Money Answereth All Things

The auxiliaries of The Church of God are helps in the church to aid the Church in achieving its goal commissioned to it by the Lord.  In the creations of God, it is noticeable that to everything that God created a help or helps to go along with the achievement of His creation.  In bringing out this subject of our auxiliaries, it is common that we use I Corinthians 12:28.

"And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues."

Now these helps and governments Paul declared  that the Lord Jesus set these in the Church.  It wasn't Paul, neither was it James or Peter, but Paul said the Lord set them in the Church.  Another outstanding attraction of this Scripture is that the gifts were given to the individual;  then, when he got to the helps and governments, it remained to all  in general.

Now one of the commissions of the Church is to take the gospel into all the world.  How often do we quote this Scripture how can they believe on whom they have not heard and how can they hear without a preacher and how can he preach except he be sent.  This Scripture in Romans is evidence that it takes some kind of activity within the Church to achieve this goal.  This is our World Missionary Auxiliary.

Think of the commission of publishing the gospel into all the world.  We are well aware that publishing extends well beyond writing, but writing and literature, we will have to confess, to be one of the greatest weapons of our day to penetrate territories or human minds in reaching the readers of our day who sometimes would rather read than to eat.  This published message goes beyond there.  The Scripture is in the 5th chapter of Matthew, sixteenth verse, "Let your  light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven."  To publish our exploits is one of the ways of letting our light or works get before the people.  

Another great help to get the gospel to all the world!

The Watchers Over Ten, what kind of Church would it be that would toil and labor and spend and be spent to reach the saving of a soul and then after he is saved let him go to the four winds of the world to be butchered by the wolves, to be destroyed by the false doctrines of the world.  So the mighty auxiliary that is called, "Watchers Over Ten" is the auxiliary in the Church; another help to prevent such things as these tragedies from coming to pass.  Jesus carefully pointed this out when He made His statement of 100 sheep and one going astray.  Would he not leave the 99 and go seek the one that is lost.  A woman having ten pieces of silver and lose one does not she light a candle or sweep the whole house until she has found it?  And in the 18th chapter of Numbers, Moses' father-in-law planned out the government and the system of Watchers Over Ten; another mighty help in The Church of God.

The Teaching Auxiliary is the commission that has been given to the Church to teach and bring saints to the knowledge of the son of god and to teach all men in all wisdom that they may be presented perfect.  Teaching is another auxiliary to bring about another phase of the commission of the work that has been given to the Church.

Then we have the CMA department of making all men see by using things that are made in the fulfillment of Habakkuk 2:1-3; Ephesians 3:9; and in Romans 1:18.  By presenting to the world visible markers and signs that are so brightly pointed out in the Scriptures to aid in making men see.  Evangelism is a mighty auxiliary working at the perfecting of the Church in aiding to accomplish the bringing of the Church to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

Following this is Pastoral Aid which is an auxiliary to assist the pastors in bringing their Church up to the measure.  All these auxiliaries are helps to the Church just as the Church is a help to Christ and woman is a help to man.  The Scriptures have pointed seven of these movements in order to bring the Church to its perfect state.

In the Acts of the Apostles when those seven were chosen for these various positions to aid these helps and governments as well as their great ministry, they were appointed to a responsibility of tending various financial necessities to help the Church meet its obligations and promoted such necessary things as the widows' home, which was so outstanding in this case.  In our day, we have such like things as raising funds to print the gospel message in literature, raising funds for the World Missionary Auxiliary to promote the spreading of the gospel.  Then we have, likewise, necessities for Sunday School and for teaching requiring funds and on down likewise to all the seven auxiliaries being given the responsibility of serving tables which is business affairs financially which they boost along with their gospel message of reaching the world with the gospel.  

The wise man, Solomon in Ecclesiastes 10:19, "A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things."  And since Jesus first of all appointed a treasurer in the setting up of the Church, He knew that it would take a financial system to go along with the spirituality.  So let us work our auxiliaries this year.  They are helps and if we do not use our helps we will surely suffer from being overloaded.  The responsibility of our Saints in the 16th Annual Assembly of making the great sacrifices of $9,100 was great and wonderful.  But, if our auxiliaries were put in full swing, such as this, at the Annual Assembly we could be completely eliminated, and we could unload this great burden that we have had in the past three or four assemblies.  Think of the many helps the Lord has given the Church.  Let us use them.  They will be a blessing to us spiritually and financially.

​

* Article Written By:  The Late Grady R. Kent, St. John II, Chief Bishop of The Church of God, 1957-1964. This sermon was taken from The Vision Speaks, Volume 4 : Number 5 : October 1961.

All grammatical and typographical errors have been corrected except for direct quotations from the Author.  Thought content of said article has not been changed.