Financial Responsibilities of the Father, Pt. 2 (07/02/2023)

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Pastor David Mitchell

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The Woman's Role in Marriage, Pt. 3 (11/26/2023)

The Woman's Role in Marriage, Pt. 3 (11/26/2023)

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My dad, Fred Mitchell, who's in heaven now, designed these stained glass windows and the beautiful trim all around this and these trim around here.
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He designed this pulpit, this. And this was supposed to be a fellowship hall.
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We were supposed to have another building for a sanctuary and the people that had promised to build that said, no, we're only gonna build one building.
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So my dad said, well, let's just put a temporary wall back there and make this the auditorium for a while. Well, it has been ever since.
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But he designed all this stuff and I was just thinking about him. And I don't agree with the
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Catholics that we can pray to our loved ones in heaven, but I can pray to Jesus and ask him to tell them hello and I love them and I think of them every day and tell my dad thanks for these stained glass windows and all this beautiful trim.
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And nothing wrong with that, right? And so I was thinking about my dad as I think about this study on fathers.
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He was a wonderful father and he was a man's man. I mean, one of the biggest dudes in Mahea came in his office one day and said, he's gonna whip him.
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And my dad was in the FBI 17 years, special agent. So the guy apparently didn't know that.
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My dad gets up out of the chair and walks around, walks right up to his face and said, okay, you take the first punch.
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Guy walked out. But at the same time, when I was pretty much a big old grown boy in college,
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I remember the first time I brought all my roommate and some of my buddies home from college for the weekend to meet my parents and stuff and hang out.
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And there are all these big old dudes are sitting around and my dad said, David, come here. So I got up and walked over, said, sit on my lap.
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So I sat on his lap and he reached over and gave me a big kiss and then pushed me out of his lap. And well, kind of freaked me out a little, although he did it all the time, but not in front of my friends from college.
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You know what I mean? But one of them told me later how cool they thought that was. You know, he was just like that.
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But it makes us think of our fathers. Well, let me read you something interesting. Ben's Sunday school lesson gets me thinking about a lot of things.
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But I wanna read you this just to sort of kick off today's message. We'll still be talking about fathers, but I thought this was pretty interesting.
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There's a verse in Luke chapter one, verse 17, chapter one, verse 17, where, well, let me just read it.
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And what's interesting is it's quoting Malachi chapter four, verse six, where Ben was teaching this morning from Sunday school.
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It's quoting the Old Testament and the New Testament. The New Testament version says this, and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias.
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And that's a reference to John the Baptist. And he will, listen to this, he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the
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Lord. So that was a quotation of Malachi, but it was applied to the first coming.
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Malachi certainly talks about the first coming some, but it also goes forward to the second coming of Christ.
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Let me read the Malachi version. It says, and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers.
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Now, what I'm pointing out is the importance of the fathers being a spiritual leaders in the home, treating the wife correctly and the children correctly so that the hearts of the children are to the fathers.
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But look what the prophet says would happen if that didn't happen, all right?
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It says, and this was written like 2 ,400 or five, 600 years ago, four to 600 years before Jesus Christ came into the world, born in the manger.
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It says, and turn the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
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Okay, so think about what happens in a world where the hearts of the father are not to the children and the hearts of the children are not to the father.
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The world just goes awry. It looks very much like our world does today where the fathers are not even teaching their kids what a boy is and what a girl is, for example.
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Now, you can't blame that on the government. I mean, I do. Yes, I do blame it on our idiots in Washington and in the universities, even in the seminaries, but I blame the homes first and beyond all that, the past.
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Why are pastors not getting up in the pulpits in all these mega churches saying like, here's a boy, here's a girl, here's what they are, and make a joke out of the stupid thing?
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I mean, they won't mention it because they don't want to run anybody off, right? So they'll put their little rainbow thing outside so they can have more people sitting in their church.
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So, and all the while the nation is being destroyed and they don't care.
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So why are they preaching? For their belly, the Bible says, for their belly. Money.
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Well, we can't control what's happening in the whole world and in our country and all of that, but we can certainly have something to do with what's happening in our homes, can't we?
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And that will reflect upon this local church as well, which will have an effect on the nation.
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It does. I mean, this church, we have hundreds of thousands of people and we had somebody this weekend from Taiwan, flew from Taiwan just to meet me because they've been listening to me online.
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And Myron, Myron Golden and me and you guys also, I think that's how you found us. And we had people from California, we had people from Montana, we had people from all over, lots of Texans, you know?
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And so this little church here is like the foundation of a big, big ministry, a vast ministry.
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And God just put all that together little by little. And thanks to Katie who runs
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Tradeway, Katie Huber, she didn't do, I've told people forever, you are replaceable, but there's one person that's not and that's
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Katie. And she'd probably say Dave's not either, so I'll include him. Dave and I were together at this big meeting this weekend, we had a blast.
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In fact, we didn't wanna leave, so we went to dinner and just the two of us and didn't get home till midnight. And then night before that, we stayed up till midnight, talking with a few of the students.
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So it was a great meeting. But we do have an effect, but if we don't keep this church right, then it'll affect all that too.
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So the place to fix everything is in the home first. So let's talk, let's go back to our, oh, let me say this though, that prophecy for predominantly the
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Malachi was to the Jews first, everything's to the Jew first and then the Gentile, right? But it was predominantly for the nation of Israel, wasn't it
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Ben? All right, so think of what happened, think about this. Think what happened when
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Jesus came and he had his three -year ministry and he's falsely accused and he comes before Pilate and Pilate wants to wash his hands of it because he thinks he's innocent, right?
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Pilate says, I washed my hands of this. And he put it before the
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Jews, one more time, a huge crowd of angry Jews because they were saying, crucify him, crucify him.
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Remember that? The Jews were. All right, and Pilate said, look, I washed my hands of this, it's on you.
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And they said, you know what they yelled at that time? Can you remember? Crucify him. May his blood be upon our heads and the heads of our what?
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Our children. Right there, the father's hearts were not turned to the sons nor the sons to the father.
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And you know what happened? 8 million of them died in World War II because of it. 8 million
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Jews were killed, slaughtered in World War II. And the Jews have been persecuted since that day.
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They already were before that, but not like they were after that day. They have been run into every nation of the world running and escaping persecution as best they can.
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And they're scattered everywhere. And that's the fulfillment of that prophecy. Now, the same prophecy was then given to us again and to the
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Jews again in Luke in their time. And they still disobeyed it.
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So they disobeyed it twice. And now we have to think about it. What will we do with it?
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So that's kind of what we're talking about. Last time we talked about how the father must understand spiritual warfare in the family and put on the spiritual armor.
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And it's his responsibility, first of all, to watch over the wife and the children because they are more susceptible to demonic activity and attacks and so forth.
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And the father has a huge responsibility there. So we talked about that. Then last time we started on the second point is, and we're gonna talk about the father and go through some points like this.
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And then we're gonna talk about the mom and we'll go through and wife and so forth. And then we'll talk about the children.
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So that's what we're gonna, and then marriage also, then marriage as a whole, things scripture says to make our marriages better.
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We'll do all that. This time we're still talking about the second point that had to do with fathers. And it was this, we started last time, the father must understand his financial responsibilities under God.
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That's, we started talking about that last time. And you know, in fact, I mentioned this at the
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Dallas event yesterday. First Timothy 5 .8 says that if the father does not, it says, but if any provide not for his own, especially his house financially, he's worse than an infidel, he's denied the faith.
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Predominantly aimed at the father, but if you don't have a father in the home, then the mother takes that role, but still predominantly aimed at the father.
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And then in 2 Corinthians 12 .14 and Proverbs 13 .22, it says that the father is commanded by God to lay aside money for his children.
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And it's not just money, but assets for his children and his children's children.
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That's grandchildren. Now you cannot do that without creating wealth. But then we've talked about the actual real definition of wealth.
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And I want to review that. It comes from the old, well, the Greek means wealth, but the
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English comes from the old English word wheel, which means this, a sound, healthy, and prosperous state.
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It gets the word wellbeing comes from it. So when you want to think about wealth, this will really help because the whole world's
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Christians to think if you're thinking about wealth, you're evil. If you're a Christian, if you're satanic, it's okay.
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Like if you're pagan, it's okay. But if you're a Christian and you talk about, well, I'm trying to create wealth, then they'll immediately treat you as if you're evil and point that out to everyone else that you're evil because you're after money.
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It's all about money to you Christians. And it's not supposed to be, you're supposed to be poor. And so there is that spirit in the world that will persecute a
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Christian who talks about wealth, creating wealth for my family. And yet the Bible says we have to, so we're commanded to.
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But when you think about the real meaning of wealth, the root meaning of the ancient word in English means wellbeing.
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It means a sound, prosperous, well, wellness is part of it, being in a good state in your family.
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Now, who would say that's wrong? I mean, I would think any Christian father who didn't want that, there's something wrong with him.
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If he did not want his wife and kids and grand babies and other kids that came and married their kids that are now his kids, if he didn't want them to have wellbeing in a prosperous state, he's number one, a fool.
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And number two, he's evil. So we think of it that way, if it feels better. You don't have to think about money.
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Money is just a tool. Money can be used to bring prosperity and assets and health and happiness and all that, but it's just a tool and that's all it is.
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It's neutral. It's not evil or good. It's what you do with it. And the
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Bible is so clear. The wealthiest people in the world in the Old Testament were God's people. Abraham was called the friend of God.
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He's the wealthiest man alive in his day. Job was the wealthiest man, probably prior to Abraham, longer ago than that.
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King David had so much money, and Solomon, his son, was the wealthiest man ever lived, probably, ever will live, probably.
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And he did seminars. You remember Myron pointed that out. Myron said that the Queen of Sheba came and paid him a ship full of gold.
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Imagine what the wealth of that was back then, even now, to learn from him how to run her kingdom.
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So he had the first seminary on how to be successful with Solomon. And Brother Myron kind of patterns his ministry after that because he talks a lot about business.
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By the way, I just found I got a text. He's gonna be in town next Sunday, and I asked him to preach. So Myron Golden will be preaching here next
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Sunday morning. So that's a blessing to all of us. So now, are we okay on what wealth is?
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It's just a tool. If it's money, it's a tool to bring prosperity and healthy and a prosperous state of wellbeing to your family.
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That's really what we're supposed to be doing. So focus on that, not the money. The money's just a tool.
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Money comes and goes. I mean, everybody knows that. I loved it. Somebody at the meeting said, well,
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I believe in multiple streams. I think it was Sean said this. He said, I believe in multiple streams of income.
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He said, because I got multiple streams of bills. Isn't that true?
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So anyway, then we talked a little bit last time about the Hebrew concept of being blessed.
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Remember that the Jewish gentleman who says he's more blessed than the others is because he's got more cattle and sheep and camels and money, silver and gold than the other one.
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So they felt that blessings were spiritual and physical, not just spiritual. And that's still true in the
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New Testament too. So God can bless you with physical things. Now, it's interesting how he does it.
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He tends to do it over long periods of time as you obey the certain conditions in the
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Bible for how wealth is created. The Bible teaches exactly how to do it. I think one of the questions that I asked last time was, okay, if it's true that God commands us to create wealth for our kids and our grandkids and lay it aside for them, then wouldn't it also be true that the same
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God who commands us to do something would equip us to do it and teach us in this book exactly how to create wealth.
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And it's all through this book. And the Jews understand the Christians are ignorant about it because preachers don't think it applies.
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They think it's in heaven. It's not. And at the meeting yesterday,
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I talked about why I think preachers, like in the 1800s, 17, 16, 15, 1400s, felt that way.
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It's because some of them were poor. So they felt, well, if I'm a preacher and I'm righteous and walk with God and I'm poor, then this can't be literally for me.
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Truth is, if they were following these principles, I don't care what century they lived in, they would have created wealth because there've been wealthy people in every century.
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And if you look at their lives, they follow these principles of how it's created. The principle of leverage being the most important one that's found in the parable of the talents.
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But anyway, I just wanna stick this in your mind is that if God does command us to do it, he does show us how to do it.
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So that's kind of where we left off last time. Now, last time we started, and I said,
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I'm gonna show you some passages of scripture. And there are four questions that I want to answer for each passage.
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And I made this statement that the promise of wealth in the Bible is not an unconditional promise, it's conditional.
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And actually the promise of wealth of God, promising wealth to his children is number one, personal. It is a promise to each individual family, not just some general statement that God might do that.
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That's not a promise at all, by the way. It's individual. So it's personal. Number two, it is individual.
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And number three, it is conditional. Those three things, personal, individual, conditional.
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And it is a promise to the leader of each and every home of God or every
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Christian home. So what I want you to do then is
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I want you to ask these four questions to each of these passages. Number one, here's the first question that I'm gonna ask you and get you to answer.
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Number one, is what we read, does it have a promise in it or promises? What is the promise?
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That's number one. So if it has one, what is it? Two, is the promise to you individually or just some general promise that might happen to somebody out there in the world, but probably not you?
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So is the individual specific to you, is it not? And number three, what are the conditions that must be met in order for God to fulfill the promise that he just gave you in this passage?
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And number four, can God lie? Those are the four questions. Everybody got it? So I'm gonna ask these to you for each one.
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Now, last time we looked at Psalm 128 verses one through four and let me ask you this, did we do two of them last time before we ran out of time?
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Did we also do Proverbs 3 .13, where it said, happy is the man that findeth wisdom? Okay, let's start there then.
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So turn to Proverbs 3 .13. Last time, just for your notes, if you weren't here, jot down Psalm 128 verses one through four, and you'll find there are promises in that and also conditions, and you will also find it is written to individuals.
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It says, blessed is every one that feareth the Lord. How many people is one?
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It's not like a general thing to the population, it's one person, right? And then it says, for thou shalt eat, right?
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Thou shalt eat, thou shalt, the fruit of your hands, some other people won't come to take your stuff away, that's asset protection.
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It says, happy will thou be, well will you be, thy wife will be a blessing, thy children will be a blessing, the man shall be blessed.
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It's about an individual person, so we found that last time. So it is to you individually. Now let's start with Proverbs 3 .13
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this morning. Let me pray right quick. Father, thank you for the service so far, the beautiful music, for our friends that are visiting, for our church family online and here, and bless us today with your word, we know you will, amen.
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All right, let's look at it. Think about the four questions while I read it. Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
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For the merchandise of it, that means that wisdom and understanding brings good things to you, the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain, that means profit in Hebrew, the word gain means the profit, like in business, where you make a profit, the gain thereof is better than if you had fine gold.
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There you see the word profit in verse 14, there's so much business terminology and principles in the
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Bible, it's everywhere. But people don't see it, because most preachers are not business people. But I mean, if they were, they should, the
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Jewish teachers did see it, even though they weren't. But you know what's interesting about Jews? They will not allow a person's study to be a priest until he has a skill set and knows how to work with his hands and make money, then they'll let him study, they'll let him study theology.
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Isn't that interesting? That's why they see the business principle. They're all businessmen before they're preachers. Why didn't we do that in the church?
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We should have done that. But anyway, some of us did, right? You got businessman preacher. Myron's that way too, and there's some of them out there.
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So it talks about profit there in verse 14. Verse 15 says, "'She,' that means wisdom and knowledge, "'is more precious than rubies, "'and all the things that you can desire "'are not to be compared to wisdom and knowledge.'"
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Now, look at this. "'Length of days is in her right hand, "'in her left hand riches and honor.
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"'Her ways are ways of pleasantness, "'and all her paths are peace.'" All right, so let's ask the first question.
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Are there any promises in this passage? And if so, what are they? So who can see one?
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Length of days. That is correct. That's the first that I see. Long life, you live to be old.
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Okay, you're healthier, you live to be old. Anybody else? Happy, happiness.
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Right, okay, very good. You'd be happy. All right, another one? Peace, right, that's the last one.
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You'll have peace in your family. Another one? Okay, riches is the next one, and then honor is the next one.
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And there's one more. Verse 17, a pleasant life, pleasantness.
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So here's where I saw them. And happiness, good job, because no,
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I didn't have that one down. It's obvious, it's the first one. Happy, I licked it out. Wait, I got a pen, hold on,
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I'm gonna fix it. Put Noah's name beside that. My assistant, my assistant pastor Noah says happiness is one of these.
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I defer to him on this. I believe it is, so it's 13a, okay. Oh, so one, two, three, four, five.
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Oh, I don't like that, so now there's six. We had to have seven. Can anyone find another one? Brother Bill used to tease me about that.
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He said, you can make anything come out to seven, can't you? I said, pretty much. I'll just combine a couple if I need to.
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If it's eight and it makes it seven, you know, whatever. Okay, so God's perfect number. So we have happiness, we have long life, all right.
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We have riches. Now see, if riches are evil, why is he promising this to God's children?
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It contradicts, if you think that, it contradicts this. And the Bible cannot contradict itself. Riches, honor.
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Now think about that. Why is it that if you have wisdom and skill sets, and by the way, one of the conditions of business success is that you have the skill set you need in that type of business.
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You know how to run that business. You learn how to do it. Sometimes there's a trial and error in losing money first, right?
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But you learn how to do it. And then that brings money. The whole idea of any business is to create wealth.
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I mean, you don't start a business if you don't think it's gonna be successful and create wealth. That's what businesses are for. And if you, let me give you a clue.
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If you have already created a small business, it's kind of successful, but it's not making you wealthy. All you need to do is understand the principle of leverage.
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So what you do is you begin to duplicate yourself into other people, make them just like little yous, and then delegate it to him.
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And then you go start another one, just like that one. And then you duplicate, delegate, and leave smart people in control of those, and then go start another one.
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And before you know it, you'll be a billionaire, or at least a millionaire. Millionaire's okay with the time we got left before Jesus comes back.
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You don't need a billion. We're not gonna have time to spend that. Actually, I could spend it, I think. All right,
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Dave. Right, yeah, profit.
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Also, the word for gain is profit. So you got it twice. So you got it twice.
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So there's, oh, there's number seven. Okay, thank you, my other assistant. So now we have number seven.
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Oh, that would be G is profit. Wow, this is great. Profit or gain.
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So it's mentioned twice, actually. And that is another promise. So now we do have seven. See, I knew there were seven.
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I just didn't find them all. So we have seven things promised. Now, why honor? Why would it say honor?
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If you have riches, why do you have honor? You do understand the way that the world thinks, both
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Christians and lost people, is if you're wealthy, you're smarter, you wouldn't have the money. Now, outwardly, they'll say you're lucky.
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He's lucky he's born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But inwardly, they respect you.
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They wanna ride in your car. They wanna hang out with you, get their picture taken with you. And they honor you, even if they say behind your back, oh, they're just lucky, you know, because I'd be rich too, but I'm not lucky.
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You know that sort of thing? But deep down inside, they honor it. The whole world does. The Bible says it happens.
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The Bible says if you get skillset, that's the modern term for wisdom and understanding and knowledge, and you work at that and you don't quit and you just keep doing it,
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God will bless you with these things. And there's other conditions here. We'll talk about it in this very passage.
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But when you get these things, you will have honor. People will listen to you. Now, let me ask you what the number one thing you think
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Christians need to have in this world? Influence. Would you agree with that? How are you gonna witness to somebody if they don't respect you enough to listen to you?
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Honor brings influence, which brings more people listening to the gospel that you give them.
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Does that make sense to you? I mean, it's absolutely the truth. And why do you think the church is losing the battle on America?
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Okay, because we gave all our influence away in colleges. So now the lost people, because they got the money, because the
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Christians have been taught you need to be poor to be spiritual. So the lost people have the money, so they now control the college, the universities on the
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East Coast, the West Coast and all across America, the seminaries, they control the music industry, they control
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Hollywood, which has been teaching our kids for 12 years, something they don't need to know, and I'm not gonna mention what it is.
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But what else? They're controlling everything because of the money they have, and they now have the honor, and so that's who the kids are listening to.
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The church has messed up and lost out there. Now, I know that's fulfilled prophecy. There's supposed to be a great falling away.
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We're just part of that. And there you go. I mean, God not only foresaw it, he predestined it, so that's okay.
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It's gonna all work out great. We're gonna win in the end. Jesus is gonna come back and get us. We're gonna rule and reign with him the next 1 ,000 years, and I promise you, he'll be in control there, you and him, not the world.
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Jesus and you will be in control because you'll be ruling and reigning with him over something I don't want, of course, to count.
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Does anybody want it? You don't want it?
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Okay. I might take Mahia, but you want it, Sharon? Sharon will take it. She knows everybody here.
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I vote for Sharon, actually. She knows everyone here. You can have Mahia too. Like she told me that a kid that was in our
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Christian school the first two or three years died. She's the one that told me. I didn't know he had died. Did you know
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Jack Bullen passed away? I didn't know. Thank you for that. I checked into it, by the way. You were right.
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All right, so we have these promises. Honor, pleasant life, peace. Who doesn't want that for their kids and grandkids?
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All right, so now the second question is this. Is this promise individually or just a general promise out there that's kind of meaningless because it's probably not gonna ever be you?
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So let's see if we can answer that. Well, my answer to that is that it says the man.
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Look at verse 13. Happy is the man. It's not the men. Grammatically, it's to an individual.
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Do you see that? That's how you interpret scripture. It's not difficult if you studied a little bit of grammar and you did 12 times in high school, junior high and elementary school.
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12 years, you've got it. So you understand that. So it's talking to an individual. So my third question is this.
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What are the conditions that must be met in order for God to fulfill the promise? They're found in the same passage. Can anyone see what the conditions are?
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Someone give me a condition. In other words, you've got to do this or God's not gonna promise you wealth.
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But if you do do it, he is, okay? Okay, find wisdom.
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That's the first one, yes. Find wisdom. Now, how might we do that? Well, how about from the
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Bible? The book of Proverbs is called the book of wisdom. The book of James is the New Testament book of wisdom and the whole of the
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Bible. I still remember, Charlotte was refreshing my memory about it, but I remember a time when
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Charlotte told Matt when he was, he was our baby boy, right? The littlest in our family. Now he's the tallest or not really.
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I don't know, he might be the tallest, but cause he's still growing. But anyway, she told him,
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Matt, when he was a little boy or maybe junior high, when was it? High school, teenager.
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He said, if you will get in the Bible and stay in the Bible and read and study the
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Bible, you'll have more wisdom than your peers. You remember that?
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Something like that, okay? So that's where it comes from. So that's the condition.
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Now I want you to think about the American Christian. How much time did they spend other than on Sunday morning being spoon fed?
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And that's not bad. I'm glad you're here because you're supposed to get that too. You're supposed to let, of course, mine's more like a fire hydrant,
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I think. But anyway, you're supposed to be in this book throughout the week, yourself studying it.
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Now, if you need the 10 rule Bible interpretation, let me share those with you and keep them, don't cheat.
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And you'll find out the truth out of this book and you will gain wisdom. That is the first condition for wealth, for long life, for riches, for happiness, for pleasant life, for peace, for profit.
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Thank you, David, to be happy. Thank you, Noah. First one is to find wisdom and you find it in the
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Bible. So what about another one? Is there another one?
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Get understanding. Understanding, the modern term for that would be skill sets because understanding is sort of when you, it's sort of like when you take the knowledge, the little, where is page number nine?
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Okay, so understanding is when you take the little pieces of knowledge that you can gain and you put them together in a sense that makes sense where you can use it because you understand how it works.
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All right, Webster says that understanding is the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars.
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What does that mean? Okay, the particulars means the little bits of knowledge. So wisdom is the ability to apprehend how they relate, the bits of knowledge that you have about a certain thing, relate to each other, put them together and use it.
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That's what understanding is. Did I say wisdom? I meant to say understanding. And the old
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English for understanding used to just be knowledge and intelligence.
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So it's like when you use your intelligence to take the knowledge and put it together where you can do something with it.
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And so there is the second condition in passage. So if you have wisdom and you have skill sets, you will have those things that are listed.
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Now, my last question is, can God lie? So that means it's a promise to you that will happen if you keep those two conditions.
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How about that? Everywhere where I find a promise of wealth in the Bible, I find conditions in the same sentence or paragraph.
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They're always included because it's always conditional. Do you have a thought? I don't have it,
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I don't think. Was it, read it. Verse 18, she is a tree of white limbs that they hold upon her.
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Happy is everyone that retains her. 3 .18.
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Okay, so let's add. So now we've got nine. Is that a good number?
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Okay. H, tree of life. Now, let me ask you, what is the tree of life in the early books, chapters of Genesis?
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What is it, the tree of life? What was the only tree?
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Let me ask you this. What was the only tree that God put swords around to keep Adam and Eve away from it after they fell into sin?
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The tree, no? No, that's the one they ate that caused them to sin was the knowledge of, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
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What was the tree that they put, that God put the flaming swords around to keep them away from? The tree of life.
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So this is talking about eternal life. Thank you,
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Charlotte. My other assistant. We thought about putting her name on the sign like pastors
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David and Charlotte Mitchell, you know, like the Charismatics and Pentecostals do, but she won't do it.
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She won't do it, so that's okay. Of course, then I'd have to put Noah and Dave's names out there too, so we won't do that.
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Okay, so wow, I like that. I'm glad you read a little further. Salvation.
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Now, that doesn't come from wealth, but it does come from understanding and wisdom and knowledge, which comes from the
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Bible, and that's the best of all these promises. And then there was one other one, Charlotte, what was it? Let's see.
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Right there with tree of life and happiness again. Say it again. Okay, I like that.
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So I'm going to put, it's already mentioned happiness once, thanks to Noah.
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So it starts and ends with happiness. Is that interesting? It sandwiches everything between being happy.
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And I said this yesterday. You remember this. Have you ever heard preachers say, well, the Bible teaches Jesus wants you to be happy.
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He just wants you to be joyful, and there's a difference. How many of you have heard that? I've heard preachers say that because they heard a cool old preacher say it,
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Ben, no matter what you think. There are cool old preachers, and people repeat it, and it's totally not true.
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You know, it's not true. Right there is twice God wants you to be happy. Now, joy is different, and he wants you to have joy, but that's a fruit of the
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Holy Spirit. You have that. Anytime you're spirit -filled, you're joyful. But this is happiness, which means usually, well, it talks about, like, the definition we looked at a minute ago for wealth is weal, which means that you have the things that you need to have in your family, and that adds to happiness.
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And when you start losing those, and you don't have that, sometimes we're grumpy. We're not as happy.
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My air conditioner went out, or went into my house, and, you know, I'm kind of used to it.
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So it's 80 degrees in there right now. So I could spend the 4th of July in 80 -degree weather in my house.
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Not as happy as I was last week when it worked. So, I mean, wealth can help you buy a new one, though, and put it in, and then be happy again.
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So happiness is important. God says it is, and it is related to wealth. Isn't that interesting? And people that say it's not,
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I mean, why do they, if God says it's this way, why do they want to insist that, oh, that's not how it works?
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Why? Can anyone give me a guess at that? Why? Why do they not want to face this truth and receive it?
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Why would you think? Well, that's always true of humans.
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They just want to do what they want to do, but why would they want to be poor and unhappy? Because they're believing a lie that says that it's not appropriate for Christians to seek wealth, or be happy, really.
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Right? I like that, Dave. Anything better than that? Can you add to that, or is that pretty much it, right? They don't want to live by the
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Bible, and keep the conditions, that's a great one. Noah? They don't have to be, they don't have to do the conditions, they don't have to work hard, be diligent, not be lazy, not be alcoholics.
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All the things you have to, yeah, change, like, change the focus of what they're doing, and spending their time on.
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They'd rather just watch TV. It's funny, because it says poor people, I've heard this, poor people have huge TVs, and wealthy people have huge libraries.
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So, thinking about that. Who had that? Ben? I was going to say, they're hoping to be happy, but they only need to be happy with the spiritual.
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You know, a bit like the end of you gave, just to develop.
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It's not appropriate, because you can't do this for material things. Only spiritual. What happens is, it ends up being unhappy anyway, and it's like, it's not supposed to be happy.
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Exactly. And I'd also like to say, And here's what you're saying. How many joyful Christians do you see that walk around our theater, and their arms look like this?
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There's even a verse that says, we're supposed to lift up those that have the hanging down arms. Remember that verse? Was that kind of what you were getting at?
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I was just going to say, I was also going to say, in verse 18, we get the two new promises. We also get two new conditions.
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The guy that says, the tree of life, and then they lay hold on it. So laying the hold on it, is a condition.
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And happiness comes when they hold it, and also retain it. Yeah. Okay, so you have to not just get wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding.
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You have to hang on to it, which means retain it, and use it, so you don't forget it. Is that kind of right? Okay. I like it.
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Got some good notes. Next time I teach this, it'll be here. Thanks to the class.
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All right. Okay, so, so the last, okay, so, the last question then is, can
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God lie? Okay. So all that's true then. Yes. I was just thinking that sometimes, sometimes people,
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I think there's a part of the Christian world who think that, if I'm poor,
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I'm humble. If I'm poor, that's my humility, and everybody can see that, and that makes me a better Christian, and it all comes down to faith.
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I'm humble. Yeah, look at me. This is where it starts. I want to be the most spiritual person, and you need to know it.
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Right? Yeah. I think that's a great point.
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So can we be wealthy and humble? Well, let me just say this. I don't care about what your bank account looks like.
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God has ways to humble his people, and does it all the time. I know he does with me. Doesn't it, you? Where you just do, maybe you just do something so stupid, and you go, okay,
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I see what I'm really like. Thank you, Lord. Right? I mean, he has a thousand ways to humble us.
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It doesn't matter what your bank account looks like. So that's not an issue, but it's a false lie. Like you're talking about, it's just a lie that people believe.
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Thought back here? Mm -hmm. Yeah. I can enjoy my misery or whatever.
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So it's a way, a form of rebellion is what was said out here, if you can't hear it online. Yeah, a form of rebellion.
41:43
I made this tune yesterday. I just hadn't said it here, so I might as well. I probably have said it before though, but I remember, you know,
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Brother Otis had a vast library. Most of the books were out of print, and we have them. We have his library in my house now.
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Some of it's in boxes, because it's just huge. Like he had an entire wall floor, and they were tall ceilings.
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What were they? 12 foot ceilings or something? Maybe 15. Floor to ceiling on two walls. And a lot of those old time preachers that he studied had the feeling that these promises are not physical.
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They're only in the heavenlies. And Otis told me that once when I first met him. And over time, I told him
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I didn't agree with that, and he began to understand. He began to agree with me that that's not right. But he had learned it from his theology books.
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So think about this. I did mention this a minute ago. Sorry, I forgot what I preached when I started this morning.
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But anyway, like you go back into some of the times of history, like the dark ages, 1600s, where genuine men of God were persecuted and killed, and they were poor.
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So imagine if you were that preacher, and you know you're walking with the Lord the best you can, and your kids don't have much to eat, and you're reading these promises.
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You're thinking, well, that can't be physical because look at me. I mean, if these were true, I would be wealthy, and I'm poor.
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So it doesn't apply to me. And so they write that in their commentaries, in their theology books. People read it later, and they think that's the truth because a preacher wrote it.
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Well, you should never judge this book by your current conditions. You don't interpret the
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Bible by what condition you're in right now, ever. I remember a time, even in my lifetime, where a lot of the theologians came up with ridiculous things like the gap theory because Darwin had come out with his theory, and they couldn't answer it quickly enough scientifically to understand it, so they thought it disproved the
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Bible. So then they started changing the Bible to fit Darwin because they thought they were protecting Bible.
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Well, so because of the condition they found themselves in for several years, they started changing what the
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Bible taught, and they didn't need to do that. You don't ever have to defend the Bible. It will defend itself.
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And it's true in every generation. It doesn't matter what theories come out about science, but that's just an example of how the theologians will take their circumstance at the moment and interpret the
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Scripture through it. So we have to be careful with that too, though, don't we? That's why I like my theories on flying saucers and things like that because I like stuff like that.
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So it's gotta be in the Bible. So read Ezekiel chapter one when you get home, see if you agree with me. But I found a new one while Ben was teaching today.
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I sent a text to Marion, by the way, while you were teaching. I found one in your text today, the chariot with flames.
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Yeah, so tell me that's not a flying object. But anyway, it's just because I live in a world where we have rockets, right?
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So, all right, so great, man. Thanks for the help. You guys fleshed that thing out just great.
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So let's do another one. Go to Proverbs chapter eight, verse 10. But we did agree that the fourth answer is
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God can't lie on those two, right? So they have to be true, just like they're written. You got the conditions, you got the promise.
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If you keep the conditions, you get the promise. Now, I have said this before, that in some ages in the world, the first generation, like my great -grandfather was a junk dealer in sixth grade education, dirt poor, my whole family was dirt poor, and he decided to change that.
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But it took him his whole life, working as a worker in the oil field, learning how all that business worked.
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Then we got to be 60 -something, he got the opportunity to buy the oil field, and he got our family in the oil business, and we were no longer poor.
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One man changed it, all right? All families come from the dust of poverty, the
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Bible says. That's where every family starts. So if you're the first person that wants to change it, back in the 20s, 1920s, it would take a lifetime, though, to do it, and you didn't get to enjoy much of it, but the next generation did, which would have been my mom.
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No, that would have been my mom's mother, my grandmother, and then my mom, and then me, and my kids are still enjoying what that man built with his life.
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So, but he did see about 10 years of it before he died of lung cancer. Captain Brown was his name, and Clifford was his real name.
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But he did see it, but it took a whole lifetime. So if you look at your state of your family right now, and you say, well, we are not wealthy, and you want it to be, you have to start something, but then you've got to teach your children and grandkids what you know, and they can flesh that out and take a whole lifetime.
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By the time you get to the third generation, it'll be wealthy, but you gotta start it.
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So you may not enjoy what you think is wealth in your lifetime, or at least maybe not for just five or 10 years, but let me say this, the technology is so different now, it can be achieved faster.
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It does not take a whole lifetime to go from zero to wealth. You have such amazing technology with the internet, with the stock market, and online trading, and the different things you can do, even businesses you can do online, like this family from Taiwan that came here to hear me because they met me online right here in Mahea, Texas, which is where we do most of our stuff.
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That's phenomenal. So they fly all the way here to learn 40 years of skill sets that it took me to learn how to trade in the stock market, and they can learn it in four two -day meetings.
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That's called time compression. So in eight days, they can learn all the concepts it took me 40 years to learn because they heard me on the internet, and then they will take that, and it won't take them 40 years, it'll take them about a year to practice, and then next year, they start making money, maybe, potentially, right,
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Dave and Katie? Sorry. Potentially start making money, and there they go.
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You think they could shut our church down if I don't say potentially? I don't think so. So anyway, I do put that in for you to understand that it does take some time.
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You work these principles, everything takes time. When you look at my life, we have, people know me so much here, it's like I'm just David, right?
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Well, I am just David, but out there, they fly from Taiwan to come see me. Why? Well, think about this.
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I own an oil company, and I was out there last week helping work over wells, so I do work in these companies, not much, because I own
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Tradeway, and Katie and Dave run that, and Ben is one of the managers, and Matt works, and all my kids run it so that I can play golf every once in a while now, all right?
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But I own an advisory investment business. I own a rocket company, okay?
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I've got, I'm a full -time pastor, and I oversee a church school that's got 150 people because I oversee
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Paul Davis, which means we talk every once in a while, and he tells me everything he's doing because he actually oversees it.
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But that, listen, the Bible teaches that principle that if you duplicate yourself in people and delegate to them and let's say, just do it your way,
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I trust you, that's how you build things. So when you look at it, I've got
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Katie at Tradeway. I've got, I'm just gonna use the top person because you're the COO. I got
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Katie at Tradeway. I got Paul running most, a lot of the church stuff and the school.
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I got John Quinn running Excelsioro Space and Preston running the oil company.
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And he's part family too because his wife is Ashton's sister. So that's how you do it.
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Now, do you think that I did that overnight? If I could write a book about the nights that I laid there thinking
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I've lost everything. You know, I inherited an oil business and some money from my folks, and I just took a risk, and if it doesn't work, it's all gone.
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The bank owns the oil company and I'm laying there late at night because it funded Tradeway. What if Tradeway hadn't worked?
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The bank would take the oil company, I have nothing. So I'm laying there late at night. That's called raw entrepreneurial fear late at night.
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I'm laying in there and saying, I'm going to, you know, Captain Brown is known and every generation of my family knows him and I'm gonna be known.
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I'm gonna be known as the guy that lost everything Captain Brown did in my family, made him start over.
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So you'll have nights like that if you're an entrepreneur. But then what happens is you start praying because you can't sleep.
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So you start praying and you say, Lord, just give me peace. I know it's not my business anyway. It wasn't Captain Brown's, it's yours.
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It's a family business and you let us be part of it, but it's your business and it's your money. So it's in your hands and you know
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I love you and I know you love me, so I'm gonna go to sleep. And I don't know how many times,
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Charlotte will tell you this, the next day money comes in and there's something that we needed to do going. Just enough though, not extra, again and again and again over small little steps until you get to the place where people look at me now, they say, gosh, they ask me everywhere
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I go, they say, how do you have time to do all that? I said, well, you forget
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I also have a wife and five kids and almost 13, I got 12 grandbabies and one on the way and I do all that too.
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I don't know how I have time, I said, it just got built little by little and you learn to delegate and you become a good time manager and God can do that with anyone in this room, but you have to take a period of time.
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So if you're a little older, then you gotta teach your kids how to do it because they're young and in their lifetime, little by little, they can build stuff like that.
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So you can be the instigator and you can enjoy some of it. That's just how God uses you.
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God uses these principles and these conditions to create wealth and I'm just giving you a physical example. So let's look at this one,
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Proverbs 8, verse 10. Wow, time flies. I thought I'd be too tired to preach today,
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I'm energized. Okay, Proverbs 8, 10, receive my instruction and not silver and knowledge rather than choice gold for wisdom is better than rubies.
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How many times does it say this, right? And all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to wisdom and knowledge do you notice in verse 10 instruction?
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Instruction is where trade way people pay rather large amounts of money to acquire educational system so that they can compress time and in eight days learn what it took me 40 years to do so they can start creating wealth now rather than taking 40 years to learn how to do it and start.
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You see, so it's worth money, but it tells you to get instruction. That's what creates time compression.
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When you have a teacher that can teach you in a short amount of time what it took him a lifetime to learn to do, that is brilliant.
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And the Bible teaches that wise people get instruction. And you know, it's so funny because you wouldn't think they would, they're wise.
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You would think they don't need that, but I'm always learning. I'll learn from you today, several points I didn't have in my notes.
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I learned from everybody and all of us can, but instruction is a huge part of it.
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And then also knowledge and understanding is listed. That's the skill sets. And then wisdom comes from God so that you be wise and you won't lose everything that you make.
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And all these things are listed here. Riches and honor are with me. What's me?
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Wisdom and instruction and knowledge. When you have those things, riches and honor come with it.
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Yay, durable riches. Now what's the difference between riches and durable riches? Durable riches last for several generations.
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So we're always teaching generational wealth creation at Tradeway and the Bible teaches it.
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So riches and honor are with me. Yay, durable riches and righteousness. Now you got to stop there.
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Okay, how does being rich help you be more righteous? Bible says it does, so how does it do it?
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Well, because you didn't get rich unless you had understanding and wisdom and knowledge, but how does it help you be more righteous?
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Now there's two kinds of righteousness. It can't make you have more positional righteousness because that all comes from Christ and it's like his blood plus nothing.
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So you are made righteous by God and father sees you as perfectly right all the time.
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It can't make that bigger. So it must be talking about experiential righteousness, which means trying to live right.
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There is that talk in the Bible too, trying to live right every day. How can it make you better at that if you're wealthy?
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If you're a Christian person who gained wealth, you have more time freedom.
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Exactly, now it took me, I mean, I'm 68, so it doesn't happen overnight, even though I feel young, but I mean,
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I do have such qualified people running everything that God helped me build that I can stop if I want to right now.
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I can stop preaching right now. I got at least two young men that can take over and I got some, Paul Davis doesn't think he's a preacher.
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He's a preacher, I've heard him preach and should have heard his message when the governor of Texas came to say our school.
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So we've got all kinds of depth in this church. All of the companies
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I own will just keep going right on without me. I'm the most replaceable person at this point, but that's what
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I should be. So guess what I have more time to do? Play with my grandbabies, play with my grown children and spend time in the
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Bible and walking with the Lord and just talking to him and stuff. I kid this, but it's actually true.
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Sometimes I go play golf and I just, I did not ever like to do this as a young man. I wanted someone to play with me.
55:48
I always wanted somebody with me, a buddy. Now I like to play with Jesus. I'll just go play with him and I talk to him the whole time
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I'm playing. It's really hard to cheat though, or take it like a mulligan, like,
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Jesus, can I take a mulligan? And I'll wait a minute and wait. Let me ask again, can I take a mulligan on this one?
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Because normally I don't hit it like that. Wait, wait. Okay, I'll count it. So it can make you have more experiential righteousness because you now have more time freedom.
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You can literally, you know, busyness is one of the things listed in the parable Jesus taught, where the thorns wrap around you and it chokes the word out of you, right?
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Don't you agree? But we have to be busy when we're young in particular, you got to build, you got to take care of the family.
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You got to make it all work and you're busy, busy. But as you get older and you start to delegate and you start to create some wealth and you got some money and you have some time, you literally can walk with God more.
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And you see that some of the old men in the Bible do well and some don't, but the ones that do well is because they use the time freedom to walk more with God.
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So that's why it says, and righteousness mixed in there with riches and all this stuff.
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Verse 19, my fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold, my revenue. Now Dave, look that one up.
57:04
Is that profit or is that sales? Is better than choice silver.
57:10
While he's looking that up, are there promises found here and what are they? Well, we're running out of time, let me just name them.
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But if you find another one, tell me, I want to stick it in the notes, okay? Number one, riches is a promise. Riches are promised in this passage.
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Number two, honor. You'll have influence, people will listen to you when you talk. If it's about the
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Lord, they will listen. They may not like it, but they'll listen. Number three, durable riches.
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Number four, righteousness. Experiential righteousness, okay?
57:45
Now, is this to an individual or not? Well, you have to ask who's being spoken to in the book of Proverbs.
57:53
So jot this down. Proverbs chapter two, verse six tells us who the whole
57:58
Proverbs are written to. It says this, for the Lord giveth wisdom, out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
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He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous person. He is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
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So all of this is written to a person who's walking with God. He keeps the paths of judgment, he meaning one person.
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He lives, tries to live by the Bible is what that means. And preserves the way of his saints.
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Now, God preserves the way of his saints. So who's it written to? His saints, that then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity every good path.
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Who is thou? That's me as an individual. So is it written to generally to a group of people or to individuals?
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Individuals, and so what are the conditions? Receive instruction, knowledge and wisdom.
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Skill sets. And the fourth thing, can God lie? No. So there we go.
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Well, we're out of town. Shoot, I am tired. We're out of time. Y 'all are out of town.
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And next time, in case you won't be back, let me tell you, we're gonna look at Proverbs 24, three through five next time and then we're gonna move more into talking about the father's relations in the home after that, okay?
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So that'll be the last of the financial part. We'll go to point number three, which has to do with the father's relations in the home.
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All right, let us pray. Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for your Holy Spirit who helps us to interpret it according to the sense that you meant by it when you wrote it.
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Thank you for each other as we help each other to understand things better together. And Lord, it was wonderful today to be with your sheep and be one of your sheep and to be able to come together.
01:00:05
And in a time it's turmoil all around us, even in this city, and we're here in peace together.
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Thank you for that. Thank you for each person here, bless them all. And our friends online, our visitors here today, bless them and bless the meal we're about to have in Jesus name, amen.