 We're going to do the same thing with Proverbs 28 as we did with Proverbs chapter 23 this morning. And when we go other places, we're going to keep coming back to Proverbs chapter 28. Proverbs, I mean, it's great to read the New Testament. You know, you should throw some Proverbs in there as well. Proverbs is just such a great book. If you've ever thought about, like, I don't know what my New Year's resolution should be, just read a few chapters in the book of Proverbs and you'll have plenty of ideas as far as things to consider and things to improve for the new year. Proverbs chapter 28, there's a lot of depth in Proverbs chapter 28, but it's a lot of financial advice as well in Proverbs chapter 28. And that's kind of what I want to talk about tonight is just kind of the subject that I'm going to talk about tonight is something that is financial in nature. But the Bible, you say, you know, money, finances, you know, what does that have to do with it? The Bible has a lot to say about how you should handle your personal finances in your life. And that is something actually that you should think about. You should evaluate every year, especially men as leaders of your families, providers for your families. You should be thinking about this, you know, when you come into going into a new year, how should I, you know, how could I do better than I did last year? I'm not talking about gaining riches. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But I'm talking about just managing the blessings that God has given you. You know, the Bible says, turn to Proverbs chapter 18. The Bible says that, you know, for men it is our responsibility in 1 Timothy chapter 5 and verse number 8. The Bible says that, you know, we are to provide for our own, the Bible says. So it's our responsibility to provide for our families. And in Proverbs chapter 18, look down at verse number 18 or verse number 19. I'm sorry, Proverbs 18, verse number 19. The Bible says, Proverbs 18 and verse, I think I messed up my notes here. Just one second, let me find out. Okay, I'm sorry, Proverbs 16 and verse number 11. Proverbs 16 and verse number 11. So, you know, we should be smart about the blessings that God has given us, the finances that we have. You know, the first thing you should do is have a budget in your family. You know, I mean, this isn't the point of the sermon tonight, but just talking about just being financially smart with your money. You know, they say that we're going to, we're in a recession, you know, last year. Things are going to be in a recession again. This year, times might be more difficult than usual in the next year, or maybe even two. But, I mean, the Bible says in verse number 11 of Proverbs 16, it says, adjust weight and balance are the Lord's. The first thing that you should do is just have a budget for your family. You know, you should not be spending more than you take in in your family. That's what the Bible is saying here, adjust weight and balance. Like, you should have your finances balanced out. What I've always told my kids growing up and raising them is that you should live on 80% of your money that you make. Your salary, your income, whatever that is. You say, why 80%? Because 10% goes to the Lord and then 10% you should save for a rainy day. And look, if you could make that 80%, 70% or 60% good on you, that's even better because you could save more and more and more and that would just give you, you know, more financial freedom and more, you know, financial responsibility the Bible will show you. So look, and here's the thing, I've always told my kids this, it doesn't matter how much money you make. And actually secular studies show this. As soon as you get to a base level where you kind of have enough, like, of course you don't want to be in poverty, but the Bible says if you work hard, you're not going to be in poverty. I mean, you see that, you know, the people this morning, you know, the gluttonous people, the people that are sleeping all the time, the people that, those are the people that are going to be in rags, those are the people that are going to be in poverty. But if you work hard and you follow biblical advice and you have a budget and you keep a just weight with your financial situation in your home, you are not going to be in poverty, especially in this country. I mean, as much as we complain about, you know, the government and taxes and all these things, look, you can still make it if you work hard in the United States. All right, so look, what I tell my kids all the time is it doesn't matter how much money you make because you can spend it all. Everyone, too many people have this mindset, like, if I just made this number or if I just made this much more, you know what? It doesn't matter how much you make. I've met plenty of people who make half as much as other people that I've known that have, that are way more financially responsible and have, you know, a way better situation than somebody that makes double or triple that amount and just spends way more than they make. Because, look, there's plenty of people that will give you loans and you can go into all kinds of, you know, debt, which is my next point, is that you should avoid debt. You should avoid debt, especially, especially unsecured debt, credit cards and all these things where you literally have nothing to show for your money. Turn to Proverbs chapter 22. So you should have a budget. You should live on 80%, 70% if you can. You know, you should save. You should make sure you don't rob the Lord. But look at Proverbs chapter 22 and look at verse number 7. The Bible says this. It says, the rich ruleeth over the poor, but look at this next part. And the borrower is servant to the lender. You should just look. Everyone is so, this is another reason you've got to have a King James Bible as we talked about last night, is because, you know, this word servant is just ruined in all the new Bible versions. Look, servitude and, you know, masters and servants is as real as gravity. It is real as the air that I'm breathing. It is a reality. And here's the thing. If you go into a bunch of debt, you will be a servant. You're like, slavery is illegal. Go into a bunch of debt and you're going to be a servant. That's just a, it's like, it's like gravity. It's physics. All right. It's just the way it's going to be. That is a universal truth. So avoid debt. You know, make some goals. You say, I got debt. Well, you know, you have to pay that debt back because the wicked borroweth and payeth not again, the Bible says. So it's a wicked thing to take out a bunch of debt and say, oh, debt's bad. I'm not paying that. No. You need to pay it back. So that's a great New Year's resolution for people that have maybe gotten into debt. Hey, pay some debt off. You know, pay some of those things off. But avoid it. Avoid debt. It's, you know, it's best to avoid it. The second best thing is to pay it off, learn that lesson and not go into it again. All right. The Bible also talks about all this is just introduction. This isn't even the topic of the sermon tonight. The Bible also talks about, and if you go back to Proverbs chapter 28, the Bible also talks about, so we looked at, you know, budgeting our money. You know, God has given us, you know, you say, you know, does God give me my money? Because I go and I work for that money. Well, God has blessed you with the ability to have skills and the ability to learn things and the ability to have health and go work and make an income to provide for your family. God has blessed you with that. Everything that is good comes from the Lord. So you should budget your money. Be smart with your blessings. You should not go into a bunch of debt because you will go into servitude. All right. You will be a servant if you go into a bunch of debt. And the Bible also talks about how you should make money. All right. The Bible doesn't look. The Bible, in the Bible, and this is just outside of making money too, but methods matter in the Bible. Methods matter. It's not like, oh, you know, I, and look, so many Christians make a mistake about this too. Because they're like, oh, 1 Timothy 5, 5, 8 says that, you know, if I don't provide for my own, I'm worse than an infidel. That's a very strong statement. That's a very strong statement saying, it is so important that a man provides for his family that if he doesn't, he's worse than an unbeliever. Meaning, not that he's unsaved, that he's just, he's just low. He's a low person that would not, look, it's a low man that would not provide for his family, the Bible says. But look at verse number 8 of Proverbs chapter 28. The Bible talks about how methods matter. Methods matter. You know, it's not just, oh, make money by, you know, however means possible, just going out and robbing people. In verse number 8, we see one example of this. It says, he that by usury and unjust gain increase with his substance, he gather it for him that will pity the poor. This is saying that, you know, you should not be making your money through unjust means. It's talking about, you know, how we make money. Turn to Proverbs chapter 13. Turn to Proverbs chapter 13. So look, how you make money, how you make an income matters. The Bible says that there's certain ways that are unjust, that are not good ways. Things, you know, what does that mean? Yeah, there's jobs that a Christian shouldn't have, is what the Bible is saying. You know, it's saying, look, God cares how you get your money, how you get your income, how you do that providing for your family. Look at Proverbs 13 in verse number 11. You say, well, what's the good way then? The Bible says, wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished. So it's saying, if you get your income this way through vanity, now you say, what does vanity mean in the Bible? Now there's kind of two different meanings of vanity in the Bible. The first one, you know, where Solomon talks about vanity quite a bit. A lot of it is talking about excessive pride or excessive self-focus. But in this case, this is talking about something that's worthless or something that produces, it's basically, it's talking about something that has no value. So he's saying, you know, wealth gotten by vanity, what that's saying is basically wealth gotten that produces no good or produces no value is no good, is what the Bible is saying here. It shall be diminished. It's like, God's going to diminish that income, that vanity, that way of making income. But then it says, but he that, now what's the opposite way? Remember Proverbs tells you many verses in Proverbs in the same verse will say, here's the bad and on the other side of the coin in the same verse here's the good. So you say, what's the good? But he that gathereth by what? By labor shall increase. So God is basically telling you in Proverbs chapter 13 in Proverbs chapter 28 in verse number 8 he said, look, it's unjust gain and he even throws in usury as an example of unjust gain. What is usury? This is why people don't like bankers. This is why people don't like bankers because how do they make money? They make money on interest, that's usury. They make money by loaning people money and then they just make money on usury. The Bible says that that's unjust gain here in Proverbs 28. But the Bible is saying in Proverbs 13 it's saying, look, if you get money by vanity, which is worthless labor, you're producing no good. No good, nothing of value. It's like that, God says, I'm going to diminish that. But he says, if you gather by a labor work, he's like, that I will increase, God says. That's something we should pay attention to as Christians. The Bible is saying here is that, look, this is the key. It's basically saying if there is a service or a product that produces good with your labor, that's what God wants you to do. That's what God wants you to do. If there's something that's either producing evil, or is just of just like there's no labor there, it's just like collecting money from people, that's not good. That's why, usury and people like bankers have had a bad name for forever. Bankers have always been looked down by people, but think about this, here's another industry, you probably shouldn't work in an abortion clinic. To put out some crazy, obvious example, it matters how you make your income because what the Bible is saying. Here's another one. This one has affected me. I've kind of been face to face with this one a couple of times in my career. How about this one? The military industrial complex. Because guess what? You say what do you mean you've been face to face with it? Guess what? This is the only industry that I have known for 23 years that is always hiring. Always. They say we're in a recession now. We were in a recession as a few months ago. We're going into a recession in 2023. I'm not really apocalyptic about that because there's kind of recessions every 9, 10, 11 years. It just kind of happens. There's cycles. Do I think that there's going to be a big crash? Yeah, probably. But these are cycles, recessions happen. This industry is always hiring. Always. When I moved to California in 2016 there wasn't like a ton of things out there and this job was like as soon as you put your resume anywhere online it's like these people just are immediately calling you. Immediately. Come work for us. It doesn't matter what part of the country you're in they have places everywhere and they're just constantly calling you. But look, I'm not going to work for, I'm not going to make missiles. I'm not going to do that. It's just something I decided I don't want to do. I don't want to make circuits so people can get blown up and die. It's not what I want to do. It's evil. It's not a good thing. Okay, so that's the point. God cares. He says in Proverbs 28, Proverbs 13, God cares how you make your income. And this is all to just lead you into you know the topic of tonight's sermon. Turn to Proverbs 28 keep your place there. You're always going to be going back there. The focus of tonight's sermon is especially as maybe if we head into a little bit of a downturn, a little bit of darker economic times than we had maybe you know two, three years ago you know there could be you know a temptation to make money or gain more income through ways that are not just. And what I want to talk about specifically is this tonight. What I want to talk about is get rich quick schemes. That's what I want to talk about tonight. You're like what get rich with the Bible? Yes, the Bible talks about this. You think, you mean think about all the get rich quick schemes that you can think of in the next 30 seconds in your mind and I'm going to go through some in detail tonight. We'll have some fun with this. But the Bible all this to say is God cares how you make your money. God cares how you bring in income. It's not just hey however I can make a buck. That is not how the Lord works. Look that's how everybody else operates but not for you saved Bible believing Christian. It matters where it comes from. Look at Proverbs chapter 28 and verse number 20. This is a temptation for people that you know what I had some bad times last year and look a lot of people's wealth you know got cut in half or more as the last year. They say Elon Musk is the first person to ever lose 200 billion dollars on the face of the earth. Not that he lost it. It's just whatever he owned is now devalued by that much. But the point is that there could be a temptation to take risks that you normally wouldn't take in down economic times. Look at Proverbs chapter 28 and verse number 20 but I'm going to prove to you from the Bible that you should have nothing to do or be nowhere near these types of things. Your wealth, your income should be gotten by labor. By producing products that do good. That by producing or delivering a service that does good. You know by helping the community and producing things or serving people in some way that is good. That's what God wants for your life and for you to, that's how he wants you to make income. Look at verse 20. The Bible says a faithful man shall abound with blessings. That sounds pretty good. A faithful man shall abound with blessings. But he that makest haste to be rich shall not be innocent. That you know what I was talking about? That's talking about the get rich quick scheme. That's talking about the guy the man who hastened he's in a hurry to be rich. He wants to make a bunch of money just like that. You know in these get rich schemes these making haste to be rich schemes. They don't come from labor that is good by the way. So right away we should recognize them. But look at verse number 20. I bring up verse number 20 first. There's another verse that we're going to look at. But I bring up this first because it doesn't necessarily say in verse 20 that it won't work. Because I bet if I asked or we talked to enough people you might be able to think of somebody that you know he got rich quick. Maybe made a lot of money fast. But look at verse number 20 again it says he that makest haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Look it says God doesn't want that. It says God is going to hold you accountable for that. If you're making haste to be rich you're in this hurry to go and get rich it doesn't even talk about whether or not you're going to be successful or not. It just says God doesn't want you to be in a hurry to get rich. Think about it. Think about this though. Couldn't you go into the most obvious one of this is just a casino. It's just a casino. I'm going to get rich quick. Honey? I'm going to greatly improve our financial situation this year. I am going to go to the casino tomorrow and you just wait. You all laugh because you know how that would turn out. But look isn't it possible like some small chance that I could go and just like hit something and make a bunch of money at a casino? I mean it happens to people right but here's the problem say you win where does the money come from? You ever thought about like these casinos I mean are these casinos just like motel sixes that are just junk? Are these casinos just like if you go to Las Vegas and see the pictures of all the casinos I mean are they just garbage buildings? They're just thrown together. No, they're like the nicest buildings. Where did all that money come from? That money came from other people that like lost all their money to them. That's why those buildings are so nice. If you go and you win ten thousand dollars at the casino did that come from your labor? No that came from you know Bob over in the corner who wasn't as lucky as you is where that came from. You know he's over there crying he's going to go drive his car off a cliff and you're like you know I mean look it's unjust gain clearly. Alright so look the Bible is saying that God is not going to hold you innocent for that that's what verse number twenty is saying look you're saying the Christian can't win in the get rich quick game that's what I'm trying to get you to understand tonight. But here's the thing look at verse number twenty two. Look at verse number twenty two the Bible says he that hasteneth to be rich hath an evil eye and consider not that poverty shall come upon him. So here the Bible is saying he's like hey number one it's an evil thing as I just explained but he's like number two yeah poverty is coming upon you anyway. So say you do here's the problem with the guy that won at the casino and look nobody ever goes into the story about how they lost a bunch of money at the casino. And it's the same thing with these schemes that I'm going to talk to you about tonight nobody ever gets into these schemes and tells you how they lost $50,000 $100,000 they get in there and they tell you about that one time they won $5,000 or whatever. You're like oh everybody's a winner in this. But here's the problem with the guy at the casino that goes in and wins $10,000 you think that's the last time he's ever going to walk in there. No because he's got to be rich they're going to get every penny and more of that back from him. So the Bible just follows this up in verse number 22 it says hey you're not innocent if you get money unjustly you are not innocent. God is going to judge that on top of you he's not going to take away your salvation but he's going to punish you for that alright and then he follows it up in verse 22 saying oh by the way you're going to lose everything you're going to be poor alright because everybody goes back. Well you'll end up the Christian can't win in the get rich quick game. So give up on it. Just give up on that idea alright. Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 let's look at how God wants you to make an income. How does God want me? He's like God I can't do it this way I can't do it this way you know this could be unjust this is you know wrong how does God want me to make money? Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 look at verse number 11 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse number 11 the Bible says in that you study to be quiet and to do your own business you know Paul's given some advice to the church here and to what? And to work with your own hands. He's like do your own work with you'll see this in the Bible over and over again this idea of working with your hands. Alright this idea of working with your hands as we commanded you Psalm 92 4 says for thou Lord has made me glad through thy work talking about God's work I will triumph in the works of thy hands. Notice how he's talking about the works of God's hands here so he's talking about how you know just work is work that is with your hands you're like what are you talking about like manual labor he's like I have to do manual labor in order to be biblical well let me all honest work will have well with in all honest work let me I want to put this in a blanket statement that's true okay because I mean there's lots of jobs that are just that that don't necessarily you know require someone with a shovel digging a hole alright but look in in all honest work the work of someone's hands will be involved meaning something you say well what if you're a designer of something well first of all you're designing things with your hands you're still doing that and then that work goes as plans go to other people's hands to make that happen supervisors you know foremen all these different types of things they are directly involved in the work of people's hands okay this is what the bible is getting at is just some kind of labor some kind of product some kind of service you know I'm a pool cleaner guy I go out and I'm using my hands to provide a service that people need and want and that helps them in their life and that they want to actually you know pay an income to have right so look the get rich quick scheme is the opposite of this God wants you to make your own money with your own labor is what the bible says again and again and again alright so look don't get dragged into these get rich quick schemes I mean they're all they're everywhere now they're all over the place you can't you can't do anything you can't read you can't read comments on a news article without having some you know bought or you know whatever it is try to throw up a comment that tries to drag people in the comments into some get rich quick scheme I mean it's everywhere out there alright let me give you some examples of get rich quick schemes and how to avoid them how to recognize them and how to avoid them the most obvious probably the ones you've heard about the most are like Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes they're not quite the same but they're pretty much the same you say what is a Ponzi scheme basically how the government runs that's pretty much a Ponzi scheme basically how you know the government operates but you know pretty much you couldn't operate your home this is how messed up the government is you could never operate your home like the government operates or you would be like on the street living under a bridge I mean that's how that would go but what's a Ponzi scheme what's a pyramid scheme let's talk about a couple of these things tonight first of all what they do is they promise a business or some kind of they have some kind of model that promises some kind of return you know on investment let's say you know a typical mutual fund or typical market fund you know returns interest every year if you put your money into it well somebody comes up and says oh yeah well this guy this guy this investor here he returns 15% every year 20% every single year this guy's a genius right this is like the Bernie Madoff is what I'm talking about here you know you say well how do they do it well what they do is they have a certain bunch of amount of clients and they're paying these clients these 15% returns these super high unrealistic returns using the funds that new people coming in give them and you're like oh that's how they do it right that's how they make it look so good so all the people that are in you know the club are getting these they're really getting 15% they're really getting those returns and then they go out they're like this is crazy this is the best return this is the best financial guy ever and then this is where like celebrities get involved in a lot of this stuff and like you know professional athletes get involved in a lot of this stuff and they get to be the spokesperson you know like the FTX scandal was one of these right this big collapse that just happened but the point is there's no real income there's no real income there's no real returns they're just using the new investor money to pay out the people that you know need that say the high returns and then those people become their advertisers their voice you know many times but the problem is the problem is with this eventually the people you have to pay returns to it just becomes unsustainable because there are too many that the new investor money can't cover the gains that you've promised so it usually falls apart and look many times downturns in the economy will expose these scams and that's why you saw a bunch happen in the last six months you'll see these scams happen or exposed when the economy takes a downturn because it just like the emperor has no clothes it basically all comes out the FTX scandal was like this there's a lot of multi marketing schemes that are like this where there's no real product there's no real product that people are selling and making this is like the little parties where your friend had some new thing that they're trying to sell but really what they're trying to do is just get you to sign up to sell the stuff too you're just getting paid by getting more people to sign up and get the sign up fee basically that's a multi marketing scheme it's very similar to a Ponzi scheme so how to avoid this how to avoid this, how do I know that something's not really a good deal and it's fake because here's the thing if something sounds too good to be true it is there you go so that's how you know if there's no real product that anyone's producing use your biblical advice that we just gave you if there's no good labor if it's unjust gain if there's no real product in how you make that money look it's one thing if somebody wants you to invest in their business and you're going to go make a better widget or whatever and you want to get in there we're going to make widgets and people are going to like this widget because this widget's so much better than the other widgets on the market that's not what I'm talking about what I'm talking about there's no real product it's just some big promise to make a bunch of money that sounds like way better than anybody else has you know anybody else has to offer look if it sounds too good to be true it is it is too good to be true and what is happening is they're just preying on people's greed they're preying on look these people that have this haste, this desire to be rich especially quickly they're very easy targets for these type of people alright so that's the first one here's the second one if you get into investing in markets or anything like that is a pump and dump scheme alright and you say what is that well I actually preached a sermon on one of these that happened about two years ago and it was the GameStop debacle that happened I won't get into that detail about that if you want details about that you can ask me after the sermon but I actually preached a whole sermon about this because the GameStop situation was nice because the pump and dump people actually got the tables turned on them and all the people that run these pump and dump schemes they lost all their money and that's why I thought it was such a great thing because basically all these people they run this scam that lures people that want to get rich in and they got scammed is what happened in that situation but what is it, what is it and here's the thing, here's why I bring this one up the media is involved in this one the mainstream media is involved in this type of scheme who's heard of cable news shows like CNN Money or Fox Business Channel or whatever it is or like the Kramer nutcase whatever that show is but anyway all these financial shows where they tell you about these different things to invest in or things not to invest in what they're doing in many of those cases is what they do is investors they go that have influence on these shows they'll go on this show and they'll say so and so Acme Electric Company is the greatest investment in the world and look they already own Acme Electric Company and then what people see this show and then a bunch of people buy Acme Electric Company they don't know anything about Acme Electric Company the stock price goes way up because everybody they pumped up the the media they had this voice in the media and then what they do is when the price gets pumped up they dump their positions and they make a bunch of money just by getting on TV and saying things about a company another one is they get on TV and they'll trash a company they'll say the fundamentals of this company are terrible what they'll do is they'll crash a stock they'll make the price make everybody panic and sell the stock and they had shorted the stock meaning they make money if the price goes down so a lot of social media influences influencers are in on this this is how social media is not just something that you and your friends do for social media for a lot of people social media is multi-million dollar business every year because if you have millions of followers and they say some great thing about a stock that stock price is going to go up I mean Elon Musk would just mention some cryptocurrency that was completely worthless and the price would just double or triple or quadruple just because he mentioned it on his this is a pump and dump scheme alright and always the little guy it's always the normal everyday investor but look you shouldn't be making looking to make money like this and that is how you will avoid these types of situations I remember when I first started working I was 21 or 22 when I got my first full-time job as an engineer and a couple engineers in the office were like hey there's this day trading thing we're going to start doing this this day trading thing and I looked into it and I was like yeah I looked into the actual stats and the stats are like 99% of people lose their money doing this and I was like yeah you guys go ahead and these two guys they put in thousands of dollars of their money and they lost everything within six, seven, eight days all their money they lost and it was because they got on some website they was picking these stocks and it was pumping and dumping stocks and they were the last guy in they just got ripped off by scammers is what they did but the problem is they're listening to a bunch of people that are like oh I made so much money because nobody talks about how they lost it's just like the casino it's the exact same thing what's the solution? should I never invest in the stock market should I never buy a mutual fund should I never do anything like that well first of all many of you maybe have heard me say this before but I don't think that's necessarily wrong to invest in mutual funds and stocks and things like that in companies that you believe in and maybe think we'll grow in the next coming years but here's the thing investing is one thing trading is another if you're sitting there and here's a rule of thumb if you're sitting there and you're watching the price of something every day that is bad that means it's overcoming you it's overtaking you it is not good for you at all look be an investor not a trader you know you're going to have this 10% you're going to budget great you're going to have some money to invest and to save somewhere I don't think that's necessarily the best place you know but look be an investor look I believe that the best place to invest your money is in like your heart in heart assets things that you can touch and feel and like you know live in like your house but I'm not against putting money in mutual funds or things like that it's just you shouldn't be trying to trade because that's a get rich quick scheme it's nothing more than a casino you say well I'm not walking into a casino you can do it right at your computer at home it will overtake your life and you will you will be into poverty is what the Bible says look you'll just lose all your money because quite frankly that's what the Bible says and I can just end it there but there's just people out there that have more knowledge more tools and and they can just it's like you're walking into a gunfight with a nerf gun and they want to invite the guy with the nerf gun into a gunfight and you're gonna you're gonna lose it's very simple alright so look be an investor you know budget your money save your money you know if you want to invest a part of your money into things like that that's not a problem but trading is gambling alright trading is gambling here's another one here's another get rich quick scheme coaching schemes coaching schemes these are the ones that you'll see on the news articles you know I I made ten thousand dollars a month working from home last you know month or whatever right and you're like how did you do that you know and then what they want to do is they want to sell you a class and they want to sell you you know some kind of program that you'll go into this program maybe you'll go to a conference or something and then they'll sell you some program for thousands of dollars and then that will really tell you how to do it you buy the next program and some people are very good at these types of things you know but basically what they're doing is the same thing they're taking the people that have that are making haste to be rich and they're basically selling shovels to the miners they're selling you that dream of maybe being able to you know get rich quick they're going to teach you how to get rich quick and you'll see that you know in many of those cases the emperor has no clothes anyway well you say well can I learn anything can I take classes or whatever but here's the thing folks there's many people out there with free advice there's many people out there that have blogs and you know like the Dave Ramsey show and like I don't endorse Dave Ramsey he's taken a very simple biblical model and like made an entire empire out of it but the point is there's plenty of free advice podcasts videos you could watch on better handling of finances or some kind of new business that you wanted to get into here's a crazy idea though here's a this is nuts just bear with me though how about this one read a book like buy a book at a bookstore and read it because guess what books have reviews I mean nobody who is a scammer is going to be able to sell some you know reputable book on some kind of you know real estate investing or something like that so you'll know that it's reputable and I don't know read read a book buy a book so look there's lots of these scams out here I just put out a few that are out there but here's the thing here's the here's the here's the conclusion of the matter folks find honest work you know find honest work one thing that I've learned one thing that I've learned is that honest people do honest work so the most honest people that I know if I look at what those people do for a living honest people do honest work I mean I've met Christians that are not that are not they don't do honest work and many times they turn out to not be honest people you know so look it matters right honest people do honest work in mark 613 you know one of the things I like doing I just I built a fence at my house like I don't know what it is about carpentry it just makes me happy we were talking about this the other night with some of the guys it makes me happy it's not what I do for a living but it just it makes me happy because it's just it's just good work with your hands and it's rewarding and you get to see what you did and you know maybe you know Jesus was a carpenter by the way you know Joseph what did I talk about Joseph Joseph was just a good man you know that's why God chose him and guess what he was a carpenter he did he was a good honest man who just listened to the Lord first time never questioned I mean God was telling him some pretty outlandish crazy things and he was just like no problem he was super faithful and he but guess what he was an honest he had honest work he did honest work Jesus himself in mark 6 3 says the Bible says that he was a carpenter you know they said is this the carpenter whose brothers are and it lists his brothers so yeah Jesus did that work too but he was honest and he did honest work we'll get Proverbs chapter 22 so do honest work that's the first the first conclusion tonight is just have honest work get rid of this idea that you're just gonna make a bunch of money in 5 seconds because even if you could and you can't if you're a Christian God wouldn't allow it but even if you could it wouldn't be in a just way so have honest work look at Proverbs 22 29 and then when you have that honest work see a style of man diligent in his business he shall stand before kings he shall not stand before mean men mean meaning average low men it's saying hey have honest work and then work hard at it become as good at it as you possibly can be diligent what does diligent mean? diligent means consistency over time that doesn't mean you know what this week I'm gonna show up on time and I'm gonna ask questions I'm gonna learn as much as I can this week and I'm taking a break next week no it's saying diligent means be like that all the time you'll stand before kings I'm telling you it's pretty easy to it's pretty easy to stand out today this is the serious advantage that the Bible believing Christian has especially men out there in the workforce it is pretty easy I just read an article this morning talking about how 2023 employees are downgrading their employers are downgrading their expectations of what who they can hire no of their current employees they're downgrading people are downgrading themselves they're saying employees they don't even want to try harder and all this like it's a epidemic it's easy to stand out today so the Bible says work hard at your honest work and then number three always be growing always be growing there's only so many hours in a day alright there's only so many hours in a day and quite frankly if you want to live this life of having your wife stay home and raise your children in this environment in this country where most people have their wives working you are gonna have to work harder in this case so you're gonna have to work be diligent work extra hard I have done two things for as long as I can remember 15 years I've done two things I've always wanted my wife to be able to stay home and raise our children but guess what here's number three always be growing because there's only so many hours in a day no matter how hard you work so that means you know there's another way to increase you know your ability to increase your income and that's just to gain more skill that's to become a more skillful person make that time that you have more valuable turn to Proverbs chapter 23 turn to Proverbs chapter 23 so I'm just trying to throw some things out there to you know for you to think about for the new year on you know your finances how you make your money you know what you should do with that money things you should not get involved in even in bad financial times you should not get involved in this get rich quick stuff it's an epidemic out there today it's a pandemic of people just wanting to get money quickly without doing anything look at Proverbs 23 4 the real answer for the Christian is this it says labor not to be rich so I'm sitting here and I was really focusing so far in the sermon I was focusing on getting rich quick like you shouldn't be trying to make a bunch of money and get rich quickly and especially through unjust means but here's what the Bible's really saying here and here's really the answer to kind of cut this thing off at the past you shouldn't want to be rich you shouldn't want to be rich I mean that's that should not be your goal when you read your nine chapters today you know Jesus brings up in the sermon on the mount he brings this up I just but he brought it up he's talking about mammon like wanting to be rich and focusing on becoming rich it will take over your spiritual life it will replace it he says you can't serve two masters he says in the first part of Matthew Matthew chapter 6 he says you can't serve two masters it would be one thing if like hey you know I'm just going to be rich and I'm going to serve the Lord and what people will do is they'll be like I'm going to focus on getting rich and then when I get rich I'm going to use all those riches to serve the Lord no because what will happen is the rich the wanting to be rich takes over your spiritual life it chokes it out in the parable of the sewer that desire for that mammon chokes out that desire and by the time look if you are successful which the Bible says you won't be even if you could be successful you would have no desire for spiritual things anymore you can't win you can't win labor not to be rich you're like but but but but this but that hey seize from thine own wisdom read the other part of the verse it's like labor not to be rich but I want to be rich but this it'll do good things with my riches the Bible says just listen to what the Bible says that is what God is telling us here desiring to be rich is a snare is a snare work hard work honest be smart with what you have not wanting to be rich and look anything that comes easy is vanity so avoid these things think about these things as we go into 2023 let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer