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English Lecture 24

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The Secret to Financial Security Most Wealthy Don't Know

  1. Illus: In 1923 a meeting of the financial world's creme de la creme, the economic movers and shakers of society, took place in the Edgewater Beach Hotel in the Windy City of Chicago.
    1. At that famous gathering were nine of the world's most successful financiers:
      1. The president of the largest independent steel company in the nation.
      2. The president of the largest utility company.
      3. The president of the largest gas company.
      4. The greatest wheat speculator.
      5. The president of the New York Stock Exchange.
      6. A member of the Cabinet of the President of the United States.
      7. The greatest investor on Wall Street's stock market.
      8. The head of the world's greatest monopoly.
      9. And finally, the president of the Bank of International Settlements.
    2. Talking about a high-powered convocation! Assembled here are the "supreme masters of the financial universe."
    3. But tragically...25 years later in 1948, how dramatically the picture has changed!
      1. Charles Schwab has died bankrupt after living on borrowed money for the last five years of his life.
      2. Samuel Insull has died a fugitive from justice, penniless in a foreign land.
      3. Howard Hopson has gone insane.
      4. Arthur Critten has died abroad, insolvent.
      5. Richard Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing, the federal penitentiary.
      6. Albert Fall has been pardoned from prison so he can die at home.
      7. Jesse Livermore has committed suicide, as has Leon Fraser and Ivar Kreuger.
      8. Nine masters of finance who were mastered in the end by their own wealth.
    4. What might we learn from their tragic endings? Here's what one writer observed:
      "The extraordinary sameness of the hellish gravity of their famous lives is a divine warning, for God set the ghosts of these financial giants as spectral, mid-century witnesses to a nation about to run amok in materialism. Today their ghosts have faded, and a new gallery of forlorn spirits is assembling."
  2. Sad, sad, sad--but we didn't come here tonight to be sad--so, setting aside that somber piece of history, let me ask you something: Aren't you glad you're not rich-- at least not as rich as those nine miserable men were?
    1. Come on now, be honest!
    2. How many here are glad they're not that rich? Raise your hand! I see hands going up across this audience! How many here aren't telling the truth? Raise your hand!
    3. My point--while we all may publicly testify we're glad we're not that rich-- the fact remains that secretly we're probably all thinking to ourselves--ARE YOU KIDDING? NO I'M NOT GLAD I'M NOT RICH.....I'M MAD AND SAD I'M NOT RICH!
      1. Of course, I do feel bad for these nine fellas.
      2. But the way I've got it figured is, Just try me! I'd do better than they, yes I would!
      3. Just give me a few cool million, and let me show you!
    4. Come on folks, let's admit it--we've all envied the wealth of the wealthy and the riches of the rich, haven't we?
    5. Illus: Especially whenever we read the news media's latest reporting of super star salaries!
      1. Here in the United States one name that consistently comes out on top of FORBES 400 a listing of the wealthiest people in this nation is a name the whole world knows you can probably guess it Bill Gates, the founder and owner of Microsoft Corp., the computing WINDOWS giant of the world NOW RANKED AS THE WORLD'S WEALTHIEST HUMAN BEING--I surfed the internet to find out how much BILL GATES is actually worth and guess what I discovered: Income for 1997, the last 12 month period are you ready for this? $39.8 billion! His nearest "competitor" was $1.8 billion down the scale of the wealthiest!
      2. Illus: I printed off the entire list of the top fifty wealthiest in America and #50 on the list William Wrigley of the Wrigley Gum Co. was personally worth a "puny" $2.6 billion!
      3. Nobody records millionaries anymore just billionaires in the top echelons!
      4. Illus: Want to talk about sports guess who gets paid the most in that arena you guessed it the world's most popular athlete, Michael Jordon-- who beyond his multi-million dollar salary one year made another bundle from his product endorsements (like Nike and Gatorade and McDonalds, etc) to the paltry tune of another $32 million that year.
      5. And while I don't want to denigrate his well-earned superstar status, something does seem to be a bit askew in terms of economic parity or equality in this world, doesn't it?
      6. Illus: And speaking of the stock market, I read a newspaper column that reported that for year-end bonuses this past year in the brokerage houses on Wall Street, the range of those bonuses was from $25million for top managers down to a piddly $100,000 for the bottom-rung peons! (And that was only their year-end bonuses!)
    6. In a nation where 75-80% of the people make less than $50,000 a year, something seems terribly cockeyed, doesn't it?
    7. Ah, but the moment I say the words, "in a nation"--and we think of the United States and Europe and Australia and the industrialized nations of the West and the East--
      1. the moment we in the "first world" begin to ruminate about wealth and riches--and we even get to pining that we're not GLAD we're not rich, we're MAD and SAD that we're not rich--
      2. the moment we do, a little voice deep inside of us dares to whisper-- OH, BUT YOU ARE RICH... RICHER THAN ALMOST THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD....
      3. ....because most of the world went to bed hungry again tonight.
    8. And then we blush...and in shame remember how rich in fact we really are...when we compare the "first world" with the Third World or the "two- thirds world," as the population actually makes it.
    9. And right now I realize that these words are being heard by you who live in the Third World--and you can only shake your head in dumb-founded wonder when you hear the likes of us in the West bemoaning our paltry under $50,000 salaries.
      1. And you cry out to us in the West--"DON'T YOU EVER WATCH THE NEWS? RWANDA, SOMALIA, INDIA, CHINA? DOESN'T IT EVER SINK IN?
      2. Illus: I remember gazing very uncomfortably into those blood-shot, haunted eyes of a little girl a Newsweek photographer captured in his photo essay of human suffering in Somalia. [show her picture on screen/12- 7-92 issue]
        1. Her age, six or seven perhaps, that little girl who stared back at you and me in ghoulish colors of her tragedy.
        2. She was little more than a bone-protruding specter of grotesquely stretched skin on her forlorn little skeleton.
        3. And a tear trickled down her bony hollow face.
        4. She was a living victim of the slow death of human starvation, a photographic statistic we've become tragically too familiar with of late around this planet.
      3. Go ahead and gaze into her impoverished and emaciated countenance, and then tell me, ladies and gentlemen, that you are not rich and increased with goods!
      4. The problem is we've been using the wrong paradigms to define wealth and poverty.
      5. Forget Bill Gates or Michael Jordan, whose much heralded wealth borders on an obscene shame for this nation's value system.
      6. Why don't we let the abject poverty of Somalia become the paradigm for defining our own economic station on this planet?
      7. If we do, then you are rich, and so am I.
  1. Even if you back Somalia or the Sudan out of the picture and end up only with a box of cow feed in a long ago Bethlehem manger, we are still rich--very, very rich.
    1. Open your Bible with me tonight the ancient Christmas story in Luke 2 (p 991).
      1. We are approaching Christmas time, 1998, and how often these words will be read from pulpits like this.
      2. Read Luke 2:1-7.
      3. It simply defies our logic and boggles our minds--that the God of the universe would incarnate himself in a human womb for nine months!
      4. And get this--NOT the human womb of the Empress of Rome either.
      5. He chose instead the tender young womb of a dirt poor girl in an obscure backwater village called Nazareth.
      6. You can't possibly pick a more impoverished birth place than a stinking barnyard cow stall!
      7. The King of the Universe born in a barn (the very place our parents hinted we too were born, judging from our occasional boorish manners)!
      8. Illus: I remember when the Queen of England was embarrassingly much in the news--when the press reported that with her annual salary of $12 million, her personal fortune is estimated variously at $1.5 to $10 billion, all of it at the time tax free, creating quite a furor among the citizens of her kingdom. And it all came to a head with the tragic Windsor Castle fire. Who should pay for the losses--the wealthiest woman in the world or her people? As you know a compromise was reached, and life goes in the kingdom.
      9. But even the Queen of England with her Croesus wealth is but a paltry and pitiful comparison with the divine Monarch of a trillion galaxies! That the supreme Creator God of all life would humble himself to be born in a foul, dank cow stall is truly incomprehensible. Animal crackers for the King of heaven!
      10. Illus: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, in his classic Life of Christ, penned it well: There was no room in the inn, but there was room in the stable. The inn is the gathering place of public opinion, the focal point of the world's moods, the rendezvous of the worldly, the rallying place of the popular and the successful. But the stable is a place for the outcasts, the ignored, the forgotten. The world might have expected the Son of God to be born--if He was to be born at all--in an inn. A stable would be the last place in the world where one would have looked for Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it." (p. 28, emphasis his)
      11. You see, we have it all wrong--we think the bumper sticker is true: The one with the most toys wins.
      12. So if we were God, we'd have never shown up at some stinking back alley cave.
      13. Ah, but Fulton Sheen is right: "Divinity is always where one least expects to find it."
      14. For, who would have thought you'd find the Almighty God by checking the barnyards of Bethlehem?
      15. Only eternal love would have paid so deep a price!
      16. It is the story of eternal Love coming down to us in Christmas poverty.
    1. Let's share together the most powerful, the most poignant one-line summation of Christmas you'll ever read--II Corinthians 8:9 (p 1116)
      1. He became poor, so that by his self-sacrifice you and I might be richly saved.
      2. Come on, friend, what are you and I supposed to do with the story of Christmas, the story of a God who entered into such radical self-sacrifice, all for the likes of you and me?
      3. And what do you think those who have found a FOREVER FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD are to do with such a story?
      4. What shall we do? What will a generation of men and women and young adults living at the end of time, what will we do with this story of God's radical self-sacrifice?
      5. We're not contemplating Michael Eisner or Michael Jordan or even Michael Jackson right now--but we think of the Michael Jesus, the superstar of this Book, who had it all and but who gave it all up for the likes of rebel runaways like you and me!
    2. Would it surprise you--if I told you right now--that wrapped up in the story of this God who emptied His treasury for us is the shining secret to financial security that most of the world's wealthy do not know?
      1. Tonight I want to share that secret with you.
      2. A proven secret guaranteed for young and old alike.
      3. A secret that can turn your poverty into a financial security that is out of this world!
      4. A secret for the Third World and the Second World and the First World.
      5. And it comes wrapped up in the Christmas story of long ago!
  2. Join me right now in a rapid-fire sequence of incredible Bible promises.
    1. First, read the great Christmas prophecy with me in Isaiah 9:6,7 (p 662)--get the connection straight here, and we'll be linked up to some of the most phenomenal promises regarding financial security you've ever read!
      1. Read the prophetic words, written in 700 B.C. verse 6.
      2. Of Whom does this verse speak? Who is this boy-child, who when He is born is none other than the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father?
      3. V. 7 makes it clear that this prophecy is predicting the advent of the Messiah who will sit one day on the throne of David.
      4. Of course we know of whom this ancient prophecy speaks!
      5. It is the Baby of Bethlehem that would come 700 years later.
      6. The Christ Child who was born Jesus of Nazareth.
      7. BUT WHY GO TO THIS CHRISTMAS PROPHECY AT ALL? Because it is vital that we note the clear biblical declaration that the Baby of Bethlehem was the incarnation (Latin for "in-flesh-ment") of the Eternal God Himself.
    2. Illus: No wonder in the Christmas story the Gospel of Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14--turn back two pages for a twin to this prophecy in Isaiah 9:6.
      1. IMMANUEL--GOD WITH US--that's who the Christ Child was--that's who Jesus of Nazareth was--that's who the Man on the center cross on Calvary was!
      2. GOD WITH US.
    3. And who is this God who came to be one with us 2000 years ago, whose love could not bear the thought of living without us, His runaway rebel children? Take a look at these reminders of His sovereign kingship:
      1. Psalm 24:1,2 (p 526)--NOTE: By virtue of the fact that He created this planet and all that are on it, God is declared the OWNER of the world you and inhabit.
      2. How much of the world? Psalm 50:10-12 (p 543)
        1. As a friend of mine, Don Jacobsen, used to say--God not only owns the cattle on a thousand hills--from the last reports we've received, He owns the hills under the cattle!
        2. Again, the psalmist is clear: GOD OWNS IT ALL, YOU AND ME INCLUDED!
      3. How much of all? Haggai 2:8 (p 916)--HE EVEN OWNS ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD--and why not--HE CREATED THE PRECIOUS METALS THAT ARE THE BASIS OF HUMAN CURRENCIES!
    4. Let's pause right here for a "reality check" moment--let me ask you: If God created all the world and consequently is the owner of this planet, how much of what you and I "own" is theoretically, in fact, truthfully His?
      1. That's a no-brainer, isn't it? Obviously, everything you and I possess and own and have--it all belongs to the One who made it and gave it to us in the first place!
      2. Illus: It's kind of like little children in the family.
        1. As a parent now and then you give your tiny tot a few pennies and of course the child clings to those coins as if they were the fortune of the universe.
        2. A few months later your paying a visit to your little one in her room, and out comes her hoarded collection of pennies you've been casually passing along to her week after week.
        3. And then the proud announcement: "See all the money I have, Daddy? Don't you wish you had this much?"
        4. And of course you ooooh and ahhhh over your child's treasure trove of puny pennies, and you nod your head and you beg for a small loan!
      3. See all the money and toys and possessions I have, God--Wow, don't you wish you had this much?
      4. And God must smile to Himself as He pats us on the head and nods, "Why aren't you fortunate to own all of that"--when of course He knows that it all came from Him in the first place!
      5. Fact is, everything we OWN we OWE to God--just like the little child of every parent!
    5. Illus: In fact, we not only OWE what we OWN--we OWE the ability to OWN in the first place! Read Deuteronomy 8:18 (p 175).
      1. Surprise, surprise--because suddenly you and I are reminded that there is a Sovereign Providence in this universe that keeps our hearts ticking and our lungs breathing and our minds working and our hands moving--and through that intricate gift of life and health, we are preserved to the place we can accumulate a semblance of wealth!
      2. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, ANY WAY YOU STACK IT: GOD KEEPS COMING OUT ON TOP--CREATOR, OWNER, SUSTAINER, PROVIDER OF ALL AND FOR ALL. PERIOD!
    6. Therefore, He who owns all has the perfect right to claim all, does He not?
      1. But of course!
      2. BUT HE DOESN'T!
      3. And here emerges the shining secret to financial security with this God who wants nothing more than to offer you and me a FOREVER FRIENDSHIP WITH HIM!
      4. And as a sign of that friendship, God has offered to go into financial partnership with us!
      5. You're not going to believe this--but the Almighty God who owns the whole universe offers to become the Senior Partner in our business of survival.
      6. AND THAT INCLUDES OUR FINANCIAL SURVIVAL, TOO!
    7. Take a look at a dynamite promise He's made to you and me--and all His friends from the beginning of this Book to the end--Malachi 3:8-10 (p 931).
      1. The dynamite promise? It's called THE TITHE.
      2. Illus: Millennia before Malachi recorded this promise, one of God's ancient friends named Jacob, fleeing for his life from his vengeful brother Esau, had cut a deal with God--and God took him up on it-- you must read it, because it reflects the very promise of security that Malachi echoes millennia later--read it in Genesis 28:20-22 (p 26).
        1. Alright, God--if you do all that I need you to do--feed me and clothe me and bring me back home in peace--then guess what? YOU'RE GOING TO BE MY FRIEND.
        2. And I, as a sign of that friendship, will return ONE-TENTH of all that I have to You!
        3. And God took Jacob up on the deal!
        4. Just like the parent who pats her little boy on the head and replies, "Thank you, Junior, for offering me a penny a day to be your Mom. I'm honored and will gladly receive your penny."
        5. You can't buy your mother for a penny a day--nor could Jacob buy God for 10% for life.
      3. But when Malachi comes along--he picks up a theme from the beginning of the Old Testament through to the end of the New Testament--TITHING-- the returning of 10% of one's income as a symbol of GOD'S SENIOR PARTNERSHIP IN OUR SURVIVAL, FINANCIALLY, PHYSICALLY, SOCIALLY, SPIRITUALLY--Malachi picks that theme up and turns it into a dynamite promise from God Himself: Bring to Me all the tithes, and watch what I will do!
      4. And how much is the tithe? It's the identical amount whether you live in the East or the West or the North or the South, whether you're young or age, whether you're poor or right.
      5. FOR ALL HIS FRIENDS, GOD'S TITHE IS THE very same AMOUNT - --here's how Leviticus 27:30, 32 confirms the percentage that Jacob pledged [on screen]: "And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD'S....The tenth one shall be holy to the LORD."
      6. ONE-TENTH--10 %--that is all that God chooses to declare rightfully His by ownership!
      7. Can you believe it? This God who is our Friend, who at Christmas time came down to earth 2000 years ago, leaving behind His glittering palace in paradise--this same God who in Jesus became poor so that we might become rich forever and ever--THIS GOD WHO HAS EVERY RIGHT TO ASK FOR EVERY PENNY BACK FROM US--DOESN'T!!!!-- HE SIMPLY ASKS THAT WE RETURN 10% OF WHAT WE MAKE BACK TO HIM.....AS A VISIBLE SYMBOL THAT WE TRULY WANT HIM TO BE THE SENIOR PARTNER IN OUR BUSINESS OF SURVIVAL AND SECURITY!
      8. What a God, what a Friend!
  3. OK, OK--someone is thinking--I can see that God asks me to return to Him a tithe of my income, but how do I actually go about doing that, and what is the tithe supposed to be used for? Can I just give it to the United Way or some other charitable community cause?
    1. Those are very good questions let's look, as we always do, for the answer in the Bible.
    2. Numbers 18:21-22, 24 (p 145)
      1. In the days of the Old Testament, the tithes were used to support the Levites.
      2. Who were the Levites? They were one of the 12 tribes of Israel, the only one of the 12 tribes that were not given any land inheritance when the nation of Israel crossed over the Jordan into Palestine and divided the land among them.
      3. The Levites did not receive a land inheritance because God had another full time work for them to do. Vs. 22 tells us that they were to be full time workers in the temple. They were to be the full time ministers of Israel. They had no land to live off as did the other tribes, but God gave them the tithes from the other tribes for their support.
    3. And God intended for the system to be the same in the New Testament times read I Corinthians 9:13,14 (1104).
    4. You see, it was God's design that those He called to be full time gospel workers were to live from the tithes.
    5. There are many good causes to support today, but the holy tithes were earmarked by God for the support of full-time gospel ministry.
    6. For that reason, the Seventh-day Adventist Church sacredly guards the tithe for that very purpose.
      1. Illus: We provide members with an envelope [hold up envelop perhaps] in which they can put their tithe and designate it as their tithe, so it can be used for the sacred purpose God designated it to be used for.
      2. Does that mean that if this Pioneer Memorial Church gives a lot of tithe, it's pastoral staff can become rich?
      3. All you have to do is look at my house and my car, and you know that isn't true!
      4. But that is the beauty of the system as God designed it and as it is administered by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
      5. Even though I pastor a several thousand member church at Andrews University, I do not receive more than the pastor of the smallest Seventh- day Adventist Church in Michigan.
      6. In fact, my local church doesn't keep a dime of the tithe we receive.
      7. It's sent on to our conference headquarters, and only that portion is returned to this church that is needed for the salaries for our small staff of full time ministers here.
      8. The rest is used to help support workers in smaller churches in Michigan and around the world.
      9. I praise God for the beauty of the system as He designed it.
      10. Ministers of big churches don't get rich, and the ministers of the smallest churches don't go hungry, because the system works as God designed it to.
    7. OBVIOUSLY GOD HARDLY NEEDS OUR NICKELS AND DIMES TO DO THIS WORK, when all the silver and gold is His in the first place!
      1. But as a sign that we truly desire His partnership and friendship in this business of survival, He quietly asks that we return 10% of our increase back to Him.
      2. HIS FRIENDS Abraham did and Jacob did--Moses did and Israel did-- Jesus did and Peter and Paul and Mary did--throughout this Book the friends of God and Jesus have always returned to Him His tithe, His 10%.
    8. BUT LOOK WHAT GOD PROMISES IN RETURN!
      1. Reread His promise in Malachi with me? [show on screen] "'Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,' says the LORD of hosts, 'if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.'" (Malachi 3:10)
      2. An incredible promise from the God who owns everything.
      3. Now look, if this text read like this: Bring your tithes into my house, says the Lord, as a test of your faith in Me....and you will at times have to go hungry and without adequate clothing and shelter at times, and suffer other hardships because you will not have quite enough to provide for yourself.
      4. If the text read that way, what would the true disciples of Christ do?
      5. Would they say, No way, we won't give anything that requires any sacrifice on our part! Is that what they would say?
      6. Of course not! The true disciples of Christ would say, Yes, Lord, we will do it gladly. You gave up everything for us. It will be an honor to go without at times for You!
      7. But that is not how this text reads.
      8. God says, Bring your tithes into my house, and try Me, test Me, and see if I will not bless you with such a blessing that there will not be room enough for you to receive it.
      9. Wow!
      10. The Mighty God and the Everlasting Father who emptied the treasury of heaven in the gift of the Christ Child at Christmas to all the human race-- this same God pledges to open the windows of heaven and honor your financial partnership with Him through the tithe--the windows will be so wide you won't have room to contain all the immeasurable blessings He will pour into your life, my life!
      11. "Return to Me 10% as a sign you want My partnership, and I will take the 90% you have left and stretch it in ways you've never dreamed possible!"
      12. Illus: In fact, when their forty years of wandering in the wilderness are over--and faithfully the children of Israel returned God's tithe to Him during those forty years--look at how their Senior Partner provided for them [on screen]: "I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet." (Deuteronomy 29:5)
      13. Now look--God isn't promising to make you and me millionaires, if only we'll honor Him with our tithes and offerings. Not at all!
      14. But clearly, God comes through for His friends in ways that are not easily measured or quantified--after all, He promised He would!
      15. Illus: In fact, let me share a personal testimony with you--when Karen and I got married--we determined that no matter what our finances would turn out to be--you probably know that people don't become pastors because they hope to get rich!--we would at the beginning of every month return to God His tithe.
        1. And some months, I'll confess, were very trying months and the thought did cross my mind of maybe writing God an I-O-U (I owe you) note and return His tithe later on.
        2. But through it all--I must tell you--God kept on holding up His end of the financial partnership.
        3. I remember a time when Karen and Kirk and I were living in Salem, Oregon, where we were pastoring.
        4. And we came to one of those months where you come to the end and discover you have more month than money in your checkbook!
        5. I.e., we were flat out of money in our checking account.
        6. In fact, according to my calculations, we were actually overdrawn-- i.e., written one more check than we had money for!
        7. But luckily for me, the check that took us under was still outstanding--it hadn't been cashed by the dry cleaners a few blocks from our home.
        8. So I went in to the dry cleaner and informed him that he had never cashed the check I'd written.
        9. He asked me for the date of the check (in my check register)--I told him--he thought for a moment--and then looked up: "Oh I remember, I remember--that night after you wrote that check our business was robbed--and they took all our cash and all our checks."
        10. "Oh, that's awful," I responded, "would you like me to write you another check?"
        11. "Oh no, that won't be necessary. Our insurance covered it all. So consider it all a free load of dry cleaning!"
        12. I walked out of that establishment on air!
        13. Can you believe it--God robbed the dry cleaners to keep us solvent!
      16. Of course He didn't--but my point--there are some immeasurable ways that God truly does hold up His end of the financial partnership.
    9. Some years ago it used to be fashionable in Christian circles to "Tut, tut, tut, tut-- we should never return tithe to God in order to get His blessings--we ought to do it simply out of love and gratitude."
      1. And of course that's certainly true!
      2. Because in the end, of course, placed up beside the crimson cross of Calvary all of our puny giving and tithing seems so paltry and insignificant, doesn't it?
      3. How could you and I possibly repay this God who came to earth that He might die so that we might live?
      4. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for [our] sakes He became poor, that [we] through His poverty might become rich." (II Corinthians 8:9)
      5. He made the ultimate sacrifice of death, that we might have the ultimate gift of life.
      6. Illus: James Denny in his book, Death of Christ, is absolutely right: "I do not hesitate to say that the sense of debt to Christ is the most profound and pervasive of all emotions in the New Testament." (p 158)
      7. A sense of debt for His gift of love.
    10. But what is so truly astounding and astonishing is that this same God who has ALREADY EMPTIED HIS TREASURY FOR US still looks us in the face and in the bank account tonight and has the audacity to go even further than Calvary by inviting us to actually PUT HIM TO THE TEST AND SEE IF HE WILL NOT IN FACT TRULY COME THROUGH FOR US IN WAYS WE COULD NEVER ANTICIPATE!
      1. What's wrong with holding God to His Word and allowing Him put His FOREVER FRIENDSHIP on the line with us and for us?
      2. It was HIS idea, not mine!
      3. Illus: In fact, I love the way Jesus puts it in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:33 (p 940)!
      4. All what things?
      5. Look at v. 31--what you will eat and drink and wear.
      6. I.e., the very necessities of life and survival.
      7. Seek My Father's Kingdom and His righteousness, and you, My friends, will find that God will come through for you ON EVERY FRONT OF HUMAN NECESSITY.
      8. The Bible doesn't promise cake and ice cream, but it says your "bread and water" will be sure.
      9. God's Word doesn't promise a million dollars in this life, but He has pledged His friends a mansion in eternal life.
      10. God never said, Return My tithe, and you'll never get sick--but He has promised, Seek first My Kingdom and one day you'll never grow old!
    11. The fact of the matter is, When you make the Mighty God and Everlasting Father who became the Christ Child at Christmas your Senior Partner in this business of life--YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY AGAIN ABOUT YOUR FINANCIAL SECURITY.
      1. God has promised you.
      2. And so I can promise you, too.
      3. Illus: The great man of prayer and faith, George Muller, was used mightily by God in England long ago to raise up orphanages for the homeless children up and down the land.
        1. Muller made it his practice never to publicly ask for any financial support.
        2. He simply but fervently placed the needs of his orphaned children before God in prayer--and then he quietly waited for God to answer.
        3. And over and over and over again answer God did--in the miraculous establishments of those famous orphanages.
        4. One day a reporter yelled out to George Muller, "Mr. Muller, how does it feel to live from hand to mouth."
        5. Muller paused for a moment then smiled with his reply, "It's wonderful. God's hand, my mouth."
      4. And that was Jesus' point: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things--these necessities to your survival--will be added to you."
      5. My friends, you can hardly find a more profound promise than that!
      6. It's no wonder the friends of God throughout this Book returned their tithes and gave their offerings so cheerfully.
      7. For why would anybody not want to invite God to become the Senior Partner for life!
      8. After all, when you have a Friend like God on your side, you've discovered a financial security that is out of this world!

        Further Study:

        Discover Guide - The Secret Of Growth Through Sharing     (Lecture Study Guide from Discover Bible School)




        © 1998 NAD. HTML by: Darryl Hosford.