World evangelism requires more than rubbing two pennies together

Opinion by Bishop Dave Chikosi

There is nothing misplaced about the wealth transfer teaching. Most people who read the Bible with open spiritual eyes can see it. They understand what it is, namely, a transfer of wealth from the Babylonian systems of this world into the hands of the Church FOR THE PRIMARY PURPOSE of end-times evangelism. 

All of God’s wealth has a primary purpose (and secondary, tertiary etc). Evangelization of the nations is that primary purpose. Through the end-time transfer of wealth, money is returning back to God, it’s rightful Owner. And whilst it isn’t going to God directly, it is instead going to His children who are to handle it on His behalf for the primary goal of world evangelism.

The Church has been given the task of global evangelism. Unfortunately many of those who are still un-evangelized live in poor countries and regions of the world. While the Gospel itself is free, it takes money to send missionaries into these poor places and plant churches. Ask any pastor who has done church planting. It costs money to establish a work of God.

Stephen Gray is a leading church planter with the General Baptists. Gray writes in his book “Planting Fast-growing Churches”:

“Let’s not be shy about it: church planting is very expensive. If you are not willing to invest multiple thousands in a church plant, don’t even begin. Remember the old adage, “You get what you pay for”? Whoever coined that phrase must have been a church planter. If you are a denominational leader and you want to start a new church by rubbing a couple of dimes together, remember, “You get what you pay for.” The quickest way to kill a church plant, or at least doom it to a life of anemic survival, is to shortchange it. (p. 63)”

Gray suggests that the amount needed to plant a fast-growing church will be somewhere within the $200,000 to $300,000 range within a two-year period. A lot of lay people are simply unaware of these facts. Most people don’t even factor in such costs when they hear of stories about ministries planting new churches in new climes.

Now, where is the bulk of this money going to come from to fund this end-times harvest? Not from the church! The Church is generally broke and many of its members don’t even believe in divine prosperity! So no, the church by itself is not able to fund this global harvest. God has provided a way out. It is called “wealth transfer.”

The prophet Isaiah, in no less than four passages, very much looked forward to the days when the end-time Church would gather the wealth of the nations:

Isaiah 60:5 ‘The wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come’  

Isaiah 60:11 ‘Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring the wealth of the nations ‘  

Isaiah 61:6 ‘You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast’.  

Isaiah 66:12 ‘I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream’.

This is a double-reference to Israel and the Church. God has reserved the wealth of the sinner for His harvest in the last days. St James is equally clear about that:

“Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you . . . Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days” (James 5:1,3). 

You see, money has a mission and it is crying out to be in the hands of the righteous and not the wicked. This end time transfer of wealth into the Body of Christ has already started. This is why King Solomon prophetically said:

“The wealth of the sinner [finds its way eventually] into the hands of the righteous, for whom it was laid up” (Prov 13:22 Ampl).

Miracle money is just one of those ways to effect the transfer. My brother Howard Tundu sounds like a good man, but he is mistaken. If he has problems with angels seizing illegal and unused money and minerals (which really are God’s to begin with) from the sons of Belial, what does he think about ravens bringing Elijah bread and meat twice a day? Where did the ravens get the bread and (cooked) meat from? Where did Peter’s fish get the coin from?

No-one spends time trying to figure that out. Miracles are miracles. Most of us just accept that God can do anything He wants to do. It’s called child-like faith. God is not bound by any Laws, including the ones He Himself made. He is God all by Himself. We must stop trying to put Him in our little theological boxes.

When a child of God begins to think this way (that “all things are possible”), then you are free. You get out from under the burden of trying to come up with clever explanations for Jesus walking on water, water turned to wine, the coin in the fish’s mouth etc etc. No matter how much you try to explain it to the carnal mind, it will never get it. So what you do is just let God be God and let the chips fall where they may. Period.