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[Silence] Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty,

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and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Honor the Lord with thy substance. This is a continuation of the sermon series based on the book of Proverbs, which is identified with the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.

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Wisdom covers life in its entirety. Wisdom embraces the whole of life. Followers of wisdom engage in holistic living. facets of human life are included and others omitted in some ways that we look at things.

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But in the case of wisdom, this is not the case. Wisdom, divine wisdom, includes every dimension of life, the material, the spiritual, the physical, and the mental. Such being the case, it is not surprising that the wisdom teacher focuses on giving. The wise person is a good giver.

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Now how we earn our money and how we spend our money come under the scrutiny of the wisdom teacher of Israel. The monetary exchange system is a vital importance in every economy.

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Julia A. Moore, the sweet singer of Michigan, says, "Leave off the agony, leave off the style, unless you got money, buy you all the while." In order to live a successful, happy, meaningful life,

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The wisdom teacher says, "Honor the Lord with thy substance, "and with the first fruits of all thine increase, "so shall thy bonds be filled with plenty, "and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."

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Wall Street is considered the financial heartbeat of our nation, determining the status of our health. Each day, reports are given stating whether the market is up or down.

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The Dow went up or the Dow went down. We recognize also that what happens in foreign markets eventually affects the United States. States market. A healthy economy is essential to having a strong nation and

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a healthy economy is essential to having a strong global economy. The wisdom teacher begins with the individual. Individuals make neighborhoods, neighborhoods make communities, communities make nations, and nations make the world. Giving is a matter of the spirit. I'm not talking about the kind of

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giving that involves tossing a few coins to the needy or making a contribution in in order to get rid of a solicitor. I'm talking about genuine giving. It is a worship experience.

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Listen carefully to the beginning words of the text. Honor the Lord with thy substance. this word is based on certain presuppositions that the one whom they are addressing in this word is a diligent worker. This worker plants, plows, and prepares for an

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abundant harvest. These words are addressed to members of an agrarian economy. Those who work look forward to payday. They have expectations of celebrating a good harvest. Honor the Lord. This is a word of advice for the farmer, not only for the farmer, but for the butcher, the baker, the candlestick

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maker. It's a word for all. Honor the Lord with thy substance. Honor the Lord with what you receive from your crops. Honor the Lord who makes possible what you receive. In our worship we are familiar with the admonition to honor the Lord with our lips, but this word says honor the Lord with thy substance. So not only

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are we to honor the Lord with our lips but with our substance. We honor the Lord in houses made with hands. We honor the Lord in bodies made of clay. Honor him, Worship him. Do not come before him empty-handed. Honor the Lord with thy substance. Now in ancient times kings were honored by their subjects. They

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appeared before their king with gifts. The Lord is King of kings. So honor the Lord. He is worthy of praise. Why should we honor the Lord? We owe our existence to him. He is the source of our being. He is the creator. He has made the world and everything in it. He has fashioned us in his likeness.

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Honor the Lord. We are the work of his hands and the sheep of his pasture. Without the Lord, we are nothing. We are like sheep gone astray. We are like a raindrop in the ocean. A or like a leaf blown in the wind.

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Honor the Lord. That is why we come together, to honor the Lord. We come to worship him, we come to praise his name. Honor the Lord with thy substance means

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giving to the Lord what he has blessed us in receiving. It means giving according to the harvest we have received. If the farmer raised potatoes, vegetables or fruits, his giving was according to his substance and his increase.

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That was a practice years ago when our country was more rural than it is now, then they would set aside a half acre. And that was for the church.

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Whatever developed on that half acre, the Lord's half acre is what they called it, whatever was developed on that half acre belonged to the church.

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And the testimony is that in time after time, instance after instance, there was more developed on that half acre that was set aside for the Lord

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than was on other acres of that size. Honor the Lord with thy substance. I want you to underscore that thy in your mind. It says honor the Lord with thy substance, your substance.

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Now, giving, honoring the Lord has to do with our personal budget, our personal harvest, our personal income. Income.

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Honor the Lord. Now, what our income is, according to this scripture, would be, it would be based on the size of our farm. How many acres do you have?

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What's the size of it? What kind of soil is on that farm? What does it produce? All of that is involved in what the substance may contain.

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You know, some people are good at telling you how to give your money. They're experts at that. But they don't give their own the way it should be given.

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I had a treasurer that I knew once, church treasurer, and oh, he was quick to write a check for some cause and to recommend some cause, you know, out of the church's money.

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but he was slow in giving his own money. You see, a lot of people are like that. One man said, "Oh, if I had your spirit, "what I would do with your money?"

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And the man said, "Well, if you had my money, "maybe you wouldn't have your spirit." - All right. - So it has to, "Honor the Lord with thy substance

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and with the first fruits, thy substance, in other words, with what you have. Some quickly take the bulletin and they look to see what somebody else has given. But what have you given? And whether or not your giving is according to what God expects out of you from that acreage that he has entrusted you with.

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So honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thy increase. Now Benjamin Franklin said, "Remember that time is money." T.C. Halliburton said, "We reckon hours and minutes

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"to be dollars and cents." Honor the Lord with thy wealth, with thy possessions, with thy time, with thy talents. Honor the Lord by giving Him the first part of all thine income. That refers to the fact that God is given priority in our giving.

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Giving to him comes first. Set aside what he is to receive first. That holds true in the gathering of crops and in the return received from our investment.

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Now it's rather strange. We're preaching through the book of Proverbs and the book of Proverbs contains the accumulated wisdom of the ages.

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that somehow when this wise man gathers up all of the wisdom of the ages, that here is this wisdom-mudged address to the people of God, based out of the experience that had been passed on and on and on, "Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase." Those who honor the Lord receive bountiful blessings.

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Listen to this. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with thy barns.

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Now, if you are a good farmer, you're expected to have a good barn. In other words, some people keep from giving. "Well, you know, I don't have this, I don't have that."

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God expects you. If you're his servant, he expects you to have something. He expects you to be a diligent worker. And if you are a diligent worker, trusting in him,

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God is prepared to bless us. To bless us. Now, if we are lazy and expect somebody else to provide for us, that's a different matter,

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but servants of God are to be diligent workers and God blesses us. He always has blessings that he has prepared to shower down upon us from heaven.

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So he says, "So shall thy bonds be filled with plenty." Now, the bonds that we're talking about, they are spacious bonds, because here is a diligent farmer,

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he has spacious bonds, he has prepared ample storage room because he is expecting to be blessed with a good crop. And the good farmer is expected to have

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that kind of storage space to provide for times that may be times of famine. A good barn is to provide for lean years. Good barns are to provide places of storage for grain during the winter months, during the cold times of the year. It's not to be used up, not everything is to be used up.

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Something is to be placed in the barn. Persons who are wise not only work and accumulate, but they're also expected to save. Don't spend all that you make.

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There ought to be some provisions there for the barn. And there should be something for the barn, and every good farm has a good barn. And we ought not to spend all we make.

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Something should be placed in the barn. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. Now some of us don't have much for the barn.

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Because we spend, every time we see something we want, we get it. And so we have nothing left for the barn. But if we are to have something for the barn,

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we can't, you know, some of us spend ourselves into the pool house with credit cards. Oh, they come so easy. They come to my house all the time.

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Every time I turn around, there's a credit card. It's $5,000 without any problem. Next time it says $10,000 without any problem. But the more you get into that,

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the more you find yourself going down, down, down. And the best thing for you to do, if you don't know how to handle credit cards, I have a pocket full of them,

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but I don't ever use them unless I'm away somewhere. And then when I get through, I pay it off. Because it's the highest interest. We who are the poorest,

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often end up paying the highest rate of interest, using more of this than others do. And we find ourselves going down, down. So we have nothing for the barn.

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- Yes. - Nothing for the, my friend, one of the best things to do in getting something for the barn

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is to throw away most of these credit cards. That's one of the first things. Any person who's helping you get your finances adjusted, that's one of the first things he'll tell you

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to get rid of all this. Start handling your affairs on more of a cash basis. Now, it says here, Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits.

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Not the second, not the third gathering, not the last gathering, but with the first fruits of all thine increase. Give the first potion to the Lord.

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Now, if you really do that, that's a matter of faith. If you do it, what will happen? He answers that question by saying, your bonds will be filled.

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If you honor the Lord with that stuff, if we really believe, now some of us don't believe the Bible, but this is not my word.

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If you really believe what God is saying in his word, Don't pick the places you want to believe in. But if we really believe what he says, if you harbor the Lord with thy substance

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and with the first, if you put him first, fruits of all thine increase, then he says, your bonds will be filled, not half full, they'll be filled with plenty.

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and your presses will burst out with new wine. Now, that's a matter of faith. You'll have grain for your barn, and you'll not only have enough, but you'll have plenty.

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And your wine vats will be just bursting over with wine. You see, God controls the growth process. If we wanna be successful farmers, If we want to be successful workers, we must put God first.

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If we would be successful managers of his resources, those things that he has entrusted to us, we must put God first. Put God first.

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Now we're servants of God. We're working in his vineyard. We belong to him. The vineyard belongs to him.

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The world belongs to him and we want to succeed in his world. It just stands to reason that we need to put him first. Can you imagine someone forgetting about God? In his world, working on his farm,

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given his orders to obey and then forgetting about whose will it is and whose orders are to be followed. And yet sometimes we have the bread, and we have the bread there on the table,

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and we forget about the one who makes possible this bread. For it says, "Back of the loaf "is the snowy flower, And back of the flower, the meal.

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And back of the meal is the wheat and the shower and the son and the father's will. God is behind it all. Just keep going back.

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Keep going back far enough, behind that loaf of bread and back to the meal and back to the way it grows in the ground and who can make it grow? God is in the entire process. So the wise, if you really want to be wise, is honor God.

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Put God first in your life. This is the advice of the wisdom teacher to put God first. So often that is not the case. But Jesus tells another story.

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Wisdom teacher here in the Old Testament tells us how we ought to live. But Jesus said, "Well, let me tell you about a farmer." Said he had a wonderful farm

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and his ground brought forth plentifully. And he had a bumper crop. And when he got that crop and the harvest was coming in, he said, "Oh, what must I do?"

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He said, "Well, this is what I'll do. "I will tear down these old barns "and I'll build bigger barns "and there will I store my fruits

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"and I'll feed my soul, soul." Take it easy. You know, we're all looking for the point where we can just sit down and take it easy.

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Soul, take it easy for thou hast much good stored up for many years. Take it easy, rejoice, be merry. You've got it made, fella.

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And then, thou a voice said to him, a voice from eternity said, "This night your soul is required of you. "Then who shall those things be?"

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And then Jesus said to his disciples, "Be sure." - Yes, sir. - "Be sure." - Be very, very sure.

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- Be sure that you are rich. - Toward God. Now you may not have the best you'd like to get. You may not have the Hickey Freeman suit and you may not have

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some other fine dress and the latest styles and all of that. You may not have all of that, but if you have God, that's enough. If you have God, you have all the silver and the gold because it all belongs to Him. If we have God, we have everything that we need. Be sure, be sure, You ought to be very sure that you are rich toward God.

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So honor, honor the Lord. Honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all that increase. You know, sometimes people pass the plates here

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and they don't put nothing in the plate themselves. It's passing. There's a story once of a man who was at church. He didn't have anything to give.

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And those bearing the offering plates came along. And they came to him. And he said, lower it. And so they laid it down a little lower.

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He said, still lower than that. And he let it down lower. Still lower. Let it down.

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Still lower. And they got it down to the floor. And he stepped in it. He gave himself.

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Didn't have anything else. But that's enough. if we really give ourselves to God and recognize that we honor the Lord

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with thy substance and with the first fruits of all our increase, because every other blessing that we need will come. So just as I am, hymn number 145,

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without one plea, this is the invitation. God accepts us just as we are. He invites us to come. Become a part of the family of God here at Ebenezer.

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Accept Jesus Christ as Lord of your life, as Savior. We ask you to come. God gave his son for us. And we ask you to come now.

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God bless you. God bless you. God bless you, thank you. God bless you.

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Come. Let me see. Come. Just as I am.

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That's a wonderful word. Just as I am. Just as I am. ♪ How I feel ♪

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♪ The debt I'm bound ♪ ♪ Was shed for thee ♪ ♪ And now it's become ♪ ♪ To thee, O land ♪

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♪ O God, I come, I come ♪ ♪ 'Cause then I am that waking light ♪ ♪ To read thy song, the wonder of thy sight ♪ ♪ A wonder what to thee ♪

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♪ Whose broad and bris'ant ♪ ♪ Star-spangled banner ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ I come ♪

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♪ Just as I am ♪ ♪ You're just about ♪ ♪ With me about ♪ ♪ With me about ♪

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♪ I need and be with him ♪ ♪ Without old man ♪ ♪ How can I come ♪ ♪ I come ♪

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♪ Just as I am ♪ ♪ O wretched time ♪ ♪ Side bridges deep ♪ ♪ Behold the blind ♪

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♪ With all our deep ♪ ♪ In need to find ♪ ♪ O Lamb of God, I come, I come ♪ - Amen, let's listen to the report.

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- In the name of Reverend Griffin, we have coming to us this morning from Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, Edith Butcher, wish to join Ebenezer on Christian experience.

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- All right, so just answer, Sister Butcher, is Reverend Wattis your pastor? - Yes. - All right, he's a good friend of mine.

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She comes on the basis of a Christian experience with the Pilgrim Rest Church in Dallas to be a part of the family of God here at Ebenezer, all who are faithful accepting her would say,

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I? - I. - Those knowing, we welcome you. We are glad to have you become a part of the family of God here at Ebenezer as together we seek to do his will.

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Let's all. [BLANK_AUDIO]