Doug Batchelor - I See, I Want, I Take (Sabbath School Study Hour)

[Music] [Music] good morning friends welcome to Sabbath school study our coming to here from the Granite Bay seventh-day Adventist Church in Sacramento California would like to welcome our online members and also those who are watching around the world thank you for being a part of our study time today also to the members and the visitors here at the Granite Bay Church good to see you again here this morning we are studying through our new lesson quarterly dealing with stewardship that's the theme for the next 12 weeks you're gonna be studying this important theme entitled motives of the heart we're on lesson number two today entitled I see I want I take so an interesting study today talking about stewardship now for those of you who are joining us who don't have a lesson Courtley to study along and encourage you go to the amazing facts website just amazing facts dot o-r-g and you can download today's lesson it's lesson number two in our lesson quarterly on stewardship and you can study along with us or you can visit a nearby seventh-day adventist church and you can receive your lesson quarterly there as well also for our friends in north america we do have a free offer that we'd like to let you know about it's an intriguing title called thieves in the church goes along with our stewardship theme this our free offer today if you'd like to receive it call eight six six seven eight eight three nine six six and you can ask for offer number one three six well before we get to our study this morning we always like to begin by lifting our voices in song I'd like to invite a chorus to come and lead us in our music today good morning and such a privilege to be able to sing with you all this morning and now we're gonna begin our singing with number 608 faith is the victory and when we think about Christian warfare usually when we think about warfare we think of weapons but in this warfare our weapons our love and we would invite you all to sing with us number 608 faith is the victory Christenson and press the bad sighs okay Oh Hey is the victory Oh yes victory third verse two comes the white Raven child me before the from [Music] geezus congri [Music] victory is the victory Oh and our next song will turn over to number 422 marching to Zion will sing together the first and last verses marching design love No a song with sweet and [Music] beautiful musicals [Music] the city every TV we're marching 13 and was back we're marching through to fan promotions [Music] we're mighty number two [Music] thank you all for singing with us and our Sabbath School lessons gonna begin let's bow our heads for a word of Prayer your father once again thank you for the opportunity to open up your word and study together and as we talk about this very important theme of stewardship father we ask that the Holy Spirit had come and got our hearts and our minds revealed to us our great need of having that same attitude that Jesus displayed an attitude of giving in all aspects of his life bless our time today for we ask this in Jesus name Amen our lesson today is going to be brought to us by pastor Doug and just before I invite pastor Doug to come up we're gonna be doing something just a little different this morning we actually tried this last week and in a special way those joining us on Facebook we're gonna take a few moments at the conclusion of the program near the end of the lesson to answer your Bible questions so if you have a question that you'd like to ask you can actually type it in right there on Facebook and near the end of the lesson today we will have an opportunity to answer as many of those questions as possible all right pastor Doug will turn the time over to you thank you Pastor Ross and good morning everybody we're glad to see each of you here at Sabbath School glad you've come to study we have an interesting lesson today and at times it will be maybe even shocking and sometimes convicting but we're gonna be talking about and this is lesson two on our new quarterly on stewardship motives of the heart and today's lesson is I see I want I take and it's talking basically about covetousness and which is of course the tenth commandment and I want to reiterate that rarely do we have an offer that matches so perfectly with the study the offer for today is a book by Joe Cruz called thieves in the church and it talks about the sin that nobody admits to is a covetousness and so you want to request that we have a memory verse memory verse is from Matthew chapter 13 verse 22 and if you want to find that in your Bibles this is from the New King James for you ready Matthew chapter 13 22 here we go now he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word of God and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful can that still happen to us today the deceitfulness of riches now we're gonna be sharing a little later a principle we all know we've heard the quote the love of money is the root of all evil but the Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil it is the love of money I mean to be kind of a little bit of a paradox if we say money is the root of all evil now it's time for our offering I mean we talked about money in church all the time and there's a lot of good things that can happen through money it's the love of money it can be distracting and you know there's an interesting quote if you've got your your quarterly right there at the beginning of the quarterly there's a quote from the book councils on stewardship page 1 to 54 and 55 in here Ellen White describes a vision where the devil is in consultation with his demons and he's telling them here's how we can trap followers of God the devil speaking to his demons he says go make the possessors of lands and money drunk with the cares of this life present the world before them in its most attractive light that they may lay up their treasure here and fix their affections upon the earthly things we must do our utmost to prevent those who labor in God's cause from obtaining means to use against us keep the money in our ranks the more means they obtain the more they'll injure our kingdom by taking from us our subjects make them care more about money than the up building of Christ's Kingdom and the spread of the truths that we hate and we need not fear their influence for we know that every selfish covetous person will fall under our power and finally be separated from God's people kind of gives you chills to think about how the devil is counseling people in in his kingdom unfortunately this ploy seems to be very successful now our first section under Sunday is talking about the prosperity gospel how many of you know what the prosperity gospel is it's a a branch of supposed Christian theology that basically at its core says that God if you have enough faith God wants you to be wealthy it also usually says that God wants you to be healthy and if you're not wealthy and healthy it's because well you've got a faith problem and often if you want to show you have faith it they'll say you need to send money to our ministry and they call it a seed of faith and there are about five tenants that you find in this prosperity gospel we're gonna kind of go through them in just a moment first I want to read an interesting quote to you from Spurgeon which I agree with he was a contemporary of Ellen White and a great preacher Spurgeon said I believe that is anti-christian and unholy for any Christian deliver the object of accumulating wealth you'll say are we not to strive all we can to get all that we can he said well you may do so I cannot doubt but what in doing so you may do service to the cause of God but I would say that to live with the object of accumulating wealth is anti-christian if our object is to simply get wealth the Bible says that day now he seeks he that seeks to be rich will not be without sin and doesn't Jesus say that it's harder for a rich man you remember the story of the rich young ruler harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than a camel to go through the eye of a needle now in Bible times when a shepherd was counting his sheep in order to make sure that only one sheet sheep went through the the door at a time they had a narrow spot and it would kind of funnel the sheep one at a time into the corral and they called it the eye of the needle so some are wondering was Jesus talking about this sheep gate or was he talking about the literal eye of a needle it's a little rely of a needle you can't fit a sheep through that a let alone a camel but a camel could go through a sheep gate but he had to get on his knees and you had to unload him so many have thought Jesus was talking about when shepherds would count their sheep the camel could not go three I of a needle unless it unloaded and it got on its knees and will there be rich people in heaven who are they named some Abraham we're gonna talk about him in just a minute who else well King David Nicodemus Solomon job well I'll get to Joseph's Sarah won Joseph Joseph the son of Jacob ended up very wealthy in the end and we expect to see him in heaven Joseph of Arimathea both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus ended up basically liquidating their wealth to support the early church they gave heavily back then but yeah there are examples now are they your heroes or are the poor people in the Bible your heroes trick question the Bible says it's harder for a rich man to get into the kingdom than a camel to go through the eye of a needle there are exceptions how many of you would like to be the exception also we all kind of want to be the exception right but is that dangerous if our object is to be financially wealthy I go to a number of Christian colleges and universities a new week of Prayer and sometimes I'll talk to the students they'll say what's your goal and they'll say well you know I was going to take this but this pays better and this has better benefits I said so is your goal for your career the best paying job or is your goal to say what does God want me to do for the service of fellow man and to please God what should be our supreme objective now if God says I want you to go into medicine because that's how you got your gifts and how I want you to serve God and it may pay well that's fine if God says I want you to go into engineering because that's where your gifts are and and you can serve your fellow man that's fine but if your first question you're asking is what's the pay package that's the wrong question to ask for a Christian your first question should say Lord what do you want me to do I'll take up my cross and I'll follow you wherever you want me to go he says you got to deny yourself so we got to be very careful to think that that statement about hard for a rich man to get into the kingdom is not still true it is still true it is still hard are we a rich country should that concern us in a couple of months amazing facts is going back to India I've been to India a few times before and it's there's a lot of poor people things are changing there the economy is getting better but there's still a lot of poor people and do you go from a police like Indians some of the places I've been in the South Pacific and in Africa where and then you come back to the US and wow we are very well off all right back to the prosperity gospel here someone's going to read a verse for me in just a minute I think you'll have second Corinthians 8:9 one of their beliefs prosperity gospel is that the Abrahamic covenant is a means to material entitlement that through Abraham we will all be blessed and God blessed Abraham and since we are the descendants of Abraham and God blessed Abraham with great abundance we should expect great abundance what was the blessing that God said he was going to give the world through Abraham was it money or was it the Savior it was the Savior that would come and the Bible says that if we are in Christ and we're Reber him seed and prosperity preachers will quote that and they'll say since you're the seed of Abraham and Abraham was rich you should be rich too we should not be the borrower's we should be the lenders we should not be the last we should be the first and you'll hear just some really and you know what makes the prosperity gospel dangerous there are elements of truth in it but isn't that true with every false teaching there are elements of truth that there are blessings in serving God and there are promises but if the whole purpose you go through the Bible like it's a fortune cookie to pull out the verses and only talk about prosperity and you don't talk about the ones where they say we have forsaken everything to follow you I mean there's a lot more of that how many of the Apostles were rich so even Paul said not many wise not many noble you know they were sort of the a motley crew okay let's keep continue on here so Kenneth Copeland in his book he wrote Kenneth Copeland is a great advocate for the prosperity gospel in nineteen seventy four laws of prosperity said since God's covenant has been established and prosperity is a provision of that covenant you need to realize this prosperity that belongs to you now and he has I think a couple of airplanes and multi-million dollar estate there in Texas and he's trying to live out his theology second point if they say in the prosperity gospel is that Jesus atonement extends to the sin of material poverty in other words Jesus died not only to save you from the penalty of sin but one of those penalties is poverty and he died to save you from poverty the opposite of poverty is prosperity and so he saves you from poverty and so you could be prosperous and part of his death on the cross was to make you rich and so they weave that right into the atonement and they've got a verse for that go ahead and you can read that for me for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might become rich all right there you have it the Bible says that he became poor that you might be rich now what was Paul talking about there Jesus became poor so that we all might be Bill Gates or Warren Buffett what was he talking about Jesus became poor so that we all might be billionaires rich how rich is rich a hundred thousand a year or is rich I mean is it a monetary riches the Bible talks about people who think they're rich and are really poor because there increased with Goods they think they're rich in the Bible says they don't know that the poor and wretched miserable blind and naked now that could be a lot of the church in North America that may have a lot of physical prosperity but be spiritually bankrupt and doesn't the Bible say has not God chosen the poor of this world and how did Jesus begin the Sermon on the Mount blessed are the now in Matthew says blessed are the poor in spirit you know Lucas has blessed out of the poor who wants to be blessed like that they say oh yeah maybe we bought into some of the prosperity gospel so they Paul was not talking about physical riches here he's talking about through the poverty of Christ through his sufferings we might be spiritually rich point number three the prosperity gospel that Christians give in order to gain material compensation from God and one of the verses they'll use there is it does say Luke 6:38 give and it will be given to you good measure pressed down shaken together running over shall men put into your bosom for with what measure you meet the same will be measured back to you now that's true many years ago I had a firewood business and firewood is a commodity that when you give it to people it's a quantity it's a hundred and twenty-eight square feet three tiers is a quart of wood and that's three tier three stacks of wood that are each feet long four feet high sixteen inches for each stack 128 square feet and if it's not quite 128 square feet you're cutting people short and so there was a big complaint in town that you know some wood dealers were selling them wood and when they measured it out it wasn't a full court so when we would advertise for our firewood I was in business with a seventh-day adventists brother and we used that verse given they'll be given to you good measure pressed down shaken together running over we would get people a full Corps it wasn't straight across at the top when it was four feet high we would round it up and then word got out this is why you buy your wood from bachelor and Boatwright they give you a full quart and then we found God blessed us I still don't have like Bill Gates but you know God will take care of you so there's a principle there that you do unto others and they'll do into you so the way God blessed us was we got customers because we were honorable you know what I'm saying so there's a principle there but God is not saying given that will be given to you the way the prosperity churches use that give to our ministry and it will be given to you what does it do for Christianity when people look and the ministers that are supposedly talking about taking up your cross denying yourself and following Jesus are living in gilded festooned lifestyle it doesn't really be known what Christ is Christ's example was and so they say you give to us and God is gonna bless you materially and you've all seen they know the pastor said I remember there was em yeah I am naming names because I think they ought to be ashamed there was one guy named Bishop Ike and he was notorious for having the most incredible scheme is to get you to send money and he would send out his appeal letter and then his appeal letter there'd be there was a little piece of paper and it had the print of a rug on it and it said special prayer rug and then he gave you instructions the letter said God's gonna answer whatever you want to pray for you the only way you're gonna get that answer is you got to reach in your wallet right now take the largest bill in your wallet put it in the prayer rug wrap it up quickly you know before it expires and mail it back to me if people were desperate they fell for it and there's all these scams how many of you know this some pastored says we're gonna send you oil water that I blessed or oil that I bless they do both and this is oil it's olive oil from Jerusalem we blessed it and you sprinkle this on wherever you're sick and you'll be made well and this have you heard these things all these scams and people get desperate you know think well what have I got to lose I've tried everything else maybe this will work and and they make a lot of money does Jesus talk about a class of people in his day he says you rob houses and make long prayers another televangelist gotten to have trouble he was very popular and had a broad ministry Robert Tilton and he was on stage and he's begging and pleading to help people lay your hands on your TV and go through all these stuff and heats out and he casting out Devils people that are watching and manipulating folks to send their money and he would send your prayer requests and and then the one of these news agencies did a special on him and they had the people taking all the money out and throwing out all the prayer requests they had them on camera they weren't even reading the prayer requests and throwing them in a dumpster and once he was exposed his ministry just fell into him nothing he's still out there trying to resurrect it so one of the greatest enemies of the truth of God is counterfeit Christians out there and counterfeit pastors that exploit people they had that back in Jesus day oh I haven't gone through my list of what some of the five false characteristics are of the prosperity gospel one is that you give so that you can get and I read you Luke 6 there's mark 10 29 and 30 jesus said I surely tell you that there was no one who has left houses or brothers or sister or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospel's who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses this is a verse they use you follow everything you leave everything to follow me and in this life you're gonna get a hundredfold more houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children's and lands and persecution they don't emphasize that but see you're gonna get a hundred times more houses well what did Jesus mean by that he meant if you leave everything and follow me you will have a home wherever you go in the church because people will take you in he didn't mean you're gonna have a hundred times more house or a hundred times more houses and yet that's the way some prosperity preachers will twist that didn't you heard these things as Cal yeah they call it name it and claimant theology another one is the prosperity gospel is faith is a self-generated spiritual force that leads to prosperity that the purpose of faith is not that you might be saved from sin and live a holy life but the purpose of faith is so that you can basically declare what you think you're supposed to have and by continuing to declare it that you are speaking faith into your statement and God is required to do it because you said it and you just supposed to proclaim and declare and and rebuke disbelief and just be positive about everything and and you know one very popular prosperity preacher he has his tactics are not as manipulating as some that are out there but the messages are all just positive positive positive it's Joel Osteen who has a church in Houston with I don't know seats twenty thirty thousand people they're not a dream but and I've listened to some of his messages he's on radio and it's just God's got a good plan for you and you just got to believe it and again there are there is some truth woven into it I mean Christ did say some things that talked about there were some positive messages but the idea that if you're suffering is just cuz you don't have a good enough attitude that's not biblical jesus said the rain and the sunshine comes to everybody isn't that right believer in unbeliever now this is interesting because my message in our sermon that follows is addressing some of these same things quite by coincidence all right and then the fifth point in the prosperity gospel is that prayer is a tool to force God to grant you prosperity I want to give you a quote I don't if you've ever heard there's another preacher his name is creflo dollar an interesting name for a prosperity preacher dollar and he said when we pray believing that we have already received what we are praying for God has no choice but to make our prayers come to pass it's a key to getting results as a Christian you're the whole purpose of prayer is to get what you want God is a big Santa Claus up in the sky and you're just supposed to ask and he's supposed to give and you just need more faiths and if you're not getting it you don't have enough faith again I don't say this I mean this is what the prosperity gospel teaches really a gospel of greed whenever we pray James says when you pray should say you know if it's God's will and did Paul get sick did Paul have a thorn in his side some affliction some malady we believe it was a physical problem most scholars think that he had very bad eyesight you remember when he saw the Lord he was blinded for a few days and later his the scales fell from his eyes but as time went on he never did see the same he had other people write his letters he would sign and then he said behold and what big characters I write and when he was standing in court that front of the high priest he didn't even know it was the high priest he couldn't see he always traveled with somebody because his vision was so bad and that could have been the affliction and he says I prayed three times that God would heal me and he said my strength is made perfect in weakness so what did Paul not have enough faith who's gonna argue that so this idea that if you're sick or if you're poor you just don't have enough faith I guess the Apostles didn't have enough faith because they were all you've heard the expression a rolling stone doesn't gather much moss while they were itinerant they went from place to place and and they were not wealthy in this worlds things all right the next section oh I read a survey that was done by American mythos and it showed that 82% of Americans thought that they were materialistic and 77 percent said that they are self-indulgent I would agree with that that most people are materialistic I'm convicted all the time I have too much stuff anyone else out there you can become a slave to your stuff so you can't do mission work for Jesus because you got to stay home take care of your stuff and Christ said of course a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses blured spiritual eyesight is the next section and we're going to begin with a quote here from the spirit of prophecy this is from the book spiritual gifts page 267 this is in your lesson some love this world so much that it swallows up their love for the truth as their treasures here increase their interest in the heavenly treasures decreases the more they possess this world the more closely they do hug it to them as they fear as if fearful their coveted treasure would be taken from them the more they possess the less they do and they have to bestow upon others the more they have the poor they feel oh the deceitfulness of riches they will not see and feel the ones of the cause of God poor people statistically give a bigger percentage of what they have than rich people who think rich people would give more but it's been proven time and again that poor people will give a bigger percentage than rich you know I think I quoted this to you last week Ben Franklin said that abundance destroys more people than poverty and we can get comfortable with having everything all of our earthly needs net all of our earthly needs met so we don't really pray give me this day our daily bread most of you when you pray give me this day my daily bread you know it's more ritual you're not really thinking will I eat today maybe some of you but most of you you're pretty comfortable that you're gonna eat so the poor people often really have to turn to God and this was a warning the Lord gave over and over again he said when you come into the Promised Land don't just say oh well you know I've got my house is in my lands and my orchards and my wells and everything is going well and you forget about the Lord and so that can happen to us you know one reason I think that God allows trials to come on a nation is to help them recognize their need of God because when worse when we are swimming in abundance we tend to forget to pray knowing you have a need can drive you to prayer Matthew 13 Jesus tells a parable Matthew 13 verse 3 he spoke to them and many things in parables saying behold a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some of the seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured them some fell on stony places where they didn't have much earth and immediately they sprang up but because they had no depth of earth but when the Sun came up it was scorched and because they had no root they withered away and here's the part I want you to notice and some of the seed good seed it fell among the thorns and the thorns sprang up and choked them but the others fell on good ground and it yielded a crop some a hundredfold some sixty some thirty he who has ears let him hear later they came to Jesus and he explains the parable now that third batch of seed that we just looked at it said he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word of God and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful might have a little fruit but is not a lot why the deceitfulness of riches what is the deceitfulness of riches tell me what do you think what's the deceitfulness of riches that somehow if you have enough you'll be satisfied you may not be holy you may not be ready for heaven but you're comfortable and we figure that if we're comfortable well that's good enough riches can be deceitful that way and we become unfruitful in the work of God so Jesus said there doesn't the Bible say that speaking of the second coming pray always that we might escape all these things and guard lest our hearts be overcharged with eating drinking in the cares of this life we can get so preoccupied with the cares of this life that that day overtakes us as a thief now there's another section here that talks about covetousness Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 how did sin enter our world because someone was dissatisfied with what God had provided Genesis 3:1 now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God in main and he said to the woman has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent were free to eat from the fruit of the trees in the garden but of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden God had said you shall not eat it nor shall you touch it lest you die then the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that in the day that you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like God knowing good and evil so when the woman saw that the tree was good for what I want to stop before I get to that part have you ever noticed that you'd be brought if you're brought into a store and you're told you can have anything in the store you say well that's wonderful but then the proprietor says except that one item there all of a sudden you become intrigued by that one item if there's one thing you can't have and you can have everything else that you become intrigued by you almost start to desire that one thing you strike to wonder why can't I have that one thing and that's where covet isn't coming in now how many know the 10th commandment if you're gonna quote the 10th commandment most people will say thou shalt not covet but it's longer than that isn't it that's what not covet what my neighbor's house neighbor's wife his manservant his maidservant his cattle or anything that is your neighbors and so it's not just covering your neighbor's things it's covered in your neighbors people manservant maidservant his wife how did David get into trouble the big trouble he got into he looked over the fence he was up on the roof and looked across the fence into the courtyard of his neighbor's house where his neighbor's wife was taking a bath and he wasn't satisfied with the ten wives that he had hidden that amazing he had ten but there was one over the fence he didn't have and he was willing to kill with that neighbor who was actually one of his mighty men to take the life he became dissatisfied with what he did have because he wanted something he didn't have now how does the devil work to get us to buy you know how marketing works often in the world they make you dissatisfied with what you do have and they say you'll only be satisfied if you take or buy or acquire what we're offering in four easy payments gets your credit card out now you deserve this you ever heard that on the commercial you deserve this anything why do I deserve that better pillow but I deserve it yeah I should go into debt and get it because I deserve it I was perfectly happy until I found out that I didn't have one of those and then they'll say your neighbors have it and they're successful and why I mean my neighbors have something I don't have Wow what's wrong with me and so they create the sense of dissatisfaction and the devil set off you might be living in paradise now and you might you don't think all this food and everything else tastes great but there's what there's one thing you haven't tasted yet and you don't know everything you can know and there's an experience out there waiting for you real satisfaction but you're only gonna get it if you eat from this tree and even though Adam and Eve could eat from everything else on how many trees you think that we're in the garden besides that one forbidden tree thousands look at all the different kinds of trees in the world today and this is God's garden can you imagine walk in you know God's garden might have been his big as Montana we don't know how big the Garden of Eden was there have been thousands of different kinds of trees in there including the Tree of Life that you can eat from the tree of life but the devil planted a dissatisfaction in Eve's heart later Adams that this is one thing you can't have in you're missing out and she began to covet that which was forbidden now is it wrong to want a house is it wrong to want your neighbor's house as you say if there's a for sale sign in front of it it's not wrong if any have you ever seen your neighbor got a new car and you thought wow and then your little heart you're thinking I'd like to have that car I mean you weren't gonna steal your neighbor's car but it created a desire within you I'm gonna interpret your smiles if that's a yes now it's not wrong to design something you know there's a place in the Bible we're commanded we are commanded to covet it says covet earnestly the best gifts but is it talking about the physical gifts or is Paul talking about spiritual gifts so what should we covet the most the gifts of the Spirit love joy peace goodness faith right we should cover those gifts but we often covered material things it's not wrong to one somebody it's not wrong to own a house and not wrong to want a car it's not wrong to want a wife or husband but you shouldn't be wanting what is not yours to want and that's in becoming dissatisfied and then the devil said oh this is gonna make you happy the woman saw the tree was good for food pleasant to the eyes and tree desirable to make one wise you notice there's three areas the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life that's where Eve fell those are the three areas of all sin can be summarized in those three areas and these are the three areas where Jesus overcame so that we can overcome any sin she took it and she ate it and before the ill-effects came she thought oh wow this is exhilarating she gave it to her husband and he ate at least for a little while they really thought there was a big difference and look at all the misery they came into our world because of coveting something that was forbidden even though they had everything else supplied covetousness is it's just really it's the devil's means of making us dissatisfied doesn't the Bible say Paul said I have and whatever state I am to be content I've learned how to abound there were times in Paul stayed in a palace and that a lot of time Paul stayed in a prison he said I've learned to be content in the prison in the palace I've learned wherever God has me if I'm in the will of God I am satisfied but if you're always dissatisfied to shopping make you happy for a little while huh so you get the bill but it doesn't last another story in the Bible on this first Kings 21 this is in your lesson you know the story of Navis vineyard next day Ahab's palace he had a citizen named nebith who had a vineyard and he had thought what I'd like to expand my garden but I need more room if the neighbor would sell me his vineyard I could plow up all the grapes and plant my herbs but my vegetable garden in there's something wrong with ploughing of grapes and putting in parsnips but anyway so he goes the neighbors and he says hey sell me your vineyard if you know I'll pay you money I'm the king if you don't want money says I'll give you a better vineyard whatever you want you tell me and Namath's said to the king sorry Ahab you know the law said that this is my family inheritance and I cannot sell it it's gonna go on through our family it'll go to my firstborn and so on and he had was so unhappy by that it says he laid down on his bed he turned his face to the wall he would not eat Jezebel his wife came to him said why is your spirit so sullen your pouting King pouting you eat no food he said because I spoke to neighbors the jezreelite and I said to him give me your vineyard for money or else if it please you I'll give you another vineyard he said I'll not give you my vineyard and you know what Jezebel did he's an aren't you the king let me borrow you a signet ring and she made a feast and she invited people and she said neyba there at the feast and she had hired some scoundrels who said neighbors has cursed God in the king and they drugged neighbors out and stoned him to death so that a hem could take his vineyard now was they happy happy he was happy for a little while he was walking through the vineyard saying yeah I'll put my radishes here and and I'll put that you know my squash over here and and the light just showed up and they have said have you found me my enemy and they said you're only God's enemy because you sold yourself to do wickedness he said the place where the dogs are licking the blood of the namath they're gonna lick your blood so he got neighbors vineyard but it says he went out after that and he was sad he told himself with sackcloth he realized he'd done a terrible thing and judgment was gonna come to him it didn't satisfy so when we get something forbidden that were coveting doesn't really make us happy did Bathsheba that whole affair did it make David really happy or did it bring all kinds of heartache and death into his family when you're taking something forbidden that your covenant something that you shouldn't covet should you get it it will not satisfy and as a song we used to sing only Jesus can satisfy your soul there's an empty spot in our hearts and it is not satisfied by the abundance of things it's only satisfied by Christ all right greed I'm gonna try and save a couple minutes here for questions that are coming in talking about greed here Isaiah 56 it says yes they are greedy dogs that never have enough they're shepherds who cannot understand that's like the prosperity preachers they'll look to his own way everyone for his own gain from his own territory it's all about what is in it for me alright someone's gonna read for me first Timothy 6:10 Kim Angie you'll have that you know you're you're next then I'm gonna read James 4 verse 1 and 2 where do Wars and Fighting's come from you do they not come from your desire for pleasure that war in your members in your soul you lust and you do not have you murder you covet you cannot obtain you fighting your war yet you do not have because you do not ask and then he says and you ask and you don't receive because you ask for the wrong reason that you might consume it upon your lusts we quoted that earlier court read for us please at first Timothy 6:10 for the love of money is the root of all kind of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows so when people receive things that they covet and their covenant forbidden things they pierced themselves through with many sorrows have you ever met somebody that lost everything in gambling the love of money in gambling is usually about get-rich-quick well we've got some questions that came in and then some of these and have come in from people who are watching live others maybe came in from Facebook people pastor Ross you got some questions there we do we want to thank our friends for typing in your question and we'll try and answer as many as we can today and if not we'll keep going maybe next time to answer some operations first question that we have is striving for success covetousness no I think we we all want to be successful what's the ahh what's the opposite of striving for success striving for failure I mean does the Lord want us to be successful are there promises in the Bible that if we follow certain Christian principles the Bible says that be diligent in your business and you will stand before kings and not before mean men I think they're the word mean that means people of low estate in the King James Version that was one of the models have been Franklin that he would be diligent in his business he was a very industrious man and he said I live by this rule his parents were Puritans and they were very Bible based and he says I've been very diligent in my business and I've stood before several kings said God's promises are true Franklin said that so you want to be successful you want to be diligent then there's nothing wrong with that but you don't want to be diligent for your own praise you want to do it for the glory of God okay the next question that we have is it a sin to purchase a luxury vehicle that's a good question now depending on who you're talking to your gonna think you know the person with the you know the hundred thousand dollar BMW he says no mine is not a luxury vehicle but my neighbor's got a Bugatti that's what two million dollars there's at least a million I think that's a luxury vehicle and you know the person who's driving the Prius someone thinks he's got a luxury vehicle if the other person is driving you know a 50 year old Honda Civic so you shouldn't be living outside of your means and you don't want to be doing something that's gonna dishonor God if a person is a billionaire because of their hard work what's the suppose you got a Christian who's very wealthy and they drive a nice car should you condemn them for that if they're also being generous I mean you don't know they might be guy who the family that started Hobby Lobby are very dedicated Christians they just gave millions to build a Bible Museum in Washington DC that's just opened up they are extremely generous they paid tithe a giveaway great deal other wealth they're very wealthy they may drive a nice car I would not condemn them for that so we're gonna be careful not to not see the whole picture as God does right did Solomon live in a palace did he have a right to live in a palace will we see Solomon in heaven you see what I'm saying yes sir good judgment okay we have another question that says how do young people of the cuff overcome covetousness with social media and Hollywood shine unrealistic lifestyles that seem appealing how do you overcome covetous when your covetousness when you're being bombarded by messages and images that you know I'm not going to look good enough unless I have these clothes and I'm not going to be have enough friends unless I've got this car or this house and and just all these messages you don't I'd say is everybody needs to go on a mission trip to a poor country to have a reality check and every now and then you need to get involved in some aspect of service so that you keep perspective because otherwise you can live in an artificial world and lose perspective of what really matters you know it's an it's not realistic to say you should never look at an ad again because you know they're everywhere it's on the billboards or that you should somehow you know go through life with blinders on you're gonna see the materialistic messages you're gonna be exposed to some of these advertising schemes you need to be centered spiritually and knowing what really matters Jesus had it around him in his day and age okay the next question that we have is Jesus expecting me to give all my money to the poor I don't know if you're like that rich young ruler he might be so I've got to be careful to say no he doesn't want anyone to do that because there are people through history who have done that and God told him to but I don't think I think your question is is he asking is he asking everybody know you get too many people in the Bible that he didn't ask him to give everything but there were people like some of you heard of the Waldensians and Peter Waldo was a wealthy man and he gave everything and he really lived in poverty to go around preaching the gospel he became convicted when he read the story of the rich young ruler that that was God telling him to do what he told that young man to do many of the Apostles they forced took everything and follow Jesus but God didn't ask every believer to forsake everything now think about this stay with me this is a really important point if every true believer must forsake everything then where are we all gonna live if you're in my house then I'm not a true believer because I haven't forsaken everything is that right if everybody forsakes everything but what's in the offering plate when it goes by nothing that's gonna be tough and so he obviously isn't asking everybody to forsake everything or the church would have a whole lot of nothing but we must all put everything on the altar and give with our tithes and our offerings generously as God outlines in his word amen but there are some people maybe he calls to forsake everything who was a accountants ins and orphan he ever heard that name before Moravian very wealthy man gave everything to spread the gospel I think he was an Anabaptist and so there are others through history that have done that and God bless them did an exhibition of a kind of ties in with the lesson with our current society is even possible to overcome covetousness with God how much is possible is it difficult yes is it possible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven yes but is it possible it's interesting that just when Jesus said it's almost impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom in Luke he says that just before the story of Zacchaeus and how does it begin the story of Zacchaeus a very rich man and God's Jesus says to him this is a son of Abraham but what does the Kia say half my goods I give to the poor he didn't give 100% he gave 50% so he probably still had something left I think he also said and if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation I'll pay him back four fold but so you know there are some people like that ok the next question we have it says that there are times when I can barely pay my bills how am I not going to want my neighbor's life which is doing just fine vacationing and enjoying life well that's that's a good question you say look I'm struggling from day to day and I see my neighbor is doing well there's if you read in Psalm 37 it talks about not fretting yourself because of wicked the wicked who prosper let me read this you Psalm 37 verse 1 do not fret yourself because of evil doers nor be envious of the workers of iniquity for they will soon be cut down like the grass and wither as a green herb the Bible says blessed are the meek they will inherit the earth blessed are the poor in spirit theirs is the kingdom of heaven if we remember the promises and the blessings of God unbelievers and the curses that will come on the wicked then why would we covet what they have be satisfied that if you have eternal life who's really rich if God is your father and he owns everything in the world then who's richer ok maybe time for one more question can't ask you my children what they want for Christmas lead them to covet well I can you know I always think it's important if you're gonna be giving gifts during this time of year don't just ask your children what they want ask them what they plan on giving don't just make it about what we're gonna get but it helped them to understand reciprocal giving that you don't yes some will give to you but who are you going to give to there's nothing wrong receiving a gift Jesus receives gifts from us I mean and and for us to receive gifts from each other it's wonderful to be able to share gifts with people but you don't want to inflame the natural tendency in your children to be selfish by making it all about what they're gonna get and then giving you their lists make sure and inculcate in our kids the idea of giving to others in generosity amen okay all right I think that's it for today thank you so much pastor Ross and I'd like to remind our friends we do have a great offer that goes with this talked about coverage isn't it's called thieves in the church it's really a good book and I know it sounds a little ominous but it is a good book and if we didn't get to all the lesson I apologize I'm not worried because some of the same principles that we're in the last section are later on in future studies so we're going to cover this this section on stewardship I think we're all going to be blessed in many ways as we do so thank you friends for participating god bless you we'll look forward to studying his word together again next week [Music] so what is the brightest light in the world well naturally you'd say the Sun but we're talking about the brightest man-made light in the world it's the light that shines out of the roof of that pyramid-shaped hotel in Las Vegas called the Luxor there in the cap of that hotel there's a room that contains 39 washing machine size xenon bulbs and each of those bulbs requires about 7,000 watts altogether they produce about 40 billion candle power of light and imagine getting that electric bill at the Luxor Hotel every month that light is so bright that planes can see it 250 miles away they're shooting light 10 miles up into space meaning if you happen to be floating by you can read a newspaper up there and as you might have guessed that bright light has become the world's best bug attractor bringing in malls and bats and owls creating its own ecosystem there at night above the hotel but the sad thing about the brightest light in the world is especially when the night air is clear without any particles the light doesn't hit anything and it's invisible it shoots up into empty space the brightest light in the world illuminates and nothing you know the Bible tells us that there's another great wasted light and that's the light of God's Word it says in psalm 119 verse 105 thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and yet so many people are walking in darkness furthermore jesus said if you do have that light make sure you don't put it under a bushel but you let it shine and illuminate the lives of others jesus said Matthew chapter 5 set your light up on a hill like a city so that all might see it light only benefits others when it reflects off of something God wants our lights to illuminate the lives of others so are you glowing for God remember Jesus said let there be light [Music]

Channel: SDA Burgas

Views: 22,233

Rating: 4.7178421 out of 5

Keywords: doug, batchelor, i see, i want, i take, sabbath, school, study, hour, sda, burgas, seventh, day, adventist, amazing, facts

Id: jaDsLitu0MQ

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2018