2023 - The Year Of God's Power 4, Pt 2.

and wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Let's get into the Word tonight, and I won't keep you long long, but I do want to sew up some things.

Let's say this together.

So, heavenly Father, I'm glad to be here tonight in the presence of the Holy Ghost.

The same presence that heals and delivers and meets the need, is enlightening my spirit about the truths that, pastor Sharon, I wish to be, I aim to be in the middle of what you're doing in these last days and I want to be one of the ones that manifest your power in unprecedented ways.

So I positioned myself tonight, willing to make adjustments in my thinking, and I will perfect those things that concern you about me, in Jesus name.

Yeah, sometimes we need, we're the ones that need to change.

You know God never changes.

We're the ones that have to change, right?

So let's look at two places, and I shared these verses.

These are not the cornerstone scriptures I shared on the year of God's power, but they're on the God's power to get wealth.

God gives us power to get wealth.

Deuteronomy 8, 18,.

And then, while you're finding, find 2 Corinthians 8, 9, these two verses, one in the old, one in the new, or our cornerstone scriptures about God's power to get wealth.

Now, deuteronomy literally means the second giving of the law, and so he had taught the law to the first generation.

They heard it, didn't believe it, didn't mix faith with it.

When they came, confronted with their inheritance, they saw the giants, they saw the big cities walled and they said we be not able.

And they angered God because they're unbelief.

And God said I'm going to give it to your children.

You're so afraid of your children being killed and all that.

Well, I'm going to let them possess it.

You're not going to see it.

And that's exactly what happened.

So he's getting the children of these people prepared to go into the promised land and reminding them.

They had to be reminded because their parents kept forgetting Verse 18, but thou shalt remember the Lord, thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant, which he swear unto thy fathers.

As it is this day, all of the subject of prosperity, all the subject of wealth, is in the context of the harvest.

It's not about a get rich quick scheme.

It's not about us, you know, having it easy.

I mean, god's not afraid against us having things easier.

But the main center of our, of our pursuit is to get in the harvest, and the harvest is going to take money.

We're not laboring to be rich, we're laboring to acquire the wealth and labor is not even part of it, it's just receiving the power to get it.

Power to acquire it.

You know you can.

You can work for wealth.

How many of you work for a paycheck?

You work for.

You know you work for a salary.

I mean you exchange with a company.

You work for your time and they give you money for your time.

You get into another echelon, like in the executive rank, and no longer paid by the time.

You're paid by your talent.

Sometimes they give you stock in the company and now you're.

You know you get paid for a different thing.

You get paid for your professional that you bring to the table for that corporation and then when you're a, you're really somebody that's really wealthy.

I mean, I'm talking about the truly wealthy.

They don't go to a job.

They don't have a job.

They don't even have keys to an office.

They have investments that they live off of and they make money 24 seven and they don't have to really work for it at all, they just have to show up at their mailbox.

They have to check their bank account to see which drafts were.

Somebody said, no, I could stay in that.

Well, okay, you can have it.

Nobody's excluded.

Amen, all right.

So the context I mean, you know, we, the prosperity message has always attracted a lot of Boo birds, a lot of religious thinking, and the person that wants to work against your finances the most is the devil.

He'll find you harder of your money than he will even your healing.

Why?

Because your healing is between you and God.

You know you can receive healing.

You don't need a doctor.

It's okay to have a doctor to help you when you need help, but we teach you how to to believe God for your healing, because healing is part of your covenant.

Well, guess what?

So is the power to get wealth.

It's a covenant thing.

He said to the Jews hey, you're in covenant with Almighty God Abraham.

I told Abraham that surely, blessing, I would bless him and multiply and I would multiply him, and in him should all the families of the earth be blessed.

And so there's all the seed of Abraham.

Those people were all the Jews with the seed of Abraham.

Well, guess who's?

Also is the seed of Abraham, all of us who have the faith of Christ, all of us who've been born again and accepted Jesus Christ is Lord.

We are also the seed of Abraham.

But beside that, besides that covenant, then in second Corinthians, eight, verse nine, turn over there and let me give you the new Testament.

And we received communion to seal all this up this morning.

For you know the grace of our Lord, jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sakes he became poor.

Everybody say for my sake.

Why did he do all that?

For my sake, for my benefit, yet for our sakes he became poor.

That we through his poverty, or ye, but we through his poverty, might be rich.

The might is on our side.

Jesus already did it legally.

Now I want to cover a couple of things on the front end of this message tonight.

So I made the case.

I mean wealth means wealth.

It doesn't mean spiritual, it doesn't mean something different than what we understand wealth to be.

It means money, it means substance, it means things.

Abraham was very rich, not just rich, very rich in cattle, silver and gold.

And the Bible days wealth was always agricultural.

That was their wealth.

So he had plenty of it.

He had plenty of herds, he had plenty of cattle, he had silver and gold.

I mean, that's wealth.

That's what it means.

It doesn't mean something else.

I see people all the time trying to spiritualize the scriptures and make it seem like that money's dirty, that money's ugly, that money's dangerous.

Oh Lord, don't give me any more money than I can handle.

I don't want to sin with that.

That's stupid.

Repent, grow up.

Quit confessing weakness over yourself like you're some kind of sinner that you can't stand a little extra money, that all of a sudden you'd go to Vegas and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Well, guess what?

It doesn't stay in Vegas.

Sometimes people bring things home from Vegas, amen.

Well, anyway, what I'm saying is let's have a mature attitude and a Bible attitude about wealth.

The wealth is for the harvest we're going to need.

You know Paul said, you know, by the foolishness of preaching people are saved.

But how can they hear without a preacher and how can they go unless they are sent?

The word sent means paid for conducted.

You know, a preacher can't just go to war at his own expense.

Does any army pay for their own weapons?

How many of them were in the army or the navy or the armed forces?

Did you have to pay for your own weapons.

No, I mean, when you joined up they gave you the uniform and they gave you a weapon.

They gave you ammunition when you needed it.

It kind of doled it out at first.

They didn't give you a lot of it, but just enough to go to the fire and range and qualify right.

What soldier would have to come out of his pocket and find and yet people, just this attitude about money, like preachers ought to just live off of nothing.

That's something wrong with a preacher that's got a house and a car and even an airplane.

An airplane is just a tool of the harvest.

I'd have one if I needed one, but I don't need one right now.

Maybe later I might need one, I don't know.

But if I need one, I know how to get one.

You don't have to pay for it.

I'm not asking Irma to pay.

Irma, would you buy me an airplane?

She probably would.

You know that woman is a generous.

I mean, if I asked her she'd probably figure out a way.

All right, listen to 2 Corinthians 8, 9 in the message.

You're familiar with the generosity of our master, jesus Christ.

Riches he was.

He gave it all away for us.

In one stroke he became poor and we became rich.

Rich means again the same thing.

It means money, affluence, substance, things.

It means real wealth.

It doesn't mean some spiritual thing.

You know, god doesn't have those kinds of things.

In heaven he walks on streets of gold and the father doesn't walk, he's on the throne, but Jesus goes on a sashay around heaven greeting the new people that come in the gates, and all of that.

He's walking on streets of gold.

He's bathing in the river of life.

I mean, it's wild up there.

They don't need money.

They don't need a light, because of glory is the light.

They don't have night or day.

They don't have any tears.

There's no crying sign.

It's not like it is down here.

Down here is where we need the money.

Down here we need money.

So some of these critics of the message and you're gonna find them online, you're gonna find them on television Don't listen to them.

Maybe you were raised with skin flints for parents.

You know my parents went through the great depression.

Most baby boomers parents did.

And that scarred brother Osteen.

I could tell he had this.

He preached prosperity and he lived it.

But you know what?

He never was comfortable.

He never was comfortable.

He never was comfortable.

He would not display.

I remember back in the nineties he had a you ever hear the old word Philadelphia lawyer.

Well, he literally had a Philadelphia lawyer on his board, on his financial board of advisors.

He had a board of advisors and I can't remember the man's name.

I knew him well at the time.

Nice guy, he's a Philadelphia lawyer and I mean, you know, really in the natural, when it comes to just like they're both tighter than Dick's hat band, I mean they just weren't.

Brother Osteen was not comfortable spending a lot of money on things and I remember, you know, it came time his car.

He needed a new car and Mercury was running a special on the Mercury.

It was a Sabre.

Huh, mercury Sabre, that was the ugliest one car I've ever seen.

If you had one, please forgive me, I'm sorry.

I have an opinion about cars.

I happen to like them.

At that Ugliest year they were the crummiest cars.

They were, you know, crummy, cheap plastic inside.

Just, he could afford whatever car he wanted, but he didn't want to drive a big, nice car because he didn't like people seeing him as a pastor.

He got thousands of people, he got a worldwide.

See, they never were comfortable.

I'm comfortable.

Yeah, I'm wearing bright green shoes in honor of the money that I'm.

In fact they're crocodile as a matter of fact.

Gosh, those sure must have been.

Well, I remember a time in those days and I was at Lakewood, that I had one pair of shoes and they had holes in the bottom of them.

So I like lots of shoes.

I tell the devil you'll never, they never make me poor again.

You'll never let.

I'm never letting myself get to that place because he's the one, he's the one.

I'm kind of rambling so I need to get back on track, but I'm saying that Jesus is the example.

Jesus is the one that said he'd make us rich.

It's not my idea.

I could do without it.

If it was just me, I could be satisfied with a middle class or, you know, upper, lower class or whatever class you want, whatever you're comfortable with.

Some people are not comfortable, you know, in certain ways.

But look, it's not about that.

It's about having enough to be a good witness of how good God is.

If people watch your life, are they attracted to Christianity or would they rather stay away?

I think it's affected the witness for the church at large to be so poor.

They can't even.

You know they can't keep up.

2% of Christians tithe.

That's one reason why they're so poor.

They're not operating the financial laws.

It's not true here.

I said it's not true here.

We wouldn't have this building if you weren't tithers and givers.

We wouldn't be supporting missions to the degree that we are if you weren't tithers and givers.

So it's not the giving that's the problem.

The other stuff is this thing in the back of your mind, that I saw brother Osteen, even brother TL Osborne.

I mean TL Osborne bought a 55 Christ for a New Yorker and parked it two blocks from the church because he didn't want anybody to know that he had a brand new Christ or New Yorker.

Back then.

That was a nice car.

And so I saw these men that went through the depression and women.

It scarred them and it was one of those things they had to overcome.

Yes, they believed this that I'm preaching tonight.

They preached it, they lived it to a degree and the churches practiced it, but on a personal basis, they never were comfortable.

Listen, god's not.

It doesn't glorify God just for you to drive a junk car and have to repair it and break down on the side of the road.

It's dangerous to break down on the side of the road.

People get killed, broke down on the side of the road, so you know, it just becomes.

It's not wrong for you to want better than what you have right now.

That's not wrong.

God wants to supply it.

Well, he says he just supply my needs.

Well, he didn't say that in Psalm 23.

Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want, I shall not want.

He will supply the wants.

It's not wrong.

You spend time and remember the cornerstones of this message.

First of all, we don't wanna waste God's power.

We wanna be able to receive God's power and demonstrate it at an unprecedented amount this year.

That's what God's plan is 2023.

The church rise up and demonstrate God's power in an unprecedented manner.

And so we started off.

What do we start off with?

We've gotta have a life of prayer.

We need to have prayer.

So if you pray and you hang out with God, then you know you can and you read your Bible.

It's pretty safe for you to begin to let Him shape what desires you have.

I'll give you an example of this In the 80s, back when my shoes had holes in them, and I'm serving a rich man.

I'm serving Jesus, but I'm serving John Osteen.

I mean I'm serving him, I'm doing whatever I can to help him.

I knew I had a calling on my life and he'd verified it in private and in public a couple of times and but I, financially, I wasn't doing that well, I was just barely making it really.

I mean, you just hand the mouth.

And I had gotten back in the building business after having lost my business in the 85.

And in 88, I was able to get back in the business.

I was building houses in West University Place.

These were the nicest houses I'd ever built, the most expensive I'd ever built, and you know selling houses to big time lawyers and doctors and high end professionals.

That's the only people that could afford my houses.

And one day I was reading my Bible just hanging out with God.

I was reading my Bible and I was reading about how the prophet prophesied over David that you know or David had promised God that he would build him a house.

That's what it was.

He promised God I'm gonna build you a house.

And the prophet God answered the prophet and told him tell David that it's good for him to wanna build me a house.

I like it that he does wanna do that, but he's not gonna be the one.

His son will do it.

He's a man of blood.

He shed too much blood to build me a house.

So I'll have his son build me a house, but tell him I'm really pleased that he wants to build me a house, and because he wanted to build me a house, I'll build him one.

So God just turned it around on David and I'm reading that passage of scripture one day and I took a breath and God spoke to my heart, just real soft.

He said I'm gonna build you a house.

Well, I didn't want a house.

I'd lost five houses.

I say lost.

I built them and I didn't get a profit out of them.

The bank, but it didn't take them.

Lit, you know they didn't.

The bank didn't take them from me, but the tank bank took control of all the money and they sold the houses for a little amount of money and I got nothing for building five houses, zero.

And then, besides that, they came after me for fifty thousand besides.

So the if I and I do, I would I on a principle, I said I'm not paying you the fifty thousand.

I knew it was gonna cost me my assets.

They couldn't take my house, but my house wasn't worth anything anyway.

That's 14% interest back in, though.

You couldn't get anything for a house back then.

So my house was worth nothing but besides the the debt on it, it was no net gain to me.

And they took my cars and I walked on the sidewalk to go find a lease car yummy, let me off on the sidewalk, took everything I had.

So you know I wasn't really interested.

I was in a rent house.

I was happy with the rent house.

I was happy with the rent.

We got it under market.

I didn't.

My faith was not even.

I wouldn't have no desire for a house.

And yet I was building these nice houses and I didn't want them.

I didn't care about one for myself.

But God said I'm gonna build you out.

I Said well, god, what if I don't want one?

He didn't answer me.

You know y'all to want with.

God wants for you.

What was he doing?

He stirred my faith up.

He he could tell that I was had this poverty spirit.

He could tell that I was defeated from all the war that I'd gone through with my finances.

These were Plismic financial times.

I didn't know then what I know now that God will give me adaptability, the power to get wealth.

I talked about that this morning.

The chameleon anybody remember that?

The lizard that changes color in the environment.

They are adaptable.

See, we're adaptable.

We can make money, we can make wealth.

We can make wealth and protect wealth, no matter who's in the White House, no matter who who's in the Congress, it doesn't matter.

Now it matters to us.

Of course it matters, but as far as our finances, we don't have to worry about all that stuff.

Oh, they're going up on taxes.

Well, you know what?

God's got a supply.

So you know, it took about a few years, but but that was 88, I wrote it down.

And, and the next six, eight months ago I finished my first house in West Union.

My brother and his wife came and Gladys and I we took him over to West Union and was showing him.

He used to be my building partner.

We're showing him my first house it had sold.

There's walking him through the house and Sylvia said John, I Believe I heard from God he's gonna build you a house like this, you're gonna have a house kind of like this.

And I just kind of laughed.

I Said, well, oh Okay, I didn't care, I didn't leap on it, I didn't want it, see, didn't want it.

But when we started this church I Was still in that same rent house and the the guy in the, the landlord, didn't pay the maintenance fees and the maintenance fee.

You know they can foreclose on your mortgage if you don't pay the maintenance fee.

The homeowners association can for clothes and it's a great abuse of power.

They need to do something about these main, these homeowners.

They're they're gone nuts, they've gone, they gone haywire and they're crazy.

It's just ridiculous some of the stuff that they pull.

And so here we just started that church.

It's not time for pastor to go and try to buy a house.

Plus, I didn't think I had the credit to buy a house, all of stuff I'd gone through and so.

But I remembered that, that promise.

I said, well, god, it might be time.

Then I guess I mean the constable knocked on my door and and tried to serve me.

Notice a foreclosure?

I said you can't serve me, I don't know in the house I'm a renter.

Well, can you tell me where the landlord is?

I said I can but I won't.

But that was my heads up.

I had that.

We had to.

We had to get out of that house or else they're gonna come and sell it out from under us and then we're gonna have to move, force to move.

Oh y'all, are y'all getting?

This is just taking too long.

I just want to talk about the power to get wealth.

That's all I want to.

I want to show you a few little small things that I've lived through that I was able to get through because the revelation I'm preaching and and I mean it was awkward and we started the house, you know, started the church, and here it is, you know, we.

So we start.

The first thing I did is I went to a mortgage broker and a mortgage broker is one that shops mortgages at different companies and I sat down with him.

I told him all the ugly truth.

I didn't hide anything from him.

I told him about the foreclosures in my business.

I told him about Everything negative.

So I didn't want anything to pop up and I wanted to know what the truth was.

I didn't know if I could even qualify for a mortgage and so I gave him all the information.

We just started the church.

My income was not much.

I mean we, we lived the first year on one salary between all four of us.

I had a salary that brother Osteen approved and and glad it's work for nothing, declare work for nothing, j work for nothing.

And it changed a little bit the second year.

But it wasn't a whole lot of income to show a mortgage company.

And so the broker called me three days later, says mr Griner just wanted to call you.

He said your credit is golden.

And I dropped the phone.

I picked it up.

I said what'd you say?

He said your credit is golden.

I said golden.

You gold, golden, yeah, golden it's, it's flawless.

You can, you can apply.

You can apply for X dollars.

You know which was what?

Lot more than I thought it would be, lot more.

I Was happy.

But then I hadn't been shopping for a house.

I've been out of the loop for a while in this name, in this part, of course, in my neighborhood where I built.

That different story wouldn't have been enough to do anything there, but in out, here, I could.

I was pretty sure I could find a place.

So we got a Christian realtor.

We started looking all around, you know, and we couldn't find anything.

Couldn't find anything Could is that houses would stink if they would.

Just, I saw one house.

It was close to liking it, but everything in it was pink at pink carpet, pink marble in the entry hall, pink, pink, pink.

I'm in God, what are you doing?

So anyway, finally, I stumbled across this house under construction in a neighborhood that I had never walked into, and I said what is this neighborhood?

I've never been here.

And I got out of my car and I walked up the construction and it was just being framed up in the front corner of the slab was about three foot off of the ground and I had to, you know, pull myself up and I, as soon as my foot hit into what I knew was the master closet.

There were two master closets that was on our list, have two closets as Soon as my foot hit in that house, the Holy Ghost went off on me.

I mean, I felt the Holy Ghost so strong, almost fainted, and I knew that was our house and it was a hundred and five thousand dollars more than what we could qualify for and I thought, well, I Don't know, this is gonna be interesting, let's just see what God's gonna do.

And I still.

We started praying.

And we started cuz I had.

I said God, I had the witness and you told me you'd build me a house.

I didn't even have to build this house.

There's a builder building it.

All I get to do is pick everything out, like all the all the homeowners I sold to.

All of a sudden, I'm a homeowner.

God turned it around and now I'm the homeowner.

They gotta, they gotta please me, instead of the other way around.

I'm talking about the power to get wealth.

Was I just burning and turning for a house that I just want one?

So bad?

And yet God gave me something so much better than I even Desire and really, I mean, I didn't think that we could do it.

And so, you know, we met with the builder and I went through the house and we just started picking everything out and wound up being a hundred and five thousand dollars more than our approval From mortgage broker.

I went back and told him I said here's the price.

I said I you think that's gonna be a problem?

He said I don't think with your credit's gonna be a problem.

You got golden credit, should go right on.

Then it did.

It went right on through.

We bought that house, we moved and we've been living, living there for 27 years, praise God.

I needed that house because, you know, the other thing is is that they didn't foreclose and the landlord was such a good, nice guy.

They were a nice couple.

They'd moved here out to West I think they lived in London and they hadn't been back to town and they didn't.

You know, they they really let us live there way below market that we were paying a thousand dollars a Month.

We should have been paying 1500 a month.

They never heard from us.

We never called them for anything.

We fixed everything ourselves.

We fixed the air conditioner when it broke, we fixed the plumbing when it leaked.

When the water heater went out, we replaced the water heater.

I mean, I'm a builder, I know what stuff costs and I'm not about to call this guy.

And it's not about to call this guy and make him spend money.

I know he's losing money, he's not keeping up with his maintenance fee, and so they put it on the market and sold it just like that and got the pressure off of them.

So it turned out to be a blessing for my landlord.

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

Praise God, all right.

So going through this long story, pastor, I don't know I can't relate.

Well, I'm just saying to God can't help me Relate.

Well, I'm just saying to God cares about things that we don't think he cares about.

He cares about your house, he cares about the car you drive, he cares about the everyday life and we get so hung up and Feel guilty.

I think if there's one goal I have for this Sunday is getting people over this idea that they don't deserve something better.

You may have faced a Financial difficulty like I don't know.

I mean I stack up my difficulty against about anybody.

I Went through 10 years of not enough.

I Say not enough, I mean it was enough.

I didn't die, my kids didn't sleep out in the cold, but we did just barely squeak by.

And that wasn't God's plan.

That's not that God didn't author that.

Well, why?

Why did that happen?

Well, there's again.

You know I didn't dispatch my angels to cause the money to come in.

I'm a tither, I'm a giver, but I didn't use my God-given authority like I should.

So I came across brother Hagen, some of his teaching, and we only I think we've only got about three of these out in the lobby.

We can get some more, but I want to give you his testimony of what he learned about prosperity and how to operate, because I think that we all need to learn.

I think most Christians.

I know I'm of that Kind.

I just let it to God.

I said, well, I'm a tither and a giver, I'm believing for a multiplication and that's it.

It's just gonna happen.

Well, it won't just happen.

Why?

Because the devil hates you and he's gonna stop it.

You're gonna have to get actively involved in the results of your given.

Now there's a difference when given to get.

See, if you come down here worshiping God, I don't really like.

I've heard teaching like this.

I don't much like.

Mark in the seat said God, I'm gonna give a thousand dollars today.

I'm believing that that's gonna be enough for me to have my next car.

So I mean, I want to give because I love God.

I want to give not to get.

I want to give to worship him.

I want to give because it's right.

I want to give to glorify him.

But then on the other side, we must believe we receive the benefits of the giving.

When do we do that?

Well, I prefer not to do it when I sow the seed.

I like to separate it.

Let's have the conversation about the receiving side of what I'm needing, the claiming of the benefit at a different time than when I actually sow the seed.

Are y'all getting this.

That's why we have you dance it.

I'm doing this because the Holy Ghost told me they're not giving with joy, they're just throwing the money in the bucket as it comes by.

Have them come up and rejoice and bring the tithe to me.

And since we started doing that, I mean it just really.

I mean things are better in the church and I believe it's better with you too.

All right, so, brother Hagen, he was a pastor for 12 years and he found out during the last year he had a visitation.

He found out that Jesus had never called him to pastor, so he was out of the will of God for 12 years.

He was by pastoring.

He was not in God's will, and the last church he pastored he was in God's will, but previous to that, that's the church where he set the fleece and said God, if they elect me 100%, then I'll believe it's you and I'll go and I'll pastor that church.

And when he went, it wasn't God.

He set the fleece, he put a God.

If you do this, I'll do that.

Well, that's not the way to be led by the Spirit.

You need to be led by the witness.

I preached on that Wednesday night this last week.

Walking in the light, didn't hear the message.

Hear the message.

It relates to this.

A key to receiving the benefits of your giving is to follow the Holy Ghost in all things.

And I didn't do that accurately all the time and when I didn't, it cost me money Anyway.

So Brother Hagen went back to that church in 1949 and pastored it, his last church before he went out on the field.

And so then he's on the field for a little over a year and it's just tough 1950.

And so he spread all of his records out and he said Lord, you know, you said if I'd be willing and obedient you'd make me to eat the good of the land.

He said, you know, it took faith to leave that church.

That church, the last church I had, was the best church.

We had the best parsonage.

They took care of me, they paid me, and I want to see exactly what he said.

He got paid and he went out on revivals in the year.

He left his last church in 1949, went on the field ministry and that first year on the field he had to pay for his own clothes.

The other church would give him clothes.

Now he's on his own, he's got a church supporting him he's supporting entirely on each individual church.

He goes and holds meetings.

Most of the meetings are a month long.

Besides that, he had a parsonage that was paid for and they paid the utilities.

Now he's got to pay rent plus the utilities, plus his clothes If he goes to any kind of a meeting, which he had to go to meetings several times a year.

You know you've got to keep current with your association of other ministers, voice of healing ministries.

He'd go to those and he'd have to pay all of his own hotel and expenses and gasoline there and back, and the church used to pay all that.

So now he's got a huge amount of money.

That's got a gap.

There.

Are y'all with me now?

Yeah, and so he had a car that was just worn out for four ball tires.

He had to sell it for junk.

Now he's walking and he goes to this church and he's he lays all this stuff out in the parsonage bedroom where he's staying while he's preaching in this church.

And so he said I reminded God.

He said you said I'd eat the good of the land, but I've earned $1,200 less than my pastor paid me this past year, $1,200 less and I was on foot, without a car.

And you said right here in your word, if I'd be willing and obedient, lord, I'm willing, I'll be, I'll bade you.

I went out on the field ministry, you know, but I'm not sure, not eating the good of the land.

My children are not adequately clothed, my children are not adequately fed.

Y'all getting this now.

This is brother Hagan, the one who was teaching faith, the one who was laying hands on people and having all kinds of healing miracles.

See, faith can work in healing and not work in finances.

So I know the problem is not with you.

So he wasn't blaming God.

That's good, because you don't ever change.

Where's the problem?

See, he didn't know what the problem is.

See, some of us might have to pray like this If you've got chronic financial problems, you might have to pray like this.

Look what's the problem.

Where am I missing?

Where's missing key?

I had to do that a few years ago and God gave me a few missing keys that I'd missed along the way.

That still small voice of Lord spoke to my spirit, my innermost being.

First of all, that scripture you keep quoting me says if you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.

The reason that you're not eating the good of the land is because you don't qualify.

You are obedient but you're not willing.

Are you willing, will you be made rich?

I asked that question this morning.

I'll ask it again tonight.

Will you be made?

Or in other words, let me rephrase it are you willing to be made rich?

And so, brother Hagin, don't tell me it takes a long time to get willing.

I know better.

I made a little adjustment down on the inside of me and I got willing in 10 seconds.

Now listen, brother Hagin said he came in as a teenage Baptist boy.

He just got healed and he started preaching among the Baptists.

And the Baptists had a saying Lord, you keep them humble and we'll keep them poor.

Talking about the pastor, that was a major custom of the day.

And so then, when he moved out from among the Baptists because they didn't believe in the Baptists and the Holy Ghost and healing, he moved among the Pentecostals and he said they were doubled down on the poor part.

I mean they weren't making sure you were poor, they didn't pay you squat, and so that was kinda where he was.

In other words, in those days, those were depression days.

I mentioned depression.

I mean it scarred everybody I've ever known.

It's something that scars you and then you gotta get over it because we're not listen.

I know things are bad in the natural, but God's not.

He's not on that schedule.

We're in the eternity, we're in the realm of faith, where it doesn't matter what's happening here.

God is not slack, he's not short of anything, especially money, because he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he still does, and he knows where they are.

They hadn't scattered at all.

He's got all the gold and silver he knows.

He said hey, I've got the gold and silver.

It's mine, it's not theirs.

So that's the mindset he had.

So he got willing.

I said now I'm willing, now I'm willing, I know I'm willing, you know I'm willing.

And the devil knows I'm willing.

Talking to God, just like that.

If you can't talk to God, plain, then don't talk to him.

He knows how you talk.

Just talk to him, I'm ready to eat the good of the land.

You told me that being willing is all I lack.

He said I know you are, I know you're willing.

And so the next thing Lord said to me is the trouble is you don't practice what you preach.

I talked about the chastening of the Lord, that's what this is right here.

This is.

Chastening doesn't mean beating with a board.

It means child training and sometimes we're children, sometimes we are immature.

And Brother Hagin I'm so thankful for people like him and Brother Ostan, all the rest of them that I came up under, because they would tell stories on themselves.

They'd give you the nuts and bolts of where they missed it.

The thing about you is the trouble with you is you don't practice what you preach.

Now, that was a low blow.

I grabbed my stomach.

I hurt so much as if it was someone that hit me in the stomach with a fist.

I said, lord, you hit me a low blow.

I do practice what I preach.

What do you mean?

I don't practice what I preach.

Your trouble is you preach faith but you don't practice faith.

I came to my defense.

I said well, lord, you know I do, and all the years since I got my healing, I've never really been sick.

I've always received my healing and my children have always received healing.

Yes, you practice faith when it comes to healing.

Notice what the Holy Ghost is telling you.

Yeah, you practice faith when it comes to healing and that's commendable.

But you use your faith only for healing, salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that's as far as you ever go with your faith, and that's what I wanna correct.

I wanna settle some things in this church For 2023, I want all of us on the same page and I want everybody, nobody left behind.

I want everybody to come up another notch, and I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings and I'm not pointing my finger at anybody, I'm really pointing it to myself.

I wanna improve on practicing the faith for finances, because it takes faith in all realms, but faith is the same in every realm.

This is the Holy Ghost talking In every sphere, in every realm.

Faith works identically in every realm and in every sphere.

Faith for finances works just like faith for healing, the baptism in the Holy Spirit or salvation.

Faith is the same in the financial realm as it is in any of the others.

Now, if it were healing, you need it for your own body.

You would claim it by faith and go out and publicly announce that you were healed.

Claim it by faith.

Now.

I know some of you are still in the realm of needing hands laid on you, but I wanna teach you how to claim your faith.

I think we all can get to that place where we don't have to have somebody else pray for us.

We can claim it.

It's ours and we know it belongs to us.

We know Jesus was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities and by his stripes we were healed.

Himself took our sicknesses and carried our infirmities.

We don't have to carry it and take it.

So when something happens, we claim our healing in Jesus name.

How are you doing?

I'm healed, glory to God.

You may have every symptom you had before, but you say I'm healed, don't you?

That's faith, right.

So he's talking to him about finances.

He said now you've done that sometimes, while you were preaching, any symptoms you had would disappear.

Boy that that happened.

Now, you see, you have to do the same thing when it comes to finances.

And all right, lord, I'll do that.

I saw I wasn't exercising faith in finances at all.

We hadn't known we could exercise our faith for finances.

So you think about what happened all the way back in 1950, and this is 19, I mean 2023,.

There's not a whole lot changed in a lot of the church.

A lot of the church is operating in this old, timey, dusty, musty bunch of junk, bunch of junk.

You could call it traditions, you could call it customs, and some of you were raised in that.

Some of you were raised by parents who had a poverty spirit.

Maybe you were poor, maybe you just didn't have very much growing up, so there wasn't much emphasis on anything and you just kind of made do with what you had.

Well, that's not a virtue, that's not, that's not something to brag about and say, man, I got it, why?

No, I tell you, god wants to give you a lot more.

That doesn't make you a bad person.

It doesn't take away any virtues that they did have.

Maybe they were poor but they were healthy.

Maybe they were poor but they had other wonderful traits about them, full of joy and all of that.

But you know what God wants us to have everything that Jesus bought and paid for and making us rich was a major thing.

He became poor that we might be rich.

Poor I talked about it this morning A cringing beggar.

Let me read the exact word.

I think I had it here Popper A cringing pauper.

That's what poor means A beggar.

Really, that's what we've developed in this nation the richest nation on the face of the earth, the greatest nation that has ever existed, and we have gotten half of the population to believe that they're just so bad off they gotta have government help.

We haven't taught them anything in school.

We haven't taught them anything at all, and we just we continue to rob them of their initiative.

We tell them they're discriminated against.

It's all the debt stacked against you.

You're good, you're good, you're good.

All of this it's all a lie.

Every bit of it is a lie.

There's no more junior Greek, there's no more bondner free, there's no more male or female.

There's just a new creature.

We're new species of being.

What happened to that one?

Well, it got lost, not here though.

All right so.

And so we struggled through.

We barely made it.

So he goes on to say that he goes.

He said now, you know, lord began to teach him about.

While this was true, and of course we know it has to do with Adam Adam was God's man, you know.

Genesis 128 says let us make a man, let us make him just like us, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, all the creeps that creep on the earth.

Let him have dominion.

He, adam, had full power over all the world's wealth and everything in it.

He was the original God of this world.

He had the whole earth.

You talk about abundance for two people, him and Eve.

He had everything in the garden except one thing, the tree, and that's a symbol of the covenant, that's a symbol of tithing.

You honored God by leaving that alone.

You don't eat that tree.

That's just like tithing.

You don't eat the tithe, you don't spend the tithe, you give it back to God.

But we know that he committed high treason.

Eve was tempted, but he followed Eve, knowing full well that it was wrong, and so therefore he gave the devil his power.

God never intended for this earth to be under the heel of the devil, but it is and was until when the last Adam came.

Jesus is the last Adam.

Now he's changed everything, now the earth and everybody else.

He's changed everything.

Now the earth and everybody in it.

Until they're born again, they're still under that darkness.

So much of the world's wealth is under the darkness, even though God owns it all and we should own it.

What have we not done?

We have not possessed our land.

We're just like Israel.

We haven't possessed it by faith Some of you looking at me kind of crooked.

I mean, if it all belongs to us and we don't have it, whose fault is it?

We can't even blame the devil, can we?

He wins by default.

I'm speaking as a guy that has been broke three times in business.

I have men and we've gone through it financially.

But you know, I did learn a few things, thank God, it wasn't God's way of teaching, but he sure not gonna waste it.

He didn't send anybody but he won't waste it.

And I'm saying, you know, we just need to pay attention to the fact that Jesus made us new creatures.

He made us to be in charge.

He made us to have rule over all of these places in the earth that have wealth.

He said you know I made the world and the fullness thereof, yeah, and you know I made my man Adam.

Yeah, you know.

It says in the 50th Psalm I have.

Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on 1,000 hills yeah.

It says in the Old Testament silver and gold are the Lord's Hague.

Yeah, two, eight.

Yeah, I know that it's mine, cause I'm the creator and I made it and I turned it over to my man, adam.

But then Adam, see, gave it off to the devil.

Well, that's not permanent.

We've had a big change.

Jesus came and died on the cross and was made poor.

So we can be what we need.

To believe that as much as we need to believe that we're healed, because without the rich we're not gonna we're not gonna be able to reap the harvest.

I mean it's not gonna come in without money being spent.

I said it's not gonna come in without money being spent.

It's not gonna come in by itself.

The message has got to be transmitted and it costs money.

You've gotta have a preacher.

Online television, all that is overrated.

It's gonna take preachers.

It's really gonna take the church.

It's gonna take individual believers to do their job.

So who do you think I made the cattle of the thousand hills for?

Who do you think I made the world for and the fullness thereof?

Who do you think I made the silver and the gold for?

The devil and his crowd?

This is God talking.

No, this is God talking real, plain brother Hagan in 1950.

He said I never heard anybody preach like this and said he instead he had heard the opposite.

He'd heard that you shouldn't be wanting anything like that.

That's evil.

You shouldn't want anything.

Just live in a dump three room apartment with wife and two kids and you're gone most of the time, don't you have a house?

Don't you have a nice car?

They don't need a car, they can walk In a car you've got.

Well it you know.

He had three notes just to make.

He had to borrow money three places, paying interest on all that when the car broke and sold it for jump.

And that's where he was.

And so the ward said now the world can build a dance hall, a honky tonk, a beard, join a theater, put neon lights all over the front of it and dress it up nicely.

But if you want to dress up the church, people say oh no.

He said I expect my people to have the best place in town to meet in.

Yeah, that's the way God thinks.

He said I'm not withholding adequate food and clothing from your little children.

That's not me, it's the devil, he's the God of this world.

The money you need is down there on earth, it's not up here in heaven.

I'm not going to rain any money down here from heaven, because I don't have any American dollars up here and if I did, it'd be counterfeit.

I'm not a counterfeiter.

You see, the silver and gold are down there on earth where you needed.

I said.

Luke said 638,.

It shall be given unto you good measure.

Press down, shaking together, running over.

Shall men give unto your bosom Down there, down there.

This is God talking to Brother Hagin Down there.

Quit praying for me to do something.

It's everything you needed down there.

And what should I do In the first place?

And this will help you.

This Holy Ghost tells me to do it.

This is boy.

You talk about a prayer meeting.

I've had some of these where God just talks to you.

Maybe you've never had something like that.

Well, if you get a prayer life, I guarantee you you start talking to God about some things that you're facing.

He will talk back If that's what you need verbiage, he said in the first place, and this will help you.

Don't pray about money anymore.

That is the way you've been praying.

Claim whatever you need.

See, we don't have to beg God for money.

We got taxes coming up in April and some of you already know that you're going to owe.

I hear people say, oh, I don't like to owe taxes, I like to get money back.

Well, I don't.

I don't like the government using my money that's my money and they're not giving me anything for the use of it and I don't like them having it.

I don't like what they do with it.

I don't approve of how they spend it and I don't want to give them any more of it than I have to.

And even if I have to pay a little penalty for the privilege of owing them, which I might I don't know if I'm going to have to do that this year I might I don't care about that I just don't want them using my money until it's absolutely necessary.

You know what I do.

I say God, I've got a $5,000 tax bill.

Father, I just claim that money and it'll be in my hands by April the 15th.

In the name of Jesus, I call it in Devil, take your hands off my $5,000.

I need to pay the taxes.

Get your hands off of it Now.

I lose it.

To come angels, ministering spirits, go and cause the men to give them to my bosom, because I've given.

And those men are out there to give back, and I don't have to know who they are.

I never know who they are and where they are, but they, you know, they start giving, don't they?

They will.

So he'd never heard of this before.

And so, and then, god, this thing about need versus wants.

And Psalm 23,.

It says you know, lord, my shepherd shall not want.

So the Lord gave him that.

So it's not about needs, it's about wants too.

I mean, you hang out with God, he will start.

You delight yourself in the Lord, he will create the desires that he wants you to have in your heart.

I didn't really start off wanting a house, but I've wound up wanting that house and believing for that house to get built and furnished, and by the time Gladys and I moved in it, everything that I had thought about.

I started thinking about all the things that I wanted.

And the other thing that I'd always wanted is I wanted some silk oriental rugs.

Pastor, that's just.

I don't care whether you like it or not.

I didn't ask you and we got them.

We had wood floors everywhere.

Like I used to build in West, I had wood floors everywhere.

I mean no carpet in the downstairs.

Well, we had some carpet in the master bedroom.

We replaced that recently.

But, man, we had those oriental silk rugs and you lay on them and they feel so good.

You walk on them barefoot and they feel so good.

They're so beautiful, hand knotted.

Somebody sat down and you know, maybe a hundred years ago and made them, or 50 years ago and none of them knew they're antiques.

Why would you want?

I don't know why I did.

God put it in my heart as I was just praying about the house, thanking Him for it.

I saw Him and I thought you know, I kind of like the honey.

What do you think?

You and we love them.

I know y'all are looking at me crazy.

We got to get past this, barely get along.

Chinchy, what do you do with a chinch bug?

You kill it, right?

It says in the third.

Here's to God talking.

It says in the 34 Psalm the young lions do like and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.

They shall not want.

They need good thing.

He supplies it once, or in a rug.

You may not.

That leaves me cold.

I don't care.

Well, that's okay.

You don't have to have one.

I don't care.

Give me your share.

I don't.

You got any coming?

Let me know.

Some of them need to be changed out.

We had grandkids.

They don't care if they're expensive silk rugs, you know?

Did you ever read the book of Hebrews that it where it said, the angels are minister.

Spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.

Hebrews 1, 14,.

I answered Lord, I thought that said two minutes to minister to, and he said no, it's for minister for not to.

And so he tells him to dispatch his angels, and so, anyway, so he gets back to this.

He instructed all these things that I talked about this morning.

So he said all this in the bedroom of the parsonage where he was praying, of the church he was speaking in.

So he went across the way and went in the sanctuary and claimed what he needed, and he needed 150 a week in those years.

And he just said it from the pulpit in the.

Nobody heard him.

And he did exactly that.

He claimed that $150 for the next week.

Satan, get your hands off my money, gold ministering spirits and cause the money to come.

And so then that's all there is.

You don't keep saying it, you just say thank you for it.

I think it's done.

Glory to God.

And every time you think about it, you just thank God for the money coming.

And so there's your faith working right.

That's exactly how it works in healing.

It's how it works in anything else.

You just thank him when, what things, wherever you desire, when you pray, believe you receive them and you shall have them.

$150 that week, cause I figured up my budget for necessities to keep my family at home and me on the road.

150 weeks, what he had to have.

That barely got us by.

By the way, I had included one extra thing in that, some not so much as a soft drink or a stick of chewing gum for myself.

I don't think he got an award for that, but that's how he was.

That's where his faith was.

He didn't have, he was stretching his faith as far as he could.

For to believe for 150 a week, that's 600 a month back in 1950.

You know what?

That's a pretty good income, actually.

That's a pretty good income for that year.

I wasn't scraping the bottom of the barrel, I was under the barrel and it was on top of my head.

Did you ever notice that you have more problems in the area of finances than any other house?

Because the devil will fight you more on finances than anything else.

So the church I was holding the meeting was down in the oil fields of East Texas and the oil fields that already depleted, by the way, at that time.

I'd preached there 13 months earlier and while I was still a pastor in my last church they paid me $114 for two weeks and he's believing for 150 for one month.

Doesn't look like it's possible, and so he told the preacher.

I suggested the pastor that I was believing, for 100 a week.

He would say I take God to do that.

And I suggested, and if I suggested I was believing for 150 a week, he'd say God himself couldn't do that.

Thank you for agreement.

Besides that, the pastor had pleaded with the people for 45 minutes.

Who will give 10?

He said I'm going to give you a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

Those ladies walked with him for 50 a month.

He said we need your blessings that 50 to $ viele and equity no-transcript had to take pledges to pay the preacher.

That's there, who'll promise me that you'll bring it in as soon as you get paid next week.

And so that night, brother pastor, don't make any pull for money for me, just pass the plate, say this is brother Hagin's offering, that's it.

Don't say a word.

Don't say anything, don't encourage him to give, don't just say here's brother Hagin's offering, here's the I'm passing the plate, just do that.

And he said he protested.

He said well, brother Hagin's our custom to take up a pledge offering.

Say custom, it's our custom.

Full gospel churches don't change their customs.

They would rather give up Jesus and change their customs.

Well, I said don't take up a pledge offering, just pass the plate.

But, brother Hagin, you won't get anything.

You won't get a quarter.

He said if I just get a quarter, you'll never hear the gripe out of me.

If I don't get but a quarter, I won't say a word.

I'll know then that I missed it.

Just pass the plate, Just do what I tell you to do.

And I got this revelation about the middle of the week.

Say it's Wednesday.

He got the revelation.

He did that in that sanctuary, told the pastor Thursday.

On Friday, the pastor asked me to stay longer because the meeting was going so well.

I could only stay through the next Wednesday because I had to go to another meeting in Alabama.

I went back to the Lord and I changed my request from 150 to 200.

Do you think that Jesus fell off the throne?

Oh, you messed up now, I'm sorry, paul's there just a moment and when we were applying for the loan for this building, we had estimated the price, the cost of the building, that we needed a $2.7 million loan, which was 0.7, 700,000 more than we had been previously, when we owned the property down the street.

We had been approved for a $2 million loan, so we were asking for 2.7 now that we had this property in this building, this first phase, and it was had met at loan committee and the guy called me oh man, they approved your loan, we're working on it.

And right after that I realized that I had forgotten some major things that I had forgotten in the 2.7.

Actually, we needed 3.4 million, an extra $700,000.

Man, I didn't want to make that call, but I called him.

I said well, you're not gonna believe this, but I don't know if it's gonna mess the deal up or not.

But 2.7 thought it up, we can't build it for that.

I forgot this, this and this.

It's gonna be 3.4, we need 3.4.

That's all there is.

He said yeah, I know, I think we'll be okay, let me just have another meeting with a loan committee.

And sure enough they passed it.

Anyway, getting back to this.

You know God, if we make a mistake, god's there to help us.

So he went back, says okay, 300, I need, excuse me, 200.

So when Wednesday night came, the pastor handed me $240.

And 15 cents.

That beats anything I've ever seen.

I don't know where in the world the money came from.

I replied I understand it thoroughly.

They've been holding out on you, pastor.

I tested this revelation again at my next meeting, claiming 150 a week.

I counted 45 people in the morning worship service.

I know it's 1950, and I know things were cheaper back then, but just listen 45 people in the morning service, including the pastor, his family and myself.

And the end of three weeks I was given $750 plus a new set of tires for the used car I just bought.

Come on, come on.

Can angels get that money in for you?

Can your faith draw to you the wealth that you need?

It took all the faith I had back in 1950 to believe for that $150.

So you can't start off if you've never believed for a million.

You can whistle all the day long and believe for a million, but you can't really believe for it.

You have to start where you are.

You have to start within your faith.

But after feeding my faith on the Word of God and exercising it for the past 30 years, I can now believe God is easily for a million, as I could then for $150.

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

So my intention here, I mean, I know I kind of wandered all over the map, but I wanted to give you that testimony.

I gave one of my many testimonies on finances, but it's all governed by your prayer life and it's all governed by your faith being released through words.

And I know your tithers and givers, and so is the seed.

We're gonna receive the offering here in a minute.

James is gonna come up.

You can kind of get ready, james, but I'm not receiving the offering.

I'm not preaching this to receive this offering tonight.

I'm just saying, besides doing that, that's what.

I was always a tither and a giver, and yet I went broke three times.

So why?

Well, you know, one of the reasons was I didn't listen to the Holy Ghost and he didn't govern my decisions.

Let's, lord, build the house of labor and vain and build it.

And that's true of anything you do.

You've got to know that it's God is in it, with you, and then you've got to.

You know, stand on your rights.

You've got to know.

You can't be any doubt in your mind about whether God wants you to have what you want.

What's wrong with wanting something better to live in, drive in where you're going to live?

You're going to live in, drive in where there's nothing wrong with it.

What's wrong is if you presume to get it and get yourself overloaded with debt to get it.

Now, that's wrong.

That's obviously wrong.

But what if you just believe God and let him supply it for you, and then you're content once you've claimed it?

The Bible says well, brother, pastor.

It says to be content with such things as you have.

That doesn't mean that you have to live in a status quo, doesn't mean you have to be frozen in your present situation forever.

You can have something better, you can have something nicer, you can have something bigger, and so you claim it.

And then the fact is he's multiplying the seed that you sow all the time.

You've got so much available to you that you're going to have to let your faith get to the place where you can withdraw it.

You know, paul said no one has opened up an account concerning giving and receiving, but this church only talking about the Philippian church.

No one has opened an account with me concerning giving and receiving.

So when you give, it's like an account that you put money into, but God multiplies the seed you sow.

My guess is there's not a single person in here that could claim something that they wouldn't have coming.

Obviously, if you don't give anything and don't tithe, then you really don't have anything coming.

So then it's going to be kind of hard.

But on the flip side, just because you give, it's not going to come chasing you down either.

You're going to have to use your faith and you've got to tell the devil to get his hands off of your money.

It's your money, I said it's your money.

Everybody say it's my money and I'm going to receive it.

Did you get anything out of this tonight?

Well, praise God, just rejoice a little bit.