Our Guest Craig Hill
Sid: One of the biggest problems in marriage today, one of the biggest problems among people today, in this one of the most blessed countries the world has ever seen the United States of America is money. One of the most misunderstood areas is money, debt it’s unprecedented. The little plastic cards that people have managed to get themselves in so much debt and paying so much interest that there appears to be no way of getting free unless you go bankrupt. I have on the telephone the founder of Family Foundation International, Craig Hill. This is a seminar teaching ministry primarily in areas of the family. There are so many misunderstandings to the point where people are turned off on a lot of the appeals by ministries, or approaches if you, will by money. We did with the area of prophecy we corrected some misunderstandings on the air and this week we are going to correct some misunderstandings on money. I have Craig Hill on the telephone I’m speaking to him at his office in Littleton, Colorado. I just recently listened to a 7 audio cassette series on God’s principles of finances. I’ve got a question for you Craig I want to start out with.
Craig: Sure Sid.
Sid: I know an individual that decided to go into business for himself.
Craig: Hmm hm.
Sid: He felt God gave him the idea. He’s a strong Spirit filled Christian. A young man and…
Craig: Hmm hm.
Sid: …he didn’t have money. So he decided this was such a great idea “I’m going to borrow money on my plastic, on my credit cards.” And he borrowed a large sum of money on a number of credit cards which I think it’s just a crime that credit card companies would just give this amount of money to a young person with no assets starting a new business. The business went under, and now he’s in a position of having to pay so much in interest the interest is growing faster than he can pay the principal.
Craig: (Laughing)
Sid: He’s in a first class mess and looking at bankruptcy. If you were counseling this young man what would you say?
Craig: Well I think that could be any number of a lot of people Sid. I would think that there’d probably be a lot of people listening right now that would be in a similar type of situation. The thing that… first that people need to understand is that this has afflicted many types of people and that we live in a society that is drunk on debt. That usually when people find themselves in that kind of situation it’s certainly no secret to them that they’ve made mistakes…
Sid: You know I want to interject something. A lot of people don’t know this but before I became a believer I was an account executive at Merrill Lynch…
Craig: Oh!
Sid: …in the investment business. Before that I was in the life insurance business. I used to say to people “We will never have another 1929 because there are laws that have been instituted to not allow people to borrow so much on their stocks,” it was called margin. As a result of these, and this is what I was told to say “we won’t have another 1929.” But you know what? We’ve got worse situations because of plastic credit cards than they ever had in the borrowing on stocks on the margin accounts in 1929.
Craig: That’s really true. I was reading a newspaper article not too long ago here in our Denver newspaper about several people, young people – college students, several of them who had committed suicide as a result of the pressure of the debt that they had gotten involved in through credit…
Sid: Hmm.
Craig: …through the credit cards, plastic cards. One young woman had called her mom up and just weeping on the phone “What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Her mom said “Don’t worry we’ll help you” but that pressure was so intense they found that girl dead a couple of days later having committed suicide with a raft of credit cards spread all over the room and bills and she had just been overwhelmed with the pressure of that and not knowing how to get out of it.
Sid: Well there is a new marketing strategy of getting credit cards in the hands of college students. So start them in debt before they even get their degree.
Craig: Sure. That’s really true. You know an interesting thing, I think a lot of times as Christians we haven’t really realized that we have opened the door for that ourselves toward our own children by utilizing credit cards in that same way ourselves as…
Sid: Monkey see, monkey do.
Craig: Yeah that’s right. In Proverbs 22:26 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart.” We’ve opened the door and trained a lot of children in that way and they do start very very early.
Sid: Okay you’re advising this young man. He’s made his mess, now what advice do you give him?
Craig: Yeah he’s going to have to do 2 things that I know of for sure Sid. First thing that’s he’s going to have to understand is that there is a spiritual aspect to this as well as a practical aspect. So there are things that always needs to be kept in balance in terms of what is happening spiritually as well as what is happening practically. Jesus said you know in John chapter 4 verse 23 “Those who worship the Father will need to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.” So the first thing I’d advise this young man he’s going to have to understand the spiritual side of what’s happening to him. There are a lot of things that he’s feeling, a lot of pressures the things he’s experiencing are absolutely spiritual and need to be dealt with in at realm. Then there’s a practical that he’s going to have to deal with to walk out of this in terms of stepping up to his debt. In terms of stepping up to each one of these creditors he owes and beginning to make agreement with them. What we’ve found that happens an awful lot of times regarding debt is that people are willing many times to eliminate the interest. They’re willing to renegotiate all kinds of prior agreements when a person is honest…
Sid: But it’s so much easier when it’s overwhelming to just go bankrupt. There’s whole industries that are set up. Is there anything wrong with a Christian going bankrupt?
Craig: That’s very true that a whole lot of industry is setup to do that. What I think happens Sid is a lot of people are not counting on the supernatural at all. They’re not looking to God at all they’re only looking in the natural and what I find that debt does to people is it is so overwhelming it creates so much shame, so much pressure people feel absolutely overwhelmed , overloaded that many times they choose that option when there’s no need at all for choosing that option when if they would simply step up to their debt, begin to talk to their creditors do what they can do. What I notice you know there’s always a pressure the enemy on all of our lives that cause us to focus on what we don’t have and what we can’t do. I find so many times that when people quit focusing on what they don’t have and can’t do and begin to focus on what they do have and can do, and they begin to do the natural things then God will begin to do the supernatural things.
Sid: Okay let’s make a shift right now because we’re talking about this whole series on money. There’s something that has disturbed me, it’s been hard for me to even articulate it which is hard to believe because that’s what I do.
Craig: (Laughing)
Sid: But it’s hard for me to… there is something about the spirit that is behind a lot of evangelists that ask for money…
Craig: Right.
Sid: …that say, this isn’t what they’re saying but this is how it’s received by many people. “If you will give to me God will give you a 100 fold back on what you’re giving…”
Craig: Right.
Sid: “…and give everyone that gives a $1000 today watch what God is going to do.” Somehow there is a greed motivation…
Craig: Right.
Sid: …and I don’t even think God honors that even though there’s a law of sewing and reaping. Somehow we tap into that but there’s something in this greed that causes it to not even work and the only one that makes money is perhaps the evangelist.
Craig: Yeah I think what you’re saying Sid is absolutely true. Well what a lot of people have not recognized is I think there really is something very powerful operative in the spirit realm that people haven’t recognized. Now first, I saw this in Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 a scripture that would be very familiar to most of us where Jesus said “No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” All my life I’ve heard mammon taught as simply being another word for money, even in some translations of the Bible it translates it directly as money.
Sid: I’ve seen that.
Craig: Sure, but the way that Jesus has set this up is these two things are absolute opposites. God and whatever mammon is, and if indeed mammon were money if we were to fully give our hearts over to God and serve God then we should have nothing to do with mammon. If we do have anything to do with mammon then we are not serving God. Well if mammon meant money the obvious point is that we should have nothing to do with money. People in past centuries of course have taken that approach checked themselves into a monastery taken a vow of poverty and had nothing to do with any kind of money or worldly possessions for the rest of their life. But the thing that was startling to me that finally gave me some help in understanding this was when I heard a friend of mine with WYAM in Canada, a man by called Earl Pitts. Had done some research with another founder of school of Biblical studies with WYAM, Ron Smith, into the etymology and origin of that word mammon, and Sid do you know what they found the actual original meaning of that word was, is it didn’t mean money but it was actually an idolatrous god that was worshipped by Philistine people in the days of Jesus.
Sid: Huh!
Craig: So when Jesus said “You can’t serve God and mammon” He wasn’t talking about money per se He was actually talking about an idolatrous god that people worshipped. I think that it’s pretty evident to most people that behind every one of those idolatrous gods was a demonic principality or a demonic entity that was working behind that. I really believe that that same… that what that mammon is is actually the proper name of demonic principality that is operative still on planet earth today. The purpose of which is to grip and grab hold of people’s minds and I think that spirit is doing 2 powerful things in the lives of people in this country:
- Is to cause an intense focus on money and cause people to highly value money and look to money as the answer to all of their problems.
- To cause people to greatly fear the lack of money.
So if an evangelist as you say, in the example that you were just sharing is motivated by that spirit without realizing it, what can happen is he can indeed use the principle of sewing and reaping as you were suggesting to key in, or tie in, to the fear that is already in people’s hearts that they don’t have enough money and suggest that… the goal of this whole exercise is to get you money and we’re going to use God now to get you money. Of course all of us have heard offerings taken up in that way, or have been in services where that happened and there’s something that just grates on your spirit on the inside. The thing that I finally discovered that was is there’s a wrong spirit behind that.
Sid: Craig we’re out of time we’ll pick up right here on tomorrow’s broadcast.
