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If we could please lift up our voices. Just over in the glory land I'll join the happy angel band. Just over in the glory land I'm with the mighty host I'll stand. Just over in the glory land I'll lift up our voices. I am on my way to those mansions fair. Just over in the glory land. There to sing God's praise and his glory share. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land I'll join the mighty angels stand. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land there with the mighty host I'll stand. Just over in the glory land. What a joyful thought that my Lord I'll see. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land. The happy angel band. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land there with the mighty host I'll stand. Just over in the glory land. With the blood washed throng I will shout and sing. Just over in the glory land. Glad hosanna to Christ the Lord and King. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land I'll join the happy angel band. Just over in the glory land. Just over in the glory land there with the mighty host I'll stand. Just over in the glory land. A great job. Lord God we thank you Lord for bringing us here today. Lord giving us a church to attend. Lord where they preach the Bible. We thank you for the salvation that we've seen today. Lord thank you for a so winning program. We ask that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit tonight Lord. And we ask that you be edified. Get us all home safely. We love you. Thank you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. All right if you would turn in your hymnals to page 86 in the garden. That's page 86 in the garden. Let's lift up our voices nice and high for the Lord. That's page 86. I come to the garden alone. While the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear falling on my ear. The Son of God discloses. And he walks with me and he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there. None other has ever known. He speaks and the sound of his voice. Is so sweet the birds hush their singing. And the melody that he gave to me. Within my heart is ringing. And he walks with me and he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there. None other has ever known. I stay in the garden with him. Though the night around me be falling. But he bids me go through the voice of woe. His voice to me is calling. And he walks with me and he talks with me. And he tells me I am his own. And the joy we share as we tarry there. None other has ever known. Good evening, thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift up your hand nice and high and we'll get you a bulletin. We have on the inside our service and soul winning times as well as our church wide and regional soul winning. Is there any soul winning that someone had forgotten to report that just needs to get reported for the last few days? Alright, keep with the good work on soul winning. And of course you should report that to your soul winning captains. But we just want to make sure we're capturing all that data. Please continue to pray for all of our expecting ladies. We also have our prayer list. I think I had misspoken. We need to add Miss Eva Garcia for back pain to the prayer request. And then on the back of our announcements we have a Shreveport Louisiana Marathon September 24th this Saturday. If you'd like to participate in the church wide transportation we'll meet here at 5.30 in the morning. Otherwise you can just meet us out there. I don't know if we have the address listed on the sign up sheet but you can ask brother Dylan what that address is. I think also we have a video online. It's some park that's kind of over by the river. So I can't remember off the top of my head. Does somebody remember what the top of the name was? Alright, we'll double check. Also we have the Sunday Sundays September 25th. So that's the following day. I know my kids are excited about that. So I'm sure your kids are too. And then also we have our conference October 6th, the 8th Heritage of the Lord Conference. We did put our spelling bee words on our website. So if you'd like to download them. If you have any problem getting them you could just ask us. We can email it to you or try to find a way to get that to you. Also we have a soul winning blitz October 29th in Arlington. We have our Texas chili cook off October 31st. We have our music recital November 5th. There was another activity that's not mentioned on our bulletin or we can add. It's in October as well. It's October 22nd. Mrs. Armeno is going to be organizing a fall swap that day. That's a Saturday. And so I know that a lot of people have liked that and participated in the past. But she was organizing that. Was it 9 a.m.? Yeah, 9 a.m. to about when? 3 p.m. I think? Yeah, yeah. So 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. is going to be the fall swap. And basically it's just anything that you don't want that has value you could bring and drop off. And then when you come you can take anything that you want. It's not really please bring your trash to church to get disposed of. But it is if you have anything of value. Now, sometimes one man's trash is another man's treasure. So I'm not saying that it has value to you. It just has value in general sense, okay? So if you have some items that you say, you know what, I don't really have much use for this, but I'd like to bring it. So, you know, things that are not like this are broken, torn. Your kids vomited on it and they don't want to wear it anymore. Those aren't necessarily what we're saying. We're just saying they're things that you can't use but they still are good products. You can bring them and then if you come, sometimes there's something here that you weren't anticipating, you can snag. You don't have to bring anything to participate. It's simply just optional. Some people only want to drop off. Some people only want to take. And there's really not, both of those are great. So if you want to participate, please do at your own risk, okay? If you do want to come pick something up, you got to get it that day too. So it's a one-time, get it while it's hot. So that's pretty much another opportunity, October 22nd. November 5th, our music recital. November 10th through the 12th, our Matamoros Soul Winning Marathon, our trip down there. November 23rd is a Thanksgiving dessert fellowship. December 2nd is our ladies' Christmas party. So a lot of great events coming up. We have the congratulations to the Carrasco family on the birth of their daughter, Leilani Brielle Carrasco. She was born 9-13-22 at 6-25 p.m. She weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and measuring 19 and 3 quarter inches long. So congratulations to them. Definitely want to keep them in our prayers as well. That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements are concerned. We'll go ahead and go to our third song this evening. Page 63, what a day that will be. Song 63, what a day that will be. All right, page 63, what a day that will be. There is coming a day when no heartache shall come. No more clouds in the sky. No more tears to dim the eye. All is peaceful evermore on that happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon his face the one who saved me by his grace. When he takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. There will be no sorrow there. No more burdens to bear. No more sickness, no pain. No more parting over there. And forever I will be with the one who died for me. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon his face the one who saved me by his grace. And for me by the hand and leads me through the promised land. What a day, glorious day that will be. I wish that song was a little longer. I like that song. While the offering plates are passed around, turn in your Bibles to Proverbs 23. We're going to read the whole chapter as is our custom. You can follow along silently starting in verse 1. Proverbs chapter 23, the Bible reads there, When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat. Labor not to be rich, cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings. They fly away as an eagle toward heaven. Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye? Neither desire thou his dainty meats. For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee, but his heart is not with thee. The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up and lose thy sweet words. Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words. Remove not the old landmark, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless, for their redeemer is mighty. He shall plead their cause with thee. Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reign shall rejoice when thy lips speak right things. Let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long, for surely there is an end, and thine expectation shall not be cut off. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among winebibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh, for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe the man with rags. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not. Also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding. The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bear thee shall rejoice. My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in weight as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast. They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick. They have beaten me, and I felt it not. When shall I awake? I will seek it yet again. Let's pray, Father. We thank you for Proverbs 23, Lord, and I just pray that you would enable Pastor Shelley to thunder forth the message that you've laid on his heart, and also, Lord, I pray that you would just be with us as we go our separate ways after the service. Help us to apply this message so we can be more complete Christians and serve you to the best of our ability, and we love you, and thank you for everything you've given us. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. Amen. We're in Proverbs chapter 23, and we're looking at verse number 10. The Bible says, Remove not the old landmark, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless. For their redeemer is mighty, he shall plead their cause with thee. And what's interesting about this first verse is, remove not the old landmark is the association it has in the book of Proverbs. So, specifically, a landmark is real self-explanatory. It's a physical object that's situated in a field or on someone's land that indicates a boundary. So this would be known as a landmark. Often there's many landmarks in our society, even, that not only are boundaries from personal property, but even dividing state from state, or city from city, or all kinds of different things that landmarks are used for, but typically it's to denote territory. So you have a landmark which could be as simple as a fence post. It could be as simple as a rock. It could be as simple as a tree. It could be as simple as a river, or a lake, some body of water often, or landmarks that divide or separate cities. We're going to Shreveport for the soul-wanting marathon, and there's a body of water that travels through the city, and on the other side is Bossier. So it's like a completely different city, even though, realistically speaking, it's not even but, you know, hundreds of feet from one another, and you just drive across the bridge, and it would feel like you're just traveling from one side of the road to the other side, but yet it's a completely different city, that body of water would be a landmark. And in historical times, people would have large sections of farmland, or different inheritances that they had, and they would use large stones or different objects to denote where their properties start or begin. So the idea of removing the landmark is simply the idea of you go up to the edge of your property and where your neighbor's property is, and you take that big stone and you roll it a few feet generously in your own direction. And then the next year you come and you roll it another few feet, and then another year you roll it another, and you're basically, you're just kind of slowly taking away and shipping away from the inheritance, the land of your neighbor you're stealing from him. But notice here in Proverbs chapter 23, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless. So saying that typically when people will rip someone off or take advantage of them, removing that landmark, it's they're taking advantage of the weak. They're taking advantage of the fatherless. So the fatherless is the idea of a, you know, a widow or a young woman who no longer has a husband for whatever reason, and her children are the ones that are going to inherit this property, so they have no man. They have no good men of the house or some father to defend them and protect them. So it's easier for predators or criminals to want to steal from that particular family because there's no real threat of anybody doing anything about it. You know, you know, of course, handguns and shotguns and things like this have become an equalizer in a modern day context. But, you know, several hundred years ago or thousands of years ago, if a man went and just took over some lady's property, she wasn't going to be able to do anything about it. She can't fight him for it, and children wouldn't be able to do anything about that. So it's just basically taking advantage of people that can't do anything about it. But what does God say? Don't enter into that person's field. Don't even take a step, you know, respect that person's boundary, even if they're not capable of defending themselves if you could get away with it. You know, the old adage of taking candy from a baby, but God's saying don't take the candy out of that baby's hand because I can redeem them. I will notice that. I'm not going to look favorably upon you when you're taking advantage of people or ripping people off. He says this, verse 11, He shall plead their cause with thee. Meaning God is going to get mad at you and is going to fight you on you taking advantage or stealing from the poor in essence. Now, I want to look at another verse here in chapter 22. It's right next to this. Verse 22. So it's Proverbs 22, verse 22. Rob not the poor because he is poor. Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate. For the Lord will plead their cause and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them. So the Bible is essentially saying you're going to reap what you sow. You take advantage of people and you steal from people. God will make sure that you get stolen from and you get ripped off and bad things happen to you. And this is generally the case. People that are very scummy, people that are often taking advantage of people and they're thieves, they often have thieves take advantage of them and steal from them and they live just miserable lives. We don't want to be people that are constantly stealing from others, ripping people off, taking advantage of the poor. This is not the type of lifestyle for God's people. God's people are not supposed to just take advantage of the weak because they're weak. Notice that it says, Rob not the poor because he is poor. Why is that phrase in your Bible? Well, not only can you take advantage of someone because they won't defend themselves, but often you can take advantage of people's stupidity. So it's not so much that you're even necessarily doing anything wrong as far as like you're just moving the landmark, but what you're doing is people are so dumb that you can just take all of their money and they'll hand it to you. You don't even have to ask them to steal it. You can just use means by which to take advantage of their stupidity, their weakness, or their bad situation. And the Bible is telling you you shouldn't do that. You should just take advantage of people and rip people off just because you can. There are many ways that you can rip people off and take advantage of them and gather extra wealth into yourself because people are poor and they're foolish and they're stupid and they don't understand money. That's why he's saying because he's poor. The reason why this guy's poor is because he deals with a slack hand, because he's lazy, because he is not very well educated. Maybe he did grow up without a father. Maybe he did have a bad situation and they're down on their luck so you take advantage of him. What would be a scenario like this? Well, one real obvious is these payday cash loans that exist everywhere in our society. This is taking advantage of poor people because the interest rates and the fees that they charge these people would scare you to want to stand before God after you just took that much money from somebody. I mean, sometimes they're so egregious they would make Jews blush. And I say that because a lot of the people that own these businesses aren't even Jews. They're just taking it from their playbook. Now, go to James, chapter one, James, chapter one. The Bible teaches the exact opposite. That instead of robbing the poor, you should bless the poor and do good under the poor and help the poor. Now, I want to make something clear because I even brought this up a little bit in my sermon this morning. There's a difference between what the Bible describes as poor people and what America often describes as poor people. Poor people in the Bible are not lazy, drug-addicted freaks standing on the street corner. Poor people are just simply down on their luck. They actually are without. They often will even have a reason why they're poor. And that's why the Bible often says that the righteous will consider it the cause of the poor or considers the cause of the poor because we have to determine why someone's poor to determine how we would actually help them. Are you poor because you're crippled? Are you poor because you're fatherless? Are you poor because you're a widow? Or are you poor because you're addicted to heroin and you refuse to get any treatment? Are you poor because you refuse to work and you just want to play video games? Are you poor because you're just a jerk? You know, these are completely different people. The people in the second category, the latter category, that are willingly poor, choosing to be poor, not doing anything about it, I refuse to help those people. And I believe Scripture dictates and commands that if they won't work, they shouldn't even eat. So that's not even just Pastor Shelley's personal preference or idea. That is Scripture. That is just hard, fast facts of what Jesus is saying. But there's other places in the Bible that talk about assisting poor people. What would be some legitimate reasons why people are poor? Like I mentioned, cripple, hurt, injured, fatherless, or widow. And that's why the Bible, when it's talking about assisting poor people, that's who it's typically bringing up. Someone that's cripple, fatherless, or widow. Look what it says in James chapter 1 verse 26. If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. So the type of religion that Jesus Christ wants us to have is one where we're helping people that cannot return good for your good. You know, the Bible often talks about when you prepare a feast, to not invite those that are your friends and those that would be able to pay you back, but rather to invite people that can't pay you back, people that are down on their luck, people that would never be able to return their favor. You know, I often would even think about this as just as a general rule. If I could bless this person but there's really no obvious way this person can bless me back in a reciprocal way anytime soon, that's great. That's a good opportunity to bless someone. Now I'm not saying you can't have fellowship and fun with friends and you can't invite people over that you like, but often it's also good to try and make friends and to help people that would otherwise have no other real option or that can't necessarily bless you back. You know, a couple that just gets married, they're often poor. Why? Because when you start out in a career as a young man, it's hard to make very good money. You know, you don't have very much skill, you don't have very much experience, you often don't have a lot of ability to make a lot of money, so it would be nice if other people that are a little bit further down the road in life could bless the younger couples and invest in them, even though they'll maybe never be able to invite you to their efficiency apartment to have ramen noodles, you know, for dinner or whatever. That's okay. You know what? I grew up where a lot of people did good unto me and I was never able to repay them back. I never did probably and I probably never will be able to and it's okay that I didn't do that, right? A fatherless person or a widow is really incapable of probably paying you back. It's okay. You just do good unto them anyways. You help them when they're down on their luck, they're going through difficulty, they're going through struggle, because is it really someone's fault that they're fatherless? Is it really someone's lady's fault that she's a widow? Or, you know, and of course in America, we have a lot of ladies that are not necessarily widows but are in a similar situation where they just simply have a man who's just a complete loser and abandoned his family. I don't understand this, but for whatever reason, it's just totally socially acceptable, apparently, for men to knock up a girl and then just abandon them. And I say why that's socially acceptable is because they don't have a problem, you know, at work or friends or family, like nobody's giving these people a hard time, apparently. Because you know what? If there was a guy in my life that was like that, that I knew, a family member or friend or whatever, I would be giving them a really hard time about that all the time. Because that's not fair for some lady to have to raise a child by herself and to provide for it and to do everything, so some guy is just a lazy jerk and refuses to take care of the responsibilities that he has in his life. I mean, that guy is, according to the Bible, worse than an infidel. Yet, many Christians, oh, let's be loving, let's be gracious. You don't even know what grace is. You know, it's not gracious to assist some man, some able-bodied man, in being a jerk to some poor woman and a child. That's not you being gracious. And in fact, that's not even to be loving. Loving would be to tell that guy off so that he goes and provides for his family, so that he spends time with those individuals. In fact, according to the Bible, if you knock up a girl, you get married, period. I mean, the only caveat is if the father-in-law is like, you're such a loser, I say no. But you know what? In that case, you just still pay for it. That's what the Bible says. You know, and it baffles me. There'll be even Christians. They'll knock up some girl and they're like, I don't know what to do. And I'm thinking like, the Bible is real clear, marry them. It's like, well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if she's the Proverbs 31 woman. Well, you're obviously not the Proverbs 31 guy. You just knocked her up, bro. I mean, what kind of double standard? I mean, it's frustrating to me how guys just seem to have all these double standards. It's like, I've got to marry a Proverbs 31 woman. I'm thinking like, who are you to think you're going to marry that? You know, none of us deserve a Proverbs 31 woman, first of all, okay? But then second of all, you thinking that you deserve that or you're going to get that, you're a fool anyways. And who said that she deserved, I mean, wouldn't a Proverbs 31 woman deserve some great, charming man? It's like, you're not that guy anyways. I'm highly skeptical that you'll ever get to the point where I would wish that evil upon a Proverbs 31 woman, okay? So it's just silly how people just often think of themselves deserving all this wonderful blessing, but then they refuse to give it to some other person. You know, even if you did quote unquote marry down, what's wrong with that? Or, you know, like me, I married way up, so it's a great blessing to me, but I'm glad that my wife was willing to marry down so that I could benefit from marrying up so high, you know? I mean, what a great blessing that I get to receive. And you know what? Maybe she was just looking down upon some young man. She's like, I'm going to bless this young man with my hand in marriage, you know? And of course I got that. It's a wonderful blessing. I'm so glad that I got to marry up for all of my life. But this is the same concept and principle we're talking about here where I look at a person and I'm not determining to invite them over because I like them or they can return favors, but rather I'm thinking like, you know what? This person just needs some love and I want to show them some love. And we learned earlier this morning a little bit clearer picture of what love is. Love is not the idea of her paying good for good. It's doing good on the people that don't deserve it, that arguably the opposite maybe even in that situation. So we should try to visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction, meaning we should pay attention to them, we should consider them, we want to do good under them. One of the best ways to do this is soul winning. You know, going out and think about it, we knock on every door. We're visiting a lot of fatherless and trying to instruct them. You know, these young boys need a father to sit them down and preach them the gospel and tell them the importance of church. And if their dad won't do it, we'll do it. We'll go out into the neighborhoods. You know, I like going into the ghetto neighborhoods. I think most of our church does. And really you see a lot of children just running around with pretty much no inhibitions. I mean, they have like no whims. The parents don't seem to really care. But you know what? I guarantee they notice, hey, this person seems to care about me and wants to sit down and tell me the Bible. And they're some of the most receptive people in getting saved. And that's a big deal for you to go out there and try to reach the fatherless. Or even if they have a father physically but he's just not present in their life, you're filling a void spiritually to help give that guy, that kid at least, salvation or to help point them in the right direction, give them a Bible. Let them know that there are people out there that actually care. You know, it's going to be harder for the young black community, the children of these black communities to think so awful of white people when there's a bunch of white people walking around in their neighborhoods giving them Bibles and telling them how to go to heaven. You know, it really flips the script on their narrative. Whereas if the white community is never actually going out and visiting these people, never actually going and seeing where they live, never knocking on their door, never preaching them the gospel, they're being fed a consistent diet of white people hate you, white people are evil, kill white people. You know, someone's got to actually combat that. How about you just go out and actually give them the gospel and do good under them? You know, rather than trying to take advantage of them to get their vote or something like that, like the Democrats will do, or to just buy them some cheap meal or to hand them 10 bucks at the corner so they can buy more liquor, we'd rather show up a Bible at hand and try to give them the gospel. And of course, even the widows and even young women that are down on their luck, you know, to help them out, to assist them, to try and encourage them even though they're in a bad situation. Go if you went to Romans chapter 15, go to Romans chapter 15. It's just sad though because all of the people that we're talking about are so easily ripped off and taken advantage of. And most of them don't even realize how much they're being taken advantage of. Our society as a whole is very ignorant financially and is getting ripped off so much. And it really frustrates me just because I have a little bit of a finance background. I worked in banking and so I kind of am aware of these situations. But, you know, one of the worst things that's happening in our society is how many apartments are being built. Because it's just like, the apartment is not necessarily the evil the evil is inflation, okay folks. But what the man is doing is because it's just drawing so many people into a rental state and a rental mindset inflation is just crushing those who are in that situation. Because all of their money is just going to be eviscerated to the point where they have nothing and they can't afford anything. Myself included, when I lived in Phoenix specifically, when I moved there to go to Fayetteburg Baptist Church the only way I could even afford it was if I bought a property because rent was so much more expensive. I was looking at houses that ranged about 1,500 square feet to 1,700 square feet three bedrooms. So not, pretty much you're just typical, average, small starter home or something like that. It was going to cost me 1,500 to 2,000 dollars a month of rent at the time. But I bought a house basically fitting that exact description 1,500 square feet three bedroom, two bath house it was 700 dollars a month for me to own it. That's a giant difference. Not only that I did nothing to my property like almost nothing to it. And then after two years of selling it my property value went up 50,000 dollars. But you know everybody that rented during that phrase they got zero dollars and they had to pay more than double in many cases of what I was paying on a monthly basis. Let me tell you what's happening they were getting ripped off. They were getting ripped off and of course why are most people in that situation why am I different? My parents helped me save and then gave me a bunch of money to help buy a house when I was younger. Where if you're fatherless you wouldn't have that option would you? So of course you have to start even further down the chain you have to start even further behind but the longer you stay in that stage the longer you are in the behind stage. You know recently anybody that owns a property would realize that from 2020 to right now your property value in the DFW area has probably increased a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe even a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand depending on all the different circumstances. Not based on you doing any improvements to the property based on one factor, inflation. And what that means is simply the value of the dollar decreased and so it made all of the products on the market increase in value. So it's not like something good happened people will think like oh great my house increased by a bunch of money. What actually happened is everyone got stolen two hundred thousand dollars got stolen from you. The problem is when you didn't have any money and you were a renter you just got ripped off even harder because what happened is the starter home that you were going to try and get in 2020 was three hundred thousand dollars now it's four hundred thousand dollars. So good luck getting involved in that game and then it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse and the money that you have just keeps getting lesser in value and lesser in value and they just keep building bigger apartment buildings. Why? Because the guy that's owning the apartment building is winning at life. I mean we've never had more people trying to move the Dallas-Forth area than ever before and you know it's getting you know it's mostly in these apartments the fatherless and widows. Young single people women who get divorced women who have a scumbag husband that basically or boyfriend that won't be with them or just single guys that are living that horror type of lifestyle that didn't have a good father that didn't instruct them or teach them anything. So you just have apartments just filled with all of these life situations and these people are getting ripped off. They are being ripped off just like the guy walking over there and just kind of pushing the stone on your inheritance that's inflation coming and just kicking that stone just a little bit further in and a little bit further in to the point where you have no property whatsoever and that is what the majority of Americans it seems like that are young like the young generation has no assets. They don't have a family farm they have no inheritance they don't have acreage they don't have anything and every single second that they have nothing inflation is just crushing them that further down the road it's just making it that much worse for them and destroying it's kind of like playing Monopoly the longer you play Monopoly and you don't have any properties you're in big trouble because everybody else is getting property and then building houses and then you know once they get a monopoly the rent doubles that was inflation remember and then as soon as they put a house on it it goes up again and they put two houses and they put three houses if you never buy property in Monopoly you lose you get eliminated this is what the world wants to do to America is they want everyone to stop buying property and only build your own property and only Bill Gates and George Soros and Black Rock or whatever to buy property and pretty soon once they own all of it what do they do? they start building houses and hotels on it at first it's cheap and it's like oh there's no problem they own everything who cares if they own everything well you know why it matters because when they start building hotels on it and they start building apartment complexes on everything and that's the only thing you can live in that's the only thing that anybody can own you know why is it that California's pricing of their housing is ridiculous supply and demand issue but mostly because they're not building houses they're building apartments and they have an influx of people coming in and most people because they're not being wise with their money they're spending all their money on Taco Bell and Pizza Hut and beer and floozies and you know tickets to the sporting game and a lease on their car that's stupid and just like all kinds of just dumb ways to waste money then essentially they just put themselves in these horrible weak poor type mentality and all of these rich corporations just steal all your money and I don't know if you've been paying attention but the corporations don't actually love you as a person they'll turn you off and censor you and shut you down and throw out your name as mud tomorrow because they really are some of the most evil wicked people on our planet are some of the leaders in these major corporations because they love money and they know like if we do this ad in this poor black neighborhood everybody will do it why do you think it is that there's a cash payday advance loan over here in Arlington and Grand Prairie but you can't find one in Collyville you can't find one in Southlake I mean go show me the advance payday loan notice place in Southlake does one even exist yet we could go down to some of these South Fort Worth we'll find two in the same shopping center we'll find them everywhere why because they're taking advantage of the poor they're robbing the poor they're robbing the widow they're taking advantage of all these people's ignorance of their foolishness of the fact they didn't have someone love them invest in them and try to help them to do that which is right you know what God's people should do the opposite we should invest in people and love people and try to help them you know a lot of the help needs to be just education I preach a lot of sermons on this because you know obviously the Bible teaches there's some good aspects to poverty and blessed be you poor but most of those are spiritual you know the Bible does not teach being physically poor is a blessing I'm sorry if you think that you can show me you can show me whatever verse you want in the Bible but you know in the Proverbs the guy's saying give me neither poverty nor riches he's not saying please give me poverty you know the reason why people have abject poverty is because they're lazy according to the Bible how's that good or they're in certain situations I brought up and there's no fault to those people right I'm not mad at someone who's poor because they're a widow or because they're crippled you know what I am mad at the lazy jerk standing on the street corner able-bodied man who refuses to work that person I have no sympathy for and that is not a blessing those people aren't a blessing there's nothing good about that situation or that particular person and you know what God's people should not be going around trying to be like a homeless person or thinking you know having a hard time and I just thought I'll just come to steadfast Baptist Church and I'm thinking like that's not gonna be fun for you go get a job oh well it's hard you're lazy look people that work hard in this world are gonna make good money fact fact people that work hard and try hard God's gonna make sure to take care of them there are some exceptions but just generally speaking the reason why people don't make good money is because they don't work hard they're not applying effort into working hard they're not like educating themselves trying to get highly skilled positions getting jobs that just pay well you know it's funny to me how many times the world's philosophies even creep into Christianity where where men will complain to me about not making good money but then they don't want to do a job they're not interested in and I'm like well you can't have your cake and eat it too necessarily it's like you know when I just signed up to be the man of the house and provide I didn't say like well I want to do my favorite activity while getting paid well you know what I gave up playing being a professional golfer because I wasn't gonna get paid I wasn't good enough I was never gonna make that so then I said you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna give the job that pays me the best amount of money not what I think's the funnest not that's just the most enjoyable not the easiest what's gonna pay the best and I didn't care if it was gonna be the hardest if I had to work you know more hours or difficult or all these different things it was just like what's gonna actually provide for my family and that's what I did and that's what I encourage every man to do not to sit here and think like oh man I just don't know if I really love work it's called work it wasn't called fun you know and of course ideally if you could have your cake and eat it too of course you want to enjoy your work I get that but this is what I've noticed men just enjoy doing good work I really don't even think like you know software development I like it but I don't think that I would find less satisfaction doing virtually any other job I'm sure building cars would be fun and enjoyable to me I at one point want to be an architect I'm sure that would have been fun building construction you know building homes that sounds really cool I've done I've done property management you know I thought about the idea of doing commercial property management that sounds like fun I probably wouldn't evict people for preaching the Bible you know so I got that going for me hey I kind of want to still get into that arena because I know some people that would would possibly rent from me and it sounds like a good agreement you know it's like there's so many different opportunities and jobs out there and what I've noticed is that if you're a normal man you just like you like working to get something done you enjoy getting things done most of the time this is what people don't like about work their co-workers or their boss or like the bureaucracy but here's the problem that exists no matter what profession you're in I mean unless you're going to work for a church good luck you know getting away from most of these issues and even then I guarantee Dylan doesn't like his boss every single day okay you know I don't know because I'm me and he's his own person but I'm sure ask Dylan if he's ever had to do a task he didn't want to do or if he's ever had a day where he was frustrated with work I'm sure it exists and that's okay he doesn't have to tell me about it okay he can be like Nehemiah or whatever and never have a sad countenance in my presence but internally I'm sure that at at times it's not always the the the most enjoyable thing or the greatest activity or you know working for the church as a church working for the church has its perks and it has its downfalls you know hey some people like the idea of of working for a church but how about having people come and and harass you at your home because you work for the church you know that's not that cool so it's like everybody just thinks that if they had a certain job their life would be better but that's not even necessarily true there's always trade-offs to every kind of profession that there is out there um you know if I didn't work for the church I love working for the church I I wouldn't but if I didn't work for the church you know when I work extra at my secular job you know what happens I get paid extra but when I work extra here no one no magical fairy just comes and just sprinkles more money into my pocket okay whereas you know so that's a benefit to having a secular job that you go out and you work some extra overtime you do some extra things you could really get some extra money and then you could use that to your advantage you know if I want extra money I have to go and actually get another completely secular job and do other secular work to try and get some of that on top of everything that I'm already doing and sometimes that's what men need to do but you know while while we're all concerned with ourselves and our money and our situation you know the Bible challenges us to have a completely different mindset look at Romans chapter number 15 verse 1 we then that are strong so if you're one of these guys I'm doing good pastor I work hard I work hard I make good money I got a house what does it say ought to bear the infirmities of the week and notice this and not to please ourselves let every one of us please his neighbor for his good edification wouldn't that be great if we went to a church that was more concerned with the needs and the necessities of our fellow church member over ourselves where we say I'm more concerned with your job than my job I'm more concerned with your family than my family and obviously we got to take that in its context I'm not saying that I care about your family more than mine because I don't but what I am saying is this that if my family is going really well and your family is going kind of poor and I have an opportunity to hang out with my family or try to help yours maybe I put my family on the sacrifice a little bit and I try to please and build up and edify your family over my own you know sometimes you just go and hang out with a church family member or you go and do something for a church family member and it's at the detriment of your own family in the sense that you would have been spending that time with your family or doing things for them but you're rather just trying to bless other people why? because you're concerned with other people's families more than your own in that context okay don't take my words for something that is not but what I am trying to explain to you is this you know we should look at the poor we should look at the weak in our lives and we should try to help them and bless them and encourage them not just think like oh well that guy should work harder that guy should be like me well okay let's be real maybe he should but don't get this puffed up arrogant attitude help that person you know if you think that someone could be better help them get better you know help them understand why they're making decisions that they're making that aren't beneficial you know it'd be easy for me to just sit here and think in my heart and in my mind like oh I'm so much better than other people financially with housing and job and blah blah blah if I really think that then I would have a humble attitude about it and actually help those people that are not doing well and give them the right information give them advice try to assist them I've tried to even personally assist a lot of people just in the profession you know they have questions about jobs or how to get into a different career I try to invest time to help people with that people ask me questions about real estate or housing I try to give them advice or tips about that you know or even some of you men that are skilled you could even just help people you know some people that even have a house or property or something like that and they're kind of lower on the totem pole go help them make their bathroom nicer or you know help give them advice or tips on things like that you know there's a lot of ways that we can help one another and bless one another and do good under one another rather than just sitting and be like well I'm strong you know if you're so strong then go ahead and use those muscles for a reason and help other people and bless other people don't go around and just keep pushing the landmark with everybody else you know it's a healthy society you know what's a healthy society is when we have everybody in possession of goods and we don't have this ruling class and then everybody's poor that is a dangerous society to live in you know the more Christian a society is and the more following biblical principles a flourishing middle class will exist it's interesting because it's almost like a middle class determines how Christian a nation is and if you were to think about nations think about a nation that has virtually no middle class like North Korea, China why? because there's no Christianity there whatsoever and the more a nation is Christian and following Christian principles the more you'll have basically everybody just kind of in the middle and then you'll have outliers whereas the less a Christian nation or the less Christian a nation is the more you're just going to have the ultra wealthy elite and you're going to have just abject poverty kind of there at the bottom of that rung and so we as God's people need to start helping the weak so that we kind of bridge that gap and we kind of narrow the things out and we kind of bring more people up rather than just keep pushing those people down and building ourselves up because there's a lot of money to be had from the poor wouldn't you think if I'm going to steal from somebody I would steal from someone who's rich, right? I mean because that guy has money but that's not how it works people are stealing from the poor because the poor they're still making plenty of money from a conglomerate aspect you don't think of those payday cash loan places or make it just ringing in all kinds of money all kinds of profit I mean they're some of the most profitable businesses in fact one of the most profitable businesses I've ever seen looking at from the bank perspective was a liquor store and it was in the Emeril area and it was funny because their particular accounts you weren't even allowed to look at unless you had like specific privileges because they didn't want anybody to know how much money they really had but I mean if you drove by this shopping center in this liquor store you would think like they're about to go out of business because it's just like it's the most ghetto just derelict place you're just looking at you're like this place is gross and filthy and you know why would anybody even go here but I'll tell you what no businesses could touch them all the businesses that were pretty and look nice and were in the nice area they're just barely making ends meet they're barely being able to keep the lights on and this like dirty derelict you know in the gutter type business I mean it is just making hand over fist cash I mean we're talking about millions and millions of dollars of profit a year one liquor store in the ghetto why? because every ghetto person around that was their one place to go get liquor and they weren't going to drive really far because they're poor so they just go to this one place and they had jacked up rates because they knew it they were in the poor and the poor people liked liquor and they just ripped them off and they just made tons and tons and tons of money look the payday cash loan places not only that people that get scammed or ripped off are often these people in bad situations another group that often gets victimized is just elderly people because they're kind of the best of both worlds they typically have a lot of money and they're kind of easy targets I looked at an article there was a Chicago elderly woman who recently lost $230,000 to a scam and basically they called her up and told her that she had been like accused of drug trafficking and I can't remember all the specifics so forgive me if I get a detail wrong but in essence I think it was like the way the scam worked is they told her that she was accused of drug trafficking and so the feds or the government were going to come in and confiscate her savings account and so they were trying to convince her to move her money into a different account to keep it safe from all these false accusations and so they're basically trying to help her move her money but what did they do? they moved all their money into their account and it wasn't even real look if you're being investigated for drug trafficking by the feds there's not going to be an Indian guy named Gupta on the phone helping you oh you're being drug trafficked let me help you my name is Gupta no, no go to the cops you know don't try to pull something shady, alright there was another one where there would be people that go into these richer areas or richer fairgrounds or things like that and a lady will walk up and she'll say hey it's my birthday and I'm just giving away free jewelry do you mind if I just give you some free jewelry? but as the lady's like saying it come here Richard she's like doing it so she's like hey we got this free jewelry just wanted to put it on you and always this is what the lady's like oh no no sorry I don't want it and then they walk away but here's what would happen you can sit down what would happen is they ended up realizing that their diamond necklace that was on their neck is gone because all they were trying to do is a pretext to touch you so they could unhook your necklace and actually take it off so they're just walking up to these old ladies and just saying hey we want to give you this free jewelry and it was a lady doing it but then all the while all she'd do is just unhook your necklace and then just take it off when you refuse to take this free jewelry or whatever that she was offering and they were none the wiser look this stuff is happening all the time in our culture in 2021 92,371 elderly people reported being scammed for 1.7 billion dollars that was in one year someone's making some money that was a 74% increase from 2020 you know the bible says when the vilest men are praised you know the wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are lifted up and we see because of criminal activity increasing because of all the evil that's going on cops aren't doing anything anymore and it's only getting worse and worse more people are getting scammed you know people are being taken advantage of but God's people should not be doing this go if you would to Luke chapter number 20 Luke chapter 20 now of course a lot of you are probably not involved at least I hope not you better not be and most of the things that I'm bringing up these scams but you know some people are even just poor because they got ripped off you know I've been ripped off for a large sums of money and you know frankly I thought that you know I thought that I was a good money manager and I thought that I was doing things well but even if you're trying to do a good job people can just take advantage of you they can just steal from you and obviously it was a humbling experience because it helps me realize like maybe I'm not as smart or as wise as I think that I am and I need to be more careful than I even thought and it's a good learning experience because you can try to learn how to be better or wiser or not let people take advantage of you as much but everyone's out to get you and they're also getting they're out to get the weak and of course what does the wolf do? he waits for one sheep to get left behind from the flock and pounces on them so we need to remember that and think hey let's not have this jaded attitude towards the poor let's help the poor you know Paul said in Galatians only that they they're talking about Paul only they would that we should remember the poor the same which I also was forward to so the same guy that wrote second Thessalonians chapter number three about not feeding lazy jerks also said that he remembered the poor and often helped them so there's nothing wrong with helping the poor and doing good on the poor it's just simple that the righteous consider it the cause of the poor saying is this guy just down on his luck having a bad time there's some kind of an issue or is this guy just refusing to work okay I would I refuse to give money to men that are refusing to work you know but I would give money to a man if you know he's down on his luck or you know he doesn't have the best situation or maybe he's young maybe he hasn't had anybody help him in his life you know I'm not against helping somebody in that scenario but at the same time you know we we consider it right we're not just oh here's here's other people's money like the Democrats just carte blanche just handing I mean you know you know why the Democrats are so liberal it's because they don't have any money they're giving all your money away of course that's easy it's easy to give other people's money away it's hard to sometimes give your money away right the stingy Jew creeps up in a lot of people Luke chapter 20 look at verse 46 beware of the scribes who desire to walk in long robes and love greetings in the markets and the highest seats in the synagogues and the chief rooms at feasts which devour widows' houses and for a show make long prayers the same shall receive greater damnation now what I'm describing for you of our culture is not a new thing under the sun notice even back then the religious political leaders of that day were ripping off and taking advantage of the poor weren't they you know it makes me think of this stupid idea called reverse mortgages who's ever heard about reverse mortgages this is a plan to just rip off the widow and to take all of their money steal all of their wealth while also patting themselves on the back for helping them man those commercials make me sick how the banks get up there and they're just like putting all these fake actors on there like I would have lost my home if it wasn't for Wells Fargo giving me a reverse mortgage it's like you're a paid actor why don't we go get all the people that actually got the reverse mortgage and then as soon as we're done and then as soon as the reverse mortgage ran out and you stole all the equity from their house they literally foreclosed on them and then did take their home what about that person why didn't you put that person on the commercial Wells Fargo helped me stay in my house for two more years and then took it from me what a blessing you know that wasn't cool these reverse mortgages are wicked there's all kinds of inventions that the Jews have created to take people's money you know what we should be doing is preaching to the youth to take care of their father and their mother not forsaking them in their old age not letting them get in that type of a situation in that scenario plus you're even stealing the bank was stealing their inheritance that was their inheritance to have by them refusing to take care of their elderly parents they're just letting their inheritance go to waste it's like you reap what you sow refuse to help your parents receive bills at their death as opposed to someone that actually blesses their parents and takes care of their parents they might actually get a big payday when their parents finally pass which, you know, that should be the goal the goal should not be to inherit bills when your family members die it should be an inheritance and in fact the Bible teaches that a good man leaveth an inheritance unto his children's children meaning that the grandchildren meaning that the grandchildren are receiving money that was in the grandparent's bank account basically you know, they're getting that same inheritance they were teaching their children training their children helping their children get to that stage go over to Exodus chapter 22 for a moment go to Exodus chapter 22 I want to show you a couple more verses on this subject and then we'll kind of finish but in essence, you know I'm just trying to basically with this sermon just bring to your mind the idea that poor people exist so that maybe you'll consider that and help them right, it's just more of an awareness we should remember the poor that's what Paul was instructed to remember the poor, to help the poor when you see opportunity you know, when you have it in your hand don't withhold it but rather bless that person in that moment in that time I was thinking about this, it's like God maybe even just gives you like a little bit extra money or a little extra whatever at some point in your life just to test you to see if you'll help someone else because he could always give you more but what is internally that old man is like wants to cleave you get a little bit extra you just want to cleave to it you just want to hold on to it rather than helping someone even though you don't need it it's like it'd be like if you're watching your neighbor starve to death while you have too much manna and you're like but I want to hang on to this manna for tomorrow but tomorrow's going to bread, worms and stink whereas if you've just given that extra manna to your brother today tomorrow you could go get more manna and God would probably bless you but by you hanging on and being stingy with all that God may cause wrath, muss, rust and thieves to break through and steal and to take all that extra that you didn't need and really it's just kind of a curse unto you and instead of being a blessing by helping the poor, doing good not taking advantage of poor people Exodus chapter 22 verse 22 the Bible says ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child if thou afflict them in any wise and they cry at all unto me I will surely hear their cry and my wrath shall wax hot and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be widows and your children fatherless that was extreme I don't even like I haven't even preached hard at all and then I just read that verse and it was way harder than anything I've ever said so far tonight so if you thought that I was mean you know, take it up with God because what did God just say he's like hey, if you rip these people off what is God going to do to you? just, that's harsh there's a lot of people that God is mad at and if you're involved in one of these deceptive practices or taking advantage of weak people you should stop that immediately this is your warning this is your message of like, stop that, immediately you know, there was a man kind of like this the tax collector in the Bible Nehi Amaya, right? and, but he gave half of his money back to the poor he's like, hey, anybody I'm taking advantage of I'll, you know, bless them or I'll get, Zacchaeus, I'm sorry I'm screwing up the name, but Zacchaeus was short too, okay I'm just mixing up that name everybody's looking at me like, who's Nehi Amaya? sorry, thanks folks, okay Zacchaeus Zacchaeus is the man who after encountering Jesus, what he's got he's like, hey, I'll give 50% of my money back to the poor because he realized like, you know I have a lot of this money been ripping people off been taking advantage of people you know, and who do you usually take advantage of? the weak, the fatherless, the widows go to Deuteronomy 24 flip over to the right, just Deuteronomy chapter number 4 we should not be like Zacchaeus was in the past we should be like Zacchaeus in the future where we think about these people and bless them and help them and encourage them Deuteronomy 24, look at verse 19 when thou cutest down thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field thou shalt not go again to fetch it it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hands when thou beatest thine olive tree thou shalt not go over the boughs again it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow when thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard thou shalt not glean it afterward it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow and thou shalt remember that thou was a bondman in the land of Egypt therefore I command thee to do this thing so you're saying there was a point in your past when you were not necessarily well off when you didn't have a good job when you had a bad situation and I remembered you and blessed you and took you out of Egypt so therefore, you shouldn't necessarily just all the money that you have just take that selfishly you should consider using some of that money to bless other people now of course I love this example because it doesn't say notice what it does not say when you're gathering your harvest gather all of the harvest and then take some of that and give it to the poor it said leave some of the harvest and let them come and gather it so you're not enabling lazy people here you're not just giving handouts here but what you are doing is you're affording them an opportunity to be better off you know, even one of the best ways to help these people in these situations is offering them a job or offering them an opportunity to make money or to do some kind of a work even if it's not really equivalent to the pay because is it really equivalent that you just get to walk in I mean did they plant it did they grow the crops and do all the work necessary to get the harvest they can just walk in and get the harvest so it's a pretty easy labor but at least they still made them labor to some degree they still had them do something and you know that's the best way to help people is to help them a little bit and encourage them you know like your children your children, it's okay to bless them more than they deserve but you don't want to bless them for nothing it's good to have them work a little bit start getting that right attitude that right behavior and then you kind of reward them incrementally so as they have character and they're blessed financially go to Jude 19 26 and look at verse 12 when thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year which is the year of tithing and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow that they may eat within thy gates and be filled then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the stranger to the fatherless and to the widow according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me I have not transgressed thy commandments neither have I forgotten them now here's another way so we've talked about remembering the poor this is another one that some people don't realize but a way to actually bless the poor or to remember the poor is by tithing to church and it kind of clumps a few people it clumps the fatherless, the widow, the stranger, and the Levite meaning these are the people that benefit the most from church and specifically financially from church so, you know, what does that mean? well, look, some people financially benefit from church I mean, in the sense that, like, the church provides a lot of different resources you know, we've had food fellowships and stuff like that you know, not everybody could afford to just go and eat a 70 or 80 or 100 dollar meal after church but when we have, like, a big potluck and the church brings in a lot of brisket or whatever like, some of the rich people in here, they're like, I can go eat there whenever I want well, good for you but not everybody else can so then when we have, like, a big church potluck type of event we get to bless some of the other people in our church that maybe don't get to have that as often or can't afford to have those type of things and so we bless them you know, sometimes we have extra food and I've seen it, I help facilitate it sometimes we have extra food, I just let the people that are in abject poverty or poor or worse off especially the widows, quote unquote, or the women take some of that extra food home and that's a blessing unto them you know, I've been to church, Faithful Word Baptist Church there was a bread company or something that donated a bunch of extra bread to them all the time and so there was this free bread at the church that people could take you know, and of course, even me I personally benefit Brother Dylan personally benefits from the tithe of the church because we get paid by the church to do a job and you know what, if people didn't tithe at church and do whatever then we would just have to do all of our same responsibilities and work even harder out in the secular workforce to pay all of our bills so it's nice that those things are being brought in to help us and to help the widow and to help the fatherless you know, by the church having lots of money you know what we do? we go to Shreveport, Louisiana and we go and preach the gospel to a bunch of poor fatherless people and widows and preach them the gospel by the church having a lot of extra money we go to Matamoros, Mexico and we preach to a lot of the fatherless and the widows and you know what? if church wasn't getting a lot of money you know what would not be happening? a bunch of God's people going and visiting the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and preaching them the gospel and people that get mad at tithing really have a bad heart because they show that they don't actually care about the fatherless and the widows and all the other people and God is just asking to take some portion of your money and think about it this way it's similar to the gleaning of the field you know, when you're giving money to the church it's not like the church is doing nothing we're still working and the people in this room you know, we're not just facilitating lazy people here we're facilitating soul winners I mean, when we give food to people often it's associated with soul winning hey, Sunday Sundays is after what? soul winning you know, if you have ten kids it would be expensive to go to Cold Stone and get them all an ice cream not everybody can afford that but you know what? the church buys in bulk a bunch of ice cream and then we bless all the kids with ice cream for going out soul winning you know, it's expensive to eat out who's been on a soul winning trip with me and every one of your meals is paid for? oh yeah, hands all over the building how did that happen? but you know what we're doing? we're not forgetting the poor and that's an important aspect of church is that you tithe so that the church can operate at max capacity and then when the church is operating at max capacity, what happens? all the poor people and the widows and all these people are being reached and affected positively and it helps bolster society it helps bolster that community it helps us be right with God God looks down at us and is very pleased with us and happy with us and it's just a win all over plus he says then I'll bless you you know, where you can't even receive it I'll open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that you can't receive so it's just a win win win you know, I believe that when it comes to money number one, you tithe, period and part of that is going to be helping the poor but then number two, you can give alms on top of that but you shouldn't be giving alms in place of tithe and you've got to get your priorities straight number one is tithing then number two is your alms above that you know, some churches, they put in your building fund you know, on top of that and then they put all these other things I'm not against the building fund I'm not saying that's wrong, per se but you know what, I'm not going to get up here and demand that or put a lot of pressure on people you know, if we have to meet wherever, we'll just meet wherever, okay but at the same time we shouldn't be robbing from the poor and by not tithing by not going out and preaching the gospel by not helping anybody that's less advantages you you're robbing the poor you shouldn't do it God is mad at you when you're doing that and we need to be having the opposite attitude where we bless the poor we're thinking about the poor we want to help the weak and we want God to be pleased with us and our church and our family let's close in prayer, alright thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this great message thank you for looking at our poverty spiritually and coming down and giving us all the wealth we could possibly want through the gospel of Jesus Christ I pray that we would take that richness that you've given us that blessing that we've gotten from you and we would share that with others we'd share the gospel we'd not just share our spiritual blessings but we share our physical blessings with our money, with our time, with our effort with our energy, with the skill with all the things that you've given us that we've blessed other people with those things and we would not look to just build ourselves up or edify one ourselves, but rather we'd look to edify one another we would look upon the fatherless and the widows and our brethren and we'd consider them we'd love on them and we want to help them and in Jesus' name we pray, amen In the dark of the midnight Have I obtained my face While the storm sounds above me And there's no hiding place In the crash of the thunder Precious Lord, hear my cry Keep me safe till the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of thy hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by Many times Satan whispers There is no need to try For there's no end of sorrow There's no home by and by But I know thou art with me And tomorrow I will rise Where the storm never darkens the sky Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of thy hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by When the long night has ended And the storms come no more Let me stand in thy presence On that bright, peaceful shore In that land where the tempest never comes Lord, may I dwell with thee When the storm passes by Till the storm passes over Till the thunder sounds no more Till the clouds roll forever From the sky Hold me fast, let me stand In the hollow of thy hand Keep me safe till the storm passes by Good job, you guys are dismissed