I'm reading from two passages in the Old
Testament.
One is Malachi, the Old Book of Malachi,
the last book in the Old Testament.
The other is Isaiah 58 and Malachi 3.
Just one verse in Malachi, Isaiah 58.
A few verses here and there, beginning from
verse 1.
Then, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy
voice like a trumpet, and show my people
their transgression, and the house of Jacob their
sin.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to
know my ways, as a nation that did
righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their
God.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice.
They take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they?
And thou seest not, thou seest not, verse
6, is not this the fast that I
have chosen?
To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo
the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go
free, and that ye break every yoke.
Is it not to deal thy bread to
the hungry, and that thou bring the poor
that are cast out to thy house?
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover
him, and that thou hide not thyself from
thine own flesh.
Then, then, then shall thy light break.
For as the morning and thine health shall
spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go
before thee, the glory of the Lord shall
be thy re-reward.
Then shall thou call, and the Lord shall
answer.
Thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here
I am.
If thou take away from the midst of
thee the yoke, the putting forth of the
finger, the speaking vanity.
And if, if thou draw out thy soul
to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul,
then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and
thy darkness shall be as the noonday.
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and
satisfy thy soul in thought, and make fat
thy bones, and thou shalt be like a
watered garden, and like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall
build the old waste places.
Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many
generations.
And thou shalt be called the repairer of
the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell
in.
If, if thou turn away thy foot
from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on
my holy day, and call the Sabbath a
delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and
shall honour him, not doing thine own ways,
nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine
own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in
the Lord.
And I will cause thee to ride upon
the high places of the earth, and feed
thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father,
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken
it.
Then one verse in Malachi, the last book
in the Old Testament, chapter 3, verse 10.
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,
that there may be meat in mine house.
And prove me now, prove me now, herewith
say the Lord of hosts, if I will
not open you the windows of heaven, and
pour you out a blessing, that there shall
not be room enough to receive it.
Initially, this verse seems to speak of God's
people returning to faithfulness in tithing.
But, in its exact context, this call from
God is for his people to return to
a life of no compromise or irregularity when
it comes to dealing with money, or anything
related to finances or our material possessions.
It is a call from God for his
people to return to a life of no
compromise or irregularity when it comes to dealing
with money, or finances, or anything related to
their material possessions.
I knew a very godly man in my
country, a very wealthy man, and a very
godly man in the land of South Africa.
And he loved God.
One of the companies he owns in our
land is a bus company which transports multitudes
of people from the rural areas to the
cities, a great percentage being the poorer class.
To find transport to their workplace when and
if they can ever find work.
And this man shared with me how the
heads of the bus companies, the major bus
companies of our country, a number of years
ago now, it was all in the newspapers,
a big dispute, how they decided that they
were going to increase the fares drastically.
They wanted to double them because of the
economy collapsing, because of the value of our
currency becoming so less than what it had
ever been.
And so this great gathering, in this conference
of heads and managers and owners of the
companies, sat discussing how they were going to
implement this and its repercussions.
He said to them, at some point, we
cannot do this.
We dare not do this.
No matter what you say of the economy,
or the value of our currency through devaluation,
you're making good money.
Be honest.
You're making great profit.
My conscience will not allow me to increase
the fares at all.
I'm making profit enough.
If we increase the fares, like you say,
most of the people we deal with, it
won't be worth their while going to work.
Such a big cut of their salaries is
taking them to get to the workplace.
They may as well not go to work.
They'll be left with nothing if you do
this.
And you know it.
It will be blood money.
And my conscience will not allow me to
stand with you unless this is a new
forcing.
There was great anger across that whole room,
that whole center, at this man's stand.
He was belittled.
He was rebuked.
He was despised.
And anger rose up against him that he
trembled.
He trembled at what was said to him.
And the reaction of the whole crowd, of
company owners.
He almost had to crawl from that place.
That night, when he got back to his
home, he got on his knees and he
found himself weeping.
He had been so publicly humiliated.
And he opened the Bible at random, he
said.
And he found a tear falling on the
page he opened on a verse.
It stunned him.
He that showeth kindness or compassion to the
poor, lendeth to the Lord.
Flood with peace.
May the page, the verse, the tears reach
him.
To comfort him.
Oh, God honors them that honor him.
This book says.
Well, they did double the faith throughout our
land.
And there was incredible grief across our country.
And protesting by the poor.
I think he said, within three years, most
of the bus companies were bankrupt.
But he had trembled.
Think of that.
Most of the companies went bankrupt.
Out of business.
But he had trembled.
Do you think this Bible exaggerates one word?
When God says, they that honor him, he
will honor.
Do you think that?
That is something to question.
To slightly question.
In this world.
When it comes to finances.
To businesses.
That same man said to me when I
sat in his home a while ago.
What a blessing he has been to me.
When he was a younger man.
He had stores.
What you people would call supermarkets.
And he came to Christ.
As a younger man.
While he had all these supermarkets.
He found God in vital reality.
And his conscience from the next day.
The next day.
Made him pull down all the tobacco.
All the cigarettes.
From the shelves.
All the stores.
His conscience made him take all the alcohol.
Wouldn't sell anymore alcohol.
Even the ingredients.
The poorer class would come in their masses
to these stores.
And buy all the ingredients to make their
own alcohol.
They couldn't afford over the counter what they
charged.
So they made all the ingredients that he
knew.
He stopped selling.
He wiped out all so much of the
contents of his shelves.
Because of his conscience.
When he was saved.
Oh there was a lot of protesting.
A lot of condemnation rose up.
Even by religious people.
And leaders in the town.
Who said you have gone mad.
You will lose the business.
You will lose everything.
You won't survive.
What are you doing?
Well with all the protesting and the despising.
And the undermining of the stand he made.
Bringing him into the category of a fanatic.
Gone off his head virtually in the eyes
of so many religious.
He did tremble.
But then he said brother.
At the end of that year when the
auditors closed the book work.
And balanced all the books.
He had doubled.
The many years he had made before prophets.
Doubled the prophets.
The following year he had doubled that.
Do you honestly believe that God doesn't honour
men that honour him?
Could you doubt that?
When it comes to business sense.
Concerning what works.
Don't do.
You have to compromise.
The devil says.
Through religious compromising people.
Oh God honours them that honour him.
Don't doubt that.
Jenny's father is a farmer.
In one of the richest irrigation schemes of
Africa.
Where this great river flows through.
And he is a young man.
Met with God.
As a school boy.
He was saved.
But shallow.
A lot of superficiality.
And not very deep.
He inherited a farm along with all his
brothers.
From the father who gave them pieces of
land.
All tobacco farming.
In this great Gamtuz valley.
In Africa.
When he met with God as a Christian.
And found himself going deep with God.
To a sermon he heard.
Where there was no compromise allowed.
Calling for you to absolute surrender.
Andrew Murray says.
Or you become a grief to God.
And then so you're saved.
He absolutely surrendered.
He had a personal Calvary.
He went all through with God.
After these years of being a Christian.
But not deep.
The next day.
He looked at his tobacco lands.
And he got on the tractors.
And he plowed tobacco in the ground.
And he planted vegetables.
Well, that tobacco land.
The valley rose up in protest.
Against what he's doing.
You don't do vegetables.
This is tobacco.
There was virtually almost a violent protest.
Rising up against him.
For what he was daring to do in
that valley.
Well.
Within a few years.
He so prospered.
That 90% of that valley.
Plowed their tobacco.
Into the ground and planted vegetables.
Do you honestly think God.
Does not honor them.
That honor him.
No compromise.
No matter what the devil says.
No matter what.
People who have business minds.
People who have their pulse on the economy.
No matter what anyone says.
God honors them that honor him.
Beloved.
God honors them.
That beloved him.
That honor him.
My brother Dudley.
He lives in Australia now.
He used to live in America.
My brother Dudley when he was saved.
About 38 years ago now.
He was really something.
For a young fellow just over 20.
He was the South African champion of his
sport.
He had sports clubs across the land.
He had his own business.
Which was just flourishing, booming.
He really was staggering.
Admired by multitudes.
Who would come to all these clubs.
Where he would train them and have people
training them.
He was asked to represent his country.
When his country was sanctioned from the world.
Sport wise.
He was so good they couldn't do without
him taking part.
He had to come.
No one in the world was as good.
So what was the sport?
Well that was the beginning days of what
took over in the world of young people
of sport.
Karate.
An eastern fighting system.
Mainly self defense.
But oh well.
Anyway.
He got mightily saved.
And the next day.
He said.
I must close these clubs down now.
Karate is of the devil.
He said I don't care what anybody says.
You speak to anyone who goes a little
bit deep.
Just meditating.
It's not just for concentration.
It's for a power.
And it's not God.
And there is a power.
That takes hold of you as you go
deeper.
It's not of God.
It's of the devil.
And it's dangerous.
And I'm stopping.
He wouldn't go to represent his land.
It was a shock.
He closed all the clubs down.
He said I'm not making any money from
this devilish thing anymore.
There's all these people locked in their throngs
to train under something of his superstition in
these clubs.
Oh how many religious people opposed him.
He's gone mad.
Nothing wrong in this.
It's just good for the young people you
know.
Oh how many confessing, professing Christians stood up
against him.
Gone off the rails.
Go too far here.
Oh the criticism, the barrage of criticism that
rode up against him.
The little encouragement that he got was unbelievable.
I'm Christian.
Evangelical Christian.
His business flourishing, yes, for a young man.
He stands up now saved within a week.
He tells everybody this business does not work
on Sunday.
Sunday.
I make no money from this business on
Sunday.
It's God's day.
And I'm not desecrating God's day.
The Lord's day.
Well, then the criticism rose up.
Oh my.
You're going to lose the business.
His biggest dealers, the ones who gave him
the most money with their contracts, the one
man marched in when I was sitting there,
shouting.
He was like beside himself.
He said, because you have become a religious
fanatic, it doesn't mean the whole world has
come to a standstill, Dudley.
He said, I give you my business, my
contracts, many other of them.
We're all speaking about it.
We're all shocked.
If there's a breakdown, if there's a deadline
to meet by Sunday, if you have our
contracts, you work on Sunday.
You will work on Sunday or you lose
everything.
I will take my business and I know
everybody else is talking.
We're getting away from here.
You're going to lose everything.
You've gone overboard, young man.
He shouted at my brother and I trembled
at the way a man could speak to
another man because of his love for God,
what he had done.
My brother stood up and he was trembling.
I noticed that.
He was young and I noticed his little
lips were curling.
And I looked at him and thought, what
do you do now with your God?
You're going to lose everything, Dudley.
A little tear came down his face.
And he said, sir, I don't care if
I lose your business.
I don't care if I lose this business.
But I will not desecrate the Lord's day.
I love God too much.
Unless it is a matter of life or
death, I will never again allow anyone in
this business to work, even if I lose
this business.
Well, what happened?
Well, they might have found somebody that wouldn't
work on a Sunday.
But they also found somebody that's a very
great rarity in the world, in the business
world.
They found someone that they knew wouldn't overcharge
them, wouldn't do superficial work or undermine jobs,
wouldn't do any cheating on any level, on
what things he used in all the machinery.
There wouldn't be anything questionable about...
Well, instead of losing their business, his business
just grew and grew and grew and grew.
He had to just take on workers upon
workers and open up next door and hire
the next building.
He just went to such a state.
In the end, God laid His hand on
him to become a preacher and on me.
And I remember my brother saying, Thank God
I'm getting out of all of this.
It's too much.
He couldn't handle it.
Oh, God honors them that honor Him, beloved.
No matter what the devil says to your
biggest customer, threatening.
No matter what the devil says to religious
leaders, warning.
You're going too far.
This isn't God.
God honors them that honor Him, this book
says.
And I believe it.
In Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, I
have come to love a young couple who
have found Christ a few years ago.
And they have businesses in our country.
He has a remarkable mind for the business
world, this young fellow.
He goes to China to get all the
practical work done, all the labor, because it's
one third of what it would cost in
the dunes of Africa.
Labor and material, including all the cost of
bringing it back.
No wonder China's just...
I mean, they hardly make anything with the
labor.
There's hardly anything of taxes.
What can you do?
Well, let's not go into politics now.
But it's China's time, isn't it?
Something we've got to pray about, because we've
all been living it.
Anyway, this young couple now, flourishing outlets in
the malls of clothing, of all levels of
clothing that he designs, gets the material, gets
made in mass, brings back, and they're just
a good quality.
And so they sit with me now, save
for just three, four years now, when I
visited and they said, We have a crisis.
What about Sunday?
South Africa that used to fear God, no
one worked on Sunday apart from police, ambulances,
and doctors.
I remember there was a boy, Albert Melendez.
Our country once feared God.
Sunday was a day when you didn't work.
But today we're so far from God that
in the generation I've lived, that Sunday's the
day they push to make money for selling,
for shopping, the malls, everything, the entertainment in
the malls, everything.
This is the day everybody knows that once
God feared in South Africa, desecrates God's day.
Charles Finney said, You can tell the spiritual
state of a land by what happens on
the Lord's day in that land.
Finney said the first thing of any significance
that he noticed the change in America when
God swept through this land, the first thing
he noticed was the way the land started
to revere God's day.
Work stopped.
It became a holy day.
He said, You can feel the pulse of
a land by just looking what happens across
America.
You know how much that land fears God
or serves God.
Finney said, Staggering.
They said to me, God is speaking to
us.
But what are we going to do?
Sunday's the day.
And if we stop and close our doors
on these malls all over, on a Sunday
they'll throw us out.
Because one outlet somehow supports the next one
because people come to you but the others
get affected when people see other needs.
So it's going to stop and close a
lot of business if we close our doors.
It's going to affect everybody.
We'll be thrown out.
What must we do?
So I looked at them and I said,
Do what your conscience tells you.
Honor God.
Well they did.
And, oh, did they tremble for a while.
They were thrown out of some of the
biggest, most beautiful malls.
Just thrown out.
Get out.
But they made their way into other malls
that allowed them and other outlets where suddenly
there were people that they didn't realize would
take a great percentage of their worth and
sell in a different way as it became
known that this was available at such a
price.
And they put on their shop doors in
every mall, We are born again Christian.
We love Jesus Christ with every faculty of
our being and for this reason these doors
are closed on Sundays.
That we may honor God's day, the Lord's
day, and not desecrate it.
That is on their doors as the people
flock past to get their shopping done.
Well, what happened?
Brothers, sisters, this might be hard for you
to comprehend.
They so prostrated.
They didn't double.
They trebled the first year.
They trebled after the second year.
It just went on and on until they
couldn't survive with all the work.
How often Jenny will be my witness on
the phone.
They phone and say, We can't survive.
Too much.
God honors them that honor him, sir.
God honors them that honor him.
Don't doubt it now.
Oh, to be honored by God.
Don't compromise when it comes to any issue
concerning your handling of money, whether it's on
the Sabbath, the Lord's day, New Testament wise,
whether it's undermining the poor.
You won't be judged how much money you
made, sir.
You'll be judged how you made it, how
you got it.
Don't doubt that now.
Don't in any issue compromise when it comes
to your handling the smallest penny in your
life once you name the name of Jesus
or you lose a sensitive walk with God.
Don't lose that.
It's not worth it.
I remember when I was a young preacher
in South Africa, my district superintendent came to
me in a bit of a fluster and
he said, Brother Keith, I'm in trouble.
We have this conference, this convention and we've
got to leave early in the morning before
the sun comes and I didn't get certain
things.
I want you to get to the center
of Pretoria before the shops close and I
want you to get these things in this
shop, the only shop that sells these things.
I can't do that.
Don't you come back here and tell me
you didn't make it.
It's late.
But if you rush, you'll get there in
time.
Don't you even think of coming back if
you didn't get it.
Well, that's tempting to break the speed limit,
isn't it?
When your boss says things like that.
I didn't break the speed limit but I
made sure I didn't waste any time.
I just made it.
I got into the center of town, Trapigão
and all.
And I think there was about 15 minutes
before the shop doors closed.
It was really the end now in the
city.
And I got to this shop, this particular
shop and I got out the car and
I felt for money, loose change, because the
parking meter you could have paid to park
in the center of town.
Well, I didn't have the right change so
I said, oh my.
So I saw a man standing in one
of the shops next to the shop where
I had to go in and get these
things in another shop, another outlet in the
center of town.
He was standing at the end of the
day, not very busy, obviously he was the
owner of the shop.
He was a Greek man.
So I went up to him and I
said, Sir, I need parking money because there's
still time, we have to still pay.
It's not 5 o'clock yet.
He said, Don't worry, man.
The police don't come here.
It's time of the day.
He said, You just go, go do your
thing.
I said, No, I need the money.
I'll get small change.
I've got, I'll give it back to you
but I need to put it in.
I want it.
He said, I won't let you.
Don't be stupid.
He said, I was very young, I suppose.
He said, Now you go do your work.
I'll watch you.
If a policeman comes, I'll go and put
the money in force.
You won't get a fine.
How do you argue with this sort of
man?
So I went in and did all the
work, got all the stuff and I asked
them for change and I came out, put
all the stuff in the car and then
I got out the car again and I
took the money.
I got the small change.
Now the time had passed.
You don't have to pay any more, by
the way.
But I put in because I had used
the time.
Well, I get in the car again and
I'm starting.
Suddenly there's a bang on the window.
This fellow was angry, by the way.
I put the window down.
He says, Are you mad?
So I thought I was in trouble.
What's wrong with you?
Why do you put money in for?
I watch for you.
I look for you.
There's no policeman inside.
The time is gone.
You come here.
You still put money in.
What's wrong with you?
So I put the car in the door
and I get out and I look at
him and I said, I put it in
because I'm a Christian.
I belong to God.
I love God.
But I'm a Christian too.
I said, No, you're not.
I said, Sir, the difference between your Christianity
and mine is you will only do what
you have to do if you're going to
get caught or seen doing the wrong thing.
I do what is right if no one
is watching me or if everyone is watching
me because God's watching me.
That's what a real Christian is.
He's the same whether a crowd is watching
and witnessing whether he's going to fail or
compromise on any issue.
He's the same whether no one's watching because
whatever he does, he does out of love
for Jesus Christ and sensitivity toward the God
of the land.
And to have a clear conscience concerning the
smallest issues.
I said, You're not a Christian.
You're going straight to hell if you don't
repent and come to Christ and live before
God.
One of the great missionary ladies of our
country, by the by, you want women not
to serve God.
I looked at one man in your country
who said something about women serving God across
Africa.
I said, Sir, you give the command to
get every woman missionary off the field.
Two-thirds of the mission force in the
world is gone.
Be careful.
I don't believe in domination of women going
on against God's word, but be careful.
In Africa, most souls who've come to Christ
came through women who died in sickness because
God had to get little ladies who'd go
down to the huts and be riddled with
disease.
But one of the great lady missionaries of
our continent whose name is revered across Africa
by the mission support of her life, Helena
Garrett.
I heard an astounding incident in her life.
She took a, a penny stamp from postage
from the source where she was in a
desperate situation and somehow she overlooked.
And when she remembered that lady was in
such a state to go to such extremities
to get back to that situation before she
could put...
And someone who had seen all that it
cost her to get back and put that
penny in place said to her, Was that
necessary?
All that for a penny?
And that little lady said words that preachers
across Africa have repeated this incident.
It's so stunned the Christians of our country.
She said with tears in her eyes in
shock, Young man, if you steal a penny
in God's eyes you may as well have
stolen a million.
There's no difference.
You see, she says, the book says he
that's faithful in little is faithful.
But if you're not faithful in the little
things you find and she said this staggering
statement even if you're a preacher young man
one day you'll be guilty of fraud with
thousands.
If you play the fool with pennies one
day I guarantee you you'll play the fool
with the thousands.
In God's eyes that penny was as good
as a million.
I had to bring it back when God
reminded me of it.
Do you know how sensitive the Holy Spirit
is, beloved?
Is anything on earth worth losing a tender
walk with God?
Will you answer God, please.
Your business.
Is it worth it, sir?
Is anything anything worth losing a tender walk
with God?
To the unsaved I can just say what
does it profit if a man gains the
whole world and loses his own soul?
You are a pauper what you lost in
the light of eternity.
And you Christians you lose a tender walk
with God.
For what?
All you find is misery while you profess
to know Christ in your heart.
I guarantee you is it worth it?
Even if it's a penny it may as
well be a million dollars, sir.
You played the fool with to a holy
God.
Don't doubt that.
Don't doubt it.
My father my father came to Christ and
he staggered he staggered multitudes of people with
his integrity toward God.
My father staggered us as a whole when
he confessed something we hadn't known.
A great amount of the wealth he had
accumulated in life had been accumulated wrongly.
And he told us as a family he's
going to get right concerning us with restitution.
He went back to companies he worked for
as a young man.
Now he's grey and wrinkled.
He went and he calculated out what it
would be worth in our currency's valuation today
of what he knew he took and he
made sure it was over what he took.
And he made out checks for staggering amounts.
And he kept going.
He just stopped everything in life and went
crisscrossing the country flying around and he sat
with these men and said, when I was
with you I took thousands and thousands and
I want to pay it back.
He made checks.
And he told them why.
I've come to Jesus Christ.
He's my savior.
Do you know in the end they knew
he was coming.
The phone calls went around the business world.
And when he walked in they would stand
up and say, no we refuse to take
anything from you, sir.
One man weeping said, I won't take it
from you, Mr. Daniel.
I can't.
He said, sir you sold waste and we
we would have thrown it away but you
sold it.
You did something.
That isn't stealing.
My father said, I should have told you
how many thousands I was making daily with
the waste.
You would have taken it.
I didn't tell you what you could do
with it.
I didn't do it honestly.
And they said, sir, you didn't steal.
Nobody that you've been to nobody you're going
to will accept that you've stolen.
They look upon you with integrity.
As a man of integrity.
What are you doing making us take his
money?
My father said, weeping A man told me
this.
My daddy didn't tell me this.
He said, when I said that to your
daddy you know what your daddy said?
He said, please give me the right to
die with nothing left that hasn't been made
right in God's eyes.
Give me that right.
Do you know what they did?
They phoned ahead, by the way.
Everywhere they knew he was coming.
And they decided how to word it.
They said, if you make a check out
you make it out to a church or
a missionary.
For your God's worth we will not accept
it.
And I'm telling you now, Mr. Daniel no
one else is going to accept it.
You give it to the church.
Whatever you feel there.
They said, most of them with tears coming
down their face.
My daddy gave so much of what I
one day could have inherited.
And my brother.
He left my mother well off.
More well off than most ladies her age.
Right to this day.
He didn't leave us an inheritance.
I am going to get nothing.
I got nothing.
But you know he left me with more
wealth than if he left me with a
billion pounds.
He left me with a testimony that I
revere and treasure that I was his son.
That I have a father to testify across
the world about who had no compromise on
any issue in life.
No one can point a finger to anything
he didn't make restitution for.
He left us with wealth.
That I would be in poverty if he
had left me with a billion dollars.
I wouldn't have wanted it.
God knows I'm true.
In the place of what he did leave
me with.
Honor.
I have had to sit before many people
who have had great wealth.
When they come to me town upon town
and tell me that they have had tax
evasion involving millions.
Now they want to see God.
What does this mean now?
What about this?
You know why Jesus turned the rich young
man away?
Why he walked away from Christ?
Because he had great wealth.
He had too much to lose.
Jesus doesn't expect everyone with wealth to give
it up and sell to the poor.
But if that keeps you if that stands
between you and God he touches it straight
away.
And I've seen many a man walk away
with a heavy heart like the rich young
man because God touched that and they weren't
willing.
What is the profit if a man gains
the whole world and loses his own soul,
Jesus said?
You're poverty stricken at death.
And death is in the moment.
That's all you've got, this moment called life.
It's gone.
So fast it's fearful.
If you don't know it yet then you've
got eternity.
Money is not the root of all evil.
The love of money is.
I've seen men who have wine farms of
four generations worth millions of rands in our
currency who want to come to God, who
get right with God and they say, what
about this?
Where a great percentage of our poor class
lie drunk daily in the gutters and they
pay them with wine.
That's their money.
That's all they want is to be drunk.
Drunk.
So much of our population is destroyed by
drink.
People who want to argue about drinks if
my eating meat causes anyone to stumble and
if you look me in the eyes and
tell me as a preacher drink alcohol you
tell me Jesus made wine sir I don't
want to argue with you on Greek and
everything else or Hebrew whether it was red
or fermented I am
surprised he preaches he is born in and
they say in the western world the bulk
the great majority of anyone the whole just
once become alcoholics argue with your governments if
you don't and you sir as a preacher
as a professing Christian says no harm in
this you know well these wine farmers ask
me one after the other and all the
wealth and I said sir it's going to
cost you oh it's going to cost you
but it's going to cost you a billion
times more if you don't do what your
conscience says to be able to get right
with God and have the right to carry
his name and not cause multitudes to stumble
and go to hell through the way you
made the money listen to this they
that will be rich Timothy 5 verse 6
they that will be rich fall into temptation
and a snare and into many foolish and
hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and
perdition for the love of money money is
the root of all evil which while some
coveted after hay have erred from the faith
and pierced themselves through with many sorrows but
thou, O man of God flee these things
verse 17 charge them that are rich in
the world that they be not high minded
nor trust in uncertain riches but in the
living God who giveth us richly all things
to enjoy that they may do good that
they be rich in good works ready to
distribute willing to communicate laying up a store
for themselves and a good foundation against the
time to come that they may lay hold
of eternal life God said God's word oh
I could just go on all these verses
I was hungry you fed me not I
was naked you clothed me not when did
we see the hunger oh sir we're so
blind to other people's needs that we can
walk past a dying man and not have
any compassion while we name the name of
Jesus that's possible how dwelleth the love of
God in you if you have and you
see your brother have need and you give
not how can you say God is in
you John says James cries out how can
you profess to know Christ and you see
your brother have need you see him naked
destitute of daily food and you give not
that which is needful how can you say
I have the love of God I love
God to anyone in this world James says
in chapter 5 it's not it's not how
rich you are it's how you got that
money and what you did with it if
you got it in this world that God
will judge you for oh don't you want
to read James 5 I wonder what
percentage of the Bible if we really aren't
honest we'd be left with if we took
a pair of scissors and cut out every
single passage or word we don't live no
not for me oh my how can you
carry a book as if you live it
sir but prove
God if you're faithful and you stagger the
world that's the way God works don't doubt
that the other option is compromise and you'll
be responsible for the most people in the
world who know you and watch you while
you profess to know Christ you'll be responsible
for them going to hell can we stand
please I know I know very few people
dare preach what I've preached tonight they probably
will never be invited again to your country
let alone your pulpit I ask every single
person standing here tonight in the sight of
God to walk from this day in the
light of this message or stop professing to
know Jesus Christ you'll just do damage