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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. C on the third. That's right. Playing E flat. Or no, playing a... A flat. So, oh, playing G on the first. Oh, what song? What song? Touch it. Good job. Yeah, open C4. Okay. Which one? One, two, three, four. Okay. Okay. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Okay. Okay. Okay. Two, three, four. Two, three, four. Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Okay. Okay. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Okay. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Glad to have you here this afternoon. Let's go ahead and take out our hymnals and turn to song number two hundred and seventy four. Come unto me. Song number two hundred and seventy four. Glad you have y'all here this afternoon. Song two hundred and seventy four. Five. in song 274, Come Unto Me. All together. Hear the blessed Savior calling the oppressed, O ye heavy laden, come to me and rest. Come no longer, tarry, I your load will bear. Bring me every burden, bring me every care. Come unto me, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly, come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burden is blind. Are you disappointed, wandering here and there, dragging chains of pout and doted down with care? Do unholy feelings struggle in your breast? Bring your case to Jesus, he will give you rest. Come unto me, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly, come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burden is blind. Stumbling on the mountains, dark with sin and shame, stumbling toward the pit of hell's consuming claim. By the powers of sin, deluded and oppressed, hear the tender shepherd come to me and rest. Come unto me, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly, come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burden is blind. Have you by temptation often conquered men, as a sense of weakness brought distress within? Christ will sanctify you if your claim is best. In his only spirit, he will give you rest. Come unto me, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly, come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burden is blind. Amen. That's Byron's word of prayer. Dear Father, we just thank you we come together again tonight to hear the preaching of your word. Just please help us to be open and receptive and apply it to our life. To not just be hearers of the word, but to be doers. And bless Pastor Shelley right now, fill him with your Holy Spirit. And also please continue to bless our efforts as we go out soloing throughout the week that your spirit would be upon us. We love you Lord and we pray this in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. Next song is gonna be 314, More Love to Thee. Song number 314. Song 314, More Love to Thee. All together. More love to Thee, O Christ. More love to Thee. Hear thou the prayer I make on bended knee. This, O my earnest plea. More love, O Christ, to Thee. More love to Thee. More love to Thee. Once early joy I crave, song, peace, and rest. Now thee alone I seek, give what is best. This, O my prayer, shall be. More love, O Christ, to Thee. More love to Thee. More love to Thee. Let sorrow do its work. Send grief and pain. Sweet are thy messengers. Sweet they refrain. When they can sing with me. More love, O Christ, to Thee. More love to Thee. More love to Thee. Then shall my latest breath whisper thy praise. This be the parting cry my heart shall raise. This tale its prayer shall be. More love, O Christ, to Thee. More love to Thee. More love to Thee. Amen. Good singing. Good evening. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't get a bulletin or you'd like one slip up your hand real quick and an usher can come by and get you one. We have our Bible memory passage, Exodus 20, verse 14. There on the front, on the inside, we have our service and soul winning times. And I'm going to get a quick count from our soul winning. Those that were with the van group, we had nine. I'll go back up first. Let's go to Thursday. Was there anything important from Thursday? Four for Thursday. What about Friday? Okay. Three. And then what about Saturday? And then today I know our van group had nine. What was outside of that? Okay. 11. So 20 for today. Praise the Lord on that. And then also we have our list of expecting ladies. Please keep them in your prayers. We have our prayer list. Please submit those via email if you have any additional prayer requests. And please make sure to pray for our church family. We also have our Mother's Day tea coming up this Saturday at the Rose Garden. We'd really like all the ladies to participate. And that means you guys have to watch the kiddos, all right? So, you know, you can, as I say, just throw peanuts at them. And it's around nap time, so you just put them down for a nap. Just give them a big lunch and then just let them pass out. And then from two to four, it's the sign-up sheet. You got to do it today. So today is the day. Or email us at the very least. If you have any questions, please see my wife. Please put your information over here. If your name's not on the list, you ain't getting through the door. That's how it works, I guess. So you got to get your name on that list. On the back, we have our upcoming events. The, that's an error. I think, are we, we're not doing the sports day this upcoming Saturday, I don't believe. I don't know why, I need to double check on that. But I'm pretty sure we're not doing sports day that Saturday. Just to accommodate the ladies' tea. And then we do, we will have it again that following May 15th. Pastor Joe Jones is going to be preaching for us that 16th. And then we have our men's conference that week. I'm going to send an email out this week. So if you want to, if you want to participate, you also got to sign up for that today. Put your information, put your email, put your party that's going. I'm going to email everybody. And I'm going to ask that you email me back to confirm your spot. Just because obviously people sign up and then over time maybe they can't go or something happens. And so I just like to confirm everything, make sure everybody's still going. And then we have our soul winning marathons. We also have in October our fire breathing Baptist fellowship. Really looking forward to this. It's going to be a lot of fun. The only thing is we're going to have to figure out how to be really accommodating. Because we might have a lot of guests. And obviously our space, you know, I don't know how many people we can fit in this building. But we'll try and figure it out anyways. Don't ask the city of Hurst about this, okay. But we're going to just, we're going to have 299 or under officially. So, but hey, I'm going to, we're going to get a lot of people in here. And it's going to be a lot of fun. And these conferences are really unique. It's really special. So if you can, try to be here. We'll probably, we're probably going to have a preacher every single night. Like Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And then Saturday will probably just be fellowship type events. And then I'll preach on Sunday. But we'll also have other activities throughout the day. Especially since we're going to have, you know, guests and other visitors coming in. I'm planning on having a singles event, a teen event. Some family fun activities. Or they're going to do our spelling bee for children of the ages of 18 and under. And I got to participate in the spelling bee. Who did the spelling bee when they were in school? Anybody? Okay, we got a few people that did the spelling bee. I liked it. I thought it was fun. Since obviously we encourage homeschooling. It's nice to have a way to do things like that. I'd encourage your kids to try it. I'll try to make like a special little booklet or something. And, or put it online so your kids can study. But it'll just be a lot of words just straight out from the King James Bible. That they can work on and study. And the spellings will be the King James Bible spellings. I know everybody's like, hey you spelled your sign wrong. And I'm like, nope. That's what the Bible says, all right? So get over it. And we'll do the King James Bible spellings, all right? So get used to that. But I'm really excited about our fellowship. We have a lot of other great stuff that are happening. And other events and things like that. But those are just to let you know for now. Let's go to our third song. 220, Jesus is all the world to me. And that's song number 220. Jesus is all the world to me. Song number 220. All together. Jesus is all the world to me. My life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day. Without him I would fall. When I am sad to him I go. No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad he makes me glad. He's my friend. Jesus is all the world to me. My life and trials soar. I go to him for blessings and he gives him more and more. He sends the sunshine and the rain. He sends the harvest, gold and grain. Sunshine and rain, harvest of grain. He's my friend. Jesus is all the world to me. And true to him I'll be. Oh how could I, this friend, deny when he's so true to me. Following him I know I'm right. He watches over me day and night. Following him by day and night, he's my friend. Jesus is all the world to me. I want no better friend. I trust him now. I'll trust him when life's fleeting days shall end. Beautiful life with such a friend. Beautiful life that has no end. Eternal life, eternal joy, he's my friend. Amen. As offering plates are being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 21. Proverbs 21. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water he turneth it whithersoever he will. Every way of man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord pondereth the hearts. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. An high look and a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin. The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but of everyone that is hasty only to want. The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them because they refuse to do judgment. The way of man is froward and strange, but as for the pure, his work is right. It is better to dwell in a corner of the house top than with a brawling woman in a wide house. The soul of the wicked desireth evil. His neighbor findeth no favor in his eyes. When the scourner is punished, the symbol is made wise, and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge. The righteous man wisely consider it the house of the wicked, but God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness. Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard. A gift in secret pacifieth anger, and a reward in the bosom's strong wrath. It is joy to the just to do judgment, but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead. He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright. It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman. There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man spendeth it up. He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor. A wise man scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof. Whoso keepeth his mouth, and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles. Proud and haughty scorn is his name who dealeth in proud wrath. The desire of the slothful killeth him, for his hands refuse to labor. He coveteth greedily all the day long, but the righteous giveth, and spareth not. The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination. How much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind? A false witness shall perish, but the man that heareth speaketh constantly. A wicked man hardened his face, but as for the upright he directed his way. There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for a great church, Steadfast Baptist Church. Please, Lord, at this time bless Pastor Shelley with your spirit. Allow him to preach the word boldly that we might be edified in order to better honor and glorify you, and in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Look at verse number 20. The Bible reads, there is treasure to be desired, and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man spendeth it up. And the title of my sermon this evening is this, spending money, spending money, and I've been doing a financial series where I've been going through and talking about different aspects of finances as related to the Bible, and I'm getting to these sermons, and they're kind of building one after another, and I'm trying to lay down some foundations so you'll understand different things as I reference them, but I preached a sermon called making money, and I preached on net worth, I preached on interest, and now I kind of want to talk about just spending money, and some of these categories definitely overlap a little bit, but the Bible has a lot to talk about these issues and gives us a lot of wisdom and a lot of instruction, and it even gives us instruction on spending money. Notice here in this verse, and this chapter has a lot of verses about this, but it's telling us that foolish people just spend money in an unwise manner. It's talking about a wise person having certain riches or having certain treasures, you know, oil and these type of things, but the foolish man, he just spends everything that he has, he just wastes all the money that he has, and this is something that you very commonly see is people just wasting the money that they have, they spend it very foolishly, and so I want to just talk about spending money in general, and if the Bible gives us, you know, what the Bible says about spending money. Look at the next verse it says this, he that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life righteousness and honor, and so the Bible is telling us that we need to be more concerned with righteousness and more concerned with these type of things, but at the end of the day, you know, we still have money, we still have to make decisions, we all purchase things. Most of us make purchases on a very regular basis, whether that be the food or the clothing or the grocery or all this type of stuff, and as I've gone through these series I've showed you lots of parables on being a wise steward, being, you know, good with the things that God blesses you with, and we need to make sure that we're being a good steward of the things we have, that's part of being righteous, that's part of doing right and doing good and being faithful with what God has blessed us with. If you're not faithful with the unrighteous mammon, why would he commit unto you then the true riches, of course. So we want to be good with in both categories of our life, we want to be wise with the things that God blesses us with, and look at if you would in chapter 20 and look at verse 21 there, the Bible says this, and inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning, but the end thereof shall not be blessed. And here's the reality, people that are just gifted lots of money or gifted in inheritance or they don't have to work for the things that they have, oftentimes they're very foolish with those assets, very foolish with those resources, the goods that they've been entrusted with because they didn't work hard for it, and the foolish is just going to spend it up, the foolish is just going to waste it, and I've seen this a lot, especially working in the banking industry, you'd have parents who work really hard, they build a business, they do really good in the farm or the agricultural world and they make a lot of money, and then they give it to their son and their son just destroys it, the son just ruins it and wastes it and is not as diligent as dad and squanders all of the wealth, squanders the business, destroys it, or you see sometimes a company doing really good and they come under new management and then the new management just runs it, destroys it, and everything like that, and so you know it takes a lot of effort, energy to you know be good with money, with resources, with assets, it takes a lot of diligence, it takes a lot of qualities that the Bible praises, okay, and so you have to understand that if you want to be righteous you have to learn a lot of these qualities. Now look at chapter 21 again and look at verse 17, let's talk about one of these categories of spending money. Proverbs 21 verse 17, the Bible reads, he that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man, he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich, and so the Bible is giving us this wisdom, this principle that people who live luxuriously, people who love to flaunt their money and they love just pleasure and things that they just want to gratify the flesh with, are often going to become very poor, okay, and this is a reality that we see in the world today. People that love to live in luxury and love to spend all the money that they have end up becoming poor. What would this be exonified with? It'd be exonified with you know celebrities or more importantly sports athletes. A lot of sports athletes, they come into lots of money rapidly and it's not a profession that lasts their entire life, so they only have a limited amount of time where they're getting this you know exorbitant amount of money, but they just live in pleasure, they just buy yachts and they go out and they spend all this money and by the time their career is over they have no money left and you look at somebody that made 40, 50 million dollars in their career and they literally have nothing, they literally live in an apartment, they literally have just debt, they don't even have assets anymore, why? Because they just love pleasure, they just love luxury and the reality is people who love luxury and pleasure and just love to just spend money just frivolous, frivolously will come to poverty. The bible teaches this and emphasizes go to Proverbs chapter 24, go to Proverbs chapter 24, you cannot have it all, you cannot just spend money frivolously and then expect to be rich at the same time, it's counterintuitive and in fact when I worked in the bank and you actually get to see behind the curtain as it were, because you actually know how much money people have, the people that were the flashiest that drove the nicest cars and lived in the biggest houses and they ate out all the time did not have that much money, they were pretending like they were rich, they made it seem like they were rich, the people that were actually wealthy they came in and they look like just average Joe, you know it's just average Joe Farmer comes in and he's got hundreds of millions of dollars in assets on all the land that he works on, you know and he's driven the same truck for the last 50 years and he's worn the same shirt for the last 10 years or whatever, he's not living it up and living in luxury and pleasure or whatever, the guy that has a new car and a new suit and is always just spending money like crazy, those people don't actually have money, it's a facade and oftentimes people are like oh I want to be rich, I want to be like this guy, they're not even rich, they're faking it, they're making you think that they have money by flaunting themselves and they really don't even have that much money and pretty soon they'll be poor, pretty soon they'll have nothing, I remember there was a company who, there was a guy he owned a business and they looked pretty humble and they decided to start a new venture, a new business and they were going to do like a frozen yogurt store or something like this, well their first month, they in the middle of the summer, they had like a big sale, you know, they basically made like hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit in their first month and they basically thought like this is life, you know, from now on we made it, we're going to be rich, so they buy like new cars and new houses and new clothes and they're just like living the high life and then the fall comes, not that long ago, like a few months passed by and they literally have to start shutting down their store and shutting down their business, the guy had been running a successful sprinkler and like lawn care business for like 20 years and sold it to now do this frozen yogurt, now it's gone, now they have no frozen yogurt, they have no money, they have nothing and it's like why? Because they just spent all the money they had when it came in easy come, easy go and the reality is the people that live it up and they flaunt their stuff oftentimes don't have money or they will become poor very soon thereafter, look at Proverbs 24 verse 33 yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands asleep so shall thy poverty come as one that travelth and thy want as an armed man, now this is an interesting verse it's really emphasizing the fact that we should labor and be diligent and we shouldn't be, you know, sleeping around and doing nothing, but he compares poverty to something, he says poverty will come upon you like someone, like someone that does what? Someone that travels and you say why? Because traveling is expensive, traveling, I mean it is literally just throwing money away, why do people want to be rich? So they can travel, so they can see the world, so they can go out and do all these things, but here's the thing, it's literally throwing money away, traveling is just gonna hurt your finances and I'm not saying don't have trips, okay, don't hear me wrong, I'm not saying having a family vacation every once in a while is wrong or anything like that, but what I am saying is this, if you're just constantly traveling you're bleeding money, it's just a fact and the people that become poor, they're just traveling like crazy, spending money, all of this luxury, all this exuberance and at the end of the day if you're spending money on constant luxury and traveling these things you will eventually run out of money, you will eventually become poor. Go to Proverbs chapter 29, Proverbs chapter 29, you can't just spend like you don't have a bottom to the of your pocket and expect for you to not run out of money, you have to be thinking about the purchases that you make, you have to think about the return of investment and the reality is we've all probably gone on a vacation but it wasn't an asset, you know, it might have been a fun memory or whatever but it doesn't add to you personally from a financial perspective and so you have to realize that that money is gone, you're kissing it goodbye, Disney World has your money now, okay, or you know the government or whoever the hotel companies or whatever and it's big business, I mean people spend tons and tons of money on these luxury items, you know, going on the yacht, going on the carnival cruise, going on the family vacation, going to the hotels, doing these type of businesses and activities and they're fun, I enjoy them, you know, I'm gonna go to Red Hawk but you know at the end of the day I'm gonna travel every once in a while and in fact our church spends a lot of money on traveling but you know what, I also realize we're spending a lot of money, you know, it takes a lot of money to send constant preachers out, it costs a lot of money to have people come and go and to put them up for a place to stay and paying for their gas or paying for their food or doing this, it's expensive and so you have to realize you can't just spend money on traveling and not realize how much money you're spending, you have to think about those things, you have to pay attention to them and realize a lot of money gets wasted on excess traveling expenses or just being too luxurious or those type of habits. Proverbs 29, let's look at another group, look at verse three. Whoso loveth wisdom rejoices his father, but he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance. Hey, you want to make a bad spending decision, harlots. This is a bad, this is a kind of similar to the luxury category, it's a it's a fleeting thing, it's a momentary part of pleasure, yet it's very expensive and you want to talk about people spending money, it's spending money on company with harlots. There's a parable about this isn't there, there's two sons and one asked for his inheritance before the time and then what he did, he wastes it on what? Riotous living, on basically just being with harlots, just boozing it up, spending the money and you want to talk about some of the biggest industries in the world today, industries that are making so much money, they're all about sin. Sin is expensive, sin is costing people so much money. You want to know why so many people are poor? Sin, literally. Sin is an expensive habit. I looked at some statistics, when it comes to fornication or men that are with prostitutes, it's a 14.6 billion dollar industry in the United States per year. It's estimated that 14.6 billion are spent on prostitution in America every year. Not only that, 13.33 billion on looking at stuff on the internet or movies or all, just that genre. We're talking about billions of dollars being spent on this industry. In fact, the amount of money spent on prostitution, think about this, from a daily perspective, it's 40 million dollars a day. In the United States, 40 million dollars a day is spent on that sin specifically. It's bleeding people's pockets, okay? You want to lose a lot of money, that. How about some other things that are similar? Because talking about just spending money on sin, you know, a company with harlots, riotous living, what are other activities that are similar to this where you're just wasting money? How about cigarettes? How about smoking? In 2017, there was 249 billion cigarettes sold in the United States. That's a whole lot of cigarettes that were smoked. In fact, 2018, companies that sell tobacco or cigarettes products spent, they spent 9.06 billion in advertising alone. And if you're spending that much money in advertising, you're bringing in more than that. That's not even to make the product. They're literally spending nine, over nine billion dollars just advertising cigarettes, tobacco products, and whatever. According to statistics in America, over 300 billion dollars are spent in healthcare related costs due to smoking. It's not only costing people the money to buy the cigarette, it's costing just our healthcare system in general 300 billion dollars. In fact, there is an article, I can't even believe it, but they calculated how much money, people that smoke on a regular basis, I don't know how they calculated what that means, but just people that smoke, they calculated how much money it cost them for their life. It says if you smoke, you will cost yourself 1.4 million dollars. Now, I was just like, what in the world? They're saying on all the money you spend for the cigarettes, they said on the amount of money you'll lose in your career because you smoke and all the healthcare related costs that are associated with it, they said you'll literally lose 1.4 million dollars just by being a smoker. That's expensive habit. I don't know how they came up with these statistics, but hey, it's possible to have to spend that much money in healthcare costs. It's possible that it may cause you to not get a promotion at work. I've been working with people lots of times where they take a smoke break every 15 minutes, and I'm thinking like, what in the world, and they need that, and they get mad at their employer if they're not on a smoke break constantly, and there's certain jobs where you can't even, you can't take a 15-minute break every hour or something like that, and so maybe they're missing out on promotions, they're missing out on other labor and activity, and look, if you're missing out on a 10, 20, 30 thousand dollar promotion over a period of 20, 30 years, that adds up quick, and we're talking about not only that, talking about healthcare costs, all the money they spend on cigarettes, and you want to talk about something that's taxed heavily, cigarettes. Sin is taxed heavily, not only just cigarettes, how about casinos? Uh-oh, 2.61 billion a year are spent on, I'm sorry, I'm saying the wrong statistic here. I don't have a total for their, for their, uh, how much they spend per year. They calculated how much money per American is spent at casinos, and it says every American spends 261 dollars a year on gambling or casino related expenses. Now most, I don't even gamble, okay, so I'm spending zero. It's just saying like for every person they're spending that. Now people that live in Nevada, it's different, so they calculated just every American is 261, for people that live in Nevada, they average spend five thousand dollars a year on casinos. They average, okay. Now this was a really weird statistic, but people bet on all kinds of sporting events all the time. They calculated how much money was wagered or gambled on the NCAA tournament, just like the last year or one of the last years, just on the tournament alone. So we're not talking about all sporting events, we're talking about one event of March Madness where they have all the basketball tournament, and they have all these college kids playing. 8.5 billion dollars were gambled on just that tournament alone. You want to talk about people losing money, I mean this is insane. How about alcohol? Alcohol is a 68 billion dollar industry a year, and they, they state that heavy drinkers spend on average 800 dollars a month on alcohol. Talk about losing money, talk about just wasting money on stupid, silly things. Look, and you say, well why are people poor? Well, because they're smoking and drinking and going to the casino, and they're hiring prostitutes, I mean how do you have money for anything else? And typically they don't, do they? They get the welfare to provide for all their other needs, because every dollar they get is going to these vices, isn't it? How about just drugs? Illicit drugs, 150 billion dollars a year on illicit drugs is spent in America. Look, it's insane. If you know it's worse than illicit drugs, prescription drugs. You want to know how much money is spent on prescription drugs? It was 150 billion for illicit, 500 billion on prescription drugs, on the legal drugs, okay? Look, the, the guy that goes and works at the little clinic, he should be writing, you know, with some 20-inch rims. He's the real pimp, he's the real guy getting rich off of everybody, just because he can pay the government to make his drug legal and your drugs not legal. Look, it's, it's silliness, okay? And, and all these things are things that you don't need. You don't need to get all laced up with prescription drugs and laced up with, you know, illicit drugs. And look, obviously some prescription drugs have some legitimacy, and some people have issues, and I get that, but you should take drugs very sparingly, and it should be for very specific medical reasons, not just why I hurt a little bit. Well, take drugs. It's like, no, you know, don't just take drugs just because you're in pain. You know, that would be the same as me just ripping out the gas gauge of my truck when it's not on full. It doesn't make it, you know, when people feel pain and they just basically take Tylenol, that doesn't fix anything. That doesn't fix any of your problems, okay? And the gauge on your car, ripping out the gas meter doesn't fix how much gas you have in the car, okay? By saying, well, it says it's empty, but I'm just going to rip that E out, you know? I'm going to turn that light off. I'm going to rip that gauge off. It doesn't give you more gas in the tank. It's telling you there's a problem. And look, when you have problems physically, it's your body saying, you have problems, okay? And if you didn't feel pain, let me tell you something. You would destroy yourself very quickly. You would kill yourself. You wouldn't even realize it. You'd put your hand in fire and you'd burn it off and you wouldn't even realize it. What's happening? You know, pain can be a very good thing and pain is a very useful thing, but people constantly want to turn pain off with drugs, but they don't want to address the problem that they have. It's like, well, I haven't slept for three days and I haven't eaten anything and I have a horrible headache. It's like, take a nap. You know, why don't you get some sleep? You know, why don't you eat healthy food? Why don't you get some exercise? Why don't you, you know, it used to be that doctors would tell you, well, why don't you get some sleep? Why don't you eat some healthy food? Why don't you get some exercise? But, you know, people didn't want to do that, so now it's just drug. You know, you go to the doctor and what's expected? To get some kind of a prescription paper of some kind of a drug, even though it'll fix nothing. It'll do nothing. And then they'll just put you, as soon as you have an adverse reaction, what do they do? They put you on a different drug. And then after that drug, they're not interested in fixing your problem because then they're going to lose a customer. Just like the marijuana dealer, he's not interested in fixing your problem. He wants you to get addicted to marijuana. So you'll keep buying, and then as soon as the marijuana wears off a little bit and it's not as strong as it used to be, well, now he's got a new one. He's got a speedball for you. And then as soon as the speedball wears off, then he's got illicit cocaine or he's got, he's got whatever, the next drug, the next layer, the next level. And they're no different than these prescription pimps out here. These other type of doctors. And look, you can just waste money on trying to chase pain away, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna necessarily work. And I'm not against modern medicine. I'm not against, hey, if you're sick, go see a doctor. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't take drugs in a particular reason. I've even taken, you know, headache medicine from time to time, but you have to realize that you're not fixing anything. It's just, it's just basically turning off the, the, it's just causing the problem to not be as severe for some reason. You need to either like drink some water or take a nap or eat some food. And you need to figure out what's the real problem. What's the real issue. Hey, the check engine light coming on, it's not like, well, let's turn that thing off. It's like, let's figure out what's going on with your car. And I get some manufacturers just make it come on or whatever, but that's a different sermon at a different time. I'm, what I am telling you is this, spending money, people are wasting so much money on things they don't need. Just frivolous things on sin, and sin will cost you so much money. Being righteous will actually preserve you. Hey, you're not spending all kinds of money on casinos and drinking and cigarettes and drugs and fornication and all these things. You're going to have a lot of money for other stuff, right? So that's why we preach against, that's another benefit of preaching against sin is it'll save you money. Sinning less will save you money, literally. Go go to Proverbs 20, go back to Proverbs chapter number 20. Now with all that saved up money that you have, cause you're not drinking and you're not going to the club and you're not going to the casino and you're not playing the lottery, which you won't win. Okay. You're not just throwing money away and burning money. Then how do you spend it? Well, again, I already taught you shouldn't spend on interest. That's not going to help you out. Interest is not a good way to go. And why is it that people pay a lot of interest is because they, they want things that they can't pay for now. And my dad used to tell me, and I'm not saying this is a perfect thing. It's not, you know, it's not a proverb of the Bible, but my dad would always say, there's nothing wrong with spending the money you have. Just don't spend the money you don't have. And our society loves to spend money that it does not have. Now I'm also going to teach that you shouldn't just spend the money you have either real flibberously necessarily, or spend it on sin. You should be wise with the money that you have, but you should consider every purchasing decision and try to make wise purchasing decisions. Okay. Now the Bible gives you some tips and some suggestions on how to make good purchasing decisions. Look at Proverbs 20 verse 14. It is not, it is not sayeth the buyer, but when he has gone his way, then he boasteth. Now this is an interesting verse because what is the Bible telling? The Bible saying that people will try to haggle on things that they buy. They'll basically come and they'll look at a good or something and they'll try to talk it down. You know, they're looking at a house or they're looking at a piece of land. They'll be like, nobody wants this house. You know, you got to knock off the price or, you know, nobody likes these door hinges or this paint job or whatever. They're basically coming in and talking down the property so as to have you knock down the price. Okay. Or it used to be in the grocery stores. If a canned good, if the canned good was damaged in some way, they would knock off the price. So some people do like drop cans on purpose and be like, this one's dented. You know, you better give me this one for a special deal or special rate. But it's basically the principle of when you want to buy something, not letting on how interested you are in the product. Now let me explain this. You should not lie. Okay. This person's probably lying. Okay. He's saying this is nothing. This is terrible. This is trash. And then as soon as he buys it, he's like, I got the greatest deal ever. You know, he's basically saying something that's not true and tricking the person who's selling it. It'd be kind of like if you went to a garage sale or something and you notice somebody had some kind of rare good that they didn't realize how valuable it is. And they're just like, you don't want this like Mickey Mantle rookie card or anything. You know, it's worthless. You know, it's like nothing. I'll give you a nickel for it or whatever. And then he goes away. He's like, I got a million dollar card from this sucker. He didn't even know what he had. Right. That's basically the principle that's being taught here. And so you have to be careful if you're selling something, people try to, you know, rip you off. They'll try to knock you down. In fact, this always happens. If you've ever sold anything on Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, you're going to have tons of people be like, I'll give you half, you know, or I'll, what will you, what will you take for it? Or I'll give you a 10, but all I have is 10 bucks, buddy. And you're like, the listing's for a thousand. No, I'm not giving you this for $10. Right. You have all these people haggling you and trying to tell you how terrible it is, or, you know, they're trying to basically get the best deal that they possibly can. That is something that is commonly going to happen. Now I'll say this from this pair, from this proverb, we can learn something. Okay. We should not lie to people though. And we should not go around and try to rip people off and try to, you know, say something that's not true, be deceitful, but we can use discretion. And what I mean by this is when you want to buy something, you should not necessarily express everything you're feeling, all the emotions that you're feeling when you're purchasing it. Okay. And I'll tell you how people take advantage of others in this process, buying a car or buying a house. Okay. The worst thing you can do is to have your wife say, I have to have this in the presence of either your realtor or the car salesman. Okay. Don't say that because then they're in their mind, they're like cha-ching and they're just, they're ready to Jack up the rate, Jack up the price, Jack up the interest. Don't let on. Even if you feel that that's great. You say this, I have to have this car I'll pay double. Don't say that. You know, even if you're feeling that you can tell your, your spouse privately, but use discretion on the things that you want to purchase. Don't always let on to how interested you are in a product. You know, when they say how much money can you afford per month? Don't tell them. Don't say, well, I can afford $500 a month. Why crunch the numbers $500 a month, we can get it to you. And it's just like, that's, that's interesting. How's exactly the number that I told you, right? So you have to use discretion when you're purchasing something or how interested you are in these products or in these assets. And the reality is they will manufacture the numbers on the backend. If you, when you buy a car, they will literally just make up numbers. I remember my wife and I, we went to buy a car and it was, it was a new car that we were interested in purchasing. And basically we were, we're, we're going to the phase of figuring out how much money was going to cost per month. And they're kind of like, how much can you afford per month? And I'm, we're not really giving them very much information. And I just, I just want to know the number. So he comes back and he's like, all right, we can get you this car for 550 a month. I'm just like 550 a month. And I had already kind of pre-calculated how much I expected the car would, would cost per month. Cause I know that I can see the price of the car or on the vehicle. And I know how to calculate numbers. I'm a, I was in finance. So I'm just like, okay. I said, what interest rate did you, did you use on that? And he's like, Oh, well we have our numbers and we do our things. And I was like, no, what's the interest rate. So we can't just disclose everything. It's like, I'm buying a car from you. What's the interest rate? And he's like, well, it's this percent. And I said, okay, well, I just did the calculation on that percent. And you're charging us $50 more. Well, you got to understand there's these other chart, what other charges? And he's like, let me go talk to my manager. Then he comes back with a completely different number. You know, that's like way more legit. And after, you know, spending there and talking with this guy for forever, finally, we were paying $395 a month for the same vehicle. But here's the thing, nothing would have changed. He would have let us walk out of there for that car for $550 a month. If we had said, we have to have this car, you know, or whatever, because they just changed the numbers on the back end. They either changed the sales price, the interest rate, the terms. They have all kinds of mechanisms by which extra, you know, finance charges or whatever they're going to add on to the back end of the deal. They just want to see what's the maximum amount that you can pay per month. And then on the back end, they'll figure out all the interest rate numbers and the sales price and how much you can, they can get you for. So whenever buying something, don't go in there and just be like, I'm not leaving without this car. Don't say that. Don't say, I have to have this house. You know, you always want to negotiate things with using discretion, not telling them your true feelings. And look, I get it. You get all excited. You fall in love with the house. You fall in love with the car. You fall in love with something you want to purchase, but you should use discretion and not just tell them because it will literally cost you more money to just open your mouth and just say like, I have to have it. I want this. I'm going to get it for sure. No matter what, I don't care the price. Don't say these types of things. Okay. Now when it comes to purchasing things, you have to understand buying a new car often can also not be the best purchasing decision. Now I'm not telling you that buying a new car is wrong or sinful or anything like that, but I want to tell you this. A lot of times if you walk away after buying a new car, it will literally be worth five, six, $10,000 less the moment you drive off the car lot. And you have to think about this. If they're going to sell you gap insurance on the new car you're buying, there's a reason. You know what that reason is? Because as soon as you drive it off the car lot, it's worth way less instantly. So someone that's wanting to sell you gap insurance is basically you're like red ticket is like a flashing light like I'm losing lots of money. I'm losing lots of money. And you know sometimes buying a new car can be fine. It depends on the vehicle. It depends on the purpose. It depends on a lot of different things. But you have to think you should think about these things. Why am I buying this? Why am I making this purchase? Am I losing extra money? You know, what's the considerations? And let me tell you this. Vehicles are not an appreciating asset, okay? A lot of people waste a lot of money on vehicles. They waste a lot of money on interest. And why? Because they just have to have it. But at the end of the day, a vehicle gets you from point A to B. And look, there's nothing wrong with having a good car. And at the end of the day, sometimes it could be more expensive to have a crappy car. You have to constantly fix and do maintenance and you have to do it. It's nice to have a dependable vehicle. But some are just big money wastes. Sorry, BMW lovers out there, right? You know, some are fixed or repaired daily. That's your Ford, right? No, I'm just kidding. There are certain vehicles that you can drive off the lot and it's worth the same amount of money that you paid for it the moment you paid for it, okay? And that would be a better purchasing decision. Now at the end of the day, if you just want a certain vehicle and you have the money and you buy it, go for it. There's nothing wrong with it. But you should use discretion. You should think about the purchase price. You should think about this. How much can I sell this asset for the moment I buy it? Because isn't that the whole principle taught here in verse 14? He says, it is not, it is not, say the buyer, but when he has gone his way, then he boasts it. What is he boasting? He's boasting that the thing he just bought, he could end up selling for more than what he just paid for it. He's talking about the fact that he got a good deal. So we can learn from this proverb, when we purchase things, think about how much is this asset worth after I bought it? You know, you could even buy a house that's not worth what you paid for it. You can over purchase on a property. You know, there's some properties that nobody wants and you end up buying it. You could never sell it again for that amount of money, okay? You can buy all kinds of different things that are just a big money pit, you know, and when it comes to buying a house, this is also something, I'm just trying to give you some practical tips here because some of you may have never bought a car or bought a house. Maybe you have, maybe you didn't, you know, like that, but when it comes to buying a house, I've talked about this a lot and I just want to give you some more information, but here's some things to think about, okay? You should think about when comparing home buying versus renting your situation, and I'm going to give you pros and cons of both because some people have maybe mistakenly misunderstood what I've taught and said, like, you know, renting is always wrong or bad and home owning is better or something. That's not what I've said and that's not what I believe. It depends on all the circumstances, okay? But when renting, you're not getting any equity. So if we talk about the pros of owning, what's one of the pros? Equity. You know, you can slowly build equity over time, you can gain money. Here's another thing, inflation protection, you know, as the price of goods increase, as lumber continues to skyrocket in price, you know, that you're protected against that a little bit. When you own some kind of a property, you own some kind of a house, what are some of the negatives of buying a house? Okay, repairs. You know, when your dishwasher breaks, you can't call your landlord and say, Hey, come fix the dishwasher. That's you, right? Whenever anything breaks, whenever anything goes wrong, you're at fault. That's where you have insurance and all the other stuff. But at the end of the day, you're going to be responsible for repairs. They could be very costly and some people buy a home not realizing there's major repairs needed on the property. And the sellers are not going to tell you, the sellers, you know, that's why they have a seller's disclosure because they're supposed to tell you like, Hey, the plumbing shot, Hey, the electricity, you know, the electricity in this house is shot. Hey, the roof's about to fall through. Hey, we got termites. Hey, we have a foundation problem. They're supposed to let you know about those things because sometimes those repairs can be literally 50, $60,000. And you just completely get, you just lose your home. You lose everything because you just ran into these types of problems. And so you have to think about the potential repairs on a home when you buy it. Here's another thing to think. Whenever you sell a property, if you use a realtor to sell your property, you will get about 92% of the, of the net profit of that property. So let's say you had $100,000 home. You sell it for $100,000. You'll get $92,000 back from that. Why? Cause you have to pay your realtor 3%. They're the buying realtor, 3%. So that's six. And then about 2% goes to closing costs. And these are just estimates. So if I buy a house for a hundred thousand dollars, I have to realize if I sell it the next day, I'm going to literally lose $8,000. Okay. So that is a factor when buying a house. So when would you, you know, recommend people buying a home when they're going to live in it for a little while? Okay. Buying and selling homes is just literally burning money. Okay. It's literally just like lighting piles of money on fire and just being like, you know, it's not a good decision. You can lose a lot of money very quickly. And so it's not necessarily a good thing. Renting would be better if you're going to be in a certain area for a short period of time, or let's say you're moving to an area, you know, and I've had to learn this the hard way, but moving to an area, sometimes it's nice to rent initially so that you can figure out where you want to live, what you like, and those types of things, and then buy a property so that you can be more satisfied with that property. So you can spend more time in that property. Cause you don't really want to buy a house and then sell it really quickly. That could cost you lots of money from all the purchasing money, all of the selling money that you went through. Okay. What are the pros of renting? No repairs, theoretically, theoretically, all the repairs are done by the owner. Okay. What are other things? No selling costs. You know, as long as you don't exit your lease early and you don't have to lose your deposit to damages, you don't have any extra expense. I mean, you basically just walk away and there's no extra money tied to walking away. Whereas in selling, there's going to be lots of extra costs associated with selling a property. What's another one. It's easier to move technically, right? Isn't it? It's easier to just let your lease expire and then you're on your way. Selling can be a hassle. You have to show your property multiple times. You have to keep it clean. You have to find the right selling agent. You know, sometimes people, especially if you live in an area where the market is like on a downturn, you can get to a point where it's very difficult to sell a property now in the Dallas forward area, you can sell a property in five minutes. Okay. But that could change, you know, in market conditions can change very quickly and in some areas, you know, like California or Phoenix or Arizona, those areas, their housing markets go like this every couple of years. You know, they're constantly going through all kinds of different seasons right now. The Arizona area is on like a super uptick. I mean, you got, you can sell a house like that for way more money than it's worth. California is probably on a downtick since everybody's leaving and a max Exodus, they're probably having a harder time selling properties in California right now. But there's been times where in California it was a housing boom. So it kind of ebbs and it flows and you have to think about those things when you're renting. You don't have to care what's going on. That doesn't even matter. Renting, it's less money down. You know, you only have to pay typically a deposit on a rental property, so you don't have to, what's some of the negatives of renting. Your rent can increase, right? Technically you, you buy a property and you have your mortgage, your mortgage is the same every year, excluding the tax hikes. Okay. Through your escrow, but you're going to be more locked into a set price. Whereas rent is going to constantly increase as inflation and everything goes on. Also, as inflation goes on, you're, you're losing more and more money as prices of goods just constantly skyrocket and go in. You aren't protected against that when you're just renting. Also, you have no ownership, you know, and that can be just kind of a negative, just, it's kind of frustrating sometimes when you want to paint the walls, you want to do something and you just can't, you know, you want to do something cause you want to own it and you just can't do that. So that's some of the, the pros and cons. So when it comes to home buying or any, it's not just everybody buy home or everybody rent or anything. You have to use discretion. You have to think about your circumstances. You have to consider these things, but you should, you should make wise purchasing decisions. You should think about your situation. You should think about your lifestyle and be careful when you spend money and think about if you're getting a good deal for you. Think about its worth. Think about its resale. And when it comes to purchasing, if you ever consider buying a home, you really need to think about its resale. Okay. And let me give you some tips on resale. Number one is location. The most important factor on real estate location, location, location. They say that and they mean it and it's real deep and it's real. You can have the same crappy house in one part of America and it's worth a million dollars. And in another part it's worth $5. There's houses in Detroit, Michigan that you can buy for like five bucks. And I'm not joking. And they say, how could a house sell for five bucks? Because the people just don't want the tax burden anymore. They don't want to have to pay the thousand bucks in taxes every single year on the property. And it's so dilapidated, you can't even use it. So they're literally selling houses for five bucks. You can buy timeshares for a penny. Why? Because they don't want to have to pay the monthly annual fees associated with that timeshare. Okay. And the reality is, you know, you could have that same crappy house in California and it'd be worth millions because the law is just so expensive. They are going to tear it down and build something new on top of it, but just the land is worth it. So you have to think about where it's located. Think about the value in the association app. Here's another thing. In buying homes, here is your most popular seller, a three bedroom, two bath, you know, and look, you can buy other configurations. Okay. And obviously our families are sometimes bigger, so you want something bigger, but I'm just saying in general, a three bedroom, two bath is going to be the quickest selling property. You know, buying a two bedroom home or something, it could end up being worthless or not selling as easily. So think about that. Also always consider the major repairs because some people don't realize that everything that's expected to work adds no value to your property. So everyone expects the plumbing works, the electric works, the roof is good, the AC and all these things are already in working condition. And if you have to replace any of those, you will lose every dollar you spend on replacing those. You say, Hey, we spent $50,000 doing new plumbing. They're like your house is worth the exact same. Hey, in fact, it wasn't worth what you thought it was when you bought it. It was really what it's saying. But fixing any major thing like that is typically never going to be reflected in a, in an increase in sales price. You're literally wasting money. And if you replace any of those items, I got a new roof. Congratulations. But your house value didn't go up. You know, new window, all the things that are expected to already be there and already working. When you replace them in your house, typically you don't get any money back when you resell it. You have to think about how much the max your house is worth. Because every dollar you spend above that, you will never get back. Sometimes you have your house and it's only worth a hundred dollars a square foot. And it doesn't matter if you literally start lining the toilet seats with gold, it's worth a hundred dollars a square foot. And so sometimes people they'll redo huge sections of their house. They'll redo the kitchen. They'll redo their bathroom. They'll put in all this money into their house, but they'll never get it back because their house is not worth the extra money put in. And so they're literally just wasting money on repairs or fixing it up and doing these types of things as you have to think about how much is my house worth and how much is the max that my house could be worth. And then you have to think about repairs and things that you make. Here's one of the worst repairs you can make as far as resell a pool. You can have a house and add a 50 or $60,000 pool and your house will be worth no more money. In fact, it could even be less because some people just don't want a pool. And so if you want to, if you literally want to just waste money, put in a pool, but here's the thing. Some people love a pool and they're going to live in that house for 30 years and they're going to swim every single day, put in a pool. Okay. Now, if you really, really want to decrease the value of your home, put it in an above ground pool. Okay. This is literally how to drive down the price of your home is put in an above ground pool anywhere near your property. Okay. But the reality is there's just some purchases that are not the same. And so you have to think about what's the return on the investment that I get out of the money that I'm putting into these type of things. And you know, I'm saying some of these, some of these things are common sense. Some people don't even realize it, but you just think about what is the return on the investment that I'm getting. You can buy a property and put a lot of sweat equity into it and increase the value of your home by a lot. You know, you could repair the flooring or paint it and, and, you know, fix things and make them a lot nicer and really gain a lot of equity in your home. So I'm not trying to discourage you from fixing your home up or making it nicer, but I am saying is you should consider the decisions that you're making. You know, it would just be like renting a property like we are this church and putting a bunch of money and fixing it up. Here's the thing. As soon as we leave, all that money's bye-bye. And so you have to think about, is it worth it? And I had to make certain decisions. You know, there's a couple of things that I really wanted to do, but then I started saying, you know what, when we walk away from the building eventually, you know, wasn't that worth it? I wanted to blow up the whole ceiling and have like one of those nice looking, like open ceiling things or whatever, but it's going to cost like 30, 40,000 more dollars. And it's like, what's the benefit. In fact, it might've made the acoustics even worse. And so then I would have had to make a, like, you know, those things you put on the wall, those paddings or whatever to try and trap and make the acoustics even better. So it wasn't super echoey. And it's just like, you know, you have to make certain decisions, you know, and certain costs associated with purchasing, buying, renovating some money, you're never going to get back. But you have to ask the question, are you going to use it? Is it worth it? And you have to think about those things. Go to Proverbs chapter 10, go to Proverbs chapter 10. And look, I'm just trying to make the Bible practical for you. And I can't give you every single scenario. I can't give you every single possibility. I'm just trying to give you general tips that the Bible teaches and then apply them to real life situations that you may go through, but you need to be diligent. You need to think about the purchases that you're making, thinking about, you know, the resale, not always telling people, all of your thoughts out loud, how much money you have. You know, here's just another tip. Never talk about how much money you have, especially when traveling, you know, don't be like, Hey, I've got a thousand bucks in my pocket. Don't tell this to strangers. Don't advertise the money you have. Don't in fact, I've even heard, and I think it's a good idea. If you have money in your wallet and it's like real visible, like maybe your wallet kind of can show the cash and you have a lot of cash. Don't be whipping that out in the middle of of people because someone's going to catch an eye of that and be like, I'm going to go rob that person. I'm going to go steal from that person. You know, when you're traveling, you want it to seem like you're poor. Okay. You want to seem like you don't have any cash, any money. You have nothing. You don't want to go around with your Rolex watch and real looking, real flashy and walking around because people will notice and not the right kind of people. Proverbs chapter 10, look at verse four, either. He become a poor that deals with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent make it rich. This is the principle I'm trying to teach you. If you don't think about the money you're spending, you'll just be poor. It's being slack. You know, just not thinking about how much money does this cost? How much is the resale? What is the interest rate? What, you know, what's the utility I'm going to get out of this. You need to think about those things. You need to be diligent. And also people that are just lazy, they're going to become poor in general. You know, obviously this is not just being lazy in your finance. It's just being lazy in general, lazy people are poor people and people that are very diligent, they're good stewards of the things that they've been, they've been given. They're going to end up gaining wealth, gaining more assets. And look, obviously we're not laboring to be rich, but we should still be diligent with everything that we're given. We should be a good steward of everything that we've been given. Go to Ecclesiastes chapter number four, Ecclesiastes chapter number four. What's some of the tips that we've talked about? Well, if you're constantly living it up, you're going to become poor. If you're sinning, it's going to be real expensive. You're going to become poor, right? And if you're just telling people everything that you're thinking out loud when making purchases, you can get ripped off. And you need to think about the purchases you're making. And let me say this, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the money that you have. Hey, you make money, spend it, buy, you know, you have to live somewhere. You need to buy a car. You need to buy clothes. You can have these, but let me warn you. You're never ever going to be satisfied with anything that you buy. Ecclesiastes chapter four, look at verse number eight. There is one alone and there is not a second. Yay. He hath neither child nor brother yet is there no end of all his labor. Neither is his eyes satisfied with riches. Neither sayeth he, for whom do I labor and bereaved my soul of good. This is also vanity. Yay. It is a sore travail. The Bible tells us, and it's true. You will never be satisfied with the things that you buy. You will buy until you die. You'll keep buying food. You'll keep buying clothes. You'll keep buying all the things that you need and you'll never truly be satisfied. And so if you're chasing satisfaction by spending money, you will never get there. Some people honestly think, and the devil wants to convince you that if you had more money, you would be more satisfied in your life because if you had more money, then you could buy those extra things that you wanted. I could have that extra clothing. I could have that nicer car. I could have that nicer house. I could have that pool. I could have whatever. But here's the problem. Your eyes never going to be satisfied. As soon as you buy that, you want the next iPhone. Who has an iPhone one? What happened? Who has an iPhone two, three, four, five, six, seven. Oh, okay. I wonder why it's an iPhone seven. What happened to ones and twos and threes and fours and five. In fact, 10 years ago, an iPhone four would have been the coolest thing ever. Wouldn't it? What happened? Nobody was satisfied with it. And guess what? Pretty soon, the seven, nobody have a seven, nobody have a 10, nobody have a 12. You know, pretty soon it'll just be a microchip. You're talking to people. I don't know. So when it comes to spending money, there's nothing wrong with spending money. And it's not sinful to buy things. It's not sinful to spend the money that you earn, but you can spend it on simple things. And at the end of the day, you're never going to be satisfied with that money. Flip the page. Look at chapter five, verse 10. He that love is silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This is also vanity. He says, you know, it sucks. The people that are chasing money, they're never going to have enough. Hey, the guy that wants more riches. He's even when he increases, it's never enough. You know, the companies will say we had the best year we've ever had. We had 20% increase in sales. We had a hundred percent net profits. Next year, we're going to try and double it, you know, and the year they'll double it. We doubled it this year. We're going to try and double that. We doubled it next year. We're going to double that. They're never going to be like, all right, next year, let's just try to do at least half of that. Okay. They're never going to be satisfied and you'll never be satisfied by spending money. Spending money is always fleeting. I talked about how spending money on harlots, it's fleeting, but here's the thing. It doesn't matter if it was something good, it's fleeting. You're not going to get any kind of satisfaction out of spending money. That is not how you get true satisfaction. That's not how you get your joy. That's why all the people that are rich are so unhappy because they can't buy happiness. They can literally buy everything on this planet, but happiness. They can buy as many yachts, as many drugs, as many prostitutes. They can, they can buy anything and everything yet. They still aren't happy. Why? Because spending money will never make you happy. It's a fleeting infatuation. Look what it says in verse 18. It says, behold that which I have seen, it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink and enjoy the good of all his labor, that he take it under the sun, all the days of his life, which God giveth him or it is his portion. You know, there's nothing wrong with working, making money, and then using that money to eat and to drink and enjoy your life. God gave us that God gave us the right and the gift of enjoying working and enjoying the fruits of your labor. But let me tell you what, true satisfaction is only going to come through the Lord Jesus Christ. Go to Psalms 19. That's the last place I'll return. And you should, you should be someone who makes a budget for yourself because at the end of the day, if you don't have a budget, you're just going to spend too much money. And you say, why? Because you're never satisfied. You say, well, what, what budget would finally make me satisfied? There isn't one. So what kind of budget should I have? One that's within your means, whatever that is. And you say, well, my life would be better if I had a bigger budget. It wouldn't. You're deceived. You're deceived with riches. You know, riches can deceive you and make you think that if I had a bigger budget, my life would be more fun. If I didn't have to think about money, my life would be better. I would enjoy more, but it's just a lie from the devil. And look, we should plan for some extras. You know, some of the things I talked about, Hey, if you just really, really want to redo your house, even though it won't make, you know, won't resell, but you'll enjoy it. Go for it. As long as you're not spending money, you don't have, as long as you're not paying extra interest, you shouldn't do that. That's not a good idea. Hey, if you just want to, you want to buy the new car, even though you're driving off the lot and just throwing down thousands, but you just want to have that Tesla or whatever, go for it. Hey, there's nothing wrong with enjoying. Hey, you want to go out to a fancy restaurant. You want to go on a vacation, you know, enjoy your life. And you know what? You should plan to enjoy your life. Some God created us to enjoy. Every once in a while, God created us to have some pleasure and have someone. And if you want to have a good marriage, you want to have your children, you know, have a good childhood, you should plan and budget in some extras. But at the end of the day, you should budget them in. Why? Because we should be a good stewards of the money that we have. We should be wise with the money that we have. And at the end of the day, you should realize you won't ever be satisfied no matter what budget you set, no matter how much money you can spend on pleasure. It won't benefit you a lick. And at the end of the day, we should be seeking something that does satisfy. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Psalms 19, verse nine. The fear of the Lord is clean and during forever, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold. Yay than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb mover by them as thy servant warned and keeping of them. There is great reward. And we're not supposed to lay up treasures for ourselves on on earth. We're supposed to lay it up for them in heaven. And the reality is, you know, you're not going to get any satisfaction of the things of this earth naked came I in and thither will I return, you know, so you might as well enjoy the things you have. But at the same time, we should be good stewards of the, of the money that God gives us and we should make wise purchasing decisions. And if you're not wasting it on sin, you have more money to spend on the pleasure, on the pleasure that God allotted for us to enjoy the food and the drink and spending on your on your family and your home. And, you know, I hope that some of these tips will help you. I, I think that you just need to learn general principles from the Bible so that you can make wise decisions. There's not going to be some guru that's going to give you all the answers. You have to figure them out yourself. But God gave you the free will to pick. You know, in the Garden of Eden, God didn't say eat of this tree. Of all the trees of the garden, now may us freely eat. But use some discretion and pick the right kind of trees. Right. Spoken prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for your commandments. Thank you for giving us wisdom and instruction. Thank you for giving us the gift that we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor. And I pray that we realize how fleeting those that that fruit is and the joy and the pleasure is from spending money and those things. And that true joy only comes through serving you. True joy and satisfaction and reward and treasure is found in heaven. And I pray that we would not set our affection on the things of this earth, but rather we'd set our affection on the things of heaven and that we would be wise with the possessions we have here so that you can bless us with the true riches in heaven. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Amen. With that, let's go to our last song for tonight. Go and take out your hymnal again. Turn to song number two hundred and forty seven saved, saved. Song number two hundred and forty seven. In that song number two hundred and forty seven saved, saved. I found a friend who is all to me. His love is ever true. I love to tell how he lived in me and what his grace can do for you. Saved by his power divine, saved to new life sublime. Life is now sweet and my joy is complete for I'm saved, saved, saved. He saves me from every sin and harm, secures my soul each day. I'm leaning strong on his mighty arm. I know he'll guide me all the way. Saved by his power divine, saved to new life sublime. Life is now sweet and my joy is complete for I'm saved, saved, saved. When poor and needy and all alone in love, he said to me, Come unto me and I'll lead you home to live with me eternally. Saved by his power divine, saved to new life sublime. Life is now sweet and my joy is complete for I'm saved, saved, saved. Amen. Great having you here tonight. God bless. You are dismissed. Thank you.