 Amen. Okay, so what I want you to do is just mark in your Bible Judges 14 for now We're gonna come back to that and then find a little Bible management find the book of Proverbs We're gonna be going back and forth between judges and Proverbs mainly today What I want to preach on this morning We have kind of a break between series here So I want to preach on something that I've thought about preaching a sermon on for a long time I've never really had the opportunity to do so what I want to talk about This morning is the subject of gambling The subject of gambling, you know, first of all, you know, is the Bible is the Bible silent on Gambling and I've heard people say that before I've heard people say that the Bible doesn't you know forbid Gambling turn to Proverbs chapter 13. So first of all, let's see if the Bible is silent on the subject of gambling It's not the Bible is not silent on anything The Bible has all the answers for everything that we will deal with in this life But let's go ahead and take a look at some verses to see if the buy what the Bible has to say about gambling Look at Proverbs 13 and verse number 11 to start off And the Bible says wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished But he that gathereth by labor shall increase turn to Proverbs 28 I'm going to read for you 1st Timothy chapter 6 where the Bible says but they that will be rich Fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts Which drown men in destruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil Which while some coveted after they have aired from the faith and pierced themselves through with many Sorrows so you see in 1st Timothy chapter 6 it says these two words they that will be rich Those are people that are desiring to be rich people that their goal in life is just to be rich Okay, if you look at Proverbs 28 verse number 22 This is my favorite verse in the Bible as it pertains to the subject of gambling right here The Bible says in Proverbs 28 verse 22 he that hasten to be rich Have an evil eye and consider it not that poverty shall come upon him This verse is the gambler right here. Okay, it says he that hasten to be rich somebody that wants to get rich quickly and He considers not that poverty shall come upon him And you'll see that theme throughout the sermon this morning that the Bible tells you if you hasten to be rich That this poverty is going to come upon you he consider it not That poverty shall come upon him turn to Genesis chapter 3 The first thing I want to point out about Proverbs 28 22 is that this idea of getting rich quickly is rejecting the institution of work that God has set forth for man This idea that you are supposed to go out and work for your money look at Genesis 3 in verse number 19 This is God's command to to Adam after you know the fall after the sin of the Garden of Eden and In verse number 19 the Bible says in the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground For out of it was thou taken for dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return We could go on and on and on and I've talked about this before in sermons previously on covetousness on how there is dishonest gain out there and the Bible does not The Bible is not against honest gain. The Bible is not against working hard Making money saving money and enjoying the fruits of your what? your labor right so there is an honest gain but Gambling or you know this idea that we need to get rich quickly The Bible has plenty to say about it and that's what we're going to look at this morning So first of all I want to just talk to you about you know common forms of gambling that you're going to see out today That you see every day. I'm sure from advertisements to whatever the most famous form of Gambling in the by in not in the Bible the most famous form of gambling that we deal with today is something called the lottery and You see it everywhere because now the governments are Sponsoring lotteries and the reason is because they're huge money makers Right, that's why the government is in this business. So the numbers the lottery What are the numbers behind the lottery? First of all, it's it's a money maker It's a 60% payout which means if I was going to run a lottery myself I go out and I sell a hundred tickets for a dollar and Then I give a prize out for $60 and then I keep 40 It's it's the most simple way to make money you could ever think of but it just it it It what's the word I'm looking for here. It prays on people's greed To spend a dollar and win that $60 so it prays on people's greed It's a it's a great way for the government to make money Then they put the guy on TV and you know look at this great thing that happened to this man They advertise it now Americans they spend 70 billion dollars on lottery tickets every year. That's like $230 per person And when you think about the fact that a lot of people don't even play the lottery That means that there's some people out there that are spending a lot more than $230 right so you say you know, what's the problem? There's nothing in the Bible that says thou shalt not buy a lottery ticket, right? Yes, that verse does not Exist in the Bible. There's two issues that I'm going to explain to you about the about the lottery today turn to Ephesians chapter 6 So the lottery when you pull people and when you ask people why that they're playing the lottery The main thing people will say to you is that you know, they don't want to work anymore So people want to you know play the lottery so they don't have to go to work anymore It's this idea that you know They just don't have to get up and go to work like you know God tells them that they should if you look at Ephesians 6 verse number 5 the Bible says servants Be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your heart as Unto Christ not with eye service as men pleasers, but as servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart So first of all with the lottery. Here's the thing. You're not going to win Okay, I mean we could go through the odds of winning the lottery But basically if you look at the sixty percent payout, you know The odds of winning a three billion dollar pot or whatever are like, you know, you have a better chance of getting killed by a vending machine While being struck by lightning While you're riding a horse through a field kind of thing. It's it's you know, you're not going to win the lottery Okay But you should not go to work every single day not wanting to be there and hoping you win the lottery Because that's that's where a lot of people are today. You know second of all Men are made to work for a living. I mean, that's what we're supposed to do not dream this dream of not having to work You know the lottery actually knows this and they market to it How many of you ever seen these billboards where when you're at the gas station this advertisement the state of California has Dreamed today for a dollar You know, so I'm gonna spend a dollar and then I can and that dollar can buy me this hatred of my job Is basically what that does dream today for a dollar? You know this dream of no longer working is actually like an epidemic today. I Mean you go to work and you show up on Monday morning and you're good morning. It's Monday Tuesday morning four days till Friday You know Wednesday three days till Friday two days till Friday. I Mean, that's that's what's happening. That's everybody You're supposed to go to work as unto Christ not dream about you know living Winning the lottery or not having to work for any reason you're supposed to go to work as unto Christ You know that the whole idea of the whole baby boomer generation was to just pile up all this money So you can finally quit that job and then do nothing for the last 30 years of your life. I Mean, that's not my dream. I'm not saying I want to work for somebody my whole life But I mean I like to work I Like to work and I'm gonna work until you know, God takes away my ability to work That's my plan for my life And you know that if you remember the TV sermon the irony of that is what are those baby boomers doing with their last? 30 years of their life. They're sitting in front of a TV watching Fox News all day Good job. You made it It makes no sense. It's not biblical Here's the dream that you should have you should think about going to work and doing a good good job as unto Christ That's what you should be doing Start a business run that business as unto Christ You know work hard as unto Christ. What's over the hand find it to do do it with thy might? The Bible says you know God will bless that so reject this idea first of all of just hating going to work Now here's a here's an irony of the lottery and I knew this before I even started looking into this this and this is a Rabbit trail, but liberals in this country should actually hate the lottery Because it's the liberals in a country that want to take all the money from the people that make the most money And they want to tax the rich and all this you know what the lottery is You know who buys all the lottery tickets The poorest people it's a literal tax on the poor in this country People who make less than ten thousand dollars a year spend on average six hundred dollars a year on lottery tickets Imagine that you can't live on ten thousand dollars a year Not in this state not in any state. They spent six hundred dollars a year on lottery tickets One in five Americans believe the lottery is the old it's twenty percent of Americans Believe the only way that they could save a significant amount of money is if they win the lottery. I Mean this is real The millennial generation the ones they're going to be running this country in like five minutes 15% of them Almost one in five say that their retirement plan is the lottery They're going to be in charge soon These socialist people that are you know, basically, you know playing the lottery for their financial future scary Look one of the one of the ways that poor people are being kept poor is by the lottery and I understand personal responsibility We're gonna get to that in a minute But I'm just saying that these things are they are not going to make you money They're not gonna make you rich and you know, it's gonna it's gonna bring you to poverty The Bible says over and over again The second major Form of gambling in this country is casinos. So let's talk about that a little bit I used to drive for the last three years when I lived in Sacramento I would drive to Oroville every single day and Oroville must have some kind of Reservation or something because there's a couple really big casinos there. So I drive by these two billboards every single day and These billboards one of them was like this really good-looking couple in these like you know formal dress And they were dancing and then the next billboard said, you know, the fun never stops. I Remember the the quotation saying the fun never stops, you know But what's really happening in casinos now? This is this is where being old like me is a benefit Again, I know stories of people who have literally lost everything. They've owned in a period of a few hours At a casino. I mean think about that The fun never stops what these people they will take everything you own and they will not blink an eye They won't think twice about it Americans lost a hundred and twenty billion dollars to gambling in 2018 They don't care. They don't care how many how long it took you to save a hundred thousand dollars You build a business and save a hundred thousand dollars and then you walk into a casino They will let you bet a hundred thousand dollars on one hand of some game And they will take it all from you and then they will kick you out on the street I mean many people lose everything and then actually kill themselves and the casinos don't care You know people that regularly gamble 20% of them have attempted suicide. I mean these look these people hate you I mean think about think about someone that would do that to you and Not have any conscience about it. Like I said, we'll get to personal responsibility in a minute But just think about somebody who would take some man or woman who's worked their whole life to accumulate Savings or a fortune of some kind and they would take it all from them just like that and They'll let you just go drive your car off a cliff and they won't blink an eye That's someone that hates you I mean that that's the action of hating you and they trick you, you know in casinos There's there's a number of gimmicks that they use you will never find a clock in a casino Because they don't want you looking at what time it is. Oh, I've been here too long I need to be somewhere or thinking about other things. You will never find windows in a casino Because they don't want you knowing that you know you've been there for you know 24 hours or whatever and it's dark and it's time to go You will be they will give you free alcohol of course In a casino Because they want your judgment gone. They want to impair you and turn you into a fool as the Bible says They give you free food free rooms. They'll make you feel important as they make you poor Is what they'll do Look, no one wins That's why that that's why the buildings are so nice You know that the government didn't build those buildings You know some some philanthropist didn't build those buildings the buildings are nice because they're taking everybody's money Because you can't win, you know, you just have to think about how evil these people are It doesn't matter, you know what you will do or what I mean They'll take everything from you without thinking so I mean the fund never stops. I always thought what a lie that is I Mean just just liars that they are Now I'm not like I said, I'm not excusing personal responsibility. We're gonna get to that in our story in the Bible So that's casinos. I mean we could go on and on and on about different kinds of gambling in the Bible or in Today's world But you know just let me just wrap up the rest of them in one bucket Basically like get rich quick schemes in general are always bad Okay, you know, it's it's people praying on other people's greed is what it is think about, you know Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes You know all these people that have these conferences and try to get all these people into these these schemes Well, hey, you can just by doing nothing will make you rich They're getting rich off those people is what they're doing, you know Think about day trading or futures trading and all these just gambling really risky situations You know where where professionals are praying on on newcomers and they're praying on people that don't know any know anything I remember when I started my career 20 years ago over 20 years ago, man There was a guy that I first started working and this guy was like hey, we should get into this day trading and He's like, you know, I figured it out. We could make a lot of money and this and that I've been watching this website and all this and I looked into it I studied it and I'm like, you know, it was like 99% of people lose So I'm like no, I'm good This guy went and he lost like $10,000 in like three days He's just getting scammed by people that are just playing on his greed So he's literally at work at his job Losing 10 times more money than he's making doing something. He shouldn't even be doing at work. I Mean, it's greed. He's gonna he brought him to poverty So look, that's why the Bible says he that hasten hasten to be rich Have an evil eye and consider it not that poverty shall come upon him. Look where you here's where you should be at You should be thinking about business ideas You should be thinking about better ways to do things invent something. That's why I like doing that Those are good things to do, you know, pray to God for creativity in your life That's a great prayer You know think outside the box and creative way to grow your business or your career These are all good things and then work hard and save money That's the Bible way That's called Honest game is what that is and the Bible says that, you know, that's a gift of God. That's a gift from God So let's look at Let's that was all intro. Okay. Let's look at some lessons from judges 14 From the most famous gambler in the Bible. What can we learn? from Samson So here's the story of Samson's riddle is what we read Samson He goes into the Philistines and he finds a Philistine wife that he wants to marry and he goes and he gets these all these Philistines, you know friends to come to his Wedding and instead of just having his wedding, you know, he throws out this riddle To try to make some gain off of these these Philistines, right? So the first thing That we can learn from Samson's riddle and this story in judges 14 is that it's extremely prideful to think that you can win I mean Samson was very prideful He thought that he was smarter than these men He thought that he could outsmart them and take something from them There was a story 10 or 15 years ago about a bunch of engineers from MIT who thought they could beat the casino At a certain game and turns out, you know, they started they started winning And because they were doing all this math to figure out this game, but here's the thing The casinos won't let you win. You can't win. It's too. It's prideful to think that you can win They were they were kicked out of casinos all over the world All these casinos are linked together if there's somebody that's figured something out. They'll just throw you out I mean, they were hunted all over the world thrown out of these these casinos So they were all either being threatened and all this terrible things were happening. Look The casinos won't let you win. It's prideful to think that you can just like Samson. He thought he could win Did Samson win? No, he didn't turn to Ecclesiastes 5, so it's prideful And pride will bring you down and that's what started with Samson here. That's what brought Samson down here Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 5. Here's the second point from Samson's story. You won't be satisfied by the money You won't be satisfied by the winnings. Look at Ecclesiastes 5 in verse number 10 The Bible says this is our verse of the week He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver nor he that loveth abundance with increase This is all so vanity because here's the thing if you ever hear about somebody that won money from a casino or one money in a Bat or whatever it is, you know, I always thought it was like, you know, that's great if they never do it again But how many people do you know that have never done it again? And people just tend to tell you just only the times that they win You know like oh, I won, you know this much money or whatever, you know You always hear the stories of people winning. You never hear the stories of people losing You know, that's why by the way the lottery has all these smaller prizes. That's designed The $20 prizes the $100 prizes, you know, they say you'll win something one in I don't know One in 50 times or something you'll win a $5 but because they you'll always come back. They're just they're just You know, they're just feeding that greed to make that greed bigger so they can just keep continuing to get your money from you I mean, it's it's designed folks. You can't win You can't win but look Even if you could win every time the Bible says that you will never be satisfied Because he that love a silver will not be satisfied by silver I mean, I'm sure if you're over the age of 30 you have met people like this That it doesn't matter how nice their car is How nice their house is it doesn't matter because they're never going to be satisfied It's always what's the next biggest thing I can get. I mean, it's a disease But you know what it is? It's a curse and the Bible tells us here that he that what if you love silver You will not be satisfied by it. It's a it's a curse Here's the third thing Even if you do win money one time or whatever You're taking somebody else's harder and money. I mean think about that Turn to Ezekiel chapter 22. It's not like if you go and you win a thousand dollars at the lottery Or you win a thousand dollars at a casino. It's not like the casino owner is pulling out his Checkbook and you know writing you a check You're just taking money from somebody who's just lost everything. I mean, do you think God is going to bless that? I mean you're taking somebody else's money Ezekiel 22 look at verse number 12 In the have they taken gifts to shed blood though has taken usury and increase and now has Greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion and has forgotten me sayeth the Lord even if you win its dishonest gain You've greedily gained off your neighbor is what the Bible says. You're taking somebody else's hard-earned money Proverbs 22 16 He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches and he that giveth to the rich shall surely come to want that means you'll come to poverty look It's it's it's dishonest gain even if you could win which you can't It makes no sense if you just logically biblically think about this. All right number three God tells us again and again what our punishment will be for this look as a saved person You should be scared to death to gamble. I mean seriously you should be afraid to gamble I mean the Bible actually talks about it a lot Turn to Proverbs 28. There's two reasons you should be scared to death the first reason In Proverbs 28 verse 19 The Bible says he that tilleth his land Shall have plenty of bread, but he that fall with after vain persons shall have poverty Enough a faithful man shall bound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich There's that maketh haste to be rich again shall not be innocent And then verse number 22 of course he that hasten to be rich hath an evil eye and consider it not the poverty That shall come upon him. So the first reason you should be afraid to gamble as a As a saved person is because it will bring you to poverty. I Mean you will lose everything I mean how many verses do I have to read you in the Bible that say you will come to poverty You will come to poverty you will come to poverty Again and again and again in the second reason you should be afraid to gamble is this turn to judges 15 You won't just hurt yourself Here's a side note Sampson was gambling with money that he didn't have Or that he couldn't afford to lose Which many people do? He was gambling with money. He didn't have look at judges 15. Let's look at how the story ended with Sampson first of all the reason the way they found out the riddle was by threatening his wife and her father So I mean how did that how did his actions affect his wife right from the get-go they threatened her they threatened to kill her Look at judges 15 verse number one But it came to pass Within a while after in the time of wheat harvest that Sampson visited his wife with a kid And he said I will go into my wife in the chamber, but her father would not suffer him to go in he had given her to someone else and Her father said verily I thought that thou has utterly hated her Therefore I gave her to thy companion is not her younger sister fairer than she take her I pray thee instead of her and Sampson said Concerning them now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines though I do them a displeasure and Sampson went and caught 300 foxes and took firebrands and turned tail to tail and Put a firebrand in the midst of the two tails and when he had set the brands on fire He let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines and burnt up both the shocks and also the standing corn with the vineyards and The olives then the Philistines said who had done this and they answered Sampson the son-in-law of The Tim Knight because he had taken his wife and given her to his companion and the Philistines came up and Burnt her and her father with fire. I mean this poor lady. I Mean think about this lady in this story I mean, yeah, she you know she she kind of betrayed Sampson by you know telling this the riddle to these guys But I mean for crying out loud. I mean they threatened her life. They threatened her dad. I mean she just meets this guy She's gonna marry and then in the end she ends up her and her dad get burned anyway. I Mean, you know thanks a lot, right? So you're not just gonna hurt yourself. I mean many many years ago I knew a man and I was very I knew this man very well and This man got tied up in a in a scheme And he thought like Sampson, you know the pride part of it He thought he had this scheme figured out and this guy He showed me graphs and he showed me all the different things that he had figured out on this scheme and He lost Everything and more I'm talking millions of dollars this man lost And by the time by the way you could actually end up when you're at up because of the way the tax system works He ended up in a situation. We not only lost everything, but he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes after he lost everything and I still remember like I still remember thinking how could it have been possible for him to to have lost this much money and I went and I looked into what he was actually doing and I realized that in this particular thing that he was doing You could risk hundreds of thousands of dollars when you only had like ten thousand dollars and I just like I still remember this sinking feeling that I had thinking how could you ever go home and Tell your wife what you had done You know how many people that happens to I? Mean I know several people in my life that have had things like this happen to them I mean imagine you're working hard. You're saving money You work for 20 30 years to save this kind of money And you lose it all and more and you put your family into poverty Forever I Mean there's no way you can make that kind of money back in this guy's case It just I still remember that sinking feeling I had for him When that happened because I just couldn't imagine you know Samson So you're not just affecting yourself. You have to remember that if you if you Hopefully no one hears into this, but if you know somebody who's into this they're going to leave a path of destruction Through their life if they can't get this right Because I mean Samson's wife and her and his father-in-law they lost their lives over this People killed themselves over this. I mean people destroy Their families future over this type of thing So look It's scary really. I mean it's scary that you could fall into something like this and destroy it all for the rest of your life And it's one of those things that if you have a problem with it or you know somebody that has a problem with it They they need to stop it now Before this happens You know they need to quit it now and you need to you need to tell them about these things that it this is coming It's going to happen, especially if you're a saved person I mean God is not going to bless you throughout this kind of path in your life You know just look at Samson. You need to just you need to just kill your greed is is what it boils down to Because look I don't ever want to be rich anyway. I Mean there was a time when I was younger when I when I might have thought differently But I don't ever want it if you ever go and read stories or hear stories about like people that actually did win the lottery path of destruction Through their life They destroy their lives Look at Hollywood celebrities who are rich. They destroy everything They've been they can't keep a marriage their children die. I mean it's terrible. Who would ever want it? I want to work hard and I'll you know I want to have a few bucks in the bank that I've worked hard to get and I want to have a decent path for my family, but it has to come from honest gain Okay, look if you get into this type of stuff, here's what it really is It's a lack of it's a lack of faith in God is what it boils down to It's a lack of faith in God that if I go out and I work hard that God will take care of me I mean, it's that's what it boils down to it's a lack of faith in the actual words of God. I Mean God tells you You'll be in poverty You're gonna be in poverty you're gonna be in want Poverty poverty poverty over and over and over again. I mean do you not believe the Bible? I Mean to have a saved Bible believing Christian fall into this type of stuff How could it happen? But it but it's just a lack of faith in the words of the Bible. I mean God will never let you as a saved child of God Walk into a casino get rich and have a wonderful life. That's impossible It can never work that way for you. Sorry, it's just God says it won't satisfy you. You won't stop. I mean why Don't people believe him, you know, I've seen so many people lose that lose everything I was thinking about when I was writing this sermon, you know, and it's so common that you've probably seen it too You know It's not that it, you know, look, it's not that it money itself is bad. You know, I mean, I don't have to say this Over and over again, but it's not that money itself is bad. It's the love of money It's bad. It's you know, it's back to the sermon on on Thursday night You know Peg in the needle too far in one direction, right? You need money to function in this world You have to pay your bills. You're not supposed to owe people money. Oh, man. Oh, no man anything the Bible says So you need to go out and you need to get money you need to be working But this will never be the path that works out for you as a Christian. It's impossible. The Bible promises that Okay, wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished But he that gathereth by labor shall increase. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear heavenly father We thank you for this passage in the Bible. We thank you for these lessons in the Bible Lord We asked that if there's anybody here that struggles with this type of thing or that you would just you know Set this whole thing straight Lord We thank you for being so clear on this subject that if we get Greedy in our life and we get prideful in our life Lord that it will just end badly for us And we thank you for the warning. Thank you for the book of Proverbs and the entire Bible Lord We ask you to bless the rest of today in Jesus name. We pray amen