I believe God has laid it on my heart to address both questions. My prayer is that you will receive what I’ll be writing not as an attack on MLM, but rather, as a tool to expose one of the devil's most deceitful devices in bringing potential pain to our soul.
I believe MLM is one of the subtlest means the devil has introduced to mankind to destroy Godly relationships from being the best they can be, if people involved in a MLM business are not careful. Please allow me to share my reasons why, and then decide for yourself whether you think I’m blinded, and/or attacking something near and dear to your heart.
If one goes to any popular Internet Search Engine such as Google, and type in: Multi Level Marketing, one has the opportunity to read the words of people who have just about everything to say about the subject under the sun. Hence, I don’t see the point in trying to write one more exhaustive writing on the matter when there are already so many good ones available. One site in particular I would recommend is: www.crimes-of-persuasion.com (I hope it remains in operation until Jesus returns. It deals with subjects much more than just MLM. My prayer is that it will).
There are many worthwhile and useful products and services MLM businesses offer, I’ll be the first to admit. If they don’t have a worthwhile product or service to offer, it gets more and more difficult for the MLM company (any company for that matter) to ever get off the ground and stay in business. Yet on the other hand, there have been some very “questionable” products and services offered in times past through MLM businesses that never should have been marketed. There will be products and services offered in the future that will be just as “questionable,” no doubt.
Furthermore, I believe that if one wants the product or service a MLM business provides, there is nothing wrong with connecting with someone in that business to obtain the product or service, as long as the government says it’s a legal business. Yet that’s not the reason for my writing this writing. My reason for writing this writing is to try to get Christians to diligently seek God about what I feel He wants me to say about MLM marketing. Scripture says that God’s people are to “Abstain from every form of evil.” (See: 1 Thessalonians 5:22). I am not trying to imply that MLM marketing in and of itself is evil, though it might be a lot more evil than what I’m aware of. However, I do believe MLM marketing presents greater opportunity for deceit, lies and false hope to flourish than through any other means of conducting business transactions that involve the transference of money (other than investing in penny stocks). Many believe the same as I do, and feel it needs to be exposed, especially for those who don’t understand how evil can so easily flourish through MLM.
God warns us in scripture: Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
I believe MLM business dealings (Pyramid schemes) may have devoured more quality relationships between people than any other type of business dealings known to occur on this planet. (I’ll expand on this a little later, giving my reasons).
Most Christians who are currently involved in a MLM business of some sort will be thinking right now that the devil is using me to call good "evil," which carries with it potentially serious consequences for me, I realize, if I am calling good “evil.” (See Mark 3:28-29). I have waited on the Lord for over 15 years as of this writing, praying and patiently waiting for Him to reveal any deception and blindness I may have regarding this matter. Nothing has changed my belief on the subject over this time period of 15 some years. I now feel God is urging me to put my thoughts on paper.
The door of FALSE hope is never one God wants His people to open for themselves, or others.
For a MLM business to financially reward those who start the business, they need people selling their product or service, correct? If there is no hope of financial gain or benefit to those who are presented with the “opportunity” to become a part of the business, obviously that business will fail before it even gets started. Herein lies the door in which deception can so easily enter in any kind of business dealings, but I believe it opens the easiest in MLM business dealings. The door of false hope is never one God wants His people to open for themselves, or for others. False hope in the end only fosters distrust with those who offered it in the first place. False hope is really nothing more than a lie masked or disguised in the beginning. When a person gets lied to, it brings great feelings of betrayal. When someone or something betrays us, we want to pull away from that person just as quickly as we can if we are God’s people. If we aren’t God’s people, chances are quite good we want to “get even” with that person for their act of betrayal. Betrayal is a fuel that powers anger and rage like little other. The devil is the master of betrayal. None are capable of executing it any better. He’s the lord of betrayal and deceit, and God wants us to be wise to the devil's devices of betrayal and deceit, and not be “devoured” by them in any way.
Have you ever "felt" betrayed by God? I know of no other means the devil has that devastates one's soul so successfully than being tricked into believing that we’ve been betrayed by God. (God is incapable of betraying us, by the way, in case you didn’t know. It is always Satan baiting a trap to tempt us into “thinking” and then trying to subtly persuade us to believe that God has betrayed us: please, never forget that. Don't ever nibble on the bait: this trap will destroy your closeness with God and your ability to trust Him).
[Another article I wrote that you might be interested in: "Feel Forsaken?"]
Multi-Level "Manipulation?"
Have you ever been betrayed by your spouse or lover? A close friend? Has a parent betrayed you? An employer? Very little can hurt us more deeply than when someone we place our trust in betrays us. Betrayal and deceit go hand in hand. When we place our trust in someone, and they betray us, we feel like that person deceived us from being the real person that they are, a liar. In other words, we were "manipulated" into having false hope.
People looking to recruit other people into their MLM businesses are keen in using the mantra “OPPORTUNITY” as the bait to get others to “bite” into listening to the recruiter's sales pitch. Who but a few financially rich can’t use some “extra money?” Most everyone likes to hear how they can come up with some “extra money.” The question then arises, “What must I do to earn this extra money?” In MLM, the answer is usually always the same: “Let me present the business plan to you.” Some who have felt betrayed by the person who recruited them into a MLM plan would possibly say it this way: “Let me present the brain washing plan to you.”
ELEVEN THINGS YOU MOST LIKELY WON’T HEAR IN THE "Sales Pitch" …
Here’s what you’ll almost never hear during that “brain washing” sales pitch:
“Now that I've shown you the positives of this business plan, I want to warn you of a few negatives. I’ll list them by number:"
1) "Most people who joined a MLM business in the past to make extra money will almost never join another one and not tell you the reasons why. If you ask those people why they would never become a part of a second MLM business, most would not be able to find the right words to tell you, so they simply say ‘I’m not interested.’ (Few people like to tell about times they’ve been betrayed or given false hope. It is more convenient for them simply to avoid the subject)."
2) "Most people who join a particular MLM business for the primary purpose of earning extra money will usually make a lot less money than those who first started with that MLM business. The longer a MLM business has been in operation, the more difficult it becomes to find people to add to the business, simply because there becomes fewer and fewer people to approach with the business “opportunity” who haven’t already been approached by someone else in the business. "Market saturation" is the common words given to describe this phenomenon in the business community."
3) "So many people have been “burned” by MLM businesses one way or the other that MLM is getting more and more difficult to make money at, simply because the human race is not producing enough adults to be recruited before someone from another MLM business gets to them."
4) "Every community will reach market saturation of your product or service much quicker than you could possibly imagine. Those people who are the last to join in a MLM once market saturation happens, which it always does, are the ‘suckers left holding the bag.’ It is perfectly okay to call yourself a robber once your recruitee has no one else to “sell the plan to,” because of community/area saturation. Taking peoples' money who have no way to make money back because of market saturation is robbery in most people’s view. [The Shock Market (no - not a spelling error) is given approval of this thievery by most governments of the world, but that still doesn't make it right. Remember ... someone has to lose in the Shock Market for someone to gain. The Shock Market is little different than how gambling is run in Nevada. Those who make and control the rules always use those rules in their favor to maximize their paychecks. The larger paycheck they take home, the smaller paycheck the "public" takes home -- get it? Nevertheless ... they have to keep new players coming to play the "games" made available.]"
5) "Most of your family and friends will find ways to conveniently “avoid you,” when they find out you’re trying to recruit them to be a part of your MLM business."
6) "No matter how pure the motives are of the founders of a MLM business, they quickly lose control of the recruiting techniques others use to add new members to the business."
7) "Most people who start MLM businesses know (not hope!) that they will make huge amounts of money if they can come up with a way for ‘people to keep selling people’ on the product or service the company offers. If you want to make a whole lot of money, never get in late on a MLM business. Start your own!"
8) "The reason most MLM products are more expensive to purchase that buying an equivalent-like product some other way is not because they are a superior product, but because so many people have to make a profit that are a part of the business."
9) "Communities that have had a lot of MLM businesses already operating in them become the most difficult to find new recruits."
10) "Sooner or later, the MLM business you’re a part of will probably come under government investigation for either being illegal, or conducting illegal business practices, if they manage to stay in business for very long. Your reputation may get tarnished in the process."
11) "If you have a gift for sales, savvy business people all have learned that you can usually make a lot more money during your lifetime in direct sales, because there are fewer commissions to pay."
HOW WILL GOD JUDGE?
Will people be rewarded on the Judgment Day for making money off other people who they gave false hope to? Will people be rewarded on that day for giving the devil an opportunity to oppose the very work of God? The very work of God? Please take a prayerful look at these words from the website of: http://www.vandruff.com/mlm.html and discern for yourself:
Many readers will share the experience of observing MLMs divide families, friends, churches, and civic groups. Lifelong friends are now "prospects." The neighborhood is now "a market." Motives change, suspicions rise, divisions form. The question is begged: "Is it worth it?"
Especially nasty is the church situation. Will the pastor join? If not, he will take a dim view of MLM proselytizing at church functions; animosity will rise, factions will form. You are either "in" or out. If the pastor joins, then those who are not "in" will feel a little uncomfortable in this church.
A church (or any community group) can be easily torpedoed by an MLM.
Who is the one who tries to destroy churches that are founded on a strong Biblical foundation? Is not the devil in the church devouring business? Ephesians 6:12-14 surely indicates he is.
Christians involved in a MLM business will be the worse critics of what I’ve shared here, understandably. Anytime you threaten taking money away from people, you become more of a “hindrance” rather than a friend. Christians are quick to point out in many different MLM businesses how many new recruits have been "Saved by being connected to the organization," which is difficult to find fault with. All I can say to that is that if my intention in going into a bar is to drink my blues away, and someone beside me gets Saved that I witness to, all that means to me is that God used me in the situation. That still doesn’t mean I had the right motive for entering the bar in the first place. If one’s intention in joining a MLM business is just to be used of the Lord to win souls, then I believe God would say that is highly commendable. Yet how many people truly connect with a MLM primarily for that purpose?
If you are a part of a MLM business (Aka: Networking Organization, Chain letter, etc.), will you please pray about what has been written here, and seek to do all you can not to give people false hope about making money through your MLM business? Will you be extremely wise and considerate about trying to market the product(s) and/or services of that MLM business to your family, friends, and acquaintances?
If you consider yourself to be a born again Christian, you and I are to strive to be above reproach when it comes to “abstaining from every form of evil.” We are to be the “salt and light” of the world. Jesus gave us an example to follow in conducting ourselves with other people. Jesus never used people for the purpose of making money. Neither did the Apostle Paul, who God used to write nearly three-quarters of the New Testament. MLM marketing, by its very nature, needs new recruits to keep it flourishing. When we start leaving friends and acquaintances the impression we are more interested in their money than them – people are left with the impression they are simply being used by us, and they will be tempted to avoid us as much as they can once that happens. (Why is it that we can go almost indefinitely from hearing from a friend or relative ... until they "need" us for something, as in personal financial gain?)
Yet here is where I believe evil lies in its most sophisticated, deceitful form with many MLM businesses. To be “successful” in getting people to use your product or service, you must eventually learn to do everything you can to try to convince potential recruits that you are really only trying to help them have more money to make ends meet. What could possibly be "wrong" with such a motive? I don’t believe there is anything wrong with that motive at all, as long as it happens to be God’s will for their life. If I’m a “Christian” drug dealer, and I need people to help me sell illegal drugs, guess what “carrot” I’m going to dangle in front of my new potential recruits? “Just think of how much money you can make. God knows you need money to live on. Don’t you realize I’m being used of God so He can bless you more financially?”
There is nothing wrong in the mind of God when we desire to help others make more money. The means in which we introduce to those people into trying to make more God wants us pondering deeply. How morally pure is the method? That is God's number one concern.
If your MLM business happens to be in the nutritional arena, it has become so competitive in that arena that MLM founders must convince the public that their nutritional products are better than anyone else's. Why? Because every other nutritional MLM business is claiming the same thing, in one form or another. They have to, otherwise no one will buy their nutritional product/s and the business will topple quickly. That is fundamental business. The obvious question is: who is lying? They all can’t be the “best,” can they?
If you happen to already be in a nutritional MLM business, there’s no doubt about it, is there? The company you are signed up under has to offer the very best product on the market ... because somehow you became convinced of that belief, right? Let's give them the benefit of doubt. Maybe your product is the best - right now. Yet maybe we fail to answer one of the most obvious questions that should have been asked before we ever allowed ourselves to “believe” that my nutritional MLM business offers the “best” nutritional products. Will there be a new startup MLM business coming out with a nutritional product actually "better" than the one I’m linked up with now? I’ll bet money there will be. MLM history has proven this to be so, especially in the arena of nutrition. Will you share this probable reality to the person you are trying to recruit underneath you? Please do.
If your MLM business offers a service, and you believe it is the best, guess what? As long as the government allows it to happen, and there is money to be made, there will come along a new MLM business doing it “better.” When enough of those signed up under you are lured to that new business, guess what? You now have to abandon your loyalty to your existing MLM company, and join up with this new MLM company, or you’re going to have to start working a lot harder at getting more people signed up underneath you to get back to where you once were. You can get old fast pushing the "MLM merry-go-round" -- just be aware.
Before concluding ... I feel to say this about MLM nutritional businesses. The insightful knowledge that one can gain about wise nutrition and health issues through MLM sources can be worth its weight in gold for those who need to have it. Poor nutrition and destructive life-styles is becoming pandemic. Anyone who signs up under a MLM nutritional business for the purpose of helping their own health, and/or the health of someone else ... and making money is not their primary motive ... are to be highly commended in my opinion.
This same principle can be applied to everything else in life, really. The Bible teaches us that to help someone become a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ is highly commendable. However ... if our primary motive for trying to win souls to the Lord Jesus Christ is making money ... we have a selfish evil motive in our heart, and somehow - someway - we will be judged of God for that impure selfish motive if we don't recognize it and destroy it.
IN CONCLUSION . . .
Jesus warned us in scripture that the devil was going to do everything in his power to attempt to deceive people in their pursuit of financial gain, sensual attainment, power, recognition, enlightenment. In the name of our trying to help people become more “secure” -- more “healthy” – more “financially prosperous” – more “spiritually enlightened” -- more “whatever,” remember … for every MLM business seeking to offer people any of these things, there are businesses and institutions and groups of people outside of MLM businesses doing it as well. It would be my belief that if MLM is the best way God has for the human race to accomplish His purposes, wholesale – retail businesses will be completely done away with some day in the future. I’ll wager that will never happen, even after Jesus Christ returns.
The witness I get when I read the Holy Scriptures is that the greatest deception of all humanity is going to one day come upon the world scene. Whether an “alien” from “another world” lands in a spacecraft and gains a worldwide following offering “peace” and “security” … or it is a false human messiah of earthly orgin: someone, or something carrying great power with it -- is going to rise to power that will deceive humanity like anything ever experienced before. Somewhere deep in my being I feel this false (counterfeit) messiah will also use the making of money to make it seem more “genuine.” It seems to me only wisdom for us to learn to spot deception as quickly as possible, so as not to get caught up in it and have too much pain inflicted on us that God never intended. (The cold sobering fact is, once a person becomes deceived, they then become the best vessels the devil can use to deceive others).
In concluding … I want to be right up front with people that I’m not going to engage in endless dialogue with people who take issue with what I’ve written in this writing. Once a person writes something of the nature that I’ve written, it can become a 24-7 drain of one’s time and energy, like so many other issues in this life, if one lets it. I’m sorry if that offends anyone, and all I can do is ask forgiveness. If the words I have written here will not motivate you to begin seeking God on your own about MLM issues, I doubt there is much more that I can say that will. I can assure you there is nothing you can say to change me to believe MLM is anything other than what I have written here, so be encouraged not to waste your time and energy on me, okay? Let us agreeably disagree, like we must do with so many other issues in life, and do all we can to help each other strengthen our relationship with God. It seems to me it will be wisdom for us to do that as we move closer and closer into end times, before the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ -- or -- until we return to Him.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Like all other writings on the Precious Testimonies website, permission is granted to use this writing however one feels to do so ... as long as nothing is added to it -- taken away from it -- or rearranged with it. Permission to link to it is also granted.
If you believe this writing has merit ... I would greatly appreciate hearing about it. If you have other "negatives" I've missed in the "11 Point Presentation," please share those as well. I don't claim to have all insight into this slippery world of MLM.
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