Affluence produces a pleasure-dominated life that leaves a nation unhappy despite greater material goods. Research shows that a surge in affluence has not produced a corresponding surge in personal or societal contentment. An affluent society replaces basic needs with overabundance for comfortable living and in its extreme case becomes over-consumption. Affluenza is an epidemic of stress, overwork, waste, and indebtedness caused by a dogged pursuit of the American dream as well as an unsustainable addiction to economic growth. This condition results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses and produces a bloated, sluggish, and unfeeling state. In an affluent society people seek to accumulate material things rather than sacrifice their lives in meek and humble service to others. Over-consumption is the result of careless consumers who are self-centered and greedy. The craving for pleasure drives people to rivalry for the same things and sets them at each other's throats. The same craving drives a person to wrong actions because the driving emotion of desire must first arise in the mind. It also shuts the door of prayer when requests are simply for things that gratify selfish desires. Finally it turns a person inward making him selfish and self-centered so that he gives less, helps less, cares less, and sacrifices less. An affluent society is intoxicated with affluence and its members carry heavy personal debt while saving little. The income disparity between rich and poor is greatest in the United States among industrialized nations. Americans alone have used more resources than everyone who ever lived before them and produce almost half of the world's hazardous waste. The richer the state the less the people give to charities while the poorer the state the more the people give. Affluence makes people serve things and leads them to neglect the building of God's house. A life of affluence stands in diametric opposition to a life of sacrifice.

Israel, surrounded by luxury and prosperity, should have produced God's personality and character, but she failed miserably. When others look for proof of this great nation's fate, they will find all the accouterments of opulence, luxury, self-indulgence, and indolence—products of their self-concern and self-satisfaction. The great house refers to the noble or wealthy family in society, and these big names will certainly be destroyed along with the common folk. The rich and powerful will not be able to escape the dreadful punishment God promises. Wealth is being funneled into the hands of the few, and the poor and weak keep becoming poorer and weaker. These nations may look fine on the outside, but the cancer has spread from head to toe, and they have only so long before the disease proves fatal. In their spiritually unaware state, the people will be incredulous at God's punishment, thinking they are blessed with material things due to their self-procured wealth and affluence. They see themselves as following the way of God, but they are deceived.