 Hallelujah, this is your week. When you go into ministry, there's always going to be a need for you to provide for yourself and your family. Bill collectors don't decide that you don't get to eat free or you don't get your lights on or you don't get your water or gas on for free just because you're preaching the gospel. So let me say this up front, pastors should be paid. There are a lot of bivocational pastors who would love to be full time but for whatever reason maybe their congregation is not large enough to support them. So make no mistake about it, I believe that pastors should be paid as Paul says, as the Old Testament says, do not muzzle the odds. However, there are people who have just taken this a little too far and they're not trying to have their needs taken care of, they're trying to also add to their wants. Some of these people are diabolical and I equate them to not just corrupt preachers but more like pimps. They are deceiving others and I don't think that their deception of this desire to bring in money and to be prosperous, I don't think that that is unintentional. I think it is intentional. Paul talks about these type of men who by the way their doctrine is almost always in error, their doctrine is always not biblical and not willing to be chastised or corrected and he says of these men, these type of men as he says in 1 Timothy chapter 6, particularly verse 5, he says these are men who see the gospel or see this as a means for gain. And so just like pimps, they want to take advantage of people. There is this quote attributed to P.T. Barnum that says this, you probably heard it, there's a sucker born every minute and some of these preachers last pimps who I'm speaking of have made that mantra. And I use the word pimp because what does a pimp do? A pimp is someone who we commonly think of as a man taking advantage of some woman for his own pleasure, his own gain monetarily. Well in this regard as far as the gospel is concerned, we've got pimps who are going to use the gospel and take advantage of people in the pews for their own game, for their own financial game. And just like a street pimp, these church pimps, they prey on the greedy and the needy. They prey on the desperate and those who are looking to get ahead. Every pimp needs a prostitute, right? He needs someone who is willing to put themselves in a position to where they can get what they want or even what they need. There are women out there who for whatever reason are down on their luck and they're just trying to do anything that they can't survive, they are in desperate need, they are needy. And so here comes the pimp to take advantage of them. Then you've got the women out there who just, they don't really have a lot of scruples, they just want to get ahead and they just say, well I'll just use my body or what have you as a means to get ahead. And so here comes Mr. Pimp. Same thing in the church. You've got people who want to get ahead in life and here comes a preacher preaching about some sort of financial gain, some sort of way that they can live the high life. Same thing with the people who are needy. They are in desperate trouble. Maybe they are having problems with their bills, they're in high debt or they're sick and tired of being in debt and not be able to have ends meeting. So here comes another person saying that you can live a sort of way. I have a feeling that somebody that wants a credit card debt wiped out that if you'll use your faith as you sow, as you sow the thousand on a credit card, as you use your faith, God is going to wipe out your credit card indebtedness. Every pimp is going to show off his clothes, is going to show off his style, his money, his car, where he lives. And isn't that what we see out of some of these new church pimps? One of my chandeliers cost more than most people's house. I got 22 chandeliers in the house. Their whole spiel is to tell you that you can have this too, Joel Osteen who is a different type of a pimp. He'll make his look nice and polished in this giant palace of his at Lakewood Church. And his whole point is to speak about the good things and how God is going to bless you and who doesn't want to be blessed. And so that's appealing to people and so what do they do as far as he's concerned? They're going to give and give and give and give and give. And should people give to the church, to the ministry? They should. We'll talk about that in the end. How and who you give to is important just as much as what and how much you give, right? I see that God came to, you know, Jesus died that we might live an abundant life and to be a blessing to others. I can't be a big blessing to people if I'm poor and broke and depressed and I don't feel good about myself. If Joel Osteen is saying that this can be your best life, well then what's going to happen in your next life? You don't live for the world and then gain heaven. That's not the way this works. It doesn't mean that you have to suffer throughout the entire existence while you're on this earth. But if your whole purpose on this planet is to gain money and to live comfortably here, I promise you, you won't live so comfortably in the next life. God wants you to be prosperous. God wants you to have money. And you've got this clown going around and I said clown, you've got this clown teaching people that money coming to me and God wants you to have money and he wants you to be financially blessed. You're just blessed but wealthy. You let the Holy Ghost train you to acts for the right thing. Lord, I want a two-story house. What is that? My house is almost 25,000 square feet. You can get laws in there. I had to get some speakers in there so I can find my wife. I live in it. I drive it. I drive it. I live in it. I drove a Maybach last night. I have a phantom this morning and I'm in a ghost tonight. In case you don't know what a phantom of ghosts is, that's Rose Royce's. But it gives him glory. My boys will tell you, I don't never hide nothing from the body Christ and I'm not scared of nobody. God did it. You better not mess with me. I'll tell you so you know it can happen. And so you hear him bragging about what he's got and to those folks who are needy that's appealing because they have these itching ears. They have their hearts move. Their fancies are tickled and so they want that. So much so that they're even willing to allow scriptures to be twisted so that they can get the same thing that they want. You're not giving the blessing anything to multiply. You're just going to take the involvement of money so it can be multiplied. You hear pastors talking about sow a seed and the greater seed that you sow, the greater God can increase it. Well, spiritually speaking that makes sense and it's true. But God never intended for you to sow seeds of dollars to get back big large bank accounts. That was never his intent. And it takes a person who wants to be blind to the scriptures, who want to be blind to reality of the scriptures, the truth of the scriptures, divorce themselves from that just so they can see this so-called green grass as other preacher, this pimp is portraying for them. Because think about it. What kind of person in their mind's logic would even think that buying your pastor, your so-called pastor, your pimp, buying him a brand new jet is what he needs. I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the earth today, he wouldn't be riding a donkey. For you that don't think I should have that plane, God told me to have that plane. My congregation is the world. I need the plane. This dope-filled world, get in a long tube with a bunch of demons. That's exactly that. And it's deadly. And it works on your heart. It really does. If I want to believe God for a $65 million plane, you cannot stop me. You cannot stop me from dreaming. They discover life on Mars. If you think a $65 million plane was too much, if they discover that there's life on Mars, they're going to need to hear the gospel. And I'm going to have to believe God for a billion-dollar space shuttle because we got to preach the gospel on Mars. Let me say this about these men. And we can do a roll call. The problem is we don't have enough time to go over all of the men who are out there praying. We know about the Creflo Dollars. Isn't that a name to have Creflo Dollar Bill? Or the Benny Hins, who now is saying that he's not so much for this prosperity ministry. Or the Joel Olsteins or the Kenneth Copeland's, the Kenneth Hagens of the world, the Leroy Thompson's. There's enough of them, the big ones we know about. There's also some smaller ones, some small dollar pimps who are trying to make their way up. And matter of fact, you'll probably hear them or smell them as they're coming. You smell their cologne or hear their chains dangling. And for some reason, people just don't get turned off. They get excited about that. And so we can do a roll call, but we just don't have that kind of time. But what about what the pimp needs? The prostitute. No pimp is in business without a prostitute. No church pimp is in business without prostitutes in the church. Meaning, and these are unintentional or sometimes intentional prostitutes. Because what does a prostitute do? Again, the prostitute is going to lay herself down or himself down to be taken advantage of in hopes of a better future. They know what they're doing is not the right thing. It didn't feel right, it didn't seem right. But if this is the means to an end, and for them the means does justify the end, then I'll go ahead and do it. We had a house built, then blessed with vehicles, and just God has just been increasing us so much. We support Abba Pastor. That's what we're here for. The work that he's doing, where the Lord have him traveling, he doesn't need a cheap airplane. He needs the best. I don't have a problem with it. I think the kingdom of heaven should be rich. And so you've seen people who will sacrifice paying a bill or give, give, give, give, give, even if they're guilted into giving for the hope, for the sake of getting rich. You'll hear people kind of twist the scripture that says delight yourself in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Well, if you do delight yourself in the Lord, your desires are going to change. It won't be for money. Does God bless some believers financially? Sure. Does he bless all believers financially? No, he's not. That's not even God's intention. He'll bless you spiritually. But what does he say in Matthew 6? He says, do not worry. But then he says something. I don't know if we painted in this passage enough. Verse 33, he says, seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness. Then all these things should be added to you. Well, don't seek him with the mindset of getting these things added to you. And so to you folks who are, let's say the needy prostitute, the needy givers, the desperate givers. Let me say this to you. You're in the same boat, the same category as the greedy ones. Those who are trying to give money only to get ahead. You are going to get what you deserve. Let me be clear. It sounds harsh, but I promise you, you're going to get what you deserve. Your disobedience brought about this desperate financial need. Your disobedience in one, God, your faith being misplaced, putting it in the hands of some slick pimp, some person who's telling you how you can get ahead, versus following godly biblical financial principles. And then also trusting in God. Well, you put yourself in a position where you have to trust another God. And so even though there is restoration, even though there's forgiveness and redemption, you're still not going to make it through this unscathed. And so you're going to get what you have coming. Anyone that prostitutes themselves, I can promise you, even if you find someone who has physically gone through the act of sexual prostitution, they'll tell you the cost that they paid. And it wasn't a pretty cost. The mental and emotional and physical hurt that they had to endure. The same is going to happen to you. And I had a buddy of mine who, interestingly enough, had a pastor who was called an apostle. Again, many of these pimps have these horrible doctrines and will call themselves apostles, prophets, or anything special to make you see him in a certain light. And I kept telling him about this person and warning him and how they kept giving this money and giving this money. And he got, like many of them did, upset with me and didn't want to talk to me. Well, ultimately the pastor fleeced him and the rest of, or his apostle, a fleeced him and the rest of the congregation, he and his wife ended up getting separated because it took her a long time to come around. And so he comes back to me and apologizes, but those are the things that happen and that's just getting off light. And so you can keep running around with these clowns, these fools, these evil men, all you want to. Not noticing how similar they are to these church pimps to these street pimps. You can ignore all the signs you want to. There's going to be a cost. There's going to be a cost to pay for these pimps and there's going to be a cost to pay for the folks who are looking for a financial gain by either being used or by using people. So should we give, because we're not always sure what the motives are of these pastors or these ministries, I'll say this. If you are not sure of what your church is doing, if you believe they to be honest and forthright up front, keep giving. Give to the ministry. The ministry does require money to use. Now you can hold them accountable as to what they do with the money and when you see them doing something that they should not do, well then that's when you might want to be a little bit discretionary in terms of how you and where you give your money to. But in most cases, you're probably fine giving. There's nothing wrong with you giving. But when you've got someone here who is showing off what you're giving, they've got a car that costs more than most people's houses. As a matter of fact, most folks in the congregation don't have any money and they're living half a hog. That might be an issue with there. Again, there's nothing wrong with a pastor having money and having nice things. But if it's at the expense of his sheep, well then what kind of shepherd is that? When these pastors talk about their congregation in the world like Jesse the Planus, no, it's not. Your congregation is supposed to be local. There is no global shepherd. These men ought to be avoided. They ought to be shunned and they ought to be exposed. They ought to be left alone. They will have their reward. Promise you. Don't be caught up in the same reward that they're going to get. Amen.