The Industrial Revolution

Neil Girrard

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Between the time Jesus said these words and today there has been a significant shift in the thinking and practices of men. Not that the service to mammon (money, riches, wealth) has declined – indeed it is vastly intensified. But rather that the demonic (who operate best in the dark and behind the scenes) has cleverly instituted some world-wide changes that have a built-in trap that will lure the average person into serving mammon without realizing the extent to which he does so. This significant, world-wide shift is commonly known as the Industrial Revolution.

Consider this observation:

“The biggest changes came in work habits. The factories required that people adapt their work rhythms to those of the new machines, which ran continuously at an even pace. Workers unused to a factory lifestyle found themselves in a world that was more mechanized, impersonal, and disciplined. A worker no longer had the luxury of smoking or singing on the job, of planning his own breaks, or of varying the type of work he was engaged in to eliminate boredom. Now the worker had to conform to the rules and the culture of the factory, where time was measured in dollars of output. …The slower, more casual work style of the early craftsman gave way to the frantic rush to increase output…

“The work world became a power struggle between workers and employers. Workers did not want to lose their individuality or their identity. Employers wanted to control time and productivity.” (Manners and Customs, “Life in America 100 Years Ago,” Jim Barmeier, Chelsea House Pub., 1997, p. 11-12)

If one’s time is measured in dollars and cents, is that one serving God or money? If one is obeying the rules and culture of the factory, is that one obeying God or mammon? If one’s work habits are characterized by frantic striving to satisfy someone else’s greed rather than patiently laboring in love and abundant life for one’s Creator and fellow man, is that one serving God or mammon?

This is not to say that one cannot follow Christ and work in a mechanized job. Rather we must simply take great care whom we are actually serving in our work. If God has led us to take work in a mechanized, routine environment, we must still do all things as unto Him without participating in any value system other than His, without obeying any rules that conflict with His laws and commands, and without becoming subject to the various spirits of strife and greed that exercise great influence in such places.

Those who have these mechanized routine jobs must also take care that they do not wrongly judge those who find other means of income rather than subscribing to the demonic philosophies that spawned the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution will, in the end, be exposed as little more than one of the devil’s schemes and devices whereby he constructed ways to control men who have rejected Christ and to ensnare the unwary followers of Christ who do not recognize the subtle ways they are bowing down to the false god mammon while they reject, despise and practice disloyalty to God. Even after the Industrial Revolution, it is still impossible to serve both God and mammon.

Let he who has ears hear.


Matthew 6:24
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