I started reading the Bible and I did this unique thing after I started reading when I found it saidd do something I started doing it and it worked just like God said it would imagine that right and then I'd find something else and i' do it and it worked again I was like this is pretty amazing this like this is like automatic find something in here you go do it it does what it says it's going to do it's like it kind of gives you an advantage and and then after a while cuz I was a teenager after a while and going to church with folks and watching folks I'm like why aren't more people doing it like we get excited we come and we listen and we hear and we say amen and we sing songs and you know and we pray and we ask God to do stuff and then but the stuff we got the stuff we already know to do we ain't doing I'm like why a't we doing it right and so I think one of the greatest discoveries of my life is the fact that the Bible is not a book about religion it Con contains religion but it's not about religion in fact did you know that God didn't even start the first religion did you know that Satan started the first religion did you all know that in Genesis chapter 3 he started a religion called Hedonism and he said if he said for God do know that the day you eat thereof then your eyes will be open and ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil he said the way to be more like God is to disregard what God Said and do what I'm saying see when I say religion I'm talking about anything anybody tells you you have to do in order to appease God that's what I mean when I say the word religion in case anybody's wondering but see here's the reality there's nothing you can do to appease God God can only be appeased by God that's why he sent his son to die on the cross for our sins because he's only pleased with himself it's for appeasement he's only pleased with himself so I'm not going to do a good deed and get salvation for some good deed it's not a tradeoff right and so and I I I think the reason I'm saying this I I I want us to understand that the Bible is not just true the Bible is truth there's a difference between true and truth what's true is static I mean it's Dynamic and it can change what's true is dynamic it can change for instance 29 I am in Dallas Texas tomorrow night I will not be in Dallas Texas so I'm in Dallas Texas that's true but it's not truth if it were truth it could not change are y'all with me yeah okay so truth establishes what's true okay and so everything that's truth is true but everything that's true is not truth we have have to understand that the the reason we have a lot of people who practice what I call modern-day churchianity a lot of preachers who preach like christianese but they don't preach the Bible is because what they want to do is they want to establish they they believe that truth is like what's true and that it's Dynamic and what's and that truth can change but truth doesn't change and so I'm going to read a couple of verses to you tonight and I want to share this principle with you this idea with you from a and from a lot of different perspectives and the the idea is this business is a good idea because business is a god idea Satan is not the one who created the concept of business God is and so even though Hollywood and the government would have us to believe that all business is that business is evil and that that business is evil and that entrepreneurship is bad the reality is that's not what the scripture says so I'm going to read a passage to you I'm going to give you a new testament verse and I'm going to go back to the Old Testament share some stuff with you but in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 this is Paul writing to the church at thessalonica and in verse excuse me in um 1 Thessalonians 4: 11- 12 here's what it says it says and that you study to be quiet and to do your own business and that you work with your own hands as we commanded you now why is the Apostle the Apostle Paul who wrote 14 out of the 21 books in the New Testament writing to the church and saying hey study be diligent to be quiet and do your own business work with your own hands as we commanded you which means I already told you this before I'm telling you this again do your own business why is he saying that well he tells us why he's saying that in verse 12 here's what it says that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without what does that mean paying your bills on time that's what it means so that when you owe somebody money who's not a Believer you pay them when you owe them and not a minute late how do you do that by having your own business and that ye may have lack of nothing I don't know that's pretty clear like I didn't I didn't add anything into that did I okay so God said if you want to be able to pay your bills on time and not lack anything have your own business it's pretty clear did you know there are only two class classifications of jobs that I've been able to find in scripture you might be able to find another one but I've only been able to find two classifications of jobs other than these two classifications of jobs everybody else own businesses I'm not talk okay I'm not talking about Kings and Priests and people in Ministry but I'm talking about jobs like in the workplace two classifications yall want to know what they are slaves and soldiers everybody else in the scriptures every major Bible character almost every major Bible character owned a business isn't that mind-blowing and we think that having a job there's having a job is not a sin it's not it's not bad but it's not God's ideal design for your financial life he said that you stud be quiet and to do your own business uh Proverbs 29 uh Proverbs 22:29 says this it says seest Thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before Kings he shall not stand before mean men I didn't put that in there my my so when I was an assistant pastor this was many many years ago this was probably this was probably wow um this was probably 12 years ago maybe 13 I was assistant pastor my brother was my younger brother senior pastor and I had Vis I didn't take a salary from the church church cuz I didn't need one um and so I just served on staff and and then I taught people how to have business and so and and sometimes I preach messages like this about business at church and so a lady in the church who's a real estate agent she came to me she said Marin she said why do you always talk about business and money so much I said because I don't want to misrepresent Christ in the marketplace what does that mean I don't want to tell people that I serve a god of abundance while they watch me live in lack it doesn't match and and by the way God's not the one who made it that way I am because I disregarded what he said we've we've all heard we've all heard from Ephesians chapter 5 where it says see that you walk circumspectly as wise not as fools doing what what's it say next Redeeming the time because the days are evil that's really an interesting word Redeeming the time the word redeem like if you look it up in Strong's Concordance if you look up the word redeem and the strong concordance it has a couple of different meanings um one meaning is so I'm the word is redeem so Redeeming the time because the days are evil one of the definitions unredeem is to buy back or to buy up right so or to buy up so I'm supposed to buy back or buy up my time okay so that right there that'll change your life by itself buy back your time okay let's let's let's really think about this together okay so we have been programmed since the time we were knigh to a grasshopper okay you go to school you study hard you get good grades you can graduate go off to a good college study hard get good grades so you can get a good job with a good company and they'll work for them for 40 years and they'll take care of you how many y'all found out that don't [Laughter] work liar liar pants on fire okay so but that's what we thought so so and then we heard this this other lie time is money how many you ever heard that time is money time is money time is money like people who say that either they don't understand time they don't understand money they're broke or they're lying say what does that mean myON well see time is not money like the actual equation is time is greater than money time is infinitely greater than money what do you mean well if you run out of money you can always get more money but when you run out of time it's game over you don't get more time and so if you knew you were going to die and you had to pay all of your money to buy three more days would you do it most people would probably say yes to that why because you already intuitively know that time is money but if somebody said to you I'll give you a $100 million check today but if I give you the $100 million check when you get it you have to end your life nobody wants that check why because you already inherently know that time is more valuable than money if if you knew you were going to die and there was a there was a an antidote and you had some disease and there was an antidote and insurance didn't cover it but you had enough money to pay for it and you're going to die in 3 days or pay all of the money that you have to buy this antidote so that you can live most people are going to buy that antidote so you say mayam what's your point we already know that time's not money but if we're telling ourselves that time is money and then we're living life like time is money here's what we're going to do we're going to sell a whole bunch of our time for a little bit of somebody else's money and then wonder why we can't get ahead because we're doing exactly the opposite of what God Said God said buy back our time what do we do we sell our time instead okay I'll give you one example okay here's here's here's one here's one small example of how you disconnect your Revenue generation from time make sure when you start a business start the kind of business that can create wealth without it taking all your time my what kind of business is that there are only two types of businesses how many types two there's a business that sells a product and there's a business that sells a service if you start a business that sells a service okay if you start a business that sells a service after you sell the service now you have to fulfill the service that fulfillment takes time so let's say you own a house painting business and let's say um you can it let's say you can paint one house a week and let's say you charge $115,000 to paint that house if you can get one client a week you just maxed out your income at $60,000 in Revenue a month you can't make any more than that why because all you can do is paint one house a week are yall tracking okay so so if you start a business to sells a product though let's say you sell reading glasses and let's say the reading glasses are okay these reading glasses let's they're not even like these are designer reading glasses so they're kind of expensive what people call expensive they're like 100 bucks or something okay so you sell 20 you sell $20 reading glasses takes no longer to sell 100,000 pair than it does to sell one like if you sell 100,000 pair or you sell one pair the Fulfillment is the same are you tracking so now you have the ability to collapse time frames and make more money in a shorter period of time just because you chose the right type of business does that make sense so okay so that's now how do you buy back time well if you look at anything that you do right now and it that takes your time if you hire somebody to do that You' bought back the time that you used to use to do it like successful all successful entrepreneurs know this see people who who are entrepreneurs which means they want to be an entrepreneur but they don't know how they're afraid to hire people because they think it costs too much money people people who are successful entrepreneurs are afraid not to hire people because they know that cost too much money I can't even imagine how much it would cost me if I had to do everything in my business myself I I like but but guess what it doesn't even like let's say even if I didn't have a business like I have a yard right they have yards in Texas right okay I have a yard guess what I don't have I don't have a lawnmower my why don't you have a lawn mower if I had a lawnmower I might be tempted to cut my grass [Applause] I I own cars I know how to work on cars I can change spark plub I could change an engine in a car I used to do that kind I body workk piece of cake but I don't have mechanic tools anymore why I might be tempted to work on my car it's not a good use of my time right I'm going to tell you something see we think we're serious about getting rich but we're only curious about getting rich because when we find out what you have to do to get rich we're not really interested in doing it once we find out what it is say my what do you mean okay here's what I mean is there anybody in here other than me who is relatively messy but doesn't like to clean where my people my people my people okay so guess what I hired a cleaning lady now my wife is very clean and she likes to clean but I hired a cleaning lady anyway why because I don't want to come home from work and watch my wife clean the house hey you want to have a better relationship oh now oh all the sisters don't woke up in the house now all the sisters don't woke up yeah talk preach preacher preach preach yeah uh-huh uh-huh I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to tell you something now I I've got I've got a a person who cleans my my pool cuz the pool guy should clean the pool and the lawn guy should cut the grass and the car wash people need to come to my office and wash my car at my office so I don't have to go to the car wash why what am I doing am I being am I being bougie y you're so bougie you're all extra you're so eccentric I'm buying back my time what why the Bible says so wa I hey I pay people to do stuff I'm good at but they're better at I pay people to do stuff I'm bad at cuz I'm terrible at it but you know who my favorite people to pay are my favorite people in the world to pay are people who love to do the things I hate to [Applause] do you thought you were saving money by fixing your car yourself the time that you wasted fixing your car you could have read three books that could taught you how to make $40 million but we've been programmed to Value the wrong things and I am here to tell you that your life can change in ways you can't imagine if you will study to be quiet and to do your own business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you why that you may walk honestly toward them that are without and that you may have lack of nothing I take God's word literally and I take God's word seriously and here's here's one of the things it says this is Jesus here here's what Jesus said If any man will do his will he shall know the doctrine so when you do the thing he things he's shown you he will show you more when you disregard the things he shown you he has no reason to show you more you haven't even done the last thing okay so you're tracking so can I read another verse to you because business is a good idea because business is a god idea and business is the fastest path to wealth creation that I've ever discovered and and and and when I say wealth creation so redeem I I was doing redeem redeem means to buy back your time it means to rescue from loss and by the way please go look all these up in the strong concordance don't take my word for anything I say don't don't believe a word I say go look all of it up for yourself and see if you find something different okay and if you do I will retract it I said that was not accurate and I will apologize for saying it cuz I am not the authority see one of the problems we have in the world today is we have too many Messengers who think they are the message okay anyway rescue from loss okay and then the last part of the definition is this improve opportunity so now that's a really different way of looking at that verse in okay redeem the time do what buy back your time rescue it from loss and improve your opportunity why because the days are evil well guess what when I looked up that word evil it's not talking about evil like the devil's evil it's not talking about that kind of evil the word evil in that verse is hard difficult the nature of life is hard so here's what the scripture is saying buy back your time rescue it from loss and improve your opportunity because life is hard I'm like this Bible is so good and all we have to do read it study it meditate on it do it okay so business is a good idea because business is a god idea but I have a warning when you begin to build a business and you follow the principles of God there's a very very good chance that you're probably going to get wealthy and I know some of y'all just that's not what you're after and see God didn't set this thing up like this just for you and me god Set this thing up like this for him God doesn't bless me because I'm myON golden he didn't bless Dr Evans because he's Dr Tony Evans he didn't bless Abraham because he was Abraham God blesses his people because he's God and thou say this is Deuteronomy 8:17 and thou say in thine heart my power and might of mine hand ha gotten me this wealth but Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God for it is he that giveth Thee the power to get wealth now let me ask you a question did God have a desire for his children to get wealth yes if he didn't why would he give him the power I'm going to give you the power to get wealth but you better not get it no no but I'm I'm saying that because like we have this internal conflict we desire to do better but not too much better and we don't understand why it's not working here's why it's not working James chapter 1 here's what it says a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord double-minded man well I'd like to do this but I don't know if I should I and you're on both sides of the equation you just keep bouncing back and forth you have no Direction it is he that giveth the the power to get wealth now why did he do it why did God give his children when they got ready to go into the promised land why did he give them the power to get wealth here's what it says but Thou shalt remember that the Lord the Lord thy God for it is he that giveth the the power to get wealth that he may establish his Covenant which he swear unto your fathers this day oh so God gives us the power to get wealth to establish his Covenant he does not give us the power to get wealth just so God gave me the power to get wealth so I can get a Lamborghini well if you get a Lamborghini there's nothing wrong with a Lamborghini if that's what you like I personally don't like squeezing in the little itty bitty cars but if that's what you like do your thing right there's nothing wrong with it it's just not my jam okay but God didn't give you the power to get wealth so you can get a Lamborghini or a Rolls-Royce or a Mercedes-Benz God gave you the power to get wealth to establish his Covenant but the problem we have is when we read that we have no idea what it means Abraham was such a powerful businessman oh by the way let me before I even say that let me say this a good nugget for us to walk away with this week is this poverty is always the result of spiritual warfare poverty I didn't say sometimes is always the result of spiritual warfare how do I know that the thief cometh not but for to steal to kill and to destroy it doesn't say he's coming to steal kill and destroy it says he ain't coming unless he can steal kill and destroy but what did Christ say but I am come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly are y'all traing okay so God say I'm going to establish my Covenant where un your fathers is is St okay wonder where that happened okay well let's let's look look let's look cuz we don't want to take Mar word for it see here's the here's the okay here's the problem we hear the word covenant we like the sound of the word because it sounds really churchy you know Covenant walk in faith I'm praying for you brother right but when we hear the word covenant doesn't conjure up a picture we going we going to let it we're going to look at what the picture of a covenant looks like tonight Genesis CH 15 okay okay before I get to gen Abraham was such a powerful businessman and he didn't have a son but he had a nephew and his wealth began to grow so much and his nephew's wealth began to grow so much that their employees were fighting each other over whose cows were going to eat W grass and Abram understanding that his source is his resource said tell you what you look in every direction you pick what you like I'll take what's left over how could he how could he say that how could he say that because Abram knew nothing was missing why because his his resource was his source which is God so it doesn't matter you can take everything in every direction but my my resources don't come from these Northeast South and West my resources come from up here yeah so you take you look this way that way the next way the other way you take whatever you want cuz we're brother we ain't supposed to be fighting oh how sweet it is for Brethren to dwell together you we're not supposed to be fighting over any cows eating some grass take what you want I'll take what you leave now that's a spirit of abundance right there but guess what happened lot went down towards Sodom the well watered PL short side of he said well that grass is green on the other side of the street so I'm going to go down there with that green grass and he went down to side Sodom and guess what happened five Kings rose up against the against the city of Sodom and the City of Gomorrah so there's so man there's so much so okay so the word City in the Old Testament is not a city like Dallas is a city and Tampa is a city the word city is a kingdom you say may okay why you saying the word city is a kingdom because the scripture talks about the king of Sodom and the king of deorah gamor if it ain't a kingdom it don't need no King [Applause] come on are y'all tracking okay so it says five kingdoms came against the king of Sodom and the king of gamar and laid at way took everything they had including lot and lot's family and all Lots wealth and one person got away and ran and told who Abraham I'm going go tell Abraham what's this this dude's almost a 100 I'm g go tell Abraham here's what the scripture says Abraham armed the 318 servants he took his employees he said y'all go get your swords now we got to go we going to get my nephew yes sir because the thief came to steal and to kill and to destroy but we going to go we're going to March into the enemy's camp and take back what he stole from us and Abram goes and fights he's such a powerful businessman and he so yield Ed to God that what he does is he takes his servants that were born in his house and he goes out and he fights against five nations and wins talk about a war chest and it says when he came back he brought back lot and everything lot had and all the kings all the people of sod and all the people of gor he wiped out the five kings that came up against and then the king of Sodom said um um um here here Abram you keep all this stuff he said I ain't taking nothing from you cuz I don't want you to tell people you made me Rich I was rich before I came and helped you I'm going to be rich when I leave you alone you ain't going to be able to take get bragging rights on this not not on this one this came from up there this didn't come from no okay y'all tracking well the very next chapter I'm glad it's in the Bible it's like watching like the best movie ever okay after these things this is this in the very next chapter after these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in the vision saying fear not Abram I am your shield and your exceeding great reward what is that I am your protection I am your provision fear not Abram I am your shield and your exceeding great reward by the way this is probably 10 years after God told Abram he was going to have a son and he still has no son he's 85 here's what it says and Abram said Lord Lord God God what shall thou what wil thou give me seeing I go childless and the steward of mine houses this elazar of Damascus he said okay but Lord I hear what you're saying but what you going to give me because I don't have any children and I'm going to have to leave all this wealth that you gave me to Eleazar my butler y'all tracking okay I can see it in your face okay said and Abram said behold to me thou Hast given no seed and low one born in mine house is mine Heir and behold the word of the Lord came unto him saying this shall not be thine Heir but he that shall come forth out of thine own bows shall be thine air and he brought him forth abroad and said look now toward heaven and tell the Stars if thou be able to number them and he said unto him so shall thy seed be what I'm going to give you a blessing so big you can't count it and he said unto him um I'm sorry um and so shall I see be and here's what it says and he believed the Lord and He the Lord that is counted it to him for righteousness and he said unto him I am the Lord that brought thee out of the ear the caldis to give thee this land to inherit it and he said L Lord God whereby shall I know I shall inherit he said I believe what you're saying but give me something I'm 85 we painted the nursery 10 years ago my wife has questions right okay and he said take take and he said unto him take me and have her 3 years old a she goat 3 years old a ram 3 years old turtle dove and a young pige and he took unto them all these and he divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against another but the birds he divided not it says and when the sun went down it was uh when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abram and a wh of great Darkness fell upon him and he said unto Abram know of assurity that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs they shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400 years and also that Nation whom they Shall Serve will I judge and afterwards they shall come out with great substance and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace and thou shalt be buried in a good old age and the fourth generation they shall come hither again for the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full and it shall come to p and and it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark Behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces God establish his Covenant I mean God gives you the power to get wellth to establish Covenant remember what I told you about Galatians Chapter 2 was it say we are the Seed of Abraham by faith in Christ Jesus and HS with him of the same promise what promise the Covenant promise the Covenant promise okay this is the last one the Hebrew word for truth is the word a now A's an amazing word it's spelled Olive meav remember Hebrew words are built they're not just spelled God's word is not just true God's word is truth okay well what do we notice about Ala MAV well the first thing we notice is that this is the first letter in the Hebrew Al B this is the middle letter this is the last letter so the first thing we know about the truth is you cannot under understand the truth about anything unless you're looking at the beginning the middle and the end you can't look at a small sliver of any situation and understand it that's one of the biggest problems with proof text preaching they're taking a little tiny scripture lifting it out of the context of the rest of scripture and then trying to make a case it doesn't work you have to look at the whole thing okay well okay that's good that's cool okay but also every letter in the Hebrew Olive bait is also a number so Olive bait giml and hey V okay all of those letters are also numbers 1 2 3 4 5 you can use 22 Hebrew letters to count to 400 how do you do it 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400 that's 22 22 letters you count to 400 so all of the letters in the Hebrew alipate are also a number are y'all tracking well every number has significance this so this number is this this this letter here is the number one ma'am is the number 40 this is the number 400 the letter Olive is the letter that represents God we talked about that last night the letter me is the might of the ocean the power of water God's Mighty and the t is a cross or a covenant so the word for truth in Hebrew is God's Mighty covenant What is the of God's covenant What is the might of God's covenant the might of God's covenant is if God does not keep his word God himself has to die that's why God himself refers to himself as The God Who Cannot Lie not the God who doesn't lie not the God who didn't lie not the God who won't lie but The God Who Cannot Lie why I if I'm lying I'm dying that phrase originated with God himself and if God dies everything ceases to exist so the ex the existential nature of the entire universe is predicated upon the fact that God cannot lie he did hey he didn't he didn't lie about heaven he didn't lie about Earth okay y'all tracking okay I just want to make sure we're on the same page okay now just I'm going to end on this so hang in there with me now what's 400 + 40 some of y'all didn't answer y'all making me nervous what's 400 + 40 okay plus one 441 what's 4 + 48 what's 8 + 1 nine oh nine last night we talked about eight being the number of abundance Infinity eternity but nine is the number for truth right oh I'm about to rearrange a Furniture in your head if you can handle it nine is the number for truth why is the nine the number for truth because all of the other numbers in the number system must answer to the number nine what does that mean well what it means is um let me see here um 1 * 9 equal nine okay got that one right 2 * 9 and then 3 * 9 and then four * 9 and then 8 uh 5 * 9 and then uh 6 * 9 and then 7 * 99 and then 8 * 9 and then 9 * 9 okay we got all this done right 9 * 9 okay 2 * 9 is 1 um 3 * 9 is 2 uh 4 * 9 is 3 5 * 9 is 4 6 * 9 is um carry the one five 5 7 * 9 um I mean 6 * 9 is 6 uh no 6 * 9 is 5 I already did that one 6 * 9 is 5 7 * 9 is 6 uh 8 * 9 is 7 and 9 9 * 9 is 8 okay got that um oh that's right I left the number off um two times okay um 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 oh oh oh oh oh oh oh I forgot the rest of it I forgot the rest of it 1 + 8 = 9 2 + 7 = 9 uh 3 + 6 = 9 4 + 5 = 9 5 + 4 = 9 6 + 3 = 9 7 + 2 = 9 8 + 1 equal [Applause] 9 oh oh oh what what happened oh oh I forgot I forgot I forgot I forgot I forgot forgot I forgot time out everything that God ever does Bears record to everything God has ever done or will ever do nine is the number for truth all of the numbers have to resolve to the number nine what's your point myON well here's my point you might as well start with the truth and you might as well stick with the truth cuz at the end of the day you're stuck with the truth so you might as well just go ahead and believe it God bless you