Your lust for money is killing you
Somewhere within the last few decades, the church in Jamaica lost its lustre, the family structure as we knew it disintegrated, and large segments of our population, especially our young men, replaced the love of God with the love of mammon.
The pursuit of mad money through the bustling underground economy and its proliferation of illegal narcotics exports rivalled the formal sectors and gave way to a flamboyantly crude lifestyle that wickedly showcased wealth and major acquisitions. This lust for money became the worship of mammon and the rejection of righteousness. The notion of social, upward mobility by hard work or education was abandoned and vilified. Hard evidence of the degeneration of dignified Jamaica is evident right across the island, in nearly every community and cutting across all social and economic classes.
The illegal trade in narcotics mushroomed into a properly disguised but robust industry that many seated in high places denied, despite the clear evidence of their rank approval and participation. In any given year, narcotics worth billions of United States dollars are discovered and arrested by local police without any trace of the owner in sight.
As the nation shifted its focus from traditional work and values to the pursuit of wealth by any means necessary, the time-honoured family structure took a beating. Many men absented themselves from homes in the inner-cities and deep rural communities, shook themselves free of their responsibilities, and took off to foreign lands to join their peers in the streets of New York and other major cities, peddling hard drugs and living the American dream.
Jamaica has been suffering from a massive brain and brawn drain over recent decades, and along with the skyrocketing murder rate across communities from the 1970s up until now, the remaining population has been locked in an unending loop of mourning and reprisal and mourning again while contract killers earn their keep from their dark and deadly deeds.
For every 100,000 persons gathered anywhere in Jamaica, at any given time, 61 of them are likely to be murdered, and the majority of these murders remain unsolved, police data indicates. Killing of our youths by the police has also shot up over the past year. It is dire out there, especially for the young, gifted, and male.
Thousands of young men congregate on street corners daily, digging out their palms, locked in a make-believe world, dreaming of the day when they too will ‘buss’ and board the illegal money train.
Many Jamaican children exist on the fringes, outside of the proper families, captivated by the resounding message that mad money can be amassed through illegal means and legitimately laundered. The construction sector and its various offshoots and the hosting of exotic party events provide popular washtubs for illegal cash. This money is then returned to the formal society, propped in respectability and acceptable to financial institutions, supermarkets, and other businesses, as well as sacred offering plates.
This unfortunate shift in the nation’s values is largely supported by the music industry and politics. The population sings and dances about their illegal exploits, their promiscuity, their murderous lifestyle, control over turf, demand for extortion payments from frightened businessmen, and their ability to bear arms, daring the law and lawmen alike. Wickedness is wielded like a weapon, the occult is practised, and lives lose their worth.
Academic studies indicate that the majority of gangsters have no life expectancy beyond age 22, many having entered a life of crime as young as age 12. By age 22, they would have lived only for two decades, with no family structure or father figure to guide or protect them. Neither school nor church factored in their upbringing. They are raised by the gangs to take advantage of those around them, including myriads of young women with whom they father numerous children but support none, repeating the cycle that leads only to destruction.
Despite the fact that God grants us seventy or eighty years of life on average, since so many of our youth labour for trouble, they are overtaken by the wages of their sins before mid-life sets in. Death for many of these gangsters is a welcomed outcome of a life that is purposeless and focused on a dream that is permanently deferred.
Official data also suggests that many of these men who enter gang life do so in search of a father figure they could not find at home. Many have been blackmailed into criminality by older gangsters who bugger them and record the activity and use it to keep them quiet and committed to the way of life.
It is not unusual to find young men on any given day at any given time lounging on street corners, seeking to hustle the day’s keep, with plastic cups in hand brimming with curious content and ganja spliffs cotched on the corner of their mouths. Many of these young men end up dead in the ‘dungle’ heap of police statistics, wasted and forgotten.
Mad money also moves corrupt governments and politicians to sign unrighteous agreements on behalf of a people who are overly impressed with wealth and willing to bow to the perceived rich and well-to-do. The enemy knows this and provides hordes of opportunities, illegal, deadly, or borderline, for those who love and trust Mammon over God.
For many in the pulpits or pews, the glamour of mad money, high fashion, and public profile place them squarely among the lost and in the camp of Satan, as his undercover operatives in ministries.
Those whose master is mammon will soon discover that its demand is unyielding, and whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. Wealth is enticing but never yields the expected rewards; it promises happiness, peace, and contentment but cannot deliver any of these. Those pursuing wealth will find out fast that it partners with dishonesty, corruption, and the oppression of others, and that idolising money and chasing after it is a meaningless pursuit for the wicked.
If the largest quintile of the Jamaican population has determined that money is their god, then they will continue to serve it, live in constant discontent, neck deep in corruption, dependent on links and ‘blies’, dodging bullets, and headed for destruction. But, for those who know that their God is the Lord and choose to honour and serve Him above all else, peace, joy, and prosperity are their portion.
The people of the True and Living God have their work cut out if Jamaica is to be saved. There is a lot of work to be done, congregations to evangelise, souls to win, especially those of young men languishing on street corners, and a God to serve. In God and through Him we can do all things. Let’s do this!