On 2 Thessalonians chapter number 3, the part that I want to teach you about is beginning
in verse number 6, where the Bible reads,
And with man you brother in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you would draw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly,
and not after the tradition which he received of us,
for yourselves know how you ought to follow us,
but we behave not ourselves disorderly among you.
Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught,
that means for nothing,
but brought with labor and travail night and day,
that we might not be chargeable to any of you,
not because we have not power,
but to make ourselves and then sample unto you to follow us,
for even when we were with you, this we commanded you,
that if any would not work, neither should we eat,
for we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly,
working not at all, but are busybodies,
and here's a key verse, verse 12,
Now those that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ,
that with quietness they work and eat their own bread.
Now what I want to preach about tonight is a mentality
that a lot of people have in our world today,
it's a mentality that you see sometimes children and teenagers and young people have,
and it's a mentality that we as Americans seem to have,
and a lot of people in our country have,
and that's this attitude of thinking that the world owes you a living,
and this attitude that you should just be handed everything,
and you deserve this, and you have a right to this,
and it's just not fair that you don't have this, that, and the other thing.
Well the Bible's real clear on this subject,
and I'm going to lay this out tonight, about paying your own way in life,
and you know, providing for your own needs and so forth.
Now, in 2 Thessalonians 3 we start out by Paul rebuking people
that are not working, and yet they want to eat.
They want to basically mooch off of other people and live off other people,
they don't want to pay for their own bread,
they don't want to pay their own way,
they want to live at everybody else's expense,
they're working not at all, they're busybodies,
they're fooling around with everything else,
and it's a real paying job that they can actually use to meet their own needs.
God says very clearly here, these are not even the kind of people
that we want to hang around with, and he even says that
if any man will not work, verse 10,
for even when we were with you, this we command of you,
that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
Now a lot of people say, well everybody has a right to at least have food and to eat.
No, that's not what God said.
God said if you won't work, you shouldn't eat.
He didn't say you just have a free right to have somebody feed you,
he said no, if you won't work, you shouldn't eat.
I didn't write that, that's what God is saying in the Bible.
Now go to 2 Samuel chapter 24 if you will.
Now why is this subject so important about working and eating your own bread,
paying for your own way, and providing for your own needs through the labor of your hands?
Well one of the reasons why is that there's a great satisfaction and joy and pride
in doing things for yourself and paying for things yourself.
Now let me give you some scriptures on that.
You see, great men in the Bible were not people who mooched off of other people
and expected everything to just be handed to them on a silver platter
and everything to be given to them.
The great men in the Bible, they liked paying their own way.
And I'm going to show you some of those men in the Bible who liked to pay their own way.
This is a quality that used to be considered part of being a man, part of manliness,
was that you pay your own way, you work hard, you do it yourself,
and you're not dependent upon others all the time, you try to do it your own way,
and so forth, and pay for it yourself.
Now in 2 Samuel chapter 24, this is where King David wants to buy the threshing floor
from Irena the Jebusite, and in verse 21 the Bible says,
And Irena looked and saw, I'm sorry, verse 21,
and Irena said, Wherefore is my Lord the King come to his servant?
And David said, To buy the threshing floor of thee,
to build an altar unto the Lord that the plague may be stayed from the people.
And Irena said unto David, Let my Lord the King take and offer up what seemed good unto him.
Behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments,
and other instruments of the oxen for wood.
All these things did Irena as a king give unto the king.
And Irena said unto the king, The Lord thy God accept thee,
and the king said unto Irena, Nay, but I will surely buy it of thee at a price.
Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God,
of that which does cost me nothing.
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
Go back to Genesis chapter 23.
So we see here David wants to buy a threshing floor for somebody.
And they're just so awed by the fact that it's King David that's there that needs something.
They say, Hey, don't even worry about it.
You can have it. Take it. Take the oxen. Take the threshing floor.
You can have whatever you want. He said, No.
I want to pay for it myself.
You see, why would he do that?
Why would he not want to take it for free?
Because he wanted to pay for it himself.
Because there's a certain joy and gratification and dignity and pain for things yourself.
Look at Genesis chapter 23. Here's another great example.
The man of God in the Bible who liked to pay his own way.
Genesis chapter 23, verse 7. The Bible reads,
And Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, even in the children's head.
And he communed with them, saying,
If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight.
And of course, this is his wife, Sarah, who has just passed away.
Hear me an entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath,
which is in the end of his field.
For as much money as it is worth, he shall give it me for a possession of a buried place among you.
And Ephron dwelt among the chook of Heth,
and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the chook of Heth,
even all the women at the gate of the city, saying,
Nay, my lord, hear me. The field, give I thee, and the cave that is therein.
I giveth thee, in the presence of the sons of my people,
give I thee, bury thy dead.
So here's Abraham. He's in a strange land.
He's in the land of the Hittites. He doesn't live there.
But, you know, he wants to bury this body right away in his beloved wife.
And he wants to bury it in a nice place. He doesn't just want to bury it.
He wants a place that he can come back to as a memorial, okay?
Later, he's going to be buried there. Later, other family members will be buried there.
And so he wants to have a family burial ground for him, his wife, his ascents, and so forth.
And he says, however much it's worth, I want that cave if it's for sale.
And the guy who owns it says, hey, I'll just give it to you. You can have it.
He says, no, I want to pay for it. It says in verse number 12.
And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.
And he spake unto Ephron and the audience of the people of the land, saying,
But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me, I will give thee money for the field.
Take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.
And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,
My lord, hearken unto me. The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver.
What is that betwixt me and thee? Bury therefore thy dead.
This is a substantial amount of land if it's worth four hundred shekels of silver.
And the guy's willing to give it to him, and they have to argue back and forth.
Abraham's like, no, I want to pay for it. He says, just take it.
He says, okay, if you want to know how much it costs, get four hundred shekels of silver.
But what's that between you and me?
Our friendship is deeper than that. Just bury your dead.
You're mourning right now. You're suffering right now. You've lost your wife.
Just bury your wife and don't worry about it.
And verse 16 says, And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron,
and Abraham waved to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Ed,
four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant,
and it goes on to explain how he buried his wife.
You know, that's a lot of verses on that story.
I mean, he went into, from verses 7 up to verse 16, telling us this story.
Why did God tell us a story about a guy buying a place to bury his wife?
I mean, doesn't it seem like kind of just a trivial event,
like, okay, what else is going to happen in this story?
But God's trying to show us something about the character of Abraham,
that he wasn't the kind of guy that just wants to go around with his hand out,
looking for everything to be given him for free,
and he wants everything given to him.
He was the kind of guy that wanted to pay for things himself.
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
1 Corinthians 9.
Now, have you ever noticed how kids love to pay for things themselves?
It's funny because sometimes you'll go to buy the children something,
and they'll know I have money, let me pay for it.
Now, it's kind of counterintuitive because you think, like, wait a minute,
wouldn't they rather have it free?
I mean, if mom and dad are going to buy it, they can save their money for something else.
But no, kids love, am I right, Solomon?
Kids love to pay themselves.
Sometimes I've seen them follow the orders of,
let me pay for it, I'm going to buy my own way, I'm going to pay my own way.
You know why?
Because they want that feeling of maturity, of being an adult,
of being a man, of paying it their own way.
Now, the girls on the other hand, they're like, cool, pay for it, score.
When it comes to my sons, though, they're like, let me pay for it myself, dad.
I've got the money.
They want to pay for it themselves because it gives them satisfaction
and a feeling that, hey, I earned money and I paid my own way and I did it myself.
And they understand that even from a young age, that that's part of growing up.
That's a step toward them being independent someday, which is what they want,
to be independent, to be living their own life.
And someday, obviously they're not ready for that now, someday they will be independent.
And I remember it was a great feeling to move out of the house when I got married.
By the way, that's the best time to move out of the house is when you get married,
not just when you turn 18, just gone.
And you know, that's what young people do.
It's like, 18, they're gone. Why?
What are they going to do outside the house?
You know, they need that family structure.
It's not good for me to be alone.
But a lot of times, just 18, they're gone.
You know, I'm all for you moving out if you're 18, if you're getting married.
But if you're just a single guy, you need to stay home with mom and dad
and be part of that family and live off them for a while.
But anyway, just kidding.
But anyway, I remember it was a great feeling to move out of my parents' house
and to be living in my own place with my wife and paying my own bills.
I had great joy and satisfaction in the fact that I was going to work, making a living.
I remember even the first time I paid taxes, I didn't even have a bad attitude.
Because I felt like, yes, I'm a productive member of society.
I'm making money. I'm paying my taxes.
Now I'm like, what was I doing?
Anyway, I was like, I'm paying my own way.
I'm paying my own rent. I'm buying my own food.
I'm just dependent on no one.
You know, I'm just doing it myself.
And it's a great feeling.
And it's a feeling of being an adult and paying for things yourself,
being self-reliant and dependent upon no one.
Even children understand that.
That's why kids, even at age six, seven, eight, nine,
will be trying to rip off that wallet and pay for it themselves.
Because it's a good feeling to pay for it yourself.
Okay.
Sometimes you'll go out to eat, and people have gone out to eat with me
where they say, hey, I'm going to buy you lunch.
And then sometimes I'll sneak in and get to the waiter
and slip to the credit card and say, hey, I'm paying for this.
Don't let somebody else pay for it.
And then the bill comes, and one time I'm out to eat with my sister and her family.
And we're out to eat, and we're there, and we're having dinner and everything like that.
So I secretly paid, because she's like, we're taking you guys out.
You've showed us hospitality, so now we're going to take you guys out to dinner.
I'm like, okay, cool.
So I slipped them my credit card, and I said, hey, just take care of the bill.
Don't say anything about it. Just do it secretly.
So we get all done, and my sister goes to pay the bill,
and the waiter's just like, oh, don't worry about me.
She's like, are you serious?
And he's like, yeah, just take care of it. Don't worry about it.
And she just goes like, cool, let's go.
And it wasn't until we got out to the parking lot.
Once we got out to the parking lot, I'm like, yeah, I already paid the bill.
She's like, did they just give us that whole thing for free?
I mean, my whole family and her whole family, that's a lot of people.
Okay, my family's a lot of people.
By the time my sister, what, she does have a sixth child a few days ago?
So she's right, me and my sister are right there neck and neck on how many children we have.
And so, yeah, that's a big crowd.
And so, why?
You'll see people sometimes doing that, where they're fighting over who's going to pay.
Sometimes it's like a half-heart, like, are you sure? Okay, yeah.
You'll see people, someone's fighting over who to pay.
Why?
Because a lot of times, you know, men just like to be the one to pay, and they like to pay the bill.
Why?
Because it's not all just about what you can get for free in life, okay?
There's a joy and a pride and a satisfaction in paying for things yourself.
Now look at 1 Corinthians 9, verse 3.
1 Corinthians 9, 3, this is the Apostle Paul.
So we've seen Abraham, we've seen King David.
Look at 1 Corinthians 9, verse 3.
The Bible says,
By the way, there's proof right there that Peter was married.
And pretty much all the other apostles are married except Paul and Barnabas.
And Cephas and all this, so the Catholics are wrong about him being a pope, right?
So they say the bishop can't be married.
The Bible says the bishop must be the husband of one wife.
Don't think about it.
But it says here in verse 6,
Now he doesn't mean like to just not do any work.
He means to forbear working an outside job in addition to what he's doing, his preaching,
and somebody in the ministry and serving God.
He's saying, don't we have the power to forbear working?
Don't we have the power to get married?
He's saying that's what all the other apostles are doing.
That's what all the other pastors are doing.
They're getting a paycheck, they're married, they have children.
He says, you know, Barnabas and I are not.
He says in verse 7,
You know, that'd be like if somebody went to fight in the U.S. military,
and it's like, well, you have to pay your own way,
you know, you have to pay your own flight to the battlefield,
you have to pay for a hotel when you get to the city that we're going to land the plane in,
you're going to buy your own food, you're going to buy your own food.
That stuff's all issued to them.
Why? Because you don't go to warfare at your own charges, he says.
And he says,
Say I these things as a man, or saith not the law, the same also.
For it is written in the law of Moses,
Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Doth God take care for oxen?
Or sand it all together for our sakes?
For our sakes, no doubt.
This is written that he that ploweth should ploweth hope,
and that he that thresheth an oath should be partaker of his hope.
If we've shown unto you spiritual things,
is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?
If others be partaker of this power over you, are not we rather?
Nevertheless, we've not used this power,
but suffer all things lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.
Do you not know that they which minister about holy things
live of the things of the temple,
and they that wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?
Even so, at the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel
should live of the gospel.
But I have used none of these things,
neither have I written these things,
that it should be so done unto me.
For it were better for me to die
than that any man should make my, what's the next word?
My glorying void.
For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory up,
for necessity is laid upon me,
and woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.
Why did Paul choose to work an outside job
and to pay his own way and to not receive pay
for preaching and starting the church and leading the church
and all the spiritual things that he did for his job,
I mean it is a job obviously,
preaching and serving God is a job.
He said, why did I not take a paycheck for that?
Every other pastor, and he said they should, they're right.
That's what the Bible says.
But he said the reason why is because he said
that he wants to be able to say that he didn't get paid.
That's why, I mean he said,
I don't want to make my glorying void.
He said I want to be able to say that I paid my own way
and that I didn't take a dime for it
and that I did it all myself.
Why did he say in 2 Thessalonians 3
where we started that he did not take pay?
He said because he wanted to be an example unto them
because there were so many people there
who did not know how to work,
they did not pay their own way,
they were busybodies working not at all.
He said I was trying to make myself an example
by saying hey, here's how you work hard,
here's how you pay your own way,
here's how you make your own bread.
Now look, what does that tell you
when you see the word glorying?
It tells you that there's glory in working
and paying for your own stuff.
There's glory in that.
Now the children that I brought up earlier,
like I said how my sons love to pay for stuff,
because there's glory in paying.
They want to say I bought this with my own money.
Isn't there glory in that?
There's glory in that.
Now I'm using the Bible word,
I'm trying to get you to understand what he's saying here.
There's glory in buying something yourself
with money that you earned yourself
and it gives satisfaction.
Now if we were to put this in regard to salvation,
of course the Bible says
well by grace are you saved through faith.
Go to Romans 4 by the way.
For by grace are you saved through faith
and that not of yourselves it's the gift of God.
Not of works.
Why is it not of works?
Bless any man should what?
Boast.
Why?
Because when you work and earn things yourself,
there's glory in that.
I paid for it myself.
There's glory there.
Paul called it glorying
in the fact hey I paid my own way.
And for the longest time,
for the first four and a half years
of our church existence,
I never took a paycheck
and you'd hear me bring that up sometimes.
Saying hey, you know, I did not take a paycheck
and I did not, you know,
and it's not that I was boasting or bragging
but I was just glorying in it.
Like Paul was and saying you know what,
hey it's possible to start a church
and be independent.
You don't have to be supported by everybody
and you don't have to do this
and you don't have to go around raising money.
It's possible to just roll up your sleeves
and do it.
You know, I thought hey that's cool.
And I remember in the third year
of our church's existence,
I took a paycheck.
A part-time, because I tried for a little while
of phasing out my job a little bit
and trying to spend more time on church,
a little less time on work
because I was working so many hours.
So I kind of went a little bit more part-time on my job
and I took a paycheck of,
I think it was like $9,000 for the whole year.
Just a nominal amount,
just for a few months
where I was, you know,
focusing a lot on church and everything.
And basically, it just didn't work out
because I had to work so much
and it just wasn't working.
So then I just went back gung-ho for my business, right?
Well then in 2009,
I made so much more money that I decided,
you know what, I'm going to pay my tithe
and then I'm going to pay back
everything I was paid in that year.
Why?
Because I wanted to be able to say
I've never taken a paycheck
just to be able to say that.
Just to say like hey,
and you say well that's silly.
Well you know what, it probably is silly.
But you know what the bottom line is?
That's a satisfaction when you do things yourself
and pay your own way to say hey,
I've never taken a paycheck,
I did it myself, whatever.
The bottom line is that when people are moochers,
are you listening to me?
And again, there's nothing wrong with taking a paycheck.
It wasn't bad that I took a paycheck,
it's just that I just wanted to be able to say
that I did it, do it, okay?
But when people are moochers,
they're missing out, are you listening to me?
On the feeling that a man gets
when he goes to work,
gets his paycheck and spends it on
what he wants to spend it on,
that feels good, doesn't it?
You go out, you work, you make money,
you buy it yourself.
Whether you have a really nice house
or whether you have a beat up house.
Whether you have a really nice car
or a beat up car.
Whether you have really nice clothes or beat up clothes.
The bottom line is, you like things
that you bought yourself.
That you earned it, it belongs to you.
It wasn't just all handed to you.
You see rich people sometimes
that pass on great wealth
unto their children,
and their children don't appreciate it,
and they're miserable.
And they don't have any happiness
because everything's been given to them
and they don't know the joy of earning something.
The joy of going out and working and struggling
and bleeding and sweating
and coming home and saying,
you know, I built something.
I made something.
I earned something.
And maybe it's not a huge paycheck.
Maybe it's not a Fortune 500 company.
But hey, I built a business.
Or hey, I went to work
and I installed plumbing in a house.
Or I did electrical work.
And you know what?
I'm not taking money from the government.
I'm not on welfare today.
I'm not getting a free handout.
I'm not constantly relying on my parents
or relying on any wealth.
I paid it myself.
That's a great feeling.
Now, there are going to be times in your life
where sometimes you need help from other people.
Right?
You might become ill or injured
or even just fall on hard times.
And I remember there was a time
when I was early in my marriage,
I had to borrow some money from my dad.
It was like, hey, I need to borrow 500 bucks.
But you know what?
I paid it back right away
because it's like I didn't like that.
I don't want people relying on him.
You know what I mean?
I love my dad,
but when you're a man, when you're an adult,
you want to pay your own way.
You don't want to have to rely on other people.
And so I remember I borrowed $500 from him.
His grace is enough to loan me 500 bucks.
And within just a few weeks,
I paid him off
because I didn't like that
and I didn't want to ever have to do that again.
But it was just something where I was in a bind
and so forth.
But people who mooch off others
and they want everything for free,
they miss out on the joy
of working and earning something
and building something
and accomplishing something
and earning money.
Things that are just given to you for free,
you don't appreciate it the same way
as stuff that you earn.
Now, let's tie that in with salvation just briefly
and I want to get on to some further points in the sermon.
In Romans 4, there's a key verse in verse 4.
It says,
Now to him that worketh is the reward,
and notice that word, reward,
not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness.
So, clearly, God does not owe us salvation.
Right?
It's not a debt like we did work and so he owes us.
Hey, let me into heaven.
I did this, I did that.
We can't boast of anything we've done
because when it comes to salvation,
our even our righteousnesses are as filthy rats to God.
Our righteousnesses are not going to get us into heaven.
Now, why does God not allow anyone
to trust their works to get them to heaven?
Because what is there when you work
and earn things yourself?
It starts with a G.
Glory!
God will not share his glory with anyone.
No.
If God, you know, it's like when you go out to eat
and somebody will not let you pay.
They want to pay.
That's how God is with salvation.
It's like, no, you're not going to pay for this.
I'm paying.
And God, if he let us pay for part of it,
we get part of the glory.
We can boast a bit about part of it.
But God says, no, I will not share my glory with another.
I'm not going to have you waltz into heaven
and say, okay, God, it's time to let me in.
You owe me.
That's what debt means, to owe someone.
You owe me.
I deserve to be here.
I belong here.
God says, no, you don't belong here.
You don't deserve to be here.
You're here by grace.
Not debt.
Grace.
It's free.
I'm paying for it.
Now, a lot of people bristle at that.
And even some of the people that work the hardest
in this world.
Because like I said, there's pride in working hard
and earning things yourself.
There's glory.
There's a joy in that.
There might even be boasting about that.
God's not going to allow any of that
in regard to salvation.
When your righteousnesses are nothing to Him
and when He died on the cross for you
and shed His blood and rose again,
He's taken all the glory.
You will have no glory in salvation.
That's why it's so important that salvation
is not something you earn yourself,
not something you pay for yourself.
It's completely free.
So, now that we've got that part of the sermon
out of the way, we understand the fact that,
you know, God wants us to work and pay our own way
and He says that there's glory in that.
We see great men in the Bible.
Abraham, David, Paul.
And we can show many others who worked hard
and paid their own way.
They didn't like to just be dependent on everyone else
and living off everyone else.
Just how much can I get for free?
How much can I take?
No, they want to do it themselves
and pay their own way.
Okay, that's a good attribute.
So, let me ask you this question.
First of all, what is it that God has promised
to provide for us?
Now, first of all, let's talk about this.
What has God promised to provide for the unsaved?
Nothing.
You say, well, food and raiment.
No.
He never promised to give food and raiment to the unsaved.
There are people in this world that starve to death every day.
There are people who have no raiment.
There are people who have no food.
God doesn't owe them anything.
God doesn't owe anyone anything.
That's not His job to just provide everyone with food and clothing.
That's not His job.
He doesn't have to do it.
He's not obligated to do it.
Now, He's gracious, the Bible says,
in the fact that He sends rain upon the just and the unjust.
He allows people to have an abundance of food in many cases.
He blesses and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
Wait a minute, does He owe everyone that, though?
No.
Because stop and think about this.
Go to 1 Timothy 6.
David said this, while you're turning to 1 Timothy 6.
David said, I've been young.
He said, I've been young and now I'm old.
And I've never seen the righteous forsaken,
nor has he seen baby bread.
He didn't say, I've never seen anyone forsaken.
He said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken,
nor has he seen baby bread.
You see, the Bible says in Matthew 6.33,
Take no thought, therefore, saying,
What shall we eat, or what shall we drink,
or wherewithal shall we be clothed?
He says, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek,
but seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things will be added unto you.
What things will be added to you?
The food and the clothing.
And when he says food, he's talking about water as well.
What shall we eat, what shall we drink, wherewithal shall we be clothed?
But you've got to seek first the kingdom of God.
For Him to even provide that stuff.
He didn't say, if you want to seek first the kingdom of God,
that's great, either way,
either way, all these things will be added unto you.
Just because you're saved, it's all going to be added to you.
Is that what he said?
No, he said, if you seek first the kingdom of God,
all these things will be added.
If you're righteous, you won't ever be baking bread.
You see, God doesn't owe us everything.
We just think, oh, God owes me everything.
No, He doesn't.
First of all, if you're unsaved, He owes you nothing but a place in hell.
That's what He owes you.
And if you're saved, do you know what He owes you?
Nothing.
If you serve Him, then He'll promise to give you food and clothing.
But what else did God promise to give us besides food and clothing?
What else did He promise?
If we're doing what we're supposed to do,
you know, we're going to church.
We're following Christ in our life.
We're not perfect, but we're following Christ.
We're trying to serve Him.
What is He going to give us?
He promised to give us food and clothing.
But here's the thing,
He didn't really promise to give us anything else.
And there's a lot more things than that
that we use in life besides food and clothing, aren't there?
For example, look at 1 Timothy 6.
Actually, let me look at 1 Timothy 6 6, too.
Let me lead by example by actually turning there.
1 Timothy 6 6,
But godliness with contentment is great gain,
for we brought nothing into this world,
and it certainly carried nothing out.
And having what?
Food and raiment.
Raiment is clothing.
Let us be there with content.
So is God really promising us anything besides food and raiment?
He says food and clothing.
Now, when He says the word food,
you probably noticed the word meat in the Bible.
Now, the word meat in the Bible
is not what we think of as meat.
Like, we think of it as, you know,
only a piece of animal flesh that we roast and eat.
But in fact, the Bible used the word meat
to talk about any kind of food.
He used it to talk about bread and flour.
He calls that meat.
For example, the meat offering in the Old Testament
was fine flour baked in a pan with oil, like pancake.
That was the meat offering.
So he used the word meat.
He's referring to just anything that you eat.
Take the M off meat, and it's eat, okay?
It's this food that you eat.
Well, don't tell me we're not supposed
to be eating meat, okay?
There's only one letter that separates me
from eating a lot of meat, okay?
It's just that M that I got to get out of the way.
Now, here's the thing.
When He says the word food,
He's referring to basically what we eat
and what we drink both.
Like when...
And here's what's funny.
Who was this, Yuja, that said
that you need food and raiment
and you also need the Word of God?
Was that Miriam that said that?
Yeah, so it's funny.
John was trying to educate Miriam, my son John.
He's telling Miriam, he's seven
and she's almost five, and he's telling her,
he's saying, you know, all you need to live,
you just need two things, food and clothing, that's it.
You know, that's all you need.
And she's like, no, you also need the Word of God.
That's what the four-year-old said.
Because the Bible says man does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that foresees out another.
God does man live.
As if she corrected John on that.
Sorry, John.
But pretty much, that's what God's guaranteeing us.
Pretty much food, clothing, and the Word of God.
And we can live, we can survive.
Now, I'll prove that to you.
Go to Hebrews 11.
Go to Hebrews chapter 11.
Hebrews chapter number 11.
I hope that the sermon is making sense to you tonight.
Hebrews chapter 11.
Because what am I preaching about tonight?
People who have this attitude that just the world owes them a living.
They're entitled to everything.
You know, I deserve everything.
It's not fair that I don't have what someone else has.
I deserve to have what they have too.
Is that biblical?
No.
He says, work, pay your own way.
Well, God, are you going to take care of me?
I'll give you food and clothing.
If you obey me.
And if you're going to go out and be worldly and sinful,
well, you're on your own.
Just like the world's on their own.
Beyonce, you're on your own too.
Look at Hebrews 11.
I'll prove to you that God's not going to give us everything on a silver platter.
But he will give us food and rain.
Look what the Bible says in Hebrews 11 32.
And what shall I more say for the time of filming to tell of Gedion
and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah, of David also, and of Samuel and of the prophets
who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,
escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong,
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens,
women received their dead, raised to life again.
Now, that sounds great.
That sounds exciting.
Man alive.
I would love to do all that stuff.
But look what he said about other people.
He said others were tortured.
Now, that's not cool.
That doesn't sound like something I want to do.
And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance
that they might obtain a better resurrection.
And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgy.
Moreover, at bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned,
they were saunasunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword.
And here's the part I wanted to focus on.
They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskates,
being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.
They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.
So were there some of God's people in the Old Testament days
who basically did not have a place to live?
Yeah.
And they wandered around.
And did they even have the right clothes, really?
Well, they had raiment, but it was just sheepskins and goatskins.
It wasn't any kind of nice clothes.
So basically, God gave them the bare minimum, food and raiment, and that's it.
They wandered around.
They're living in the mountains.
They're living in the woods.
They don't have anything, and yet He provided that for them
because that's what He promised to provide.
And He said, they're going to get a better resurrection.
Oh yeah, they suffered hard on this earth, but they're getting a better resurrection.
Now look, He said that they had food, they had raiment.
Think about Jeremiah.
There was a time when Jeremiah was thrown in prison,
and the Bible says that they gave him a piece of bread every day out of the bakery.
Now that's going to keep you alive.
But is that what you want to eat every day, just bread and water, nothing else?
No.
They gave him a piece of bread every day from the bakery, fresh baked.
Here's your bread.
You know, if you read the Gulag Archipelago, the Soviet concentration camps,
that's where they gave the bread ration, was their main source of calories,
that was their main nutrition, was a piece of bread.
That's not preferable.
That's not what you and I want to eat.
But that's how God sustains some people in the Old Testament
who had to go through trials where that's what they're eating, bread and water.
Remember Micaiah, the son of Imlah, when he preached the truth
and the king, Ahab, didn't want to hear it,
he got put in prison, they said, feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction.
They said, put Micaiah in prison, give him bread and water.
Now look, God kept him alive.
He fed him and clothed him.
But was he eating the food that he wanted to eat?
He was eating bread and water, which is a miserable diet.
Now turn, if you would, to Ecclesiastes chapter 5.
Now here's what I want to make clear.
I'm not suggesting tonight that the way we should live our lives
is we need to get on bread and water,
we need to put on a sheep skin and a goat skin,
we need to sell our houses and just, you know, just live on nothing.
Now there are people out there who try to just live the most basic life
that they can possibly live.
You know what I mean?
And they are just, what's the word I'm looking for?
Aesthetic? Aestheticism?
You know, they basically want to just, you know, enjoy nothing.
No pleasure, no joy, no physical joy.
They don't want to ever eat any good foods or have any nice things.
Okay, that's not what I'm promoting right now.
I'm not saying, hey, you need to quit eating good food
and get on bread and water and quit being such a baby
and shut up and eat your, you know, your set of cereal,
you're going to tear up pieces of bread and water instead of milk
and eat it with a spoon in the morning.
That's not what I'm saying.
But what I'm saying, and I'm going to prove that to you,
what I'm saying is that that's what God has promised to do for you,
and that's what He owes you.
And anything above that, okay, is not something that He owes you
that's just guaranteed unto you.
Now look what Ecclesiastes chapter 5 says.
Everybody turn there.
Ecclesiastes 5, look at verse 12.
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet,
whether he eat little or much,
but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
You see, again, the joy in being a hard worker
and going to bed at night after a good, hard day's work feels great.
But look what he says in verse 18.
Behold that which I have seen.
It is good and comely for one to eat and to drink
and to enjoy the good of all of everyone's labor
that was given unto him for free.
Is that what it says?
No, it says it's good to eat and drink
and enjoy the good of all his labor
that he taken under the sun all the days of his life,
which God given them, for it is his portion.
It belongs to you.
When you go out and work in the sun and earn something,
it belongs to you.
And God says, spend it, eat it, drink it, enjoy it,
because you earned it, because you worked for it,
and you paid for it.
Look if you would at Ecclesiastes chapter number 8.
We'll see something similar in Ecclesiastes 8.15.
The Bible says, then I commanded Mirth,
because a man hath no better thing under the sun
than to eat and to drink and to be married.
For that shall abide with him of his what?
Of his labor.
Of his labor, the days of his life,
which God given them under the sun.
Go to chapter 9 and look at verse 7, Ecclesiastes 9.7.
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy,
and drink thy wine with the merry heart.
Now is wine one of the things that God promised
to provide for us all the time?
And again, this isn't talking about liquor and booze,
this is just talking about juice.
And here's the thing, juice,
we think of juice and we take it for granted,
but here's the thing, throughout history,
they didn't have sugar.
They weren't mixing up Kool-Aid for a poor people's drink.
Gin and juice or whatever.
They weren't drinking Kool-Aid.
They didn't have sugar.
Cane sugar was not really a big thing that they used.
So if you were going to get something sweet,
you're going to get it from honey,
that's what you'll see mostly mentioned in the Bible,
honey, or else you're getting it from fruit.
And what's the sweetest thing you could probably drink?
It's probably grape juice, right?
Think about it.
I mean, maybe I'm wrong,
maybe there's some other juice out there that's sweet,
but white grape juice and even red grape juice
is very, very sugary and sweet.
So this was their sugary sweet drink back then.
I mean, they didn't have Coca-Cola and Coke and Sprite.
They didn't have Icy and Slurpee
and they didn't have all this sugar and Kool-Aid.
Their sweet drink was a glass of juice.
And here's the thing,
they didn't have a juicer plugged in on their counter.
Oh, just plug in the juicer and throw it in some prison bag.
No, juice was something that was expensive.
Okay, it's expensive
because it's going to take a lot of work.
Even with the electric juicer, it's a lot of work to make juice.
You know, you got to sit there and clean it afterward
and shove everything in there.
But think about it, without the juicer,
you're going to sit there and juice and juice and juice
and have a little glass of juice.
And you're going to be smashing up those grapes
and it's a lot of work.
So guess what, it was more expensive back then.
And whenever God talks about people being wealthy,
he's talking about how they're going to eat corn and wine
and have all these luxuries.
So wine is a luxury.
And even today it's a luxury.
Not all of us are just sitting there
and you can probably buy some cheapo Kool-Aid,
but if you want to get some real juice,
fresh squeezed juice,
or something that's not been totally tampered with and altered
but actually a natural, organic type of fruit juice,
it's expensive.
It's going to cost money.
I was at the store,
I wanted to buy some cranberry juice for my daughter.
And then a bottle of cranberry juice,
like this big, was like 10 bucks.
And you're like, 10 bucks?
I can give you a food save for two.
Well, guess what?
I'm not talking about high fructose corn syrup,
cranberry juice, cocktail.
I'm talking about real, pure,
actually, I mean, they actually juiced the cranberries
and put it in a bottle.
Can you imagine?
I'm talking about the actual, pure stuff is very,
it'll be, you know,
sometimes you're buying those six or seven bucks,
eight bucks, I mean, it's very expensive
to get real juice.
So, I mean, it's a little bit of luxury today.
You're not just guzzling the stuff, you know.
You're primarily drinking water or whatever
because it's real expensive to get a whole bunch of juice.
God's saying, look,
go thy way, verse seven.
Eat thy bread with joy
and drink thy wine with a merry heart.
For God now accepted thy works.
Let thy garments be always white.
That's a luxury, too.
You know, nice, clean, fresh-looking white clothes.
You know, my shirts, when they start getting older,
they're not as white as they used to be.
You know, they start to fade and turn other colors
and everything like that.
He says, look, always have just those nice, bright, clean,
nice-looking, pure white clothes
and a glass of wine in your hand.
Again, we're not talking about alcohol.
We're just talking about juice.
You know, you got the right food.
You got nice clothes.
He says, live joyfully with the wife,
whom thou lovest all the days' lives.
He's saying, enjoy pleasure with your wife.
Eat good food.
Drink a glass of juice.
Have nice clothes.
And enjoy pleasure with your wife.
He's saying, look, Paul and Barnabas,
yeah, they didn't have wives.
They skipped that
and dedicated themselves totally to serving God.
But none of the other apostles did.
There's nothing wrong with being married
and enjoying family life,
and family life is enjoyment and a blessing.
Being married is a blessing.
Having children is a blessing.
He's saying, enjoy it.
He said, live joyfully with thy wife,
whom thou lovest all the days of thy life
with thy vanity,
which he hath given thee under the sun
all the days of thy vanity,
for that is thy portion in this life.
And notice, he always brings this up every time.
And in thy labor,
which thou takest under the sun.
So do you notice how consistent this is?
Whenever he talks about having nice stuff
or enjoying your food,
not just a stale piece of bread
and a glass of water that's going to keep me alive,
but actually enjoying good food
and actually having some clothes
that are a sheepskin and a goatskin
that you cut a hole in the top
to put your head through
and a pair of sheepskin pants
and a goatskin hair shirt.
He said, look, wear nice clothes.
Eat a nice meal
because you worked for it
and paid for it yourself.
Not you're guaranteed to sit on your rear end
and everybody's going to give you
a glass of juice
and nice clean clothes
and a nice place to live
and nice things.
He said, no, you're going to have to work for that.
You're going to have to earn that yourself.
There is no place in this book
that says that you're entitled to
or you have a right to nice food,
good food, good clothes,
good place to live,
so many square feet.
You're not going to find it in the Bible.
And I'm not saying it's bad to have those things.
It is bad to desire to be rich.
God says, do not desire to be rich.
But you know what?
Hey, everybody wants to be comfortable
and to have the things they need,
but guess what?
You're going to have to earn it yourself
and don't expect everybody to give it to you for free
because you don't want to work
and you want to do nothing.
But today, this is not what people expect.
People don't expect food and raiment.
They expect everything to be handed to them
and given to them today.
That's what people expect.
It's funny.
Where I got the idea from this sermon,
I was driving down the road
and I have C-SPAN in my car.
Who knows what C-SPAN is?
It's basically a radio station.
You can listen to everything in Congress
and everything in the Senate.
There's no commercials.
You can listen to all the speeches
from the presidential candidates
and you can listen to the events that are going on
every day in Washington, D.C.
and other places that have to do with politics.
But the good thing is there's virtually no commentary.
It's pretty much you just listen to it
and just get the straight facts.
There's no commercials.
It's not really designed for entertainment.
It's just designed to give you information.
And you can just listen to the Senate,
listen to Congress, listen to the speech, whatever.
Well, I was listening to it
and they decided they were going to cover
because everything was about the Iowa caucuses,
you know, the presidential primary.
And so they decided to cover these events in Iowa.
So they're going to this speech
and they're going to that speech.
Well, you know, I was tuned into this.
I was on a really long drive board
and I'm tuned into it and they said,
now we're going to Occupy Wall Street.
And they said, this is Occupy Des Moines.
They're having an event
about the presidential primary caucus.
They said, this event runs about an hour
and 15 minutes or whatever.
We're going to bring you to it live or what have you.
So I thought, oh, okay, you know,
I've heard all this stuff about Occupy Wall Street.
I don't really know a whole lot about it.
And that's what I like about C-SPAN
is that you can kind of just hear stuff yourself
without everybody just spoon feeding you
like a 10 second sound bite.
So I'm like, oh, okay, they're going to talk for an hour.
Let's hear what they have to say.
Let's see what these people are about.
And it was just insane.
I mean, some of the things that they said were right,
but I mean, it's just one person after another
getting up there and just basically saying,
I'm just listening to this on the radio as I'm driving.
Just everybody just, hey, I'm entitled to this.
Give me this.
I should get free this.
I should have this paid for by the government.
It was just total communist, socialist,
I don't know, Marxist, whatever you want to call it.
It's not fair.
My name's Jimmy.
I'll take all you give me.
That's what I heard.
This one guy literally.
And this guy, when he said this, this sermon was born.
This guy, this guy, I listened to this guy
and this is what he said.
He said, education should be free.
He said, it should be free.
And he said, I don't care if it's a bachelor's degree,
a master's degree, a PhD.
If you want to get five master's degrees,
it should be free, he said.
And he said, it should all be paid for by Uncle Sam.
All of it.
And he said, I'm quoting the guy verbatim.
He said, if you want to be a career student,
you should be able to be a career student
as paid for by the government.
And I'm not exactly.
I feel stupid even saying it because you probably
don't even believe me.
But that's literally what the guy was saying.
It was like a joke.
It was like a parody.
It was like a spoof on Octopod, but it was real.
That's what the guy was saying.
It needs to be free.
But that's our society, isn't it?
Everything.
I'm going to engender children.
I'm going to beget children.
My wife's going to give birth to children.
And it's your job to educate them.
And it's your job to educate me when I'm 50 years old
and I just decide I want to study poetry.
You're going to educate me.
And you're going to teach me and train me all this stuff.
This is a ridiculous society we're living in.
This is why our country is falling apart.
Because we have children growing up and they grow up
and they say, where's my free college?
Where's my free room and board?
Where's my free food?
Where's my free housing?
Where, hey, I'm homeless.
Give me a house to live in.
And you say, well, come on, Pastor Anderson.
Everybody deserves a house to live in.
Everybody has a right to have a place to live.
But, see, it doesn't stop there
because everybody also has a right to education.
And they also have a right to food.
And they have a right to a cell phone.
And they have a right to a home phone.
And they have a right to clothes.
And they have a right for transportation.
And these are our rights.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator
with clothes and food and a cell phone and a computer
and internet and a laptop and a cell phone.
I saw somebody stand by the side of the road with a sign yesterday
and they were on their smartphone.
And they were holding up a cardboard sign.
Have you seen that, too?
They got a cigarette in their mouth
and they're holding down their cell phone in one hand.
I'm starving.
Well, chew up your cigarette and swallow it.
You may get a little interested out of the tobacco.
I don't know.
Actually, that's probably not going to give me an answer.
Never mind.
What do I know?
Chew up your cell phone and you're done.
Anyway, the bottom line is that people today, you know it.
They have an attitude.
And it starts with kids.
Kids just think that everything just...
They think money grows on trees.
And I don't know if it was my wife or my children
who corrected me this week.
They said, actually, Dad, money does grow on trees
because it's just a bunch of paper money anyway.
It's not even real money.
It does grow.
It does come out of a tree.
They cut down a tree and turn it into money.
Okay, you got me.
You're a kid getting pretty smart.
Yeah, I know.
Federal Reserve notes grow on trees, okay?
They grow in a tree trunk.
But real money doesn't grow on trees.
But the bottom line is, you know, I'm trying to teach my children
at a young age, hey, you need to work around here.
You need to do the laundry.
You need to wash the dishes.
You need to sweep up the floor.
You need to clean up the yard.
You need to do this.
You need to get to work and earn something here and work
and not sit around on your duff just because you're under 18
and you think, oh, well, my parents just owe me everything.
I'll feed you two.
I'll close you.
I'm going to tell you what to do, and you're going to work.
And some day you're going to be independent.
And what that means is that you're not dependent on someone else.
Now, here's what's funny.
When people say the word independent,
they can mean a couple different things with it.
Like, most of the time when people say independent,
it means I can do what I want.
I'm independent.
I'm free.
I can do whatever I want to do.
But at the same time, they're depending on others.
Wait a minute.
Are you independent when you're depending on others?
So here's the thing.
The reason the word has two definitions,
because you can really look at it as two definitions.
Like, number one, independent means you do what you want.
You have liberty and freedom to do what you want.
And then on the other hand,
it means you're not depending on other people.
But guess what?
The two go hand in hand.
When you're not depending on other people,
you can do what you want.
When you are depending on other people,
there are some restrictions to doing what you want.
I mean, my children, it's great.
They don't have to stress about finances.
They don't have to go work in the sun
and dig ditches all day.
But guess what the flip side of that is?
They have less freedom than I do.
I work a lot harder than they do.
But guess what?
I have way more freedom than they do.
They have less freedom
because they are dependent on someone else.
I have more freedom
because I'm not dependent on someone else.
One day they're going to grow up
and they're going to be where I'm at.
They're going to be independent
and they're going to be paying their own way
and they're going to have freedom to do what they want to do.
Right now they don't have that freedom
because they're under my authority
because I'm paying the bills.
One day they will pay their own bills
and they will do what they want to do.
And of course, I answer to God
and they will answer to God.
We are not totally free from anyone over us
because we have God's law and His ruling in our life
because He ultimately is the one who is providing for us.
We depend on Him.
So we are only dependent upon Him
so He's the only one who tells us what to do.
We're independent of everyone else
so other people don't tell us what to do.
We can do what we want to do.
That's what freedom is.
You're never free
or just to use the right word
you're never independent
when your bills are being paid by someone else.
And so we live in a society today that says
that we want everything to be given to us
and provided for us
and we have a right to have all these things.
Now look, I don't know about you
I don't want to eat bread and water.
Do you want to eat bread and water?
I want to eat nachos.
I want to eat...
And I'm talking about the healthy ones you made too, okay?
I mean, I want to eat enchiladas.
I want to eat pizza.
I want to eat...
My wife makes this thing for breakfast this morning
with potatoes and cheese
and onions and corn
fried in the stove.
That's what I want to eat.
That's not bread and water.
But here's the thing.
I'm going to have to work and pay for that stuff.
You know what I mean?
I can't just say...
And if someone else wants to work less
and do less
and not earn and work
and get to that point
they can't just sit there and say
well this isn't fair.
No.
And why is he eating a five-star breakfast
of potatoes and cheese and bell peppers?
You know?
That isn't fair.
Now hold on a second.
Where does God say that we are entitled...
And look.
Does God entitle us to food?
Yes.
Okay.
But here's the thing.
The food that I eat at my house
okay?
It's not like I just eat the minimum to survive.
Now I'm not going out buying filet mignons
and salmon dinners.
I'm not going out and buying a bunch of really expensive food.
But at the same time I'm not eating rice and beans every day either.
You know, just the cheapest possible thing I could find.
You know, I just want to eat
just a normal diet.
You know, a normal American diet or whatever.
You know, except not the junk
but just some healthy food.
You know, I just want to eat a typical diet.
I want to have tacos
and I want to have a sandwich
and I want to have a bowl of cereal.
You know, I just want to eat average food.
But I want to eat a variety of foods.
I want to eat the same thing every day
and just rice and beans
and just bread and water and whatever.
Hey, I want to have a glass of milk.
You know, I want to have a glass of
fruit juice every once in a while.
You know, hey, I want to eat an apple
and a hair and an apricot
and a banana.
Right?
But here's the thing.
I have to go to work to pay for that stuff.
So I have to work like six days a week
and I have to sacrifice my time and energy
and I have to drive all over the world
and I have to just work late
and get up early
and stay up late
and do all that stuff.
Okay, in order to earn that stuff.
And so do you.
You know, most people in this room
are probably not on a starvation diet,
bread and water, rice and beans or whatever.
You could survive on that though.
You would be alive.
You're probably eating better than that.
And I'm glad you're eating better than that.
And you know what?
God says, you know what?
He wants you to eat better than that.
And men in the Bible, great men in the Bible,
they ate a lot of good food too.
It's not that God just wants us to be miserable
and He wants us all in prison
on bread and water
and in a sheepskin with no house.
That's not what it is.
But what we ought to realize
and get our mind right
is that that's all I've got coming to me.
And so anything above that
I should get on my knees every day
and thank God for it.
Amen.
And say thank you God for this.
And you know, a lot of people
pray for their food.
It's like doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, amen.
This is like a routine.
But honestly, in your heart
every day when you eat a really good meal
and you have nice food in front of you,
you ought to thank God for it.
You ought to thank God for your house
that's heated in the winter
and cooled in the summer.
And you ought to thank God
for your car.
You say, well, my car's a piece of junk.
It's old.
But you know what?
God doesn't just owe you a car.
Our government doesn't just owe you a car
and it should all be free.
No, all that stuff is a bonus.
Because you know,
I might look at my house and say,
hey, my house is small.
But you know what?
There are other people
who probably have a bigger family
and a smaller house.
And they would love to be in my house.
There are other people who have a bigger house.
The point is that instead of envying
what other people have,
we should just be thankful for what we have.
Because anything above bread and water,
God's blessing us.
We're doing well.
And we live in comfort.
And we ought to be thankful for it
and not have an attitude that says,
give it to me for free.
It should be, no,
I'm going to go work and pay for myself.
Now maybe there's something that you want
that you don't have, right?
Let's say you want a particular item
and you can't afford it.
You know, you're going to have to go out
and make some extra money
or you're going to have to sell something
or find a way to cut expenses in another area.
You can't just say,
well, it's not fair,
give it to me for free.
I want it for free.
And a lot of people, by the way,
they sell, they justify stealing.
Because they think to themselves,
it's not fair that he has stuff and I don't,
so I'm going to steal his stuff.
And sometimes maybe it's not fair.
But for example, this guy came to my house
a couple weeks ago
and I had a water,
my water heater went out,
I had to change my water heater.
So I changed my water heater
and this water heater was trashed.
It should have been replaced a long time ago.
But I was just putting it off,
trying to keep it rolling.
I finally, I replaced the thing,
I got it changed down
and it was laying in my driveway
and the thing was just trashed.
Well, I was able to switch it out,
but it was hard enough just to change it
by myself to move it.
I didn't want to carry it all the way
to the trash alley by myself
because it was really heavy.
It was hard enough just to change the thing myself
and I couldn't get all the water out of it,
so it was just really heavy.
So I had it laying in the driveway
and I was going to wait
until somebody else came by
and I was going to say,
hey, can you help me
carry this thing to the alley?
Well, the guy drives up to my house
the next day
and he had a trailer
and he was obviously scrapping metal
to recycle it
because you can get a lot of money
for scrap metal.
So he pulls up to my house
and he comes and knocks on the door
and he says, hey, you know,
I saw the water heater
and he wanted to take it and scrap it.
I said, yeah, sure, go ahead.
And I told him, I said, hey,
it's really heavy,
let me give you a hand with it.
So I go out there
and I help him carry the thing
to his truck
because it was really heavy.
So I got one in, he got the other
and we carried it out of there
and then I had a bunch of batteries too,
big batteries that I use for fire alarms
and I said, hey, you can have these too.
He said, oh, cool, you know.
So he takes all the batteries,
then he stole my ratchet set.
So after I help him carry the thing out
and after I, you know,
offered the batteries,
but here's the thing,
thankfully I was paying attention.
I was watching the guy
and I went in front of him
and said, hey,
can I have my ratchet set back?
And he's like, oh, oops, sorry.
And he gives me back my ratchet set.
Whoops.
The ratchet set.
I don't know what was going on
in that guy's mind,
but it was probably something like this.
Oh, this ratchet sets nothing to him.
He can replace this thing.
This guy's got more money than I do,
you know, for whatever reason
because, you know,
his English wasn't very good.
I'm not sure.
His English wasn't very good.
I was actually speaking to him in Spanish the whole time.
And, you know, he thinks,
oh, yeah, you American,
you have everything or whatever,
blah, blah, blah.
I don't know what's going through his mind,
but obviously he felt that he was entitled
to my ratchet set
that I worked for,
that I paid for,
and I've had that same ratchet set
for like six years.
It's not that nice of a ratchet set, okay?
It's a beat-up ratchet set,
but it's the only one that I've got
and I don't want to go buy another one.
And if he steals it from me,
I'm going to have to go buy another one.
I'm trying to support eight people here,
and you're stealing my ratchet set
because you think that you deserve it
because I'm this and I'm that.
You don't know how hard I worked.
You don't know how many hours I worked,
or you don't know what I have in my house
and what I don't,
and you're just going to steal my ratchet set
after I'm nice to you?
But it's an attitude that causes people to steal
because people justify stealing by saying,
hey, you have more than me.
I'm going to take some of yours.
That's not right.
Stealing is stealing.
And he didn't need a ratchet set
to put food in his mouth.
He's just trying to steal my stuff
so he can have more money, you know,
to go buy a beer or whatever he's going to buy.
And it made me angry.
It made me mad.
And everybody is clamoring today
for every freebie out there,
and I'm sick of it.
I don't believe in it,
and I don't want God's people,
at least that are around me in this church,
to have that attitude.
I don't want my children to have that attitude.
I don't want to ever get that attitude.
I don't want you to get that attitude.
Let's get an attitude that says,
you know what,
I'm going to pay for things myself.
I want to earn my own money
and pay for it myself,
and I'm going to work hard,
and, you know,
I'm going to be generous unto others,
but I'm not going to expect everybody
to be generous to me all the time,
and just gimme, gimme, gimme.
And this is what's wrong with our country.
This guy, he says,
free education.
You know, the inspiration for the sermon?
Education should be free.
And you know what I was thinking to myself
when this Occupy Wall Street guy was saying,
education should be free,
whether it's a master's degree,
if you said,
if you want to get five master's degrees,
it should all be paid for.
You know what?
Nothing's free.
Somebody has to pay for it.
He wants to steal somebody else's money
who's paying their taxes,
and he wants to use it
so that he can go get all this free education,
and I'm thinking to myself,
he wants education to be free,
but education is free.
It's called the public library.
Has anybody heard of it?
It's free.
But they don't mean they want free education.
Oh, no.
They want free daycare for their brat.
That's what they want.
They want a free babysitter.
They don't want to raise their own kid.
Hey, look, I'm going to raise my own children.
You know why?
Because I fathered those children,
and I am going to take responsibility for myself,
and by God's grace,
I'm going to provide for my own family,
and I'm going to educate those children,
and I'm going to teach them what they need to know,
and I do not need the government
to educate my children for me for free.
You couldn't pay me to put my children in public school anyway.
Amen.
It's not education,
and here's what people make the mistake.
They think school equals education.
No.
No, sir.
It's indoctrination.
It's indoctrination, and it's babysitting.
It's those two things.
It is not education,
because this is education.
Amen.
A book, okay?
Here's another book.
I bought this book this week.
Here's a book that I bought this week, okay?
This is education.
This is how I learn.
I like to learn things,
and here's what's funny.
Whenever you say, like,
oh, you know,
I'm against public education,
they say, oh, you're against education.
I'm against public schools.
I'm against government schools.
Oh, you're against school.
You're against education.
You're against learning.
Any time you say you don't want the government to do something,
it's just like you're against that.
Oh, oh, you know,
if you say something about, you know,
hey, I don't like all these places.
Oh, you want anarchy.
You know, oh, you don't believe in education.
You want everybody to be ignorant and dumb.
No, that's not true,
because education and school are not the same thing.
They're almost opposites of one another.
Okay?
I'm serious.
Say, oh, I want free education.
Well, look, there's already a public library.
Now, I bought this book.
This is a special book that I wanted, okay?
So I bought this book,
but you know what?
There are other books that are free at the library
on every subject,
and I promise you that if you went down
to the Tempe Public Library
and you went to the astronomy section
and you read every book that they have
in that library on astronomy and you read it,
and I mean, I should have picked up and read the book,
and you can even go up to the counter and say,
here's all the books on astronomy you don't have.
Order them for me.
They'll bring them to you.
You want to learn how to speak Chinese?
They'll give you CDs online.
They'll give you books, CDs, cassettes, videos.
They have everything down there for free,
and I promise you that if you went down there
and read every single book at that library on astronomy,
you would learn more than if you got a four-year degree
in astronomy at the college, period.
Period.
Because they have so many shelves of books.
If you read all those books,
you would know more about astronomy.
But no, you don't want to learn.
You don't want education.
You want to sit on your rear end in a stupid classroom
looking at all the girls and fooling around
and drinking beer and fooling around
and having your little piece of paper that says,
look how smart I am.
I've got this little piece of paper.
Take your stupid piece of paper and throw it in the trash.
It's worthless.
You know what the beginning of education is?
The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
You know what they want?
They want to go sit around in their little campus
and they can go around to their little 45-minute class
and some stinking, burned-out hippie
is going to tell them about astronomy for 45 minutes
when they can just go read a book about astronomy.
The only education that you really need to get you started
is somebody needs to teach you how to read.
And then you can teach yourself.
You say, well, you're just uneducated.
Well, let me tell you something, my friend.
I've graduated from high school, college prep.
And then when I got out of high school,
I literally completed five years of college credits.
And you know what?
That made me stupid.
And I had to read the Bible and read a bunch of books
to get my brain back in my mind again.
Because it makes you stupid, my friend.
You say, oh, you just don't see the value in college.
No, my children are not going to college, period.
I don't get you like, you might not like this, sir.
I don't really care.
I'm just telling you the truth tonight.
My children are not going to go to a college
where the devil is on every sweater.
It says Arizona State University, the home of the devil.
That's what it says on the sweater.
There's a picture of Satan.
And every time I drive by it, I point at it and say, kids,
that right there is Satan's institution.
Do you see the picture of Satan?
Yes.
Do you see his pitchfork?
Yes.
That's why I even moved to Arizona.
So I can live by a college that has a picture of the devil
on it so my kids will not be confused and want to go there.
And look, you see, your kids aren't going to succeed.
You know what?
That's what success is.
If success is going around and sitting in a classroom,
looking at girls in short shorts all day,
listening to some burned out old hippie tell me
that there's no God, tell me that Jesus Christ is mythology,
tell me it's BCE and ACE, tell me a bunch of lies,
and tell me Marxism and communism
and how the world owes me a living,
then that is not the success I want for my children.
If you can criticize that and make fun of that,
then you say, well, you went to college.
Look, I didn't learn anything of value in college.
I learned it myself.
I went to college.
I took German IV.
I went through the whole thing.
College level German IV, I completed that.
I got an A in it.
Spanish IV, duh.
But you know what?
I learned way more.
I didn't even know how to speak Spanish
when I finished Spanish IV.
You know when I learned how to speak Spanish?
When I picked up a book, it said,
I'm going to learn how to speak Spanish.
And I learned something.
And you know, everything I've learned,
I've learned from reading books,
and maybe I've learned one or two little things
here and there in a classroom,
but very little, my friend, very token little.
And everybody I've known that learned something,
but you know, you say,
well, it's easier to learn in a classroom.
Well, I'd hate for you to have to do anything hard
when you've got a whole public library full of books.
I'd hate for you to have to actually go in there
and sit down and read a book
and not go in there and just use it for Facebook.
You know, kids today,
they think the library's just Facebook
and video games and email.
If you went in there and sat down
and got a book out the shelf and read it,
you might learn something.
You might get educated.
You say, well, your kid's not going to get a good job.
Well, you know what?
Maybe my kids can grow up
and be an electrician or a plumber
or work on air conditioning or dig ditches somewhere
or maybe they can do landscaping
or maybe they can be a mason
and build something out of bricks
and maybe they can work on cars and work on whatever.
You say, oh, those aren't good jobs.
I know people who have those jobs
who make over $100,000 a year.
It's true.
I know people who are electricians.
I know people who are plumbers.
I know people who work on HVAC units.
I know people who are carpenters
that make $100,000 a year, $125,000 a year,
and they didn't get it from college.
And I know college graduates who get out of college
and they make $30,000 a year and $40,000 a year.
And they're dead $100,000.
And then they go down to Occupy Wall Street and say,
yeah, I love this school, Dad.
I love this student loan.
Who forced you?
Who forced you to pay all that money,
that stupid, burned-out hippie?
Nobody told you you had to do that.
You've been lied to.
You borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars
to go to your little party school and your beer pong.
I don't want to pay for your stupid beer pong.
And God's not going to pay for it either.
And that's to you.
And I'm sick of people thinking
that they just have everything come to them,
and even Christians today,
and even so-called conservatives today,
they think everything.
Well, you know, well, I'm still for public education,
and I still think that schools should be free,
and I still think that, you know,
I mean, we've got to have this program,
and we've got to have this, and you know.
No, we don't.
Got to have anything.
You've got to have bread and water and a sheep skin, buddy.
And if you want something else, then go to work and pay for it.
And I want you to have it, and God wants you to have it,
but God wants you to work for it and earn it.
And you might have to pay your dues.
You know, young married couples?
I was a young married couple once with my wife,
and you know what?
We didn't start out just having everything.
We started out with nothing,
and we had to work our way up.
I've been through those times where you have no money,
where you're poor and you're struggling
and you're scraping by and so forth.
You know, that's just a time that you go through.
That's part of life.
You can't just say, well, no,
I just want to just borrow all the money
to just have all the good things now.
I want to just, I mean, people are,
they want to start, a young married couple,
they want to just start out having every kitchen appliance.
They want to start out with a minivan,
well, there's two of them, you know?
You know, who are you having a minivan with?
Are you poor?
You know?
You can pay the payment yourself, you know?
And they think that they just have to have everything,
just everything given to them, everything handed to them.
But you know what?
Sometimes you've got to start out at the bottom
and work your way up, you know?
And you've got to earn things that's made for things.
And you know, this whole attitude makes me angry
and I'm upset about it because I see it just
across the board in our country, children,
young people, conservatives, liberals, whoever they are,
they just think that everything just comes free
and everything's going to be given to them.
And I'll tell you right now, let me just close with this.
I know I'm preaching long tonight.
Let me just close it out by saying this.
What's happening today in our society is that as men today,
we're losing a lot of our dignity and our manhood today.
Why?
Because the government, in many cases,
is making it so hard for people to survive and to live
that they actually have to take government assistance
of some kind.
And there are literally, I mean, the numbers are stagnant
with how many people today are on food stamps
or some kind of a government assistance or WIC
or some kind of a government-free program.
And it's like they're taking so much money from you,
you're like, well, I want to get some of it back.
You know what I mean?
But here's the thing.
Eventually, their goal is that everybody's on it
because they want everybody taking from the government,
everybody, so that nobody's independent.
And it's a tragedy.
It's sad because it takes away self-esteem from men.
You know, when you meet a guy who is not working,
let's say he doesn't have a job,
you know, he's usually depressed about it
because that's part of our identity as men.
And we get great satisfaction of working and paying for stuff,
not being a freeloader.
We like to pay for things.
But that's being stolen from us.
And it's getting to where we're all part of this big collective
where they take everything away from us that belongs to us
and then they're going to give us what we need.
They're going to give us our food.
They're going to provide us with our schooling.
And look, you say, well, Pastor Harrison,
I disagree with you on school.
I disagree with you, Pastor Harrison.
I think school and college are wonderful.
Well, then you know what?
Go pay for it yourself.
I don't want to pay for it.
If you want to hire Bob Ross to teach you how to paint
in some school somewhere, that's great.
But I'm not going to pay for it.
I don't want to pay for it anymore.
I'm sick of it.
And if you want to go to school and learn calculus and physics,
and by the way, if people love education so much,
why don't they show up to church and get a free education?
Amen.
They can learn history.
They can learn the Bible.
They can learn English.
They can learn science, everything the Bible has to offer.
They can actually learn something that matters.
Amen.
They can learn something about you.
You can't learn everything there.
You can't learn math.
You know what, though, to be honest with you?
I took calculus, but I don't really use calculus anymore.
I don't really use calculus in my everyday life,
I'll be honest with you.
Okay?
And here's the thing.
I do think that some people should learn calculus.
I think calculus is great.
And I think calculus is one of the greatest achievements
of the human mind.
But let me tell you something.
If somebody wants to learn calculus,
they can either go get a book on calculus from the library
and read it.
Okay?
And they can walk them through it
and they can do the little exercises
and check their answers at the end.
And they can be an adult.
Or else they can go pay to take a calculus class.
And they can hire someone to train them.
And let's say I wanted to bring in some special tutor
to train my children in the art of piano playing, for example.
I'm going to pay somebody to teach my children piano.
Or I'm going to barter with them.
Hey, I'll teach you this and you teach piano
and we'll teach your kid German and whatever.
But you can learn things on your own today, folks.
Get an attitude of self-reliance and dependence on God
and not depending on everybody else.
Pay your own way.
Work your own way.
If you want to learn something,
pick up a book and read it.
And look, we homeschool our children.
We teach them a lot.
But honestly, they know stuff
that I don't even know where they learn it.
It's like, oh, I read a book about that.
Because my tutor reads stamps of books every week.
So they learn.
The hardest thing is just teaching them how to read.
Once they can read, they're reading books about stuff,
they're correcting me on stuff.
They're telling me the temperature on Jupiter or whatever.
You know, whatever that point of that is.
Not that I care, but I mean, they're like,
oh, the temperature is just Fahrenheit dissociation.
They study all this stuff and learn it because it's called reading.
And you know, like, I'm learning, too.
I read books every week.
In addition to doing a lot of my reading,
I read other books because I like to learn.
I love education.
I love learning.
That's why I don't like college.
That's why I don't like school.
Because I like to learn.
I don't like to be babysat.
I like to learn something.
I like to read.
And you know what?
You say, well, reading's not the best way to learn.
God gave us this book.
I mean, he didn't give us a DVD.
Right?
Where's this interactive software?
No, it's the Bible.
It's a book.
Read it.
I want to say this.
God doesn't owe you anything, and I don't owe you anything.
Go work and do it yourself.
Pay it your own way.
And you know what?
The government wants to cry about how I don't have health care or whatever.
You know what?
Government, you can stick it.
I don't want your stupid health care.
I don't want your education.
I don't want your eggs and milk and cheese.
I want you to leave me alone!
And I'm going to pay for it myself.
Leave me alone!
I want to rely on no one except God and no one else because I'm a man and because I'm free.
That's why.
And that's what every man on this planet wants.
Hey, there are times when you're going to be in a bind, where you have to rely on others,
where you're sick or you're injured or you're down on your luck or you have a problem.
And you know, friends can step in and help you out.
Your church can step in and help you out.
Your parents can step in and help you out.
Your brother and sister in Christ can put some money in your hand.
Can put a bag of groceries in your hand.
But you know what?
Is that what...
But a man wants to do it himself.
And God wants us to enjoy our own labor.
Not be a moocher and a freeloader.
Let's borrow that word of prayer.
Father, thank you so much for your word, dear God.
And thank you for the examples of godly men in the Bible who paid for themselves.
Help us just not to get brainwashed by our society.
The world just owes us a free visit, a free house, a free car, a free health care, a free education.
God, help us to buy the things that we need and not just expect to be free.
And we thank you so much for the free gift of salvation.
We don't even want to take your glory on that one.
We can't even hold a candle to you on that one.
Thank you for the free gift.
But Father, help us not to just think everybody just owes us a free lunch all the time.
And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.