Clean Transcript

The Christian & Debt - Part 3

Clean readable transcript. This view follows the Commentary.net cleaned segment text while preserving timestamps for audio follow-along.

• Deuteronomy chapter 15, beginning there with verse 1: "At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbor shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release;"

  #1 | 0:00 to 0:25 | cleaned

• "Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it: Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day." By the way, before I go further, I want you to note that that phrase, "save when there shall be no poor among you," is explained by verse 5: "Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day." So if you don't obey God, there are going to be a number of poor in the land. Verse 6: "For the Lord thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend

  #2 | 0:26 to 1:33 | cleaned

• him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

  #3 | 1:33 to 2:27 | cleaned

• Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him." Now let me take just a few moments and review the principles that we have seen thus far. Remember I began the first message on Romans 13 and verse 8 where God says, "Owe no man any thing."

  #4 | 2:28 to 2:52 | cleaned

• Now I showed you that out of the 50 direct passages concerning debt in the Bible and 20 indirect passages, all of those passages condemn debt. Debt is never encouraged in the Bible. This is what you and I would call basic foundational principles. So debt, then, is never, ever encouraged in the Bible. It is always presented in a negative sphere and a negative term. So it is not commended, it is rather condemned. In regard to debt, although the Bible speaks against debt, yet the Bible does point out the fact that there are times when it is absolutely necessary to borrow. And there are times that it's absolutely necessary to go into debt. And therefore, although the Word of God condemns debt, God lays down regulations concerning debt. Secondly, in regard to borrowing, if we are forced to borrow, if we're forced to go into debt, the Bible always pictures that as a destitute situation.

  #5 | 2:52 to 4:02 | cleaned

• Let me put it another way. It is a life-threatening situation. It is a time of emergency. In fact, we went over this last week where God said, if you lend money to the poor brother that is by thee and you take his coat for collateral, so the only thing the man has then is the coat on his back. So that is a life-threatening situation. That is a destitute situation. And so here the man is interested in borrowing because evidently his livelihood, his ability to live and continue on is at stake, and so the only thing he has for collateral is the coat on his back. So God says when we do borrow, it should be a time of emergency. You don't just run out and borrow money just because you want a new car or just because you want a new TV set or something else new. Thirdly, if we are forced to borrow, if we are forced to go in debt because of God's providential circumstances in our life, we should always seek to borrow from brethren, "if thy poor brother that is by thee."

  #6 | 4:03 to 5:15 | cleaned

• In other words, there is no time when we should go to the heathen. We don't need to go to the pagans. We can go to the brethren. The brethren are supposed to be compassionate, and so God tells us very clearly that if we borrow, we should borrow from our brethren and not from the heathen.

  #7 | 5:16 to 5:38 | cleaned

• Fourthly, when brother lends to brother, and this is what I began teaching last week, and I began these principles on what we call the poor loan or the charity loan or the brotherly loan, when brother lends to brother, it is always without usury. It is always without interest. Look in your Bible, since we're there, to Deuteronomy chapter 23 and verse 19. Deuteronomy 23 and verse 19, God says, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury: Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it." Of course, you find the same thing in Exodus chapter 22, where God forbids us to lend upon usury or interest to our brethren. Now, in three of the cases, our brethren are called poor brothers. In this case, the brother is not necessarily called a poor brother, but God just says if we lend to the brethren, we cannot lend upon usury.

  #8 | 5:39 to 7:02 | cleaned

• So this is what we would know as a charitable loan. I am distinguishing this between what you and I would call a business loan or a commercial loan or a loan that's going to benefit each other mutually; this is in the context of what you and I would call a charitable loan. And so God says when we deal with our brothers, then we are not to deal with usury. By the way, I believe there are ways to get around usury even in what you and I would call business loans.

  #9 | 7:02 to 7:36 | cleaned

• For instance, if I needed to borrow $20,000 from Don and Don had $20,000 to lend me, then it's not that I'm poor. It's not that I'm hungry. It's that I've got a little business venture that I want to go into, and I need some more capital. What could Don do? Don does not necessarily have to charge me interest. What he could do is this: Well, I'll just take a percentage of your business, or a percentage of the profit.

  #10 | 7:37 to 8:03 | cleaned

• Now, in one sense, that's interest. In another sense, that's not. Because if I fail, I still owe him back his $20,000. You see what I'm saying? But if I don't fail, he gets his $20,000 back plus. So there are ways that you could still work around the interest, even in what you would call commercial loans or business loans.

  #11 | 8:03 to 8:22 | cleaned

• Now, let's go a little bit further today, and we're dealing primarily now still with this charitable loan or this poor loan. Now look what God says in Deuteronomy 15 and verse 2. He says, "And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth aught unto his neighbor shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother; because it is called the Lord's release." Now look down to verse 4. He said, "Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it." Now skip down, if you would please, to verse 12: "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee." Now, here's the principle that I want to deal with today, and that is this, that on these loans, these charitable loans, these poor loans, on borrowing, there is a limitation of six years.

  #12 | 8:22 to 9:32 | cleaned

• There is a limitation of six years. So, if I were to borrow from Chester some money, the maximum that I'm going to be able to borrow that money from is six years.

  #13 | 9:34 to 9:48 | cleaned

• Now, we may have an arrangement for one year. Now, I'm going to explain the length of the six years in just a moment. But I want you to understand that the seventh year in the Old Testament was a sabbatical year. In a sabbatical year, the land rested. In fact, everyone was to rest. And therefore, it was a termination of debt as well.

  #14 | 9:48 to 10:10 | cleaned

• Now, let's suppose, for instance, that I've borrowed now $10,000 from Tony. And let's suppose we've just started out and we've just finished a sabbatical year. So there's six years now. I've borrowed $10,000 from Tony and I've borrowed it for a year. Well, at the end of that year, I don't have the money to pay him back. What does that mean? That means then I've got five years to work out that debt. Tony could either have me sold as a bond slave until I worked it out, or I would become his bond slave until I worked it out. But I would have five years to work it out. On the seventh year, I was to be free. If I had not worked it out by the seventh year, he would forgive me the remainder of that debt, and I would be released from any servitude whatsoever. Now, so the poor man then, who was unable to pay his debt, had to work it out.

  #15 | 10:11 to 11:22 | cleaned

• Now, I'm going to repeat this before I close today in my applications, but I want you to understand something. Poverty is no excuse for lack of character, and poverty does not negate responsibility. So the poor man, who is unable to pay, still is able to work.

  #16 | 11:22 to 11:44 | cleaned

• Now, let's go to our Bibles, Deuteronomy chapter 15, and let me show you something that God warns us against. Now, you remember, and of course, I don't want to re-preach last week's sermon, but you remember I pointed out the Bible said, "Whosoever lendeth unto the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he hath lent shall be repaid him." So God is saying, if you will honor me, I'm going to stand good for the poor.

  #17 | 11:45 to 12:13 | cleaned

• Now, the poor may not be able to pay it back to you, but He said, I will assure you that I'm going to see that you get whatever back that you lend to the poor, because when you lend to the poor in these charitable loans, He said, you're lending unto me. Now, here's a warning. Look in Deuteronomy 15, verse 7. He said, "If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," now look at this, "thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother."

  #18 | 12:13 to 12:44 | cleaned

• Now let me just stop right there. That's why I told you earlier that we're always to borrow from the brethren. The brethren are supposed to be compassionate, and God says, we had better not harden our heart.

  #19 | 12:44 to 12:59 | cleaned

• Now, there is another term associated with a hardened heart. I'm going to show it to you in just a moment. In verse 8, he said, "But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth." Now, watch verse 9. Here's the warning. "Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee." Now, I want you to note the phrase, first of all, the evil eye. "That thine eye be evil." Now the evil eye and the hardened heart are basically synonymous.

  #20 | 12:59 to 13:50 | cleaned

• Many of us who grew up in the last 50 years remember the comic strip Little Abner. Do you remember the man in that comic strip who was known as Evil Eye Flegal? Do you ever remember Evil Eye Flegal? Evil Eye Flegal was the man, he was dressed in about a 20-zoot suit or something like that. He always had the long gold chain there and the shoes and the spats and the hat. But he was the guy who could jump around and put the evil eye on you or put the hex on you.

  #21 | 13:51 to 14:25 | cleaned

• Now, I said that to say this, that has nothing to do with what I just read in Deuteronomy chapter 15. An evil eye is an eye that is selfish and hardened and obstinate. If you will study the Bible, the Bible says, "But he that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed." So the evil eye is in opposition to the bountiful eye. The bountiful eye is the charitable eye. It's the giving eye. It's the compassionate heart. But the evil eye is the obstinate heart.

  #22 | 14:26 to 15:01 | cleaned

• Now, let's go back to verse 9. Look what he says. "Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother." So let me say this. I go up to George. I said, "Now George, I need to borrow $10,000. I'm really in bad shape. I need to borrow $10,000." And George looks at me and says, "I bet you would, because this already happens to be the sixth year and the ninth month. You'd only have three months to pay me back." God says, you better beware and don't think like that. Because he said, if the man is really hungry and in need, you still give no matter that the year of release is at hand.

  #23 | 15:01 to 15:57 | cleaned

• And so there is a warning here to the brethren not to be hard-hearted and not to be selfish if indeed there is a genuine need. You follow that?

  #24 | 15:57 to 16:10 | cleaned

• Now, he's not obligated to owe me $10,000 just to upgrade my automobile. You follow that? But if there was a real emergency in my life, then there would be an obligation. But not just simply some luxurious item. So, here's what happens. If the brother did not pay back that which he borrowed, then he was sold into servitude until he worked it out on the seventh year. On the seventh year, what was not worked out was canceled.

  #25 | 16:11 to 16:51 | cleaned

• It was forgiven because it was the Lord's release. Now, I want you to see something. If that poor brother works, say, for six years or for five years or for three years, when the seventh year is come, then not only is the debt forgiven, when he is released from his bondage, he is given what is known as freedom dues. Look at it. Deuteronomy chapter 15, beginning there, verse 12, he said, "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him." Now, I want you to watch this. The poor man was not sent away empty. The poor man was given that which was necessary in order to sustain his life and to get him started back again on the road to financial freedom so that he would not end up as a slave.

  #26 | 16:52 to 18:18 | cleaned

• Now, these freedom dues are not only in the Bible, they're in history. I want to read to you just from a couple of books about these freedom dues in colonial America. Listen to this one. This one is from colonial America. And here's what it says: "The customs governing indentured servitude in colonial America in the 17th and 18th centuries limited the term of service to a maximum of seven years," of course based upon the Bible, "and required the master to provide the departing servant or an apprentice with the tools of the trade he had learned. These freedom dues generally consisted of a suit or two of clothes, a set of tools, a rifle, and prior to the mid-18th century, sometimes 50 acres of land." Now here's another one from John Van Der Zee, and this one book is entitled "Bound Over: Indentured Servitude and American Conscience," and he says this: He reports that Virginia and Maryland granted 50 acres of land to all immigrants, but the landowners who paid the indentured servants' fares generally wound up as the owners.

  #27 | 18:20 to 19:38 | cleaned

• Between 1670 and 1680, of the 5,000 indentured servants entitled to receive 50 acres, only 1,300 actually collected. And of these, 900 immediately sold the land. Only 241 took warrants for the land. In all, less than 4% of the people who entered the colony as servants finished out their time and settled as free men. Isn't that amazing?

  #28 | 19:38 to 20:10 | cleaned

• Now I want to tell you something about human nature. Human nature had rather be a servant. We'd rather have someone looking after us. Do you know why most of us do not want to make hard decisions? Because we want someone else to tell us what to do. We don't want to take responsibility for our own decisions. He goes on to report that President James Madison's forefather, John Madison, brought in indentured servants to Virginia and collected their land.

  #29 | 20:12 to 20:42 | cleaned

• 800 acres in 1657, 300 acres in 1662, and 200 acres in 1664. Now he paid them for it. But I mean, they didn't want the land, and so he took it. Or the king of England was granting the land at that particular time. Sure, they wanted people there to work and to populate and to send goods back to England. But even in colonial America then, you had these freedom dues as such.

  #30 | 20:42 to 21:19 | cleaned

• Now, what I want to do the rest of the time today is I want to make some applications based on what we've just read. Now, let me ask this question. I don't know if you've thought about it. Why did God set a limit of six years for debt? Why was it that in the seventh year the individual was to be free? By the way, do you realize a lot of our bankruptcy laws are based upon this? And do you realize a lot of the—yes, statute of limitations based on this, not only that, but if you put a lien against someone, it used to, at the end of six years, it ran out. And you had to go back through the process and get another lien all over again. I think they may have changed some of that recently, but that's the way it was. It was based upon this principle. But why does God set a time? Why does he say six years and in the seventh you go free? Well, there are numerous answers, and let me try to give you five or six today, okay?

  #31 | 21:19 to 22:27 | cleaned

• First of all, I want you to understand that debt is servitude. Proverbs 22 and verse 7, the Bible says the borrower is servant or slave to the lender. Any way you cut it, debt is servitude.

  #32 | 22:27 to 22:43 | cleaned

• Now, you've got to remember that the children of Israel had just been brought out of Egypt. They were permanent slaves, so to speak, or at least they had been for 400 years. And so God brings them out and says, look, I want you to understand that debt is servitude, and therefore you're to be my free men, and therefore I'm going to put a limitation on debt. By the way, if you will turn in your Bibles, first of all, to the book of Galatians chapter 5 and then 1 Corinthians 7, I'm going to show you the same principle is true today. In Galatians chapter 5, notice if you would please verse 1. Watch this statement: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." So God tells us that we're to stand fast in the liberty or in the freedom wherein he makes us free. Now look in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and notice if you would please verse 23.

  #33 | 22:44 to 23:48 | cleaned

• 1 Corinthians 7, verse 23. He makes this statement: "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." You're bought with a price. Why should we not be the slaves of men? Because we are the slaves of Christ. He has bought us. Let me put this in no uncertain terms. Our lives, our bodies, our monies, our talents, do not belong to us as individuals. They belong to the Lord. He has bought us hook, line, and sinker. We are his. We are his servants. We are his slaves, and Paul delighted to call himself Paul, the servant or the slave of Jesus Christ.

  #34 | 23:49 to 24:43 | cleaned

• So we've got to understand that debt is servitude. Here's a second reason why there was a limitation. Because we are not to mortgage our future for present gratification. We're not to mortgage our future for present gratification. I've already pointed out the fact that our lives are not our own. They belong to the Lord, and therefore none of us have a right to mortgage our future indefinitely. Like everybody does. By the way, I want to tell you about the word mortgage.

  #35 | 24:44 to 25:26 | cleaned

• Since we have a French teacher here today, she can help me. We get our word mortgage from the French language. The word "mort" means dead. Mortician. The word "gage" is pledge. A mortgage is a dead pledge. What does that mean? It means that you are dead to yourself and you're obligated to work for someone else until you're dead. And you can only be released from your mortgage by death. So actually the word mortgage literally means servitude unto the dead.

  #36 | 25:28 to 26:21 | cleaned

• Now think about that when you have the 30-year mortgages on your homes and the 25-year mortgage. You see, that's literally what the word means. Now, the one who has a mortgage is literally dead to himself and his lifestyle. He must now live and work for the one who is the mortgagee, the one who holds that dead pledge on him and on his property. So the normal life, then, of a covenant man, based on just the Scriptures we've looked at, is to basically be a debt-free life. Why? Because we're not to be the slaves of any man. We're to live in freedom, and we're to live in obedience, and you can't do that without being debt-free.

  #37 | 26:23 to 27:12 | cleaned

• Now, short-term loans are occasionally necessary. That's what he's telling us in the six years. But long-term loans, or lifetime loans, mortgage our future. And we have no right to do that. What is he saying? "Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." So we have no right then to mortgage that which you and I absolutely know nothing about and have no assurance that we're going to even be here tomorrow. And here's another reason I believe the Lord has limited this to six years, and that's this. If a man has not learned his lesson in six years, he probably never will. What am I talking about? Well, God places this financially strapped man, this man who has borrowed money. He's had to borrow that money from someone who had money to loan him. And so this financially well-off man has loaned this financially strapped man this money. The financially strapped man, or the poor man, has been unable to pay it back. And so now, therefore, he works for the wealthy man, the financial well-off man, for a period of six years at the max.

  #38 | 27:15 to 28:59 | cleaned

• During that time, while he is working, he is to be learning from the man that he's working for. He's basically under his tutelage. He's basically learning frugality, discipline, responsibility, accountability. Let me tell you something. If a man cannot learn to control himself in a six-year period, if he cannot learn to master himself and say, look, I either got to learn something or I'm going to be a perpetual slave. If he can't learn it in six years, he never will.

  #39 | 29:01 to 29:35 | cleaned

• Let me give you a modern-day statistic, it may shock you, but the statistic is this. Those who have not worked by the age of 21 never will. You look at the young people in America, that don't even know which end of an axe to pick up or which end of a hoe or a shovel to use. And you know where they get their money from? Welfare. Food stamps. Disability. Whatever. Whatever.

  #40 | 29:37 to 30:30 | cleaned

• I'm not talking about blacks only. I'm talking about whites, and any other color you want to mention. I told a black man recently, I said, "I hate to admit this, but it's the truth. I said, do you realize that most blacks and most whites under 50 aren't worth shooting?"

  #41 | 30:30 to 31:02 | cleaned

• Now you stop and think about that. If you don't believe that, you go downtown to the black quarters or to the white quarters, wherever you want to, and you pick up a young man and try to take him and get him to work for you for a day or two. You might as well do it yourself, because you have to hold his hand and make him do it, because he won't do when you turn your back. And you might as well do it yourself and save yourself that money, because most young people, I know there are exceptions, but most young people, they do not want to work. They don't have the character. They don't have the knowledge. They don't have the ability. What they want is a paycheck. And what God is saying is this, if a man can't get control of himself in six years, guess what he's going to turn out to be? A perpetual slave. You know what this fellow's going to do? If he hadn't learned in six years, by the time he gets free and he gets his freedom dues, he's going to sell it or do without and then have to borrow and go right back to it again.

  #42 | 31:06 to 32:25 | cleaned

• Most people today do not have the mentality to live as free men, much less the character. Number four, I want you to note this. The release was in the sabbatical year. You say, "Brother Weaver, that's very plain. It's the seventh year." But do you know what happened in the seventh year? There were three things that happened particularly. Number one, debts were forgiven. Number two, Hebrew bond servants were freed. Are you ready? Number three. The land rested.

  #43 | 32:26 to 33:15 | cleaned

• No crops planted or harvested. Now let me show you that. Look in your Bible, not only Deuteronomy 15, but look in your Bibles, first of all to the book of Exodus 23. Exodus 23. Note verses 10 and 11. You see, the only thing that would be to eat that year was that which grew of itself, or what you had stored. Look in Exodus 23, verse 10. God says, "And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather in the fruits thereof: But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard." Now look in the book of Leviticus chapter 25. Leviticus 25, let's begin reading there with verse 1. Leviticus 25 verse 1.

  #44 | 33:17 to 34:18 | cleaned

• "And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap."

  #45 | 34:22 to 34:53 | cleaned

• In other words, you could not go out in a harvesting situation. "...neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, And for thy cattle, and for the beasts that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat." So, whatever grew that year of itself, anybody could have. No one could go out and harvest and say, this is all mine. No. Anybody could get in any field, basically. The animals could eat freely.

  #46 | 34:53 to 35:29 | cleaned

• Now, I want you to stop and think about two things. First of all is this. If you could gather on the sixth year and nothing was planted on the seventh year, that means you're going to be without basically for two years. Why? Because on the eighth year, you have to plant and wait for another harvest.

  #47 | 35:30 to 35:55 | cleaned

• Now why did the Lord say, in the year of release, the land must rest? You see, God released this poor man from his servitude in a time of frugality, restraint, and discipline, but not only that, it was a time that emphasized dependence upon God. For six years, he's been practicing, or at least should have been practicing, control and discipline, restraint, responsibility. Now he's released at a time when he has to do it. Or, the next year, what's going to happen? He's going to be right back in bondage again, because he'll end up bonded. So the year of release then, forced men to think in terms of responsibility, and to think in terms of dependence upon God.

  #48 | 35:59 to 37:00 | cleaned

• In other words, if I'm going to prosper, I've got to learn to be responsible. If I'm going to prosper, I've got to learn self-control. I've got to learn discipline. I can't be like some women in Walmart. And some men in tool shops. Or gun shops. See? In other words, I've got to be able to control myself and not let things control me. But I've got to understand this. Not only must I learn responsibility, I've got to understand that my responsibility alone will not make me prosperous. I must have the favor and the blessing of God. Because if God does not bless the land, if God does not bless the fruit of my efforts, then they're all in vain. So this man was released then in a time where responsibility and dependence upon God were absolutely essential.

  #49 | 37:00 to 38:04 | cleaned

• Now there's a fifth reason I want to give you today as to why God set the limit to six years. I want you to note that both debt and slavery are connected with sin.

  #50 | 38:04 to 38:23 | cleaned

• Now, it was normally sin that got a man into problems financially anyhow. Now, it could have been what you and I would call simple sins in the fact that the man was unwise, undisciplined, reckless, unthinking, or irresponsible. By the way, those things are sins in the Bible. Or it could be that the guy was just disobedient and downright rebellious. Let me show you. Look in your Bibles to Proverbs 21. Proverbs 21 and verse 17. Proverbs 21 verse 17. Now watch what the Bible says. "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." Isn't that interesting? "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man."

  #51 | 38:26 to 39:27 | cleaned

• Let me read that again. "He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man." You spend all your life and all your money on entertainment and on pleasing yourself, that says you're going to be a poor man. You love wine and oil. You love the luxurious items of life. You're going to be a poor man.

  #52 | 39:27 to 39:50 | cleaned

• Now, there's certainly not anything wrong with some luxury, but if all you want is the most luxurious, listen, my wife and I have the best taste in the world. We can go into a store and we immediately pick out the same object that we like and inevitably it's the highest priced thing in the store. But I can't always buy the highest priced thing in the store. You follow what I'm saying? I might like to have a Cadillac bank account, but I'm going to have to drive a Model C, you follow? Because most folks don't have Cadillac bank accounts, and I certainly don't. I might like to have one, but I don't have one.

  #53 | 39:50 to 40:50 | cleaned

• Now, George does, and the dollars do, but I mean, that's all right. You understand what I'm saying, but they don't drive brand new ones, you follow. But you have to live according to what you have. But most of the people, most of the people, they want their pleasure, and they want it right now. Let me tell you something. You try this sometime. You try it with a kid, and you can try it with an older teenager. You take a dollar bill, Federal Reserve note, hand it to a kid, and say, "I'll give you this right now." Or, pull out a five dollar bill, say, "I'll give you this two weeks from now if you'll wait." Most of them is going to take the dollar bill right now. Right now. You know that's what we want? What we want? We want right now.

  #54 | 40:52 to 41:50 | cleaned

• Now, look in Proverbs 24. I'm just showing you there's a lot of these things are connected with sin. Look in Proverbs 24, verse 30. Proverbs 24, verse 30. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man." What's he saying? He's saying it's our slothfulness, our laziness, our lack of taking care of what we have many times that brings us to poverty. Look in Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26. Verse 13, "The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth."

  #55 | 41:53 to 43:09 | cleaned

• Isn't that amazing? Wouldn't even work to feed himself. No wonder God said, "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat."

  #56 | 43:09 to 43:17 | cleaned

• Now, I'm just simply saying that that which normally brings us into debt is connected with sin. What normally brings us into debt? We want pleasure. We want gratification right now. We're too lazy to work. We're too lazy to take care of what we've got. My father, bless his heart, would always try to make things work. Sometimes it exasperated me. But I remember one year, my mother wanted a lawnmower and he went out and bought her a brand new lawnmower. I mean, eleven hundred bucks for a grinding lawnmower. Well, I went over there a week or two later. He said, "Son, I want you to help me."

  #57 | 43:18 to 44:10 | cleaned

• I said, "What's the problem, Dad?" He said, "Well, the lawnmower has a flat tire." He said, "I want you to put this fix-a-flat in," you know, the foam you put in it. I said, "Dad, let's just take it off and get it fixed. Well, this only cost me 99 cents. I'll put this stuff in and it'll be all right." I said, "Dad, it's a brand new mower. I said, let's just take it off and get it fixed."

  #58 | 44:10 to 44:33 | cleaned

• "It may not be anything." "Well, I got this right now. Put this in it." You see what?

  #59 | 44:33 to 44:38 | cleaned

• Now, I'm going to do something different. I want to—to me, you know, that's all right in an emergency, but that's not an emergency. I'd rather take care of what I have in the sense and make it last. And that's what he's talking here about a fence falling down. He said, you just got to learn to be responsible. Slavery, by the way, all sin is slavery. Do you know that? John 8 and verse 34, Jesus Christ said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." Let me tell you something. Freedom is not irresponsibility. Freedom is not licentiousness. Freedom is not license to sin. Freedom, according to the Word of God, is the ability to be responsible and to obey God and to serve and honor Him. Freedom is the ability to do what we ought to do and what we should do, and not licentiousness and freedom to run around and sin and do that which we should not do. Now, one last thing today, and that's this. I told you before, and I'll say it again.

  #60 | 44:39 to 45:53 | cleaned

• Even though the brother was a poor brother, that did not relieve him of his responsibility of paying back that which he had borrowed. Folks, let me tell you, if there's one thing you ought to master in your life, that is pay what you owe. If you borrow it, pay it back. My father would loan money to anyone one time. And if you never paid him back, you never got another penny. I was with him one day when a black man walked up to my father.

  #61 | 45:54 to 46:43 | cleaned

• He used to work for my dad. He walked up to him one day and said, "Mr. DJ, let me hold five bucks." Dad said, "Sure will. Take it out of that two dollars that you borrowed from me last year and never paid me back." And Dad turned around and walked off.

  #62 | 46:44 to 47:05 | cleaned

• Now, the point is this. There are Christian men and women, and even preachers, who will not pay what they owe. It doesn't matter how poor you are. You have the responsibility to pay back and to work out what you owe. And before I finish this series, I'm going to show you. If you don't want to pay it back, the best thing to do is don't borrow it. Learn to do without. Learn to make do.

  #63 | 47:07 to 47:55 | cleaned

• And the problem is this, most of us are too present-oriented in the fact that we want our gratification and our pleasure right now, and we're just unwilling to wait. But the poor man, if he did not pay his bill, was put into servitude, thus very clearly teaching us that poverty does not negate responsibility. We're responsible for every area and every sphere of our lives. Let's pray.

  #64 | 47:58 to 48:39 | cleaned

• Father, we do ask in the name of Jesus Christ today for your love, for your grace, for your mercy. We do pray, Lord, as we study this series, that thou would teach us, Lord, how to bring our lives in conformity unto thy word, how to make us men and women of character, of godliness and of obedience, and how, Lord, to be an honor and, Lord, not a reproach unto Thee and to Thy kingdom. Give us, Lord, Thy mercy. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

  #65 | 48:39 to 49:13 | cleaned

deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-04T20:02:17Z