 You can't hear anything. Sir, we can't hear anything. We can't hear anything. Check, check. How's it now? Check, test. Check. Yeah, you can hear, right? Is it clear? Loud and clear? Yes. Okay, thanks for pointing that out. Arrela, Arrelia. Thank you. Okay, awesome. Yeah, so I was just reading from Isaiah 49 and verses 14 to 16 where people have got a saying, you know, Zion said, the Lord is forsaken, the Lord is forgotten. And so, you know, in response to that, the Lord is asking, you know, can a mother forget a nursing child, can a woman forget a nursing child and not have compassion on the son of a womb? The answer obviously is no. And the Lord is saying, surely they may forget, you know, there is a possibility that a human mother might forget the nursing child or not have compassion. And the Lord is saying, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. So the Lord's assurance, reminder actually, is that, well, he will not forget. Means his love for us is of that quality. Right? Even though, you know, we are used to experiencing first hand the love and appreciation of human beings, but the Lord's love is so much more that he is saying, he is reminding, I will not forget and he is also reassuring us, I will not forsake. So even before we get into today's class, for us to just understand this is who God is. His love is more than an earthly parent's love. Right? And his compassion for us is more than anything else that we could have actually experienced here till now. Right? From a human standpoint. So just want us to remind us of that and let's pray. Right? Let's pray, let's let's thank God. Right? Okay. Let's pray. Father God, we just want to thank you for your awesome, amazing Lord intents and measurable love. Father God, we thank you for reminding us today that even though like human beings the love of even our parents, even the ones who are closest to us, God could be deficient, has its limitations God, but your love your love for us God, that you're reminding us that we are not forgotten, you're reminding us that we are not forsaken. Father God, we thank you for having that kind of love for us. And Lord, your word says in Romans chapter 4 that God and verse 5 also God that your love for us while we were yet sinners, God you died for us, God and we see in so many other places that while we were yet sinners or while we were yet the enemies of the cross, oh God, you loved us God. And so we thank you for this love. We thank you that you care for us as a heavenly Father. We thank you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Okay, so we're going to look at this whole topic of, in the last class we looked at how God prospered the people, we looked at some of the Old Testament saints and we also saw people who actually fell because of money because money took a hold of them right. So today let's look at scripture and places where God which shows us that God actually brought in prosperity that it is God who gives material blessings and financial blessings. Okay, so rather than just saying, yeah, God prosperous people, it's good to look at real instances in the Word of God and be assured this is what God did and when we know that his nature and character does not change right. If he did it then he will continue to do it even today, right. So for us to be unshaken in this aspect like so many other things, okay, the love of God, the grace of God, you know, the mercy of God. We're talking about different facets of the nature of God, the character of God. So we see that when it comes to these things when it comes to finances, when it comes to material blessings also the way the Lord expresses himself is through giving, okay. He's a generous giver, okay. John 3.16, God so loved that he gave, right. So the Lord is the one who gives, he's the one who pose out his spirit upon us and that's easy for us to grasp. He's the one who gives us gifts of grace, that is spiritual gifts, you know, that is also we see, okay, it's easy for us to grasp, okay. He's the one who takes care of our other needs, you know, that's maybe, that's also easy for us to grasp. When it comes to, you know, finances also we need to be able to grasp this truth that God is a generous giver, okay. So let's look at some of the examples, okay. Second Samuel 6 verses 10 and 12, 10 to 12, okay. David would not move the Ark of the Lord with him into the city of David. But David took it aside into the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite. Verse 11, the Ark of the Lord remain in the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite three months and the Lord blessed Obed Edom and all his household, okay. So that's what we see. What did the Ark of the Lord represent anyone in the Old Testament times? What is the Ark represent? You remember it was taken from the people and then it was from David and before David actually when Samuel was there and you know, it was taken from there by the Philistines and David took it back and he brings it to Obed Edom's house. That's the context. So what did the Ark represent? The Ark of God, the presence of God, the power of God, right, the very nature of God himself, right, because it was taken to that temple the Philistines had and they kept it overnight and the next morning they saw that deity, Dagon was phased down on the, you know, and decapitated and all that. So we see the Ark actually was the power and the presence of God, right, in the Tabernacle, well in the in the wilderness, the Ark of the Covenant was kept there and the priest, the high priest would go there to the Holy of Holies. It was there in the Holy of Holies and there was nothing, the mercy seat was there and so on and it represented the presence and power of God and there God would manifest his presence, not just representative but it was actually the presence and power of God. Okay, we should not forget that. So verse 11, the Ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed Edim three months, the Lord blessed Obed Edim and all his household. Okay, now in what way did he bless Obed Edim? Let's look at verse 12. Now it was told King David saying the Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edim and all that belongs to him because the house of Obed all that belongs to him because of the Ark of the Lord, right, all that belong to him, which means people were blessed, all his belongings. When we say belongings it means the material things as well, right. So everything was blessed by God. So what did we learn from that? That God is the one who blesses, right. God is the one who increases things in our lives. He brings the blessing into our lives. So we see very clearly that Obed Edim's house, he was blessed. It was so apparent that people actually talked about it. So they said, okay, do you know Obed Edim? The minute the Ark came in there's three months, there's such a change. There's been such a change. Why? The Lord is blessing. And how do we know that? Look at this. Look at the things that have been increasing in his life. Look at the kind of the Shalom that he's experiencing and the joy that is there in the household and all his belongings. So it says here all that belongs to him because of the Ark of the Lord verse 12. The Lord has blessed the house of Obed Edim and all that belongs to him. So we see that the Lord is the one who blesses. Okay, so we say that in that instance. Then let's move on. Second Kings chapter 4. Second Kings 4, we're looking at Elisha and that incident where the woman of the sons of the prophet, she doesn't have a husband. Her husband is no more and she cries out and this is what happens. Let's read verses 1 to 7. A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha saying, your servant, my husband is dead and you know that your servant feared the Lord and the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. Okay, so what is the situation? She's in debt. She owes money to someone. Probably they borrowed whatever they're in bad shape and she says, the creditor is coming to take my sons to be his slaves so that there's nothing here to give. So in order to repay, the sons are going to be working their ass slaves in order to repay for whatever amount of time. Right. So Elisha said to her was to, what shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house? And she said, your maid servant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil. Then he said, go borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors. Empty vessels do not gather just a few. So Elisha has an understanding of what God is about to do and who God is. Right. So who God is and how he's going to intervene. Elisha has some kind of an understanding. So he's saying do not gather just a few. Go get vessels. Don't gather just a few. So and the other instruction is this these are empty vessels not filled vessels, empty vessels don't gather just a few. Verse 4, and when you have come in you shall shut the door behind you and your sons then pour it into all these vessels and set aside the full ones. So I was thinking this lady, poor lady must have been wondering what is Elisha saying? Go gather vessels and pour the oil into the vessels and he's saying set aside, she couldn't probably even imagine what is going to happen but Elisha was very sure he knew whom he had trusted he knew who was instructing him so he's saying this is what you need to do. So she went from him shut the door behind her and the sons who brought the vessels to her and she poured it out now it came to pass because this is the only thing that she had she came to pass when the vessels were full that she said to her son bring me another vessel so everything is becoming full full full full and they've gathered all these vessels and she's saying I need one more now what does the son say? there is not another vessel so the oil stopped ceased then she came and told the man of God and he said go sell the oil and pay your debt and you and your sons live on the rest so there was enough to pay the creditor and obviously it must have been a huge amount so there was enough to pay the creditor there was enough left over to live full life so she says go sell it pay off the creditor and on the rest with the rest of the money you and your sons live so what do we learn from this some lessons here that God is a provider Jehovah is true to his name online folks you can also post what do we learn from this yeah Sean so there was nothing the woman believed the woman believed the word when there was nothing yeah when the answer is not there when the miracle is not there but you're believing just the word and in believing the word and in carrying out that taking that step of faith she saw the answer something supernatural happened what else Chaya Paul says faith in the Lord yes absolutely I think I definitely think so because it says there is not another vessel the minute he said I don't have another vessel so the oil ceased so it means that hang on I have one more one more tumbler one more Burton and the world would have continued yeah so this also reveals something about God's heart God's heart that when he gives he gives generously he's not stingy he's not holding back but this is God's heart for his people so we tend to define God according to our experience yes or no yeah this is what I've experienced in life so God is like this when we do that we are bound to be disappointed definitely we go through a bad time we go through challenges and then we are pressing on and then we see I don't see the answer in sight I'm not experiencing the answer I'm standing in faith and time has passed and then we begin if we begin to change alter who God is our understanding based on our experience we will definitely be disappointed and our future is going to be it's going to be in jeopardy really if you do that but if we understand who God is as he describes himself as he introduces himself through the pages of scripture and when we go with that understanding then everything changes so the spiritual understanding the spiritual actually increases our faith and because of our faith the natural changes as well so the thing is this is the heart of God and also what we read just now Isaiah 49 verse 14 15 talks about the heart of God he is saying I will not forget I will remember and this is who I am Matthew chapter 6 Matthew 7 actually talks about that Matthew 7.7 asks seek not and then he compares himself to if you being an earthly father know how to give good gifts no matter how much how limited an earthly father is there is some amount of love that the earthly father would have for the child so if you being earthly parents if you know how to give good gifts to your children you know how much more is your heavenly father who is perfect in love who is perfect in wisdom infinite in his strength so we get an understanding this is who God is which means he blesses he causes blessings to his presence very presence causes blessing to happen and that blessing involves all realm spiritual emotional physical all realms we need to understand that many times we think of the spiritual yes that's a big part and we let go of everything else that is affected by the spiritual right we let go of this so we understand that yes God is the one who this is the heart of God okay let's look at one more Luke chapter 5 so we have come to the New Testament and now the Lord Jesus who is the express image of the father as we see in Colossians he is interacting with his disciples Luke chapter 5 verses 1 to 7 so it was as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God that he stood by the lake of Geneseret and saw two boats standing by the lake but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets which was Simon's and asked him to put out a little from the land and he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat when he had stopped speaking he said to Simon launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch but Simon answered and said to him master we have toiled all night and caught nothing nevertheless at your word I will let down the net and when he had done this they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking so they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink so we see in the life of Jesus this wonderful miracle and we learn so many other things from here as well right so what happened there were two boats they had actually fished all night they hadn't caught anything so Lord Jesus teaches from the boat this is Simon's boat and after teaching after he finishes teaching he says Simon why don't you put down your nets for a catch so one thing that we find out is that the Lord knew Simon's situation the fact that he had had a bad night the previous day so Simon was a fisherman which means his bread and butter his money would come from selling the fish so this was his living so that previous night he hadn't caught anything so he must have been in a bad mood he must have been tired and he must have been thinking okay now one day it's a waste how do I make up for it the next day that's how a businessman would think today was bad tomorrow how do I make up for that loss because there are so many things bills to be paid family to be fed we think only of the fish and this interaction but then you look at the background there are so many things going on I need to get this this person's birthday is coming I need to buy that my son would ask this things are there so he's had a bad day nothing has come in so the Lord says launch out into the deep we're looking at verse 4 but Simon answered and said to him master we have toiled all night and caught nothing nevertheless at your word I will let down the net what happened when he had done this they caught a great number of fish that the net was breaking okay again it wasn't just one or two but the net was breaking so they started signaling to their partners so which means now this was a fish business there were others who were actually partnering with them to catch fish so he calls they signal the partners to come and help so they filled both the boats so that they began to sink so you just think about it two boats full of fish so heavy that it is sinking because they have gone out into the deep to let down the nets and that's how it is okay this again talks about the nature of God this again talks about the character of God because the Lord Jesus is the express image of the father in him was life and he nothing was made that was made without him right so we see that he's a supernatural God and above all that he knows our needs the Lord Jesus taught that right he knows your needs right so why are you worrying right he knows your needs and he knows that you have need of these things so he knows very well and he cares about fulfilling that particular need okay and then he does it in style he does it exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask so here we see that Peter's only response was at your word so something that the Lord spoke the Lord taught from the boat something must have triggered something in his heart something must have touched it and he said at your word I will let down my net so what was he going against he was going against his experience in business in his experience in fishing he was going against all those years of experience and also the most recent one that he's had right the previous night was still fresh all night, toil, nothing so he was going against all that for the simple word instruction that he gave that's very powerful because for us also our experience actually teaches us something we have all this experience and maybe the most recent one was not a very pleasant one right and then we are struggling do I understand this about God or do I go fall back on my experience that I just had yesterday last night it seems to define everything, my reality right but Peter says no at your word I am willing to let go of all this that has happened at your word I will go and do it again like I don't know people might have asked these guys fished all night no that's when the fish there and that's when you can catch and what is going to change now suddenly the only change was the physical environment was the same the only change was the word of God the only change was the word that Jesus released the words of faith and the change was that Peter was ready to accept and he saw the father heart of God he experienced the father heart he experienced the generosity that God has for us people then same Peter again when it came to paying taxes let's read Matthew chapter 17 when they had come to Kappanam those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said does your teacher not pay the temple tax he said yes and when they had come to the house Jesus anticipated him saying what do you think Simon from whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes from their sons or from strangers Peter said to him from strangers Jesus said to him then the sons are free nevertheless lest we offend them go to the sea cast in a hook and take the fish that comes up first and when you have opened its mouth you will find a piece of money take that and give it to them for me and for you so here also we see the supernatural act of the Lord Jesus but also his willingness to for some of the man made laws which were there meaning the government the tax and everything he was willing to abide by it we see that with that we come to 1st Timothy 6 and verse 17 let's read that we looked at it in earlier the sessions 1st Timothy 6 and verse 17 okay so Paul is saying command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty what does haughty mean not to be proud okay not to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy okay what does the living God do gives us richly all things to enjoy okay so the let's come to that a little later but the first part is this those who are rich in this present age Peter I mean Paul commands he says do not let them be haughty don't let them be proud why hey I have so much don't be proud because of your belongings of your material wealth 1st thing 2nd thing when you are proud because of your belongings because of so much of wealth that you have it is possible that you put your trust in it meaning I have so much money so I can live tomorrow peacefully or I have so much money I can take care of all my needs I don't need to depend on anyone I have so much money so it is possible that you tend to put your trust in the riches but he is reminding these riches they have a quality about them they are uncertain if you are putting your trust they are uncertain riches they don't have certainty it's not of eternal value right it's not certain yesterday today tomorrow these things change it will go up come down so they are uncertain riches don't put your trust in them so that's the instruction then he reveals something about God's nature about God's character put your trust in God instead who gives so that's one thing God is a giver whatever has been our experience in the past maybe we did not have much as we were growing up we do not have much even today but understand remember and just remind yourself God is a giver God is the giver so I am going to put my trust in him because he gives put your trust in God who gives how does he give which means he is extravagant in his giving he is generous in his giving he is the one who gives richly all things he is the one who gives he gives richly he gives all things lastly to enjoy so many times we think if I have things if I enjoy somehow I should hide it and enjoy and also as Indians we have some things like don't count your chickens before they are hatched that is one thing and then if we are very happy all kinds of superstitions if you are happy and if you laugh and you are smiling then there will come a time when you are sad and you will be very very sad some kind of superstitions I do not know if you have heard that if you do not laugh much then you will also cry much so it is better somewhere in the average if you laugh too much don't where did these things come from right I mean in the presence of God there is fullness of joy that is who he is he is probably cracking jokes he is laughing right of course there is reverence and holiness and infinitely holy and unimaginable majesty and all that but this is who he is so he is the one who gives joy so when we enjoy material things it is not a crime it is not a sin okay but hold on to things lightly hold on to things lightly which means that if it needs to be given away don't have a strong grip on it and just say God no I have a loose grip on it right because if you are holding that means that you are trusting in it so much right so he is the one who gives us richly all things to enjoy so from all these scriptures we see and there are many many more right when God introduces himself the I am names of God for example the covenant names of God right right from the time when he tells Moses I am who I am and then you see the covenant names of God coming out God at these points in history describing introducing himself in many ways and all that gives a window into his character his nature and we see that he is the one who provides he is the one who gives okay any questions any questions if he is the giver then why are the Christians poor why are the believers poor then why is there poverty in the world right God is such a great God he is a good God then why is there suffering that is the bigger question right we are not going to answer that now we will come to that we talk about yeah any any questions these are some things right and why are people still struggling still striving there are many factors many reasons but we can't attribute that to God we look at that and say okay God is he is not a giver he is not generous we can't say that because in scripture is a totally different picture altogether we need to be careful in our handling of money so that money doesn't give us we need to be yeah definitely but we look at God we understand that this is who he is okay online folks any questions that you might have anything that you might want to have we can't see in our days we can't see materialistic blessings things in our days is it like can you be specific like why can't these kind of miracles happen like fish catching okay my question is how did you come to the conclusion that we are not seeing it right if it happens more often more frequently right so the thing is God has not changed okay we know that he has not changed so honest question is okay why are we not seeing more of it the fact is that okay it's all put together in scripture for us it's all recorded this is what happened and it's recorded for us okay now we can't come to the conclusion that it's not happening today right because there is so much that is happening in the world in the towns in the cities and the villages where God is moving in a powerful way we hear stories of okay let's say if you take a village setting your stories of okay this cow was not giving milk okay and somebody laid hands prayed in the church right lay hands prayed and then next Sunday is the testimony okay it's giving milk right supernaturally things have changed for that person that milk is it's like money in the bank depends upon the person so that clocks are multiplying and everything is fine this cow so we hear testimonies of that okay so and in the city and in the one one person was saying very recently okay during the pandemic or just before that he actually lost a job then when he applied for an interview he took a job they would they knew that he was not working so they offered him much less than what he was currently getting let's say he was getting 10,000 they were offering him like 7, 5 or 8 knowing that he was desperate so he anyway took it but then he said after working and then another company offered a job and they said that they offered more than what he was earning earlier so it's like not even equal to what he was getting but because he was praying he said Lord I'm just committing this whole thing to you and I know it's humanly not possible okay he was talking about various factors different industry and this thing but he just gave them this is what I'm expecting so what he got was he said there's double so I'm just for example you know 15 or even 20 so of what he was earning so things like that where God is doing we can attribute it only to God because people are being laying off people are being let go economic situation and so on where the favor of God the hand of God and we can just say it's a best thing so it's happening in many ways but we just need to acknowledge we just need to see the hand of God in it some things happen and we don't we're just saying okay we can just pass by I'm sure people could say they got lucky Peter and his gang they got lucky they put in there they were saying the radio was saying there was one shoal of fish coming into that area they got lucky they caught it people could just rationalize it and say okay that's it but the thing is God is doing things amazingly okay you know just to encourage I've never shared this before but I'm just sharing this but I you know I don't know how this happened now I'd like to have coffee in the morning before I go Sunday mornings Sunday morning I leave home by around 6 20 church soundcheck I'd like to have my coffee because I have my breakfast I don't have my breakfast I have my lunch so sometimes you know there is a lot of things happening physically I'd like to have a coffee and go so normally what I do is I take the milk packet and keep it outside or keep it from the freezer I keep it down so that in the morning when I wake up it's not hard so I can just boil it so I just keep it down so that day I forgot so I put two packets in the freezer I mentally made a note okay night before I sleep I want to take one packet down and keep it but it didn't happen so I go to the freezer in the morning and like when I put it inside when I just put outside I wanted to take one out so the one which is near the freezer door is frozen hard the one which is inside is not frozen at all okay now I can't even I thought okay maybe it is something to do with the fridge maybe other things you know something happened where fridge did not work and because of it but the thing is everything else is frozen inside milk is frozen the thing is frozen but that one packet is not frozen so I asked my family my wife did you guys do anything with it did you take it out did you put it down no you didn't even touch right so I can't explain this now I was just thanking God praising God because it was just a simple cup of coffee I know we could have bought it somewhere outside but the fact is that he's a father right he's a father he cares he loves he loves to surprise and that's the only way I can explain it I can't explain it right it's that's the only way I can explain it it was something supernatural which I didn't ask for but it happened so I can just give thanks right I didn't like stand in faith and proclaim in nothing I'm not saying that is bad we need to do that content for our faith but this happened so just to say that miracles happen every day right our God our heavenly father is there to manifest his glory it's happening so just be open to the fact that yes God I want to see it for your glory of course I want to see it I want to see you manifest your glory you manifest your power and do these things okay right I hope that answers okay so let's look at we have five more minutes let's look at the next topic which is God's guarantee to prosperous people okay so it's one thing to understand that okay this is God's nature this is God's character but can we say for sure you know that he guarantees this what's a guarantee when you buy some product they'll give you a warranty and a guarantee right what's a warranty what's a guarantee anyone warranty means okay so there's a support for the product okay you you they'll change the part whatever this thing there's a warranty for maybe servicing parts for maybe one year what's a guarantee huh they will give you they will replace the whole thing okay they're saying hey this cannot go wrong right this cannot this will not stop this product will not that's a guarantee that they give 100% if by chance it happens we will replace it no questions asked that's a guarantee right they'll take it back replace it with a fresh piece that's a guarantee okay so how can we be sure that God gives a guarantee that he'll prosperous people is there something like that right is there something can I can I be guaranteed that God yes indeed prosperous okay now even before we go into that I want us to you know remember all that we studied right at the beginning our attitude matters right our attitude towards finances we can either have a great attitude or we can have a bad attitude okay we can be either covetous greedy or we can be generous we can either trust in material things and you know open up our life for a lot of unwanted you know things to happen in our lives or we can trust in God who richly gives us all things to enjoy okay our attitude matters our perspective of this really matters okay so having said that is there you know proof in scripture that God guarantees to bless his people okay so let's look at just one maybe okay the first thing is that it's a very nature of God God's nature okay it is this is who he is okay can you imagine God's sinning being unrighteous being unholy can you right because it's his nature to be holy it is the nature of God to be holy okay so if you take petrol and if you take a lighter and you light it up what will happen if you take it close to the petrol what will happen have you done that you better not you just take it because of the fumes petrol is evaporating okay you take it close to not even the liquid just the fumes it will catch fire why because that's the nature right it has the chemicals in it when there's oxygen when there's fire then it will it's immediately catch fire it's flammable there will be an explosion it will catch fire right that's the nature of petrol so God is like that his nature is to bless okay he cannot not bless his nature is to bless his people okay I think we'll stop here and then we'll go to give a we get into some of the reasons why it's God's nature to bless his people okay so we'll stop here thank you online students we'll see you in the next class God bless