Tithing and the Flow of Ideas | Rise Up and Reap 3 | Pastor John Greiner

Make Jesus glad the devil may have said this together.

Say, Heavenly Father, I am so glad to be here.

In the midst of people of like precious faith, there's an atmosphere of miracles in the building.

Ideas and concepts are raining down out of heaven.

Lord, I thank you that I've come into the sanctuary of God.

And now I understand because of the anointing of God and the word of God in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Praise God.

You can be seated.

And let's turn in our Bibles to the book of Malachi and also 2 Corinthians 8, Malachi chapter 3.

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

The last book in the Old Testament, the last prophet before John the Baptist.

And he had some very important things to say to Israel and to us.

Malachi 3, 7.

Even from the days of your fathers, you're gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them.

Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts.

But you say, Wherein shall we return?

And then he asks another question.

Well, will a man rob God?

Rob means defraud.

It means, you know, to uh embezzle.

I mean, how ridiculous.

Do you think you can get away with embezzling God?

Uh will a man rob God?

Yet you've robbed me, you've embezzled me, you've defrauded me.

But you say, wherein have we defrauded you?

Where did that, how does that work?

In tithes and offerings.

You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me even this whole nation.

Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up, open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that shall not be room enough to receive it.

And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.

He shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before its time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.

And all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 9, and I want to get it in the Passion Translation, if you can also, but I'll read it in the King James.

2 Corinthians 8:9

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes or your sakes, he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might be rich.

And uh the Passion translation, if you can, uh 2 Corinthians 8, 9.

We got it up there.

For you have experienced the extravagant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was infinitely rich, he impoverished himself for our sake, so that by his poverty we could become rich beyond measure.

And the King James says that we might become rich.

Might means it's on our side.

It's something that's already provided for, and it's dependent entirely on our revelation of the Word of God and our believing it and putting it to work.

And so I wanted to uh today continue on a message, and this will be the last one, uh, based on my book, Rise Up and Reap.

Rise Up and Reap.

And last Sunday I preached the first part of it, teaching excerpts from this book, and it's based on an interview that I did with Orl Roberts in 2005.

And uh, based on my interview, I mean, I was stirred by the Holy Ghost when I heard about in 2004 that he had had a visitation and that God had given him a corrective word for the church.

And he said, the church isn't ready for the second coming of my son, and gave him a whole message, a corrective word.

I mean, that's a corrective word.

You know, my church isn't ready.

If anybody ought to be ready, it ought to be the church.

I mean, the church is the body of Christ.

I mean, the head is ready and the body's not ready.

And so that, and what I knew about Oral Roberts was that was a very unusual thing for him to have a corrective word.

He was always a positive preacher.

God is gonna do something good for you today, you know.

God's a good God.

I mean, that was his message for 40 years.

Uh, I don't know how many thousands of people were healed under his ministry, many multiplied thousands saved in his ministry.

I mean, he was a positive, he was a uh, and he was not known as a prophet that would bring correction, but he that was a corrected word, I mean.

And so I knew it it it confirmed my visitation that I had in 99, 1999, when God told me and tasked me with waking up the church.

He said, I want you to wake up the church.

They're asleep.

So uh, and then when I went to interview him, you know, he he had some other things to say uh about the uh about the subject of of finances.

I I just uh I encourage you to get the media for these three messages.

I preached on this Sunday morning, last Sunday morning, then Sunday night, I preached on uh this message again and the part about directional favor.

God has favor for you.

There's three things God does for tithers.

He gives them ideas and concepts and insights.

And so many that you can't hardly contain them.

Well, you what's blessed?

Doesn't he just bless you?

Well, that the blessing, the word blessing, baraka and malachi means a source of blessing.

So he will rain down from heaven for the tither and the giver the sources of blessing in your life.

And he will give you favor in the direction of those sources.

Are you getting this?

I mean, God doesn't just expect you to give the tithe and offerings and not give you something by, he gives you a reason.

He gives you, it's his secret.

And really, it's the secret of the transfer of wealth for this coming time.

We're gonna have to have a huge influx of money to fund this end-time harvest.

God put in Brother Roberts uh the immediacy, the urgency.

Listen, get the church ready.

There's gonna be a great harvest of souls like no one has ever seen in the history of the planet, and the church isn't ready.

Get them ready.

So I was glad to go out there and and and interview him.

And uh, but then uh we and I mentioned this last week, we've got to assume a uh a spirit of urgency.

You know, uh what do I mean?

I well, if you're a farmer and you got a thousand acres of wheat out there that you planted, and you've been doing other things, you've been taking care of your animals, you've been taking care of the tractor, you've been taking care of the house, and you've been, you know, just doing what farmers do.

I mean, they're busy all the time, you know.

But but as far as the field is concerned, well, it's just growing.

I mean, he's got patience that that at some point that that it's gonna mature, you know.

And there's really no sense of urgency about that because he's got time.

He's got seed time.

It's growing, there's nothing to do except watch it grow.

And then one day he goes out there and says, Oh my goodness, it's ready.

Look at that.

Mildred, go get the combine.

It's time to harvest.

We ain't got no combine, Bread.

What do you mean we don't got no combine?

Well, you got a spare million dollars, what one costs nowadays, million dollars for a combine.

400,000 for one that's stripped down that only does wheat.

If you pay a million, that combine will do wheat, corn, rice, barley, I mean, sorghum, it'll do, you know, sunflowers, canola.

I mean, it's amazing what a combine will do, but it's only in use 10 to 20 percent of the year.

The other 80 to 90 percent of the year, that expensive piece of equipment is sitting in the barn.

It's sitting in storage, and it's you've got all that money tied up in a piece of equipment.

But you know what?

When it's harvest time, nothing else will do.

You better have a sense of urgency about the harvest, or you're gonna have a wasted crop.

Who's the combine?

We are.

We better get ready to start going through the fields.

Are y'all with me now?

And it's gonna take mucha money.

So everybody says a sense of urgency.

I mean, Jesus said the same thing in Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

The kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed in the ground and sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring up, he knoweth not how.

First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn and the ear.

And when the harvest is come, immediately he putth in the sickle.

You know, he don't, the harvest is come and he, you know, you know, and he waits another six months.

No, immediately, everybody say immediately.

See, that that conveys a spirit, a sense of urgency that has to come.

And we need to have that right now.

I believe we're sitting right on the precipice of the greatest age.

Donald Trump is talking about the age of the golden age.

I really believe he's he's right.

I really believe it has to happen for God's harvest to come in.

Has to.

It has to.

And so uh we have to position ourselves.

So then uh after this major uh uh thing about the wake-up call, that's what he called it.

I heard it on television, and I wasn't satisfied with the interview, so I went and interviewed him myself for an hour and a half.

And uh we filmed it, we have it on a DVD and a video, and I think eventually we'll have it on a thumb drive.

I'm not sure where that is on that process, but many of you have that.

It's hard anymore if you don't have a DVD.

DVDs have gone out.

See, players wear out, and it's like CD players, you know.

I mean, we have to keep up with technology.

And I've got a plan to get that out on television.

It needs to be on TV.

This revelation right here, I haven't heard any place.

We've had the best.

Brother Osteen preached 30 some odd, 32 straight messages on get on tithing and giving, and this wasn't part of it.

And he he knows a little bit about it.

See, I believe this revelation came right on time.

It came to the generation where we are gonna be able to reap the benefit in full of this.

You know, if the generation before us did that, they might have gotten so rich, it wasn't ready for the harvest, but they had this transfer and they might have wasted all of it.

Now, God knows what he's doing all the time.

So, uh, so subsequent to uh the wake-up call where God dealt with him in such a fantastic place and way, uh, I asked him four questions about that.

The last question I asked him, I said, since you see such a huge influx of souls into the kingdom of God, do you therefore see a transfer of wealth into the hands of the righteous, out of the hands of the unrighteous?

Do you see a transfer of wealth into the church to fund the harvest?

It's gonna take money to fund the harvest, to send the laborers, to pay for their.

I mean, if you don't have that built up and the harvest comes and you've got people that are willing to go out there, but they have no way to make a living.

They have no way to support their family, they have no way to pay the bills, and what do you expect them to starve while they're out on the mission field?

Are you willing to go on the mission field?

I mean, the easy part is to make the money and send somebody.

But we're gonna all have to do all of it.

We're gonna have to send them and we're gonna have to go ourselves.

Amen.

So I when he said, I'm glad you asked that question.

And God told him, he said, My church is out of position in two ways.

Number one, they have crushing debt, and he mentioned credit card debt.

I would add to that in this day, 20 uh you know, 21 years later, almost 22 years now, later, that we have all kinds of debt.

We have student loan debt, mortgage.

If you've got a recent mortgage on your home, you're paying like almost six percent.

When I I refinanced my house five years ago, two and three quarter percent.

I mean, I I I have had a seven, I mean a fourteen and three-quarter percent mortgage in my lifetime.

You want you you want to try making a mortgage payment that's 14 and 3 quarter percent?

That's what happened with Jimmy Cotta Jimmy Kata, one of the worst presidents besides uh Obama.

He wouldn't, he wasn't a bad man like Obama.

You know, but let's let's face it, Obama's an evil person.

Those two people are just plain evil.

There's nothing else to say, the spirit of antichrist all over them.

And that wasn't true of Jimmy.

Jimmy was just dumb.

Not the brightest light in a tree.

So, anyway, uh, bless his heart.

He's in heaven now.

Um so he said there's there's the church is out of position.

There he, you know, he had said already the church not ready for the second coming.

There's a wasting of power in the church, and now he says the church is out of position.

Why?

Because they have crushing debt.

They're not able to hardly pay their bills.

They've got so student loan debt is huge.

And and you you take somebody that got decides to go to college or university and they graduate with an art history degree, they can't even get a job to pay the$200,000 student loan debt.

And if you go to medical school, you could have$750 to a thousand a million dollars in student loan debt, and you're gonna you think your doctors are rich, they're not rich anymore because they work for major corporations now.

They get paid a salary.

I mean, it's our our health care system has been ruined by Obama.

Ruined.

What were they ruining it for?

So that we'd get sick of it, so we'd let them take over the health care and have single payer, you know, Medicare and all that, single payer health care.

It doesn't work.

I mean, Canada's got it, it's a total failure.

Britain's got it, it's a total failure.

People die.

They have they have ways to kill yourself.

They assist suicide because you get so sick you can't go to the doctor, so what do you do?

You kill yourself, and he'll we'll help you.

Here's some drugs, you kill yourself.

I mean, is that what we want in America?

Well, I'm getting off subject, but there's a reason why we're out of out of position.

We have crushing debt.

Some of it's our fault, some of it's not.

Some of it's been just because we've elected the wrong people to office.

We've got we've got criminals in office.

They've ripped off the taxpayer.

And uh and so some of it's our fault, some of it's not.

And then not tithing.

Once you get in pressure and you've got to pay all these bills, and you've got to pay all that interest rate, and you know, if you've if you've made some decisions on your lifestyle and you put it on a credit card and you really couldn't afford that decision that you made, but it was so easy.

It's so easy to borrow, and it's so hard to pay it back.

I'm speaking from experience.

It's real easy to borrow money.

Even when you're broke, you can borrow money.

When you've got a lousy credit rating, you can borrow money.

But you just pay a lot more interest.

And so, people don't tithe.

And God told Brother Roberts, he said, My people are cheating themselves, they're embezzling themselves, they're defrauding themselves.

That, yeah, you know, they're cheating God, but they're by cheating God, they're cheating themselves.

Why?

Because they block God from giving you the ideas to the sources of blessing that you could have.

And so you're caught in this downward spiral.

Ain't no way out except tithing and giving.

And many people just dismiss it.

You know, I've had people get so blessed, you know, and they're doing just really well and so forth, and they've got, you know, a CPA that has to do their taxes now because their income, they've got a lot of complex income.

They're not just, you know, getting a salary every month, they're getting different uh distributions, and they've got some passing income, and it's complicated anymore.

You can't hardly do your own taxes anymore.

So they have a tax expert doing their deal.

And I've had I've had this happen numbers of times.

Where the CPA'd say, oh, you're giving way too much.

This is way above what it should be.

See, they've got their little calculators, they've got their little thing, you know, and it's all based on curse.

Just when you've got a CPA like that, you need to have you need to fire him and get you somebody that believes the Bible.

And then they quit tithing, and next thing you know, everything falls apart.

Why?

Because God's mad at them?

No, they violated God's word, they got into disobedience and they started walking in the curse.

They chose it.

They listened to bad advice and chose the curse when God's provided what?

Blessings so many that you can't count.

Come on now, lift your hands right now.

That's what's been provided for.

Hallelujah.

So, so you proved God.

He said, prove me now, here with your tithes and offerings, if I will not open up the windows of heaven.

Well, windows of heaven is Old Testament.

That's what they had to have in the Old Testament.

Why?

Because they didn't have the Holy Ghost living on the inside of them.

We do.

We have the Holy Ghost living on the inside.

We don't have to wait for God to open those windows up there.

No, we've got right here.

We've got all the ideas we could ever need right in here, right on the inside, already available.

There ain't no windows that need to be happening.

There's no windows that need to open here or right here.

They're already right here.

You don't have to wait.

You don't have to be right in the no, just get it, obey God's word and then look to your spirit for the ideas because they're coming.

I'm telling you right now, they're coming.

He said, I'll pour out ideas, concepts, and insights.

And of course, I told you last week I had questioned God.

I said, Well, that's not in the Bible.

It says blessing.

Well, everything you need is on the earth.

And then he said, What about Jacob?

And so I preached to you about Jacob.

Jacob had one idea about uh uh speckled and spotted, ring-straked and brown cattle that he'd go through the flock and get that for his own after 14 years of being broke and not having anything of his own.

Everything is Laban's.

He's just an employee that just barely getting along with two daughters.

I mean, he's working for a skin flint.

And he does all the work and gets none of the benefit.

And he made Laban rich by his methods.

He was a sharp cookie.

Why?

Because he had already committed to being a tither.

He was a tither even though his tithe was what?

Zero.

But he was a tither.

Why?

Because he committed himself to it.

And so that tither got an idea after 14 years.

Take, he's you're I'm gonna go, I'm leaving.

I can't stand this.

I gotta go make a living.

I'll see you later.

No, no, don't leave.

What shall I pay you?

What shall I pay you?

You're not gonna pay me anything.

I'm gonna go through your herds and I'm gonna take all the undesirable cattle and I'm gonna move them down the road three days' journey.

I'm gonna raise them for mine, that's mine, and then I'll raise yours too.

Where did that idea come from?

It came in a dream.

And that was that idea, and then when he had insights about the mating of the cattle and all that, and multiplication, the strength of the cattle, all of those things we talked about last week.

And what did it result?

It resulted in him in six years' time he was richer than Laban.

He was a rich man.

He had camels and he had uh donkeys and he had oxen and he had and he had all those cattle that that which is money, and he and he had servants, and he had all of his kids and his wife and his two wives and concubines and all.

He had a massive nut to crack, if I can say it that way.

I mean, he's got a lot of people depending on his wealth to pay them, and he was paying them, and he was doing very well for himself with one idea from God.

Are y'all getting this now?

And so I went back and studied it, and and this is all in my book.

So, you know, I just recently pulled that book out and and started reading it, and I realized what a great book it was.

I realized that I hadn't been preaching this enough.

I've got a whole bunch of people that have forgotten.

I preached it a long time, but brother Brother Robert says, John, you need to preach this on a regular basis.

Preach it all the time.

This is the guts of the God.

And I realized I just really hadn't fallen through with that.

I mean, I kind of am guilty of assuming that everybody knows what I know.

Well, they don't know what I know.

And you need to hear it over and over in order to get it down in your spirit.

So uh the difference in this in this life was ideas, concepts, and insights.

And why?

Because he was a tither.

And then God did protect his assets.

You know, his assets is anything he holds valuable.

I mean, his cattle didn't die, his cattle didn't uh didn't get disease, his his kids didn't die, his wife, you know, they were fruitful, had children.

I mean, God protected his ass, and then he gave him favor.

Where was the favor?

He got favor to go back home, and so he went back home.

And him and Esau had a peace treaty.

And so now today let's look at uh Matthew 11.

And I want to switch gears on you a little bit.

Come at it from a little different standpoint.

I'm gonna sign some more copies of my book for those of you that haven't gotten it yet.

And if you have one, uh read it.

And if you don't have one, or you can't find the one you had, well, buy another one.

I mean, it's ten dollars.

Why don't you give them away?

Because you need to have some skin in the game.

I don't believe why should I give that away?

That is a that that revelation is worth a lot more than$10, I'll be honest with you.

But I do want you to get it in your hands.

All right, so Matthew 11, uh verse 11.

Uh Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.

See, think about that.

Of all the people born on the earth, Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest.

Now, you know, that encompasses a lot of territory.

How about Moses?

How about Abraham?

How about you know Isaiah?

You know, how about Jeremiah?

How about uh, you know, all these different people you can name all the Hall of Fame of faith.

And Jesus said, John the Baptist is the greatest one that's ever been born.

Now that makes you kind of go, what?

You know, we don't always think the way God thinks.

We don't value like God values.

He said, There's no one greater.

Nevertheless, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

That even blows your mind even more.

He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him.

Why?

Because he didn't have the Holy Ghost living on the inside.

We do.

That's the difference maker, folks.

We have not really valued what we have living on the inside.

The faith in the indwelling presence of the Holy Ghost.

I mean, you need to remember the greater one lives in you.

The greater one, the one that knows everything there is to know about everything lives in you.

I don't think we really understand that.

I mean, you know, we call on him when we're in trouble, but I mean, generally we just kind of let him hitchhike.

No, we're gonna have to get into a place right now where we're very conscious of his presence on the inside.

So, nevertheless, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Let me have that in the amplified, please, that last one there.

In the amplified, I want you to see this.

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the present time, the kingdom of heaven has endured violent assault, and violent men seize it by force as a precious prize.

A share in the heavenly kingdom is sought for with most ardent zeal and intense exertion.

It's sought for with most ardent zeal and intense exertion.

And see, that's what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about this spirit of urgency.

And I've got a question.

How desperate are you to see the precious fruit of the earth be harvested?

That's what it's called in James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

Hold your place there, go to James 5.

Let me show you how God's thinking about this time that we're in.

You know, if if the church isn't ready and the Lord is coming, well, before the Lord comes, guess what?

There's going to be a harvest.

I mean, why would he come and not have a harvest?

The whole point of the harvest is so he can come and take it and put it in the barn.

Take it with him to heaven and preserve it.

I mean, that's the whole point of the harvest.

So James chapter 5 says, verse 7, be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.

James 5 · chapter mention

And we've been patient.

Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and he hath long patience for it until he received the early and the latter rain.

So he's talking about patience there.

But underneath that patience, he says, the precious fruit of the earth.

He calls this harvest that we're talking about.

The greatest harvest known to man is precious to God.

It's precious.

It's valuable to him.

Is it valuable to you?

Then, if it's valuable to you, then we've got to shift gears from patience into urgency.

I mean, because it's too, we can we could be so patient that we miss the whole thing.

We could just put off what I'm talking about today.

We could put off of this violent faith.

How violent is your faith?

How desperate are you to see the precious fruit of the earth come in?

And what part are you going to play in it?

And what are you going to receive to fund it?

See, that's my question to you, and I can't answer that.

You have to answer that.

How violent is your faith?

I mean, it's not talking about the devil's violence.

He's talking about Christians being violent.

I call it desperate.

I mean, your desire for this is cranked all the way to maximum on self-clean.

Your heat is equal to the Father.

The Father says, precious fruit of the earth.

Precious.

And God is running out of patience.

That's why He's warned us over and over.

He warned us over and over that He's coming soon.

I mean, I talked about it last week.

I mean, Jesse Deplant in 1988, God had a visitation where he went to heaven.

I mean, it was a vision, but he was there, and Jesus told him, Go tell my people I'm coming soon.

Well, Lord, they know that.

No, they don't know that.

Go tell them I'm coming sin.

Well, Lord, they they Lord, they they do they know that.

They don't know that.

Go tell them.

And that's 88.

My goodness.

When are we gonna wake up?

When are we gonna realize there's an urgency about things?

Twenty-one years ago, Brother Roberts warns the church again.

Man, I mean, you know how I can see that God's patience is running out.

And that He is He is uh wanting to communicate His urgency because He sees the the fields are white already with harvest and He doesn't want to lose a single soul.

Are y'all getting this now?

It's all about the harvest.

That's all of it's not about you getting rich and fat and happy and having three houses.

It's about you being able to fund the harvest.

You're sure God will bless you and let you have a really nice life.

He's not, it doesn't intimidate God for you to drive nice, wear nice, live now, all of that kind of thing.

That's nothing.

But, you know, you could be like R.

G.

Laterno.

You know, he was he was a dropout of school at 14.

He worked, you know, around the turn of the century, born in 88, and I think in 1912, he went and worked in a foundry and he was working around, you know, mechanical things, learned about, you know, engines were new back then, and he learned about them, and he he learned about tractors and stuff.

And next thing you know, in 1920, he's a Christian.

He became a Christian, even though he's not really educated formally, he had a desire to know about he took a correspondence course in the principles of principles of mechanical engineering.

He didn't have a mechanical engineering degree from a college, but he studied it and he understood it.

And he designed all this equipment in 1929.

He had his own heavy equipment.

Uh he had the idea, because he's a tither, of this scraper, this massive scraper.

It's got a tractor with two big low pressure tractor tires on either side so it doesn't sink in the mud.

It doesn't cut through the soft soil, it just floats up on top, and it's just got two wheels, and it's hooked up to this big box with a scraper blade across the bottom of it.

And they lower that scraper blade and they scrape the land until it's level.

And all that that dirt curls up and goes in that bucket, and then they drive it around and dump it out over here.

I mean, it's an amazing, and he invented that.

He's got like 500 patents.

Every one of those patents is what?

An idea.

His equipment was about 80% of everything used by the Allies in World War II to build uh airstrips and all kinds of uh things overseas on the on the war in the war theater came from his company.

He had big, massive government contracts.

He was a very rich man, but he lived on 10% and gave away 90%.

See, God gave him so many ideas, he knew what the ideas were for.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Not an educated man, but yet he had the Holy Ghost living on the inside of it.

So, uh, how desperate are you?

It's talking about John the Baptist being that that kind of person.

He's a violent.

He had violent faith.

Think about John the Baptist for a minute.

He got Jesus, used him as an example.

I mean, he came down here and he's preaching, and he's got this crowd coming out there, and what does he say?

I'm so glad y'all are here.

Oh, bless your little hearts.

Come on over here.

Let's I want to baptize you.

You generation of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath that comes.

Don't you dare come out here and play like you're doing anything.

You better mean it.

When you get in that water, you better change right now.

You better repent.

Oh man.

I mean, he told Herod, you're not gonna sleep with your, you're not gonna have your brother's wife.

You're not gonna sleep with her, you're not gonna commit adultery with your brother's wife.

And he got, I mean, he just didn't care who he said what he had to say.

He's a violent, he's violent for God.

He stands, the prophet stood for God.

He he was an unashamed to say what God told him.

Are y'all with me now?

And he got the he got Israel ready for the for the Messiah as best he could.

Violent faith.

See?

So are you desperate?

Are you violent enough to receive and activate and deploy heaven's ideas?

See?

It's gonna take some work.

It's gonna take some ardent desire and intense exertion on your side.

I mean, you can't just expect God to rain it out on top of your head.

It's not gonna just become bubbling up just because you're driving down the, uh, you know, trying to find the parking place at the mall and suddenly you get an idea.

No, you're gonna have to have a word life and a prayer life, and you have to spend time with him, and you're gonna have to do it on purpose.

Thank you for three grunts and a couple of oh me's and one amen.

Praise the Lord.

Can I get a better amen?

Oh, that's better.

I like that.

All right.

So let's look at one Bible example here, 2 Kings 4, and uh and it's it's a familiar story, but I believe it outlines very uh vividly violent faith and ideas that come from heaven, and how what a blessing they are when they when you get a heavenly idea, it's just amazing.

So, 2 Kings 4 verse 1.

2 Kings 4:1

Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant, my husband, is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord.

And the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.

So this woman cries, she shrieks, she screams to God.

See, the prophet stands for God.

She's not mealy-mouth, she's not little mouse, she's not about to put up with this situation.

Why?

Because she's a covenant woman.

Her husband was a covenant man.

He feared the Lord.

That means by definition, he tithed.

He's a tither, he's a giver, he's a man in good standing with the Lord.

And now creditors are come.

That is a violation of the law of Moses according to Deuteronomy.

I wrote it down here, Deuteronomy 25, 39.

It's against the law of Moses for anybody that's a Jew to go to another Jew and make a bondman out of them because they can't pay.

Especially if that woman is now a poor widow.

She's a poor widow now.

And it makes it even more sinful that these creditors that her husband died owing, and here they're gonna come and take her two boys and make them bondmen, in other words, slaves, and work off that debt which could take their whole life.

And when they take those two boys away, she's gonna starve because she hadn't got any any income.

She's not, they don't work, she's not an accountant, she's not a school teacher, she doesn't have an income, she doesn't have a retirement plan.

She's gonna starve to death.

That is an that's awful.

So when she cried, she cried in faith.

She came to God and said, I'm telling you what the circumstance is.

I'm telling you what the circumstance is.

This is a circumstance.

And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee?

What shall I do for thee?

I mean, I you know, if that was Elijah, I think Elijah would have got a ball bat and went and beat the creditors up until they until they released the debt.

See, I mean he killed 400 prophets by himself.

And so, you know, this is a sin.

They have done wrong in Israel, and he's saying, What can I do for you?

What do you mean, can I do it?

I'm crying to you.

You got the answer.

This is illegal, this is wrong.

Do something about it.

What shall I do for you?

Then he says, What have you got in the house?

Thy servant had nothing in the house except a pot of oil.

She might as well have said, But what is that?

What good is that?

She could have said that, probably thought that, but she didn't say it.

Now I'm talking about this violent faith.

I'm talking about she was not going to be denied.

I mean, she cried to the prophet, and the prophet was forced to do something about her circumstance.

I can't explain why he didn't deal with the creditors, but I can say that he gave her the way out.

He said, All right, you've got that pot of oil.

Now what you want to do is go through your neighborhoods, good to know your neighbors, and go borrow some vessels, borrow not a few.

Scant not, get as many as you can haul.

Get as many neighbors to give you, loan you, not give you, loan you the vessels, and bring them back into your house.

Bring you and your boys into the house, shut the door, and pour out of the vessels into the empty vessel.

Pour out of your vessel into the empty vessels.

Now let me ask you, how much how much sense does that make?

I mean, it makes zero sense.

That is the goofiest idea anybody ever had.

To take a little pot of oil, this pot is flask.

It's a flask of oil.

It's probably like this, maybe a quart.

And you're getting these other vessels, we don't know.

I kind of like to think about them like four foot tall and hold about 10 gallons.

It's how I like to think about this miracle.

You can think about it any way you want to, but I just think about her.

She shuts that door.

Those two boys have worked hard and they stack those vessels everywhere.

They're up on the top of the countertop, they're on top of the toilet, and they're on the toilet seat.

They shut the lid down, put it on top of the.

I know they didn't have toilets, but I it's my story, and I'm thinking about the way I think about it.

I mean, I'm thinking about my house and how many vessels I could hold in my house.

And I tell you, I could hold a whole lot of vessels in my house.

I mean, if you start getting creative, I mean, you can start really, I mean, you can stack vessels on top of one.

You got you can put a lot of vessels, even in a shotgun house.

But you know I don't know what kind of house she lived in.

Probably wasn't a very big one.

And so she starts pouring.

And I can just think about it.

She's got a quart, and she's in this one with 10 gallons.

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug, glug glug, glug, glug, glock, glock, glo, glock, glo, glock.

All the way, and she's thinking, what in the world?

And looks at and out, and her pot is still full, and that 10 gallons is full.

See, she's getting a hold of this revelation.

She's getting hold of this idea.

She's she's pretty excited by now.

The first, the first go-around is made.

Oh my goodness, look at the wow.

So she starts going and she's pouring and pouring and pouring, and she don't run out until there's no more vessels.

Okay, boys, we'll get some more vessels.

Mama, there ain't no more vessels.

We done, we done, we borrowed every vessel from every neighbor in the last five-mile radius of this place.

There's no more vessels, we're telling you.

And with it besides that, there's no more room for any more vessels.

And the oil stayed.

See, her blessing was only limited by the capacity of what she could pour into.

Every idea is an empty vessel that you can pour.

Okay, y'all getting this now.

Every idea that God gives you is an empty vessel into which you pour effort and prayer, and you you receive that becomes a source of blessing.

Each one of those pots was a source of blessing.

And so she said, there's not another pot.

There's not another vessel.

This is it.

And the oil stayed.

When she quit pouring, that was it.

The end of the miracle.

So then she sends to the prophet.

So, okay, we've done it.

What do we do now?

He said, Sell the oil, pay your debt, and live off the rest.

You and your boys, you and your boy.

You don't have to farm them out.

You don't have to give them away.

I mean, God protected her assets.

He paid the debt so those guys couldn't come and take her boys.

There's no creditor coming to her door.

God protected her assets.

God gave her favor with her neighbors.

Are y'all getting this now?

Did you see how it all?

I never saw this in 50 years.

I never saw it.

Like I saw it in 2005 when I interviewed him.

And I haven't preached it enough.

I haven't preached it enough.

I'm going to keep preaching it because it's the guts of the gospel.

I mean, and right now is the time that we need to get ourselves in position.

Are y'all with me now?

Glory to God.

I'll give you one personal testimony.

I could give you many, but we're getting late and I don't want to hold you too long.

But I want to give you this one that God put in my heart that I don't think I've told in a good while.

But we'd been saved a few years.

We're going to Lakewood Church.

1983 was the year that this happened.

I have it somewhere what month, I don't remember what month, but anyway.

We were just at the in the in the old building, you know, the one before the new one, 5,000 seats.

And uh we were about in the center section about midway back.

You know, we're, I don't even know if we had prayer partners yet.

I think we were just attending.

And Brother Osteen uh took the offering, was receiving the offering, and he got up there and says, How would y'all like the bank to call to borrow money from you instead of you borrowing money from the bank?

And man, I went, yeah.

And a lot of people, you know, they started reacting to that.

Amen.

I I mean, I reacted.

I lifted my hand.

Glory to God.

Amen.

I can tell I can stand that.

I like a bank to call me and borrow money from me instead of the other way around.

Now you gotta understand what I'm thinking is, you know, you have so much money that you put it at the bank and and your CD back in those days probably get a four or five percent CD and interest.

Now it's two, you know.

But back then you could probably put$10,000 CD up and get 5% interest, and so they're basically borrowing your money and they're lending it out at 20%, you know, paying you 5%.

That's how that's why banks are you know in skyscrapers and marble lobbies.

It's because they know how to make money off your money.

So I'm thinking that way, but plus the fact that I'm making a living on borrowed money.

That's how my business works.

I'm a I'm a built home builder.

I go to the bank and borrow the money on a project.

The money, the the borrowed money has got to be enough to cover the lot and cover all the expenses of construction, all the uh material and the uh the labor and all of that, and then uh and then I'm paying interest on that construction loan as I draw uh every percentage that I uh complete of the house.

You know, you pour the slab as a certain percentage, you get the house framed up as a certain percentage.

They loan, they they disperse the funds that you're borrowing, and that's when the meter starts clicking to above prime.

You know, so my my interest rates were always like I'm paying 10, 11, 12% for that money.

I've got to I've gotta hurry up.

I've got to have a sense of urgency when I build that house.

I can't lollygag and go on vacation and hope the house gets built.

I've got to stay on that thing every day.

I've got to be on the phone.

I've got to call my subs when they don't show up.

I've got to get that material ordered.

If they run out of material, that's money coming out of my pocket because if they can't work because I didn't order enough lumber, then I'm I'm paying interest on that money.

And it's it, if I take six months instead of four months, it's probably not gonna have a profit for me.

So time is of the essence.

I have to hurry.

Hurry up.

I mean, I I can't just lollygag.

I've got to have that going all the time.

I've got to keep keep everything going.

So that that was the way my business operated.

So I got thinking, man, I kind of like that.

I was always having to go to the bank and borrow money.

Wouldn't it be great if the bank had to call me?

You know, and I was laughing about it.

I was laughing about it.

See, I didn't see it as an idea from heaven for me.

See, ideas don't have to come from you.

They can come from someone else.

They can come from your pastor.

They can come from a, you know, they can come from literally, they can come from a donkey, actually.

I mean, they can come anywhere.

A donkey talked one time and an idea came.

Are y'all with me now?

So the next, as God is my witness, the next week, a banker that I knew but I hadn't done business with, a banker called me and says, John, I was talking to so-and-so, Kearney.

And Kearney was a dear friend of mine that borrowed a lot of money from him, and I knew him very well.

And he and I had a good relationship, and Kearney was a guy that lent money to a lot of builders.

I mean, there's probably, I want to say, 25, 30 builders that he did business with.

He believed in construction loans.

You know, he was the guy, if you had needed construction loans, you went to him and you could get your loan if it was if it was reasonable.

It was real easy to borrow the money, too.

I mean, he had it all streamlined.

And he would present it to the loan committee and get it approved.

And I mean, he greased the skids, and I mean it was so easy dealing with him.

But if you go to some banks, they just look at you, you know, and they don't understand construction lending.

They don't understand it at all.

So you might as well just not even go in the bank.

You're not going to get the money.

So anyway, they had been talking, and so this banker, he said, Yeah, I've got a problem, and I was talking to him about it, and he recommended you favor.

And he said, Uh, you know, uh, do you know so-and-so?

Uh is the builder.

I said, Yeah, I know him.

I used to buy hardware from him.

He was a young man that worked at the hardware store.

We bought hinges and cabinet pulls and, you know, all kinds of hardware, doorknobs, interior and exterior, door locks, all this kind of thing.

Uh he was my salesman.

He said, Well, he went in the building.

Yeah, I knew he did.

Well, he's in Austin now.

He he can't pay his bills.

And he's got a custom home that he has a customer own, and he left town, and this house is sitting there, and now the people that he sold it to are nervous.

And he said, What I'm asking is if we we're probably gonna take the house in the next week or two, which means you're gonna foreclose on the loan, and they're gonna take ownership of the house.

It's still in his company's name.

He said, once we take ownership, would you uh would you be interested in finishing the house up and and get it finished?

And I said, Well, what stage is it in?

He said, she they said, well, it's about 80%, it's painted.

I said, okay.

Well, let me go look at it.

Where is it?

And man, it's way out in West Houston.

It's 45 minutes from where I'm building, you know, and I my houses are, I got four or five houses in one neighborhood, and there's a there's a synergy, there's an efficiency when you've got everything together.

Now this thing is all by itself.

In the finishing stages, I know I'm gonna have to go babysit that thing every day and spend hours out there while it's finishing up.

And also I've got to kind of overcome the fear of the of the people that don't know me from Adam.

Here I am coming in, and they've got to have confidence in me too, or they're gonna go out the door and not finish the their part of the contract.

So I went and looked at it, though, and uh it was it was in good shape.

It was it it all it needed was the finishing touches.

So I I prayed, and God put a figure in my heart, 8,000, cost plus 8,000, a fee of 8,000.

And so uh so I I called him, I said, okay, I looked at the house, it's pretty good shape.

I I'm willing to do it.

I do it cost plus eight thousand.

Eight thousand?

Oh my wow, I was really hoping for a lot less than that.

8,000.

I said, Well, you know, it's in the monkey stage.

He said, What?

I said, it's in the monkey stage right now, 80%.

A monkey can get it to 80%.

It takes a professional builder to finish it out and please the home buyer.

And that's who you're talking to.

You're talking to a professional.

He said, okay, okay.

You know, banks, they're skin flints, they try to get everything for free.

I guess he wanted me to do it for free, just out of the goodness of my heart, huh?

So, I mean, in in six weeks, I I did I pleased the people.

I walked through it, you know, did everything, but hung the light fixers, put the wallpaper in, did all the, you know, hardware, carpet, air conditioning units, the whole thing, walked through the house, did a paint touch-up after they moved in.

Paint touched up all the scars that movers put on the walls.

That was my normal thing I'd do.

And I collected my$8,000 in six weeks.

It was really easy money.

And I thought, well, that's a blessing.

Man, I like that.

See, I didn't know it was an idea.

I didn't see it as an idea from heaven because I'm a tither.

Oh man.

So a week later, another banker calls me.

And again, another guy that I knew, but I didn't ever do business with him.

And I'm talking to so-and-so, and I realize that you've finished a house for him, you know, and he was really pleased at how you got it done.

And uh, do you know so-and-so?

I said, Yeah, I've known him for years.

He's a good guy.

He said, Well, he's not paying his bills, we're gonna have to take these houses.

We're gonna have to foreclose on two construction loans.

I said, Well, where are they?

And he told me it's way, you know, way away from me.

Another 30 minutes out, you know.

He said, They're two specks side by side.

You mean they're not so?

No, they're not so.

And I said, What do you want done?

He said, I want them finished completely up, except for the wallpaper.

Everything else, light fixes, carpet, everything, hardware, get it all finished.

Do you want grass and all that?

No, no grass or shrubs, just the interior, get it ready to where it won't take long to get people.

When they sell it, we can we can get them moved in and we'll take care of all that other later.

Uh, and so I said, Well, let me go take a look because I did know the builder and I knew it wasn't going to be a problem.

I he built a good house.

He just got, you know, here's the second builder in a matter of weeks that I'm hearing about that these guys are not novices and they're not able to make it.

Hello, warning.

See, it went right over my head, hit hitting a wall.

So I go and I look at them and I thought, okay, Lord, what do I do with it?

6K a piece.

So I said, okay, I'll do it for 6,000 apiece, 12,000.

I thought it would be.

Since there's two together and they're not sold, I said, Well, I gave you a discount to charge the other guy eight.

And I said, this is six each.

I mean, it's, I mean, it's, you know, there it's there, both these houses are in the monkey stage.

See, I used the same line.

They're still in the monkey stage.

The monkey stage.

What are you talking about?

I said, well, a monkey can get a house to 80%.

It takes a professional builder to get it 100%.

And that's what you're talking to.

You're talking to a professional.

And he went for it.

And so in another month, I finished those two houses.

I got my$12,000.

That's$20,000 in a matter of about eight weeks, two months.

Let me ask you, does$20,000 change your life?

Not really.

Come on,$20,000 doesn't change your life.

It's nice to have it, but it's not life-changing.

See, I just thought, oh, that's a nice little bonus.

No, God was trying to give me an idea in 1983 so that I could begin to take advantage of something that was happening on a more frequent basis.

God knew where the economy was headed, and I didn't.

Besides that, pride in my heart, I didn't much like doing what I just did, even though I got paid.

I like to build my own houses.

I like to have my name on them.

See, that's pride.

I like to do it from the beginning so I can point to it and say, I built that.

See, I didn't realize I had pride going, but you know, you've either got faith, foolishness, or presumption.

And foolishness and presumption kept me from identifying this as a business opportunity.

And I'm talking about this 40 years later or 30 something years later because, yeah, 40 years later, that because, you know, that's the way ideas can be.

They can change your life.

If I had gotten into that business in 1984, there's a whole lot more builders, I was one of them.

The next year I couldn't pay my.

I remember sitting at my desk at my office with my hands in my head, and I'm trying to figure out how to pay the lumber bill on three houses.

It was like$38,000, and I had$10,000 in the account, and I didn't know how in the world I was going to be able to pay that lumber bill.

And I mean, it I was nervous.

I was the first time I'd ever had trouble paying a bill.

And see, that happened to me a year later.

See, if I had just pursued God's idea, by that time I could have handed my card out to numbers of banks and said, hey, I'm your guy if you have any trouble with your construction uh loans and getting them ready for to sell to the retail sales, and just let me know, I'll get them ready for you.

See, I could have turned that into a thriving business for a number of years in Houston, Texas.

In fact, our first property down the street, the 92.7 acres where Champions Crossing subdivision is right today.

It was a 92.7 acre tract that we bought from my landlord, who had bought it from the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was a federal agency that was, there were so many bankruptcies, so many bill of real estate loans that went bad, they were formed in the 80s to take the off of the bank's books and and liquidate them and put them up for auction.

And my landlord had bought that piece of property, and it and when I saw the uh satellite image of our property, I got a satellite image of the property, and you could see where it had once been a subdivision.

They had cleared for the streets, they had cleared for the utility easements, and they went broke before they could pour streets and all of that.

They went butt belly up and it went on the market and he bought it for pennies on the dollar.

And then he sold it to us for a real discount.

I mean, we bought that property so cheap, I couldn't believe it.

Well, why?

Because somebody, you know, had a distress and somebody else had an idea.

Hey, I'm gonna be the guy that that that buys stuff when it's down.

See, that's I mean, God can give you ideas.

He can give you favor, he can give you timing.

Are you with me now?

I don't say this to beat myself up.

I'm just saying that that that one idea could have changed my whole life.

It could have, it could have uh meant that I never moved the corpus, it could have meant that I never, you know, had to live with my sister, it could have meant that I would have, you know, been very successful, very much more successful.

Are y'all with me now?

God's not wanting to do just a little bit, he wants to bless you.

He wants to bless your socks off.

Hallelujah.

So I just didn't connect this to tithing.

I didn't recognize a shift in the economy that was coming.

You know, Deuteronomy 8.18 says, 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.

That's Old Testament, and we've got a better covenant.

And so that Hebrew word uh I will give you power, it's the Hebrew word koak, which means power, ability, and also down in there it also means chameleon.

And when I got a hold of this many, many years ago, and I saw chameleon, what is that doing in this word power?

Chameleon?

You mean the lizard that changes color?

And when I was studying my Bible and I looked at the word chameleon, and it's it's talking about he'll make you a chameleon to get wealth.

I mean, I remember it as a kid sitting in my in my driveway at home.

I'm about 11 years old, and I'm in my dad's company car.

It was a powder blue 58 Ford sedan, ugly car.

But I I turned the key and went in there and got the keys, turned them to the accessory, and tuned on the radio, Channel 55, KTSA, San Antonio, listen to music, and I'm doing uh motor sounds.

I'm steering the steering wheel, making motor sounds, and playing like I'm driving and going down the highway when I'm just sitting in the driveway.

And all of a sudden, k-plop, this big lizard, it's about eight, ten inches long.

Bigger, biggest lizard I've ever seen in this part of the country.

And it hit on the car hood.

It's bright green.

It fell out of the tree right next to the driveway.

It fell right on the hood, right in front of my eyes, on the hood of that car, powder blue with that bright green lizard sitting there.

And I'm going, wow, look at that.

And in my in front of my eyes, that that lizard turned powder blue.

I mean, God is amazing.

He creates, he creates creatures, and we we just don't we just take it for granted.

And so when I was reading this, I I saw that whole thing happening in my childhood.

I saw that lizard turn to powder blue, and I realized we've got to be adaptable.

We don't know what's coming.

We've got to have in, see, ideas, concepts, insights.

We've got to have insights.

The insights are the adaptability.

You've got to make some changes, you've got to make some adjustments.

If you just get your feet set in concrete, God called me the home builder.

I'm gonna build homes until I go broke, which is what I did.

But no, if I'd have had the insight that came with the idea, I could have used that to maneuver my way on through this mess that we went through in the 80s.

We had a depression in Houston, not a recession.

Every builder I knew went broke.

Just about, not everyone, but just about everyone.

And so, you know, uh let's let's let's realize that God will give us adaptability.

In other words, he'll he'll give you uh the ideas, concepts, and also insights.

He'll give you favor, he'll protect your assets.

So to wrap this up, number one, tithe.

Be accurate, get keep records.

I mean, don't don't take money and then not tithe on it.

Make sure you tithe on every increase.

Well, Pastor, do you tithe on the gross of the net?

See, you're already asking the wrong question.

You're all you're betraying your heart right there.

You're trying to wait, you're trying to wiggle out of giving God his due.

Every bit of money that you're paid is yours.

Just because they take the taxes out before you get the net check, that money is yours.

It's an abomination that we allow the government to take our taxes out without us actually sitting down and writing the check.

Because if we had to sit down and write the check for our taxes, they wouldn't be so high.

We would fire more people when they want to raise our taxes.

We would fire them.

Why?

Because we would be on, we would be actually writing the check.

But they knew the weakness of humans, they just know, well, if you don't see it, it's invisible and you don't.

But it's yours.

It ain't the government's, it's yours.

And so if you want to just not have God help you pay your taxes, well, then tithe on the net, I guess.

I tithe on the gross.

I never even thought about it, to be honest with you.

I had somebody to ask me, and I thought, well, I never thought of it like that.

I mean, it's my money, it's your money.

You earned it.

They take it, but it's yours.

Are y'all with me now?

Generous giving.

And you know, see, if you're coming off the bottom with a bunch of student loan debt, credit card debt, you've got debt a mountain over your head, and you've been telling yourself, I can't tithe, I can't afford to tithe.

The part that you have to have faith in, he said, prove me now.

Look at the woman that we talked about today.

She had creditors coming to get her boys.

I mean, that's a mountain.

She's facing death.

She's facing death.

And they were tithers and givers.

And so she knew what was happening was illegal.

She cried out to God.

See, when you tithe and you're in the condition that where you're at, where it doesn't look like mathematically you can do it, that's when you trust God to make it work.

You trust God.

So, God, I'm trying I'm proving you now, I'm bringing my tithe.

This doesn't look like it's gonna work in my budget.

It doesn't look, I'm sorry, I repent that I've obligated myself to all this debt.

I'm sorry, I repent.

That's the first thing you ought to do is repent for all the debt you've got because you're the one that signed up for it.

And you shouldn't have.

So just go ahead and repent.

Go ahead and say, I plead guilty, Lord.

I'm gonna change my ways.

Now help me, Lord.

I'm gonna give you the tithe.

I'm gonna prove you now with my tithe.

And now I need some ideas.

I need some ideas on how to get out from under this debt.

Some of your ideas are gonna be how to get out from under the debt.

He's gonna give you favor with some of the creditors.

I remember when I was broke, had no money, I owed taxes.

I mean, I got a bill from the IRS that I owed$3,500.

And I didn't have$35, much less than$3,500.

And it came tax time.

And I dreaded and I dreaded, and finally I said, Lord, I don't know what to do.

I can't pay this bill and I owe it.

I can't pay it.

What do I do?

He said, fill out the tax return, write them a let write them a note, and put them in the tax return, say zero cent, and write them a letter note, says you're out of work right now, you can't pay it, and sign it.

And so I did.

And about three or four weeks later, I got a phone call from the IRS.

Guy got me on the phone and said, Mr.

Griner, we got your tax return.

I see here a note, and I got your note in front of me, so you're still out of work?

Yeah, I'm still out of work.

He said, Well, we'll we'll work with you.

Hold on just a second.

And he came back on the line and said, All right, I'm gonna send you an agreement.

You'll get it in the mail in a few days.

And uh we're gonna charge you$60 a month.

We just we'll charge you$60 a month and that'll be good enough.

You just sign that thing and send us a check for$60.

Well, you know what?

I I was relieved.

I thought,$60.

So$60 into$300,$3,500, how much is that?

60 months, five years.

So they're gonna stretch out my taxes for five years.

And I couldn't argue with that.

I thought, well, that's that's a blitz.

Thank you, Lord.

I appreciate that.

That's a favor.

And so I signed it and I enclosed a check for$60.

And every month, I mean, I had this pre-printed thing that I that I filled out.

They sent it to me.

I filled it all out.

It went to the right place.

I didn't just say IRS.

I had a specific envelope with a code on it and all that.

I sent them that$60.

I did that for about a year.

I got a letter back.

Your taxes are free and clear.

You don't owe another dime.

They just forgave the rest.

Oh, come on now, lift your hands right now.

Amen.

So, you know, prove him.

Prove him.

And be a generous giver.

Sometimes you can't give that much when you're on the bottom of the barrel, but but determined to do something lest you do nothing.

I don't care if it's 50 cents.

You do something to make the devil mad.

You put something in the offering that doesn't look like you can afford to do it.

Now don't go crazy.

Don't but don't be silly and put a big figure in there and cause a problem.

You're already doing that with your tithe.

So take one step at it.

I'm a pastor, I'm not a master.

I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm trying to help you.

I'm trying to get this money in your hands.

I'm trying to get you out of debt.

I'm trying to put you in position for the end time harvest.

Number four, when you get those ideas, believe for corresponding ideas and concepts.

And activate them and deploy them.

In other words, put them to work.

I mean, don't just have them that you're floating around in your brain.

Oh, that sounds like a good idea.

No, do something with it.

Use it.

Put it to work.

Deploy it.

And then number four, listen for the adjustments, the insights.

God's got in, he might give you a little adjustment on that idea and perfect it.

That's what he did with Jacob.

I mean, he did the major thing, but then he got uh an insight into how to get a stronger, uh, a stronger uh herd.

He held out the weaker cattle and didn't let them mate.

And he only used the strong cattle to mate.

And he it made his his uh flocks stronger and healthier and and less sickness and less loss.

And Laban's, he didn't care.

And so Laban's started decreasing.

He started having loss, he started having smaller and weaker cattle.

Are y'all with me now?

So believe for the adjustments, the insights.

Number five, believe in his protection for your assets.

Wouldn't it be terrible?

And while you're doing all this thing that you got so sick that you uh, you know, and you couldn't go to the emergency room.

Or you or you did go to the emergency room, you don't have any insurance.

I that's happened to me.

I mean, you know, we were we didn't have any insurance.

Gladys broke her kneecap one time.

We had no insurance, we had to go to the emergency room.

It's$400.

Today it'd be$4,000.

But back then it was$400.

We didn't have$400, but somehow we paid it.

And then the surgery on top of that.

What are we gonna do?

How are we gonna pay for a surgery?

I mean, see, God protect my assets, and so what are we gonna do?

We've got to have surgery because she can't limp around.

She's got a broken kneecap, it's broken in two, she can't really walk without a brace on her knee.

And so she had to have two surgeries.

And so, to make a long story short, I dealt with uh insurance of the of the place where she fell.

The curb was above speck.

I went and met God gave me an idea to go back to that restaurant where she.

Fell in the parking lot.

Came in out of the restaurant, stepped off the curb.

It wasn't painted yellow.

It looked just like the rest of the concrete and the and the and the parking lot looked like one color.

She didn't see the step and she fell.

And so go measure the step and take pictures of it and uh and go in to the owner.

He's he's not gonna pay you.

The owner of the strip center is who you've got to find out.

So I went in and the guy remembered us, remembered me.

I said, Look, I'm not trying to cause you trouble.

I just want to know who is it that you pay rent to.

I want to know who owns this thing because I want to go to their insurance company.

I want to file a claim.

And so he gave me the insurance information.

I went, Gladys and I went to their office right across in Greens Point Mall up there, one of those big buildings.

We sat in there and they almost laughed at us.

They gave us their insurance.

We started calling the insurance, and they didn't want to even talk to me at what five.

Finally, I started getting little bits of money out of them.

I'd get$150, I'd get$200.

And finally, after a year and a half, I mean, they weren't even coming close to paying our medical expenses.

And so I said, God, I can't deal with these people.

I need a personal injury attorney, and I don't have anybody.

I don't have anybody in mind.

Are anybody getting anything out of this?

I'm just talking about the blessings of a tithe that I didn't understand that's what that was back then.

I didn't understand, I didn't make, I didn't connect the dots.

Nobody preached this ever until I heard it from Brother Roberts.

So I said, God, I need I need an attorney.

I don't have an attorney.

I'm gonna have to have somebody to call this insurance company and threaten them and get my get our money.

I mean, we're way behind.

We've got these doctor bills, and and besides that, she's had a lot of suffering.

She's had a lot of pain, and and she deserves something from this whole thing.

It's they've admitted liability, they wouldn't have paid us anything.

They've already admitted liability the first time they wrote a check.

So I knew that much about the law.

I'm not a lawyer, but I, you know, I've known a lot of them.

So, anyways, uh I said, Lord, I just need that attorney.

So I that that night I had a dream.

And it's a long dream I won't go into, but I came out of the dream with a name.

Uh David Cruz.

C-R-U-Z.

David Cruz.

I won't go into the the dream was set in West University Place, and I saw a street sign by the name of Cruz.

There's no such name, there's no such street name as Cruz Street anywhere around there.

It might be on the east side, maybe, but not there.

So Cruz and David.

So yeah, anyway, so I remember waking up and I had David Cruz.

I thought, David Cruz.

So I back then we didn't have Google, we didn't have internet, we had yellow pages.

Remember those big old yellow pages?

I had two of them this thick.

And I look up attorneys.

They didn't have personal injury attorneys, just attorneys.

There was five pages single spaced of just, I mean, I don't know how many thousand attorneys.

I mean, you know.

And I'm going down the list, going down the list, and I see Cruz, David.

It's the only one.

It's the only one.

How could that be the only David Cruz attorney in this big old city?

One.

And I thought, oh my God, I'm my hands are sweating, my heart's beating.

I pick up the phone, I call.

I said, uh, would you let me speak to David Cruz's uh uh secretary, please?

Uh hold on.

And so then, you know, so and so gets on the phone.

Hello, Amanda, or whatever her name is.

I said, Are you uh David Cruz's secretary?

Yes, I am.

I said, Is by any chance uh David a personal injury attorney?

And I said, he certainly is.

I said, I need an appointment, and so I got the appointment for a couple of weeks, you know.

And so Gladys and I drive, and we've got this address on Southwest Freeway, and we've got this building around the corner of Buffalo Speedway and Southwest Freeway, Feeder Street, and we go up and we wait in the lobby, and then he brings him into his office.

We sit down in his office, and he's got this big corner office, big old.

I mean, he's an important attorney.

I mean, he's not just a grunt.

I mean, he's one of the owners, I guess.

And I look out his windows, and there's West University Place right out the window.

I'm looking at where I'm Bill House with no insurance.

And uh and he said, Well, I'm so glad to meet y'all.

He said, Look, before we get started, can I can I ask you, how is it that you came by my name?

And I just started grinning real wide.

I said, I kind of knew you were gonna ask me that question.

I said, Oh, you really want to know?

He said, Well, yeah, I really want to know.

So I told him how I got his name, and tears started running down his face.

He said, I this is not new to me.

He said, This happened to me when I was a little boy.

We had a we I we lived next door to the grocery store, and my mother would send me to get milk or get bread, and and we had to just charge it.

We put it on the store credit.

And I remember in Refuel, Gladys's family, they used store credit.

They didn't pay in the in the line, they just put it on their bill and they paid it once a month.

And so that's what they did.

And he said, One night I had a dream that he died, and I woke up upset, and mother tried to call me and and said, Yeah, he did die.

And so I God warned me that this man that I knew real well right next door to where we live had died.

This this I've had this experience.

And he said, He said, What can I do for you?

I know God sent you.

Oh man.

Well, I tell you what, he got a hold of that insurance company in a few months.

Our share of the settlement was$15,000.

It might have been$15 million.

I mean, it paid all and all of our bills, plus the$50.

I'm talking about they paid all the bills, all the hospital bills, all the surgical bills, and$15K extra our share, which was 60%.

His share was 40%.

Are y'all with me now?

I'm talking about favor in a direction.

I'm talking about ideas, concepts, and insights.

So follow.

Believe for protection of your assets, follow your directional favor.

And now you're in position.

Now you can participate fully in the greatest harvest this world has ever known.

Rise up and reap.

Come on, lift your hands this morning.

Glory to God.

Hallelujah.

Well, I went a long time, but I believe it was worth it.

I feel like something has been released over you.

God, I just release the revelation of this blessing that you've held in reserve all these years.

Lord, I've heard I've heard every fantastic uh preacher in the world preach on giving and receiving, and I've never heard this revelation before.

And I know you've held it in reserve for the last days.

You wanted that transfer of wealth to come at the right time and the right amount to fund the greatest harvest this world has ever known.

Lord, I just release my faith with everyone watching and everyone on live stream and everybody that's gonna hear this message and everybody here present, Lord, that they have uh that they are tithers and givers, that they are blessed with ideas, concepts, and insights.

They're blessed with protection of their assets, and they have favor in a direction that will lead them to the source of their blessing.

And they're gonna keep in mind that they're participators in this mighty harvest in Jesus' name.

Everybody shouted Amen.

Hallelujah.

Come on, let's rejoice a little bit.