20240101 Why Giving To Your Local Church Matters

The main ideas from this information are as follows: - Galatians 3.13 and 14 state that through Jesus, people can be redeemed from the curse of the law, which includes sickness, poverty, and lack. - God's plan is for believers to have abundance and to be able to give generously. - The blessing that belonged to Abraham and his descendants has now been released to all nations through Christ. - Finances matter to God, and it is important to have the right perspective on money. - Believers should be willing to leave behind influences that do not align with the Word of God, including family and friends. - The truth of God's Word is what sets people free and should be the basis of our faith. Galatians 3.13 and 14 tells you to be redeemed from the curse of the law. The law is the first five books of Genesis. The law of Moses and within that, especially Deuteronomy 28, the last half, verse 15 to the end of the chapter, sickness is under the curse of the law, disease, mental insanity, the loss of your children to foreigners, which would include human trafficking and drug leaders and all of that, that's under the curse of the law. Poverty and lack is repeatedly under the curse of the law. That's a curse that's under the law. God never intended you to barely make it. Now that may be where you are right now, but if you'll sit under this word and stay consistent and let the word get a hold of your thinking and let it get into your heart, there'll be an impartation and you'll find yourself prospering even beyond your schooling and your training. God knows how to put you in places like Joseph that you are not qualified for. He knows how to promote you to places you're not even qualified for. Joseph was in prison and ended up running Egypt. He started out as a naked slave on a slave block and wound up running the very nation that had him on a slave block. God knows how to promote you from the bottom to the top by His grace. All right, so it's never God's plan for you to barely make it. It's for His plan for you to have too much. I'm going to say it again. God's plan is not just for you to have your needs met. That's selfish because it takes money to get the gospel out. God's plan is for you to have too much so you have plenty to give. Can I get you to say that out loud? Because some of you are fighting me. Well, not me, but you're fighting the Word, all right? The Bible says in Psalm 23, we all quote that at dead Christians' place. We ought to quote it to the dead Christians when we should be quoting it to the living. The Lord is my shepherd. I don't lack, but that's good. Not lacking is good. That means you've got a need met. But then later on, He says, He anoints my head with oil. My cup is just full. I don't guess I did. I was quoting what I was taught in church. My cup, God doesn't seem to know how big your cup is. He underestimates your cup and He fills it to overflowing so that it flows out of the cup, into the saucer, out of the saucer, onto the table, off the table and onto the floor. On the floor, out through the door, into the street. God can make you the supplier of wealth for a whole nation. He can give you such financial... His plan for you through Jesus is to have so much overflow that you give and give and give and it just keeps coming back. You have too much. Amen. That's God's plan. And so God's... It says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, which includes poverty. If you are barely making it, that is not where God wants you to stay. But if you listen to most churches, they'll talk you into perpetual poverty and tell you it's God's will for you. Don't question the will of God. Well, first of all, most of those churches no longer open their Bibles anyway. When they open them, they open them and twist it to mean things it doesn't mean. Am I being too straight? Amen. And again, Brian, one of our executive over outreach said that he was listening to a minister quote some facts and he said, back when Billy Graham was here on the earth, he would quote a verse a minute and there'd be what, 20 or 20 or so. Anyway, he would quote a lot of verses. You can go back and watch them on YouTube. He was constantly quoting scripture. He said, but now in the modern church, there is normally only three scriptures referred to in a sermon. You know, it says over in the prophet Amos, he said, there'll be a, uh, I forget exactly how it's worded. I remember this from 30 years ago, there'll be a drought in the land, but not a drought of water, but a drought of the word. And the reason pastors are only quoting three verses because they don't want to lose people. My question is what kind of people are you keeping? See, I believe that people will rise to the occasion. I don't believe we need to make it as low as possible. I think we need to raise the standard of the word of God and those that really, who do you want to attract? I want to attract people that love the word of God because it's the word that will change you. Jesus said in John 17, 17, I need to preach on the offering. Jesus said in John 17, 17, he's praying to the father and he said, father, sanctify them through the truth. And then he said this, your word is truth. Now we live in a culture where there is no such thing as truth. Hey, that's your truth. Have you ever heard? Oh, that's your truth. Okay. Well, that's your truth. Live your truth. No, we want to live his truth. Jesus made it clear. Your word is truth. This is the truth. If this says it's wrong, it's wrong. If this says it'll kill you, it will kill you. If this says it'll bless you, it'll bless you. If this says it's evil, it's evil. If this says it's good, it's good. So don't get mad at the messenger. I'm only, I'm only sharing the message, amen. But man, God wants you blessed. And so Galatians 3.14 says the curse has been removed so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that you might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Well, what's a Gentile? Anybody that's not a Jew. So that's probably most of us. And that's good news for you, that the blessing that belongs only to the Jews that were natural descendants of Abraham, now that Jesus has come, that blessing has been released on all nations who will accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior. The blessing that only belonged to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and those descendants which made them the wealthiest nation on the planet, the most powerful nation on the planet, that blessing has now been released to those that are in Christ. And that blessing of Abraham will do the same thing now that it did then. Can I get an amen? Are we reading the Word? Put Galatians 3.14 back up there again, I've got to hurry up and get past the offering. Praise God. How many of you know the offering is important? Your finances matter to God. If your finances don't matter, then quit working. If money's not good, why are you spending 40 to 80 hours getting it if it's not important? You then don't want to hear what God says about it. You see, the issue with finances is that your heart's connected to it. So when we talk about your money, we talk about your heart. Amen. People have some wacky ideas about money. They have this idea that money is the root of all evil. Thank you for that overwhelming silence. Well, I thought that's what the Bible said. That's the problem, you thought. And we leave words out of the Bible and twist things. The Bible says it's the love of money that's the root of all evil. Do you know what caused Lucifer to fall? In Ezekiel 28, he said it's by your merchandising, your trafficking, your financial trafficking. He began to fall in love with things more than with God. And it was the love of money that made Lucifer, the brightest angel in heaven, become the darkest Satan on earth. His love for things. His love for money. Jesus said you can't serve God and Mammon. Mammon is the Syrian name for money. Either God is your God or money is your God. You know how to make money not be your God? Bring it to church and make it worship Him. Amen. Galatians 3.14 says so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus. Now, what is the blessing of Abraham? That's found in Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 through 3. This is the blessing that came upon Abraham. Genesis chapter 12. You're learning something this morning. Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 through 3. I don't like to come to church and get fired up and excited and walk out ignorant and happy. I'd rather walk out happy and educated. My mind renewed. I'd rather have a reason to shout than just for shouting in its own self. A lot of church just shout for shouting sake. Woo, we had church. What'd you learn? Don't know, but woo, we had church. Hallelujah. It didn't say you'll know the shout and the shout will set you free. It said you'll know the truth. And the truth, well the truth is you ought to shout because the truth is good. I'd rather shout about the truth. So here's the blessing now in Haran. The Lord said to Abram. Here's the blessing now that came upon Abraham that caused the Jewish nation, now Christians, to become blessed. Get out of your country from your family and from your father's house. Don't preach that please Byron, do not comment on that. Some of you are going to have to leave your folks and their doctrine and accept the Word even if mama doesn't agree with it. Grandma doesn't agree with it. Well that's not what grandpa believes. You know sometimes I'll quote scriptures and people will take it back to their in-laws to find out if it's true. Well I told my mama about that. She said she doesn't agree. I said and? It wasn't Byron. I quoted the scripture. My mama said no. My grandpa, he's a preacher. Well, good for him. There's things I preached last year that I disagree with now. I've had to grow, make adjustments. Amen. There's times I got up and said that was wrong. This is better. Amen. And he said so get out of your country from your family and from your father's house. Some of you are going to have to leave your friends and find you some real believing friends because the people you hang out with will either elevate you or bring you down. I literally had people come to this church and get completely miraculously healed and set free. And then I'd see them a month or two later. I said well I haven't seen you since you got healed. Yeah, my family doesn't believe in what you're doing there at Victory so we're just going to hang out with them. Go to church with them because they don't much agree with what's going on up there. And then I'll meet them ten years later and they're sick, busted, disgusted, depressed, demonized and look like a mule because they're hanging out with dead religion in the name of family olatry. Byron, Byron, Byron. You know Jesus made a statement one time. He said you're either going to have to follow your family or follow me. That one guy said well let me bury my dead dad. He said let the dead bury the dead. That sounds harsh. But Jesus is not saying be disrespectful. He's saying there will always be a family reason why you can't follow me. There will always be people in your family that will tell you. When I received the Holy Spirit and spoke with colleagues at college and came home and told my mother, the look of fear that came on her face. Absolute terror that I had gotten involved in a cult. But I knew I hadn't. And it was not a cult. It was in the Bible. And I had well-meaning family members tell me I was going to lose my mind. They knew people that spoke with tongues that are now mentally in an insane asylum. That they lost their mind. But I had already received the Holy Ghost. I just smiled and thought bless your heart. I had another family member come and bring me a book, a document, 45 reasons why speaking with tongues is not for today. Well-meaning family. But I had already found it. I had already been filled with the Holy Spirit. I already knew what it was. I had already experienced Jesus as my baptizer in the Holy Ghost. And your stuff wasn't going to talk me out of it. Did I get mad at them? No, I felt sorry for them. But it was just in a matter of years, some of them all at once said I want what you've got. But what if I would have collapsed to that? What if I had caved into that? I don't want to disappoint my mother. So I'm just going to go back to the dead religion we were in. Well, I wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be here. Thank God. You've got to be willing to walk away from your family and your country and do what the Word of God says, even if it hair lifts the devil. I don't know what that means, but Andrew Womack said it, so it sounds good. I thought it sounded good. You know, once we got married in 1982 and went to Tulsa to train for Bible College, one thing the Lord took out of our heart was coming back to Dunbar, West Virginia. That's the last place on earth I want to be. I mean, I prayed about it. I said, Lord, they need a church. That's my folks. That's my friends. I grew up with those people. That's my family. I graduated. They need a church. We have never had the desire ever to go back there and live, ever. One time a person came up to me and said, I'm so sorry you got stuck in Maysville. They're just this little church. I'm so sorry you failed. I said, man, bless their hearts. They're judging things by numbers. When I go to heaven, the Lord's not going to say, you pathetic thing. You only had a little 150-member church. He's going to say, thank you for obeying exactly what I told you to do and preaching the Word of God where I told you to be. Amen. If God calls you to scrub the commodes, do it with great joy. It ought to be the cleanest commodes in Mason County, praise God. People sit on it and they get healed. No more hemorrhoids. They come up, they're all gone. Whatever you're called to do, do it to the glory of God. There's no such thing as secular and sacred. If you're called in your career, that's your ministry. This is not the real ministry. This is what I was called to do. But whatever you're called to do in life, do it unto God. Work for the Lord, not for men. And just men get the benefit of it. One time a person called me and said, man, I tell you, I can't hardly go to work, man. I can't stand the company. The company is just so two-faced. They promise one thing and do another. They never follow through with what they promise. And it was a larger company. And I don't know what to do. And he said, I'm just in a quandary. I just don't even want to work anymore. I said, well, you're working for the wrong person. You're working for that company. He said, what do you mean? And I took him over here to Ephesians chapter, I think it's Ephesians chapter 5. I'm way off track. Well, we're talking about money, aren't we? Ephesians 5, let's see. Yeah, Ephesians 6, verse 5. Bond servants, be obedient to those who are your masters. Now, let me say bond servant means somebody who's an employee. Do you know when you sign, when you fill out an application to work for a company, you became a bond servant? You signed your name to that. You made a contract. So you're a bond servant, right? Be obedient to those who you're a master. You can say to your company, to your bosses, your employers, according to the flesh. Your masters, according to the flesh, the people you work for, right? With fear and trembling, with great respect, right? In sincerity of heart, as to Christ. Chancellor works for Walmart, but he ought to be serving them as if that's Christ. They're just getting the benefit of that. They don't deserve it. But they're getting the benefit that he's serving somebody greater than his fleshly masters. He's giving them more than they deserve. Christians ought to be, people ought to be salivating to hire Christians. But most of the time, when you say you're a Christian, when it comes to remodeling my house, they got a fish on their card, I throw it away. Because most Christians are pathetic at keeping their word. Thank you for those three amens and go on. I have my experience in building the two houses. It's the Christians that have gave us the most trouble. I've talked to waiters and waitresses at restaurants for 40 years. I said, what's the hardest crowd to deal with? He said, the church crowd on Sunday afternoon. They demand more and they tip very little, if anything. But yet they demand so much. They're so self-righteous. Can I just tell you, if you go and treat waiters and waitresses that way, tell them that you go to another church. Just tell them you go to First Church. The first church to get out because there's nothing going on. Well, I'm ornery today. Amen. But don't tell people you go to Victory and then you demand all this stuff and then you don't give a decent tip. If you can't afford a tip, you need to go home. Don't eat. Amen. Well, their service was horrible. Have you ever not done well? Do you know what's going on in their lives? Do you know how poorly, maybe their single mother raising five kids and their kids are at home sick and they're half out of their head thinking about the bills they've got to pay and you're upset because your french fries weren't hot enough? Where's the love of God in that? You shouldn't be such a glutton that you're demanding your food get there right now anyhow. Huh? You want me to tell that story? Okay. See, I've got two spirits that leave me. If I miss God on one, the other one gets me. It's called guardrails. We went to a restaurant up in Cincinnati, a pretty nice restaurant, as one of our gifts, and the lady that was waiting on us was very pregnant. And she was waiting on us and the plate was really busy and there was a group behind us and they were talking about missionaries and it sounded like they were really just talking about missionaries and this and that and the other. And this waitress didn't get their food out fast enough, and I'm telling you, they gave her what for? They gave her a what for? And probably gave very little of a tithe. Or tip. I guess I get them confused because some of you just tip God on Sunday. You don't time. Well, that's true, though. So we were just so concerned. We were hearing their self-righteous conversation and they were the loudest group in the building and it was a nice restaurant. And as we're going out, Ria walked up to the person at the front desk and says, I want to talk to the manager. And I said, it's good. It's good. Okay. So the manager comes out and says, yes, ma'am. She poured out some money. She handed it to him. She said, I just want to give an additional tip for our waitress because we heard all of the stuff going on behind us and we want you to know she didn't deserve any of that and we thought she did a tremendous job and just want to say thank you that you had such a good server working on your staff and we appreciate it. Well, his face lit up. He said, I will let her know. And that's what we need to start doing. Praise God. Have you ever bothered to pray for a waitress who's not doing well? Can I pray for you? No. Well, that doesn't mean you can't pray for them. But go back. I've got to hurry. Go back to Genesis chapter 12, verse 1. So God is pronouncing this blessing on Abraham. Now, that blessing was originally on Adam and Adam lost it. So now God finally found a man after hundreds of years to get his blessing back into the earth. And he got it in through Abraham, the believer. And so here he says in Genesis chapter 2, he said, go for yourself, for your own advantage, away from your country, from your relatives, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. Now, notice verse 2. This is where the real pronouncing of the blessing happens. Let me ask you, how did that blessing transfer from God to Abraham? Through Jesus. That is true, through Jesus. Sorry, I was ahead of you. You're bold. You're good. Actually, I was going to say through words, but he is the word. And he said, I will make you a great nation. That's why Hamas will never run them into the Mediterranean Sea. He said, I will bless you. Now, what has Abraham done up to this point? Nothing. He didn't earn it. He said, I will make your name great. In other words, I'll give you a great reputation. And you shall be a blessing. Notice that God has to bless you, then you are a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Are there any families in here today? Does anybody belong to a family in here? Some of you don't. That's odd. How are you here? Are you those aliens that Trump's been talking about? How many of you belong to a family? How many of you came from your mother? Okay, you're in a family. You may not want to admit it. I get it. You're not wanting to admit you're part of it. I understand that. Okay. But you're blessed through Abraham because Jesus came through Abraham. All the families of the earth will be blessed. But here's the point I want you to see, verse 2. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you, make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. God's blessing has to come on you, and out of the blessing, you bless others. But what we've heard in church is give and be a blessing, then God will bless you. Be holy, be perfect, be sanctified, and then God will bless you. But God blesses you, and then we flow out of that blessing. God makes you righteous, and He gives you the power to live righteously. You don't earn righteousness. You don't earn anything. Glory to God. Amen. Now, go to Romans chapter 4, verse 4. This is my sermon. Maybe. Do you all love the Word? Romans chapter 4, verse 4. So we are in the process of receiving the offering. We've been in a season. The Lord said to Matt three months ago, I want you to teach on the offering. He said, I want you to teach the Word on the offering, the tithes, the offering, finances. I want you to do that. Then, if there's time left, minister whatever else is on your heart. So I'm just obeying the Lord. All right. Normally, we have other members to get up and share, but he told me, I want you ministering on the offering. He said, I want you to bring the Word. Not that the others weren't, but I am the messenger of this church. Thank you for that yep, yes, and yes, you are. God sent me here. Hallelujah. How do you know when you're in the will of God? It doesn't mean that there's absence of problems. It doesn't mean there's not difficulty. But there is a desire in you. You're there because there's an inward desire to be there. There's a grace to do it. Right. And that desire has never left. Since 1990, that desire has never left. I told them I'd be here two years. And they said, that's fine with us. And two years went and came and went. And I said, Lord, it's time now to go. It's time to go. He said, OK. He said, when you become obedient here, we'll talk about you going. I said, what do you mean become obedient? He said, you can do stuff on the outside, but on the inside, you're fighting it. He said, you need to make the adjustment in your attitude and in your heart that you're glad to be here. Instead of wondering what big city you could be a part of. He said, not only that, he said, I didn't send Jesus to New York City. I sent him to Bethlehem. I do big things in small places. He said, and my plan's a lot bigger than you could think. In fact, he said, my plan for your life is so big, it'll take your children and grandchildren to fulfill it. He said, you'll get it started. They'll have to walk the rest of it out. If your vision is just fit for your generation, your vision's too small. We're going to talk about this a little bit when we talk about church. Is that if a church is nothing but old people, it's because they've lost their vision. And if a church is just nothing but catering to young people, you've lost your wisdom. Because you're having to relearn everything we've already done four or five times and tell you how not to do it. And most of the time, older people won't quote scriptures, they'll tell you about experiences. They won't just give you the knowledge, they'll explain how it was applied. You need the older people. Because we've got the money. And you've got the energy. And we need your energy. Glory to God. I will never confess this, but Andrew Womack said, he said, now when he bends down to tie his shoes, he just stays down there a little longer to see what else needs to be done. Romans chapter 4 verse 5. But to him who does not work, well let's go back to verse 3. For what does the scripture say? Isn't it interesting Paul's quoting scripture? For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. How did Abraham become righteous in God's eyes? By his behavior? No, he believed God. I mean, it could have been his behavior because right after the blessing of Abraham, he lied about his wife. God pronounced a blessing on him in chapter 12 of Genesis. In the latter part of chapter 12, later on, he goes down to Egypt and he's afraid for his life. So he says, tell the Pharaoh of Egypt that you're not my wife, you're my sister. Because he'll kill me if you tell him you're my wife. So lie for me. It was a lie. Half lies are lies. Come up here and repent brother. Alright. Quit listening so well. Anyway, it wasn't his behavior. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. What's he saying? If you're trying to earn God's blessing through your behavior, through how good you are, how holy you are, you're trying to put God in your debt. You're trying to make God owe you something. When you think that you've got to achieve some level of behavior, some level of holiness, before God will hear your prayers or before God will bless you, you're literally turning His grace into a wage. You're trying to make God owe you something. But God can't owe you something when He gave you everything. So the only one that's deceived is you, thinking that God owes you when God said, I already gave it to you. But to him who does not work, now this doesn't mean don't have a job. It's talking about you don't try to earn God's love and blessing. But to him who does not work, but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly. Well this is only good news for the ungodly. He justifies who? The ungodly. Now once He justifies you, you're no longer ungodly. But the only way you can be justified is to realize you are ungodly before He justifies you. Right? His faith is counted for righteousness, just as David also described, here we go about the blessing, the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. When God imputes His righteousness to you and you didn't earn it, He gives it to you because of Jesus and you simply believe it, that man becomes blessed. Now this word blessedness is plural, blessednesses. Multiple realms of blessing. Physical blessing, financial blessing, marital blessing, emotional blessing, career blessing, ministry blessing, it's blessednesses. Right? Of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works and He quotes Psalm 32, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Again, I've got to stop and say, I've got to help people because here's what you've heard. Blessed are those who get their act together. Who become holy and get sin out of their life, they're blessed. God can't bless people that aren't living right. No, it says blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. And whose sins are covered. Under the old covenant they're recovered, under the new they're removed. Hallelujah. Now that's worth shouting about. That's worth partying about. Glory to God. Amen. And then He said, blessed is the man or woman to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. What's the word impute mean? He won't count it. It didn't say you didn't sin, it's just that even when you do, He won't count it. He won't impute it, He won't put it to your account. He won't make, oh boy, I tell you, God's counting those sins. And when you get to heaven, we're going to see a video of all the stuff you did in secret. Well, I don't want to go to heaven and see that video. There's no video in heaven. Only video in heaven. There's going to be a private showing, I can tell you that right now, but anyway. Amen. So we're blessed because we're forgiven. We're blessed because the Lord has made us righteous without worth. And now because we're blessed, we're able to be a blessing. Some of you have not trusted that blessing. You're still trusting your paycheck more than the blessing of Abraham. That's why you've been limited to your paycheck. You're living out of your paycheck instead of out of the blessing. Alright, now look at Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28. Are you here? I'm trying to build you up in this area. Because there are people being severely challenged in the area of finances right now. Okay. And I'm trying to tell you there is no human answer for this. There's no human way other than the supernatural. But the thing is, that's available to you. The government wants it to the point you can't afford to live. So they'll become your savior. That's called socialism. It's called communism. It's called Marxism. And right now they're working to re-educate your children to turn against you. They know the old people aren't going to go for it, so they're trying to re-educate the younger. To go for the wealth of the older. It happened in Red China in the 60's. It happened in Vietnam. With that horrible leader. It happened in Russia. Where the old had to be exterminated so the young could step up. And what came out of that was poverty. It happened in Venezuela. Where Hollywood sang the praises of socialism in Venezuela. And now they're one of the richest oil companies in the world. And now they're the most broke after 10 years. Because socialism, depending on the government to be your provider, is an absolute trap of Satan. I don't want the government providing health care. Anywhere where there's been socialized medicine, you're going to wait one year to two years eventually to get what you need. I was talking to a friend from England. A good friend of ours from England. A good, spirit-filled pastor, and his dad had a terminal disease. And he was on the waiting list for at least a year, maybe two years to get surgery. That he needed immediately. Because he had to get in line to get the government assistance. You don't want the American Cares Act. See, you young people don't understand. I lived in the 60's when this all began. When they killed JFK and took over. And took prayer out of the school and took the Bible out of school. I was in that decade. When the Marxists took over and put Lyndon B. Johnson in office. And then we started sacrificing our babies to Bale in 1973. You know who Bale is? Bale is a God. If you remember when Elijah challenged them, the 450 prophets of Bale. He said, we're going to have a showdown right now. It's going to take the supernatural power of God to separate people from their idol worship. Which is what it's going to take now. That's why we can't just be three songs and a sermon church. Amen. We've got to have the gifts of the Spirit in operation. Amen. So people can see the real God. He wants to demonstrate Himself. Anyway, he said, okay, we're going to have a showdown. We're going to build an altar. And I'm going to let you 450 priests of Bale do your thing. Call on your gods. And you do your thing. And then when you're done, I'll do my thing with the only God that really exists. Jehovah God. So go ahead. So Elijah leaned up against a tree and put a piece of straw in his mouth and chewed on it. Sat there and watched them. He said, they did all kinds of stuff. They put all their sacrifices on there. And they started calling out to God. And at one point, he began to mock them. He said, well, maybe your God's busy. He may be on the commode and can't come help you. That's true. It's what it says. He may be on the toilet and he can't come help you right now. Talk about bold. And it says, at about noonday, he said, they began to leap and dance and do their ecstatic ritual all over that altar. And began to cut themselves with knives and lances. And bled profusely. They began to hack themselves and sacrifice. They began to cut themselves in pieces. To sacrifice to Baal. And we've been cutting babies in pieces since 1973. If you want to know what 2024 is going to feel like, you're getting a taste of it right now. You see, what I'm saying right now, if this church didn't love the word, half of you would have gotten up and walked out. I don't hate people that do bad things. I hate the bad things they do. God doesn't hate people that do bad things, because if he does, I'm messed up. Because sometimes I do bad things. But I don't try to justify the things I'm doing. And I'm not asking you to justify it. I'm ashamed of it. I want to be free from it. I want grace to be applied there, too. Come on. But one thing I know is God's not relating to me based on how well I've overcome every sinful problem in my life. Glory to God. Amen. So here's Ephesians 4, 28. Let him who stole, steal no longer. But rather let him labor, get a job. Working with his hands what is good. Why? Why should he get a job? Why should he get a job? That he may have something to give to him who has need. Your paycheck is your seed bag. You're working to give. You're working for a giving, not a living. And if you'll start working for a giving, you'll get to the point where you don't have to work. You choose to work. And then you can get to the place where you're doing the thing you were called to do and getting paid to do it. You're not doing it just to make ends meet. But you've got to start seeing your paycheck as a seed bag. And then you can live beyond your paycheck. That's what he's saying. 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 8. Hallelujah. Glory. Glory. I feel like shouting, this is truth. This works. This works. But you've got to stop limiting yourself to your paycheck. Look at that paycheck and say, some of that's seed. Eventually all of it's going to be seed. Hallelujah. 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6. But this I say, he who sows, this is all about finances. He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So he's talking about things become seeds. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver. God is able to make all grace abound toward you, so that you always, having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work. As it is written, he has dispersed abroad. The righteous man has dispersed abroad. He has given to the poor. His righteousness endures forever. That's a description of you, the righteous one. The righteous man has dispersed abroad. Well, you've got to have something to disperse. He has given to the poor. Well, you've got to have something to give. And he calls your prosperity your righteousness. Now, here's the verse. Now, may he, God, who supplies seed to the sower... This is something you're going to have to get a hold of in your heart. Not because I'm saying it, but because it's right here. Is this true? How many believe this is in the Bible? Half of you. This says, Holy Bible. And in the Holy Bible, it says that God gives seed to the sower. I don't have anything to give. I'm sorry, God lied. See, the devil wants you to believe you can't afford to give, to help, to be a blessing. He wants you to believe that God hasn't given you seed to sow. He wants you to believe that God hasn't given you seed to sow. But the Word says he has supplied seed to the sower. And bread for food. Where'd the bread come from? From the seed that was sowed. And also, God will supply and multiply the seed you have sown. God can't multiply seed in the bag. He can multiply the seed you've sown. How many believe that's in the Bible? This is the message for you today. From the Lord today. He wants to multiply the seed you've sown. You ought to be chomping at the bit to sow into the kingdom of God. Because what you sow is multiplied. What you eat is gone. So make sure that you don't eat your seed. Now listen, your whole paycheck is not necessarily all seed. But some of it's seed. And I believe as the Lord multiplies it, more and more of it can become seed. And more and more becomes seed. Because it's multiplying. See, God doesn't just want you making it from one paycheck to another. He wants you to step into kingdom finance and have some things multiplied beyond your paycheck. Come on. Say it out loud. God is multiplying the seed I sow. He is supplying seed to me the sower. And bread comes out of that. God is supplying and multiplying the seed I have sown. Come on, give God a shout of praise. It's happening. It's happening. It's happening in 2024. Right. You know, one of our family members pointed out last night that somebody bought groceries last year. It was $40. The same identical thing now is $70. You just looking at that? The enemy's got you right where he wants you. But if you look at this, inflation cannot keep up with God's ability to multiply what you sow. If you want to be thriving in 2024, you better believe this more than you believe that. You better act on this. Warning! Warning! Warning! Act on this or go under. Settle it now. This works. Settle it. And then he says, And increase the fruits of your righteousness. The product of your righteousness. How do you know you're righteous by faith in Jesus? There are products of that. And one of the fruits and products is financial multiplication. You have the right to have multiplied seed because you're righteous in Jesus. You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You