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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] How long do we have to wait for this last step forward? We can't, it's like a few seconds. And up, down, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Up, up, up, up, up. Go ahead and turn to song number 109, Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us. Song number 109, song 109, Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us. All together now. Savior like a shepherd lead us, much we need thy tender care. In thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use thy foes prepare. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou hast bought us thine we are. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou hast bought us thine we are. We are thine, do thou befriend us, be the garden of our way. Seek thy flock from sin, defend us, seek us when we go astray. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, hear oh hear us when we pray. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, hear oh hear us when we pray. Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be. Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and power to free. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, early let us turn to thee. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, early let us turn to thee. Early let us seek thy favor, early let us do thy will. Blessed Lord and only Savior, with thy love our bosoms fill. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou hast loved us, love us still. Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, thou hast loved us, love us still. Amen. Good singing of the Spirotes, word of prayer. Dear Father, we're thankful that we could be gathered together this morning to hear the preaching of your word. Have good fellowship and I just pray you bless the service this morning. Fill Pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit, help him to edify the congregation here, that we could walk out of here as better Christians. We love you Father, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Next song is going to be Holy, Holy, Holy. It's going to be in that white handout in front of your seat there. If you don't have one, you can raise up your hand and one of the ushers will try and bring one to you. If not, you can always share with your neighbor Holy, Holy, Holy. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful M-I-T, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, Holy, Holy, all the saints adore thee, casting down their golden grounds around the glassy sea. Cherubim and Seraphim, falling down before thee, which word and art and evermore shall be. Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide thee, though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see, only thou art holy, there is none beside thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, all thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea. Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful M-I-T, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Amen. Good singing. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you did not get a bulletin and you'd like one, please slip your hand real quick up and an usher can come by and get you one. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage for the week, Exodus 20 verse number 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth the sea and all that in them is and rest of the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. If you're able to quote that, if you're 18 or under and able to quote that at the midweek service, you can claim either an ice cream treat or a couple pieces of candy on the fridge. We also have our service in soul winning times. We have a Spanish service at 4 30 and then an evening service at 5 30 and then we have a Bible study on Wednesdays at 7. Currently we're going through the book of Genesis and so I really encourage you to come and hear that. Also, we have several churchwide soul winning times. Those meet here at the at the building and so all you have to do is show up here. We have a ladies time that goes out on Tuesdays at 10 30 and my wife usually coordinates that. So if you would like to participate in your lady, you could always ask my wife about that information. Also, we have several regional soul winning times. Brother Steven Malton on Tuesdays at 5 30. Brother Sue Hale in Thursdays at 6 in Dallas. Fridays at 6. Brother Steven Malton again. Saturday's a new time. Brother Jeff Goodwin is going to be having one in Weatherford, which is kind of southwest of where our church property is, kind of in the southwest area. Also, Saturday's at 10 30. Brother Jesse Michael. If you'd like to participate in any of these times, just see the respective leaders for those times. Also, if you get a soul winning map, please try to make sure to turn those in, even if it's completed, just so we can make sure that we're filling in our maps appropriately. Also, we have our stats there and then on the right we have a list of expecting ladies. We also have our prayer list, so please keep all of those church members and everyone in your prayers. We also have on the back an announcement about a baby shower that's coming up May 1st in honor of Kim Faye Canary and R.G. Urbanic. And so that's going to be from 12 to 2. If you'd like to bring a snack or dessert, you're welcome to. Also, nursing is only preferred and they're both registered on Amazon. And our baby showers, we like to encourage all ladies to attend if you'd like to. It's an event that's open and it's a great way to just meet other ladies and just to be able to fellowship. You don't have to bring anything and we don't want to turn anyone away. Also, April 17th, we have a spring swap that Miss Natasha Zermano is organizing. And so if you have any questions, please see her. But essentially, I guess you're just bringing something of value that you no longer want and you can drop that off. And anything that's not picked up or swapped or traded will end up just getting donated to either a Goodwill or some other establishment similar to that. We had our first sports day yesterday and fortunately everyone survived it and so that was good. And now it's a lot of fun and we have more sports days that are coming up. So if you'd like to participate, it's for all children. And even the men, if you want to go around there and pretend like we're, you know, limber and young again, then we can go do that as well. Also, we have the May 1st thing. May 8th is the ladies' tee. There's a sign-up sheet. Please make sure to sign up. We also have the men's conference. Please sign up for that May 20th through the 22nd. All events are completely free, but you do have to sign up. And so that way we know exactly who's going to participate because if your name's not on the list, you know, you're going to be cast out. So you got to make sure your name's on that list, all right. And then also June 12th, we have an Ardmore, Oklahoma soul-winning marathon. It's kind of pretty much halfway between us and the Oklahoma City church, so we can kind of converge and meet for a great day of soul-winning then. And then July 3rd, we'll celebrate by soul-winning and having some hot dogs. So that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements are concerned right now. Let's go to our third song, song 103, Under His Wings. Again, that's going to be song number 103, Under His Wings. I know he will keep me, he has redeemed me and I am his child. Under his wings, under his wings, who from his love can sever. Under his wings, my soul shall abide, safely abide forever. Under his wings, what a refuge in sorrow, how the heart yearningly turns to his rest. Often when earth has no hope for my healing, there I find comfort and there I am blessed. Under his wings, under his wings, who from his love can sever. Under his wings, my soul shall abide, safely abide forever. Under his wings, oh what precious enjoyment, there will I hide till life's trials are o'er. Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me, resting in Jesus I'm safe evermore. Under his wings, under his wings, who from his love can sever. Under his wings, my soul shall abide, safely abide forever. Amen. As offering plates are being passed around, please turn your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 30. Proverbs chapter 30. The Bible reads, The words of Agar, the son of Jacob, even the prophecy, the man spake unto Ithiel, even unto Ithiel and Ucol, surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom nor have the knowledge of the holy, who hath ascended up into heaven or descended, who hath gathered the wind in his fists, who hath bound the waters in a garment, who hath established all the ends of the earth. What is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? Every word of God is pure, he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. Two things have I required of thee, deny me them not before I die. Remove far from me vanity and lies, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me. Lest I be full 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. Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty. There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes, and their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw-teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men. The horse-leech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give! There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not it is enough. The grave and the barren womb, the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that saith not it is enough. The eye that mocketh that his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. Such is the way of an adulterous woman. She eateth and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness. For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear. For a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat. For an odious woman when she is married, and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress. There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer. The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks. The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands. The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces. There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely and going. A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any. A greyhound, and he goat also, and a king against whom there is no rising up. If thou has done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth. Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the ringing of the nose bringeth forth blood. So the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day, and thank you for the opportunity to be gathered together in your house. Thank you for all of our visitors and our regular members here. Just pray that you would bless this service, that you'd fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Looking back at verse number seven, the Bible reads, Two things have I required of thee, deny me them not before I die. Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full 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. And so we have a passage here where the proverb is basically asking, you know, the person who's writing this proverb, the words of agar, he's asking for two specific things. One is that he'd be removed from vanity and lies, so obviously he's not working for CNN, okay? And then secondly though, and this is really what I want to focus my sermon on, is the fact that he's asking to neither have poverty nor riches, and so he's kind of wanting to be somewhere in the middle when it comes to, financially speaking, what he has. And I want to preach a series of sermons on finances specifically, because I think that the Bible speaks about this topic in a lot of different ways, and really when we look at the world that we live in today, I believe that people are under attack financially, and they really lack a lot of biblical wisdom when it comes to this subject. Now, when it comes to any subject in the Bible, we must find balance in the scriptures. It's very easy, especially when it comes to the finances, you know, issue or financial things, to go to one extreme when it comes to the Bible. It's very easy to basically have this idea that you should just be poor or that you should be rich, but really the Bible teaches a balanced view. The Bible teaches somewhere in the middle that we should not strive to be poor, we should not strive to be rich, you know, really we just want to have our needs taken care of and have the things that are necessary to provide for ourselves. And really, when you go to these extremes, it makes it harder to serve God. Notice what he's saying. He says in verse number nine, Lest I be full and deny thee. Sometimes when people have too much money or they have riches, it can cause them to not really want to serve God. It causes them to be distracted with their money or have too much exuberance or they're paying more attention to money than the things of God, and they end up denying their need for the Lord, you know, not trusting in Him, not relying upon Him. But then the opposite could be true, right? It says, Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God Almighty. Or you could be in such destitution that you have need of money, and so you end up doing things that are wrong, sinful, or going against God's commandments in order to provide for those needs, and both will be bad. So he's basically saying, Hey, I don't want to have to worry so much about money that I'm tempted to sin, and I also don't want to have so much money, though, where I would basically forget about God and not be serving the Lord, and so we kind of have to have some kind of a balance. Now, I looked up online, and I tried to think about this a little bit, but how do we define these categories of rich and poor? Okay, because it is relative, and I'm going to say there's no for sure answer. Okay, there's no like just here is the exact number that's rich, and here's the exact number that's poor or anything. They're going to have a little bit of variance, and it's always going to be relative. Now, one thing that I strongly disagree with is trying to find the poorest person on the planet and then comparing them to yourselves and then saying you must be rich, because obviously you could take the poorest person in America, and they'd be rich compared to people that live in like Nicaragua, or they live in like some destitute area, and it'd be wrong to say to someone that literally is like a severely impoverished person in America like you're so rich today or whatever. Obviously, it's all relative, right? It's going to be relative to where you live, to how much things cost in the area that you live, how easy it is to acquire housing, food, lodging, those type of things. So poverty and riches is always going to be somewhat relative to where you live and the environment that you're in. So let's try and think about that in America, and I looked up a couple different articles. What articles tell you this? What does it take to be considered rich in the United States, okay? And this is what it says. Am I rich is basically the question that it's asking. Odds are good that you answered no to that question, regardless of how much money you have. According to a report by Investment Bank UBS, only 28% of people with a $1 million to $5 million assets consider themselves wealthy or rich. So only if you had a million to $5 million in assets or maybe a net worth, he's saying only 28% of those people even think that they're rich. Also, it said even when you ask people with more than $5 million in assets, only 60% of themselves consider themselves to be wealthy. So when you ask yourself, a lot of times people don't feel like they're rich because I think that it can be an unattainable goal to in the mind of many people, and I'm not going to talk about that in a moment, but there has to be an objective line where someone's rich because the Bible describes rich people. So if someone's described as being rich in the Bible, then they've objectively reached a certain level of being rich. Go through a dilute chapter 16. Let me show you an example of this, but they do give an objective line. They say according to a 2017 survey by Schwab, it takes an average of $2.4 million to be considered wealthy in the United States, okay? And that's in relation to having a net worth of $2.4 million. Now, some of you might not know what net worth is. Basically, what your net worth would be is assume you sold every single possession that you own, everything that you own, your house, your car, all of your money. You liquidated all of it, and then basically you paid off all the debt that you have, and then it would just be whatever's left over, and you say, well, I wouldn't even have any money. I'd have more debt. That's called a negative net worth, okay? It's saying you would have a positive net worth of $2.4 million, okay? That person, according to Schwab, would be rich, okay? Now, it says circumstantially if you lived in North Carolina, it's $1.8 million, and if you lived in San Francisco, it's $4.2. So even in the United States, there's going to be a little bit of a variance, too, because San Francisco is ridiculously expensive to live in, whereas somewhere in the Midwest or North Carolina, it's a lot cheaper. But let's see what the Bible has to say about this, because it's not really going to be a monetary amount. That's always going to be changing. It's more about kind of your lifestyle in general. But look at Luke chapter 16, verse number 19. There was a certain rich man, so the Bible's telling us this guy's rich, which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. Now, the word sumptuously is to live expensively, lavishly, over the top. So this is someone that lives over the top every single day. Basically, someone doesn't have to worry about money. They can just buy whatever they want on a constant basis. This is the idea of someone that's rich. When they think about doing something, money's not a consideration. They're not thinking like, do we have the money to go out to eat? They don't think that. They say, do I have the money to buy these clothing? They don't think that. When they say, I want to buy a house, they don't have to think about that, because they basically can just get the things that they want. And obviously, there's going to be a little bit of variance in that category. But that's giving us a picture, an idea of someone that's rich. Most everyone in this room probably lives paycheck to paycheck, okay? You're not rich, all right? We all have to think about those things. And even, obviously, rich people consider the price of goods and all that. I'm not saying they just ignore that fact. But just to give you some kind of a relevance or some kind of idea. So that's just the secular world. I think that's generally true. I would kind of agree with these assessments as far as about $2 million net worth or something like that. Now, to be in the poverty section or in the poor section, okay? According to the United States 2021 poverty line, the income for a couple or just an individual is $26,500, okay? But then they give you $4,540 per kid. Now, once we have our fifth, okay, I calculated this, that would mean $49,200. So a family of seven, if you made under $49,200, you would be poor according to the United States. And I would agree. I would think that that's in the poverty area. That's a very low amount of money to be able to provide for your family. It's not that you can't, it's just that you're basically, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard to get all the things that you need. Now, go if you went to Matthew chapter number six, Matthew chapter number six. Now again, this sermon is going to be a little bit of a foundational sermon for our financial series. I'm just trying to give you some ideas and some parameters. Notice that the proverbs saying like, look, I don't need to be a multimillion dollar net worth type of individual. You know, I don't want that because then I can start denying the Lord and I don't want to be under, you know, $50,000 annually when I have five kids I have to provide for. That's going to make things difficult. So he's saying he wants somewhere in that middle threshold. Okay. That's basically what the proverb is, is giving us an idea of understanding. Now, Matthew chapter number six, look at the Bible says in verse 19, lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust death corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust death corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And so the Bible is telling us that we, as a commandment, should not lay up for ourselves treasures upon the earth. Now again, treasure is kind of a more extreme word when it comes to money, right? You know, if I had $5 in my wallet, I wouldn't say here's the treasure in my wallet, right? I mean, obviously treasure is kind of picturing something beyond just a little bit of money. This is something that's of high value, you know, precious commodities, things like that. And he's basically saying, look, why lay up all these treasures when there's really nothing you can even do with it? You can get to a point where you have so much wealth that there's no point even having it. You can't spend it. I mean, there's certain people in the United States, they could never spend the amount of money that they have. They've just laid up so much treasure, so much money that really, if you're not putting it to use, what's the point? You know, and in fact, you can have so much money that you can't change certain facts, okay? Once you get to be a multimillionaire, you know, food doesn't keep getting better. Food has a point at which it reaches its threshold. It's not like, well, I want the multimillion dollar meal. Now, some people try to do this, and that food is gross. You know, it's like barfed up eggs and stuff like that, a weird caviar, like, you know, it's like, who wants to eat this? You know, that's silly. And in fact, I think that food, when it crosses a certain threshold, I don't even like it anymore. You know, when it gets too fancy, it's kind of like, what is this, you know? They put a weird sauce on the steak. I'm thinking, like, I'd reject A1 and your weird cream, you know, sauce that you put on this thing. Like, give me just a normal steak, okay? And so having so much money, I mean, your house can only get so nice. Your clothes can only get so nice. The food can only get so nice, okay? So there's not a reason to lay up treasures on this earth, where you can end up losing it. What would be the point of having, oh, I discovered all this gold and all this silver, and then I lose it. It gets stolen from me, or it's taken from me. Then it ends up being in vain. He's saying, what would be better is to lay up treasure in heaven. Hey, and I like treasure. That's precious commodities up in heaven, where you can't lose these things. Now, look at verse 24. No man can serve two masters, for either will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. So there comes a point when you're going to have to make a decision. Am I going to start laying up treasure here, or am I going to start laying treasure up in heaven, okay? And he's saying you cannot do both. It's not possible to do both successfully. You're either going to end up cleaving to one or loving one or hating the other. And what would this look like? Well, you know, the Bible basically teaches this, and this is my first point. In making money, we need to have the right priorities in our life, okay? So the title of my sermon is Making Money, and it's biblical finances, making money. Point number one is we need to have the right priority for money. Money is not number one priority. Number one priority is God, okay? Number two is my wife. And then it's a really far chasm to anything else, okay? Number three is my children. Number four is my church. And then number five is my work, okay? So from my priority list, making money is in the top five. But you know what? It does not usurp God. It does not usurp my wife. It does not usurp my family. It does not usurp my church. And whenever you have the right priorities, you can end up deciding, well, where am I going to start laying up treasure, okay, with God, with my wife, with my kids, with my church, not with work. You know, I'm going to decide I want to put reading my Bible first in my life, and I want to put soul winning first in my life, and I want to put going to church first in my life. And when you do those things, it's going to alter work, because you can't have both. You know, if I decide that I'm going to go to church three times a week, and I'm going to go soul winning, and I'm going to be active in church and doing these things, it's going to limit certain career decisions that I can make. It's going to limit how much overtime I can work. It's going to limit, you know, certain functions that I can possibly do. But you know what? Having the right priorities, I'm trying to lay up treasure in heaven, my friend, not on this earth. And if I start trying to lay up treasure on the earth, guess what's going to happen? Well, God's going to start moving down that chain, and my family's going to start moving down on that chain, and I'm going to have to start working more hours at work and putting in more labor and more effort and energy above where I should be putting it. Okay, so it's important to have the right priorities. And look, the Bible teaches what should be first. Look at verse number 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Now, he gives a list of food, clothing, and these type of items. He's saying, hey, everybody needs these. Everybody's looking for these. But you know what? That's what the Gentiles are putting first in their priority. That's what they're seeking after. That's number one for them. But he's saying God's people should say the kingdom of God and his righteousness first. That has to be elevated above making money and your work if you want to be right with God. And at the end of the day, you can't serve two masters. Wherever your heart, whatever's inside your heart, we'll end up seeing it. Because eventually, you're going to cleave to one and despise the other. Eventually, we'll see you making lots of money and you're not in church anymore. Or eventually, we'll see you in church and you're in the middle with a lot of other people probably. And I'm not saying that being rich or poor makes you a bad person. What I am saying is that the proverb from an idealistic perspective is saying I want to be somewhere in the middle. Go to Malachi chapter number three. And at the end of the day, you're going to be better off having your money blessed by God than not having it blessed. I would rather have less money in it blessed by God than having more money and not be right with God. But that's going to end up depending upon where my priorities are at. What are my priorities? If my priority is making money, then I'm going to have some conflicts with God's word. Whereas if I put God first, then I'm going to have some conflicts with making money. There's going to be certain limitations and certain boundaries and parameters I put on myself in the regards of making money. Look at Malachi chapter three verse eight. Will a man rob God? Yeah, you have robbed me. But you say where have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. You're cursed with a curse. For you have robbed me, even this whole nation, bringing all the tithes in this thorehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. And all the nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. And notice God is rebuking this whole nation because as a whole, they're not tithing. As a whole, they're forsaking the things of God. And really, what is the purpose of the tithe? The tithe is to be brought into God's house so that God's house can prosper, so that God's house can flourish, so that the things of God are getting priority and preeminence and are going well. And whenever the things of God are going well, then the things of the land are going to go well. And whenever the things of God are not going well, the things of the land are going to go poorly. Now, this is going to be a theme throughout my series. And let me make it clear how I feel. There is nothing wrong with giving all of your money to God, but there is no glory in giving it to the devil. Let me say that again. There's nothing wrong with giving all your money to God, but there's no glory in giving it to the devil. You say, how can I give it to the devil? Well, notice if you don't tithe, if you're not obeying God's commandments here, what's going to happen? Well, the devourer is not going to be rebuked, and you're going to be cursed. And what is the devourer going to do? He's going to come and take your money. How could God do that? More taxes. Welcome to America. I feel like our taxes keep increasing. I wonder why. Oh, because they're using it so wisely, right? And you say, like, oh, man, the tithe is so burdensome, 10%. Oh, so you'd rather have the government take 40% then? I wonder if our country tithes 10% if your tax bill would be a lot less, because you'd be rebuking the devourer for your sake. And not just taxes, but just all kinds of other evil things that could possibly happen to you, and all kinds of other losses. How about natural catastrophes, which cost our nation billions and billions of dollars whenever natural catastrophes come in and wipe things out? And they make cities look gross. You know, go down to Houston. It looks gross. Why? Because billions and billions of dollars of damage are caused by hurricanes on a regular basis, and then the government rises taxes, and they don't end up fixing the city. They just line their pockets, and they're not rebuking the devourer for your sake. And you know what? It can easily also happen on a personal level. God can come around you. The taxman can come and get you, and your car can break down, and people can steal from you, and you can have all kinds of horrible things constantly happening to you when you're not following God's commandments. And you know what? Just because you're making more doesn't mean you're going to end up with more. Notice the person that's tithing, he's pouring out a blessing you can't receive. The person that's not is going to lose all the stuff that he has. As that sounds contrary, it is. Because the reality is, when you put God first, he'll provide for you. When you put yourself first, he's going to chastise you to get your heart back. And you know what? Some people, and I'll say that, you know, some people don't like this or wouldn't, you know, agree with this, but some people would be better off having less money. Some people would be better off having more money, okay? It's circumstantial, but you know what? Having less money might cause you to be more spiritual. It might cause you to love the Lord more. Now again, I believe in tithing, but I'm not like Gateway where I'm going to go and basically preach it every other sermon. And I'm basically saying, if you tithe, you're going to basically win the jackpot, okay? Because that's not necessarily true. And you know what? I've tithed on a regular basis my whole life, and I've never won the jackpot, okay? And I remember going there, the pastor there, Robert Morris, I've heard him preach this all the time. He loves to brag about how much money he has. But he was basically, for making a long story short, talking about how he's having a pissing contest with God about who can give more money. And he's basically talking about how he's giving the Lord this, and then the Lord's giving him more. And then he's trying to outdo the Lord or something. And he's in a very prideful way. And he's like, he finally says that he gave all his money or something. And then in his heart, he said, he thought, you know what? I've outdone you, Lord. You can't give me any more money. You can't outgive me or something. And then he says he gets a phone call, and then someone gives him an airplane. He's like, oh, you got me again, or whatever. And I'm like, so really? So God's going to reward you with an airplane when you have the most prideful attitude I've ever heard of saying you're more giving than God. Why? He wants to tell these fantastical stories to try and encourage people to just give all this money in hopes that they win the lottery. And you're like, why would they do that? Look, people play the lottery all the time. And look, these prosperity gospel preachers and these prosperity churches, they're basically preaching a lottery message with God in the mix. They say, oh, if you give money, if you get tired, you're going to win the jackpot, and you'll get planes and houses. And they have all these people come up on stage and talk about how they got millions of dollars or whatever by tithing or something. And it's like, that's a lie. That's a scam, okay? But at the end of the day, the Lord will take care of your needs when you provide for him first. That is a true thing. But we're not going to take this to some weird extreme of desire to get rich by tithing. Matthew 13 says, the deceitfulness of riches will choke the word. And some people, they want to get rich. Go to Luke chapter 12. Let me give you another verse here. Go to Luke chapter number 12. Number one, we have to have the right priority for making money. Making money is important. I'm not going to say that it's not important, but we cannot elevate that over spiritual things. We cannot get it out of line. And if you're going to tithe, you're ultimately dictating your priorities. Because tithing inherently is a negative financial decision from a carnal perspective. You're literally giving away your money. I mean, you could never say from a carnal perspective that's good. That's obviously negative from a financial picture. But God's saying, because you're putting me first, I'm going to end up causing a blessing to come upon you. So you have to believe that by faith. You have to take a spiritual step and believe and trust that He is going to provide for you. And that, in essence, is dictating your priorities. If you're not going to tithe, that also shows us where your priorities are. Because money is more important to you than putting God first. So really, we can see the heart of a person when they're not willing to follow God's commandments, when they're not willing to tithe and give the Lord a tenth of their income. Because basically, they're saying, I don't trust the Lord. I trust money more than God. I need money more than God. I want to elevate mammon over God. And they end up cleaving to the money over cleaving to the Lord. Now, some people don't like that. Why? Because they're deceived and they think that being rich would make them have a better life. They would think that having riches or these things. We saw in the Proverb, He didn't want riches. Because that's not something that you should desire in your heart. If you have a desire to be rich, you have sin in your heart. You're not right with God. No one should desire to be rich. And I'll be honest, growing up and being a child and thinking about things, I wanted to be rich lots of times. As a kid, I didn't realize how bad it was. And I'm thinking, that would be cool. I want to be a professional golfer and make millions of dollars. Or I want to own my own business and make tons and tons of money and have lots and lots of money. And there were even times in my life when thinking about career or things like that, which I'm thinking, what's going to yield me the most money? Or how can I make the most money? Or things like that. And there's nothing wrong with calculating how much money you're going to make, trying to get a good paying job, or having a business and trying to make a profit in your business. But at the end of the day, what's the goal? Is the goal to be rich? Then that's a problem. That's a place where you're not right with God. Look at Luke chapter 12 verse 15. And he said to them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisted not in the abundance of the things as you possess it. One aspect of desiring to be rich is really related to covetousness. What is covetousness? Covetousness is desiring that which you don't have. Desiring something else that someone else has. Why does someone want to be rich? Well, because I want that house. Why does someone want to be rich? Because I want to have that car. Why do they want to be rich? Because I want to have that bank account, or whatever it is that's related to money. And the Bible is saying beware of covetousness, because you know what? Just because that person has a better house than you, or has a better car than you, or has all these other things doesn't make them a better person. Not only does it not make them a better person, it doesn't even make their life better, necessarily. You know, more money, more problems is the rap song. That one's actually kind of true. And the reality is, just because you have lots of money, it's not going to necessarily make your life better, richer, or any of those things. It can make it more complicated. It's going to elaborate on whatever your personality traits are like, whatever kind of person you are. He says in verse 16, And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. So again, we have another definition of what a rich person looks like. Verse 17, He thought within himself, saying, What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do. I'll pull down my barns and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, Thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto them, Thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. So we have a couple definitions here. First of all, it's telling us what a rich man looks like, and it's defining treasure, isn't it? What's the treasure? He already has his barn full. And he's like, Well, I've got more. Let's build even more barns. Basically saying, Look, you already have everything you could possibly need. Every one of your desires is taken care of. You even have tons laid up, and then you're desiring to have even more laid up. This is obviously a picture of someone that is laying up treasure on this earth, okay? They have way more than they could possibly need or they could ever have. And he's saying, Look, why would you want to have all this money when someone else is going to get it? You're not even going to get to enjoy it. You have all this money, and you're just going to give it to your kid or some relative or somebody else, and who knows what they're going to do. What's the point of laying up all this money and blessing your kids with millions or trillions or billions or whatever? It doesn't matter. It's not necessarily going to help them in their life. It's not going to make them necessarily a better person. In fact, God calls this person an idiot. That's what fool means. Says, Thou fool, you're an idiot. Why would you want to only have riches on earth and have nothing in heaven? Have no treasure in heaven. This is someone that's basically covetous. They're desiring to have even more. And let me tell you what. I don't care how rich you are. You can continue to be covetous. You can continue to desire. That's why I quoted that earlier article to say even people that have tons of money don't think they're rich. Why? Because they're always competing with the next guy. And they're always competing with the next guy. And even the guy at the top, he still wants more money. And he's like, well, it's not satisfactory for me to be only like 50% richer than the next guy. I need to be like twice as rich as the next guy. Or I want to have this much more money. Look, they'll never be rich. And even personal wealth, they'll say, well, I'm not rich because, you know, this country has more money than me. And so they'll try to compete themselves with countries or whatever. They're never going to be satisfied. You're never going to be satisfied with riches. It's just you're never going to have enough. And you know and I know that that is a thought that comes in every person's mind. As soon as they get a new house, they're like, I can't wait to get the next one. They get a new car, I can't wait for the next one. I get a new phone, I can't wait for the next one. They save up $100. Now I want $200. Now I want $1,000. Now I want $10,000. Now I want $1,000,000. Now I want $10,000,000. Now I want $100,000,000. Now I want $1,000,000. Now I want $10,000,000. I mean, it never ends. What is the number? Let's ask rich people. What's the sufficient number to get to? There is none. They just constantly want more and more and more and more and more and more. And what's the point of having all these riches on earth instead of having them in heaven? There isn't one. You're a fool. And what's the point of being rich so it doesn't have to work? Notice, take thine ease. So you can just be lazy and party and vacation and travel and just do whatever he wants. And look, your life is not a life of taking ease. Your life should be a life of work. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. Hey, we should be workers. Now, hey, if someone was financially independent and they can do whatever they want, I'm not going to say that that's wrong, but you know what? They should still be working. And if you have that, you should be working for the Lord then. You should be putting in all your effort and energy and serving the Lord. You know, some people look at retirement as like, I can't wait to do nothing. I would think, I can't wait to do even more for the Lord then. Why not? I don't think people that retire are inherently sinful. I don't think you have to work for the man until you take your dying breath. But you know what? You should work for God until you're dying breath. You should work for the Lord until you take your last breath. Go to Proverbs chapter 23, Proverbs chapter number 23. So number one, in making money, you need to make sure it's in the right priority section. It's not above God. Number two, you need to have the right purpose in your heart for making money. And if the purpose of you making money is to be rich, it's wrong. If your purpose to making money is to have treasure on earth, it's wrong. It's not right. It's sinful. Look at Proverbs 23 verse four. Labor not to be rich. Cease from thine own wisdom. Look, the Bible's clear. We should not strive to be rich. We should not, that should not be a goal. We should not desire that. That's not something that we're striving for. Verse five. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings. They fly away as an eagle toward heaven. So he's pointing out the idea that even when you strive to be rich, oftentimes you end up failing. Or you make all that money and then it just gets taken away from you or it loses, you lose it. And this is so true. Think about how many people come into money and they just lose it like that. I mean, look at, look at all the celebrities and look at professional athletes. Professional athletes are probably the worst because they usually can only have a career for five, 10, maybe max 15 years or something like that. And in that time they're making, I don't know, it depends on which sport and which position you're in, but it could be a million to even $40 million a year, somewhere in that range. And they start living like they're going to make $40 million a year for the rest of their life. And that's going to go real quick. I mean, they're just wasting money, going to the bar, paying everybody's tab, going out to eat, buying yachts, crashing them and doing whatever they want, crashing their cars and just burning money basically. And then after they're done with their career, they're broke. They're just up to their eyeballs in debt. People that win the lottery, they don't know how to spend that money. They end up coming broke. You know, why would I want to labor to be rich? Because then I can have all this extra exuberance that might take me away from God or caused me to be distracted from the Lord or to be worried about losing it. You know, I'm not, I'm not like stressing every night about someone taking all my money. I'm like, there's no money to pay. You know, it's like, joke's on you, buddy. It's like, oops. But when you have a goal to be rich, and this is, this is another aspect of this. Okay. When, when I'm laboring to be rich, you know what ends up happening? You start cutting corners. You start cheating. You start stealing. You start making bad products. You think about companies where their goal is to be rich and not to make a good product. What happens? They start cheating, stealing, jacking up rates, doing deceptive practices, doing all kinds of evil things in order to make money. They start ripping people off because they're laboring to be rich, not to be an honest person. And look, if you own a business or you're in work, you should not rip people off and cut corners and steal and cheat to get ahead because God will take care of you. And look, I've seen lots of people rip people. I've been ripped off. Okay. And frankly, one of the worst, uh, in, in this industry is Amazon. You know what Amazon does? Amazon has been, uh, basically in a vehicle for a lot of small businesses to put their products online and sell them under the guise that they're helping small businesses under the guise that they love small business. They want to help them prosper and do good, but here's what they do. They analyze every product that these small businesses sell, and they calculate which products are the most profitable, the ones that have the highest profit margin. And then they end up start making the same product and they sell it as their Amazon brand and they sell it for cheaper than the small business. They sell it at a loss. They literally sell products to lose money just so they can drive the small business out of business. And then as soon as they drive it out of business, then they Jack the price back up so they can have the long term effect of all those profits. That's what you call evil. But you know what? Whenever your goal is to lay really rich, that's the things those people do. And there's nothing that will stop them from doing all kinds of horrible evil. And of course, you know, in the listing of products, when you're searching that small business mysteriously stops coming on the first results, huh? And the stop page and Amazon's the top results and you can get it with prime. You can get it two day delivery and it's free free delivery. I wonder why they do all these things. They know what they're doing. It's a racketeering policy. Look, they sell like 80 or 90 percent of all books now. And anybody that wants to write a book, publishers will determine if it meets the Amazon criterion. And if it doesn't, they won't. They won't produce it because they know if Amazon won't sell it, then we won't make money on the book. And so Amazon basically gets to control which books are bought and sold in the United States. I'm not joking. Go with the first of chapter five. How about, hey, if you really want to labor to be rich, open a casino. Hey, if you want to get rich, sell drugs and not just the illegal ones, the legal ones. You want to make lots and lots of money, sell drugs. You want to know how much it takes to make a drug? It's like a penny. The little powder they put together in your little capsule and they sell it to you for like 150 bucks a pop. Yeah. And it's like a sugar pill. How about these vaccines? I bet. I wonder if anybody's making any money on that. Hmm. Hey, you want to make money, sell drugs. You say which kind? All of them. Any of them. Just Tylenol, you know, whatever, whatever it is, just sell your little drug pill and you will make lots and lots of money. How about if you want to make lots of money, buy a record label in the hip hop industry and produce music that tells all black people to commit crimes as much as possible and then simultaneously buy the prison industrial complex stock and then create a contract with all prisons saying you must maintain a 90% level of occupancy in your prison. Oh, I wonder if there's anything shady going on there. Hey, look, the people that are making lots and lots of money, they're doing all this stuff. But you know what? A person that loves the Lord and is going to put God first is going to have certain boundaries that will never let them get past those thresholds, will they? They're not going to start doing these types of things, so they're never going to have that kind of money. Did I have you go to 1 Timothy chapter 5? Look at verse 8. But if any provide not for his own, especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than infidel. Now, we have to balance everything that I just taught you with this. If you're not providing for your family, you're also wicked. So therefore, should I labor? Yeah. Should I labor hard? Yes. Do I need to make money? Absolutely. But here's the question. What's the purpose? Is the purpose to get rich or is the purpose to provide for my family? Because the reality is, once I get well past the idea that I can provide for my family, I don't need to keep going and I don't have to have this uncomfortable pressure to do things that are sinful and wicked so as to gain more money. Whereas my goal to be rich, I'm going to have all this pressure to do all kinds of evil and wicked things so that I can maximize profits, so I can make as much money as possible, because the motivation, the purpose in your heart is going to dictate the decisions that you make. Go ahead to Psalm 73. I want to show you another verse here. Psalm 73. Point number one, in making money, you need to have the right priorities, God first. Number two, you need to have the right purpose when it comes to making money. You should not desire to be rich. You should desire to serve God. And if you have a desire to serve God, one of those things is providing for your family. So you know what? I am motivated to make money and I'm motivated to provide well, but not to be rich, but so that my wife and my family can live in a nice house and have good food and they can be taken care of. And so I'm going to provide what's necessary for that. And sometimes you have to get a second job or you have to do a side job or you have to do extra things. But it's not because I'm just, oh, I just got to get rich. I got to hit that jackpot. It's so my family can be better provided for. That would be the whole motivation. That would be the whole goal in what I'm doing. Feeding my family. Psalm 73, look at verse 12. Behold, these are the ungodly who prosper in the world. Notice this, they increase in riches. Now again, you know, do you think Amazon has enough money? I do, but they don't. That's why they're continually doing all these predatory practices to drive even more people out of business and do more wicked things and buy more companies and do, they can't have enough. And obviously it's also for control and other aspects. But again, the really wicked people in this world are the ones that are just multiplying the riches and multiplying their income. And you can't get to that place. If you're a godly Christian, you cannot get there in this world. You will never be the Jeff Bezos. You will never be the Bill Gates. You'll never be these type of people because you're not going to do the wicked things that they're doing in order to get this money. You're not going to be the drug dealer. You're not going to be the casino owners. And so therefore you're never going to get that type of money that they have. You're not going to be the lobbyist and the, you know, government. You're not going to be the government officials getting all, you're not going to do those type of things. So you're never going to be that person. That's why it's hand in hand with the ungodly. Now I'm not saying every person that's rich is ungodly. But what I am saying is the people that have this exorbitant amount of riches and they're trying to increase and multiply the riches, they've crossed the threshold of being wicked because you cannot do both. You can't have this exorbitant amount of riches and constantly trying to increase that riches and multiply riches without breaking God's commandments, without being very sinful. Now look at Proverbs chapter 13. Go to Proverbs chapter 13. We need to check our hearts today and say, what is the purpose of me making money today? Is my purpose in making money to provide for my family or is it to be rich? And if it's to be rich, you need to check your heart and you need to fix it because you're going to have a lot of problems. Proverbs chapter 13, look at verse 22, a good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children and the wealth of the sinner is laid out for the just. So notice, you know, there's nothing wrong with leaving an inheritance to your children. And in fact, this is even your grandchildren. So obviously there's nothing wrong with having a little nest egg or having a little bit of money to leave over to your family. The Bible says a good man would do that. You know, the person that acquired that wealth through wicked means, he's going to end up giving it to somebody else. It's going to get squandered and wasted. Look at verse number 11. Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall increase. You know, someone that just wins the lottery, it's going to be diminished. People that win the lottery never end up having more money than at the point when they acquired all that wealth at the lottery. It's only going to go down. Whereas people that are gathering money by labor and they're slowly adding, that's just going to constantly snowball and increase and get bigger and bigger over time. And you know what? That should be something that a good person's doing where they're slowly gaining wealth over time as they get older and they can provide something for their children. That's just a normal, natural thing that people will be doing. But they're gaining by labor. They're not gaining by stealing. They're not gaining by lying. They're not gaining by being deceitful or wicked or sinful or doing wrong. They're gaining by laboring. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with having money because you labored for it, because you worked for it. Hey, honest money is good money. There's nothing wrong. And you know what? Some people in the Bible ended up having great wealth because they labored really hard. Think about Jacob or think about Abraham or think about other men in the Bible who labored really hard and they ended up having good wealth. Job. Job's a picture of a guy that just worked really, really hard and he ended up having lots of money. But you know what? He didn't do it by stealing, cheating, doing wrong, being wicked. The person that did that was Laban and he lost all of his wealth to Jacob, who was what? Laboring and doing that which is right. And God gave all of Laban's money to Jacob. Now go over to First Timothy chapter number six. What's Tyler's sermon? Making money. Is making money sinful? No. Is the fact that that's a goal sinful? No. It's a sin dependent upon what your heart is saying. Am I making money to be rich? It's sinful. Am I making money to provide for my family? It's not. First Timothy chapter number six. Look at verse six. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and to this certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. But 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. For the love of money is the root of all evil which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life wherein to thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. So according to the Bible, having any desire to be rich or having this love of money, wanting to be rich. Again, it says they that will be rich. That doesn't mean they're rich. There's plenty of people that have no money but they have the desire to be rich. And they play the lottery every week and they're idiots. They're fools. They're morons. They don't understand what they're even doing. And look, that's a sin. And there could be someone that has great wealth that doesn't, is not in this category. That's not being sinful. Having money does not make you sinful. Not having money does not make you sinful. Desiring to have lots of money makes you sinful. And part of this is fighting the good fight of faith. One aspect of that is also found in verse 75 in the same book, just earlier, to provide for your own. So obviously, you know, part of the faith, part of our fight, part of our battle is providing for our family. So we have to make money. No one can just not make money. And look, homeless bums try to come in our church and try to like live off of the crowdfunding. And that's sinful. That's wicked. If anything will not work, neither should it eat, is what the Bible says. So we have to balance these things. We have to work. We have to make money. But we need to make sure our desires are in the right place. My desire first is God and my wife and my children and my church and doing spiritual things and putting God first in my life. But then I say, you know what, I still need to work to provide for that wife and to provide for those kids and to tithe in my church and do these things and be a functioning member of society. Look at verse 17. Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life. So the Bible says, even if, even if our church had someone that was rich, okay. And again, I would say they have multi million dollar net worth, okay. Even if someone is that, it's not saying kick them out of the church. It's not saying that they're sinful. It's not saying there's anything wrong with that person. But it is saying you need to tell them to not trust in their money. You need to tell them, don't trust in that because you may lose it. It may be gone tomorrow. You need to trust in the Lord and you need to be willing to distribute and be willing to communicate if need be. Because if you have just so much extra and so much exuberance and you're well beyond what you need, you know, instead of building extra barns, you should have been looking for who needed some extra food and giving it to them. Hey, my barn's already full. Can I help fill your barn up a little bit? Or can I help you? And then God maybe would have been like, I'm not going to take your life. All right. He said, hey, is the church barn full? Let's go make the church barn full. And then I bet God would have been like, hey, I'm going to keep this guy around a while. But since he's just going to lay up for himself, he says, you know what? You're laying up your wealth for another person that's going to end up doing what I want with that money. Go if you would to Matthew chapter number six for a moment. So point number two, we have to check our purpose. What's the purpose of making money? Is the purpose of making money be rich or is it to provide? And, you know, sometimes providing is not only just for your family. It could be just for other people too. There's nothing wrong with working really hard and making a lot of money so that you can help other people being charitable, being a charitable type person. Now the liberal Democrats and these people, they love to pontificate about how charitable they are, but all their charities are set up as tax shelters. They don't actually can care about people. They're not doing it to love you. And they, they give these big checks and they'll be like, look, how much money I'm giving to this charity. I'm so wonderful. Everybody clap for me. You know, did you pat my back? Come pat my back. You know, everybody tell me how wonderful I am. Put it on your Twitter, put it on your Instagram, tell everyone, you know, we're making a big ceremony, how much money I'm giving. Well, what does the Bible say about the Matthew chapter six, verse one, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven. If you want to give money to the poor to lay up treasure in heaven, don't tell anybody about it. Cause notice the Bible is saying, you're not going to get that. So you could not tell me that, Oh, well I give all this money to charity and I tell everybody about it. Well, guess what? You're not laying up any treasure in heaven. You're null and voiding that treasure that you're laying up in heaven. And in fact, Ananias and Sapphira, they even give a huge amount of money to church and they die because they lied about it. Don't tell me that the purpose doesn't matter. The only thing that matters when it comes to money is your heart, not the amount. The amounts are irrelevant. It doesn't matter. The woman who gives two mites gave more than all they that cast out of their abundance of their riches. Okay. So it's not about how much money you're giving. It's not about, uh, you know, what person you're giving it to or these types of, it's really what's going on in your heart. Are you giving money because you just love other people and you just love God's commandments? Are you giving money to the church because you want to put God first? That's what God's after. God just wants your heart. That's all he's after. And you want money can fill a void in your heart that God should be filling. And people desire to have all this money and they don't have the right purpose when it comes to making money. And look, there's nothing wrong with giving money to the poor. You know, you can do it, but don't do it with the wrong motivation because it's pointless. Don't do it to brag about it because you're not going to be doing anything beneficial. Go to Proverbs 18. Actually go to 2 Chronicles 1. I'll just read for you. In 1 John 3 the Bible says, Hereby we receive the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need and shut it up his bowels of compassion from him, I'll dwell the love of God in him. So you know, one good reason for people to have extra money is so that they can help other brethren. Imagine if no one in our church had any extra. That would suck for people that are in need because how are they going to get anything? But at the same time, you know, you still need to consider the cause of the poor. Obviously we want to balance everything. It's not saying, Hey, here's some lazy guy that's just sleeping on the sidewalk. Let's just give him millions of dollars. No, the guy that has a legitimate need, that's the guy that you should be giving money to. But at the same time, don't do that out of motivation of your heart to be seen of men to get some extra favor with me, you know, or with another person in this room or with the society or the world. They won't love you anyways. No. Give, you know, the Bible says, Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth. Meaning it should be as private and as much discretion as possible. And even this, some people try to funnel money through me. Please don't. I don't want to. They're like, Hey, will you give money to this person? I'm thinking like, no, but I do it sometimes just to accommodate, but I'm just saying like, I don't want to, I don't even want to know about it. You take care of it. You do it. You figure out a way to do it privately. And obviously, you know, somebody at the bank might know or some random, obviously somebody, but again, what's the purpose in your heart? Are you trying to be seen of men? Are you trying to use discretion? Now, here's my last point. I'm gonna try and go through it real quick. Okay. Point number one is this. We have the right priority when it comes to making money. God first. We also need to make sure that when we're trying to make money, we have the right motivation or the right purpose. Okay. What's my purpose of making money? Is it to be rich or is it to follow God's commandments? Is it to provide for my family? Is it to do that, which is right and biblical? And here's the last thing though, and making money, we need to have prudence. We need to have prudence. Now I'm going to read a verse for you, and then we're going to read second Chronicles, but it says in Proverbs 18 verse 15, the heart of the prudent get his knowledge and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. What is prudence? It's having or showing good judgment or restraint, especially in conduct or speech. When making money, you have to realize this. God gave you that money. Okay. God is blessing you with something. God's giving you something. And so when we have that money, we need to now show prudence with what he's given us so that he'll give us more or he'll bless us with the things we've given. Like first of all, tithing. That's an area of prudence, right? Showing him first. But there's other areas that we need to be prudent with the money that we make and the things that God blesses us with. Think about some of the parables. How about the guy that's given ten talents, five talents, one talent? Two guys are real prudent with the money that's given to them. One guy's not. The guy with one talent just buries it in the earth and squanders it and does nothing with it. And you know what? God ends up taking that away from him. And the parable, if you understand the spiritual picture, so we don't want to squander the things that God gives us. We don't want to be wasteful with the things that God gives us. We want to be a good steward of the things that God blesses us with. Now, in order to be a good steward with money, it takes something. It takes wisdom. It takes knowledge. Fools are not going to be good with money. Why is it that someone that wins the lottery squanders it? Because the guy playing the lottery is an idiot already. Rich people aren't playing the lottery, okay? People that are wise and have a lot of knowledge aren't playing the lottery. Fools are playing the lottery. And when a fool gets a bunch of money, he's going to lose it all because he's a fool. He already showed us he can't handle money. If you can't handle a few hundred bucks, how could you handle millions? It doesn't even make sense. You know you should want more than having money? Wisdom. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 1 verse 7. In that night did God appear unto Solomon and said unto him, ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said unto him, unto God, thou hast showed great mercy unto David my father, and hast made me to reign instead. Now, O Lord God, let thy promise unto David my father be established. For thou hast made me king over a people like the dust of the earth and multitude. Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people. For who can judge this thy people that is so great? And God said unto Solomon, because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life, but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people over whom I have made thee king. Wisdom and knowledge is granted thee, and I will give thee riches and wealth and honor such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like. Now, we have to understand this story. Solomon is taking over a kingdom that's already somewhat wealthy. It's already been doing well because David's conquered lots of enemies. They've gathered lots of spoil. And in fact, David has laid up all kinds of extra spoil and preparation to build the house of the Lord. So he's already starting off at a pretty good mark. And he's going to become a ruler of a huge nation. And God's saying, what do you want? And notice he doesn't ask for more money. He doesn't ask for more goods. He asks for what? Wisdom. Because he realizes that's the most important thing. And the reality is if you want to be financially blessed by God, you need more wisdom than you need more money. You need more knowledge. You need more prudence than you need more money. Hey, you want to make money and to be blessed by God? Well, you need to have it in the right priority section. You need to make sure that you have the right purpose in your heart. And number three, you need some prudence in your life. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how much money's coming in, it's going to go out. I've literally seen two doctors who are making $20,000 a month each coming into their bank account. $40,000 a month. Who thinks that that would be okay? You know, you could survive on that. $40,000 a month. Just ching, ching, ching. Their account was always negative. They actually had paid like $40,000 or $50,000 in overdraft fees in one year. Why? Because they don't have any wisdom. And let me tell you this, they're doctors. Because guess what? You can be a doctor and be a complete idiot. You can be a complete fool. Because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The beginning of wisdom is the beginning of understanding. Okay? And you know, there's some people that have way more money than others who have made way less in their lives. Why? Because they were prudent with the money that God gave them. They had prudence in the things that were given unto them. Just because you make a lot of money doesn't mean you're going to be good with it or be wise with it. And you know what? Because he's going to have wisdom, God's going to end up giving him riches. He's going to give him wealth. Now here's the problem with Solomon. He got to a point where he stopped desiring wisdom and he started desiring riches. And the Bible said he started multiplying riches in himself. Go to Deuteronomy chapter 17. Deuteronomy chapter 17. Now if you were going to gain money, what do you think would be the most important thing? Gaining money, right? Multiplying money. Going and getting money, right? Whereas when Solomon is desiring wisdom, all the money comes unto him. God's going to give him. But here's the thing. I believe if you'd study the Bible correctly, Solomon would have been very rich, but he got to a point where he started being Jeff Bezos rich. And he started getting to a point where he's, you know, Mark Zuckerberg and all these type of guys rich. Because that's what he's desiring and he starts doing things that are sinful. Because he can't have that kind of money. God was going to give him wealth already. He was going to have enough riches. He was going to have enough, but then he's going to go and have way too much. And then when Israel has way too much money, you know what that's going to cause? You'd have a lot of enemies. If you have all the money in the world, you know what? Everybody's going to come after you and want to destroy you when you have all of it. Look, think about, think of so many, this is not me, just think of there's another person somewhere and they said, I have all the gold in the world in my house. You better lock that thing up tight at night when you tell everybody about it. And everybody knows that, look, they had so much gold and silver, it was like other stones were just like nothing to them. You know, precious metals are just like nothing to them and trees are like nothing to them. They have so much money and so much wealth. And later you have kings like Hezekiah letting Babylonian kings, messengers come in and like, look how much money I have. Worst thing you can do, okay? Don't show people the gun safe. Don't show them the money safe. Don't brag about the money you have, especially if you're traveling, okay? Don't be like, oh man, I got so much money in my wallet right now. Don't say that, okay? Don't go around bragging or boasting of your riches because someone's going to come after that riches. But Solomon, to get to the wealth that he had, started crossing the line of God's commandments because he didn't have the prudence to stay within God's parameters. Look at John chapter 17 verse 15. Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose, one from among thy brethren, shalt thou set king over thee. Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother, but he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply horses. For as much as the Lord has said unto you, he shall not in for the return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he says upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law and a book out of that which is before the priest, the Levites, and it shall be with him. And he shall read there in all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them, that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment to the right hand or the left to the end, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. Now here's the thing, instead of writing Deuteronomy chapter 17 and reading it, Solomon's going down to Egypt and multiplying wives and money, and he turns his heart away from God. And then he gets all these riches and then what happens? He allows his sons to squander it because instead of teaching them to be godly and loving the Lord and keeping his heart right with God, he ends up laying all this wealth that's just squandered by his children and squandered by his nation. You know, I think that America probably went through that too. What was the purpose of people coming to America? Was it for wealth or was it fleeing religious persecution, seeking God first and putting God first? And then what happened? America became the wealthiest nation on earth, but then they started doing something, multiplying riches under themselves and turning away from God, didn't it, as a whole. And now that we have all this money, we're everyone's enemy. Everyone hates us and everybody's trying to take our money. You think that China loves us? China's trying to get a piece of that pie, my friend. Every country's trying to do that. They're trying to get the money from the Whore of Babylon. And the reality is you need to continually increase in wisdom and knowledge and not in riches. That should be your goal. Where is your treasure? The Bible says inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed. You can cheat and steal and get lots of money real quick, but you know what? It's not going to be blessed in the end. The person who's going to be blessed is one that labored diligently, slowly, working with his hands. Now, I'm just going to give you a few last thoughts and I'll finish this sermon, but I want to set a precedent here for the rest of my financial series because what you have to understand is that the devil and the rich and the evil people of this world, because they're trying to heap riches up to themselves, they have to take it from someone, okay? And let me tell you who they're taking it from, the middle class. And now what was the beginning of our sermon about? Not having poverty, nor having riches. And you know what? The evil, wicked people are destroying the middle class of America and they're trying to attack people. And the reason why so many middle class people are falling for it is because they lack wisdom. They lack knowledge in all kinds of areas that the Bible actually teaches you. You know, the Bible teaches you about interest. The Bible teaches you about inflation. The Bible teaches you about net worth. The Bible teaches you about making wise purchases and decisions. The Bible teaches you about balancing your budget and being a good steward of the money that comes into you. But I'm telling you this, so many people are ignorant when it comes to these subjects. And so I'm going to try and preach a sermon on each one of these subjects and educate you from the Bible's perspective on these subjects because you need to protect yourself. And you need to have some prudence today because, hey, there's no problem giving all your money to God, but there's no glory in giving it to the devil. There's no glory in giving it to Biden and to Kamala and to the hip hop label and to the prison and to China and to all the wicked evil things in this world. There's no glory in giving money to Joe Osteen. There's no glory in giving money. Look, what if all of those people that were saved in this country only gave money to the good preachers in our country? I think I have a lot of money to do things with. I could hire everyone here. I could put everyone on staff full-time evangelists going out and preaching the gospel, right? Would God that would happen? That would be wonderful. I think the world would be a little bit different when you could start employing all the people that love God, that want to serve God. But today, you know what? The evil are trying to attack God's people and people that have been so distracted by the deceitfulness of riches and by the pleasures of this world, and they don't study the Bible, and they go to the public fool system where they don't teach them any of this stuff anymore. I remember when I was in high school at least, they taught me how to balance a checkbook. They taught me how to have a bank account and how to have personal financial responsibility. Yet today, it seems like kids that come out of high school, they have no idea what these things are. They don't even know what net worth is. They don't know what bank accounts are. They don't know any of this stuff. Mom and dad pays for them, and then the government pays for them. And they just go to school, and they get student loans, and they just get raped and punched in the face with interest and all kinds of other evil. And they get basically a gender studies degree with $100,000 in student loan debt with interest, and they're basically like, Biden, will you please forgive my student loan debt? I wonder who came up with all these things to basically get people to just want to vote for Democrats so they'll pay all the bills that they racked up. And what are they doing? They're robbing the middle class today because they're stupid. They're robbing the middle class today because they're foolish, because they don't have any prudence today. They're not wise with money. The Bible says, He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich shall surely come to want. Now, first part of that is a rebuke to people that oppress the poor, but the second one is, He that giveth to the rich. Don't give to the rich. You're like, oh, we're so smart. We don't believe in Zionism. We're anti-Zionism. Yet you give all your money to them through interest and all kinds of other means today. Hey, if you want to defund Zionism, get rid of interest in your life. That's a whole other sermon, and I'll get there, okay? The synagogue of Satan, you're just funding them, basically. You don't even realize it. You know, the Bible says in James chapter number five, Go to now ye rich men, weep and help your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. You know, the Bible says, I'm just skipping ahead, but it says, It's the rich that oppress you. And look, they do. They oppress you because you're foolish. You don't understand, you know, the things that have been happening. Go to Luke chapter 16. We'll finish. You don't understand how the world works. You know, the Bible talks about the children of this world are wiser than the children of light, you know? And basically, it's not like it's your fault that you're just ignorant, necessarily, because your parents didn't teach you, and your education system didn't teach you, and these type of things. But you know what? You can't use that excuse forever. Eventually, you need to learn things on your own, and study, and try to grow, and try to gain in knowledge, and gain in prudence, so that you're not just constantly digging out of the bottom of the barrel. Because I don't want to be poor, but I also don't want to be rich. I want to be somewhere in the middle, and I want to follow God's commandments to the best of my ability. And let me say this. People who serve God the most are usually found somewhere in the middle. If you look at our church, you're going to find a majority of the people that are doing the work are in the middle somewhere. They have a good, honest job, and they work hard, and they do a lot of things. They provide for their family, and they end up serving the Lord. The people that get to the extreme of being really poor, they end up not lasting. They end up not basically fulfilling all of God's commandments. They get carried away, and they have lots of other problems. People that get too rich, they have too much stuff to do. They have too many luxuries to worry about in their boat and everything else. And look, I'm not saying only a boat makes you a sinful person. I'm just saying having all these luxuries can also be a distraction to serving the Lord. And so it's important to be wise with the money we have. Look at what it says in verse number 10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is also is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the two riches? The Bible says if you're not good with money, unrighteous mammon. He's saying if you can't even be a good steward of the physical money that God gives you, why would he want to entrust you spiritual things? So obviously we need to have a good balance of the Bible. We need to have some prudence today. Hey, we need to make sure and check our heart though and say what's the purpose of me having this prudence? Because let me tell you this, you can learn what the Bible teaches about money and get super rich if you don't check the purpose of your heart. If you decide to say, you know what, I'm going to put money number one and not God number one, and I'm going to have the wrong purpose in my heart, but then I'm going to employ all of God's tactics here in the Bible, you can get really rich really quick. But you know what? That should not be your goal. That should not be your motivation. Just like if I hand someone a gun and I teach them how to shoot, they can be the best marksman. But that doesn't mean go on a rampage, start killing people. Okay? Obviously we want to have balance with these things. So we want to be the wisest that we can possibly be when it comes to making money, but yet not abusing that knowledge by getting the wrong priorities or having the wrong purpose in our heart for having that skill. Okay? And I tell you this, when I look at some of my friends, Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Anderson, Pastor Burson, these guys are so smart. And these guys are so hardworking. They could be millionaires for sure if they wanted to. I know it. But you know what? They're choosing not to do that because they're putting God first. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have that knowledge and skill and ability in your life. And you know what? There's nothing wrong with even God's people making a million dollars or doing whatever. But obviously they've tempered themselves to serve God and put God first. And I want God's people to have the same level of prudence and wisdom and knowledge and being a good steward that they're wise with the money that God's giving them. And we're not just blowing it on stupid things and being foolish with the money and the assets that God has given us. Why would God want to continue to bless us with spiritual riches when we can't even be faithful with the monetary things He gives us, with the carnal things that He gives us? I want our church to have both. I want our church to be wise with the unrighteous mammon. And I want our church to be wise with the spiritual riches that are entrusted to us too. We need both. And at the end of the day, we check ourselves, we balance ourselves. Verse 13, no servant can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. I'm not going to emphasize and try to teach you this so that we can all get rich. I want to be rich spiritually. But in becoming rich spiritually, we need to be good providers at the same time. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for all the wisdom and the prudence that you give us. I pray that you would just help us have the right heart and the right mentality when it comes to money and that we would understand it has a purpose in this life and that we should be good stewards of the things that you bless us with and the power and the mind and the mentalities that you give us. But I pray that we would not set our heart and affection on the things of this world, on the riches that are in this world, but rather we'd set our heart and affection on the things of God and that we would try to lay up as much treasure as we can in heaven and not on earth. And in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. With that, let's close it out for our last song this morning. Go ahead and take back out your hymnal and turn to song number 373, So Send I You. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. Song number 373, So Send I You. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. For this one, we'll sing all five verses and then we'll finish on the last part at the bottom there. So Send I You. Amen. Thank you all for coming here this morning. God bless. Have a great afternoon. Thank you.