Turning Ideas Into Increase 1

Lift up your Bibles and lift them up and wave them around.

Make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

We'll get right into the Word.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, you are worthy, and Lord, we thank you for all You've done for us.

We look forward to this year.

It's a year of God's power.

An unprecedented display is about to unfold in this earth, and the church is the main reason, the vessel through which you are pouring out in Jesus' name.

Amen, you can be seated, hallelujah.

Let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Malachi.

I used to think he was Malachi, one of the the Malachi family of New York.

No, he's not the Godfather.

Malachi.

Chapter three Some of you know where I'm headed.

I'll tell you what.

I'm gonna back up and read verse eight this morning.

Start with verse eight.

I think I told you it'd be verse 10, but let's look at verse eight Now.

This is Malachi the prophet, the last prophet before John the Baptist, 400 years later.

I mean this is the end of God talking to Israel for 400 years.

I mean, you know it's pretty important that he talked about and he was addressing the priests, specifically the ones that are supposed to teach.

You know the teaching priests are supposed to teach the people.

You know, the only people that had the Holy Ghost in the old covenant was the priests, the prophet and the king.

The priests had the anointing to teach and they weren't teaching.

And he's talking to them and he said well, a man robbed God, yet you have robbed me.

Talking to the priests now these are the leaders.

You've robbed me.

Well, a man robbed God, yet you've robbed me.

But you say where in have we robbed you?

In Tithon offerings.

You're cursed with a curse, for you've robbed me even this whole nation.

So I mean the whole nation is off because the priests are off.

You know, pastors have a great, great responsibility.

When they're off, the people are off.

And bring ye all the ties into the storehouse that there may be meat in my house and prove me now here with.

This is the only place I'm aware of in the Bible where God invites you to test him, to prove him, and I'm aware of that.

With what?

With the tithe and offerings.

Prove me, if I will not open up to you the windows of heaven and pour you out of blessing.

There's not room enough to receive and I'll rebuke the devourer for your sake, the eater.

The word devourer means eater.

The devil is an eater of finances.

He will eat your money.

He will eat your supply.

I'll rebuke the devourer for your sake.

He shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast or fruit before it's time in the field, sayeth the Lord of hosts.

That's talking about an agricultural income.

It's an agricultural society.

They depended on crops, but it's true of any kind of financial supply, for the tither and the giver and all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord.

Yet you say what have we spoken so much against thee?

What are you talking about?

See, these guys are dead from the neck up and the neck down.

They have no clue how backslit they are.

They have no clue that they have drifted away from God's plan.

Is it sound familiar when I see the cardinal of San Diego saying that we ought to accept homosexuals and treat them so sweet?

In other words, we love the sinner and hate the sin?

No, we love the sinner and we love the sin.

Go ahead and keep your sin and come on into church.

Don't worry about repenting.

You're just as valuable.

We've all sinned.

There's no reason.

I mean that's that you know you.

People are off-baiting.

If I was Catholic, I'd leave.

He's a cardinal.

You know what he's gonna do.

Whenever this guy decides to resign or die, the communists, the guy that's you know, that's Pope right now he's gonna be one of the ones that elect the next one.

He's in charge of all the child abuse that's happened in the church and that's in all churches, not just the Catholic church, but especially the Catholic church.

Why?

Because they require their priests to be single, which is not in the fact.

The opposite is true in the Bible.

They go opposite of what the word says Forbid not to marry.

Hello Pope, hello Catholic church, I'm picking on the.

Well, you know, I was Catholic for a long time.

I have some knowledge where I can say it.

And to our Catholic friends, I mean you know, if you know the Lord, get out of this, get out.

Why you still can.

Anyway, your words have been stowed against me.

Well, you know how.

Why.

What do you mean?

What are you talking about?

Verse 14, you have said it's vain to serve God.

And what profit is it?

We have kept His ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts.

In other words, you know, it's no advantage in serving God.

That's what the priest said.

And by adopting this woke-ism and all this mess that we're seeing right now churches that call themselves churches they're really not churches, they're something else, they're masquerading.

But there are good people that are being deceived, that are Christians, that are, that do know, that do have the Holy Ghost living on the inside.

They have been born again and they're being deceived by these so-called churches that will have some kind of drag queen story hour and as part of their outreach Outreach to what Nuts?

It's what I call them as nuts, and if that was all there was, that wouldn't be so bad.

But people are gonna go and die and go to hell because of it.

Their words have been stopped.

So it all started with their attitude about money and honoring God.

Tide is honoring God.

There's no way to honor God without the tide, and the title of this message is turning ideas into increase.

I'm unashamed to talk about it, even on the heels of last Sunday, if you weren't here, be sure and get the media, because Brother Mark got into preaching on generosity and I mean the Holy Ghost was within the entire.

I don't know about you, but I felt such an inflow and such an impartation of the word of God and the anointing of God from someone who lives what he preaches says.

That's not always true.

Some of the stingiest people are preachers, I'm sorry to say.

In their personal life they just feel like everybody ought to give to them.

They don't give much of their own, and I know some of them like that.

I mean, they talk about tithing and giving and really they don't even tie it to the church that they pastor.

They don't even give over and above the tide to the church they pastor.

Why would I do that?

I mean, it's my image, see, they don't even have an idea of what they're doing.

So when they speak about giving and receiving, it's just cheap, it's words that don't really go anywhere.

But when he does, I'm telling you there's an impartation.

I'm telling you this whole church came up a whole another level now, and so I told him.

You know, the Sunday before I said now I'm not telling you what you preach, I'm just telling you that I attacked giving and receiving.

Nobody can teach it better than you.

You're the best I've ever heard, and that includes a whole lot of people, because I've heard a whole lot of people teach on tithing and giving.

How about Oral Roberts?

How about John Osteen?

How about Kenneth Copeland?

How about?

You know?

I could just I could name all the names, and he's the best I've ever heard.

And what he had to say six years ago when he first started coming here has changed this church.

That's what I call an impartation.

Do we need an impartation about giving and receiving?

Right now, when we've got inflation rates at double digits?

They're saying there's 4% or 6%.

They're lying to you.

If all you've got is cash, your cash is going down in value.

I trust that you've got more than just savings of cash.

You're gonna have to have some investments, but I do believe that investing in the gospel is the greatest investment.

We don't do it for that purpose.

We don't give to get.

We give because we love God.

We want to see the gospel preached all over the world and we want our local church blessed.

That's why we give.

We don't give to get, but we give with an eye to receive what the Bible says we can have.

So I told him.

I said I'm preaching from the standpoint Of using our authority.

The Sunday before last I talked about that the power to get wealth.

The Eronomy 818,.

If you didn't hear that, catch up.

Catch up with us.

Folks.

I know some of you travel, some of you are out of church here and there.

You're not here maybe every Sunday, but look, we've got the media.

You need to catch up and keep up with us Because I want us all on the same page for this year.

I want that power to be demonstrated Not only in healing, not only in the gospel being preached, but for the money that it takes to do it.

It takes money.

I've been broke three times as a tither and a giver, so my giving and my generosity were not the question.

It's not automatic.

You can't just be generous and just tithe and just give and then just leave it all the rest of it up to God.

That's the points of these messages that I'm preaching.

He didn't preach that part of the message.

I'm preaching that part.

You've got to put what I'm saying this morning and what I said the Sunday before last together with the generosity you got to get all the complete way to flow in God's economy right now, because if you're not flowing in God's economy, you're flowing in an economy of the Antichrist.

How many of you know he hates you and he'll steal from.

He's an eater.

Then he ate my finances the Adam.

Thank God I finally learned how to deal with things.

I had to learn the hard way, but you don't have to learn the hard way.

I already learned the hard way.

So you can learn the easy way.

Sit in church and hear me.

Sit in church and do the word All right.

So what are you talking about?

I ideas in the intro.

What does that have to do with Ty?

Well, I'm fixed to tell you.

So you know it's been, let's say, 2005.

That's 18 years ago.

Last month I went to see Brother Oral Roberts.

God opened the door for me to go see him in his home in New Port Beach, california, and we flew out there, gladys and I, along with our family and some others 12 of us all together and we brought him an offering of $10,000.

I wasn't about to go out there empty-handed.

He agreed to sit down for a video interview, which we had a two-camera interview.

We did a DVD.

It's out there at the media center If you ever want to watch it.

It's pretty compelling.

I went out there because I'd heard that he had had a visitation from God in July 2004 in the summer.

By the time I heard about it it was August and he was on Christian television given an interview and I listened to the interview and I was aggravated because there were preachers that were given the interview and they didn't know how to interview anybody.

They're too used to talking, too used to preaching.

They're not used to asking questions.

They're not good interviewers by virtue of the fact they're preachers.

They do all the talking and they did all the talking.

He couldn't get a word in.

Edgewise I was throwing rocks at the television.

Why don't you get somebody who knows how to interview somebody?

And I said it in church, boy, I'd like to chance to sit him down and interview him.

I know how to ask a question.

I've been doing that a long time on television.

I've interviewed TBN Daystar, interviewed lots of folks on television.

I know how to pray and get the questions and find out what the Holy Ghost wants me to ask.

He had had a visitation of God and I knew from experience that when you have that, you've got to have somebody pull all of it out, because you're in almost a semi-state of amazement and wonder and awe and your brain goes tilt.

God is talking to you and you can't retain everything he says.

You need someone to pull it out of your spirit, and it didn't happen.

But the subject of that visitation was to wake up the church.

Well, that's my message.

2000, I mean rather 1999, march of 1999, and God told me to wake up the church.

So here it is, four years, four and a half years later, and here is a man of the stature of Oral Roberts, a man at one time, in the 70s, he was the third most known man on the earth.

That's how some of you might not have ever even heard of him.

You've heard of Oral Roberts University.

Well, it came from him, he started it, but I mean, that man had a ministry, huge.

And so you know, one thing led to another and I got an opportunity to go and he agreed to sit down with somebody he'd never met and have an interview, and it was God.

So January I went and I had a list of five questions that I'd gone before that and went and prayed at Galveston.

I said, okay, I need the questions.

I don't know what to ask him, but I knew one thing that he had been shaken by the Lord to wake up the church, which is what my message was, and I was not going anywhere with it.

I couldn't get anybody to pay any attention to me.

In fact, I think the church started shrinking when I started preaching it.

Some people didn't want to hear it.

They go nah, nah, nah, nah.

You ever do that.

When you're a kid, you know.

When mama's telling you to do something, you put your hands over your ear and start hollering so you don't hear her what she's saying to you.

That's good for a swat on the rear end if you've had a.

My mother, my mother didn't allow me to do that for very long.

But some people just don't want to hear.

They want, they want the milk.

They want the milk of the word.

They don't want the challenge, they don't want something that requires them to do something.

So I just had to.

So I had the five questions and so we started the interview.

Very gracious, he was so nice and Evelyn was there and his nurse was there and a lady named Sonny, you know, she was kind of guarded because her job watch over him, you know.

And then the last part of his ministry is oh, he had retired away from ORU, moved out there to retire, and I gave him the offering.

He was very.

He prayed over it and we sat down and started the interview.

I went down the list of questions and by this time it had been an hour and I've got Brother Roberts, dr Roberts, I've got one more question.

He said make it your last.

I'm tired, woo.

And I thought, man, I wish I'd have had this one a little earlier because it was to me it was really important.

I said, okay, the subject of his, the subject of his whole premise is that the church is not ready for the second coming of Christ and there's a wasting of power in the church.

Now, that was, that was the sum of what I'd heard him say on television.

So I asked all about that.

He's convinced there's going to be a mighty end time revival, not like a lot of preachers right now who think there's not.

That's it and we better get white robes and wait for the coming of the Lord.

In fact, the coming of the Lord is not even preached.

Most churches, I mean they don't want to talk about the rapture of the church.

That's what Peter said.

Peter said in the last days people are going to say where's the promise of his coming?

Everything continues as it always has.

That's what Peter said was going to happen.

And it's what's happening right now, and even more so than it was 18 years ago and even more so than 23 years ago when God told me to wake up the church.

Just look at where the church is today versus 23 years ago.

So I haven't.

There's been no turnaround.

If anything, there's been more apostasy.

There's been more sliding away.

Are y'all with me now?

I'm giving, I'm talking about finances this morning, but I have to set it up.

You might want to come back tonight because I don't think I can finish.

I'm going to finish tonight but I can't finish today, but anyway.

So so I had to go.

I needed somebody of some means and some standing to confirm what I had.

And I was hearing everything that confirmed what I had already.

And then I had that last question and he said make it your last.

We edited that out of the.

You won't hear him say that because we chopped it out of the, but he was tired, visibly.

He was visibly tired.

I mean your man's in his 80s, 80s, 87, something like that.

He's tired.

I mean I'm probing, I'm pulling stuff out of him.

They hadn't said.

I never heard anybody.

I never heard him say in all two interviews I heard on TBN and Daystar, two interviews.

I never heard him say there's a wasting of power in the church.

He said it to me because I pulled it out of it.

Pulled it out of it, wasting of power.

You can spend a long time just meditating, which I had way thinking about that statement.

So I said, brother Roberts, pastor, I mean I, I called him Dr Roberts.

I said, dr Roberts, since you see a mighty end time harvest, millions of souls coming in, do you therefore see a corresponding transfer of wealth out of the hands of the wicked into the hands of the righteous Cause?

I've been preaching that too for a long time.

About everybody say transfer of wealth.

And suddenly he revived, his face changed, he lifted that big finger.

I, john, I'm glad you asked that question.

I thought I'm really glad I asked that question.

That was, I was kind of sweating that our interview was about to go in the, you know, in the trash, you know hit the skids and suddenly he had a revival and he got all knowing it all over again and he got all excited all over again and he started sharing this message that God gave him there's a wasting of power in the church.

The church isn't ready for the second coming.

He had already said that.

And then he said you know, the church is out of position for the end time harvest for the coming of the Lord.

They're in crushing debt.

They are not tithing and they have wrong expectations.

That's what the Lord told him.

He said tell my people to bring all the tithes into the storehouse and I'll open up to them the windows of heaven and I will pour them out a blessing that there's not room enough to receive.

God is speaking to Oral Roberts in this wake up call.

He took me to the little hallway where it happened and it was so powerful, the sound of heaven coming into his little town home.

He lived on one side of the building and somebody else lives like a duplex.

That's what he lived in and he showed me right where it happened.

He had this little sweater on.

He had the same sweater on the day that I interviewed him and that sweater was like hanging, like my jacket is, and it blew up like that.

It was the sound waves that you'd feel like when you watched the space shuttle.

Anybody remember the space shuttle that used to be headquartered here in Houston?

But anyway, tell Obama to get away, all right.

So boom, he showed me all that.

He said tell my people to tithe, I'll open up the windows of heaven.

Pour them out a blessing.

There's not room enough to receive Brother Roberts.

Earl Roberts lifted his finger to the Lord.

Says wait a minute, lord.

Interrupted God.

Kind of remind you of Abraham Bleeding the case for Sodom and Gomorrah.

Wait, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute, Lord.

Wait, lord, I don't understand that.

I've been tithing.

He's quoting in the Bible, quoting in Malachi.

I've been tithing for over 50 years.

I've never been in a position where I couldn't hold any more money.

That's never been the case.

I'm always chasing, I'm always moving, trying to find more.

I've never been where I had so much I couldn't hold it.

And the Lord said to him I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about ideas, concepts and insights.

Now, when Brother Roberts said that, I thought to myself I've never heard anybody say that, I've never heard anybody even break down Malachi, other than the obligation to tithe.

It's always the obligation side, it's always.

And then of course, we say, oh, the blessing.

Well, we don't define what the blessing is, we just say the blessing.

We think it's money, don't we think it's money?

Haven't you always thought it was money?

And yet you've never been in that condition.

Either you've never had more money than you could stand right, because let's just say that you know what are the 250,000 now that's FDIC protected.

I've forgotten.

Used to be 100,000.

Now it's 250, right?

So let's just say you got 300,000.

Well, you just opened up another account, wouldn't you?

I mean, it's not that hard to distribute your money.

Just open up a bunch of accounts.

Keep opening an account.

Go buy a business, go buy another asset, and hope not just a consumer asset.

I'm talking about an income producing asset, something that'll make you money when you're asleep.

Let's not just spend it all on junk that depreciates, that goes away.

That's what I.

I just thought it was money or a form of money.

And no, god said no, it's ideas, concepts and insights.

And he said you know?

He said my people are cheating themselves, Cheating themselves, cheating themselves.

Well, a man robbed God.

See, you're robbing God, but you're robbing yourself of the benefit.

The benefit is what?

Open up the windows of heaven, pour you out so many ideas, concepts and insights you can't hold them anymore, lord, hold that idea.

I've got so many on my list I haven't been able to chase them down.

Yet I've got more ideas and I've got time to develop them.

Lord, just hold that.

I'm going to put that on hold.

Please bring it back back around to me when I'm ready.

Would you do that?

I mean, have you ever done that?

I've never done that either.

I didn't even know I could do it.

And then he said you know.

And then the next thing is I'll protect your assets, I'll protect your assets, I'll protect your assets.

Do you have any assets?

I mean, if you own a home, that's an asset.

If you own a car, that's an asset.

You've got an IRA or 401K, that's an asset.

God said I'll rebuke the devourer.

Well, we can also rebuke the devourer in the name of Jesus.

We don't have to just wait for God to do it.

We can do it.

But you know what?

Sometimes God rebukes them before we even know there's a problem.

God's already rebuked it.

If you're a tither and a giver and a sower of seed, god is already gone ahead of you and he's already dealt with that situation.

You don't even know what's going on Somebody's meeting in the back room getting ready to lay you off and God's already rebuked that.

You might not ever even know it.

I never heard anybody say that Protect your assets and I will give you favor.

The third one, I'll give you favor.

And so we had this delightful rest of the interview.

It's all out there in the media center on a DVD.

You can still play one.

We're going to have to catch up with technology.

One of these days I started looking for preachers.

I gave my DVD as many as I could find.

I tried to get preachers and I gave up on preachers.

I don't even talk to preachers about this.

I talk to people like you.

I talk to believers.

The preachers just have a decided.

They already think they know everything and they can't be taught anything, especially by people like me.

Oral Roberts couldn't even get their attention.

They didn't listen to him.

He had two interviews that I know of and it just disappeared.

I went and did what I did and I knew several preachers that went to talk to him.

I said, oh, did you talk to him about the wake up call?

He says what's that?

I talked to one preacher I know real well.

I said, oh, did y'all talk about the wake up call?

What's that?

He didn't even know.

Why are you there taking the man's time up?

You see, when someone like him gets a visitation from God and nobody asked him a question, what happens to it?

It goes away, the devil steals it and it's no longer available.

So I went to see him in October of 06, just the next year and personally and I was going to start talking about that visitation he didn't want to talk about it, it was gone.

I couldn't talk to him about it at all, it was over.

And I was so disappointed because I had more questions.

It was gone why?

Because there was no honor to the man of God by the church to receive a word of correction from a man that he never corrected anything.

He got up and said God is a good God.

That was his message.

He would get up and say God is going to do something good for you today.

On Johnny Carson's show.

You remember he had a national television.

He had a show, a program, an entertainment program.

He was way ahead of his time.

He used the medium of television to reach the masses.

That's why he was the third most known name on earth.

He wasn't religious at all.

Brother Mark was talking about Mattress Mack last week.

I was trying to holler at him, but he got his inspiration from Oral Roberts and he was broke and he came to town with $19 in his pocket.

Oral Roberts was his inspiration.

He shook a generation and yet he had a corrective word to the church a pretty stout one like mine and he had the standing we're with to use that word and nobody paid any attention.

Are you paying attention this morning?

All right.

So after that it spawned a book that I wrote, rise Up and Reap, and I mailed him the manuscript to see if he would possibly write the forward to the book and he wanted to see the manuscript, so I mailed him a copy.

He called me, john.

I loved your book.

You've got to preach this over and over, john.

The gospel to the poor, it's the guts of the gospel Told me that on the telephone and I realized.

I came across that note the other day and I realized I had preached this and so long there's probably a whole lot of.

You've never even heard these things before and I'm telling you right now we can be generous givers, we can be tithers and givers and still go broke, because it's not automatic.

Nothing's automatic, you don't.

Just it's not like a slot machine where you just put the nickel in there and pull the lever and something comes out at the bottom.

Look, you've got a part to play in your financial success.

God has already done something legally.

What did he do?

Jesus has made poor that you might be rich.

That's already done.

You're rich.

As far as God's concerned, you're all rich, everybody's rich.

Let me ask you are you forgiven?

Are you born again?

You're not going to hope to be born again.

How many of you know that when you die, you're going to heaven?

How many of you know that?

Say you're not waiting to find out.

So it's the same with rich.

You're not waiting to find out.

If you're rich, you are rich.

The question is, have you received it?

That's what I'm talking about now.

These are tools.

This is ammo for your gun.

I said this is ammo for your gun.

The gospel to the poor is the guts of the God.

What's that mean?

It means it's the very heart we're supposed to gird our lawns about with truth.

That's our guts.

To kill somebody in old Bible days, all they had to do was stick that sword right in the middle of them.

They didn't have to hit their heart, they could just hit them right in the gut with that sword.

They'd eventually die.

They'd wallow there until all their guts spilled out.

I know that sounds bloody, but that's how people die.

They didn't necessarily die instantly.

That's what happened to Saul.

He said go ahead and kill me.

His servant went ahead and fell on him.

Then David killed him for killing God's annoyance.

He was just trying to be merciful to the poor guys.

Guts are hanging out of his body.

Why he wasn't killed instantly.

That's what the devil he can wound you.

The guts of the gospel means it's the heart, it's the center.

Without money, you can't even go out the door, much less.

Around the world.

People are so religious about their money and about having too much.

We need too much.

The harvest demands more than what we've gotten.

We're way behind folks.

I said we're way behind All right.

At the time that I interviewed him, of course I didn't know I was going to write a book.

I didn't know.

On the way back to the hotel, I want you to listen to this real carefully.

Now it's going to sound a little snooty, I don't care how it sounds, you'll hear my heart in it.

On the way back to the hotel I said okay, lord, I believe what he said.

I know you talked to him and I don't doubt anything he said when is it in the Bible?

I can't preach something just because he said it.

I can't get behind a visitation that he had and speak it as truth, unless it's in the Bible.

I'm not saying he's not telling me the truth.

I know he believes what he said.

I can understand generally the wisdom of it, but where is it in the Bible?

If it's in the Bible I'll preach it, but if it ain't in the Bible I don't want to preach it.

You know what the Bible says God helps those who help themselves.

Well, that's not in the Bible, dummy.

Somebody said it, but it wasn't in the Bible.

The Bible didn't say it.

Few people have all these truisms.

They have all these sayings and they think it's in the Bible.

I saw somebody the other day who was just absolutely swearing on the Bible that the separation of church and state is in the Constitution.

They've never read the Constitution.

They don't know what's in the Constitution.

Here they are telling people that separation of church and state is in the Constitution.

No, it's not.

That's a lie.

So anyway, I said Lord, where is that in the Bible?

I need more information.

And I mean I'm driving.

It's Southern California, it's January it's sunny, shining, like.

It's like right now, like today.

It's a day like today in Southern California.

I'm looking out, newport Beach, california.

It's kind of upscale part of you know, southern California, orange County.

Right there on a Pacific beautiful place.

I'm looking out the window at a golf course and I'm talking to the Lord.

Everybody's in the car with me going back to the hotel.

I'm exhausted from that interview.

I mean I'm ready to go take a nap.

But I'm asking, I'm asking and all of a sudden Lord said well, what about Jacob?

What about Jacob?

And instantly, like lightning, my spirit was illuminated and I realized that that's the whole story of Jacob his ideas, concepts and insights.

How many of you want to hear it?

All right, so let's turn to our Bibles here, to Genesis, and try to be brief here.

I know I've taken a lot of time already and I hadn't even gotten to the message yet.

Everybody say ideas, concepts, insights.

So many, so many I can't receive.

Listen, I mean, every one of these ideas is an idea about how you can turn it into increase financially.

One idea can make you rich.

One idea.

And God said I'll give you so many, you can't count them, you can't contain them, your mind will go blank.

I'm still not there.

I'm gonna believe for more, though I can tell you that right now.

All right, genesis.

So verse, verse 31, verse, chapter 30, verse 31 hit Laban, and so I want to bring you.

You know, you ought to really go back and read all 28, all the way to 33.

Six verses, six chapters, about all about his life.

But y'all remember the story.

I mean, jacob means supplanter, and so he, you know, he was the second born.

He had his hand on the heel of Esau.

When Esau was born of his mother, he had his hand on his heel, which means he was going to interrupt his authority, his first born.

And he did, and he came out.

And there too, they're twins but they're totally different people, you know.

And so Esau was, was Isaac's favorite, and Rebecca was favorite favorite Jacob.

And so when they got old enough, you know, esau was hungry.

One day, man, I got to have something to eat.

And Jacobs, give me some of that, some of that soup, give me some of that, give me some of that soup.

He said well, I'm gonna have to have your birthright.

I can't give you no soup for free here.

What's a birthright?

It's the double portion blessing.

He's the firstborn.

His birthright is to have twice as much as Jacob Of his father's inheritance.

I said double.

Everybody say double portion.

He sold it.

He gave it to his brother for a pot of soup.

A bowl of soup, not even a pot.

The whole pot would still wouldn't have been worth the whole pot.

A bowl of soup.

That was pretty crummy of Jacob, wasn't it?

I mean, what kind of a guy is he?

Only just give your brother some soup.

You gotta.

You gotta get something from him and a big something.

And he got it.

And then later on, when it came time for Isaac to die, he Called his sons that I want you to prepare me some meat, go get some venison and I want you to come, I want to give you my book, my final blessing.

And of course you know that that Jacob and his mother hatched this plot and they got ahead of him and he dressed up like he, you know, put his skins on him, and so Isaac prayed over him and he gave Jacob I Jacob Esau's blessing.

So he stole his birthright and his blessing.

Daddy, they ain't got no blessing for me.

He said.

You know, son, I've already given my blessing to your brother and he shall be blessed.

That's what he said.

Now, all of that was really by God's design.

But it wasn't.

The method was not God's design.

The method was evil, the way that they did it.

It really was God's design because Esau was a lower person.

He just didn't have the character to be what Jacob was.

But Jacob had to become that person.

He wasn't that person, so he fled because Esau swore to kill him.

So he flees.

His mother lines him up.

Go to my brother Laban's house, he'll give you a job.

You can go work for him and get out of dodge here for a while until it things cool down.

And so he winds up, falls in love with Rachel, sees her man, he's got a half.

I'll tell you what I'll do labor, uncle Laban, I'll work seven years for her.

They.

And he said, all right, okay, that sounds good to me.

Seven years, all right.

But he woke up with Leah, what's happening?

So, and in reeping, so, and in reeping, there are certain laws that are better at work that can't be changed sometime, especially in the old covenant.

So he worked for another seven years.

So he worked 14 years for two women and I can't imagine that boy, it's all I can do to have glad, if I can't imagine having another one, that would be something else.

So so everybody say 14 years and he's broke, he doesn't own anything, nothing he has.

And yet Laban notice here Verse 27 Laban said unto him I pray that if I found favor in your eyes, terry, no, don't, don't leave me.

Don't leave me, don't go away, terry, for I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me, for thy sake.

Laban even understood that he was blessed because.

So where did that blessing come from?

Came from daddy Isaac and Also, on the way there, when he was, just had a staff and just himself.

And he's on the Running for his life.

On his way to laban's he said you know, lord, if you'll bring me back safe Again, surely the tenth I will give unto the.

He committed that he would be a tiger.

See, a tither is a commitment, and 10% of zero is what?

But you're still a tither.

He became a tither on the way out there.

That was the key to everything.

He hadn't given anything.

Why?

Because it didn't own anything.

But Laban was blessed because of him.

Well, you know, comes a time when you're blessing in your business and you're where you work.

They're blessed because of you.

You know they ought to be returned back.

He's to be favor right, all right.

So.

So he said Appoint me your wages, verse 28 and I'll give it.

And he said unto him you know how I've served you and how the cattle was with me.

It was little that I had before I came.

It's now increased into a multitude.

So you know he's he's giving it back to him pretty heavy.

And and the Lord has blessed thee since my coming and now, when, when shall I provide for my own house?

14 years, you're blessed beyond measure and I don't have anything.

What shall I give thee?

Laban said?

Jacob said you, you're not gonna give me anything.

You're not gonna give me anything.

You're not gonna give me anything.

Your job is not your source.

Your business is not your source.

If you're a business owner, god's your source.

You're not gonna give me anything.

If you will do this thing for me, I will again feed and keep thy flock.

I will pass through all your flock today and remove from there all the speckled and spotted cattle, all the brown cattle among the sheep and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and of such shall be my hire.

So what is that?

That's the inferior cattle, both sheep and goats.

They were considered inferior.

If they were speckled, spotted brown, they were considered inferior.

He said I'll take the inferior ones and leave all the rest of your cattle.

I'm just gonna take those as mine.

That's not gonna cost Laban anything.

He's still gonna keep his sheep and goats.

He's still gonna be the shepherd.

He's still gonna be out there watching his.

But now he's gonna have some of his own.

And so so shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come from my hire before thy face.

Now it comes out later, when he was talking to his wife after a while, a couple of chapters later, that he had received in a dream that idea.

So he had an idea from God as to how to make up for 14 years of nothing burgers, no tithes, no giving, no ownership of anything.

14 years is a long time to do without.

And God said I've got a way for you to catch up fast.

You go through and you claim all those.

That's an idea.

That's all he had was that idea.

But then later on he got a concept and God gave this.

In a dream, he saw himself put whittling sticks and taking the bark off of the sticks, and the sticks would have these white streaks on there and stick them in the ground at the feeding trough at mating season.

And when the cattle came up to feed they would mate looking at those sticks, and they produced more colored cattle, brown, ring strike spotted cattle.

And one of those is his, and if, by chance, one was a solid color, white or whatever, it was Laban's.

Well, you know, most of them were his.

So he had an idea that turned into a concept.

The concept was how to increase what he had, how to keep multiplying what he had by doing something silly and whoever heard of whittling sticks and sticking them in the ground at mating season.

And how would that influence cattle?

Well, see, that's the supernatural side of things.

God is God.

God knows how to do things.

God owns the cattle on the thousand hill.

All the cattle were his anyway.

All those cattle were God's.

They called sheep and goat cattle.

We get confused in Texas when we see the word cattle, we think cows, but it's really sheep and goats for them.

All right.

So, and then, after a period of time, he got another idea or insight he would take of his cattle stronger ones, the ones that were well developed and have them do the mating, make sure that they produce, and he would keep back the weaker cattle and pretty soon all the weaker cattle became labans.

They became less numerous and his cattle were stronger and became more numerous and in six years he was a very rich man Ideas, concepts and insights.

As a result of what?

The tithe which he hadn't even given.

He didn't have a tithe per se, because what a tithe of zero is zero.

What was a tithe was the commitment he committed himself to tithe.

Some people don't.

They hadn't even made the commitment to tithe, much less tithe.

I just don't see how I can Anybody can tithe, because it's the first tenth.

You just take the first tenth right off the top and that's the tithe, and when you do, you qualify for ideas, concepts and insights, which is going to make you into a place of increase and it's going to bring you out of where you are and to some place else.

It's a lot better.

Some of you are looking at me.

What?

Well, that's not the only example.

I went through the Bible started seeing all kinds of examples.

Okay, here's one from Jesus Day.

Jesus, we owe taxes.

Jesus, what are we going to do?

Jesus, it's tax money.

Don't ever get tax money.

Say what, peter.

Go fishing and take the gold coin out of the first fish's mouth and pay your taxes in mind.

Oh, he did that because he's a something.

Oh, he did that as a man in honor of God.

He did that as a tither and because he's a tither, he had a right for an idea that helped him increase.

Don't you think that God knows where all the resources are on this planet?

Don't you think he knows where they are?

Do you think he can tell you where your share is?

Do you think he can give you one idea to let you know that maybe it's time to move on from where you're working and get your resume in order and get ready to go?

You know, someplace else.

It's got more favor.

Favor is another benefit of tithing and giving, but favor is in a direction.

I've got another message.

I preach on God's one-way favor.

It's a one-way street.

I mean, you know these things are all working together.

If you're a generous giver and a tither, you can't be a giver without being a tither, because tithing is not giving, tithing is tithing and then, over and above the, tithe is giving.

So you heard, brother Mark, you know, starting off at 20%.

In other words, 10% tithe and 10% giving.

And he lived that way all the way until he had kids and now it was time to move into the 30%.

When he had it didn't look like he could possibly do it, see, because he's lived it and done it.

See, that is an impartation that comes on this church.

We have the opportunity now.

We put all these things together Because you have the heart to play in your financial increase.

You have decisions to make.

You need to hear.

It goes right back to the prayer.

We talked about the power of prayer in week number two.

We got to have a prayer life.

It's not it's not optional.

We have to be able to hear God, we have to commune with him and it's not always about a voice that sometimes you just have a knowing.

You know, praying in tongues is the greatest way I know of to have things come to you that God is speaking, because God doesn't speak to your brain, god's not a mind.

How many times have I said that Over and over again?

So what happens when we pray in tongues?

Our spirit is edified.

We build our spirit up on our most holy faith, pray in the Holy Ghost and all of a sudden, what your spirit knows sometimes can ascend to where your mind can grasp it and identify.

It's not God talking to your mind, it's just you become knowledgeable about this idea that God has and it's become sort of a desire.

You start thinking about it, you start looking at it.

Well, it came from God.

He didn't talk to your brain, he talked to your spirit.

That's why our prayer life is so important.

You know this Bible.

The Bible says about itself that holy men of God wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Well, think about the people that wrote the Bible.

How about Moses?

Moses was a spiritually dead person.

He did not have the spirit of God living in him.

So how did he write the Bible?

Well, he meditated on the Word.

You know, he wrote the book of Joshua.

Joshua, meditate day and night on my Word, then you'll make your way prosperous, then you'll have good success.

So Moses meditated on the oral that God gave him, and then he wrote it all down.

He was what Inspired.

He had a idea.

This Bible is an idea.

It's God's idea, but man had to receive it.

It's just the same kind of process.

This is how we're designed to live.

We're designed to live in the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost can inspire you.

The Holy Ghost can give you an idea.

It's in your spirit, it's not in your brain tissue.

That's why you have to pray.

You have to pray until it releases and comes up into your mind and then you go, wow, let me pray more about that now, see, and then it becomes a concept and finally you act on that idea.

Come on, let's lift our hands right now.

God wants to increase you, he wants to bless you.

14 years of poverty, all those kids running around.

I don't have any kids.

He had, but with 12 kids, I guess, the 12 tribes of Israel, holy mackerel.

And in six years he became rich.

On his way back home, after it was all said and done, he was going back home and he said God, I remember when I crossed this river with nothing but a stick in my hand, a staff in my hand.

I had nothing but a stick, and now I've become two bands.

He had so much.

He split it up between his two wives because he was afraid that Esau was going to kill his family and take everything he had.

Well, by that time Esau had forgot the whole thing and they had a nice reunion later on down the road.

But he was very cautious.

He said you know, I came over this river with nothing but a staff in my hand and behold, you've given me two bands.

I mean he was praising God for how much wealth he had.

How many of you can stand an idea or two?

We ought to have more than we can process.

I'm still working on that one.

I've got a long way to go.

I just confess I've got a long way to go to have more.

I mean I can't even remember ever saying God, I've got too many of those right now.

Would you please hold that one up?

I haven't done that yet.

Are y'all getting anything out of it?

God wants to turn your ideas into increase.

So I mean I, you know, I wrote a book, but I got, I mean, before I wrote the book, I started meditating on all this, started preaching it, because he, you know, told me to preach this, the guts of the gospel.

So I did, and I did some research.

I found out Henry Ford was a tither.

God gave him the idea for a production line and he brought automobiles to the masses.

Not only automobiles but tractors and farm implements, all kind of motorized machinery was because of one man, Henry Ford, who was a tither, and God gave him an idea out of a range for an assembly line to build those things.

You ever seen pictures of that assembly line?

I mean it.

It had to be a terrible job to sit there on a stool and have this buggy come by and all you do is put the wheel on and twist the lug nuts, next wheel lug nuts, next wheel lug nuts for 12 hours.

Well, you know, after a while he discovered that he was losing workers because they would just go crazy doing the same thing all day long.

So they had to rearrange the production line and give workers more of tasks.

You know where they could have a feeling of accomplishment.

I mean, you don't have much of a feeling of you, don't feel like you built a car just because you put the wheel on it.

You know you, you got to feel more involved in the thing.

You don't have any pride of, of what you're working on, and you finally lose heart and even if they're paying you, you decide I can't do this anymore.

I, I, I've got these nut lug lug nuts in my sleep, spinning them on these.

I mean I can't do this anymore.

Can you imagine doing that for 12 hours and doing nothing else?

And so he had to make some adjustments.

But I mean cars.

Back then, instead of a Ford you could buy Model T for what?

$600.

If you went and bought anything else, it's going to be $3,000.

So average people got to have a car it.

It revolutionized the world.

One idea I read where he knew John D Rockefeller and John D Rockefeller, at 57, was very rich, but he had an ulcer and he felt terrible.

He thought he was going to die.

So he started giving his money away.

He said you know, I don't know what, I don't want to die with all this money.

I'm going to start giving away.

And the more he gave, the more money he had.

And I mean he was so rich that the federal government sued him and took away his empire I mean standard oil of New Jersey.

He broke it all up and the trust busters that's what liberals do.

They don't let free enterprise be free enterprise.

They got to get involved and put their finger on anyway.

So it ended his empire, sort of.

But really it didn't.

I mean, the guy was so rich, he was a tither and I read where he had influence over Henry Ford.

These titans of industry almost all of them knew about tithing.

Back then, america still had a Bible.

Even though they weren't maybe living the kind of Christian life you and I are familiar with, they did believe.

They respected the Bible.

They respected the God of the Bible.

I'm not saying they were just in all their things.

They abused their workers.

There was a lot of abuse in those days.

But what I'm saying is one idea can make you rich, and isn't that what we are?

But we're not.

We see the difference between the legal and the vital.

The legal says we're rich.

The vital says we hadn't heard the idea yet.

If you're not looking for the idea, you're not going to hear it.

If you're not believing for the idea, you're not going to recognize it when it comes.

That's the purpose of this message.

I want us to start making some adjustments in our thinking, adjustments in our expectation.

We don't give to get.

Your job is not your source, your salary.

The Ephesians 428 says that you earn money to be able to give to those who don't have.

So you're not earning a living, you're earning a given.

All your income that you get from working or from investments, it's all seed.

You keep a little to eat yourself and then you have a little to give away.

And if you'll follow God's ideas, he'll give you a lot more and a lot more and a lot more.

You'll have more to keep and more to give away, more to keep, more to give away, and then we're going to reap the harvest and get out of here.

There'll cease to be a wasting of God's power.

Amen, glory to God.

Get anything out of this today.

So Genesis, you know, just just read as homework, just read the, his story of Jacob, and you'll get a lot out of it.

And there's so many others I haven't mentioned and things that have happened in my life were a result of that and I didn't recognize it at the time.

So as I began to meditate on these principles and check up on myself and make sure I'm living this way, but expecting ideas, this church is an idea.

It's an idea from heaven Wasn't my idea at all?

I did not plan this.

Brother Osteen thought son, you know, you're just going to, I'm going, my phone is going to ring and somebody's going to be looking for a pastor and I'm going to send you and glad us out.

That was his plan.

But what in God's plan.

I had to hear God's plan.

I kept waiting for that to happen, going broke, waiting in for it to happen.

I mean, it was one of the times I was going broke waiting for that to happen.

It never happened why?

Cause it wasn't God's plan.

You mean you, pastor light?

No, I'm just pastors.

No, it's not his responsibility to hear.

Hear from God for me, it's my responsibility, it's my responsibility.

And so when I got an obedience and agreement with God's plan, well, things changed financially for me.

Amen.

But years ago, during the I'll end with this testimony, we were going through, about to go through, a real tough time here in Houston.

It was mid eighties and we had a depression here.

Oil went through the floor, people were laid off in my subdivision, catalyzed Hills, where I lived right on the corner.

At one point I built that house and moved into it and on that corner, close to the front of the subdivision, there were 18 vans that would stop every day and pick up guys that lived on my street to go to go to downtown.

They had van pools because gasoline had gone up, you know, and all of that, and so economy was starting to get sideways.

Guys were getting laid off and when they laid them off there wasn't any more van pools, all those guys, those middle level managers, got laid off and that was about 80, started real heavy in 83.

And sales of houses started slowing down and brother Osteen called me one day at home.

I was just floored that he would call me at home and he said I, you know, this is your pastor calling.

I said oh, pastor Osteen, I'm so honored you go.

Oh, I just wanted to get to know you a little bit.

I've been seeing all these offerings and back then we would check the box.

Brother Osteen was on the box, general fund missions and something else, building fun four boxes, and brother Osteen and Dodie was one box.

Pastor Osteen was one box.

Well, gladys and I checked his box almost every time.

We we gave all our money to him personally.

We wanted to make sure he was blessed.

My attitude was I want him so rich that he can't think about anything except the word of God all week.

He doesn't even have to think about money, doesn't have to think about where it's coming from.

I want to give him everything I give to God.

I'm going to give it to him.

Oh, every now and then I'd put a little admissions or or building fun.

But but that's what we did.

Now the IRS changed all that.

You can't do that.

So good old IRS.

So he called me and said I just want to, you know, keep checking my box.

I mean, we're blessing us, man, you're blind.

I just want to know that.

I said I appreciate it.

What do you do for a living?

I'm home built.

Oh yeah, I said so.

You've got a lot of customers.

You build houses for us.

Well, no, no, sir, mainly I built spec houses.

I build a house and somebody comes along and buys it.

He said oh, john, be careful, be real careful, don't, don't get out ahead of God now.

Tough times are coming, don't get overextended.

Oh, I thank you, brother, I appreciate it.

Well, I didn't listen to him.

I hung the phone up, you know, and thought well, what does he know about home building?

He's a pastor.

But he knows.

As it turned out, he knew a whole lot.

He knew by the Holy Ghost that things were about to unravel and I didn't say that's an idea.

I said that's an idea, that I didn't.

I didn't understand that was an idea, because home builders have to build.

You have to build.

You can't sit there and wait and have no construction, because no construction means no cash flow.

No cash flow means nobody, no money coming in to pay your bills.

My company pays me a salary.

If there's no money coming in, there's no salary, are you?

Are you getting it?

So I just kind of laughed.

So about a couple of weeks later, maybe a month later, he's up on the platform and he's receiving the offering and he says how many of you would like the bank to call you for a loan instead of the other way around?

You know, and I and I just laughed out loud.

It was kind of funny because I made my living borrowing money.

That was my whole thing was borrowed money.

I didn't have the money to build a house I'm building.

Let's say I'm building $120,000 house.

I can borrow 80%, 96,000 to build $120,000 house.

So what did I do?

I bought, I borrowed 96,000.

And I'd pay the interest, you know, on that 96,000 until somebody came along and bought it and then I'd hopefully have a profit between the cost and the paying the interest on the construction loan and all that and.

But when somebody didn't show up right away, then all the profit would be eaten up in the interest on the construction loan.

Sometimes you'd be upside down.

You'd have cash in the deal and you never would get it out.

You just lose money, which would happen from time to time.

So it you know it's, it's.

It's a risky way to do things, but that's how we did it.

And he said hey, how would you like the bank to call you and borrow money from you instead of the other way around?

I said yeah, and I thought to myself what other idea it turned out, because God is my witness.

About a week later my phone rang and a bank president that I knew I won't call his name, it's just his first name, mike.

Mike called me president of a bank in spring.

I won't say which one.

He said John.

He said, man, I'm thinking about you the other day talking to so and so, and I said he said I've got a problem.

Do you know so and so?

And he named this young man.

I used to buy hardware from him and I knew that he had gone in the home-building business.

He said, well, he was building a custom house out in such and such a sub-vision in West Houston, off a clay road way out of my area.

I'm up in Northwest Harris County, up in spring.

And here's this house, way away from where I live.

He said well, he left town, he couldn't pay the bills, even though it's a sold house.

He just, he just, he's going broke and we haven't taken the house, but we're about to take the house and the people are really upset because the house is.

You know, they really want to finish the house and move in, but he's gone and we'd like to preserve this contract.

It's sold.

If we can just get the house finished, you know we might take a loss, but at least it'll be sold to somebody and they want it.

We want to be able to finish the house.

He said would you be interested in maybe finishing the house for us?

I said well, how far along is this?

80% complete.

I said well, what does that translate to?

I said I know you call it 80%, but as well, it's painted out.

I said oh, it's 50% complete.

Can you say ideas?

I said it's 50%.

I said a monkey can get it to this point.

It doesn't take a builder, it takes a monkey to do this.

All you got to do is make a phone call and get it to the.

This is when the professional takes over.

Right now, when you've got a home buyer that's mad, that's upset and doesn't trust anything that's going on and they're already behind their schedule.

That's when it takes a pro like me to take care of it.

So yeah, you know, let me go look at it.

And how much are you going to charge us?

I said, well, let me, let me go look at it.

I can't just give you a figure.

I want to know what's left to be done.

And it was painted.

But that means it.

You know, carpet, wallpaper, all the final trim, light fixtures, air conditioning unit, yard, on and on and on.

And dealing with the people, because they got to pick out everything and I've got to meet them and go through all of the colors and all of us, you know whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah Don't know what was promised.

You know, most contracts are just not very complete and so I prayed.

God said 8,000.

So I called him back.

I said cost plus 8,000.

Oh, oh well, that's my price.

I mean, you know, I I'm not, I don't have a gun to your head.

Well, you kind of do.

I said no, I don't, I look, my time is.

It's all the way out of my area.

I have to drive all the way over there every day till this thing is closed.

Every day I got to make a trip to West Houston.

It's not in my neighborhood, there's nothing else I can do there because I don't have any construction over there.

I've got to leave my houses that I do have and go look at this one and finish it, and all that.

It's going to be $8,000.

Okay, well, draw me something up and I'll sign it.

We'll get started.

And so we did and got it all finished up and it was.

The people were delighted, they were nice and they moved in.

Everything was fine.

I punched it out, did a pint touch up, like I do for my own house, and just treated them like that was my customer and everything turned out, got my $8,000 for about six weeks work Not too bad.

I've made less than that on a whole house, six months of messing with it and all the risk that goes with it.

Well, thank you Lord.

That was really, and I didn't identify.

Nobody had taught me this about an idea, concept and insight being part of tithing and giving as a benefit that I had a right to.

A few days later, my phone rings another banker friend of Mike's, jack.

Hey, man, I haven't seen you in a long time.

How are you doing?

John had just was talking to Mike the other day.

He told me what you did for their bank.

He said I've got two houses.

You know so and so, yeah, I sure do.

I heard he had trouble.

Yeah, he moved out of town and we've got these two houses and I said are they sold?

He said no, they're not, so they're just specs.

I said okay.

I said same condition, paint it out.

I said, well, do you want them completely finished?

Yeah, we need to go ahead and draw up all the funds.

So I wanted all, all decorated, everything, even the unit set.

I want the unit set blowing cold.

I want everything checked out so that when we do sell them we don't have anything much to do.

I said, well, I'll be available to help you if you sell them after I finish what I'm doing.

If you need somebody to punch them out or, you know, watch over it, just to get them moved in, I'll be able to do that too.

But let me go look at him.

He said their next door to one of us oh good, that's great, and it's over on this side of town and the Holy Ghost put in my heart, you know, 6,000 apiece.

So in a month time I picked up 12 more thousand dollars.

So in, I mean in less than three months, I had $20,000 that banks had borrowed from me, that I collected from them.

Are y'all with me now?

I didn't identify it as an idea and a concept and insight.

Now where, what happened?

What happened?

What happened?

Well, see, because I never heard this and I never knew this, I didn't develop the next stage, which was whittled sticks, or the next stage is to get the stronger cattle and develop the herd.

You see, there's, there's concepts and insights besides the idea.

The idea is nothing but a seed.

The idea is just the beginning.

It's not the ending, it's the idea.

Then you need to develop the next stage of the idea, which is the concept, and then get it into the insight stage.

I didn't do that.

Well, what would that have been?

Well, it would have been hello God, you're doing something.

A pastor told me that things were fixing to be bad, and now you've gotten me with a reputation that banks are calling me to borrow my money and borrow my time and I'm able to charge them whatever I want to.

That's pretty cool.

How can I turn this into a really good business.

Well, I tell you what I can call those two bank presidents and ask them to write me a letter of recommendation I can produce, get a brochure together talking about, you know, my resume and what I've done, some pictures of what I've done and all that, and I can circulate it around all the the lent.

You know this is a small.

The kind of banks that do that type of lending is pretty small.

There's not.

Most banks don't do that kind of lending.

They look at you like you're a Martian If you go in there and try to borrow money for it, build a house.

But the guys that do construction lending as a small group, I could have gone, I could have developed this thing, and then there was a lot more guys that went down the tubes.

I could have propelled myself through the ensuing depression that this city had without any risk, without borrowing money myself.

In fact, they would have been borrowing my money, borrowing my time, and that's what I missed.

So you get the benefit of hearing all this.

It doesn't bother me at all to tell it on myself, but because of that we went through 10 years of financial deprivation.

I mean, we just barely made it for 10 years after that because I built some houses that I went against my pastor's advice and I built some houses and they didn't sell and it and it sunk.

My business and I wasn't alone, I mean I, almost every builder I knew went broke during that time.

Almost every young, small family owned business went broke during that time.

It was bigger.

It was a bigger move than just the building business.

This was a massive sea change in economics and how this country deals with single family homes.

That's what we were.

In the middle of it, my pastor picked up on it and I didn't realize the gift was speaking to me, that I needed to really listen to the spirit of it.

Are y'all getting anything out of this today?

Turning your ideas in and increase.

Come on, lift your hands and receive today.

Glory to God, everybody say this, say father, I've heard the word.

Today, my heart is open to receive.

As a tither, as a generous giver, I have a divine right for you to open up the windows of heaven and pour me out ideas, concepts and insights that will turn into increase.

I speak on the increase over my financial picture in Jesus name, amen, hallelujah.

Come on, let's rejoice today.

Glory to God.

Glory to God, hallelujah.