The God of Materialism and Heavenly Treasure — Roger Hertzler

Heavenly Treasure as an Investment in the Kingdom

New bits of old stuff, you know, the medical, hey, some of them, some of that, there was, you know, if you see a bottle of chopper, that's just, that just means that we're together, to chat together in pubs for you and I explain, telling them, you know, allow us to pull out and try to make some effort, there's some investment way, something to get, and know a little bit about this thing of compounders will grow and how we stay here, we're, uh, just, after how this is where we travel the land, it was key to get it, you didn't get any crying back there, it's fine, so don't feel that long, you know, that I need to, so I'll try to, uh, but if you can't, they were for the here and now, that was all they cared about, just give me my paycheck or, the message on peer pressure is what people do, and it, I didn't see materialism, and so, for once, out of the heart of the key, you know, if, if ever one of them threw a battered wallet, man, fill out some of this, this, you have made that lease on the crime, we, and need to talk about this here, about religion group, and talk about religious, and make all money, and, the, the reason, I'm sorry, hold up, this good news that I'm going to be sharing with you, about the kingdom of God, is about the retirement plan that this king offers, did you know that our king, Jesus, offers a retirement plan, or maybe we call it an investment opportunity, maybe that would be a better way to put it, it's an investment opportunity, if you know anything about investments, it's different than spending money, when you invest money, you're thinking long term, you're thinking for the future, you're thinking not for just the here and now, well, our king offers this investment opportunity, and he says here, in Matthew 6, verse 21, he says, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, I trust that we believe heaven is a real place, well, Jesus says you can lay up investments and treasures in this place called heaven, and it's not gone when you lay up treasures in heaven, it will still be there, just like that retirement plan was still there, it was there long term, it was there far into the future, hopefully, if they did it right, and if the economy stayed sound, and everything else happened like what was expected to happen, well, Jesus said you can lay up treasures in this place called heaven, and it's secure, now that's a big issue, do you know that, security is a big issue, today, there are many people who are worried about security of their investments, there's a lot of people, I deal with them as an accountant, I see a lot of people worried about the things that they buy, they want to invest in something that's going to last, years ago there was this company called Enron, huge energy company that wanted to grow, and they wanted to grow fast, and started buying up all these different companies around them, growing and growing, they had all these employees, they kept hiring on new people, and as they were growing, they hired some accountants to do some work for them, they hired some accountants to report to the shareholders, here's how good we're doing, how much money we're making, well, these accountants weren't doing a particularly good job, now, this is a big accounting firm, when I went to work as an accountant, years ago, there were six firms, they were called the big six, the biggest of the big six accounting firms was called Arthur Anderson, and the story I'm telling you is the story that not only crippled Arthur Anderson, but actually drove them right out of business, Arthur Anderson was the accountant for this company called Enron, and Enron had all their people, all their employees, and everybody else that could talk into investing money into this company, they put this money into the company, and many people were relying on this company called Enron to make them wealthy, to make them financially secure in the future, well, finally, these accounting problems came out, that they were hiding and burying, and they had all this debt that nobody wanted to know about, and they put a, I don't know how they did it, some kind of, they called it an off-balance sheet, debt, which I don't even understand, I hope the big boys do, but they were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing, it was illegal, and when it all finally came crashing down, Enron was out of business, and all these people that had staked their security, financial security on Enron, they were out in the cold, they had nothing to show for all their hard work, and they weren't very happy, and I think that's part of the reason Arthur Anderson is no longer an accounting firm, is because of that huge mistake, and all the people that suffered because of it, and so people don't want to invest in an Enron, people want to avoid that, they hear those horror stories, and they say, if I'm going to make investments, I want to invest in something that's going to be there when I'm done, after the time, you know, whatever that time period is, if it's 10 years, 20 years, whatever that time period is I'm looking at, I want it to still be there for me, that's what an investment is, it's supposed to hold value for you, well, one lady came up with an idea, how she could do it, and stay out of the Enron problem, her name was Martha Stewart, one of the richest ladies in America, she was investing, she had lots of money, she had made with her, I think a TV show, she was investing in all these different companies, but she decided to get into this thing called insider trading, insider trading happens when you get some information that nobody else knows about it, see, as soon as it's public information, everybody knows about it, and either the stock price goes up, or it goes down, well, she wanted to avoid what everybody else was doing, or she wanted to avoid the danger that they were engaged in, and they didn't know about it, so she made friends, somehow, with one of the inside people in this company, and she had made some investments in this company through their stock, well, he gave her a call one day, and says, hey, Martha, you better sell the stock, because it's going to go down in value, and so she did, and lo and behold, it did go down in value, and she breathes a sigh of relief, and says, wow, that was close, I could have lost a lot of money, well, the government found out about this, and started asking questions, why did you sell, I mean, that seems a little fishy, that you sold right at that time, see, that was information she wasn't supposed to have, she was supposed to wait until everyone else, somehow, it was done illegally, but then she made another mistake, she lied about it, and said, I didn't really get it illegal, I really didn't know, and really, she didn't know, well, she ended up spending some time in jail because of that, now, insider information is not necessarily always illegal, if you get it in the proper channels, in fact, if you and I are part of the kingdom of God, we can do insider investing, did you know that, did you know we have inside information, that no one else has, or at least, if they listened, they'd know it, but most of them are not listening, if you go to Wall Street today, you'll see people rushing around, trading stocks, and bonds, and different investments, and they don't know whether this stuff's going up or going down, oh, if they could just get their hands on tomorrow's newspaper, for instance, and know whether this thing's going up or down, that would just make their day, but they can't, they don't know what's going to happen on tomorrow, neither do we, as far as here on this earth, but if we read this book, you know what we find out, it says this entire earth is going to melt with fervent heat, that means Wall Street's included, and all the stocks that's traded on Wall Street, it's all going down in value, we know that, and we can look at all these people rushing around, trying to make these good investments, and we can tell them, look, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, they're going down in value, we know for sure, because we have inside information, we talked to somebody who knows the future, and he talks to us through his word, isn't that exciting, as a member of the child of God, we can trade and invest in utter security, because we know the future, in a way that non-members of this kingdom, they don't know, the people who are not members of the kingdom of God, they don't know about, other people have got into this thing called foreign investing, they say I'm not sure the United States economy is very sound, and so they send their money over to Japan, or Germany, or China, or maybe they are already in another country, maybe Mexico, or Zimbabwe, or one of these countries that historically has had a high inflation rate, and all the money that they have, they don't know it's going to go down in value, and it's gone down in value, over and over again, it's just lost its value, and so they say we're going to send our money up to the United States, and invest in dollars, because it holds its value, it's called foreign investing, people here in the United States do it all the time, they try to diversify and send money overseas to some country that they think is more sound, but did you know that in the kingdom of God, we can do foreign investing at its best, you see, it's one thing to send our money overseas somewhere, but what happens if the whole world burns up, did you know Japan, and Germany, and China are going to burn up with it, investing in another country here on this earth doesn't help us at all in that scenario, but what about investing in heaven, now isn't that foreign investing at its best, you see when this earth melts with fervent heat, any investments we've made in heaven, we still have to invest in heaven, we can still have those things, this is what treasures in heaven is all about, we can transfer our money, this green stuff we carry around with us, we can actually transfer it to heaven, and it will be secure for us, and maybe you ask the question, well how can we get in on this wonderful opportunity that we have as children of God, how can we get in on this thing called treasures in heaven, what are the mechanics, how do we transfer money from here to there, well Jesus tells us how, in a couple of different places, Luke chapter 12, Matthew chapter 6, I'll be sharing some of these verses and the references with you, but basically Jesus says the way to do it is by going out in my name and showing love to people by giving to the poor, giving alms he calls it, or giving to the poor he calls it, or giving to charity, depends on the translation you use, but giving in the name of Jesus, giving to the poor, giving to the needs of this world, and by the way there are so many opportunities in this, I mean if you look around, maybe not here in America, maybe you see how everybody looks pretty well fed here, everybody's got a copy of the bible, in fact they probably have 3 or 4 copies of the bible sitting on their television set, closed with dust on them, but if you get to many countries in this world, and probably even certain parts of the United States, there are truly poor people, and if you go to them in the name of Jesus, with the right motives, with the right heart, and help those people, Jesus says you are laying up treasure in heaven, and it's not an expense, you know what the difference is between an expense and an investment, an expense is gone once you spend it, once you lay the money out, you go to a power company and give them $100 for your power bill, you're not going to see that $100 again, it's going to be gone, it's going to be eaten up with the electric that you consume, but if you go to a bank and say I'm going to put this in a savings account, that's not an expense, that's an investment, you can go back to that bank and get it out, hopefully it's a good bank, well laying up treasure in heaven is not an expense, it's an investment, we can still get it, it's still there, God is guarding it for us, and God even says back in the Old Testament Proverbs, he says, whoso hath pity on the poor, lendeth to the Lord, I don't know if any of you have ever done any money lending before, but you know when you loan money to somebody, there's a risk, no matter how financially sound they are, there's at least some risk that they're not going to pay you back, but do you think there's any risk that if you loan money to the Lord, that He's not going to pay you back, do you think He's going to default, do you think He's going to call you up and say, sorry, I can't make the payment this month, I don't think God's going to do that, I think God can very well, when we loan Him money, I think He's going to guard it, I think He's going to take care of it for us, this is heavenly investment, this is heavenly treasure, and this is part of the good news of the Kingdom of God, maybe some of you have asked questions already, maybe there's other ways I can lay up treasure in heaven, the Bible speaks of this, lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, Jesus said, that's a command, well how can I do that, maybe there's other ways, raising your family, prayer, Bible reading, witnessing to the lost, would those activities maybe be treasure in heaven as well, laying up treasure in heaven, I think it's very possible they are, but did you know the only one the Bible mentions is giving, that's the only one, giving to the poor, giving to charity, that's the only one that the Bible calls treasure in heaven, perhaps those other activities would be too, I kind of think they might qualify, but for sure we know that treasure in heaven is giving to the poor, now as wonderful as this thing is, there are some pitfalls, there are some dangers in this thing of laying up treasure in heaven, there are things that satan has come along and he's put up barrier after barrier trying to stop this thing from happening, you know why, because satan knows the power of having treasure in heaven, he knows what happens to your heart when you lay up treasure in heaven, you know what Jesus said happens to your heart, He says your heart will follow your treasure, your heart will be in heaven if your treasure is in heaven.

Generosity as a Witness to the Lost

Satan also knows the testimony of this is, when suddenly someone who has been living a selfish life suddenly becomes generous and starts sharing with others out of his abundance, even out of his poverty, even if all he's got left is two mites, like that widow, and she gives up her two mites for the sake of God, people look at that and say, wow, something has changed, something is different, satan knows the potential, he knows the attractiveness, he knows the attraction that that is to the lost, he also knows that there's an eternal, there's eternal destinies at stake.

The Sheep and the Goats Judged by Mercy

Now this is really serious, because you know in Matthew 25, Jesus said there's going to be a division, and the division is going to be between the sheep and the goats, and you know what the criteria that Jesus said, you're going to be on the right, you're going to be on the left, He said enter down to the joy of my Lord, why, why these and not these, inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these, you have done it unto me.

I was hungry and you gave me meat, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was a stranger and you took me in naked and you clothed me, and you, you didn't clothe me, you didn't feed me, you didn't, you know, take me in as a stranger, this is a serious issue, so you can see why satan would want to set up some of these barriers in our lives, so what are the barriers, let's talk about some of the barriers that satan wants to set up to keep us from engaging in this activity of laying up treasure in heaven, what does satan want to do to us, what pitfalls, what stumbling blocks has he set up, let me go through some of these rather quickly, and then there's one of them we really want to touch on, but first of all, is this problem of laziness, the Old Testament talks a lot about slothfulness, laziness, just an unwillingness to get out of bed and go to work, an unwillingness to really apply ourselves, to really be diligent, it's called laziness or slothfulness, well if that's a problem, turn to Proverbs 6 .6 or Ephesians 4 .28 and it says there that you should go and work, you should take, go to the ant and you should take heed what the ant does and follow the example of the ant and how he works, and he has a future oriented mind, he's not looking for just the here and now, he's looking for the future, and that motivates that ant to go and work and apply himself, or Ephesians 4 .28 where it says let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, why, so that he may have to give, what's another problem, another stumbling block, laziness is the first one, the second one is overspending, or we could call it waste, or we could call it mismanagement, somebody goes out there and they have a good job and they work hard and they make a good deal of money, but they spend it all through mismanagement, spending it all on themselves, luxury living, spending everything they have on their own needs, they have nothing left over to lay up anywhere, on earth, in heaven, nowhere, they have no money left over because of overspending, through waste, through just squandering what they have earned, that's the second one, what's another stumbling block to laying up treasure in heaven, first one was laziness, second one was overspending, the third one is a lack of love, in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but I do it without love, it profits me nothing, what a tragedy, when we could have had treasure in heaven and we come up with nothing, doing it without love, you know that's the first commandment, loving God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength, and the second is likened to it, loving our neighbor as ourself, and to somehow mechanically go through the motions without that love for God first of all, and love for our neighbor secondly, Paul says it profits us nothing, the fourth stumbling block is a wrong motivation, a motivation of the praise of men, in Matthew 6, Jesus said don't do your alms before men to be seen of them, because if you do it for that motive, all you want is the praise of men, he says you'll get no reward of your father which is in heaven, no reward, how tragic, how sad, no reward of your father which is in heaven, a wrong motivation, doing it for the praise of men, but he says if you do it in secret, do it in secret with no thought of who is watching you, then he says my father which is in heaven will reward you openly, that's the fourth stumbling block, and the fifth stumbling block is the God of materialism, and if you look at your programs this weekend, that was the title that was given, the God of materialism, the God of materialism is a huge stumbling block to laying up treasure in heaven, because the God of materialism comes along and says you know what, you've worked hard and you know what, you've cut back on your own personal expenses and you've got this extra money that you can do something with, and the God of materialism says I've got an idea, why not lay up some of these treasures here on this earth, I mean after all over there is the stock market and you can make money in that, people have done it, over here is some real estate and real estate is going up in value, in fact real estate never goes down in value, you didn't know that, that's what the God of materialism will tell you, and the God of materialism will say just lay up some treasure here on earth, put it in a savings account, just let it pile up as long as you can possibly let it pile, get as rich as you possibly can, maybe that will even make you more valuable to God's kingdom, although most of the time the God of materialism just uses, all he has to do is appeal to our own self and our own, you know, what we want out of it, that's most of the time what he's going to appeal to, and you know what he tells us, the God of materialism, he tells us I'm going to give you, now listen to this list, I'm going to give you security, I'm going to give you fulfillment, I'm going to give you purpose, I'm going to give you influence, I'm going to give you health, happiness, love, power, these are the things that the God of materialism wants to give you, he's offering you, he's saying hey, if you can save, pile up your money long enough, I mean, you know, you become a millionaire, maybe even a billionaire, I mean, who knows, but you'll have all these things, security, fulfillment, purpose, etc.

God and Mammon in Competition

But you know, when Jesus was here, he made quite a statement, he said these words, you cannot serve God and mammon, and that word mammon means wealth, or possessions, or money, you cannot serve God and money.

He wasn't saying you cannot serve God and Satan, although that is true, he wasn't saying you cannot serve God and Baal or Ashtaroth, although that is also true, he wasn't saying you cannot serve God and Buddha, or whatever the Hindu gods are, or Mohammed, he said you cannot serve God and wealth.

Materialism as a Counterfeit of God's Gifts

Why did Jesus draw this line between God and wealth, as though those are the two things that are in competition with each other? Well, let's go back over that list again, that wealth wants to offer you, and you'll find out that God wants to offer you every one of those same things.

Wealth comes along and says I'm going to offer you a counterfeit. He doesn't say that it's a counterfeit, but listen to this again. God wants to give you security. God wants to give you fulfillment. God wants to give you purpose.

He wants to give you influence. Do you know God wants to give you influence? If you're a member of the kingdom of God, you know there's also the kingdom of these worlds that are out there, and God wants us to influence those things.

He said be salt in this earth, be light in this world. You are the light of this world. He wants us to influence this world, and He wants us to do it through His power, not through the worldly means. God says I want you to do this, not by serving the God of materialism, but by serving Me.

God can give us health. I mean, that's kind of a fleeting thing because we live in these mortal bodies and we're all going to die sometime, but God has healed the sick many, many times. Well, materialism comes along and says, look, if you just had enough money, you could buy the best health insurance in the world, and you know, you could stay, at least stay living longer.

Maybe even if you live long enough, science will discover a way you can live eternally. Well, it's never happened yet, but you know, God comes along. He says, I do give you eternal life. You can live forever, and even while you're here, the power, you know, there's been many miracles through prayer and seeking God of deliverance, even from these physical things.

Again, it's temporary. Don't expect that because you serve God, you're going to live forever here in this body. I don't think we should want to either, but God can give us all these things that materialism is trying to offer us.

Love, power. That's what God wants to give us. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you. He wants to give us grace, which is another word for power. So the God of materialism offers us these counterfeits.

This God is called so many things. It's called the love of money. It's called covetousness, a desire for more, more than I have right now. I need more than what I have. It talks about people, they that will be rich and what happens to them, fall into temptation and a snare.

It's called, we could call it discontentment. He says, be content with what you have. Be content with food and raiment. These are the things that the God of materialism comes along, tries to replace. He replaces them with discontentment, a desire to be rich, a covetousness, a love of money.

The Heart Follows the Treasure

What's the effect of this God? If we follow it, we say, OK, this sounds like a pretty good God. Maybe I'll try at least to serve this God of materialism with part of my being, this love of material things.

What's the effect? Well, one of the things that Jesus said, where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. Our heart will follow our treasure. We lay up our treasure here on this earth. Our heart will follow it.

And that's different from a lot of times the way we translate that verse. We say it the other way around. You ever hear that? A lot of people, you know, will say, well, where my heart is, that must be where my treasure is.

You know, I try to find I look into my heart and I try to figure out is my heart here with my heart here. But you know, your heart is so deceitful. That's what the Bible says. Your heart's going to fool you if you try to figure out where your heart is.

You're probably not going to get a very accurate reading because your heart by nature is deceitful. But Jesus said, if you look at your treasure, where are you investing your time, your money, your resources that might give you a really good, accurate reading of where your heart is and your heart can be here and here on earth or can be in heaven.

And Christ wants it to be in heaven. What else happens when this God of materialism takes over our life? It blinds us to good investments. You know, I told you back when I worked for that company that there was two kinds of people.

One would look at that retirement plan and they say, I don't care about today. I only I don't care about the future. I only care about today. We call them spenders. They get their money. They spend. It's gone.

There's another kind of people called investors, and they care about the future. They say, I want to do something long term. I want to have something to show for all my effort. I want something. You know, I don't want to live only for today.

I want to live for the future. Those are called investors. One day an investor came to Jesus. This was not a man who spent everything, you know, as soon as he got it. He was an investor. He was looking long term.

We call him the rich young ruler because he was an investor. He should have known what a good investment was. He should have known how to tell the difference between a long term versus a short term investing.

But Jesus offered him treasures in heaven. Jesus, sell your possessions, give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Now, to somebody who was already an investor, that should have jumped out at him as the opportunity of a lifetime.

He should have said, wow, really, I can lay up treasure in heaven. He says, I've been laying up treasure on this earth. But if I could lay up treasure in heaven, that would deal with the problem of, you know, I've been thinking lately that when I die, I'm going to lose everything.

And what shall I do? And Jesus says, here's what you can do. You can lay up treasure in heaven. But you know what? He had already sold out to the God of materialism and he was blind. His blinders were down.

And when Jesus come along and offered him a better investment than he'd ever heard of, the better than any piece of real estate he could ever invest in, better than any stock he could ever invest in, better than anything he had ever heard of, better than any foreign bank account or foreign currency.

Jesus was offering him treasures in heaven and he missed it. He was blind. Somehow he just he just flat blew it. He should have known he was an investor after all. He was not a spender. He was an investor, but he somehow he missed it.

He missed the opportunity. And so many people today are missing that same opportunity. We live, probably everyone in this room lives in the United States of America. Americans have sold out to this God of materialism, hook, line and sinker.

They have bought into this thing of whatever materialism is offering them. And they often abide by this rule. Bigger is better. More assets is better than less assets. And along with more assets, what comes with it?

A lot of times more debt. And we see this in this financial crisis that just happened. Was everything come as people kept growing bigger and bigger and more and more and borrow and borrow and spend and spend.

You know, the hen finally came home to roost and suddenly payments started have to be made and problems started happening. And over and over this, this happens until this whole financial crisis that has happened for the last two years.

And I'm not sure where I just read today somewhere that unemployment is higher than it's ever been for the last thirty years. It's up to getting close to 10 percent unemployment nationwide. Higher than that, if you calculate it a different way.

But this is the result of following this God of materialism. He's so deceptive in everything that he that he wants to wants to do. By the way, let me just talk about this a little bit. What if we are in that position of, you know, we heard a little bit about that tonight.

What if we're in that position of of as this financial crisis unfolds, I see so many people who have got in over their heads and now it's not a problem of getting richer. Now it's a problem of all of a sudden their assets or their debt is more than their assets.

I've seen this over and over again. What happens if you're in that situation? Let me just I'm taking a little rabbit trail here, but because there's more people, I suppose it's possible there's somebody right here that might be in that position right now.

What do you do? What can you do? I mean, obviously, you can't just call your banker and say, hey, I just I don't believe in debt after all, and we're just going to let this thing go away. That's not going to work.

But, you know, there's some advice in Proverbs that says the borrower is the servant to the lender and you turn up to the New Testament talks about all the things that a servant should do. A servant should be obedient.

A servant should be a good servant. So if you find yourself in a position of being a servant today, choose to be the best servant you can be. Choose to be the make your payments on time as much as possible every single month.

Choose to to, you know, if that's not possible, then call the banker. Don't just let them hang or whoever this is. It won't be the best servant you can be. Be a testimony for Christ, even in this situation.

That's one thing you can do. Here's another thing. Give thanks for the situation you're in. Give thanks. You know why you should give thanks? Because it just could be that this situation, God can bring more fruit from your life than he ever could with prosperity or with the lack of debt.

I mean, there's something about death that kind of has a humbling effect on us. You know that? I've experienced it, by the way. Something about death that has a humbling effect on us. Well, you know what God says about the humble?

He says He gives grace to the humble. So if we allow this situation, whatever the hard situation, maybe it's not death, maybe it's a health problem, maybe it's family issues. I don't know what your situation is, but if you're in a hard situation, let that thing humble you because God gives grace to your humble.

He might be able to do far more through you in this newfound humility. Maybe it's brought on even by your own mistakes, but he might be able to do more through you as his grace flows through you. Humble yourself under the hand of God and say, Lord, I accept this situation and I'm going to do what I can to get out of it.

But if I can't, then Lord, I'm going to simply be the best servant I can be, be the best testimony I can be and live for you through it all. And in it all, Christ will be glorified. So let's get back here to this thing of Americans, you know, and how they bought into this, this, this whole God of materialism.

Christianity and the God of Materialism

What's so amazing about this whole thing is that America, they've bought in for more than any other country in history to this God of materialism. They have also almost more than any other country claim to be a Christian nation, a nation that follows this man, Jesus Christ.

Here's the ironic thing. More than anything else, Christ tore down this God of materialism over and over and over again. So to claim to serve Christ and yet also be serving with everything they have, this materialist materialism, God, it's so inconsistent.

Maybe we could ask the question, why do they do that? Why this inconsistency? Why this vast discrepancy between claiming to be a follower of Christ, but yet with everything you see in the fruit of their life, they're serving the God of materialism.

Why is that? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons and I'll just mention two of them. Probably two of the most common was number one is either they do not know what Jesus said or number two, they do not care what Jesus said.

Either they don't know what Jesus said or they just simply don't take it seriously. What Jesus said about this, this God of materialism, what he really said about it. And I'll be here's my testimony with me.

It was the first one. As I look back on my life and when I was into this God of materialism, I have to admit, I simply did not know the scripture. Many there were some there were scriptures I did not know about.

I'm grateful to faithful brothers for pointing them out to me. And as I looked at those, it started, started wondering, what is it? God, what are you saying through these things? I never saw that before.

I was never taught that before. I never, I never. What's going on here, Lord? What am I missing? What have I missed? And I started to realize, yeah, there's some scripture. I can't form a right doctrine about this subject if I don't even know what Christ said.

I mean, once we all know what Christ said, maybe we can, maybe there's a slightly different application. Maybe you're not going to do everything like like I do or I might not do everything like you do.

But if we're, if we have that handicap of simply not knowing the scriptures, we've got a real handicap, don't we? Jesus told the Pharisees, you do err. I mean, it was a Sadducees. You don't know the power.

You don't know the scriptures or the power of God. Not knowing the scriptures is a big problem. I do have something here that I'd like to hand out. Is there any way you could pass these out? I think there's probably one for every adult or at least close to it.

So if you don't mind just giving those and what that is, go ahead. It's simply a paper that I've put together that has all the, I don't know, I don't want to say all of them, but many, many of the verses in the New Testament.

It's just a one page thing, folded in half. Many of the verses in the New Testament about possessions and materialism, material wealth and money and what Jesus really taught about it. Now, if you take that, if you take that and look at them and look at these things and if you know, if you do something different than I do with them, I don't feel so bad about that.

But if you make decisions without even knowing what the scripture says, that's the thing that if there's anything I would love to accomplish this evening is just get you on the path to getting familiar with what Christ said, with what God says, and then using that as a tool to make decisions in your own personal life.

Christ's Commands Concerning Wealth

So what was it that Christ said? What did he say about this false God of materialism? Here's one thing he said. He said, you cannot serve God and mammon or God and money. He said this. He said, woe to you who are rich.

You know, Jesus said that. I didn't know for many years. I didn't know Jesus said that. Woe to you are rich. Luke 12 or Luke 6 verse 20. Blessed are you who are poor. Luke 6 verse 24. Blessed are you who are poor.