Biblical Principles Of Wealth by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Jesus spoke about money more than He spoke about heaven and hell combined. That does not make money more important than eternity, but it does confront the idea that money is a subject the church should avoid. Believers tend to fall into one of two extremes: either treating money as spiritually suspect and walking on eggshells around it, or chasing financial miracles so aggressively that they lose touch with earthly reality and end up frustrated.

Money Is Not Inherently Evil

Genesis 1:4-31, Genesis 2:11-12

God calls each part of creation good, light, land, vegetation, the sun and stars, and then, describing the geography of Eden, specifically notes that the gold of that land is good. There is nothing inherently evil about money or gold; the corruption entered later, with selfishness, not with the material itself. God created people with a selfless ambition for dominion and a curiosity for innovation. What God wants is a sanctified heart, breed without greed, people capable of carrying real wealth without being contaminated by it.

The Rich Young Ruler

Mark 10:17-22

A man who had kept every commandment from his youth turned away from Jesus rather than sell what he had. The problem was never what Jesus asked, it was how the man actually saw Jesus. Someone who genuinely understood who was making the request would not have hesitated. It is entirely possible to be a decent believer, blameless in nearly every other area, and still have one unaddressed weak point around money, spiritualized greed hiding behind a clean public record.

Irresponsibility With Money Has Real Consequences

2 Kings 4:1-7

A prophet's widow came to Elisha because her husband had died in debt, and creditors were coming to take her sons as slaves. The man was described as one of the sons of the prophets, a genuine man of God, and he still died in debt, leaving his family exposed. Anointing and financial irresponsibility can coexist, and it is often the people closest to a person, not the person alone, who pay for that gap. Jesus' parable of the sower makes the same point from a different angle: the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches can choke out a word that would otherwise have changed a life, not because the seed was flawed, but because of the condition it landed in.

Renew Your Mind About Money

Pretending not to want what you don't have is often just a coping mechanism, not contentment. It is possible to have money and still have sense, to be wealthy and still see everyone, regardless of what is in their pocket, as made in the image of God. As Augustine put it, those who have money without Christ have nothing; those who have Christ without money have everything; and those who have both do not have more than those who have Christ alone. Christ, not net worth, remains the real measure of a person's value.

Character Before Capacity

Before capacity to earn or manage money comes character, and the two have to move together. A lot of spending is really compensation for low self-esteem, an oversized purchase or an unnecessary relationship used to manufacture a feeling of being loved or valued. Other character failures carry their own hidden financial cost: sexual promiscuity, uncontrolled anger, marrying the wrong person, each has produced real, documented economic consequences in people's lives, sometimes instantly, sometimes over years. Closing the door early on those temptations protects far more than reputation, it protects the actual financial future.

A Simple Test Before a Purchase

Divide the cost of an item by your total net worth. Under 1% is a safe purchase. One to five percent is comfortable. Five to ten percent is a major purchase worth pausing over. Ten to twenty percent needs a genuinely good reason. Twenty to thirty percent is a decision significant enough to involve the whole family. Above that, whatever is being bought effectively begins to own the buyer instead.

The Law of Creative Miracles

Matthew 14:15-21, Exodus 4:2, 2 Kings 4:2

When the disciples had no way to feed a hungry crowd, Jesus did not manufacture food from nothing, He asked what they already had. God asked Moses the same question about Egypt's threat, "what is in your hand," and asked the widow in debt, "what is in your house." In situation after situation, God meets lack with something already present that was simply being overlooked or despised. A hopeless situation stays hopeless only as long as it is assumed to be hopeless; some of the largest companies in the world, a taxi company that owns no taxis, a hospitality company that owns no property, were built on exactly this principle: real value can start without capital, once what is actually already in hand is recognized.