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The title of my sermon tonight is Lawsuits Among Christians. Lawsuits Among Christians. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 is very clear on this matter. The first 11 verses are dedicated to this subject. It starts out in verse number 1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust and not before the saints. Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life! If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is not a wise man among you? Know not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? Nay ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren. Now this scripture couldn't be any clearer when the Apostle Paul uses very strong language and he starts out in verse number one saying, how dare you, I mean dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust. He's saying, you know what, you've got a lot of nerve actually taking a lawsuit against your brother in Christ to the worldly court system. How dare you do that! What a shame that you would, what reproach! I mean wouldn't you rather just get ripped off? Wouldn't you rather just lose your money than to actually be found suing your brother in Christ? Suing a fellow Christian? Wouldn't it be better just to get ripped off, to lose your money? He says no, in fact, the type of people who bring lawsuits against their brothers and sisters in Christ, they're usually the ones who are doing the defrauding, and they're the ones that are usually ripping people off. Because he says, in verse number seven, now therefore there's utterly a fault among you. He's saying, this isn't a minor fault. This isn't something, well, it's a gray area. No, there's an extreme fault here. There's utterly a fault. Utter comes from the word outer, meaning this is like an outlier. This is so extreme, it's not a middle of the road scenario. It's all the way wrong. There's utterly a fault among you because you go to law one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? May ye do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren. I mean, look, it's bad to defraud. It's bad to steal. It's bad to be dishonest. But it's double bad when you're actually defrauding your own brothers and sisters in Christ in the local church and ripping people off financially. What a terrible sin. How dare you? You say, well, Pastor Anderson, if the Bible condemns with such strong language lawsuits between Christians suing your brother and sister in Christ for money, then what do you do if somebody rips you off? I mean, what do you do if somebody does you wrong or does you dirty? Well, the Bible is clear in this passage that you actually take it to the church to be judged by the church, not by the unbelieving court system, not by the world. Go to Matthew chapter 18. Now of course when we talk about going to law before the unjust, we're not talking about criminal law here. We're not talking about murder or rape or, you know, things of that nature. Those things should be brought obviously to the authorities. I mean, if somebody commits murder, if somebody is a molester or a rapist or something, of course those things are brought to the authorities. When the Bible talks about going to law with someone, it's talking about suing someone. We're talking about a lawsuit here. We're not talking about turning a violent criminal into the proper authorities. We would never sweep something like that under the rug. If someone were found to be a molester or a rapist or a murderer, you know, they would be thrown to the wolves. They would be turned over to the magistrate to be dealt with and we would never sweep such a thing. You know, we're not the Roman Catholic Church here, shifting people around and hiding all their molestation and filth. That's not what we're talking about here, folks. Really the context is going to law against your brother because you feel that you've been defrauded. We're talking about financial dealings here. We're talking about civil lawsuits where people would sue someone for damages or because of money. You say, what do you do in that situation? The Bible says in Matthew 18 verse 15, this is how you would address it in the church. Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. So if somebody rips you off, if somebody, you know, scams you or robs you in some way, the first thing to do is to try to make it right with that person, obviously, because if you can make it right just between you and them and not involve other people, hey, it's always best to just try to resolve things one on one, if you can. But he says, if he will not hear thee, then take one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. The purpose of bringing one or two more is laid out here so that every word can be established. Why? Because if I go and talk to somebody one on one or if you go and talk to somebody one on one, they could lie and say, well, he never came to me. He never talked to me or I was never told the facts or I never was, you know, asked for the money. Bringing the second party in or the third party in is simply just to document the whole encounter. That's the only purpose there. You're bringing it. Why? So that every word may be established. This is also before, you know, tape recorders and video cameras and, you know, records of that nature. So, you know, you'd bring in a person to be a witness and see the conversation take place. He says, and if he shall neglect to hear them, meaning the two people, you know, the guy and his witness or his two witnesses, tell it unto the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. So the Bible is giving the church the authority to mediate in matters of dispute between two believers, right? So if one person feels that they've been wronged or financially ripped off or whatever the case, then basically it's brought before the church and the church passes judgment. And when the church says that you, hey, you need to pay this guy the money, you owe this guy the money, then if they say, well, no, I'm not going to pay, then the punishment is that they're expelled from the church. They're considered as a heathen and a publican. They shall be unto you as a heathen and a publican. That means that you don't sue them. You basically just expel them from the church if they refuse to hear the pronouncement of the church. You could think of some examples of how this could play out. Let's say you hired someone in the church to do some work at your house. Let's say you hired a plumber or an air conditioning guy or an electrician or a carpenter and you thought, oh, I'm going to hire so and so from church, right? And then let's say they do a whole bunch of work for you and then let's say you don't pay the bill, right? They do a bunch of work. You don't pay the bill, you know, whoa, wait a minute. I installed this equipment. I did this work. I never got paid. And they go to you and they warn you and tell you, look, you need to take care of this. And then they come back with a buddy and say, look, you need to take care of this. And then if they won't, then it could be brought before the church that, hey, you hired this guy, he did all this work, and the church could look at the evidence and pronounce judgment and say, hey, you owe this money. And if you're not going to pay this money, you're going to be thrown out of the church. Does everybody understand what the Bible is saying here? But never is it right to bring a lawsuit against a brother or a sister in Christ. You should rather suffer yourself to be defrauded. Look what it says in Matthew chapter five. Go back to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter number five. The Bible says in verse number 38 of Matthew chapter five, you've heard that it has been said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that you resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. But you see, in order to obey this scripture, in order for this scripture to make sense to you, you have to loosen your grip on the things of this world a little bit. You see, people who are really into their money and their things, they're not going to let it go. I mean, if someone rips them off, if someone steals some money from them, they're just not going to let it go. Whereas Jesus is saying, look, you'd rather suffer yourself to be defrauded and be right with God than to bring a lawsuit against a brother in Christ. And look, somebody's out to sue you for your coat. Okay, here's my coat and here's my cloak also. Nuts to you. I don't care. God can take care of me. We shouldn't be so into our money and our investments and our things. We should be ready to kiss financial and material things goodbye rather than to destroy the church or destroy the spirit of the church or destroy friendships in the church. Now you should always be very careful when having any business dealings with anyone in church because sometimes these things can go bad. Sometimes it's better to just have business dealings outside of the church and to just not necessarily use people from church for business. But if you do use the services of someone from church, whether it be a tradesman or whatever the case may be, you need to be very careful that your behavior is above reproach. And if you provide services for people in the church, you should make sure that your behavior is above reproach and you need to be ready for the fact that somebody could rip you off, not pay the bill, or do a terrible job and then expect to get paid or whatever. If we were to flip that thing over, you need to be ready to kiss it goodbye. And if you loan money to people in church, you better be ready to kiss it goodbye. And if you loan something to somebody in church, you better be ready to go buy a new one the next day because you might never see it again. You might never get it back. And if you're not willing to kiss it goodbye, don't loan it out. Now I'm not saying that it's right for somebody to borrow something or borrow money and not pay back. If someone says the wicked borrow it, then payeth not again. If we borrow, we're supposed to give it back. But guess what? If you loan something out, you better be ready to kiss it goodbye and say, you know what, it's not worth causing trouble in the church. It's not worth, you know, destroying friendships, destroying relationships, being a stumbling block to people in the church. I'd rather just suffer myself to be defrauded. I'm willing to kiss it goodbye. And look, we've all loaned people things or money or whatever and didn't get it back. That's the way life is. And you have to accept that going in and not loan people money that you can't afford to lose or loan people items that you can't afford to lose. Now the inspiration for this sermon came from a news article that I read. And this news article has so many lessons in it. So many Bible verses are just flooding into my mind because this is a cautionary tale in basically just the kind of shady dealers and the kind of scams that will often happen in churches and the response to them, which is often lawsuits, which are unbiblical. And I read this article and was just blown away by it. And here's the thing. I have firsthand knowledge of this situation. Number one, before anybody says that I'm talking about things that I don't understand, let me say this. I have firsthand knowledge of this particular situation because it deals with First Baptist Church of Hammond, which is a church that I went to for years. And I went there while this was starting to happen, while this was going on. So I have firsthand knowledge of it. The people in this article are people that I have met and had conversations with and known personally. I was there when the seeds of this scandal were being sown. Not only that, but this is public knowledge. There are scores of news articles about this particular scenario. In fact, I printed it out from FBI.gov here. So these things were not done in a corner. This is what the Apostle Paul referred to as a common report. You know, this isn't any kind of just a tale bearing of, hey, I heard this or he said, she said. No, no. This is a common report. This is on FBI.gov. These are facts. People have already been condemned and sent to prison in this situation. Let me read for you this article because honestly, there's so many things that we can learn from this. And I want you to listen to this article. And I want you to listen to this scenario. And I'm going to give you some Bible verses to think about. And there's so much that we can learn tonight if you'll listen to what the Word of God says about these situations tonight. But first I wanted to lay that foundation that lawsuits among Christians are prohibited, period, 100% of the time. You either suffer yourself to be defrauded, you take it to the church for justice. If the church doesn't give you justice, well, then guess what? Too bad for you. That's life. You go on. You kiss the money goodbye and you live your life and go on with your life and pray that Christ will bless you. That's it. That's what the Bible teaches in Matthew 5, Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 6. This is a clear teaching. But listen to this. First Baptist Church sued an investment scheme. Now first of all, let me say this. It's wrong to sue your brother in Christ and it's wrong to sue the church. In fact, churches were completely immune from lawsuits until I believe the 1970s. This is a relatively new thing where churches can even be sued. Many of you were alive in a time in this country where churches were just immune from lawsuits as a matter of course. But anyway, let me read this article for you. The First Baptist Church of Hammon is being sued by two couples for money that they said was lost in an investment scheme pushed by a former deacon who allegedly was hired by the church to provide one-on-one financial counseling. The former deacon Thomas Kimmel was sentenced in 2014 to 22 years in prison and ordered to pay more than $16.5 million in restitution after being convicted in federal court in Raleigh, North Carolina of defrauding hundreds of investors across the country. According to the lawsuit, Jack Skop, former pastor of the Hammon Church received a 1% commission on each Hammon Church parishioner's investment while Kimmel received a 10% commission. Skop and Kimmel did not disclose these commissions to parishioners according to the lawsuit. Skop is currently serving 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2012 to having relations with a teenage church member. Now here's the thing about this. The first lesson that we see right here, and if you would go to 1 Timothy chapter 6. The first lesson that we see from this article is that the love of money is the root of all evil. You see, the love of money leads you into all kinds of other sins, all kinds of other perversion. The love of money is the root of all evil, the Bible says. Now if you have one of these new versions, they'll change that and they'll twist that to say, well, it's a root of many kinds of evil, whereas the trustee King James Version says it's the root of all evil, and I believe that. Modern scholars will scoff at that and say, haha, the root of all evil? Really? I mean, what in the world does rape or adultery have to do with the love of money? But these fools don't understand the scripture, so they change it. They can't comprehend this concept, so they change the scripture. No, no, no. It's the root of all evil, meaning, step 1, the love of money. That's the root. Step 2, step 3, step 4 is all other evil in your life that all goes back to that root. You have that one sin in your life of the love of money and you will go into all kinds of other evil because the love of money is the root of all evil, all kinds of evil things can be traced back to the love of money in your life. You see, even a child can have the love of money in their heart long before they would ever have the lust of the flesh and think about fornication or adultery, long before those things ever enter their mind. Even as a small little elementary school child, before those things ever enter their mind, they can still love money, and that could be a root of evil in their lives. Are you listening to me, children? Don't get into the love of money. Don't get into the lust for material goods and possessions. Thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor, children. Don't you desire what belongs to your neighbor? You be content with what you have, children. Don't go down this road. Why? Because the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6, 6, but godliness with contentment is great gain, and we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out, and having food and raiment, let us be there with content. Why? But they that will be rich, will be rich means want to be rich. They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. You see, people who love money, they fall into many foolish and hurtful lusts. They start lusting after other things besides money, because the love of money is the root of all evil. He says that these things drown men in destruction and perdition, for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things. Look, that's the same wording from 1 Corinthians 6. We just read it before the sermon began. Flee fornication. What's he saying? Man, get as far away from fornication, run screaming in the other direction. Don't play with it. Don't toy with it. Don't get close to it. Flee it. What is fleeing? What is flight? You know what fleeing is? Somebody's chasing you and you're running away. Get me out of here. I mean, picture a battlefield where, you know, they're losing the battle and the retreat has been sound. We got to retreat. We got to get out of here. We got to run for our lives. He says run for your life from fornication, run for your life from the love of money. Same language here. Flee. O man of God, because this is Paul talking to his protégé in the ministry, Timothy, a pastor, he's telling this pastor, he's saying flee these things. Man of God, don't even get near the love of money. He says follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Flee the love of money. Back to this article that I was reading here and the reason I bring that up is because, you know, here Dr. Jack Skop is involved in this shady predatory investment Ponzi scheme where he's giving people advice as a man of God. Let me just explain to you what was going on here. Dr. Skop had a program called God's plan for your money and this was going on while I was there. In fact, I attended the classes. You know, I was not doing very well financially at the time and I wanted to learn more about finances and so they were offering, you know, different classes. They offered these Sunday night classes before the service where you got to Sunday night church an hour early and you could take these different classes. They're called the TNT classes. I don't remember why they were called that but that's what they were called. What did it stand for? Teaching and training. No, it stood for something. It wasn't dynamite either. It stood for something else. Teaching and training. Is that what you said? I know that's what it was. Okay. All right. I stand corrected. I misheard you. Sorry. So yeah, the teaching and training. So yeah, it was the TNT classes and it was before the Sunday night service and, you know, you could choose. I went to the one that was on finance and this guy who's in the who's gal for 22 years, I went to his class and had this guy explain the financial principles or whatever and look, I'll be honest with you, I'm not a perfect person. You know, honestly, I got deceived by it a little bit and got a little sucked into this mentality which is like a Dave Ramsey mentality and, you know, you can get my sermon on Dave Ramsey exposed, download it and listen to it. The Dave Ramsey mentality, it was the exact same type of things that Scott was teaching and that Kimmel were teaching at First Baptist Church and you get sucked into it. It sounds good. They quote a lot of Bible verses but they are teaching a false doctrine and they are basically teaching you to seek money and to seek riches and to desire to be rich and the Bible just warns you, look, you're going to fall if you do that. Of course, Scott is not only involved in predatory investment schemes but then, of course, he's the love of money has led him into other sin in his life where he is, you know, committing statutory rape with a teenager. You know, that's no coincidence, my friend. But anyway, let me keep reading here. The lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Hammond Inc. was filed this week and this article is a couple of months old so this is back in May or whatever. The lawsuit against First Baptist Church of Hammond Inc. was filed this week by Joseph Elwell, Crystal Elwell, Robert Baldwin and Deborah Baldwin individually and as custodian for her two minor children. The Elwells are former Sherriville residents now living in Yuma, Arizona while Deborah Baldwin is a former Crown Point resident now living with her husband Robert in Keel, Wisconsin. Let me say this, this guy Joseph Elwell that is suing First Baptist Church is a pastor in Yuma, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Yuma. This guy is a Baptist pastor suing a church. Now is that biblical? Now I'm not saying that this guy didn't get ripped off. I'm not saying that he wasn't the victim of a scam but does the Bible teach that it is right to go to law with your brother and sister, wouldn't you rather just suffer yourself to be defrauded? And look, he's not suing Scop who's a Judas Iscariot in prison or whatever. I mean he's suing the First Baptist Church. There's people there that are saved. I mean he's suing the brethren in Christ there. Whatever their problems are, they're not all unsaved goodnight. There's a ton of people there that are saved, okay, and you're suing your brothers and sisters in Christ and you're suing the church itself. I mean Paul would blow a gasket, if he was blowing a gasket about you going to law with your brother, I mean he'd be like, you're going to law with the church itself, what? I mean how dare you? You know, I mean he would be fuming. He probably wouldn't even write a letter. He'd just come down there and bring the rod of correction with him, you know, based on the way Paul acted toward the Church of Corinth for the things that they did. Rick Hammond, an attorney representing the church said Friday, the church believes the charges are baseless, that there's been absolutely no wrongdoing on behalf of the church and the church stands by its good works and the missionary work it has been doing in the community and around the world for decades. The church has no wrongdoing according to this lawyer. Okay, well let's stop and ask ourselves if the church has any wrongdoing. Here's the situation. You got the pastor of the church, okay, and you've got the deacon of the church, one of the many deacons, Thomas Kimmel, and they're doing financial seminars teaching you how to get your finances in order. People like me walk into these classes and they listen and they learn financial principles and they're writing this stuff down and it's all just like Dave Ramsey repackaged and whatever. But you know, you're getting this stuff down, you're learning it, right? But here's what they also teach in these classes. They teach you to invest your money in these really high yielding investments and they get up and Dave Ramsey does the same garbage where he gets up and says, oh yeah, you can get like 10% on your money, no risk. No, that's a lie. Look, you want no risk, put your money in a CD at the bank. You know what they're going to pay you? About one and a half percent on your money. I mean, it's nothing. The only way to get these crazy high 10% return on your money just to turn it over to some financial planner and they're going to get you 10% is to be in a high risk investment period. You're in a volatile high risk investment if you're making that kind of money, period. Fact. But they get up and just make it sound easy. Oh yeah, you know, you just, I mean, if you're smart, you'd be saving up your money and put it in mutual funds and you're going to get like 10% a year, it's just that easy. Yeah, right. I mean, there's people all the time where their retirement goes down and goes up and down, you know, whatever, but they just hit you with these crazy, oh yeah, 10% on your money and then they're like, well, that's what it did historically because they're going back to like the depression before inflation. So there's huge inflation in the 70s and stuff with Carter and all these periods of hyperinflation. Yeah, the stock market goes way up because the money is going way up because of inflation and I don't want to go into some big financial reason why these people are full of garbage. That's a whole other sermon. In fact, I already preached it. It was called Dave Ramsey Expose or something like that, Dave Ramsey in the title. Look it up. But anyway, they get up and they just tell you, oh yeah, you know, oh yeah, you just get 10, 12% return on your money, no risk, all kinds of collateral, piece of cake, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then they show you these charts how you're going to be a millionaire when you retire and you got to start young and blah, blah, blah. Well, here's the thing. When I was there, I had no interest in investing money. I had no interest in doing any of that. I was just there just trying to kind of get, learn some financial principles, how to be smarter with my money and how to budget my money and whatever. But here's the thing. They tell all this and then what they start doing is directing people to a specific investment. Oh, you know, oh yeah, because people are like, sir, where do I get 10% for my money with no risk? Oh yeah, well, let me just show you. It's right over here. And then they're directing them to an investment that's a bogus investment where they're getting commission. So they're pretending to be a Bible teacher, a Bible class in a church on how to handle your money, but what they're actually doing is selling their product. Are you listening to how wicked this is? I mean they're getting up and pretending to be just teaching the Bible, but then they're selling their product where Deacon Tom Kimmel's getting 10% of everything that's invested and then Pastor Scott to let him do it gets 1% of the action. Okay then Scott and Kimmel took this thing on the road from 2006 to 2011 and taught this thing all over the country. God's plan for your money pushed this phony investment all over. And then the local pastors, let's say they came to Phoenix, Arizona or Nashville, Tennessee or Dallas, Texas, wherever. They would give the pastor a kickback if any of their church members bought into the investments. And then this is what the guy would say. Tom Kimmel would get up and say, hey, listen, you should seek godly counsel. Don't get into this investment until you get advice from your pastor first. They go to their pastor for godly counsel and he's like, yeah, this is a cool investment. Cha-ching, just got my 1% commission. And it's basically praying mainly upon elderly people. You know what I mean? People like me, my age, your age, a lot of you, we don't have any money to invest. We're living paycheck to paycheck. But elderly people, a lot of times the kids are out of the house, the house is paid off, they start thinking about retirement, they have all this money and they want to invest it. And a lot of times they have $100,000, $200,000, you know, sitting in these different accounts and IRAs and mutual funds and whatever 401Ks. So they're getting these people to take their retirement and their money and savings and put it in this bogus investment. Now how can the church say we haven't done anything wrong when you held a Bible class that was about teaching biblical principles on how to handle your money? God's plan for your money from scripture and you're selling a bogus investment. The pastor's doing it, the deacons are doing it, guys that you hired. I mean good, oh we didn't do anything wrong. Yeah they did, of course they did. Now does that make it right for the guy to sue them? No. And you're like, well whose side are you on? These people are all wrong, these people are all screwed up, these people are all nuts. These people are all ashamed of the cause of Christ. The people who are scamming and ripping people off are ashamed and then the guy who turns around and says, man you stole $235,000 from me. I'm going to sue you, I'm going to sue the church, I'm suing everybody, look it's wrong. Here's an idea, don't invest $200 and some thousand dollars just because some dude from church is telling you to. There's so much to say about this. I want to read you more of this article though before I get into all the applications just so you can understand. I hope you're understanding the story here but I'm going to continue reading this article from the Northwest Indiana Times. There are times when individuals may engage in wrongful conduct but he said many people want to take that as an opportunity to wrongfully criticize the church. According to the lawsuit Elwell has been employed by First Baptist Church as a missionary since January 2000. From May 2006 until July 2009 he was allegedly employed by the church as the North American and Caribbean director for its fundamental Baptist mission board. During that time he is also said to have taught classes at Hiles Anderson College, a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Hammon. Kimmel also served on the college's board of directors according to the lawsuit. According to federal prosecutors, Kimmel sold investments, listen to the company that he's selling the investments in. Shoreline Acceptance Corporation. Doesn't that sound good? Sure. Shoreline Acceptance Corporation. Now can anybody guess just based on the name and if you already know the story don't spoil it, what do you think that this is? Hey, I want to sell you an investment in Shoreline Acceptance Corporation. What does that sound like to you? What business they're in? I mean what? What? Okay, he said life, it sounds like it'd be life insurance. What else does it sound like? Shoreline Acceptance Corporation. Travel, line, line from point A to point B. What? Payday loans. Payday loans. Yeah. Shoreline Acceptance Corporation. Okay, here's what, you want to know what it really was? Used cars. Used car dealership. Now does Shoreline Acceptance Corporation sound like a used car dealer? No, because it's a deceptive name. Making it sound like some legit investment when you're investing in a used car dealership. Oh, and it's collateral. The collateral is used cars. Okay. Now listen to this. Federal prosecutors said that Kimmel sold investments in Shoreline Acceptance Corporation in churches across the country. Hey, it's wrong to sell anything in church. You don't sell things in churches. Jesus said, make not my father's house a house of merchandise. Church is not a marketplace. The federal indictment against Kimmel's characterized the corporation as a Ponzi scheme where investors were paid their interest from new investor money, which is what a Ponzi scheme is. They robbed Peter to pay Paul. People keep investing and then they pay dividends to the first investors from the new investors they get on board. They have to keep bringing in more people. What's the big guy who got in trouble for this and went to prison and everything? The most famous, hugest Ponzi scheme of all time? Bernie Madoff. Yeah, exactly. This is a similar idea, but the biggest Ponzi scheme of all is the Federal Reserve, but that's another sermon that shall be preached at another time. Says here the lawsuit seeks to recover approximately 225 grand in losses supposedly incurred by the Elwells and 235,400 incurred by the Baldwins. According to the lawsuit, by January 2006, Scott had hired Kimmel to act as an employee of First Baptist Church for the purposes of providing financial advice, debt counseling, budgeting and investment advice for the members of the First Baptist Church. This guy is a full-time staff member on the church staff to advise people financially. He's running a corrupt investment Ponzi scheme. He's hired by the church. The pastor and the deacon are both on the take. Scott allegedly informed church members during services, during church services, that Kimmel was the church's financial advisor with offices on church premises and was available to members of the church for financial advice. The lawsuit states that Kimmel also represented to parishioners that he had invested 450 grand of his own money into Sherline, you're not going to believe this, and that First Baptist Church of Hammond and Scott had invested one million dollars in the corporation. What in the world is a church doing investing a million dollars in a used car dealership? I mean is that what you want me to do? Is that what you want Brother Baker to do? Where we take the offerings and we're going to go invest it in Sherline? What a bunch of craziness. According to the lawsuit, First Baptist Church and Scott could have terminated Kimmel's ability to provide financial services to parishioners, solicit the Sherline investments and the right to use First Baptist Church office for the same purposes at any time, yada yada yada. FBI.gov says that he was sentenced to 22 years in prison and ordered to pay 16.5 million dollars in restitution. So people got ripped off for over 16 million dollars in this scam. He personally received 1.9 million dollars in commissions, Kimmel did. And if you think about that, if he's receiving 10% and the pastors are receiving 1%, that means the pastors received like 190 grand in kickbacks to allow this scam to go on. This is from FBI.gov, Kimmel used his professed spirituality and position of trust as a tool to defraud victims at the churches, the very places they felt most safe. From day one, Kimmel told lies to maximize his commissions. He used trust and faith to defraud hundreds of victims, many of whom invested their life savings at trial. The government presented evidence that Kimmel solicited about 20 million dollars for Sherline Acceptance Corporation from investors. Most of these investors found out about Sherline through financial conferences that Kimmel gave at churches relating to biblical principles of finance and getting out of debt. Most of the victims never received any of their principal back. Kimmel would typically spend a few minutes of each conference telling investors about a 12% collateralized note program, which most people don't know what that means. They don't think it's a used car dealership, that's for sure. Many of these presentations were recorded and the government presented evidence that Kimmel's statements about Sherline were false and that the collateralized note program was a Ponzi scheme. The jury heard testimony, yada, yada, yada. Here's another article, lawsuit, Hammond Church responsible for investment fraud, you know, that's what's being alleged and so forth. There was one part that I really wanted to show you, actually it's in this other article, you know, for sake of time, I can't read you all of this stuff, but this part just blew me away when it explains about the used car dealership. Okay, here we go. It says the idea of the business, which was initially legitimate according to prosecutors, not according to the Bible, not according to the Lord Jesus Christ, but according to prosecutors the idea of the business was initially legitimate, was to finance used car loans. With the recession beginning, Kimmel said that the company would get high interest rates from people who had no other option. Did you just hear what I just read? That is wicked. The recession hits, people are struggling, people are having trouble getting a car, people have no other option, so he said, hey, I got an idea, let's take advantage of these people and let's screw them over with super high interest rates. And then let's go around to churches and get people in on the scam. Even when the world and the government said it was righteous, it wasn't. That's not legitimate, my friend. Preying upon poor people is not a legitimate way to make your money. Giving money to people who have no other option at exorbitant interest rates is wicked. Listen to me, is that where you want your heart to be? Because the Bible says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. How could you invest your money into such a wicked scam to take advantage of poor people? That's where your heart is in the gutter. Your heart is filled with the love of money. Your heart is filled with covetousness. You have no charity for your common man if you're going to take advantage of poor people through payday loans or super high interest rates or, you know, these kind of car loans of 29% or whatever crazy thing. How wicked. Now I'm going to give brother Elwell down in Yuma, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know that that's what he was investing in. Ripping off poor people, charging usury to poor people. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. But you know what? He lost his money because he invested in something wicked. Apostle Paul said, don't sue your brother in Christ. Don't sue the church. Rather, suffer yourself to be defrauded, but he said, nay, you do wrong. You defraud. Case in point. The people who are mad about losing their money, the people that are suing, hey, what's going on? You stole our money. Your whole investment was based on stealing money from other people. You invested in a criminal banking scam. I mean, why don't you just, look, you want to get a return on your investment, why don't you just invest in drugs? I mean, you want to get a big return on your, we'll get you more than a 10%, why don't you start buying heroin? You know, I mean, we live in Arizona, you probably don't have to drive that far to find some crime bosses and find some drug cartel leaders. You could probably just spend about, what, five hours and you'll be in El Paso, cross the border into Ciudad Juarez, go find El Jefe, you know, of the drug cartel. Why don't you start importing heroin into the United States? Maybe you can go around to churches and get them to invest too. I mean, and then when your heroin investment goes bad, who do I sue? When your marijuana investment goes bad, then you can sue the church that sold it to you. Look, you deserve to lose your money. Sorry, oops, I said it. You deserve to lose your money because you're a thief. And if you didn't know that that's what you were getting into, then here's an idea, figure out what you're investing in. Before you invest in it, make sure you're not investing in porno. I mean, you shouldn't just invest in random, sure-fire, sure-line porn, sure-fire heroin, sure-line drug dealers. I mean, why don't you figure out whether you're even investing in something righteous or here's a better idea, why don't you just not invest money in the wicked stock market and in wicked mutual funds and in the wicked Jewish anti-Christ Federal Reserve banking system? Why don't you just not pour a bunch of money into that junk? And why don't you wake up in the morning and read the Bible instead of the Wall Street Journal because your treasure is where your heart is in the work of God and in your family instead of putting your money into a bunch of wicked investments. Now for some people, this is a hard saying, but it's the truth. Look what the Bible says, you say, preach the Bible, okay, go to Exodus 22, let's preach the Bible. You're preaching a news article, preach the Bible. Hey, my job as a preacher is to take the Word of God and to make it relevant to the day that we live in. We need a living, breathing preacher in 2016 who sees the world that we live in, sees what the Word of God says and applies the Bible to our lives. That's why I don't just spend all my time listening to preachers from 50, 60, 70 years ago because of the fact that that preaching, a lot of it, I mean there's a lot of great truths there, there's a lot of great things you can learn there, but that's not all we need because they preached about stuff that was going on back then and we need some stuff preached about that's going on right now. And 50 years ago, I hope that somebody is dusting off a USB and listening to my preaching 50 years from now, but they're also going to need a living, breathing preacher in the year 2066 that will preach about the issues of 2066 that I haven't even thought of, that I don't even know about. You know, if we last that long, you know, before the second coming of Christ, we know not the day or the hour. Look what the Bible, you know, you go to Exodus 22, but listen to this from Proverbs 28 verse 8. He that by usury and unjust gain increases his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Did you hear that? The guy who makes a bunch of money off poor people who have no other option, he's going to gather up all this money and he's not going to get to enjoy it. It's going to go to the guy who pities the poor. God's going to bless the one who pities the poor, not the one who rips off poor people. You're not going to be blessed. God will make sure that you fail. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. Throw that next verse in for good measure. Look at Exodus 22 verse 21. Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Stranger means foreigner. Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child if thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry it all unto me. I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath shall wax hot, and I'll kill you with the sword. God doesn't like it when you pray on poor people, when you pray on foreigners and immigrants. Is that not what the Bible says? I will kill you with the sword. That's what it says. My anger, my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword. And your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as a usurer. Neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. And by the way, the Bible defines usury as charging interest of any rate, not a high rate. Nehemiah chapter five, one percent is defined as usury. One percent. One part in a hundred. Read it. Nehemiah five. Keep reading here. If thou at all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge, as collateral is what that means, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down, for that is his covering only. It is his raiment for his skin wherein shall he sleep, and it shall come to pass when he crieth unto me, that I will hear, for I am gracious. Go to Leviticus 25, Leviticus chapter 20. This is the law of God. This is what God thinks. Don't pray on strangers. Don't pray on poor people. Don't afflict widows and fatherless children. Don't rip people off. Don't charge usury. Don't be a usurer unto them. Now I want you to put one finger in Leviticus 25 and one finger in Deuteronomy chapter 23. Now I preached a sermon a while back called The Sin of Usury, where I went into all these principles about charging interest and predatory lending and all these different things. And let me just tell you where I stand. Let me just make it real clear. I believe that it is a sin for a child of God to loan money to someone and to charge interest. I do not believe that is right. If you loan somebody money, you loan it to them. If I loan you a hundred bucks, I want a hundred bucks back. And if I ask for more than a hundred bucks back, that's wrong. It's a hard saying, but that's what I believe the Bible clearly teaches. I don't have time to go through all the scriptures and prove that. I already did that in another sermon called The Sin of Usury. But there are many people who approach the Bible with a wicked heart, seeking to justify sin. I mean, there are people who approach the Bible seeking to justify fornication. I've met many people who said fornication is fine. Now they said, they didn't say it in those words, but here's what they said. It's okay to sleep together before you're married. The Bible doesn't condemn it. The Bible doesn't prohibit it. Now how do you come to that conclusion? I'll tell you how. By approaching the Bible with a wicked heart, ignoring all the scriptures, condemning it, and then taking verses out of context and twisting them to make your case. Or the same thing, people want to condone alcohol, drinking, even drunkenness. They want to condone fornication. They want to condone polygamy. They want to condone adultery. They want to condone divorce. They want to condone all these things. If you look hard enough trying to find a way to justify your sin, you'll find it. It's a big book and you can take things out of context and twist things if you approach the Bible with a wicked heart. There are people who don't want to accept the teaching that we shouldn't be involved in charging interest. We shouldn't be involved in lending and receiving usury, receiving interest. They'll go through and find the loophole. And here's kind of the big scripture that they go to. Did I have you put a finger in Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 23? So here's what they'll do. They'll take Deuteronomy 23, look at verse 19. It says thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother. And by the way, when this says thy brother, get the context here. We're not talking about a brother in Christ. We're talking about anyone who is of the children of Israel. Because in other places when he uses this term, he'll even say your brother of the children of your people. You know, your brother of your... Look, these people are the Israelites, the 12 tribes of Israel. This is way back then when they're entering Canaan land. And he's saying your brother, meaning your fellow Israelite, okay? That's what he's saying. He says thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usury of vittles, usury of anything that is lent upon usury. Again, usury means charging interest, whether it's 1%, 30%, doesn't matter. Look at the next verse, verse 20. This is the one that people will use to justify sin. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou set his thine hand to do in the land whether thou goest to possess it. Now let me point out some things first of all. The word stranger is not the word that we know as stranger in 2016. You have to study the Bible and understand that the word stranger means foreigner. It doesn't just mean someone that you don't know. Like don't talk to strangers. It's talking about a foreigner. Like Moses said, I'm a stranger in a strange land. Famous quote. He's saying what? I'm a foreigner. I'm in a foreign country. This is what stranger means. So he's saying here, you cannot lend to your fellow Israelite, to your brother upon usury, but he says you may lend to strangers, meaning foreigners of the nations of Canaan. Now at first glance, you'd look at that and say, well what in the world? You know, I guess he's letting them charge interest to foreigners. So then people will take this and they'll approach this with a wicked mind and say, well, I'm not going to charge interest to people at church, but I'm going to go open a check cashing place and I'm going to charge interest to strangers. This is their interpretation of this, okay? But look at Leviticus 25. Let's compare Leviticus 25 with Deuteronomy 23. Leviticus 25, 35. Watch this. And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him. He's telling us to care about poor people and help them. Yea though he be a stranger or a sojourner, a sojourner meaning somebody who's just passing through from a foreign country. Yea though he be a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase. But fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee, that thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy vittles for increase, okay? Now you say, well this looks like a contradiction, Pastor Anderson, because, you know, in one place he's saying, look, you don't charge usury to your brother. That was Exodus. Don't charge usury of any of the children of Israel. Don't do it. Then we get into Leviticus, he says, don't charge usury of a poor person, right? If somebody's poor, I don't care if they're a stranger, I don't care if they're an Israelite, I don't care if they're just passing through. You don't charge interest to poor people. But then in Deuteronomy 23, he seems to be saying that we can charge interest of the foreigner but not of our Israelite. Well here's what's going on. These strangers that he's telling them that they can charge interest of in Deuteronomy 23 are the same people he told him to kill them all. So you have to understand, this isn't the New Testament. This isn't America we're talking about. This is the Old Testament when they're basically conquering the land of Canaan and these people are viewed as enemies. Destroy them. Wipe them out. They're enemies. They're wicked, satanic nations. He's saying basically charge usury of them because they're, you know, these are people that are considered wicked, evil, abhorred of the Lord types. Yeah, charge them, the people that you're told also to wipe out and conquer the land. But just because some guy happens to be a Canaanite, some poor guy who's living with you or one of these and he's a sojourner or whatever, you don't just take that as a carte blanche to just start charging interest and ripping off poor people because he specifically said that they could charge interest of their enemies. Of their enemies that were wealthy enemies, right? Because not poor, because the poor, it's always prohibited no matter who they are. So he's basically, what he's saying in Deuteronomy 23, you can charge interest of your enemies that are not poor. Evil enemies you can charge, why? Because interest is something that you would charge of someone that you hate, not of someone that you love or care about. Because it's predatory. Does everybody understand? Charging someone interest is preying upon them and abusing them. What he's saying is these evil nations that are around you that are your enemies, yeah, screw them over, but not the poor among them. Does everybody understand what he's saying? But how a person could take Deuteronomy 23 as a carte blanche to say, well, see, we can charge interest of anybody who's not saved. What do you just hate all unsaved people? You just want to rip off all unsaved people? You just want to prey upon unsaved people? And look, let me ask you this. When you are down at the check cashing place doing predatory lending, are you asking every person, oh, excuse me, are you poor? Oh, can't charge interest. When you're down at the used car dealership preying upon people, hey, you're not sitting there and saying, oh, excuse me, are you poor? Oh, okay, well, let me get you zero percent APR than if you're a poor person. You think that's what they do? Go to Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Lot of lessons here tonight, people, and it all goes back to one thing. Don't let the love of money consume you. What does it say here in Psalm 15 verse 1? Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a vile person is contempt, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. He that swear it to his own hurt and change it not, who's going to abide in the tabernacle? Who's going to abide in the holy hill? Verse 5, he that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent, he that doeth these things shall never be moved. God's blessing is upon those who don't put out their money to usury, who don't charge interest. God's blessing be upon them. And God said in Proverbs 28, 8, he that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. God will curse you if you make your money through ripping people off and abusing the poor through predatory lending. What's the moral of the story? I've got to wrap it all up here because we're out of time. So I've got to put it all together in a nutshell for you. Here's what's going on, people. I gave you a cautionary tale about wicked teachers who pretended to be teaching Bible principles on money, and they're actually peddling Dave Ramsey's garbage about how God wants you to be very wealthy. Oh, so you can give it all away. Well, you know what? Tom Kimmel gave 30% of the 1.9 mil that he brought in through this scam, he gave 30% of it to church, to charity. Does that make it right? Does it make it right? Well, why don't you start up a heroin business where you can import heroin from Mexico, and why don't you give 30% of it to the church, and that'll make it okay. Why don't you start up a house of prostitution and give 30% of it to the church? Because the Bible says don't bring a price of a whore into the house of God, and then the next verse he says, don't lend on usury. Next verse. Look, the bottom line is that people who get into money and start thinking about money all the time, and the investments, and they're checking their portfolio, and they're checking the Wall Street Journal, and they're checking the Dow Jones every day, and they're checking that stuff, they become a wicked person, they become a dishonest person, and they end up losing everything. God's people. Now, listen, you say, well, what do I invest all my money in? What do I invest all my huge amounts of money in? Well, see me after the service, and I've got a great investment for you. It's a surefire thing, okay, but we've got to get on a plane to El Paso, all right? But anyway, it's all for medicinal use only, all right? But let me tell you something. Say, what do I invest my money in? Listen. Say, well, show us your portfolio, Pastor Anderson. All right, children, would you stand? Hey, you want to know what I invest in? There's three people that I expect to take care of me when I'm old, okay? My children, which the Bible commands, honor thy father and mother. The Bible commands you to care for your parents when they're old, to be there for them when they need you. Number one, my children. Number two, the church. And number three, God. These are the people that I expect to be there for me in my time of need. I mean, you know, my children, the church, and God, right? So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to spend all my money and all my time and everything I have investing in my children, the church, and God. Because those are the three people that I expect to take care of. Not, I'm not investing it in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and, you know, the 401K. And look, I would, and you say, well, how does the church, what does the church, is the church investing in a used car dealership? No, no. The church spends all of its money every month on the work of the Lord, paying workers to go soul winning, paying people to do the work of the church, paying for CDs, DVDs, USBs, just flooding this nation and this world with the word of God, with preaching, with doctrine, with soul winning. You know, doing the work of, all the money that comes in is reinvested in the work of the Lord. Opening up a branch here, you know, starting a church here, going to Botswana, all these different things. Look, it's all used to broadcast God's message all over the world from the word of God. It's all spent. It's all, you know where the investment is? It's not in a bank account. You know where the investment is? It's just in the work. You say, well, okay, what about your personal investments? I don't have any. And you know what? You say, well, Pastor Anderson, I think you preached this sermon because you just don't want somebody to sue you. You just don't want somebody to sue Faithful Word. Hey, listen to me. You can sue Faithful Word whenever you want. You're wicked if you do. But go ahead. People threaten to sue our church all the time. People threaten to sue me all the time. You know what? You can sue me whenever you want. And pretty much what you're going to end up with is a coke and a cloak. Good night. I think I got that wrong. A coat and a cloak. Yeah, you probably won't even get a coat. More like a coke. That's about what you'll end up with. You know what? Come sue me. Sue me for everything I have because I don't have anything. I don't own anything. Come sue me. Well, your house. I owe as much on the crazy thing as it's worth. Well, what about that van on the parking lot? I owe as much as it's worth. Come take over the payments. And you know what? When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. Come on. Sue me for everything I got. I'll give you the shirt off my back because that's all I got. You see, God told us not to lay up treasures for ourselves on this earth where moth and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is there where your heart be also. And look, I'm not up here saying be irresponsible with your money, be stupid, you know. Look, obviously, it's another sermon to be smart and be wise in your mind. But you know what? There's never gonna be a sermon telling you, hey, you need to get rich so you can donate more money. I don't want you to get rich. I don't want you to donate mass amounts of money because you're seeking riches. I want you to be middle class for the rest of your life. And I want you to never get ahead financially. That's my will for your life. This isn't God's plan for your money. Hey, I can't speak for God, but my will for your life is that you never make it financially, that you never get rich. I hope you never win the lottery. I hope you never play the lottery. I hope that you never strike it rich. I hope that you never become a wild success in business. I hope you never become a millionaire. I hope you never get rich. Why? Because it'll destroy your life, chances are. And you know what? I hope I never get rich. Proverbs chapter 30, give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me. Lest I be full and deny thee and say, who's the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. Look, I don't want to be poor. Who wants to be poor? Anybody? Any small child? All right. I don't want to be poor, but I don't want to be rich either. I don't want you to be poor, but I don't want you to be rich either. Why? Because I don't want to see you become a wicked person. The vast majority of people, the prosperity of fools destroys them. And I'm telling you, we need to get an attitude that says, you know what? Having food and raiment, you know, yeah, I want to have a roof over my head. I want my family to have a nice standard of living, but I'm not trying to be rich. I'm not trying to lay up a bunch of money and I'm not investing a bunch of money in who knows what wicked companies that are selling and doing who knows what to people. I mean, there's a lot of lessons from this. I mean, I didn't even have time. I'm out of time. These investments are stupid. Even legitimate investments are stupid. Letting people in church get into you for hundreds of thousands of dollars is stupid. And then double stupid is when you turn around and sue the church or sue your brother in Christ. But you know what? You can sue me whenever you want because I don't own anything. Go ahead, punk. Make my day. Go ahead and sue me. Sue me for everything. You know, these people threaten me like, I'm going to sue you, but watch out. You're going to get sued. Oh, you infringed my copyright. Come sue me. Come on. People are like, are you sure you're not infringing your copyright with this? I'm just like, I don't care. Come sue me. Oh, man, they're going to come shut you down. We don't own anything. The church doesn't own it. You know what? The church owns that van out there. I'm ready to toss you the keys. It means nothing to me. You know what they can never take away from me? They can never take away from me the souls that I've won to the Lord. Never can take that. They can never take from you the souls that you've won to Christ. They can never take from you the investment that you made in your children. Oh, take away your children. You know what? If they take away my children from me, my children will be like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And the Lord will be with them. And they can never take away what I've already sown in their hearts and taught them. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, help us never to be infected with the love of money, Lord, which is really at the root of these type of lawsuits, Lord. Help us never to sue a brother or sister in Christ. Help us to have an attitude that's ready to toss in the coat and the cloak and say, Hey, take it. It's not worth it. It's not worth dishonoring Christ. Go ahead. Defraud me, Lord. Help us never to sue a brother or sister in Christ. And Lord, help us never to make haste to be rich and to desire all this easy money that we don't earn where it's just 10, 12 percent flows in every month. Help us never to be fooled by this garbage, Lord. Help us to invest in lives. Help us to invest in souls. Help us to invest in our children, our families. Help us to invest in the work of God so that we have our heart in those places, Lord, the right places, not having our heart in predatory lending institutions. And in Jesus' name, we pray for these blessings. Amen.