Kool-Aid Drinking Critics #4

Greetings all,

Sorry for not posting last week. Still very busy, but I will get back to it soon.

I have not had a comment that I felt worthy of a Kool-Aid Drinking Critics post in a while, but something struck me about a very small comment someone left me just today. The short comment is:

bigdreamer said...

maybe if you spent your time more constructively by truly following God and building a successful business by serving others, you would not have time to put together this ridiculous site!

This was on the post here.

I would like to examine this a little bit. First, let me consider this:

maybe if you spent your time more constructively by truly following God

He makes a few assumptions, the first is that I am not using my time constructively, and the second is that I am not truly following God.

Anything which exposes the truth about how people twist the word is God for their own purposes is constructive, next, it is always truly following God to expose such errors.

Now, please give me the latitude to explain:

A pastor by the name of Darren Hunter put together a very good little explanation of the MLM movement and the church. The PDF file is for download at the MOD website. In this article, the author takes a realistic approach to how MLM’s function in the context of churches. Being in MLM’s and studying them I can assure you that if your MLM has a motivational organization attached to it, this article will apply with dead accuracy. He highlights such things as the invitation, the gospel, the sacrifice, and many other aspects that are very similar to the church, but in this case, they are applied to the MLM.

The problem is that God deserves and desires our devotion, but the MLM also requires the same devotion. The motivational organizations will try to counter this by saying that the J.O.B. (Their acronym for a job that means Just Over Broke, or in some cases, Jackass Of the Boss) requires that devotion. This is not the case. First, God commands us to work, and to work six days, and rest the seventh. To contrast, the MO will teach that God desires you to have fun, to play, and not to work in ‘bound slavery’ (the J.O.B.). Next, the job does not require the devotion that the MO or God requires.

Now, the MO’s teach you that God wants you to be rich. That is so contrary to the truth that it isn’t even funny. I have copied the same comment several times now, and it is appropriate to do so again, so here is the biblical basis for wealth. Starting on page 11, the article does a good job, too.

Biblical Basis for Wealth

First, read Matthew 19:16-22. This passage does NOT mean that a person must give everything away to be saved (yes, there have been apostic theologies called ‘poverty Gospels’ which teach this). In this verse, Jesus is testing just how well this young man kept the commandments. In fact, he failed the first one. This man loved his money more than God, which is why he went away grieving. For him, his property was worth more than his soul. POINT NUMBER 1: Money is a problem when you put it before God.

Next, read 1 Timothy 6:3-6. In this verse, we see the problem with using the platform of Godliness to gain material goods. In the last part (vs. 6), we see that contentment, not dreams, is the way to gain. Contentment and dreams are two opposing sides of the spectrum. POINT NUMBER 2: Contentment is the path to sound living.

Next, read 1 Timothy 6:9-10. It is clear from observing the BWW system that a total all consuming love for money is the motivation behind their actions. POINT NUMBER 3: When your focus is earning money, you are subjecting yourself to great temptations for practicing evil.

With these points in mind, I want you to know that having money is not a sin. Going on a good vacation, having a nice car, a nice house, etc, are not sins. The problem arises when you use a deceptive system of mind control to fleece people out of hard earned money so that you can buy a whole lot of things.

Which System?

With these points in mind, following God is not by committing to the motivational organizations, it is by obeying the commandments in the Bible, to be witnesses of the faith in Jesus Christ, to love one another in truth, and to make disciples of the nations. This is not done in the context of MLM’s, which get confused as to which gospel to share. In a sermon by John MacArthur called ‘The Foolishness of God’, he makes the observation that when human philosophy contends with divine revelation, the people always take their philosophy. This means that the most likely occurrence will be sharing the gospel of MLM and when the gleaming eyes drool with how to do it, you tell them that God wants you to be rich and ask for His power to do it. This further leads to a false wealth-based gospel.

What is Success?

Next, consider further the passage:

building a successful business by serving others

Let us show just how successful this business has been. From a previous post, I wrote:

First, we must define ‘successful’. To be fair, I will define ‘successful’ as a person who has reached the level of Q-12 Platinum. We must be careful even here, because a person can be a poorly structured Platinum and make a lot less than the typical, but we will grant that ALL Platinums are proper. Now, according to the Quixtar affiliate site, ThisBizNow, only 0.244% of people make the Q-12 Platinum level. So, out of 2000 people, 5 will become successful. Note that the average income is $115 per month. So, this person statistically helps 5 out of 2000 people ‘succeed’. Not very good odds for a system that costs about $5,000 (single) to $10,000 (couple) per year to run according to a profit and loss analysis.

As far as ‘helping other people’ to succeed, are we really helping them when we give them a false gospel? Are we helping them when we give them the latest in the business motivational or psychological research even if it teaches contrary to God’s word? Are we really helping them by teaching them to be discontent and putting their hearts on worldly things, even though the Bible tells us not to love the things of the world? The appeal of these MO leaders to ‘help people’ is not to help them. That is a vague term devoid of meaning. People may seem to be ‘helped’ in some aspects in the beginning, but the reality is that far more leave the system than stay in. Those that leave rarely have good or neutral stories. Fair people around the world have reported near identical horror stories about this business and it’s diverse motivational organizations. When will YOU stop drinking your Kool-Aid and examine the facts?