False Teachers

2)  Money-Lovers

 

Please read the first teaching about the subject called:  “False Teachers  1) Grace – Perverters” which is in the category of Basics.  This teaching is part two of False Teachers, however we are concentrating on people who love money.  There will be some overlap in this series of teachings on False Teachers.  Each of these teachings are independent of each other but not completely.  They are similar in many ways and the main way is the fact that they are the characteristics of False Teachers.  They each focus on a different characteristic of a false teacher of the Word of God and there are many of them.  If you remember in the first teaching on this subject which I mentioned above, there were some television preachers that had their clothes tailor-made and rolled around the country in Lear jets.  This is the result of the love of money which is the root system of all evil.  Let’s go to the Word and let God speak on this subject.

For the love of money is the root [system] of all evil:  which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows.  – I Timothy 1: 10

What does it mean to covet after something?  It means to desire something to a great extent.  Covetousness is not a godly aspect of life.  It is sin and many, many people have coveted after money.  The word covet helps us to understand that they love money.  Now what happens to this type of person?  They get away from the faith that is true and accurate and start to worship the things of the world instead of the true God.  So they pierced themselves through – they are killing themselves – with many sorrows because they found out that their love of money did not fulfill their needs.  Instead, it brought them pain and sorrow.  This is the same today.  Let me give you a real life example as I always do so that the Word becomes living in real to you in this day and age.

I have some strange neighbors where I live, but one husband-and-wife illustrate covetousness all of the time.  They rip everything out of their house that is in perfect working order and replace it with new items.  God does not want us to live this way.  We should be thankful for what we have and make purchases wisely.  We should purchase only things that we need and also God will give us some things that we desire.  Here is a real-life example of what I have to live with in my neighborhood.  It’s all over the place so don’t feel bad if it’s happening to you.

I always had a place in my heart for really nice cars.  But I did not buy those cars to impress other people or to make them feel small.  In fact, this one car I own only gets driven about twice a month and it sits in a garage where no one can see it.  I even put a cover over the car.  It’s a 1995 Chevrolet Corvette and it appears to be brand-new inside and out and under the hood.  Overall, it’s a most beautiful classic car and I like it very much.  But the world says the market value of the car is quite low.  Do I care?  I couldn’t care less.  Here’s what these two neighbors did one week after I bought this car.  They went out and they bought two, not one, Lexuses.  They could not stand the fact that I had the nicest car in the neighborhood.  It’s when they purchased them that is the point I’m trying to make.  My Vette will make those cars look like they’re going in reverse down a highway.  I honestly believe my car has five times better styling than their cars.  They usually hide in the house all week long but once in a while they bring their cars out and they put them in the driveway when they are home for the weekend.  Now I don’t know if you think I’m being jealous, but I sure as heck am not.  You could not give me those cars.  I would not take them.  I do not like what they represent and they are extremely overpriced.  If you go out to buy a car, the first thing you should do is to pray to God about your decision.  God will help you to find what you need, not what you want to show off.  Getting back to the Word above, these people will eventually pierce themselves through with sorrows.  If you have to live your life only to impress other people, you might as well call ‘digger o dell’.  When you have the peace of God inside you, you don’t even think about impressing other people.  That’s not the way a Christian believer should think.  But you know, God loves those people as much as he loves me or you.  The point is that he can do much more for us than for people who squander their money only to impress other people.  You do not know the situation like I do but there is a contractor at these peoples’ home about 40 times a year.  That’s pushing things to an extreme, would you not say?  I don’t want to judge these people – I just keep away as far as the east is from the west and I stay blessed.  Let’s take a look at a Scripture that is in gospel of Luke.

The scribes and Pharisees were very much like my neighbors and God’s Word points that out very clearly even with the use of one verse of Scripture and here it is:

And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things:  and they derided  him.  – Luke 16: 14

Jesus Christ was giving a teaching about how to handle worldly possessions.  The scribes were present and they tried to make a joke out of his teachings.  Why?  Because they loved money.  The verse says that they were covetous.  Everything their eyes looked at, they wanted it.  They were greedy and had over desires and one of those desires was absolutely for money and more money and more money.  So what did they do?  It kind of reminds me of my neighbors who tried to make me feel bad, but they did not succeed.  In fact it helped me to learn about and in turn to deal more successfully with my personal adversary.  You see, he always sneaks around and tries to hide, but a believer looks behind the scenes and sees the real spiritual reason that things happen.  This makes life very much more exciting than an unbeliever.

So what was another reaction of the Pharisees, again, who were covetous?  They derided Jesus Christ.  Now let’s take a look at and study the exact meaning of what it means to be derided.  A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament by Bullinger tells me that this word in this verse means “to turn up the nose at, deride out and out”.  These Pharisees were full of pride and covetousness so they made an attempt to turn up their nose at Jesus Christ.  What kills my neighbors is the fact that I don’t even look at them.  You will learn in time that there is a major way to defeat your personal adversary and that is not to react in any way to what he is trying to throw at you.  He hates to be ignored.  Even if you are near an unusual conversation that is not godly, be silent.  It took me many years to learn this and I only hope you can learn this now.  When the adversary gets a reaction from you, he wins.  Can you see it?    Only special Christians, that God knows will do things for Him, find this website.  The enemy has tried for decades to stop this Word of God from getting out to you.  Too bad.  He lost.

Now I want to go back to something I said previously so that you do not misunderstand the more than abundant life.  If you went out and had enough money to buy two of these fancy foreign cars, that does not mean that it’s wrong.  You can do something like that as long as your reasoning is based on the Word.  You’ve got to learn this following statement and understand it.  There is nothing wrong with money.  But when you begin to love money and only to live for it, you’re history.  So what am I saying?  You can only live by the things that you need.  That’s not the case.  We must go to the Word of God and He will tell you what is available and how He will bless you sometimes in an amazing fashion.  He has done that with me time and time again.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,  -- Ephesians 3: 20

If you walk the straight line with God, He will surprise you at times with blessings that is above all that we can ask or even think.  So don’t think that God won’t give you something that you can’t have fun with or something you’ve always wanted.  You should know by now that believing connotes action.  You’ve got to act and move on what you believe for and what you really want.  I’m going to make it a little easy on myself and use the same example of the Corvette.  I searched 13 months for that particular car.  They were being sold out from under of me – one was sold while I was talking to the salesman on the telephone – two were sold a few hours before I got to the car lot.  And this went on and on and on.  Because God has foreknowledge, He was protecting me.  Of all places, I made a drive up to where I spent most of my life.  I saw a car in an advertisement and it seemed to be just perfect.  I called the guy up and I said I would like to see the car and I asked him to take a look at one thing for me to make sure it was okay.  He happily did this and went outside in the snow to check out this car for me.  I gave him a $500 deposit on the telephone and he told me to come up and it would be ready by 12 noon.  This guy was really funny.  I sold cars and I never sold one like he did.  He just believed that I was going to buy this car and I didn’t even see it.  So I went up with my wife and he finally pulled the car outside after he had it all detailed.  The car was actually in auto shows and I believe that it won many trophies.  It ran perfect and I could not find one thing wrong with this car and it was about 16 to 17 years old.  It had very low mileage on it and I found out why it was traded in.  The guy had three Corvettes and his wife would not let him have a fourth one.  He hated to trade this car in because he said it ran the best of all the cars he owned.  He bought another one off of this same lot.  In about 10 years, I have not thrown one error light on my dash.  The car needed Freon for the air-conditioning and that’s about it for 10 years.  Can you imagine that?  That was above all that a guy can ask or even think.  And wait.  There’s more.  The price of the car was about $2000 less than what I would have paid for it.  On top of that, the guy was putting all new parts on the car such as windshield wiper blades.  He called a dealership and tried to get a large piece of weather strip molding for me because of a small crack!  I couldn’t believe this guy.  He could not get the molding so he apologized to me and said I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  He dropped the price by another $500.  Man, I was blowing my mind.  I told him the car was completely out of gas and could he get me a few gallons at a gas station.  He said sure and he took the car and came back with three quarters of a tank of gas for me to get home.  I had at least a 2 Hour drive.  Now who do you think was behind all of this?  God Almighty doing exceeding abundantly above all that I could ask or even think. 

I love to tell stories and I’m about to tell you another that you do not have to believe.  I told this in a restaurant with my wife and her friends and their husbands and I still think to this day that they thought I was full of it.  Well, you can think the same thing but it really happened and I will never forget it for the rest of my life.

I could have been in serious trouble at one time when I was cranking down a highway with my hot rod Nova.  This car was a trip - I used to think it should be illegal because it was so fast.  The motor was gone over completely and I had a brand-new interior done.  I was cranking down a straight highway listening to my dual exhaust singing against the cattle chutes.  I was just all hopped up that day and if you ever had depression, a ride in this car would absolutely wake you up and cheer you up to a point you may have never felt before in your life.  I’m serious.

I was cruising at about 70 and it had a low rear end if some of you guys know what I mean.  I believe it was a 456.  So my RPMs were running rather high, but I thought it was time to blow this car out.  You guys know what I mean and I’ll bet a lot of you girls know too.  Well here comes a guy with some big brown car and I moved over in the right lane and he blows by me about 85 mph.  Since I was a little bit overzealous at the time, I just watched him pull away from me.  I said to myself “nobody blows by me in this car”.  And I thought I would have some fun.  So I got on it and my engine roared like a monster and I could see myself catching up to him.  I was going near 100 miles an hour.  When I approached him, he stayed in the passing lane.  Wise, guy I thought.  Now wait, this gets a lot better.  I went on the inside lane and I blew by this guy as I glanced at my speedometer.  I was going 106 mph.  Oh yeah, some of you know what I’m about to say.  This guy was in an unmarked state trooper car.  And all I saw behind me was a red light flashing on his dash.  A sick feeling came over me and he stopped me and got out of his car and he said “you are in big trouble buddy”.  Well, I thought he was going to impound the car and pull my license from me.  I remember I had a Zondervan small Bible on my front seat.  He came up to the window to check my credentials and he was just staring at the car.  He said to me how do you get a car like this to look so good.  I told him I was an auto detailer at one time and I knew a lot of secret tricks to make a car really stand out.  But the most important thing I tried to explain to him was with the type of motor that I had in this car, every once in a while you had to blow it out to keep the valves clean and that’s what I was doing.  I don’t normally drive like this, but once in a while I look for a deserted highway where I can nail it.  The car always runs better after I do something like that which isn’t very often at all.  That’s what I was doing and that’s why I was driving so fast.  He just looked at me and this guy was in a suit and tie on his way to a meeting in Harrisburg.  He backed away from the car and just looked at the outside.  Then he put his head in my window to look at the interior and he said to me,  I’ve never seen a car in condition like this in my life”.  NOW HERE IS THE CLINCHER IF YOU BELIEVE IT.  This state trooper was someone I will never forget.  He looked at me and he said “are you going to take it easy”.  Yeah, I said, since I didn’t even think I’d have a car to go home.  He put his head down and thought a minute.  [Let me tell you something.  You give a man like this respect whether he is nasty or not - all the respect that you can.  I did this with this man.]  I called him sir and I apologized to him more than once.  He said to me that he had to get to a meeting in Harrisburg.  Then he said the words to me that I never thought I would hear in my lifetime.  He said he was going to give me a warning and let me go.

God Almighty, can I say anything else about this?  I teach the Bible for 45 years and I’m going to lie to you!  I told this man  - I said if you ever see me any time again anywhere and you need something I said I will drop everything I’m doing and I will help you.  I told him that’s how thankful I was.  He only said to me to take it easy going home.  I was in a daze.  I was in a euphoric state.  I passed a state trooper going 106 mph and he let me go.  What a great man he was to understand why I was doing what I was doing.  Even though, it is illegal, but there are exceptions to everything.  God was there with me and He got me out of a potentially horrible mess.  Let’s get back to the Word.  If this is not an example of exceeding abundantly above all I can ask or even think, then nothing is.  I will guarantee you that if you stand on the Word of God, things like this will happen to you.  Remember, and mark my words.

I have taught this teaching only to show you what God will do for you if your nose is not stuck up in the air.  It is true that money cannot buy happiness.  That is all that I am trying to get across.  No, I haven’t laid a bunch of Scriptures on you this time because the goal is so simple.  There are many false teachers because they only love money and you’ve got to be spiritually sharp to see it.

Remember I Timothy 1: 10, Luke 16: 14 and Ephesians 3: 20 and remember some of the wisdom.  Keep away from covetous people, don’t react, and use silence when you must.

When the Money-Lovers try to influence you or act aggressively toward you, remember:

Nay, in all these things, we are more than [super] conquerors through him that [who] loved us.  – Romans 8: 37

What shall we say then to these things?  If God be  for us, who can  be against us?  -- Romans 8: 31

 

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