Killing Prosperity Cows
Luke 6 - “When they pass the offering bucket, I can just put in a nice big offering, and continue to live in strife with my neighbor, and God is just going to bless me… Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, and it doesn’t matter that I’m full of envy and strife and self seeking. I don’t care anything about my call, or serving God. Luke 6:38 says it brother Gary. All I have to do is put that legalistic big offering in that bucket when they pass it.”
"Now if you’re still thinking like that, the kindergarten is open… If you think Luke chapter 6 has anything to do with a church offering, the kindergarten is open. Luke chapter 6, is how much of your life are willing to lay down for the lost heathen that are suing you and treating you so bad. How much of your life are you willing to lay down. The more you’re willing to lay down, the more God will see you through."
"They may come and take your goods, and when they do (He said): “Give them your cloak also. They may slap you on the cheek and you turn the other one also. They may leave laughing with your stuff, but see you extended the mercy of God towards them. You did not resist evil. You stood up for your witness for Jesus.” The promise in Luke 6:38 the Father says, “If you’re willing to go that far to extend My mercy to the lost, yes they may take your goods, but My promise to you is, I will cause men to give back into your bosom. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. You will never be permanently diminished by standing up for My gospel.”
"Honey, that’s a little different from plunking that offering in the bucket when it comes by. A little different heart motivation there. A little different level of maturity going on there."
Sowing and Reaping - 25:13
“If you want to reap… You got to sow!”
“If you want to reap a big crop, you’ve got to sow a big field!” Isn’t that right???
"He’s talking about financial things here. Look at Matt 6:24"
“No man can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matt 6:24
"Now is He talking about finances or not? He is, isn‘t he? It goes on down here, now remember the subject because I want to shock you. How do you prosper? What’s our number one doctrine in the Body of Christ in charismatic circles? If you want to reap big, you’ve got to sow big. Your prosperity they tell you all the time is based on your sowing, isn’t it?"
"…in this same message, go on down to verse 26. Just skip over one. He’s trying to tell us how this works…"
“Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not; neither do they reap…” (Sowing & reaping) Neither gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them? Are you not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought, can add one cubit unto your stature?”
"But that one about the fowls of the air, and every measure practically everywhere you go. Your prosperity depends on your sowing. But Jesus when He’s trying to teach us, He’s going: ‘You’d better think about the birds, because they don’t sow, and they don’t reap, and your Father takes care of them. And you’re telling me though He won’t provide for you? You’re not as valuable to Him as the birds?”
"Ok, let’s read the whole thing, starting verse 24..."
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Matt 6:24-29
"What’s Jesus trying to do here? “Why are you sons and daughters of the Living God spending your lives concerned about, ‘Oh my God!’ ‘How are we going to eat?’ ‘What are we going to wear?’ ‘What kind of house are we going to live in?’ ‘What kind of car are we going to drive?’ ‘How are we going to educate our kids?’ Later on in this same passage He says, ‘That kind of thinking is what the Gentiles do… the unbelievers. From the birth to the grave, they’re consumed with those matters. They’re not at all interested in the Kingdom of God. They’re not even saved…"
“How about the Lillies?” Have you noticed the lilies don’t pass out any tracts?” “They don’t toil. They don’t spin. They don’t work for God at all.’ …Jesus is going, “Can’t you even have that simple faith?” You’re His child…"
"…your inheritance. It’s not based on your sowing and reaping. That is a sharecropper’s mentality, not a son’s."
“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”
2 Cor 8:9
"…That you through His poverty…NOT your giving… That right there, is where He made you an heir. Through His poverty might be rich."
"…Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty, by that substitution might be rich. He took your poverty so you could walk right into all His riches. And have access to the unlimited resources of God. How long? For eternity!"
"Dave (Roberson) says it so cute: “I used to give, trying to get rich.”
"As long as you’re doing that, by your actions you’re proving you don’t believe it’s a done deal. No, I’m not giving trying to get rich, I’m giving because I am!"
"My hand is supposed to get it’s instructions from my brain. Isn’t that right? In the natural, when it starts doing things when it did not get instructions from the brain. We call that various kinds of sickness. Muscular dystrophy, polio. There’s something wrong!"
"If I did not give it these instructions, and my hand reached in my wallet, and my body starts walking over here. My brain is going… “What is my hand doing?:” I didn’t tell my hand to do this. And my hand starts opening up my wallet and walks right over here to Jim Martin (of course Jim thinks it’s God!), and starts taking out all my money, and my brain all the while is going, “What?” My hand! What are you doing? I didn’t tell you to do that…"
"…because I was watching Christian TV last night! And I found out how you prosper! The more you sow, the more you reap! He’s a preacher, so I sowed to him!"
"Jesus Christ is the Head of the church. We “be the hands”. We’re supposed to be getting our instructions from Him. He’s alive. He’s still talking. And if He tells me to give it all to Jim, glory to God, that’s exactly what we’re going to do!"
"If my natural hand did that with my wallet. I guarantee you one thing….. That hand would not be trusted with much money. You’ve got that right!"
"Now you know why the Body of Christ is poor. We’re not connected to the Head. Because we do not want to pay the price to hear from Him, we settle for little formulas."
"God’s already told me, “I finance My stuff, not yours”. “I finance My plan, not yours”. Trouble is, the whole church is so locked up in formulas, we don’t even know how to find out the plan…"
"When’s the last time you heard a message out of MalachI one?
If you’ve been doing it for twenty years (giving ten percent of your income), and you’re not exactly living in that land where there’s no room to receive more blessings, I suggest reading the whole book!"
"There’s chapter one and two before we ever get to chapter three. (I’m upset, says the Lord, about stuff going on. At this point, I am not going to accept an offering from your hand.)"
"Now, I’m no rocket scientist, I’m really not. But I can read MalachI three over here, and read MalachI 1, and I don’t care what those preacher’s say, He is not telling you in chapter three to bring more of what He already can’t bless in chapter one. He’s not telling you that the answer to your problems, is to bring more of what I can’t bless…"
"..what the book is really about, “I’m not taking anything from you, when you’re just bringing it legalistically and try to force Me into blessing you when your heart is not towards Me.”
"For a second witness, how many of y’all would agree, that when Jesus stood up after defeating the devil in the wilderness, returned in the power of the Spirit…"
Year of Jubilee
"Luke 4: He stands up and says: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor, the blind see… (and all of that), and He ends it all by saying, “The acceptable day of the Lord”. How many of y’all know, that He was announcing at that moment the Year of Jubilee? Got that? Let’s look at the year of Jubilee."
"Lev 25. We see another “shadow” from the Old Testament…"
“And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubile shall that fiftieth year be unto you: ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed.”
Lev 25:8-11
"We don’t prosper in the jubilee by our own sowing and reaping. We eat from what has already been sown, and the seed is Jesus Christ. He bore your poverty."
'(“Honey it’s going to take you a month even to begin to assimilate what’s in there. Not because the message is so high, the heart change is high. You may hear it quick and understand it quick, but your heart conforming to it is going to take a little while. Your heart is going to go more and more of a servant…, till you become the kind of steward He can trust with money.")
Killing Sacred Prosperity Cows (mp3)