This is encouraging in the middle of the week any part of the week really if you think about it first one
Begins in the dark of the midnight. Have I offed hid my face? We've been there lift it up from your heart
We're gonna let the instruments drop out on the chorus and just sing to your Lord tonight all that first verse all together now
Good afternoon everyone and welcome back to step fast Baptist Church. We're gonna go ahead and get started
We're gonna start this evening off in song number 57 in your hymnal
Song number 57
Song 57 when they ring the golden bells and sing it out under the Lord
On the second, we shall know the spring, no sorrow in the hymn and of tomorrow,
when our heart shall sail beyond the silver sea.
We shall only know the blessing of our mother's ring.
Thank you.
When they ring the golden bells for you and me.
Great singing everybody. Let's go ahead and bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church and everyone that's gathered here.
We thank you for all the souls that were one out soul winning today.
We ask that you help them to get into church and to serve you.
And we ask that you please bless Pastor Shelly with your Holy Spirit, help him to preach and edifying sermon unto us.
We can walk out better Christians and we came in for your honor and glory. It's in Jesus name we play. We pray. Excuse me. Amen.
Pardon me for that. All right. Our next song is going to be song number 60. A couple pages over.
Song 6-0.
Face to face.
on the first.
Face to face with Christ my Savior.
Thanks for coming to Set Fast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin, you would like one.
You can lift your hand nice and high.
We are on Jude 18 for our Bible memory passage.
Inside, we have our service and soul winning times.
Make sure you're updating our group chat
with your soul winning information and your emails.
On the right, a list of several expecting ladies.
We have the congratulations for the Jones and Glenda
wedding on the 23rd.
If you'd like to RSVP, there's an address there.
And there's a URL address there that you can register.
Also if you'd like to help with our conference, one other area that we had for a sign up is
for a welcome team.
Evangus Furr is helping kind of get some people to help with that, some volunteers.
Also if you signed up to do the cleaning, Ms. Eva wanted to just meet right after the
service just in our fellowship room just to discuss their schedule and arrangements.
We also have listed in our upcoming events the Mission Strip to Mexico, September 8th through the 12th.
Tyler, Texas, Solonny, Marathon, September 27th.
We have a Solonny seminar at the church on October 4th.
Our Mission Strip to Nassau is October 6th.
On the back is our prayer list, and that's pretty much all I have.
The only thing I was going to say is just to help passing out material, we are going to probably pass out shirts for the conference.
Wednesday, so the wins not the Wednesday of the conference, but the Wednesday before to those who come and are planning on
It's in our conference. So if you'd like to get them early, we'll get them out there too. Yes, so
Wednesday night you got to come that's pretty much all I have we'll go ahead and sing our song of the week song
146
For the rich is gonna lead us on 146
If that's Psalm 146 in your handouts or in your King James Bible, sing it out all together.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord.
You
Great singing everybody. As the offering plates are going around would you please turn to your bibles to Proverbs chapter number 18 Proverbs chapter number 18
18, the Bible reads, through desire a man having separated himself, seeketh and
intermedaleth with all wisdom. A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that
his heart may discover itself. When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt
and with ignominy reproach. The words of a man's mouth are as deep waters and the
It is not good to accept the person of the wicked
to overthrow the righteous in judgment.
A fool's lips enter into contention
and his mouth calleth for strokes.
A fool's mouth is his destruction
and his lips are the snare of his soul.
The words of a tail bearer are his wounds
and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.
He also that is slothful in his work
is brother to him that is a great waster.
The name of the Lord is as a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe.
The rich man's wealth is his strong city and has a high wall in his own conceit.
Before destruction the heart of man is haughty and before honor is humility.
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
The heart of the prudent geteth knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.
A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.
He that is first in his own cause, seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh, and searcheth
him out.
A brother offended is harder to be one than a strong city, and their contensions are like
the bars of a castle.
A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth, and with the increase
of his lips shall he be filled.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they that love it shall eat the fruit
thereof.
Whoso findeth the wife, findeth the good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord."
The poor useth in treaties, but the rich answereth roughly a man that hath friends must show himself friendly
And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Let us pray. Dear heavenly father. Thank you for this day
Thank you for the word of God. Lord. I want to thank you for
This church and thank you for what you've given us and what you've blessed us with
Please help us to be wise faithful stewards in Jesus name. Amen
Man
I want to preach sermon this evening on Wasting Money.
Wasting Money, and here in Proverbs chapter number 18,
it brings up this exact same concept, verse nine.
He also, that is slothful in his work as brother,
to him that is a great waster.
And it's not a good character attribute
to just waste things.
God gives us all kinds of different things.
One of those being finances or money that we receive.
And we don't wanna be wasteful with what God's given us.
We wanna be good stewards of what God's given us.
I spent a little bit of time this morning
talking about how to get money.
Just ways to make money.
And if God blesses you with anything,
whether that be
five cents, a dollar, five dollars or any amount of money.
We don't want to be wasteful with what God has given us.
And I want to talk about ways that people are just wasting
the money that they have or wasting the income they have.
And one is just being lazy, right?
I mean, we see here in this particular response
of the text is just saying, if you're slothful in your work,
you're a great waster.
And the result of most people losing money
or being foolish with money is this fact
that they're just lazy.
I want to go to Proverbs 22 again, and we read this verse, but
I'm not really making being lazy a point,
but that's just really what every point boils down to. It's just being lazy in
general.
But number one way to just waste money is on interest.
Every single dime you pay in interest is just a waste of money.
And now it says in Proverbs 22 verse 7,
the rich rule over the poor and the borrowers servant to the litter.
Linder, unfortunately because of our society and because of how debt-ridden it is,
most of us have to acquire at least some debt in order to climb out of that.
And so, I'm not going to say that all debt is unnecessary to own a home.
Pretty much almost all of us will probably have to acquire debt or mortgage or something.
And that's okay because it's secured, that debt is secured with an appreciatable asset.
When you acquire debt to service some kind of an asset purchase that appreciates in
value over time, that's going to still be okay financially, generally speaking.
debt that's unsecured and what that means about unsecured is there's no collateral, there's nothing
of value or substance to offset that particular debt, then really it's a really harmful thing to
your finances. Number one picture of this is just credit card debt.
Credit card debt is just a picture of unsecured debt and paying interest on this there's nothing wrong with a credit card
I have credit cards. I use credit cards all the time
But what I do not do is carry a balance on those credit cards ever because I don't want to pay interest on them
There's also opportunities out there to purchase things on a credit card or similar type programs
where you have zero interest for let's say six months, nine months, 21 months.
Sometimes those that can be advantageous as long as you have the diligence and character
to pay those debts off in time so as to not incur interest.
and many harmful ways.
In fact, sometimes if you only pay the minimum payment
on credit card debt, you will literally never pay it off.
It's almost designed to just only pay interest and to actually never even go down in value.
Sometimes your debt even accumulates even though you're making payments on it.
And so credit card debt is very harmful in the United States.
Some credit cards are charging anywhere from 20%, 25%, 28% interest on that particular debt.
It is extreme. It is really harmful to you and it's going to do a lot of damage.
That's why it's really important to avoid credit card debt.
children, you need to be very wise and not just go out and buy stuff that you can't pay for,
that you can't afford because credit cards will hurt you, they will harm you. Now a lot of people
have made these mistakes, okay, try to pay it off quickly and then move on. But we need to try and
live within your means and not go out and buy stuff that you don't need. Another reason why
many people get into credit card debt though is because they live so much paycheck to paycheck.
that they literally have no savings and as a result of having no savings you will run across
emergencies type situations you'll run into problems in your life and you have to pay for them.
Many times people then rely on credit cards to get them out of a bad situation but then as a
result of that they end up paying double or triple because of the interest that they incur
through that credit card debt. So it is very wise and very important to still have at least some
nominal amount of savings, some kind of an emergency fund,
maybe a month or two month salary.
Some people suggest even more if you can afford it,
three months, just so if you run into those problems,
you can pay it with your own money
and you're not relying upon
extreme credit card debt situations.
You should avoid credit card debt.
That's going to incur interest.
You should avoid payday loans, advances on your paycheck, all these different things
because that is how many people are extracting wealth from the poor, extracting wealth from
impoverished people.
And it's really nasty what they're doing to them, but it's just the world that we
live in and you need to stay away from it.
Go to Proverbs chapter 6.
I'm just going to go over some of these points pretty quickly.
But number one, you don't want to waste money on interest that you don't have to pay.
Interest is a really nasty thing and compounding interest is even more nasty.
Really, when you think about a mortgage, even if you get a 30-year mortgage,
many times you're going to pay three times the value of your home.
If you actually just bought a house, you have a 30-year mortgage,
you will probably pay close to three times the value of your house for your house.
Now again, is that good? No, but is it better than just renting and getting ripped off by inflation forever?
Probably. For most people it probably will be better. But again, interest is really gnarly, really bad.
You want to avoid interest as much as possible.
Sometimes it's necessary though. We have to work. So sometimes you have to incur interest on a car
So you have to have a car sometimes you have to incur interest on a house because you have to have that don't go and buy a
Motorcycle or a C-Doo or an RV that's an extra where you have to pay all these interest payments on it
You're just throwing money away. Don't you know if you have to eat poor meals
eat poor meals, don't feel like you have to go out to eat to eat with the
Joneses and put on the credit card
and just furthering yourself into more debt, into more interest,
these things will really harm you. Another way to really lose a lot of wealth
or waste a lot of money is just traveling a lot.
The Bible says in Proverbs 6, verse 9,
How long will thou sleep, O sluggard?
Will thou arise that I sleep?
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands of sleep.
So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth,
and thy want as an armed man.
Notice the Bible kind of clumps these things
like poverty and traveling together
because traveling is expensive.
Trips are expensive.
Moving is expensive.
In fact, most of the time when you move,
you're just lighting anywhere from
$10,000 to $20,000 of money on fire.
You're just lighting it and just watching it
just evaporate before your eyes.
Buying and selling houses, you lose money.
Coming in and out of rents, sometimes you lose money.
Traveling across the country, you're going to lose money.
You're going to have to pay for movers potentially,
pay for moving vehicles.
They're going to break some of your stuff,
and you're going to have to replace some of your stuff.
You say, how many movers do that?
All of them, OK?
Even yourself, even if you move yourself,
you'll probably break something.
You're going to have all kinds of expenses,
just traveling, hotels, the in-between situations.
If you buy in still houses in a short period of time,
you're going to lose a lot of money from all the commissions
that the realtors are seeing.
So look, moving around a lot is expensive.
Traveling a lot is very expensive.
And so if you're doing this often and regularly,
it's going to waste a lot of money.
Now look, I'm not saying don't take a trip, I'm not saying don't travel every once in
a while.
Hey, if you want those memories, if you want to go do things, okay.
But sometimes people wonder like, why don't I have money?
It's because tax time comes around, you get a $5,000 check and then you go blow it at
Walt Disney World every year.
And look, if you want to live that life, go for it.
I'm not mad at you, but I'm just explaining to you why you don't have money.
and why it's just wasting a lot of money.
Traveling is extremely expensive
and you should be really careful about traveling.
You know, when you're young and poor,
you may not be able to travel as much,
you may not be able to go out and see the world as much,
that's life.
But if you want to waste a lot of money,
travel all the time
and you will lose a lot of money very quickly.
Go to Proverbs 21, go to Proverbs 21.
We're just gaining some some quick wisdom from the Bible number one way to just waste a lot of money and
Spend a lot of money quickly is on interest second is by just traveling all the time
Number three is just by expensive living
Just expensive style living Proverbs 21 look at verse 17. He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man
He that love the wine and oil should not be rich
Go to Proverbs 29. I want to go to another one here Proverbs 29
Proverbs 29, verse 3,
whoso loveth wisdom rejoices his father,
but he that keepeth company with harlots
spendeth his substance.
Notice again that if you just live
an expensive, luxurious lifestyle,
you're going to have all kinds of problems.
In the previous one that we read,
if you love pleasure, loving pleasure,
what did that young man he got?
half of his inheritance, he got half of his father's inheritance, he got all of his inheritance,
and he went out and spent all of his money on harlots and on riotous living, is what
the Bible says.
And so many people, they just want to live these luxurious lifestyles, but let me tell
you something, rich people aren't living those lifestyles.
It's a facade.
You know, most people that are living these, quote, rich lifestyles are sports athletes
who are wasting all of their money and will soon be poor.
You would be surprised how many sports athletes that have made 20, 40, 50, 100 million dollars
have no money or debt.
Like you literally have more money than they do your net worth is higher than their net worth
Why because they go out and they party and they just spend all their money on
Depreciatable assets they waste their money on nonsense
They'll literally just go to bars buy liquor and pour it out to prove how quote rich they are
But the actual rich people are not doing this at all
Who are the actual rich people? Jews, of course. And of course, the Jews aren't doing this kind of stuff.
They don't drink alcohol.
They wear the same stupid little outfits and hats and walk around and they don't spend any money on anything virtually.
That's why they're always called cheap and they're penny-pinters. That's why they're rich.
People that are just going out and living these luxurious lifestyles are usually have no money.
In fact, if you notice people in nice neighborhoods, they have all these fancy cars, like really
expensive cars, and all these toys, and they're wearing fancy clothes and fancy watches and
all this stuff, they usually are the poorest people in that neighborhood.
I mean, I cannot tell you how many times, you know, working at the bank, the flashiest
people had a negative net worth, and the people that had lots of money, they look like the
poorest farmer old man you've ever seen in your life.
Because, look, the people that are living these, like, what looks like rich life
are usually never rich at all.
They usually do not have the money.
The people that flaunt themselves and peacock themselves and do all these things,
they usually have no money.
And if you just love pleasure, if you just love wine, you love oil,
look, you're going to just waste so much money so fast.
You're going to destroy yourself.
You know the person that's prudent smart wise staying away from these things will be better off
Which kind of rolls into a fourth point? It's a little different, but it's just vices vices will waste all of your money
Expensive living is gonna waste a lot of money vices is gonna waste a lot of money
We see that here Harlots Harlots is a major vice prostitution. So many people are losing so much money
On online prostitution, there's rich men giving women hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars
Online and it just makes no sense. They're wasting all their money
In fact, Andrew Tate brags about how he's extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars from men
By lying to them and pretending to be a woman
Which, who would want to brag about that?
I mean, it's just like really weird.
He's just like saying how great he is
at impersonating women and luring men
into giving him all of his money.
And, you know, this is what the online industry is doing, really, it's men that are gross
and disgusting, who are just pretending to be females, and just extracting all kinds
of wealth, and all kinds of money from people, and it's disgusting.
Drugs, gambling, all this stuff will destroy you.
Hollywood and movies and TV make it seem like rich people are going around drinking alcohol all the time and doing drugs all the time
No drug addicts and homeless people are drinking alcohol and doing drugs all the time
And of course, yeah, some Hollywood celebrities are doing this but they quickly destroy their lives.
They quickly ruin themselves, kill themselves, suicide, extreme debt,
just horrible things that are constantly happening to them
because they get addicted to all these drugs and alcohol.
Proverbs 23, look at verse 21.
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.
Notice, drinking doesn't make you cool, it makes you poor.
Why is it that when we go into the ghetto everyone smells like a drunk?
Everyone smells like they're on drugs. We walk around and you can just smell marijuana everywhere
You know, I don't walk into the rich neighborhood and just smell
Marijuana everywhere and just see broken, you know bottles of liquor and beer cans spread everywhere
I don't see all the needles from all their drugs everywhere
Why? Well, because they clean them up.
No, no, it's just a joke, but.
Also, because look, that is going to destroy you.
Look, don't be a fool.
Don't think the rich people are just
drinking themselves into oblivion.
If they're doing that,
they're gonna destroy themselves pretty soon.
The 99% of people that drink alcohol regularly
destroy their lives and become extremely poor.
Number one, because drinking alcohol is just expensive.
Drinking alcohol is extremely expensive. Going to the bar is extremely expensive.
Going to a restaurant, you know, if you go to Chili's,
if you go to one of these restaurants and you're ordering alcoholic beverages,
there's sometimes 10, 11, 12, $15 a drink.
People are ordering three, four, five of them,
and they're doing it for all their friends.
I mean, you take out 10 people that drink three or four
drinks, we're talking about a three, 400, $500 tab
just from the bar alone.
Boy, that adds up quick.
That's a lot of steak.
You know, people think like, hey, how dare you eat steak?
Well, I'm not drinking tequila,
so I can order a steak, right?
I don't need to order a $15 margarita and a $10 burger.
I can just order a $25 steak, you know?
And guess what?
I'm gonna drive home safe too,
because I'm gonna feel good.
I'm not gonna have poor judgment and lose my mind.
And at the end of the day, hey, the Bible's not saying,
if you eat good food, you're gonna go into poverty.
It says if you drink alcohol, if you're a drunkard.
Now again, what's a glutton though?
A glutton is just overindulging, overeating,
getting to a point where it's just like,
hey, you're not eating what's necessary,
you're eating way beyond.
And of course, this happens as well too.
Someone that just so has no self-control will become poor.
Isn't it crazy how many poor people homeless people they are fat?
It's like you sit here and think like, you know, oh, we got to give them money. They're starving. It's like bro
They're giant
Like they're not about to start they could live on vitamins and water for about a hundred and eighty days
You know what they want they want more liquor
You know what they want? More drugs. More fentanyl. They don't want a sandwich.
Look, I've been to homeless shelters. I've been to these places.
They're giving them food and they won't eat it. They're giving them carrots.
They're giving them sandwiches. They're giving them celery. They're giving them apples.
And they won't eat it. They don't even want it. They want money.
Why? Because they want to buy drugs and alcohol. That's what they want.
Sometimes they just want to be out of the harsh weather for a temporary space,
but they're not starving, you know, that's a facade.
Don't give money to these bums, you're just destroying them.
Look, drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
Isn't that funny?
The homeless people are always sleeping.
Why are you sleeping?
It's not like you worked hard today.
It's not like you did anything.
But you know, it's kind of funny how, like, the lazier you are,
And the more you work, the more you have energy.
In fact, working out will often give you energy.
It won't make you tired.
You're often tired because you do nothing.
If you just sit on, if you just, if you sleep in
and you go just sit on the couch
and you just don't really do much,
you will be dead tired all day.
If you get up early and you got less sleep
and you work hard and you work out,
you'll have more energy during the day.
Why? Because your body responds to what you're doing.
You're laying around, your body's like fine, we don't have to do anything, let's just take a nap.
Whereas, if you're actually working hard, your body starts firing all these different enzymes and hormones
and all these different things going on your body and it actually gives you energy.
It says, hey, let's go.
In fact, people talk about after they work out, they have like kind of a high.
They kind of have this feeling like, let's go, let's do something.
They have all this adrenaline pumping, they have all this energy pumping.
Why? Because your body was saying like, hey, we got to get going.
We got to actually respond your body responds to the things that you do and if you're not really doing much
Well, you often, you know are going to just be more tired. In fact eating
Really drags me down
Sometimes you have that do you ever have that time where it's like two o'clock and you're just like dead tired
It's often because you ate a big meal like if I if I eat a good meal or something like that's
You know got like turkey or something like that because it you know
It actually really does give you like a tired feeling you can just hit a wallet to whereas if you like don't eat sometimes
You actually still have more energy because it's like as soon as I eat
It's like my body your body changes again. It went from like working hard mode
to like, all right, slow down and digest
and just kind of take it easy and whatever.
And I also, it opens all the other hunger demons
in my body or something.
As soon as I just eat a little bit,
it's just like, all right, now feed me a lot.
Whereas like, if I didn't eat,
I would be less hungry somehow.
It's just a weird thing.
Your body just responds to everything that you're doing.
Now, look, obviously, if your wife's really irritable, you might just need to feed her,
okay?
Because we respond differently to different things.
If she's pregnant, hey, you got to keep her fed, you got to keep her going, you know,
I'm not saying like, don't eat, okay?
As men, we can do things differently than women, you know?
But at the end of the day, we all respond to what we're doing, and when you're drinking
alcohol, you're just shutting down your body.
You're shutting down your body and alcohol adds tons of calories.
In fact, people that drink alcohol, they'll drink 10, 11 beers at a time.
Some of them are 250 calories each.
I mean, they're literally drinking anywhere from like 1,000 to 1,500 to 2,000 calories a day,
just an alcohol alone.
Look, you're not going to lose weight when you're adding 15,000, 2,000 calories to your daily intake
just on drinks alone.
You know, that's why they have the beer belly.
That's why they have the beer gut.
That's why you'll see this like skinny little dude
that looks about 15 months pregnant with twins.
And you're thinking like,
what in the world is wrong with this guy?
Well, he's drinking about 1500 calories every day.
And look, that guy will come to poverty, he'll never have riches, he won't have money, he needs to give up his alcohol.
Look, if he just spent all of his beer money on investing, he'd probably be rich.
But he's a big waster because he's slothful and he's lazy and he's wasting his life.
So many people are just wasting their life and wasting the things that God's giving them.
Go to Proverbs 28, Proverbs 28, and look at verse 20.
A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent."
Look, gambling will not make you rich.
Everyone, I mean almost everyone gambles and none of them are rich.
Who's rich? The casino.
Not the gambler.
Look, there are people that win millions and millions of dollars gambling and they still are poor.
because gambling is just going to lose.
You're going to lose, it's mathematically set for you to lose.
You cannot win.
Gambling is just burning money,
it's just lighting money on fire.
You should just stay far away of it.
Look, if you're making haste to be rich,
it won't happen. How do you make money?
Do what I said in the morning sermon.
Invest money.
Play the long game, purchase real estate,
stay on it for decades.
Buy resources, stay on it for decades.
Buy interest in companies for decades.
Start a business and work hard for decades.
Get skilled labor and work for 30 years
in a skilled position.
Just work hard every day for 30 years.
You know, you should labor and work hard
and increase slowly.
That is gonna actually build and generate wealth.
Just trying to get rich quick will not work. These get rich quick schemes are all scams and frauds
They saw all over the internet. I mean, it's just like I I just started working from home
I make $8,000 a week. Let me tell you my secret. Look if someone is making $8,000 a week with this secret
They would never tell you
Like I do nothing I spend 20 minutes on my laptop every Monday, and I make $8,000 a week
You know let me tell you my secret. It's a scam. He doesn't make that. He's lying. It's not real
It's never happened never will happen, and you will never do anything but lose money by following that person
You hey if you sign up for this MLM
You're gonna make tons and tons of money know the person that started the MLM
Which is a scam artist will make money you will not make money
Only the first few people in on a pyramid scheme or an MLM or these type of things are the ones that make money.
Everyone else is a sucker. Everyone else that comes in a sucker.
And let me tell you about an MLM scam, a pyramid scam that exists. It's called Bitcoin.
And let me say this, all the people that made money are already in.
Now look.
Here's the here's the thing about Bitcoin and these cryptos and this is just my personal opinion
I know I'm making a lot of people mad
Is because of inflation Bitcoin's gonna keep going up in value and it will and look there's still money to be made in this
This Ponzi scheme. I'm not saying there isn't
But at the end of the day, there's going to be a day of reckoning.
There's going to be a point in time when all the investors just to totally deflate Bitcoin
or the government just outlaws Bitcoin or something and it's just going to, the sky is going to fall.
And all these people that have $100,000 Bitcoin
It's going to turn into like 10 bucks again or something at some point.
And they're going to lose all the money they had in that particular thing.
Now, look, in the short term, there's probably still money to be made.
It's going to go up and down.
Obviously, the American dollar keeps going down, which causes all cryptos to go up.
So, yes, is it a protection against inflation?
Sure.
Is there still probably some money to be made in it?
Yeah, but it's like some people think they like genuinely think, oh, well,
I have Bitcoin, so the mark of the beast isn't going to get me or something.
No, it says he's gonna cause all great and small rich and poor to receive a mark less they can buy or sell
It's not like there's this Bitcoin loophole to the mark of the beast or something. Yeah, okay?
Yeah, the the beast didn't think of Bitcoin, right?
He can get rid of all the banking institutions and all the credit cards and all of that
But Bitcoin he just was too big for him, right? It was too scary for him. He couldn't figure out how to get around it
No, no look
Crypto is not going to prevent you from going to the end times or it's not going to prevent
people from having to get the mark to buy or sell. They will be able to get rid of it.
Now look, I'm not against you if you have crypto. Hey, if you want to give us crypto,
I can't even accept it. But if we had ever did in the future, I'm not against it. But I don't
want to stay in it long term. In my opinion, it's a short term investment. And if I'm wrong,
Have fun proving me wrong, but I'm just telling you I don't I don't not for it
It's not backed by anything legitimate. It's not real
it's a bunch of zeros and ones in a computer somewhere and
People like blockchain. Okay, it's still zeros and ones in the computer, bro
Like I understand how computers work. Someone can manipulate these systems. No, they can't yes, they can
And so I'm not pro-crypto, maybe someone's out there just grinding their teeth like he doesn't understand crypto.
You know, like, I'm got all this crypto.
Okay, you can do whatever you want, but that's just my personal warning.
What if people are trying to get into crypto?
They're trying to make haste to be rich sometimes.
And look, all these other people like see Bitcoin and they're like, okay, I'm going to get Dogecoin now,
or I'm going to get this other crypto.
I'm not into it, I think a lot of it just scams, it's all pyramid schemes, I would stay away from it, you know.
Unless you want to buy, Baptist buy his bucks.
We've got this new system, you can buy it, it's going to work, you know, I'm not just kidding.
I've got a bridge I can sell you in San Francisco, right?
Look at verse 22, the Bible says,
He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.
don't realize they're gonna be ripped off.
They don't realize that something's about to change
and they're just gonna be totally doomed.
And I'm just telling you,
there's been all kinds of other pyramid scams,
situations where all of a sudden,
the carpet was pulled out from underneath them
and then all of a sudden they're just poor like this.
And like, I think crypto is very likely to be the same thing
where at some point,
the rug might get pulled out from some of these people.
You know, there was all kinds of investments,
a company that was a total scam and then it just,
oh, a bunch of people lost a ton of money.
2008 financial crisis, tons of people just lost tons of money.
I mean, there's many times when people are just trying
to get rich through unscrupulous means by evil situations.
Just, oh, I just found this deal and I got rich real quick.
It usually just goes as quick as it came.
That riches, that wealth, and if you're just trying
to get rich quick, you will probably be just a poor person.
I mean that's just the general wisdom of the problem.
Is there exceptions?
Sure.
Is it occasionally the person that goes out
and buys a stupid lottery ticket and wins?
Yeah.
But the 99.99999% of people, never gonna work.
And even the guy that won the lottery many times
his life is way worse than it was before.
Because only thing money really does
is it just shows you what you're really like.
You know, you just hand somebody $20 million.
If they're a bad person, they're just gonna start buying even more liquor and more drugs
and just more prostitution and just more vices and whatever.
Many of them, you know, you give people $20 million, they might just divorce their wife.
They may just leave their family, they may just quit their job, they may just move and
do something stupid.
I mean, giving money to people isn't gonna necessarily help them.
I'm for being wise with your money, but at the end of the day money doesn't make you happy and
Money doesn't give you meaning in life, but does that mean that we should just waste our money?
No, we should be good stewards of our money
So, you know the principles that I'm teaching here and not like hey
You need to have lots of money to be godly the amount of money you have means meaningless
But here's the thing if you're wasting the money you have regardless of how much money you have you're not godly
The godly person will make wise investments with their $5.
and the ungodly person will waste his ten million dollars.
Because it's not about how much money you have, it's he that is faithful in that which is least is also faithful in that which is much.
And God is sometimes just checking and seeing what you're like with the money you have.
There's a poor widow who gives two mites into the treasury
and the Bible says she gave of all of her living and Jesus said
she gave more than everybody else.
So she's going to be more greatly rewarded in heaven
not because she was rich but because of what she did with the money she was given.
She was wise with the money that she was given she was good steward with the money
She was given and she wasn't a waster, but you it doesn't matter how much money you have
It matters what you do with it and look if God blesses you with a lot of money
That's a lot of responsibility. You better do go a lot of good things with it
If he gives you a little, hey, you're still responsible to do good things with that and
not waste your money on drugs, on gambling, on prostitution, on drinking alcohol and just
making stupid financial decisions.
And look, getting rich quick won't even necessarily help your life, it could ruin it.
Don't try to get rich labor not to be rich the Bible is really clear on that
But you know what be a wise and a good steward of the money you have go to the Cusiasis chapter 7
Cusiasis chapter 7
Number one way to waste your money is just a bunch of interest on unsecured debt number two travel all the time number three
Feel like you have to be expensive living
Just wasting money on all the champagne and parties and all the different things the luxuries of this life number four vices
drugs gambling prostitution alcohol
These things will destroy you.
Here's the fifth way, which is interesting
because my fifth point this morning was
a way to make a lot of money,
just marry someone that has money.
Well, that's another way to destroy money
is getting divorced.
getting divorced and this is kind of this is mind-boggling to me because there
was a recent like there's this recent expose or there's this recent
controversy or this viral thing where this CEO his name is like Andy he got
caught just being with some woman at a Coldplay concert that was not his wife
it was like the HR director and everybody's like making fun of them
But at the same time, I just saw just like endless comments.
I mean, hundreds and hundreds of comments saying,
oh, his wife is now rich.
Oh, his wife hit the jackpot.
Oh, his wife is now going to have all this money.
And it's like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Because, no, if she divorces him and she gets half of the assets,
that's half of the money she had.
She didn't get more money by her husband cheating on her.
She didn't get like it didn't like give her extra money
At best she got half which of course we all know the divorce lawyers are gonna devour tons and waste tons of those resources
So she she got like probably a third of the money she had but divorce is one of the most
financially devastating things that happens to people
Marriage helps people because now you're combining resources.
You get to live together, you get tax benefits.
There's all these different benefits from marriage.
Divorce is just a wrecks havoc on your finances.
It is one of the most devastating things that can happen to both parties,
not just one.
Now, it's interesting because in Ecclesiastes chapter 7, look what it says in verse 26.
And I find more bitter than death, the woman.
Whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands who so please of God shall escape from her
But the sinner shall be taken by her now. This is not saying all women are bad. Okay, don't
Some people would believe that I know all right
It's talking about the bad woman
but
Obviously there could be a woman that you marry and she divorces you and look she makes your life more bitter than death itself
And this is a, this is a nasty, nasty thing.
Notice whose heart is snares and net,
and it says, if you please God, you'll escape from her.
Why would you escape from her?
Because you're not gonna marry the hoarse woman.
You're not gonna marry the harlot woman.
You're not gonna marry the gold digging woman.
Look, having money can help you acquire a wife,
but if that's the only reason she's marrying you,
don't marry her.
And I'll even say this, I'm not even mad at rich guys
having a pre-numptial agreement.
Because look if she really loves you she shouldn't it shouldn't matter that you have a prenuptial agreement
She's never going to divorce you so it doesn't even matter
And if you said if you were really rich and she knew that and you were going to marry her and you say prenupt
She's like but never do that then she might not actually really love you
Because that wouldn't even bother me like I love my wife. I'm not going to do anything to her
And somebody like oh you don't trust me
Okay
But but at the end of the day, you know, if if I wanted to be with my wife and she said I don't trust you
I would say well
I want to earn your trust then or I want to build trust with you
But I do love you and I'm gonna do my best to love you like it doesn't it wouldn't scare me or something like that
But let me tell you something, you know
There is a lot of people getting destroyed financially by gold diggers and it's not both sides
It's some people think this is only women men can do this too
Men can sometimes you know pray on older women or whatever or try to marry them just for their money to you know
You need to be careful that who you're marrying is not marrying you for money now if you're poor and she likes you
You're in man. I mean like
You know if you're young and poor or whatever and she likes you she must really like you okay, but look it would be hard
I mean if you genuinely had a lot of money or were wealthy
That could be something that you would just never know like I just don't know if she really likes me or loves me or if she just
Wants my assets or my money and so it's a real thing
Look at exes go to exes chapter 21 exes chapter 21, you know
That's why it's important when you're getting married
that you take your time, get to know them,
you make sure, hey, divorce isn't on the table for us.
We don't believe in divorce, we're never going to divorce.
That's not something that we're interested in.
You know, make sure that she believes that, she understands that.
Make sure he believes that, make sure that he understands that.
Because divorce will wreak havoc on you and your finances and destroy you.
many men have committed suicide because their wife leaves them,
takes their money, and now they're just paying alimony for her to just be with some other dude.
And look, that sucks. I'm not going to downplay that and say that that's not a horrible situation.
But you know what, taking your life is never the answer.
Okay? And at the end of the day, at least you can just serve as an example of what real pain is like,
so that other people won't make your mistake.
And, hey, you can warn other people about it.
But look, I think that if you keep doing the right thing,
you serve God, God's gonna bless you anyways.
All that stuff doesn't matter anyways,
because according to the Bible, when you get to heaven,
it's as if you were never married anyways.
All the money that you spent on whatever it is,
doesn't matter anyways.
Look, you're gonna suffer pain now.
I'm sorry about that. That's frustrating.
But you know what, if you serve God, you get a lot of people saved,
you'll be better off than all the people
that are happily married and did nothing for God anyways.
So, marriage is an important relationship, I really emphasize it and I try to help people
in that area, but even if you have a terrible marriage, you can still be an awesome person.
How many people in the Bible have a terrible marriage and an awesome person?
I mean, Moses' marriage is pretty rough.
When your wife's throwing bloody foreskins at you, it's not good.
All right?
And then he has to marry an Ethiopian woman.
You have David has a really screwed up marriage with my cow.
I mean, she like literally got remarried.
While he was married to her to FALTI whoever that guy is and then he had to bring her back
And then she's like criticizing him and he has nothing to do with her
He has really screwed up marriage situation. Hosea has a really screwed up marriage situation. I mean look are you gonna really say?
David's not awesome. I mean David's awesome
Yet, he has a screwed-up marriage situation.
Jose is awesome, screwed-up marriage situation.
Moses is awesome, screwed-up marriage situation.
Flipside, you got people like Abigail,
really great woman, seems like a godly woman.
She's married to an A-ball,
he's a total train wreck of a person,
total horrible person.
Look, you can have it on both sides of the equation,
but at the end of the day, you know what, just serve God.
But try to try to avoid divorce because it will destroy you look at Exodus 21 verse 10
The Bible says if you take him another wife her food her raiment and her duty of marriage
Shall he not?
Diminish so you know a biblical principle is like hey if you get divorced and stuff
You're a many times going to be obligated to still pay her bills, and that's just rough
That's just bad news, but you know that's what the Bible saying
That's why you should try to just stick with the one you got
and make it work. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 6, 1 Timothy chapter number 6.
So I spent a little bit of time this evening talking about
just wasting money and I want to finish this with a few more thoughts just
because
I don't want anybody to get the wrong impression.
Because the Bible just hammers the idea that money enriches is just not
the most important thing.
And I'll say this, wasting money is spending money on the things that we talked about.
Unnecessary interest, expense, like on unsecured debt specifically, traveling, expensive living,
vices, divorce, that's wasting money.
But here's the thing, spending the money you have on things you need is not wasting money.
Spending money on good food for your family
Not not a bad thing spending money on the education for yourself or your children is not wasting money
Giving money away to poor people is not wasting money
You don't you don't have to keep you don't have to have money
You don't have to be rich if you want to give all your money away
There's nothing wrong with that, but don't waste it on drugs. Don't give it to Jews
Don't give it to the bankers. Don't give it to the casino
Don't give it to the divorce attorney, you know, don't give it to all these bad institutions or these bad people or whatever.
You, you know, you want to make sure that you're a good steward of the money you have and that you're using it in a way that God will be pleased.
And look, God's pleased when you give money to, to, you know, poor people that actually need it.
God's pleased when you invest money into your own children and your brothers and sisters in Christ, you know, into the house of God.
There's ways to use your money if you don't want to have money.
Obviously, there's nothing wrong with storing up money for your family, storing up money
to invest for the future, for your children's children.
Look, that's positive.
The Bible is a good man.
Leave it in inheritance unto his children's children.
But at the end of the day, being rich is just not a goal we should have as Christians.
So we have a couple of balancing ideas.
And, you know, provide for your family and if God gives you great wealth in your pursuit
of providing, praise God, blessed to be the name of the Lord, okay?
We want to make sure, though, that our motivation is not to be rich.
Should never have a desire to be rich.
We should try to avoid trying to be rich because then you start making shortcuts, you're hasting,
you get into bad practices.
I didn't get through this, but there's a lot of ways to make money that are not good
ways to make money.
I didn't get through this.
Like the person charging all the interests like the Jews are doing okay doing illegal activity stealing
Criminal activity obviously some people are getting rich by selling vices by doing illegal things
Obviously, that should be an obvious no-brainer like don't make money this way and God will destroy these people that are making money
This way in many cases
But also whatever money you get be a good steward with it take care of it be wise, you know money is not a
simple
just one opinion like having money is bad or something or not having money is good or vice versa having money is good
Not having many is bad and really you go to most churches. They pretty much just stay in one lane
You go to the big non-denominational church. They believe that gain is godliness
They basically leave if you're poor you're a bad person if you're rich you're a good person
You go to some really tiny church that's in some podunk area that's a social justice warrior
They're gonna say being poor is being godly and being rich is ungodly and it's like they're both wrong
Because usually you go to the podunk church the reason they're poor is because they're lazy and they're wasting their money
And then you go to the non-denominational church, they have literally no spiritual rewards.
They're not serving God, and they have all this money, and God is not pleased with them whatsoever.
And we want to make sure that we're somewhere in the middle where we're saying, hey, I'm
working hard, I'm generating a lot of income, but I'm being a good steward of that.
And look, I'm not striving to be rich.
If God pushes me over in that direction, we'll bless him to be the name of the Lord.
If for some reason he takes it away, hey, I'm going to still keep working hard and providing.
But at the end of the day, being rich or poor, meaningless.
Being a good steward of what he gives you is important.
Working hard is really important, but generally speaking, I believe the Bible teaches if you are a good steward of what you have
You make good choices with your money, and you work very hard.
You'll usually be upper middle class.
I mean, you'd probably never be rich.
You'd probably never be, you know, Elon Musk or something like that.
That's just not possible, okay?
But you can still be well off.
You can be debt-free.
You can be able to, you know, have a lot of freedom financially
and take care of yourself and take care of your family and your children.
And I believe, look, every Christian should strive to be debt-free.
I don't think debt is good.
I think we should strive to do that.
But I'm not striving to be rich.
Look, not having debt doesn't make you rich.
We sometimes have a really poverty mindset
in our world today.
Just owning a home and a couple cars
and having a little bit of a nest egg is not rich.
That should be normal.
The problem is we just live in such a backward society where everybody is just so impoverished
through the slavery mindset that the bankers want you to have that, you know, we're just
really living above our means in many cases.
Our national debt is what, $31 trillion or something?
Maybe I'm off.
Isn't it close to that?
It's insane.
And look, the Bible warns 1st, 76, verse 9,
but they that will be rich fall into temptation
and a snare and anemone foolish and hurtful lust
which drown men in destruction and perdition.
I'll tell you, a lot of people will get out of church
and specifically this church, for one reason,
they're pursuing money.
They're pursuing money.
I would not want to skip church and not go to church
because I'm pursuing money.
Because God's the one that blesses us, you know, and when you don't have God's blessing,
you know, your multipliers aren't going to work as well.
There's just something about God blessing you that it just works so much better.
I can say that until I'm blue in the face, but at the end of the day, this is what the Bible is teaching.
Stay away from trying to be rich. It's a bad attitude.
Go to Psalms. We're going to look at a lot of Psalms here in a minute.
Psalms 49. I want to give some warnings to those of us.
If you ever become rich, or if you have wealth, or you have money, what does the Bible say to those people?
You know, if you're poor and you don't like your situation, work harder and get smarter.
Right?
Make good investments.
Try to make sure you're not continually paying a lot of interest on debt that you have.
You know, if you've made some bad decisions, you have some debt, okay, that happens to
all the best of us.
Just work on trying to improve your situation.
You know, and look, some people have employed, you know, tactics of people like Dave Ramsey
and others and, you know, sometimes they give good advice, sometimes their advice is just
common sense, but a lot of their advice is bad too.
So, you need to be careful who you're listening to,
what kind of financial advice that you're getting.
Psalm 49, look at verse 6.
They that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of the riches,
none of them can by any means redeem his brother,
nor give to God a ransom from.
You know, trusting in your wealth or boasting in being rich
is meaningless.
It's not beneficial.
The person that's rich is not more guy-like
than the person that's poor.
Honestly, most of the people in our church that are great soul winners do not have a
lot of money.
And a lot of them are really faithful Christians and they're really great people.
And a lot of rich people are arrogant, prideful, stuck up, selfish people.
So don't think like, oh man, I just want to be rich so I'll be a better person.
Sometimes being rich will make you a worse person.
Maybe God doesn't want you to have more money just so you'll have better character
You know, but at the end of the day, hey, I just want to be a faithful steward of what he gives me
I want to work hard and trust him and wherever God puts me. He puts me
I've had times where I've had a lot more money than others
I've had times where I've been blessed really greatly financially and times I've been ripped off horribly and
You know, I've kind of wondered like why did those things happen, but
What I have learned is, when I've gone through financial difficulties,
I think it was a great opportunity for God to humble me and for me to realize,
like, you can be the smartest person and make all the right decisions,
and God can just cause you to lose your money.
And you can just make all the right decisions and be faithful,
and then just an emergency happens, tragedy happens, things break, life happens,
and you get into debt, and you have to pay all these...
Credit cards and interests and negative things happen, and it's not that you're a bad person. It's not the bad character
Hey, maybe God's just humbling you. I don't know
But you know at the end of the day, you know we need to make sure that we don't do this look at verse 10 trust not an oppression
Don't get in this idea an attitude of like hey, I like credit cards, and I like credit card debt
We should really look. Hey, it's a negative thing. We should avoid it if we can
What does it say though at the rest of this and become not vain and robbery if riches increase set not your heart on them
So don't trust an impression. Let's not get excited about the debt and high-interest society
We live in let's despise that and try to get out of it
But at the same time if we claw our way out of it, don't then set your heart on your money
Don't don't get excited about being having money or having riches
Go to Psalm 73, Psalm 73. These are just some of the warnings.
Don't waste your money, but if you have a lot of money,
don't get a love of money. Don't think that it's special.
Don't think you're special. It doesn't matter.
Psalm 73 verse 12.
Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world,
they increase in riches.
That's a scary verse for rich people.
I mean, and look, isn't this just 99% true?
I mean, if we were to just look at the Forbes 25 list,
these are extremely wicked, extremely ungodly people.
Donald Trump is an extremely wicked person.
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world,
is an extremely ungodly person.
First of all, he doesn't even like give lip service to God.
He's like an agnostic, or maybe some variation of an atheist,
which the Bible says the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
He's like, go on life as live on Mars, which is stupid.
It's completely idiotic and a fairy tale and science fiction.
It is not reality, folks.
And even if you could get a spacecraft that could even travel out there,
the idea of actually terraforming Mars and turning it into a sustainable planet is insane.
Oh, he's so smart.
No, he's insane if you really believe that's possible.
No, the guy asked like, someone can correct me.
Doesn't he have 10 kids?
Maybe he has 12. He has like 10, 11, 12 kids.
What is it?
Well, they're definitely all bastards.
I don't know if that's true actually. I think he was married originally.
He was married and he had like several children, then they got divorced,
and then he went through 14. Okay, thank you.
Thank you. I needed some AI fact checkers or whatever.
14 children.
The guy is just pumping them out and with some of the worst women.
You know one of his girlfriends was Amber Heard, which that should just tell you
Then he had a new recent bastard kid with some Jew
What's that girl's name someone could help me?
No, it wasn't grimes. She's not that it's a
Hey, she got the nose job and dyed her hair to disguise that she's a Jew. I'm gonna forget her name, but
Ashley St. Clair, that's who I'm thinking of.
I need the fact checker.
Some Jew that's disguising that she's a Jew
because they'll get the nose job and they dye their hair
because they don't want it to be obvious
that they're a Jew or whatever.
She, and she's a whore, major whore.
She just slept with Elon Musk just for the money
in, you know, just the fame or whatever.
Obviously Grimes is even worse probably.
Some like Satanic, music singer or whatever.
He's having just endless bastard children.
Look, these guys are super wicked.
This guy is not someone to look up to.
He is not someone to model your life after.
God's not pleased with Elon Musk.
Don't sit here and think like, oh, I want my kid to be like Elon Musk.
No, he's ungodly, he's wicked, he's evil, he's a hormonger.
The Bible says marriage is honorable and all, but hormongers and adulterers, God will judge.
Don't be like Elon Musk.
Don't be like Jeff Bezos trading off your wife for a newer model.
Don't be like any of these wicked, ungodly people.
What, Warren Buffett?
Who's the other rich people?
Bill Gates, goodnight, talk about an evil,
you know, a lot of other words I'd like to say.
LeBron James, absolutely, yeah, thank you for that.
Look, obviously there's tons and tons of wicked, evil people.
LeBron's not even that rich, come on.
He's not a billionaire.
They don't let those guys have that kind of money.
We're talking about the white short juke people, okay?
In fact, I think there was like this one article I saw
and it was talking about the richest men in the world
and they're like advertised as like five seven
or something like that.
And it was just talking about the short man's revenge
or something like this.
I don't know, it was kind of funny.
But, you know, everybody wants the tall guy,
but the tall guy doesn't even have any money.
You know, this is like, you got to marry a short guy
or something.
Go if you went to Proverbs chapter 11.
What does the Bible say?
Hey, the people that are prospering in the world
that are increasingly rich or they're ungodly.
They're not generous people. They're not Christians. They're not trying to serve God. You know what?
Those guys will stab someone in the back. They'll kill people. Look. Why is Boeing killing people for trying to release?
Safety information about their aircraft
For money why are pharmaceutical companies killing people that want to be a whistleblower because of money?
Why are the Clintons killing people for money and power and fame look the rich people in this world are evil?
Satanic in many cases. They will just kill people with just a drop of the hat
It's meaningless them their gap their cattle gollium all kinds of stuff you you do not want to be one of these rich people
Proverbs 11 verse 28 the Bible says he that trusts it then his riches shall fall
But the righteous shall flourish as a branches, you know instead of trying to be the richest person in this room
You know you should try to be a soul-winning captain
Plugged into church, you know and again
Hey, what I've noticed is a lot of times people that are really diligent in their business at work often are the ones that are so
When it happens to it's not like you have to pick or choose like well
I don't want to you know
Make too much money so that I can't you know serve God look people that often are really good at their job
Are also really diligent Christians too. Okay, it's it works the same
But don't be the person that trusts is in your riches
Proverbs 13 verse 7 Proverbs 13 verse 7 there is that making themselves rich notice this yet hath nothing
There is that making themselves poor yet hath great riches, you know
We should be more concerned with earning spiritual rewards
Spiritual investments and you know we talked about this morning putting $500 a month in that 401k, right as a
Wade invest money. That's not the only way
I'm not even saying that's the best, I'm just saying that's an example.
But you know what's more important than putting $500 into a 401K every month?
Getting five people saved every month.
And that rate of return, that return on investment that you're going to get spiritually.
But you know what, how many people are a great waster
and they don't spend any time or effort and energy getting people saved.
They're wasting all their time, they're wasting all their energy,
they're wasting their youth, they're wasting their resources,
they're not doing anything for God.
You know, instead of worrying about being rich carnally, you should be more concerned
of being rich spiritually by serving God and keeping His commandments, getting people
saved.
That's the person that's making himself poor yet at the Great Riches.
Proverbs 14, go to verse 24.
What's someone that made himself poor yet at the Great Riches?
I'll tell you, are evangelists, Duncan or Bannock in the Philippines.
But that guy had a good paying salary, a good paying job, had resources in the United States
and has made a lot of financial sacrifices to be where he is right now.
And he is not making a lot of money.
You would be, I would be ashamed to tell people how much money we're paying him because it's
not much at all.
But let me tell you something, he has great riches.
Have you seen his soul any numbers?
I mean, he's not investing five people a month.
He's investing 500 people a month in his spiritual bank account.
I mean, this guy is doing some great things for God.
Yeah, he's made himself poor.
But let me tell you something, he has great riches.
Proverbs 14 verse 24, the crown of the wise is their riches.
but the foolishness of fools is folly.
Look, I'm not saying that riches are all bad.
The crown of the wise is their riches, okay?
But the foolishness of fools is folly.
I think that you could interpret this verse
if you really think about it is, hey, when you get to heaven,
having that crown, that reward crown you have,
and that's where your heart is,
that's where your true riches are, not an earthly crown.
Hey, instead of chasing that earthly gold, chase that heavenly gold, and that's what
you should be seeking after.
Proverbs 23, look at verse 4, Proverbs 23, verse 4, I've quoted this a few times, but
we'll read it again.
"'Labor not to be rich, cease from thine own wisdom.'"
You know, again, our goals should not be rich.
Proverbs 30, look at verse 8.
Proverbs 30, verse 8.
I'm trying to give some balancing verses today, because I don't want people to get the wrong
Proverbs 30 verse 8,
Remove far from me vanity and lies, Give me neither poverty nor riches,
Feed me with food convenient for me,
Lest I be fool and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord?
Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain.
Notice the Bible's not lifting up being poor or rich.
It's kind of saying the middle is almost the best.
Or what? You have the financial freedom to do what you need.
You can buy the stuff that you need. You can take care of those around you.
Your family. Hey, you can help your brother. But you don't have so much
that you're going to forget about God and get out of church. But you don't have too little
that you're just making bad decisions
and you're not acquiring wealth in a godly manner.
I want to look at just a couple more verses.
Go to Matthew 13.
We'll look at a few in the New Testament and we'll finish.
Matthew chapter 13 and look at verse 22.
In the parable of the sower, the Bible warns us that are saved that money can sometimes
stop you from serving God.
And what does it say in verse 22?
He also that receives seed among the thorns,
is he that here at the word,
and the care of this world,
and notice this,
and the deceitfulness of riches,
choke the word,
and he becomeeth unfruitful.
You know, you could get to a point
where you work really hard,
and you do everything I said in this morning sermon,
and you actually get a lot of money.
Look, what I said this morning works.
If you do what I said this morning, you work really hard, you start a business, you could
generate a lot of revenue.
And look, I've seen people do it.
There was a guy that was coming to this church, steadfast Baptist church, did not have very
much money.
He started his own business in the construction industry and he is just making tons of money
now.
Very successful business, very good reputation, doing very well for himself.
But let me tell you something, you know what, there was that deceitfulness of riches there
to not really serving God, not going soul-winning, not going to a good church,
not having a lot of spiritual riches but having a lot of carnal riches.
And look, if you just want that, you can just deploy my morning sermon
and you can chase after that.
But you never know when God's going to come around and say,
hey, that's not what I want you to do and just rip it all away from you.
Your wife leaves you and boy, divorce will just wreck that real quick.
all kinds of other evil and horrible things can happen to you just like that.
You know, I want to take my wife to a church where she's being screamed at and don't divorce him.
You know, where we're being encouraged to love each other and take care of each other
and hey, where we're emphasizing our relationship and we're serving God and we're reading our Bible and doing those things.
You know, go to Luke 6, go to Luke 6, go to Luke 6.
A lot of people quit serving God because of money.
A lot of rich people would never come to our church because they're afraid of losing money.
Look, there has been some people, very few, a few people that have literally lost their
job as a result of either coming to our church or being a part of our church.
Now, I'm not trying to scare you because if you just come to our church, there's virtually
no chance you're just going to lose your job.
The people that lost their job were active in the ministry preaching sermons and not
just preaching sermons, preaching provocative sermons.
That's why they were in danger, okay?
It's not like you just step on the premises and your boss is going to call you like, did
you just walk in a steadfast?
It's like these people are going viral on the internet for preaching what the Bible says.
And it's not even all the time.
Look, there's been plenty of people that have gone viral
and their job researched them, talked them about it,
and they're like, no problem, they just keep working.
Or get promoted.
I've had multiple jobs where my boss knew exactly who I was,
everything about it, and they've never fired me,
and I've only just succeeded or done better at my jobs.
So it's it's hard for me to believe that you're just doomed by coming to the church. I mean, I'm me, okay?
like
You know, there's not much worse
Okay, if there is and I'm just saying like if I'm not, you know losing my job and whatever
I'm not saying that it's gonna happen. You know what? I'm not that worried about it
And you know I don't want to go to church and think like oh no, I'm so afraid of losing my job
Hey, maybe God will give you a better job
Or even if he gives you a worse job, maybe your life will just be better
Because it's not about money
And you know what? We need to serve God and not allow the deceitfulness of riches to stop us from serving God to our fullest.
Just saying, you know what? I'm going to go to the best church in my area, and I'm going to go soul-winning, and I'm going to get plugged in, and I'm excited about it.
And hey, I'm even a fan of that church. I like it. I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm not ashamed about it. I love the Bible. I love being a Christian.
Islam can wear their stupid hijab and they're not embarrassed but then we have to be embarrassed of
our religion. I mean their religion their literal teacher is a pedophile. I mean imagine if they
did the same scrutiny to them oh so you're in a religion where your main teacher was a pedophile
that's not embarrassing that's not like you have some serious issues.
It's like I go to a religion where our leader was illiterate. He couldn't read. He's a pedophile. He's a warmonger
He was an idiot. Yes, Muhammad is an idiot and a pedophile and burning in hell
And their religion is wicked as hell and their religion is destroying people's lives and destroying this world
And you know what they're a wild man. That's contrary to everybody, too
It's not just them as the Jews I get it, but Islam's bad
And yet, they walk around all proud about their religion, don't they?
Why can't Christians be that way? Why can't Baptists be proud to be a Baptist?
And I'm meaning it in a positive way. Please be a Baptist.
You know, they're content with being a Baptist, not ashamed of it.
You know, it's just kind of sad.
And, you know, being rich isn't what's important. Being a Christian is important.
What does it say in verse 24?
for you have received your consolation.
That's a pretty negative verse, isn't it?
Go to chapter 12, go to chapter 12.
Yeah, a lot of rich people, you know,
they're embarrassed about being a Christian or serving God.
You know what?
You should not be embarrassed to be a Christian
and you should not, not say,
you know what, riches are more important than being godly
or being a Christian or standing up for what's right.
You should be willing to put that money online
and God's testing you.
You know, maybe God's testing you to see,
hey, do you care more about keeping your money
or being right with me?
And those that are gonna be right with God,
they'll have eternal riches.
What does it say in Luke 12 verse 20,
but God said,
And thou, fool, this night, shall thy soul be required of thee,
then who shall those things be, which thou hast provided,
so is he that layeth up treasure for himself
and is not rich toward God.
You know, the Bible calls you an idiot and a fool,
If you have lots of money, but you have no spiritual rewards.
Who is this? Dave Ramsey.
Who is this? Most of you are non-to-non preachers today.
Most of you are evangelical preachers.
Many of the people that go to Gateway are rich
and they have no riches towards God.
Many individuals in this world have tons of money
and you know what? That is not the goal of life.
One last verse. First Timothy 6 and we'll finish.
You know, I talked about this this the sermon tells wasting money
God's gonna give you a physical currency, you know, if you work hard if you do a job you get paid money
Don't waste that don't waste on a dumb things
But here's the thing in a sense. We're also getting kind of a a currency of time and
Things that we can do in our lives
Almost like a spiritual currency opportunity here
And how many people are wasting that?
They're not taking advantage of their opportunity.
They're wasting all their time, effort, and energy on carnal things,
and they do nothing spiritual.
You know, it's just, it's just being lazy.
It's just being slothful.
First Timothy, chapter number six.
I want to read verse 17 to start.
It says,
uncertain riches, but in the living God who give us richly all things to enjoy.
Look, you can have great wealth and God can strip it away. What does the Bible say?
Don't trust in uncertain riches. There is no such thing as a sure bet.
There's no such thing as a guaranteed investment. There's no such thing as
guaranteed riches. It can all be taken away. The only thing that is certain in
That's the only thing that's certain if you believe in Jesus Christ you get a turn of life. That's the only thing that's secure
but
Hey, we don't know what our lives are going to be we can go up and down
We need to make sure that if you end up getting money that you don't trust in your money
You have to stay trusting in God
And I would say for all of us Americans, we need this message because hey, we live in America, a land of prosperity.
You know, while we may not all be like rich in an American context, we still get to pretty much enjoy any food that we want.
We have a lot of safety, a lot of luxuries in this world, and we could set our heart on those things.
We could trust in those things, and instead we should be trusting in God.
You know, in America we feel like we can't be destroyed, but, you know, if we weren't the end times Babylon in a hypothetical situation,
you know, our country would be destroyed, inevitably, if we just go down the path we keep going.
Because we as a country are not trusting in God. We're trusting in our riches and in our wealth as a nation.
And as a result, we will be destroyed. We are on a path of destruction as a nation and as a country.
And as individuals, we don't want to be like that. You know, churches are on that path sometimes in the Bible.
The Bible brings up a church that thinks that they're, they say, hey, we're rich and increase with goods and have need of nothing.
And yet they don't realize that they're poor, blind, miserable, and naked.
You know, we don't want to be a church that thinks that our success is based on our bank
account.
And if that was true, we're not successful anyway, it's all right.
We have more debt than we have money.
We have more legal fees than you would ever want to know about.
And it's a nightmare.
You know, I was thinking about it, I'm like, you know what, who cares about that though?
We've incurred a lot of legal debt and legal problems and all kinds of issues, but you
know, we've accomplished so many great things spiritually.
And just like, if you die, your student loans die with you.
Well, all the debt in this world when you die, dies with you.
Now, I'm not saying this to just pass on a bunch of debt to your wife and children or something like that,
but I'm just saying, in a finalistic perspective,
hey, when you get into heaven, no one's going to recognize you by your net worth or how much debt you have.
It's going to be how much spiritual reward you have.
Did you lay up a bunch of wood hay and stubble or did you lay up gold, silver and precious stone?
Hey, I think we should strive to be good stewards. I think we should strive to be debt-free. I think we should strive to be good providers
I think we should strive to leave an inheritance under our children's children
But you know what even if I don't accomplish those goals even if I'm not successful in those goals more importantly is that I just kept
investing in my spiritual future
That I'm getting people saved. I'm working in the serving God and look
He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful that which is much if you are a good steward of what God is giving you right now
I think he's gonna keep giving you more. I
Want to be a church that's known for hey
We're good stewards of what we are given whether that be spiritual things or carnal things because the person that's not good with money
How is he gonna do with the true riches?
When we're not when we're not even doing a good job with the five dollars or ten dollars God's giving with us
How are we gonna do with doctrine? How are we gonna do with the Trinity?
How are we gonna do with salvation? How are we gonna do with our music ministry?
How are we gonna do with this building?
You know we need to learn as Christians in here to be really good stewards good examples
Making sure that we're taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of others
Sometimes that's a humble attitude is you taking care of yourself so that you can actually take care of other people
Whereas, you know, a lot of people that would be mad at this sermon,
let me tell you, there's going to be people that are mad at this sermon.
Let me tell you, they are poor people that are envious.
lazy people who are envious,
slothful people who are envious.
They'll look at you and you have a nice house or a nice car
or you provide for yourself or you get out of debt
and they'll be like, ah, you're covetous.
No, you're the covetous one because you're mad
at people that are actually trying to help themselves
and help others.
And look, that poor envious little jerk doesn't help anybody.
How is he better than the person that actually picks himself up and and blesses other people and in secret is
Blessing poor people and helping the church. Look, don't don't let the the naysayers get you down
Don't let the poor loser get you down
work hard
serve God
Make sure that you're putting him first. We're seeking first the kingdom of God in his righteousness
But at the end of the day, hey be a good steward of what God has given you
Don't waste your money on stupid unnecessary things
don't waste your life just chasing money. All right, let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father for...
what you've given us.
Thank you for all the opportunities we have.
I pray that we could understand this subject
and that we could realize that we need to be good providers,
we need to be good stewards of what you give us.
But at the end of the day,
the most important thing is the true riches,
the word of God, doctrine, soul winning.
I pray that our church would have good balance.
I pray that you would help us
to not waste our money on dumb things.
Rather, we'd use it to take care of our families
and take care of our church
and take care of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
That you would bless us.
that you would help us to be wise and good stewards of the money but not only the money,
all the things that you give us of the gospel message that we would go out there when we'd
sow the seeds that we need to, the spiritual seed that we could care about the riches that are in
heaven. And I pray that none of us would get a love of money but that we would maintain a healthy
balance of seeking first the kingdom of God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. All right, for our last song, let's turn to song number 145.
Song 145.
Song 145. It is well with my soul.
We have a key change on the last verse. Pay attention to the timing.
Sing it out on the first.
baptism. Brother Daniel, if you trust the Christ as your Savior, then I baptize you
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the lightness of his death, raise to walk the newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate Brother Daniel. God bless your dismissed.