if your flesh has not been crucified, and you have not lost all confidence in it… you will follow it to them. Christians are like literal children to the pied piper in the music scene, you have people so obviously not saved, so obviously not using godly methods, so obviously not producing godly results through their “Jesus” music… but their huge followings have been hopelessly hooked by how their music makes them feel.

They’ve been hooked by their flesh. And that’s just good business, but not God’s business. Every successful business knows the importance of marketing, finding new and better ways to attract people to what they’re offering and increasing the “stickiness” of their product ie. people keep coming back to it. There’s a lot of stuff sticking to a lot of Christians which is not the easy yoke and the light burden that Jesus said he has for us. And all this is going on right now in the Christian scene. It’s just business.

The apostle Paul set an amazing counter example. He said “I seek not yours but you”. His whole ministry and life purpose was seeing people grow in Christ. This same apostle Paul, who went through beatings, shipwreck, imprisonment, so many different hardships and afflictions to preach the gospel… who founded the church at Corinth… he writes to them in his second epistle because they’d rather pay money to hear preaching than hear a man of God for free.

We have a tendency to follow who is most impressive. Absalom knew that he he made himself look impressive and caused a whole nation to turn from David to himself.

But just look what’s going on, Christianity today has become symposiums, conferences, camps, retreats, this group, that group, getaways, conventions, and you think there’s something to it all because the more money you pay the greater value you’re getting… right?

Wrong. Paul wrote “Have I committed an offence in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?” It’s amazing that people would rather pay money to be fooled, then listen for free and get fed! I know people who have basically traversed the earth to go and see their favourite speakers and try to feel something from God and reignite that “passion”… when God put someone with an open Bible in their life who’d tell them all they’d need to hear for free at a park bench… but not interested in that! Look at the followings these so obviously false teachers have and it’s all show, zero substance, but people go for it, they PAY for it! What a time to run a business, and shrewd cookies see the large target market of people who are looking get weave a bit of religion into their dead life, and they become the market for the latest Christian business proposition.

===

And so in John 2, people would come to Jerusalem to do their religious deal, some with a genuine heart to do what God said they should do to please him as an act of faith and love… and there were people waiting there to fleece them like sheep for their money. It was just business.

And in John 5 it was at the sheep MARKET that Jesus found a huge amount of people with all sorts of problems… because while the church has been busy turning the sheep gate into a sheep marketplace… it hasn’t helped anyone, there are people everywhere who are lame, halt, blind, withered, impotent… waiting for a movement of God… when God’s word would simply bid them rise, take up their bed and walk. Jesus is your Physician, you just need him, not a career pathway at your local. He will exalt you, he will enable you, he will lift you up, he will put you where he’d have you be, he would fix your broken heart, he would deliver you from your worst fears, he would save you from your sin, he would seat you in heaven!

We could go on… but what we know is that Jesus was not happy that his Father’s house had been turned into a marketplace. Christian literature, Christian media, Christian musicians, it’s become big business. They know the market, they set their stall out, and you come cash in hand looking for a superior experience because you’re dissatisfied, discontent and disillusioned with the “the faith once delivered unto the saints”. Look, if the Bible isn’t your game changer, no amount of books and concerts and counselling sessions will be… just saying. Jesus came to seek and save the lost ,he will save you, for free, and give you a life truly worth living… your soul is his, your life is his, you’ll find everything you ever need and more than you could ever handle, all in him… don’t let relentless consumerism consume his precious, high, heavenly and holy calling on your life.

Blog Bible Business Christian Church False God Jesus Love Merchandise Money Prophets Teachers