Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The Second Step You Must Take To Amass Abrahamic Wealth
We preach many evangelistic sermons from Galatians 6: 7-10. And it is legitimate. But, actually we take it out of context when we do it because this scripture has a totally different meaning within the context here. But I want to share it with you and show you some things from it that will build your faith and bless you greatly.
Gal 6:7-10
7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. (KJV)
We usually preach a man right to the edge of hell with this passage. But, honestly this is taking it out of its context, because in this context it is speaking to Christians concerning what they can expect by way of reaping contingent upon what they sow. "For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption. He that soweth to the spirit, shall of the spirit reap life everlasting."
But verse 9 is the real heart of this passage. "Let us not be weary in well doing for in due season, we shall reap if we faint not. As we, therefore, have opportunity let us do good unto all men especially unto them who are of the household of faith." Now, where Paul is coming from in this letter to the Galatians is this: these people need to take advantage of opportunities to do good to other people. Why? Because in well doing for other people, God is not mocked. In other words, you don't you don't need to think you are going to make a mockery out of God and His Laws that He has set into place in His universe. God is not going to be made a fool of concerning the laws that He has set into place in His universe. Therefore, you don't need to be deceived into thinking God can be made a fool of, or mocked, in that some guy out there can either change one of God's laws or violate one of God's laws and get away with it.
It's like a fellow getting on top of a building and jumping off, and thinking he is going to defy gravity and go up instead of down. That guy has deceived himself if he thinks that is going to happen. God and His law would have to be mocked. To say that somebody can reverse His process and make His law work differently from the way God set it up is literally to mock God. But God is not mocked!
Now this context speaks of sowing and reaping which is God's universal law just like gravity is God's universal law. And like gravity, God's law of sowing and reaping continues to function unless God Himself intervenes in that law, offsets it and forces it to work some other way. It is set in concrete. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatever a man soweth, that shall that same man also reap because this is how God has set up and established this law.
Now, He says here, "let us not be weary in well doing." Sometimes we are called upon to do things for other people when we don't feel like doing it. It just wearies us to have to do it. I have this dear person that calls me for prayer. This person is subject to call anytime of the day or night and does. Now I have never met this individual. But, she has my name and my number. And she calls whenever "the spirit moves" on her which may be at 3:00 o clock in the morning. I can tell you her name. I know her voice. She has some of the wildest prayer requests I have ever heard in my life. Well, what am I going to do about this? I can get rid of her in a flash. But you see, if I get weary in well doing, (the law of sowing and reaping works continuously whether I think it does or not), then the reaping is going to suffer also. Do you see? So I have never hung up on this person. I have never put the phone down. I have never been rude. I do discourage her taking thirty minutes to tell me what her problem is. I sort of say, just get to the point and she will get to the point. And I say, Mam, I will pray for you. Then she says thank you and goes on her way. So it's over with in two minutes. Then I pray for her. I am not going to be weary in well doing concerning this lady.
Now, let us not be weary in well doing. Why? For in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. This is God's universal law here concerning which you cannot make a mockery of God. Whatever you sow is actually what you are going to reap. Now that statement is in concrete and any attempt to change it is to make a mockery of God and you are not going to do that.
Does anyone reading these lines honestly think that you can actually make a fool of God? Are you that audacious? I am not. I have learned that if there is anybody that is going to be made a fool of, you are looking at him. It's not going to be God that is made a fool of. So in due season we shall reap if we faint not.
I want you to see another important truth in this scripture; there is a season. There is a season for reaping. There is a season for planting and cultivating. But there is a season for reaping. Now I don't need to expect to reap prior to the season. I also don't need to expect to reap if I have not sown first. I also don't need to expect to reap a harvest in the reaping season if I have not cultivated in the cultivating season what I have sown in the sowing season. There is a season of reaping provided we faint not.
Did anybody here grow up on a farm? I did. There's a season for all of this. Now there's going to be no season for reaping, if you don't sow. There will be no season for reaping if you don't cultivate. But if you do these two in their proper seasons, there is going to be a reaping. Now the average little christianette today, doesn't understand this sowing and cultivating part. He just wants to reap. He wants something for nothing. Not even God can produce a harvest where there has been no seed sown. Now, He can but He won't. Therefore, He can't. So, you better get these ducks lined up and get the sowing, and the cultivating done first, so that the season for the reaping can come in its due course.
God said for us not be weary in well doing because in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. And then He says for us, as we have the opportunity, to do good until all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. Why should I do good? Because I am sowing and I am going to get back a harvest of the same thing I sowed. If I sow good I am going to reap good. Sowing and reaping is what this context of scripture is about. So then what we need to do is concentrate on the doing of good.
One of the greatest, spiritual lessons I ever learned was in front of a grocery store just a short number of years ago. I pulled up in my car to get out and go in that store to get something. There was a fellow there who was dirty, sitting on the sidewalk at the front of this store. When I went in the guy asked me to give him some money because he was hungry. He was homeless and he had no work. He couldn't find any work. He wanted me to buy him a sandwich. I thought he is nothing but a wino bum and I am not about to give him a penny because when I am gone he will go buy wine.
I have been like that all my life. I just wouldn't give them the time of day. I had the attitude people like that were just bums. If there was anything to them, they would get off that joy-juice and get out there and make something of themselves and quit this bumming around. So I told him, no I didn't have anything for him. By the time I got inside the door the Holy Ghost hit me like a ton of bricks over that situation. I sort of put it off and went about my business in the store. When I came out, I could see the guy going down the sidewalk. As I went to my car God was still doing a number on me. He said you catch that man and you give him some money. And I am saying, "Lord he is a bum. He is a wino. You know what he will do with this". And the Lord said, "You give him some money". So I gave in to that.
I went down the sidewalk and got the man's attention. I didn't have that much money in my pocket, $10, maybe. Anyway, I took the money out and I gave it to him. The man looked at me so startled. Furthermore, I have never been blessed so much in my life as I was when I gave that man that money. Why? Because the Bible says "from him that asketh of thee, turn not thou away", period. I am not responsible for what he does with it. I am not responsible that he is a wino or is not a wino. But I am responsible to respond to a man in need. That was the turning around point in my life. Because good has come my way ever since.
As we, therefore, have opportunity let us do good unto all men, especially them who are of the household of faith. I don't know if that man was of the household of faith or not, but this much I know. I did good to a man. I responded and I obeyed. Now, people come in my church all the time, and they need gas money or they need this or they need that and no questions asked, I'll reach in my pocket and pull out what little money I have and give it to them. I know that I will never see them again. All of them say "I will send it to you in the mail". I know it is a lie. They never will. But that doesn't bother me. Why? Because I am sowing and good is coming back because I am doing good. You see, I am sowing. There is a time to sow. There is a time to reap. And, you know, I have built up a back log so now I reap all the time.
This is how it works. Be not deceived, you are not going to make a mockery out of God and change the rules. Learn what the rules are and play by them. Just start giving and doing good and watching God bring it back. That's simple to understand. Even I can figure that out and understand it. It is just a matter of walking it out.
Now go to Luke chapter 6:38. This is everybody's favorite verse. We are not talking about tithing now. Tithing is the starting point. We are talking to the graduating class here. I mean, you go beyond tithing and you give an offering. That's when it all really starts to pop, brother. Things starts to happen. Do you doubt God? Then, you need to start doing what we are talking about in these pages and see what comes into your life.
Luke 6:38
38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (KJV)
Notice what Jesus said. He said "give and it shall be given unto you". He said "it" shall be given unto you. What is "it"? "It" is a pronoun which takes the place of a noun in a sentence. What is the noun that "it" represents in this sentence. Well, "it" is what ever you give. Whatever you give. Now, you need a big harvest. You need to sow a big seed because "it" shall be given unto you. If your "it" is big, your harvest will be big also. You determine the size of your harvest by the size of your "it".
I asked a while ago, if any of you were raised on a farm. I was. When I was a little boy my dad started teaching me responsibility. One time he gave me some seed. He wanted me to plant a row and he told me how far apart to plant them. He was going to come back with a plow and cover them up. This was before the days of all this automatic machinery. So I planted a little way down that row like he asked me to do. But that was a big bucket of seed and that was one long row for a little boy. I thought I never will get through with this row. I had only planted about ten seeds; so I took that whole bucket of seed and put it very thickly in a space of just a few feet. Then I went down that row and sort of covered that few feet over with my foot. You know, I put that whole bucket of seed in just a few feet of space, but none of the balance of that row had any seed in it. Well, I had covered it over where my dad wouldn't see it. When he came down there he covered it up what he thought was a row that had been completely planted.
When the field started coming up, there wasn't enough ground to hold that stuff coming out of that short space that I had sowed. But the rest of the row was blank. Nothing came up on it. Well, my dad knew immediately what I had done. You see, give and it shall be given back to you. I sowed thickly in a matter of a few feet, and, brother, I reaped thickly in a matter of a few feet, but reaped nothing down the balance of the row.
A lot of Christians have that great speckled bird syndrome. They want to come down the isle, put their monthly dollar in the plate, go outside and look up in the sky and see that great speckled bird come sailing over and drop fifty pounds of gold pieces right in their lap. It doesn't work like that. You see, you haven't sown properly, to reap a bag full of fifty dollar gold pieces. Start sowing like that and you will reap like that. But, if you sow a dollar here and a dollar there, a dollar here and a dollar there is all you will ever reap. If dollar sowing is all you are capable of at this point, God will bless it and multiply it back to you so you can graduate into sowing greater. If you are capable of sowing greater than a dollar now and yet you do only dollar sowing, that's robbing God in the process. Your reaping is going to be as meager as your sowing was. Because you sowed just a small amount of seed, you are going to reap a small amount from it.
Now give and it shall be given unto you. Whatever you give is what God is going to take as raw material to give back to you. "It" is a pronoun which replaces a noun in the sentence. Well, there is no noun here. It is implied. And the implied noun is whatever you sow and whatever you sow determines the magnitude, quality and quantity of your harvest.
Now notice something else. Whatever you give, even if it is meager, God does some things to it. He gives it back. But, He gives back more than you gave. When He gives it back, its good measure and its pressed down and its shaken together. Did you ever go in the grocery store and buy a tall box of cereal and you get home and open it up, and the box is not full? Did you ever do that? Sure you have. Or potato chips; that's what really upsets me- to get a big, puffy bag of fresh potato chips, (they know how to puff those bags up), and you get home and its settled and there's not a full bag of potato chips. It happens with cereal too. That's why they show the weight on the package. (They measure it by weight and not by space.) I want it by space. That's why I buy that big bag, you know.
But anyway, its not like that when God does business with you. It's not like the cereal boxers. I mean, that thing shrinks for some reason. But notice God takes what you give and gives it back, but He does it good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Now the cereal box is good measure, pressed down, shaken together, but, brother, it is not running over. But, God makes it run out and over the top.
Now these are the laws by which God works. You see, God wants to do good to his people. I spent so many years in the ministry thinking God was gleefully flying around the sky trying to catch me in something, so He could zap me and hurt me. I gave Him plenty to zap me over, because I needed more help than most. Can you identify with me? I read this philosopher, William James, who wrote a book, Varieties of Religious Experience, William James made a statement that was just profound. He said some people are just holier than others. And I thought, yea, and I am one of them that's not. I mean I have to work at it. He said some people just seem to have a born disposition to being good. And others have that born disposition to be up to their neck at all time. And I said that one up to his neck is me. So I had this view that God was just continuously keeping score on me, to do me up and get me and all that. And I found out that is not the case. God is in the business of blessing His people.
You know, I found out that God really likes a guy like me. Why? Because I make a lot of mistakes, but I get a lot done too. That's one thing about it, when my time is up I'm not going to rust out, I may burn out. But I am not rusting out. A guy like that will make a lot of mistakes, but he will also get a lot done. So you see, God likes even people like me. If you are like I am, making a lot of mistakes, God likes you, buddy. He loves us. He wants to help us. When you begin to play it His Way and give, He has laws that take effect. Those laws are this. He will shake it down, press it together, make it good measure, and run it out the top so that you have an over flow and an abundance of what you invested by your giving to start with.
Then He says how He is going to do it. "Shall men give into your bosom". He is going to make men give to me, running over, what I gave Him. Let me illustrate this by an experience my wife and I had when we were getting set to go off to preaching school. In our denomination at that time, you had to go to preaching school. They think you can't preach if you don't go to preaching school. So we were getting set to go to preaching school. My wife's mother was a member of a little independent church out on the North side of Houston, pastored by a converted Jew, named Solomon Davis, a saintly, godly man. Well, my wife and I were there that night. It was our last night in Houston. We were going to Marshall, Texas to go to preaching school. Now, I had put off going to preaching school for two years, because I never could get the money. So I finally said, "Lord, if You want me to go to preaching school, you are going to have to work this out, because I have just been unable to get ahead. So I am just going to have to shut everything down and go, and you are going to have to provide for me; otherwise, I just won't be able to do it". So by faith, I quite my job, got set to go, and went to that church the last night there.
I still didn't have any money. I was just going. I did, however, have $55 in my pocket. I had a car that had a car payment due and the payment was $55. Now, I have to go across Texas to Marshall from Houston with 55 bucks and I owed that. I have to get a place to live when I get there. I have to buy gas. I have to feed a wife and wives love to eat. Lord, I have all this to do; I have to pay tuition, I must buy books on 55 bucks and I owe that on my car note alone and I have to get a place to live when I get there, etc..
While sitting there during their service, it dawned on me I hadn't paid tithes on the last pay check I received. I owed $7 out of that $55. I am saying, "Lord, I am going in the hole by the minute here. I shouldn't have come". Anyway, I am sitting there during that song service. That was the longest Baptist song service I believe I was ever in my life. While they sang their "200,000 songs", I became the center piece in a tug-of-war. The devil was on one side and God was on the other, and me and that $7 were up for grabs in the middle. I am serious. It is funny now, but it wasn't funny that night because, back then, 7 bucks was a bunch of bucks; it was a lot of money. So, I am sitting there and they sing and sing and sing and sing and the devil played games with me big time. He would point to their Sunday School board up at the front. They put their Sunday School attendance up on a board where everybody could see it. They also put the amount of the Sunday morning offering up on the board. Meanwhile, the devil was telling me, look up there. Look how many they had in Sunday School this morning. Look at the size of that offering. They don't need your $7.
I said to him, "You are right. Yea, you are right." And he said, "Besides that, you are going to be out serving God, aren't you"? I said, "Yea". He said, "That 7 bucks is God's money, isn't it?" I said, "yea." He said, "Well just pay yourself your first pay check." I said, "I think I will". You know he is doing a real number on me. I don't know if the devil plays games with you. He plays them with me. Consequently, here I am sitting in church agreeing with him on the one hand, and feeling the Holy Ghost kept tugging at me about my $7 tithe on the other hand. I am in a tug of war for real.
Finally, the moment of truth came. They passed that plate down the isle where I was sitting and it came to me. I got it and just held on to it. I looked at it and held it and looked at it and held it and looked at it. Finally, everybody else was looking to see who had the offering plate, and here I am sitting there just holding it and staring at it. The moment of truth had come, dear brother and sister. What do I do with my $7 that I needed so much? And so I hold the plate and look at it. Well, I reach in my pocket and get my $7 and put it in that plate and watch it as it goes down the row and disappear out of my life. Now you think that wasn't tough. Now that was a bridge for me to cross. I am just staring out in my Christian life and as a new Christian, I never had the benefit of a pastor, never did. Right after I got saved, my pastor left. I never, as a saved man, had a pastor. Never. I had to hack it out by myself. So I had nobody to talk to about this. Furthermore, the devil's arguments were making sense with me since I needed this money. You see, I was not going out to the beer joint to spend this $7. I was going off to "learn to preach". I was going to be serving God. But, you see, He said put it in the plate. So I did. I let it go and I watched it. I thought I would die.
There wasn't but a handful of people there that night. Well, when the service was over, Brother Davis said, "I want ya'll to come by and shake hands with Jay. He is going off to school." So they did. They shook hands with me and they put money, both coins and paper, in my hand. I put it in my pocket. My wife and I went to our car, that we owed that $55 payment on, turned on the light and before we ever left the parking lot, counted it. There was just a couple of one dollar bills and everything else was change, because there were mostly little children there that night. Do you know how much money it was? $7. You can't beat God. You can not make a mockery of God, His word or His laws. What did He say?
Give and it shall be given unto you and I just proved it. Give and it shall be given unto you and He will cause men to give it into your bosom. Now that was a moment of truth for me. I kid you not. I watched that plate go down the end of the row with my money in it. Have any of you ever been in a situation like that?
We have to learn to trust God and this is not always easy. Sometimes, God will bring you to face to face with the reality of what His Word says in one area and He will force you to either accept it or reject it. If you accept it, He will force you to literally step out on it. And that gets spooky; especially the first few times you do it. Anybody identify with me in this? Understand something here, dear reader. We are rarely ever are called upon to step out on everything in God's Word at once. Our human frame and system are incapable of that. But God will engineer events and circumstances where He brings you face to face with one issue covered by His Word and He will force you to walk out on it or fold up your tent. If you fold up, He will re-engineer the circumstances and bring you right back to face it again. So you might as well move out on it. The area covered in this book is giving. He says, "Give and it shall be given unto you". Now, look at Proverbs 11:24.
Prov 11:24-26
24 There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.
25 The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.
26 He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth it. (KJV)
"There is he that scatterth and yet increaseth." Now how can I increase something if I am just scattering it out? But it works like that. This is God's way. By giving, I get. Look at what He says. "There is he that scatterth yet increaseth and there is he that withholdeth more than is fitting for him to hold, but that tendeth to poverty". You see God's system of economics is totally different from the worlds. The world says if you want to get ahead, save X number of dollars out of your paycheck and you invest it in bank CD's for a certain amount of interest rates, and so forth and so on. And that's how you get ahead. Well, that's true up to a point, but God's system goes beyond that and says if you want to get ahead, scatter. Because if you save everything, according to God's system, this tendeth to poverty.
Now, when you have something from God, let's call it seed. There are three things you can do with your seed.
You can eat your seed.
You can save your seed until it rots and dies.
You can plant your seed.
The seed must be planted. The great mistake is when we eat our seed. Suppose a man makes some extra bucks and blows every dime of it. That is eating the seed. Or he gets some extra bucks and he runs down there and he sticks it in that bank account for 3 1/2% interest. That's saving all the seed. Now the best and smartest thing would be to take some of that seed and plant it; so that the seed would bring back more harvest. If you eat everything that you get, don't look for a harvest next year. You are going to be on the street looking for a job. So there is the guy that scatters, but that guy increases.
When the seed is not planted, it's not working. It's not in the ground. It's not doing anything. It is just out there dead. Whether you eat it or you save it makes no difference. One way or the other it's not circulating. So the third option, is to scatter. There's he that scatterth, yet he increases. And then there is that guy that puts it in the can and sits on it and that tends to poverty.
The liberal soul shall be made fat in verse 25. He that watereth shall be watered also himself. Because he is scattering. He is liberally scattering. I liberally sowed that four or five feet in that row that my dad gave me responsibility over. Well, I was liberal there and I got back a liberal harvest right there. The rest of that row didn't produce anything because I didn't put anything into it. The Bible says he that watereth shall be watered also himself. And he that withholdeth, verse 26, the people shall curse him. But blessings shall be upon the head of him that selleth it.
Now what are you going to do here? Everybody says they don't have any extra money and can't afford to tithe, give an offering and or engage in the first fruit ceremonies. Well, do you have cable TV? You have an extra 18 bucks a month. I had it put in my house so that I could get the Disney channel for my granddaughters and TBN for the wife and I. I told them I don't want HBO and Showtime and Cinemax. I don't want to clutter up my brain with what I see on TV. When I get up to preach, I want my mind to be as pure as I can get it. If I have filth piped into my home the night before via TV, my mind is not pure. So I told them I didn't want it. Well, they hooked it up anyway. I was not paying for it. But, that is their way to get you hooked, so they can come back to you a month later, threaten to cut it off. But, by then you will say, "No, I decided I can afford these programs. Don't cut them off." You see, you have gotten used to that filth. Well, they left that stuff in my home two months. So I had my wife call them up and say, hey, come get this stuff out of here or you come take this whole cable out, I don't want on it at all. Well, to say the least, they came and took it out. My point is this; I put Disney in there for my granddaughters, but you know, I can get along even without that. Why?
There must be some scattering seed left in my bank account just as there must be in your bank account. There just has to be because somewhere you are going to need a harvest. That harvest comes, not based on the fact that you need it, but it comes based upon the fact that you sowed seed for it. Now if you haven't sowed seed for it, I don't care how great your need is, you are not going to have a harvest. God Almighty is not obligated to give you one until you sow some of what he has given you to start with. To get set for a rainy day, you must start sowing now. God is not obligated to come through for you, if you have been eating all the seed He has given you down through the years. What we need to do is this; we need to start sowing some of the seed we have been eating so that we can reap a harvest when the season of harvest comes for us.
This is how it works. This is God's system. And God is not mocked. You are not going to make a fool of God by changing up the rules. This is set in concrete. You sow. You reap. You give, men will give back into your bosom. There is a man that scattereth yet increases. Now this is God's Word, people. It is His System. This system keeps a man humble because it makes him recognize his absolute, total dependence on God.
Now the world's universities teach about an economic system that functions differently. They set it up where they can do it their way, where they honestly think they don't need God. But, when you and I do it God's Way, we don't have to hustle like they do.
You know where I am in scripture? I am over there in the book of Hebrews where it talks about "rest" for the people of God. I am at perfect rest. I don't get bent out of shape about anything. I am totally at rest. I am at peace. I am at rest and if I need something, I sow something and I get it in the harvest.
So, your second step to Abrahamic wealth is to give offerings in addition to your tithe.
Father, bless us now as we concentrate on these things. Lord, build the faith of your children. Increase us. Increase our borders. In Jesus Name. Amen. Amen.
Copyright 1996 - 2007
Date Last Updated:
February 27, 2008
PO Box 59 ¦ Livingston, TX ¦ 77351
936-327-3676
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