The Sheep and the Goats — David Servant

The Prosperity Gospel Misreads “All Things Are Possible”

You know, back in the days when I was more of a prosperity type guy preacher, I was also kind of a big faith guy, because faith and prosperity normally go hand in hand. If you have faith, you can get prosperous.

But I would often quote that scripture to my congregation, hey, you know, all things are possible to those who believe, and so have faith in God. You know, I mean, all things are possible to those who believe, and nothing's impossible with God.

And so, you know, with you believing, you know, and with God there, nothing could be impossible. And that's what the scripture says. And so believe God, and as you give this morning, believe God that he's prospering you, blah, blah, blah.

I had all the lines, you know, that you had. I was pretty, pretty good, pretty bad, is what I meant to say. But anyways, you know, years later, I read that scripture where Jesus said, you know, nothing is impossible with God, and it was in reference to getting a rich man to give up everything.

It wasn't about getting more, it was about giving up everything. Isn't that true? You know, the apostle said, who can be saved, because Jesus made this very demanding requirement of a rich guy, and they were wondering, are we going to make it, you know?

And Jesus said, hey, it's not possible. Man, on pure human effort, it's impossible to get a camel through a needle. But with God, God, all things are, God can take a stingy, greedy, selfish person and transform that person by his Holy Spirit and make that person into a generous person who loves his neighbor as himself.

And it's a tremendous miracle. In fact, it could be the greatest miracle on the earth. When you think about it, Jesus, that was the context of which Christ said that, you know. Nothing is impossible with God.

He wasn't saying, well, you can get your eyesight back or you can walk if you've been crippled. He said, God can take rich, greedy people and get them to give up everything and transform them into people who love their neighbor as himself.

That's a miracle. That's an absolute miracle. Last year, I invited people to come with us to Burma, and there are some people here, I think, who went with us to Burma. Who is there? Who, who, who? Okay, well, Sally went.

Yeah. Praise the Lord. Has anyone else went with us to Burma? Okay. And, you know, once you get a taste of how the rest of the world lives, you begin to recognize that we are living in Disney World. And your experience is so different than what most people in the world experience.

Wealth, Consumerism, and Global Exploitation

And I'm constantly, not only am I constantly in jet lag, but I'm constantly in culture shock. And I, I fight being judgmental because when I come back to America and I just see the self-indulgence and the materialism, and I've just come from places where, you know, where people are making $2 a day, you know, it'd be interesting right now if we all just could have our neighbor look at the tag on our shirts and blouses and trousers and so forth to find out where everything that you own right now came from.

And I guarantee a lot of stuff that you're wearing came from places like Pakistan, where little children are working in factories for 50 cents a day and you're benefiting. That's where your slaves live.

Now you say, well, I don't have any slaves. Well, yeah, I know you don't have any slaves, but, you know, the reason that we can afford so many, so much clothing is because people are willing to give their time for next to nothing to make it for us.

You know, if they were paid minimum wage, the price of our clothing would be higher and you could afford less, you see. And so I'm just trying to give you a basic concept. That's why the Bible is, you know, it condemns the rich in so many places, you know, woe to you who are rich for you're receiving your comfort in full.

And we read that and think, yeah, those people in that other neighborhood, they ought to read that. But you're living in the big rich neighborhood called United States of America, you know. And the one reason the world hates us so much, our country, is not just because, you know, they're Muslim or, you know, we're Christian.

It's because they know that their children are working in their factories to, you know, make products for us that all get exported to our country that they could never afford in their lifetime, stuff they're making for us.

And they know that, you see. And you know, you watched in the news where they, you know, destroyed a couple of McDonald's. I saw those McDonald's stores, as a matter of fact, we drove right by them and a Kentucky fried chicken or two in Lahore, Pakistan.

Only the rich people can eat at McDonald's in Pakistan. Or in most third world countries, you know, I visit many countries and it's just the way it is. The people who can't go to McDonald's resent the people who can go to McDonald's.

Now, can you imagine being in that situation? See, we can't imagine, you know, that's junk food. That's out of the reach of most of the people in the world. And so, you know, we just need to wake up. And it starts with opening our hearts to be receptive to what Jesus has to say to us.

Jesus Warns Against Possessions and Greed

Let's do that and open our Bibles to Luke chapter 12. Jesus was preaching. We're not going to look at all of his sermon here. But in my Bible, I've got a red letter edition and verses 2 all the way through verse number 12.

It's all red letters. And Jesus was preaching. He's preaching in front of the multitudes and a guy, someone, not a specific person, but this is an anonymous person out of the crowd says, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.

He wants the teacher that everyone's listening to, to make a decision, to render judgment on his behalf against his brother, who he thinks maybe has too much or got a bigger half or whatever. And he feels like he's been cheated and he's all consumed with, I've got to get what's coming to me.

Well, I would submit to you that that is a predominant attitude in all of Western culture. It's all about what I can get for me. And that's what Jesus is about to address that. He's going to use a phrase that I hope will become very familiar to you after we get through this over this weekend.

He says, life does not consist of possessions. Now at the risk of insulting you, would you please repeat that with me? Life does not consist of possessions. Okay, but how many of you ever watch TV? Let me see your hands.

Come on. Every single commercial that you watch is designed with one purpose in mind, is to make you discontent with what you have right now and to make you think that life consists of possessions, that you can be happier if you get this.

Even if it's just the purple pill, you'll be happier because you won't have whatever that purple pill cures. I was watching the news tonight and they have this new thing called Restless Leg Syndrome, which up until just a few months ago, nobody had Restless Leg Syndrome.

They might have had trouble in their legs, but they didn't have Restless Leg Syndrome. And they got a pill for Restless Leg Syndrome and they'll pay literally tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise the pill that will solve your problem.

And everyone who has problems with their legs gets the pill and they make money and now I'm happier. Or they show these happy people driving their new cars and those cars are always clean. They drive them through mud, they come out and they're still nice and clean.

People are always smiling. The people are always good looking. Have you noticed that? There's no ugly people in commercials because you too can be happy and beautiful like these people. And so to create discontent with what you have right now, everyone who's watching those commercials has a car and they're thinking, how can we persuade these people to trade their car and get another one?

This will make you happier, happier, happier, happier. Well Jesus says to people who believe that, you are, I'm going to soften it, you're being fooled. I wasn't going to say you're a fool, but I'm going to soften it.

You're being fooled. If you think life consists of possessions, you are being fooled in a major way. And I was fooled all my life. I was fooled as a preacher and I was helping to fool people who came to my church every Sunday.

Every time we took up an offering, I would read a scripture and again, taking it out of its context, like one of my favorite ones was give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

Didn't Jesus say those words? Yeah, that's right. Jesus said that. And so we take that verse and the only way I could get people in my church motivated to give money was to promise them that you're not losing money on this transaction, you're actually gaining money on this transaction.

We're passing a plate and it looks like you have less, but don't be concerned because Jesus says you're going to get more now. And that is exactly true. Give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down.

But can I just tell you what it doesn't say? It doesn't say give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. So then you can lay up treasures on this earth in disobedience to Jesus Christ who said give and it shall be given unto you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, you know, the reason that he said that is because you can, like the widow, give everything you have and you have nothing to worry about because your father is going to take care of what you need, which consists of food and covering.

And you might be so blessed that you'll get two coats so you can do what John the Baptist said and give one away because it's more blessed to give than to receive. And so the more that I receive, that enables me to give all that much more.

Praise God. I don't want to lay up treasures on this earth. I want to lay them up in heaven in obedience to Jesus Christ. But you see, we never told him that. I never told him that. I just quote one little scripture and all those greedy people, you know, would be thinking in their minds, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, you know, I'm getting more, I'm getting richer, I'm going to get a job, a better job, a promotion, a raise, I'll have more, I'll be happier, happier, happier.

And it was just all part of a huge deception, you know, adjusting the Bible to fit to our culture. Amen. Life does not consist of possessions. Now I travel in a lot of, you know, developing countries and so forth.

Contentment and Solidarity With the Poor

Just last week when I was in Pakistan, I visited several Christian homes. And you would not even consider them homes, you would consider them only fit for your animals, which they do too because their animals live right with them because they have nowhere else to put their animals.

And so they live right there and you'll walk into their home and of course there's no ceiling and part of it is kind of like a courtyard, as it were, and there's, you know, goats and maybe if they are rich enough to own an ox and, you know, maybe a few of the animals, but the droppings are all there right on the courtyard.

And then you go into one of their little rooms and there's just a very crude and primitive bed there and they might have like two rooms in it, you know, seven or eight people sleep in all those rooms and you look up and there's no ceiling.

You see the rafters and you see the thatch or the tin, you know, and, um, you know, we were at a house of a guy who made $2 a day working 12 hour days making bricks. I think the statistics indicate that about, uh, now I'm forgetting, Doug, maybe you can help me on this because I know that you have the encyclopedia, but like one third of the world lives on less than $2 a day.

Is that, is that the right? Yeah. About one third of the whole world lives on less than $2 a day. And we, you know, employ those kinds of people all over the world. Most of our clothing is made in places just like that.

And we've justified by saying to ourselves, well, these people are happy to work for that. Well, yeah, they're happy to work for that because they're so desperate. If there was something better offered to them, they take it.

Yeah. You said, well, you sound like you're a communist. No, I'm not a communist. I'm capitalist to the core. I'm not talking about redistributing everyone's wealth. I'm just trying to make us aware when you live in Disney world all your life, you know, you're in this little bubble.

You don't understand what, how the rest of the world is living. And so I encourage you to go sometime and see, and see how our brothers and sisters in Christ are living in many parts of the world. You know, the people I visited last week in Pakistan, all believers in Jesus Christ.

For example, last year in Myanmar, we saw people, women working by the road who their job was, they worked 10 hours. They would drop off big dump truck loads of big granite rocks like this. And their job was to sit there.

They didn't provide chairs, sit there and hit those rocks with a hammer down to a smaller and smaller size until they had gravel that was suitable for the road. And they paid them $1 for the day. It's not just unthinkable.

Here's your hammer. Here's your rock. 10 hours sitting there all on the road. And your job is to make gravel. And once you get a nice little pile of gravel, then we'll take a shovel and we'll spread that out on the road.

And then here's your next block. And you're happy to do that for $1. We saw women who were out harvesting in the fields, hired as laborers to harvest the rice. And I think they were paid about $2 for the entire day.

Now can you see that that's, does that seem unequal to you, a little bit unequal to you? See, and I don't, I personally don't feel good now that I have some degree of understanding of how this all works, that I'm profiting off of the exploitation of other people.

That bothers my conscience because I know we're all created in God's image. And I happen to be born in Disney World, and so that's just why I'm just so blessed. And I hear Americans all the time say things like, well, if those people, you know, worked hard like us, God would also prosper them.

Wait a second, I just told you about a lady who sits by the road and works 10 hours a day with a hammer hitting a granite rock. How many of us are willing to do that kind of work? And six days a week, there's no five-day workweek, you know, sometimes it's seven days a week.

Oh my goodness, all the justifications we have. God has blessed our country because we're a Christian country. What? We're a Christian country? Yeah, you know, we export more filth to the world and more perversion and more sick stuff to the world than any other country does.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that payday's coming, payday's coming, all right. Now catch this, Jesus is going to tell the story of the rich American, and you thought it was the story of the rich fool, but no, no, no, no, no, this is the New American Standard Bible that I'm reading from.

The Rich Fool and the Futility of Earthly Treasure

And so this is the story of the rich American. Now look at this, look at this. He told them a parable. In other words, this is going to illustrate the point he's just tried to make. In other words, don't think that life consists of possessions, or else you're going to be guilty of greed.

The land of a certain rich man was very productive, and he began reasoning to himself, saying, what shall I do? Because I have no place to store my crops. And he said, this is what I will do. I will tear down my barns, and I'll build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared?

So is the man who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. So here's the story, here's the parable of the rich American. Most people would have been envious of him. Most people would be envious of him in our country.

Wow, this guy had it so much, man, he could retire. But what was God's perspective of him? God wasn't envious, God said, this man is a total fool. And there was a two-fold reason for that. One was because that very night his soul was required of him, and so everything that he had worked for, everything he had lived for, now was suddenly meaningless in one moment of time.

The moment that his heart stopped beating within his breast and his spirit came out of his body, he was no longer the owner of any of that stuff. It was totally worthless, are you with me? Completely meaningless, you know, it couldn't have done anything for him.

And now he had to rise his spirit to stand before God who said, the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. And it never occurred to that man that the reason that he was so blessed is possibly because God wanted to use him to be a blessing.

I heard a guy one time say, when I was a pastor, he said, well, if God didn't want me to have this stuff, why is he blessing me with it? Is it possible that maybe God wants you to share it with somebody else?

Is it possible that maybe you could have the blessing of feeding starving people who, unless you feed them, they're going to die? And you could find your life by losing it for the sake of Christ? Is that a possibility?

Never entered his mind, I guess. And so the critique that Jesus had of this guy is he said, he was rich, but he wasn't rich toward God. How do you become rich toward God? You become rich toward God by doing what he says, by being obedient to his commandments.

That's how you become rich toward God. And the second greatest commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Well, you know, I think I asked this question last year, how many here in this conference love yourself?

Let me see your hand. Every hand should be up because I know you all love yourselves. That's why you have clothes on because you love yourself. That's why you fed yourself today because you love, we all love ourselves.

That's just normal and natural. Jesus says, here's a commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. And so when I have more than I need, then that's a sign from God that I'm going to be, I'm set up in a position where I can be a blessing and I can take care of other people's needs.

Are you with me? And again, you know, it takes a long time for this to sink in because this is so foreign to our ears. You know, do we just think more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more.

You ever see that bumper sticker? He who dies with the most toys wins, and that's got to be a joke, but you know, it's a commentary on our culture. Get more, get more, get more, get more, get more, get more.

You fool. Tonight, you die. So was the man who laid. Now, do you think this guy went to heaven, by the way? I mean, you know, God called him a fool and just used him as an example of greed. And the Bible says no greedy person will inherit the kingdom of heaven.

So I don't think this guy went to heaven. I think this guy went straight to hell after his judgment. Jesus said to him, I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked. You didn't clothe me. And you had a perfect opportunity because you had so much more than you needed.

And so depart from me into the everlasting fire. Paul wrote to Timothy, and he said, if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. Hebrews 13, whoever wrote it, I think it was Paul. He said, let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have.

When's the last time we've heard a sermon on that? Be content with what you have. And if you're not content, that means you have a problem. You have a love of money. You're not content. You're not satisfied.

You think, I'll be happy if I have more. It's interesting because the places I go in the world and I hang around all these third world Christians, they're a lot happier than the rich Christians that I know here in this country.

They're tons happier. And the quality of their lives is so much more meaningful because instead of sitting around watching TV, they actually have relationships one with another. They can talk for hours and laugh and joke and pray and the relationships they have are so beautiful.

It's so beautiful. I love being with them for that very reason alone. So now verse 30, 31, seek for his kingdom. These things shall be added to you. What things? Food and clothing. Do not be afraid little flock for your father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

Storing Treasure in Heaven Through Generosity

Now here's a verse I've been waiting for. Sell your possessions, give to charity, make yourselves purses which do not wear out and unfailing treasure in heaven. Now here we go. You ready for this next one?

For where no thief comes near nor moth destroys for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Here's a commandment from Christ. He said, sell your possessions. How many have ever heard a sermon from a church pulpit, sell your possessions and give to charity?

I bet you zero, zero. And then how many Christians are doing it? You know, what we're hearing on TV is how you can get more possessions by giving to my ministry. I want to have less. When I finally woke up to that, you know, I started taking some steps.

I think I told you part of my testimony last year and I, I'll just have a few more minutes here tonight. But, uh, I wasn't always this way. You know what I'm teaching now had I heard myself teach it, uh, 12 years ago, I would have walked out and said that guy, he's way off the left field.

I was, I was pastoring a church and, uh, we, we had grown in about five years to like 300 people or so. And in my part of the country, that's pretty good. And, uh, build a new building and, you know, borrowed $800 ,000 for the glory of God.

Well, Jesus went hungry and thirsty and naked around the world. And, um, you know, God led us to borrow $100 ,000. I don't know what he was thinking. He must not have been reading his own Bible, but he led us to borrow $800 ,000 and build this big building for his glory while he was going starving and naked around the world.

And so we built a building and everything was so great. Everything was looking so wonderful, you know, man, I, you know, I was feeling very blessed. Other pastors were envious of our growth and so forth in my part of the world.

Repentance and the Judgment of the Sheep and the Goats

And, uh, but I made a huge, I say jokingly a mistake. It wasn't a mistake at all, but I, I did something that totally altered the course of my life and ministry. And that is this. I prayed a prayer that I've since learned that if you pray it sincerely, God will always answer this prayer.

He never fails. And that is this God, if, um, if there's any way that I'm not pleasing you, if there's anything you would like me to change, if I'm blind in some respect as to what your will is, I asked you to reveal that to me.

How many know God will always answer that prayer. I mean, like God is up in heaven waiting to answer that prayer. I mean, angels are probably specially assigned just to listen for that prayer alone. You know, just if you ever hear that prayer, let me know.

God says to the angels, because, because that's a rare prayer. And we want to make sure we answer that one because that's what we're all about here. And so I pray that prayer. And within a very short time, just a couple of days, you know, God had me read a scripture that I had read so many times.

I don't know what, I don't know what was wrong with me. I don't know what was wrong with me. How could you read the scripture and be blind to it? It's, it's just so plain as day. I read the judgment of the sheep and the goats and there it was, there it was in every Christian Bible.

It's in Gideon Bibles in hotel rooms. It's a, you know, it's in every translation, Matthew 25, it's in every Bible that's ever been printed in the whole world. Where, where was it for all those years?

Why didn't they ever mention it one time in two years of Bible school? Well, it didn't fit their theology. And then the Holy Spirit asked me the question, David, if everybody in your church died today and they went to this judgment, how many would be sheep and how many would be goats?

More specifically, in the last 12 months, how many people in your church have provided food for a hungry believer somewhere in the world? How many provided clothing for someone who needed, who was naked?

How many visited someone in prison? How many visited someone who was sick? How many invited a stranger into their homes? You know, he asked me the six questions and I didn't want to answer it. I told you last year, but I finally gave up and I said, Lord, I don't think very many of them would qualify as sheep.

And his response was, you're right and it's your fault because all you've been doing is building a ministry, building a church. You have not been making disciples. You have not been getting them ready to stand before my judgment throne.

You've been majoring on minors. I said a new commandment I give unto you that you love one another even as I have loved you. That's of paramount importance. And just zillions of scriptures began to unfold to me that I thought, where have I been for all these years?

How have I been missing all these things that God's been saying? And so I repented in front of my church and asked them to forgive me. I promised I'd be a man of God from then on. I would make disciples.

I would get them ready. And everybody was happy for one week. I mean, it was a glorious weekend. And people after church patted me on the back and said, praise the Lord. I've been praying that you would repent, Pastor, and it was so encouraging.

And then the next Sunday, I preached on the judgment of the sheep and the goats, and that was the beginning of the end. Week by week, like a hammer on a rock, I started preaching all those scriptures that nobody puts on the refrigerator doors, all the scriptures that are just ignored.

I just began preaching them one by one, and I watched some people who used to sit in the front row. Every Sunday, they'd be back another row. Next Sunday, back to the fourth row. Next Sunday, back to the sixth row.

Next Sunday, back... They'd sit there like this and so forth. And finally, I'd be in the very back row, and I'd say to my wife, guess what? Next week, we won't even be in church because there's no more rows for them, and they'll be out the door.

But we had a revival. We went from 300 to 200 in a matter of about six months, and all the goats ran for the doors, and they all went to goat churches with goat pastors, and they made them deacons within months, and they all had revival.

They all had revival. And it is funny, but really, it's sad. I mean, it is funny. I'm not making you feel bad for laughing, but really, we ought to be weeping because that's the state of the church. There were so many churches that welcomed my...

They called them my sheep, but they were my goats. They welcomed my goats with open arms and said, oh, yes, I understand why God led you here because we're a church that's all about grace. And they started calling me a legalist, preaching salvation by works, and I'd say, I'm just reading it from the B-I-B-L-E, the Bible.

That's the Bible. That's what Christianity is based on. This is the words of Jesus. I didn't come up with this goat and sheep stuff. I didn't set the criteria. This is the Lord. Isn't it amazing that people who call themselves Christians will come against someone who will preach what Jesus indisputably, clearly sedated and made it so plain that nobody could miss it?

And we're not talking about deep theology here. We're talking about sheep and goats. This is not presuppositional apologetics. You know, this is sheep and goats. Sheep and goats. And he made it very clear.

Examining Whether We Are Sheep or Goats

Who are the goats? Who are the sheep? Six tests. And people get mad who call themselves Christians. Oh, my goodness. Well, again, you know, here I am today and I'm encouraged because, you know, I see people that like myself, the Holy Spirit has helped them to open their eyes to the most simple, simple things of Scripture and they've responded to it.

But I'm going to ask you a question tonight because this is where I want to close and we'll build on this tomorrow when I get another chance. If you died tonight and you stood at the judgment of the sheep and the goats and you were judged by that criteria, would you be a sheep or would you be a goat?

Now, if you said, well, I think I'd be a goat, you're a goat, you are a goat. You worship a Jesus who doesn't exist in the Bible. There's a vast difference between the two. What should you do? You should get saved by repenting of your greed and your selfishness and your self-indulgence and repent and do what John the Baptist said.

When they were convicted, they said, what should we do? And the very first thing the dude said was this, if you've got two coats, fine, someone doesn't have any coat and give one away. How simple is that?

But today you go to these conventions and they say, oh, you're a poor guy, you only have five coats, come, buy my tape series and you'll learn how you can get 10 coats. The first thing you do to show you repent, give away food and give away clothing, sell your possessions and give to charity.

For I was hungry and you fed me and I was naked and you clothed me. When I get to heaven, I want to have some people waiting for me up there who said, I was one of the recipients of David Kirkwood's clothes and food.

I want to have some there, I want to have some on the way because I want to be able to prove I wasn't the goat, I was the sheep. When I preached that sermon that Sunday, now we were a Pentecostal full gospel church.

I think sometimes full gospel should be spelled F-O-O-L gospel, but we were a Pentecostal full gospel charismatic church. When the music got loud enough and so forth, we knew the anointing was there.

And I would often say, can't you just feel the spirit, ooh, oh yeah, we can feel the spirit. All of us greedy, selfish, indulgent, scripture ignoring, Sunday morning, Pew Warman, ooh, can't you feel the spirit, ooh.

He's here, he's here, I feel him, I feel him, I feel him, man, he's right here, you know. Oh, you know, wow, the spirit's really here. That Sunday that I preached that message and then subsequent Sundays, for the first time in the history of my ministry and in my church, we found out what the Holy Spirit, or I should say of course, who the Holy Spirit really is.

Because the Holy Spirit, and that's his first name, holy, and not for any insignificant reason, Holy Spirit. When you preach the truth, the Holy Spirit confirms it in people's hearts and he grips their hearts and convicts them.

And we saw, you know, it wasn't like a hallelujah thing, you know, jumping, anointing, you know, goosebumps. The Holy Spirit came in and people got quiet and pensive, and some immediately hardened their hearts against the Holy Spirit, where just the week before, they're saying, woo, can't you feel the spirit, man?

Now the spirit's there for the first time, the real spirit, and people harden their heart against him, I don't like this. Well, I pray this weekend is not going to be just a critique of sermons, we're not going to walk out of here and say, well, how good did the preachers do tonight?

We're going to say, Lord, where do I stand? What do I need to change? Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, do your work. Father God in heaven, Lord, I always feel so inadequate, maybe that's how I'm supposed to feel, because I know that we have to depend so much upon you, Lord God.

Lord, we just, if nothing else tonight, we read from what Jesus said, one day, warning a crowd against greed, thinking that life consists of possessions, warning people who are not rich toward God, commanding his followers to sell their possessions, told us quite plainly that wherever our treasure is, that's where our hearts are, and so Lord, help us open our eyes, Lord, let us not be deceived into thinking that our clinging to our possessions is okay as long as our hearts aren't gripped by them, Lord, the revelation that it has our hearts is that we have it, where our treasure is, that's where our heart will be, and so Father I pray that right now, right now, even as you admonished us earlier through tongues and interpretation, Lord God, to soften our hearts, oh Lord, some of us in this room need to be wrung out like dishrags, oh Lord, as it were, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, oh God, in mourning and in repentance before you.