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The city of Sao Paulo was dazzling that night as I stared across it from the balcony of the Italia Building. Entering the restaurant, I looked around. The receptionist, a tall blond young man with artificial manners, asked, as he knew me, "Mr Bulloon?"
I nodded with a smile and he took me to a private table in the rear. the person I was looking for was there, waiting for me. As he arose we exchanged greetings, and after a brief trivial conversation, he got to the point.
"You know I have money", he said, taking charge the situation at once. "I can buy whatever I want, travel in any place in the world, and make things happen that most people just dream about; but when night comes, I can't sleep. I feel as if I were in debt to someone. Some nights I remain awake until dawn. Tell me what I'm missing, but please don't ask me to become a member of your church and don't talk to me about Jesus".
His attitude surprised me. Although a giant in the world of business, he sat there almost begging for help, but he didn't want me to talk to him about Jesus.
"You know that I am a minister", I said.
"Yes, but can't ministers talk about anything else but religion"?
"Of course we can. I could discuss the stock market or the present exchange rate for dollars. I could talk to you about sports or about the culture of the different countries I have visited, but you have just asked me a specific question. You want to know what you are lacking and I am sure it is not stocks and bonds, travel, or culture. What you need is a spiritual sense for your life, but you don't want me to talk to you about Jesus. What can I do? If I were to tell you the solution to your problem is in India and that it would cost you a million dollars, you wouldn't hesitate a minute. You would get your private jet ready and go there immediately to look for the solution. Am I mistaken"? The man blinked several times, took a sip of water, and didn't know what to say. He was aware of the emptiness of his life. Something was seriously wrong. At the beginning of his career, when he was still young and filled with dreams and ambition, he believed that he needed money to be happy. he concentrated all his efforts on getting it and had achieved his objective. By now he was a multimillionaire and, according to his original plan, should have been satisfied but he wasn't. Instead, he felt constant anguish and couldn't identify the cause. Although looking for help, he didn't want to hear anything about God.
We talked a bit more, then said without coming to any conclusion. The classic portrait of a modern man, he had made money his god. But in spite of all his money he was empty and distraught.
"Money is a powerful horse", says the proverb. And people have always given themselves body and soul to getting as much as possible of it. "Money is the lever that moves the world", repeated the gold seekers as they risked their lives in the Amazon jungles searching for the precious metal.
The mad race for money dominates today's culture. it destroys lives, corrupts consciences, and leads to the overthrowing of governments. Yet people think that if they only had more money they would be happy, and therefore spare no effort or time to get it.
The man who spoke with me that night had discovered that money failed to bring happiness. But many, in their desperate attempt to fill the void that money cannot, fall into greed: the idolatry of money.
Greedy people live just for the getting. They accumulate riches they can't use. Afraid to spend and terrified of being poor, they never had enough. They care about no one but themselves. The apostle Paul describes this kind of people as one of the signs of the last days: "In the last days... men will be lovers of self, lovers of money".
The desire to accumulate riches makes human beings lose their sense of values. Things come to be more important than people. Always wanting to be richer, the wealthy will lie, exploit, extort, corrupt and be corrupted without caring about others. Such individuals exist in every field of human endeavor: in business, in the government, and even in churches.
It is the poor and weak who is especially suffer the consequences of the greed of others. Every day they have fewer opportunities and more poverty and misery. One evidence that the return of Christ is near is the increasing wealth for a few and extreme poverty so many.
According to the report of the UN Hunger Project, every second someone dies on the planet because of hunger. Seventy percent of them are children under 5.
November 13-17, 1996, the World Food Summit convened in Rome. one hundred eighty-five nations sent their representatives. They proposed to end hunger by 2015. Since then hunger has instead dramatically increased.
most of the deaths caused by hunger result from chronic malnutrition. Families simply don't get the food they need to survive. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that at least 820 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition.
The Bible says that in the last days the outcry of the impoverished would lead to terrible conflicts between capital and labor. The Apostle James says: "Come now, you rich, weep, and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. Your gold and you silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you.... it is in the last days that you have stored up you treasures! behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you".
Exploitation will turn those without God into loaded weapons, and time will pull the trigger. hunger is the incubator of war everywhere in the world. Constant poverty and prolonged oppression drive people into aggression and terrorism.
The struggle to survive particularly affects those living in rural areas and the edges of the great cities. Seven out of every 10 poor people, some of whom earn less than a dollar a day, dwell in such places and are especially vulnerable to being recruited for revolutionary guerrilla movements that claim to promote social justice but, unfortunately, too often end up destroying what remains of the already impoverished economy of under classes. Other victims of poverty slide into drug trafficking, and organized crime.
Careful studies of the most critical social conflicts of our time reveal that in the poorest and neediest countries revolutionary convulsions and delinquency reflect a lack of economic programs to meet the needs of growing populations. People who for decades have been without any way to improve their lives reach the place where they can't stand any more, and they end up challenging all established authority.
The majority of the modern world's social conflicts have their roots in the sense of frustration, injustice, and desperation that more and more people feel. mix in the widespread inequality and discrimination prevalent in many cultures and desperation that more and discrimination prevalent in many cultures and you have the class struggle foretold in the Bible as one of the signs of the return of the Christ.
To make matters even worse, people today are more aware of inequality and injustice than ever before. Almost everyone has access to radio, television, and other forms of communication. The media stimulate consumerism among those who have the resources to buy while at the same time flaunting an ostentatious life style beyond the reach of the great majority. The globalization of information feeds the growing anger of the neediest social classes.
No longer does most of the world just passively accept the old argument that most are destined to be poor and that they have no choice in the matter. Today, people want to change the order of things. Unfortunately, they don't realize that armed struggle is not the remedy for the problem.
The social struggle continues. It is the result of injustice, avarice, and collective selfishness. But it doesn't stop there. When the apostle James said that the wages of the workers would cry out for what they had not been paid, he was also referring to strikes and labors militancy.
As I write these lines strikes have swept the nation of Spain. The country is nearly paralyzed because public transportation workers are demanding better wages. The strikes has extended to other sectors, including funeral services and the employees of the Ministry of Justice.
Germany recently went through a chaos in which the German labor union Verdi announced that it would continue definitely its service strike in airports and railways.
In the United States General Motors announced the closing of a number of its plants and a cutback of production at others, because of a strike at one of its principal suppliers.
The same thing happened in Brazil. The Rio de Janeiro police stopped work to demand better working conditions, while in Peru to protest economic conditions. In Bolivia strikers armed with sticks were stopping traffic in five states.
Strikes constantly fill world news. The Bible long ago foretold the struggle between capital and labor. It is one of the signs of the return of Jesus Christ.
However, the Bible does not say that rich people will howl only because of the strikes. Economic turmoil keeps sweeping around the world. The United States has been going through one of the most critical times in its financial history. The stock market has gone through repeated ups and downs. Unemployment has risen, and families are losing their homes to foreclosure. In an emergency attempt to reduce the crisis, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank repeatedly lowered interest rates until inflation became a threat, because of rising oil prices.
many people in the United States keep asking: What is happening? Few know the greater dangers that could be looming on the horizon. According to Isaac Joshua, director of Conference on Economics at the University of Paris, the uncertain situation of the three strongest economies of the world is one of the most frightening aspects of the present outlook. Japan and the United States have been struggling with sluggish economies, and the outlook for Europe is gloomy. Under such conditions one cannot automatically dismiss the possibility of a worldwide economic recession. it is a financial tsunami that threatens to destroy everything in its path.
According to the specialist, the present alternatives are either a violent crisis or one that is less intense but more prolonged. And if this is a reality for the three greatest economies of the world, imagine what would happen to the developing nations that directly or indirectly depend on the stronger financial powers.
As is so often the case it is the poor who suffer the most. At least they know what it means to suffer. Remember that nearly 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. But think about the rich, who have never known want and who cling to money as a source of security. No wonder the prophecy says they will howl because their riches will be useless to them.
When the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929 a number millionaires lost everything in a flash, and a few ended up taking their own lives. It took years for the country to overcome the trauma.
Money is important, but when human beings find themselves far from God they live permanently dissatisfied. then wealth becomes an obsession. They cling to it as if it were the only source of security. But it is nothing but unstable sand.
Jesus said: "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and burst against that house; and it fell and great was its fall".
Dangerous times are coming. Financial winds are starting to blow across the earth. The Bible said that it would be so. When these times arrive, where will you have built your house?
The answer is your alone.
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