Participants: Julian Archer (Host), Sharon Robberson
Series Code: 17ASIC
Program Code: 17ASIC000007A
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00:21 How Beautiful, sung by Johanna Mosquara 00:28 ♪How beautiful the hands that served the wine and the bread♪ 00:32 ♪and the sons of the earth.♪ 00:38 ♪How beautiful the feet that walked♪ 00:42 ♪the long dust roads and the hill to the cross.♪ 00:50 ♪How beautiful, How beautiful♪ 01:06 ♪How beautiful is the body of Christ.♪ 01:13 ♪How beautiful is the heart that bled.♪ 01:26 ♪that took all my sins and bore it instead.♪ 01:36 ♪How beautiful the tender eyes♪ 01:41 ♪that chose to forgive and never despise♪ 01:48 ♪How beautiful. How beautiful.♪ 02:01 ♪How beautiful is the body of Christ.♪ 02:12 ♪And as he lay down his life we offer this sacrifice♪ 02:26 ♪that we will live just as he died:♪ 02:32 ♪willing to pay the price, willing to pay the price.♪ 02:45 ♪How beautiful the radiant bride who waits for her Groom♪ 02:59 ♪with His light in her eyes.♪ 03:03 ♪How beautiful when humble hearts give♪ 03:10 ♪the fruit of pure lives so that others may live.♪ 03:18 ♪How beautiful, How beautiful.♪ 03:28 ♪How beautiful is the body of Christ.♪ 03:41 ♪How beautiful the feet that bring♪ 03:53 ♪the sound of good news and the love of the King.♪ 04:02 ♪How beautiful the hands that serve.♪ 04:08 ♪The wine and the bread and the sons of the earth♪ 04:17 ♪How beautiful, How beautiful.♪ 04:29 ♪How beautiful is the body of Christ.♪ 05:09 Good morning ASI. So Happy to be here today. How many of you 05:16 remember the first ASI convention you attended? 05:19 I see some hands. It was a memorable time, I'm sure. 05:24 Mine was way back in 1979. I'd love to say that I was only 10 05:30 years old, but that just wasn't the case. We were in Colorado 05:34 Springs meeting in a hotel ball room and we were excited when 05:38 on Sabbath we almost hit 400 people. We've seen the 05:44 organization grow year after year. I remember being invited 05:49 by Dr. Raymond Moore and his sweet wife, Dorothy, and as 05:56 soon as we got there we were befriended by Henry and Robin 05:57 Martin who became lifelong friends from that very moment. 06:02 I know all of you should feel like ambassadors to ASI. This 06:08 morning I'd like you to welcome our guest speaker, Julian Archer 06:12 coming all the way from Queensland, Australia to 06:15 join us today. How many of you would come that far to address 06:23 an audience like this? Well this retired businessman, by the way, 06:29 his successful career was in his 30s. When he decided to start 06:38 a nonprofit Faith Vs. Finance. Today he's going to ask the 06:44 question, is it possible to be financially secure without 06:48 becoming spiritually bankrupt? I think his personal testimony 06:54 will address that this morning. Immediately following this 06:58 presentation, he'll be doing a seminar in Room 370B and there 07:03 he'll be talking about the Christian atheist, believing in 07:07 God but trusting in money. I feel that ASI is the perfect 07:14 audience for Julian to be speaking to this morning. We're 07:19 filled with business people that make their living in a variety 07:22 of ways, but you all have one thing in common: You're using 07:28 the blessings that God has given you to further his work by 07:33 sharing Christ in your sphere of influence. I need you to hear 07:38 more from Julian, but in my ASI heart I know that he too will be 07:44 blessed by the warm welcome that ASI gives him. 07:53 Thank you Sharon. Houston we have a problem. I always wanted 08:00 to say that. But thank God that we also have a solution. Amen. 08:06 We also have a solution. Friends we live in a time in earth's 08:11 history when it's not business as usual. It's not business as 08:15 usual. I want this morning to open up a conversation. Some 08:22 say that's it's a long overdue conversation. It's not between 08:26 me and you. It's between your heart and God's heart. As Sharon 08:31 has just shared, it's around the question of is it possible, is 08:37 it possible to be financially secure without becoming 08:40 spiritually bankrupt. I want to start with my testimony. My 08:50 testimony, like many of yours, begins much as myself, but also 08:57 with my family and my extended family. There's a photograph of 09:03 my family in 1971. I'm the little guy, the smallest one. 09:07 My sister, Kathy, beside me and my mom and dad in 09:15 Richa, 1971. That's jumping ahead of the story. Let's go 09:18 back to when my dad, up there on the right, was 14 years old. 09:27 From birth to 14 years of age my father had to attend church 09:30 at least eight times a week. In a busy week, it was 11 times a 09:35 week. They weren't Seventh-day Adventists, but he had to go to 09:38 church between eight and eleven times a week. One of his jobs 09:41 as a child once he reached his teenage years was to be the 09:45 home brew kid. That means that he was the member of the 09:48 the extended family who had to make all of the beer for his own 09:52 parents, for the uncles and aunts and everybody else. And 09:56 of course being the specialist beer-maker in the family, he 09:58 drank more than he should. So he had some challenges. He hated 10:09 church and he hated God and wanted to get away from his 10:12 family. He tried to not attend church, he pled with his parents 10:18 he tried to disappear when it was time to go to church every 10:22 day of the week but he kept getting dragged into church. 10:26 And so he felt the only solution there's only one solution for me 10:32 to not have to come to church next week or tomorrow is if the 10:37 church doesn't exist. And he became what we would call a 10:40 dynamite church planter. He went to his uncle's farm and he got 10:46 some gel-ignite, like dynamite, and some fuses and at 14 years 10:52 of age, having sat there in church and looked at the 10:55 structure of the building so many times, he knew exactly 10:57 where to place the gel-ignite and the fuses so he could run 11:01 in one door run around and light every fuse and then run out the 11:06 back door before that church was planted. He went to school 11:12 that day. He took the gel-itnite home, he hid it at home. When he 11:15 went to school he told one of his friends, tonight I'm going 11:17 blow up my church. Well if anybody else had said that 11:21 other than Riacha, the friend would have just gone ah yeah 11:25 whatever, yeah good one but because it was Riacha, a young 11:29 guy who had got the cut on average every day from grade 11:34 eight through grade 10, the friend knew that my dad was 11:39 serious. So he told the principal, and the principal 11:40 told the police and the police came and took my dad away. They 11:43 said, son what's the problem. And he explained to them that 11:46 he had to go to church between eight and 11 times a week. And 11:50 they said OK where's the gel-ignite. So they were 11:55 probably not expecting that it was real but dad took them 11:57 home and gave them the gel-ignite and by then went and 12:02 took his parents away. They didn't take them far but they 12:07 showed them the gel-ignite and they said do you realize that 12:09 your son, Raymond, was going to blow up the church tonight? 12:13 And they had no idea. The police said well look you should 12:18 probably back off on the religion thing a bit, which they 12:20 did, but dad has already had enough and soon after he left 12:23 home. Well he went to live with his older brother and they got 12:27 into all sorts of mischief. In fact it wasn't long before his 12:30 older brother was in jail for counterfeiting bank notes. He 12:34 didn't have a license like your government to just print them 12:36 and so he had to counterfeit them on his own sort of printing 12:41 system. So dad got into more trouble, drinking too much again 12:46 and getting into trouble. He ended up sort of living on and 12:50 off the street. He met my mother In the process, was able to do a 12:55 trade in refrigeration mechanics and met mom. Had my sister and 13:00 myself with two young babies in the house. The refrigeration 13:06 mechanics business-while he was doing that well he started a 13:09 small business on his 21st birthday. He said by my 25th 13:12 birthday I want to be self- employed. And so he did that 13:14 right on his 21st birthday. He had a welder and a friend of his 13:19 said can you weld for me a bench press machine. Now that's 13:22 a piece of gymnasium equipment for pushing the weights off your 13:25 chest. So he welded up for his friend and he sold it to his 13:28 friend and he made a small profit and he said, hey, that's 13:31 cool. So he made another one and he sold it and another and he 13:34 sold it and he started another business called Archer Body 13:37 Building Equipment. This was in the late 1960s when the, what 13:43 would you call it, the pumping iron trend was beginning. Body 13:46 building was happening in California, in Australia and 13:49 different places and so dad then decided with mom, they said, hey 13:53 we're making this equipment so we can get it cheap, why don't 13:56 we open a gymnasium, a body building center. And so they did 13:59 and before you know it they had 1000 members. So they opened 14:02 another one and got another 1000 members and they thought 14:05 hey we got all these people coming in for gym why don't we 14:08 open a health food store and then we can sell them all the 14:10 protein drinks and everything else that they need to keep 14:15 healthy. By the age of 24 mom and dad had started and were 14:20 running themselves five businesses. They were what we 14:25 now call serial entrepreneurs. They would see an opportunity 14:28 and they would jump at it. They were very successful but their 14:34 marriage was absolutely hell. Their marriage was completely 14:37 shot. God was not in their system. They were working 18 14:42 hours a day. My sister Cathy and I were being baby sat quite a 14:46 lot because mom and dad were out a lot. They had to make a 14:49 decision in 1974 between business and marriage and I 14:55 thank God that they chose marriage. We moved out to what 14:59 we called the bush. You might call it the forest or the wilds 15:03 or I don't know. Some place hidden away out in the state 15:07 somewhere up in the mountains and we bought a little block of 15:11 land in 1974. It was only 33 acres. On one side was a 1500 15:14 acre cattle property with rolling hills and lots of forest 15:18 and on the other side was a 2000 acre cattle property. And we 15:22 lived there between those two and we tried to be 15:25 self-sufficient. Mom and dad had sold all of the businesses 15:28 except the health food store. We tried to grow our own food. 15:32 There was no electricity, there was no running water. We were 15:34 living in a shed that was 8 foot wide and 14 feet long. 15:38 Out in the middle of nowhere. We became hippies. We were a 15:43 bit late. It was the 70s I know, but that should have been 15:46 done in the 1960s but we were busy in the 1960s. So we became 15:50 hippies with the long hair and the long, beard for dad and 15:54 bare foot and we didn't wear a lot of clothes because we didn't 15:57 have a washing machine. We had neighbors and of course the only 16:01 reason we wore clothes was because we had neighbors. 16:03 So we had the freedom and that's how I grew up, a very carefree 16:10 sort of lifestyle. In fact, I still remember one day walking 16:19 down to the dam where we used to bathe, and of course, no 16:23 clothes, no towel. You don't need a towel. You walk down to 16:26 the dam, to the pond, you wash yourself off and you walk back 16:29 up to your little shed and by the time you get back to the 16:30 shed you're dry and you don't have to wash towels or anything. 16:33 So it was all good. I still remember walking down there 16:35 and at five years old we met the neighbor on his horse checking 16:41 his cattle. And I still remember in my little five-year-old mind 16:46 standing there, looking up at the neighbor, talking to him 16:48 Mom and dad talked to him about the weather or his cattle or 16:50 something and thinking Julian there's something wrong with 16:53 this picture. It reminds me of the little girl and her dad who 16:57 were riding on their bicycle and the dad was out trying to show 17:03 little girl a little of nature and they were riding along on 17:05 their bikes and that father saw a sign that said naturalist camp 17:08 He thought will clearly we've got to ride down there. We'll 17:10 see some more nature. There's obviously a scenic spot down 17:13 there. So as their riding down the road coming the other way 17:16 three or four adults on their bicycles and they've got 17:18 absolutely no clothes on. It was a naturalist camp all right, it 17:23 was a nudist camp. As the people got past down the other way 17:27 then they go on, the dad stops his bike and says to the little 17:31 girl and says Emily did you notice anything wrong with those 17:34 people? And she says, yes daddy, they weren't wearing their 17:37 helmets. And it's a little bit like I felt like a 5-year-old 17:40 standing there looking at this guy going, there's something 17:43 wrong here but I don't know what it is. So life went on and we 17:49 had a health food store in Ipswich that mom and dad used 17:55 to go to one at a time to work in the health food store. And 17:59 every day in that health food store a man would come in. His 18:01 name was Harry Walker. Now Harry was an engineer in the railways 18:05 and Harry would ask mom and dad how are the kids, how's the 18:09 house building going, because by this time dad was building a 18:12 house. In fact, he was building a house out of sandstone and 18:15 logs. It took him seven years. He cut a lot of the stone out of 18:19 the ground himself. Harry would build this relationship. Now 18:23 looking back on what Harry was doing, today we would call it 18:26 friendship evangelism. We had no idea what Harry was doing. We 18:30 just thought he was buying a loaf of bread every day and we 18:32 couldn't work out what he was doing with the bread because 18:33 Harry didn't have any kids. It was just him and his wife Dot 18:36 at home. But Harry was building relationship through those 18:39 loaves of bread. One day Harry came into the shop and he said 18:44 to my dad, Ray, he said, Ray there's a guy coming to town and 18:47 he's going to tell us about how the Egyptians built the pyramids 18:50 out of stone. Would you like to come along because I know you're 18:52 building a house out of stone. And dad went, that sounds cool 18:57 Harry, I'm going to come. So we piled into our old pickup and we 19:01 drove to the end of town there every night for this program 19:03 to try and learn about how the Egyptians build the pyramids out 19:06 of stone. Well we never actually worked out how to do that, but 19:09 we met some wonderful people and then we went back to the 19:11 bush. Mom and dad kept going to the health food store and Harry 19:15 kept buying his loaf of bread every day. One day Harry came 19:18 in and my mother was in the store and he said Delphine 19:21 there's somebody coming to town and they're going to be talking 19:26 vegetarian cooking. Would you like to come along to learn how 19:28 to do it. Well, mom thought yeah I suppose. We're certainly not 19:33 vegetarians but I'll talk to Ray So she went home and explained 19:35 it to dad and dad said vegetarians. I'm a body builder. 19:42 Why what in the world. No we've got no interest in that. And mom 19:45 said, but Ray a lot of our customers are vegetarians 19:48 and maybe we could sell more stuff if we knew how to cook 19:51 vegetarian food. Sign me up. Dad just wanted to know. Where do 19:56 we go? So we all piled in the pickup again and we drove down 20:00 there to the town of Ipswich and we learned how to cook 20:03 vegetarian food. And we went back to the bush and Harry kept 20:05 coming in and buying a loaf of bread every day. Praise God for 20:09 people like Harry. One day Harry came in and he said to dad, he 20:12 said Ray would you like to go to church. Well Harry didn't 20:16 know all of dad's background and that he'd already been to church 20:19 enough for the rest of us would go in our entire lifetime. And 20:23 dad would normally say ha, not a chance, you know I'm urrr, urrr, 20:28 urrr. But Harry was his friend and he said I've got to get a 20:33 better excuse and so he said ah, that's it, that's it. Harry 20:36 what day do you go to church? Cause he knew Harry would go to 20:39 church on Sunday and Sunday was that only day that we never 20:41 drove from out in the country all the way into the city. So 20:45 he thought he was safe there. And Harry said Saturday mornings 20:48 and dad went aaahhh, because Saturday mornings were the only 20:52 morning that we all went to town because Saturday morning 20:55 was when we went to buy our groceries. Sure enough the next 20:57 Saturday morning there we are all down in town buying all of 21:00 our groceries and driving up to the Ipswich Seventh-day 21:03 Adventist church. We parked outside and we had a problem 21:06 See our old pickup was really old and the doors didn't lock 21:10 and we had a week's worth of groceries in the back of the 21:13 pickup. And we thought well what are we going to do with the 21:14 groceries. And we thought, that's it, we'll take them into 21:17 church. So we picked up all our groceries and the only carton 21:20 that we had to pack groceries into were beer cartons. Four X 21:25 beer. In Australia we spell beer X- X-X-X because we can't spell 21:30 beer and so we had these four X beer cartons and we walked into 21:33 the church, mom, dad, Cathy and myself carrying these cartons. 21:36 We put them under the back seats and then we went around and we 21:39 sat on those seats to look after them because we weren't sure 21:41 about some of the people. But you know the interesting thing 21:46 was that the same people, this was a curious thing, the same 21:49 people who had an interest in Egypt, also had an interest in 21:52 vegetarian cooking because we saw them at the same two 21:54 programs. And when we turned up at church, those same people 21:57 were there in a city the size of Ipswich. This is a curious thing 22:02 So we sat there, dad's long beard, my long hair, mom and 22:08 Cath wearing hippie clothes, bare feet, smelling different. 22:12 Dad was still smoking a bit and drinking too much. And I give 22:16 you all those details because Ipswich Seventh-day Adventist 22:21 church never said anything to us about any of it. They just loved 22:25 us. They loved us into Christ. And of course when we had 22:27 questions about some of those things, we had Harry, our friend 22:32 Harry. Hey Harry why don't people do this, why do they eat 22:34 this, why do they drink this way why, what, what, what. And Harry 22:37 would lovingly share us those answers. Well we went back into 22:42 business and I won't go into a lot of the details about 22:44 business because I know you guys are business people and you've 22:46 experienced it all the stresses and challenges of it. You've 22:49 experienced the miracles of God leading. We started a small 22:54 fruit and nut tree nursery. God led us through mom and dad's 22:58 faith. They'd learned about Jesus through Egypt so dad just 23:02 wanted to tell everybody about Egypt. So he jumped on a plane 23:04 and flew out to Egypt and took photos of the pyramids and came 23:07 back and rented the local hall and put an ad in the paper and 23:09 said come along and learn about Egypt and people came and people 23:12 were baptized. And he moved to the next town and we ran the 23:16 program there and people were baptized. And the next town and 23:18 the next town. We finally ran out of towns and it was all 23:21 self-supporting through out little fruit and nut tree 23:23 nursery at the time. We had 214 varieties of fruit and nut trees 23:30 in this little business and God led us to keep one of those 23:34 trees; it was the olive tree and we went out on the road doing 23:38 evangelism. We kept the olive trees and the olive trees then 23:42 funded our evangelism from that point onward. In fact, God led 23:48 mom and dad when they were on their knees going through their 23:50 catalogue trying to work out which one of the 214 plants to 23:54 keep. He led them to the olive trees. The olive tree business 24:00 within four years of us starting it became the largest olive tree 24:02 nursery in the world. God then led dad and mom, primarily dad, 24:08 into another business called olive leaf extract, which is an 24:11 herbal medicine business and we had 500,000 olive trees. There 24:16 may be some pictures here of an olive tree. They'll come up when 24:24 they're ready. In 2007, at the beginning of the global 24:30 financial crisis we sold that business, the last of 12 24:42 businesses for mom and dad and again went into full time 24:47 ministries. We have a family foundation and they got involved 24:53 with that. Dad got involved with breeding butterflies as a way of 24:55 finding people for Bible studies and I am involved in a ministry 25:00 called Faith vs. Finance. We saw God's blessing in those 25:03 ministries and businesses so much. Once those businesses were 25:10 blessed and those hockey-stick graphs went up rapidly, the 25:13 profits went up fast. I want to ask you what impact do you 25:20 think that had on my relationship with Jesus 25:23 Christ? As we saw God leading in those businesses what impact 25:27 did that have on my relationship with Jesus Christ? Did it go up 25:33 or did it go down. You would think that surely with God 25:39 leading in so many different ways and I'd seen the miracles 25:41 in those businesses and using the profits of those businesses 25:44 to support God's work around the world, that my personal 25:46 relationship with Jesus Christ would have got stronger, but 25:49 it didn't; it actually got weaker. Just having some 25:53 trouble with the clicker here guys and got no movement on that 25:58 side. So let me tell you what happened in my life in those 26:07 years of business. OK, we're back on track. In those years of 26:16 business I became proud. Number one, I became proud. I became 26:23 proud because God had given me a business to operate, to run, 26:26 that was bigger than any of my friends had. Regardless of the 26:30 fact that the profits were going into God's work primarily, I 26:33 became proud. I became a Pharisee. I became a Pharisee 26:36 because in God's word it tells me, Julian if you obey me I will 26:41 bless you. And I was being blessed more than any of my 26:44 friends and therefore, I must have been being more obedient 26:47 than any of my friends. Can you see the Pharisee coming through? 26:50 And I became self-reliant. Subconsciously I was thinking 26:58 you know God's blessed me so much that I don't need him any 27:01 more. Of course, I would never say that. I was an elder at 27:05 church. I was having sermons. I was supporting projects around 27:08 the world. On the outside, everything looked great. 27:12 But on the inside I knew I had a problem. I had let God's 27:17 blessings become a curse in my life. I started to focus on the 27:21 gifts more than on the Giver. A few years ago I was trekking 27:26 in the Himalayas with my sons and I came across this quote 27:29 by Mahatma Gandhi which says the fact is the moment financial 27:36 stability is assured spiritual bankruptcy is also assured. 27:39 Ouch. For 15 years prior to reading that quote I had worked 27:46 very had to become financially stable and had succeeded beyond 27:49 my wildest dreams. But in my heart where nobody else saw 27:56 not the person sitting beside me at ASI, not the person sitting 27:59 beside me on the plane going off on a mission trip, not the 28:02 person listening to my Sabbath School lesson. Where nobody else 28:05 saw I knew that I was losing my first love to Jesus Christ. 28:09 I knew that money had its claws on me and I was in trouble. I 28:15 began to realize that when I was abundantly blessed, I was 28:19 actually in the most spiritually dangerous stage of my life. 28:24 And I desperately needed to find out how to stop God's blessings 28:27 from becoming curses. Which brings us to the question is it 28:31 possible to be financially stable, financially secure 28:37 without becoming spiritually bankrupt? And I thank God that 28:41 the answer is yes, we can. But there are conditions attached. 28:46 Let's turn in our Bibles to Matthew 6, Matthew 6:19-24. 28:53 Jesus speaking at the middle of the sermon on the mount. 28:56 Matthew 6:19-24. And in Matthew 6:19 we read this, Jesus 29:02 speaking, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. 29:06 Is that a suggestion or a command? It's a command isn't it 29:11 Do not, Julian, Julian, do not lay up for yourselves treasures 29:16 on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and 29:18 steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where 29:21 neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break 29:24 in and steal, for where your treasure there what? there your 29:29 heart will be also. Let's go down a couple of verses to 29:33 verse 24. Again it's speaking to me, it's speaking to you. Julian 29:37 put your name in there. No one how many people? no one can 29:43 serve two masters. For he will either hate the one and love the 29:46 other or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. 29:49 Julian, you can't serve God and money. Yes I can Lord, yes I can 29:53 What I'm doing is I'm working really hard in business and I 29:56 know that's taking like 60, 70 hours a week and it's taking a 29:59 lot of my family time and I know I don't have enough time to 30:01 spend with you in the morning sometimes, but I'm working on 30:03 really hard on this business's and it's your business and you 30:05 know I'm doing it for you and because we're giving lots of 30:07 money into your work and the gospel is going to all the world 30:09 because we're supporting it and that's how I'm serving you and 30:13 my money. Julian, you can't do it. Your heart can't do it. You 30:21 either love me and serve me or you love money and serve money. 30:24 Look at your calendar, Julian. Who do you love? Look at your 30:31 bank account Julian. Who do you love? You can't serve both of 30:36 us. Right in the middle between those verses I skipped a couple 30:39 of verses, 22 and 23, where he talks about the lamp of the body 30:42 is the eye. And I couldn't work out why he would talk about out 30:44 why he would talk about our eyes in the middle of a section on 30:47 treasures on heaven and earth and money. I thought maybe it's 30:52 because with our eyes we covet. Yeah, that's it we covet things. 30:57 That's why that's in there. But then I thought of something else 30:59 As I looked at my own life and the challenge that this passage 31:03 brought to me. I realized that I had one eye on my heavenly 31:10 treasures and the other eye on my earthly treasures and I was 31:14 a cross-eyed Christian. And I was wondering why when I tried 31:18 to follow Jesus that I was stumbling because I couldn't see 31:22 clearly. I was a cross-eyed Christian. One eye on heaven 31:26 and one eye on earth. The problem that I faced was this. 31:36 The teeter-totter problem, see- saw problem. I don't know what 31:38 you call it in your country where you're from. As my 31:42 finances when up my faith went down. When my finances went down 31:48 then my faith went up; please Lord help me, I need money, 31:51 we've got bills to pay here; it's your business. You know. 31:54 But when he blessed me I didn't have enough time for him again. 31:59 The teeter-totter principle. Faith versus finance. Ellen 32:07 White in the book Evangelism, p. 561, says this: In the 32:31 Friends when a person prospers either God gains a partner or 32:39 the person loses their soul. It's that simple. We're going to 32:46 talk more about this in the Seminar following but I'm going 32:49 give you the crux of the message right now. And that is 32:54 that as our blessing go up our knees must go down. As our 33:04 blessing go up, whether they're our material blessings, whether 33:07 they're talents, whether it's education, whether it's position 33:09 or status, whatever it is, as those blessing go up, our knees 33:13 must go down and if they don't we are not going to heaven. It's 33:19 serious friends. It's serious. The more our blessing go up, 33:22 the more our knees must go down otherwise we're fooling 33:25 ourselves in our relationship with Christ. Man looks on the 33:31 outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. The Gallop 33:37 poll is an international, secular research agency. 33:43 One of their surveys, I think this one studies about 175 33:45 countries, they asked this question:... 33:51 It was a yes/no scenario. And you can see that in nations 33:53 where the annual per-capita per person income was between 33:58 zero and $2000 U.S., 95 percent of the population said yes. We 34:03 Religion is important in my every day life. But when the 34:07 income got to $25,000 a year or more on average per person in 34:11 that nation, less than half of the people were still interested 34:14 in religion on a daily basis. Teeter-Totter friends, up and 34:18 down. Faith versus finance. This isn't something that just 34:22 affects individuals. This is something that affects 34:24 congregations, this is something that affects entire nations. 34:27 Some of you will know of the group Credit Swiss, a Swiss 34:34 financial services company, they do a lot of research around the 34:37 world as well and, in fact, every year they put out what's 34:39 called the Global Wealth Data book and I track this book 34:44 every year and I look at a copy of it, you can see it for free 34:47 on-line. They survey around 200 nations. Not surveying the 34:52 people by phone survey but looking at all the government 34:55 data on wealth and finance and investments and everything in 34:59 those nations and one of the things that they identify is 35:04 the average wealth level of the adults in that nation for more 35:11 than 200 nations around the world. Can anybody guess for me 35:15 which nation has the richest adults. Not the biggest GDP or 35:20 some of these other measures but just the richest private 35:23 wealth adults on average. Any guesses? I haven't heard it yet. 35:35 Switzerland, I heard it down here somewhere. Switzerland 35:38 the ritz. The Swiss adults are the richest in the world. Let's 35:41 have a look at some of the data. Look at some of the data. 35:43 There we are, Switzerland number one, Iceland number two, 35:49 Australia number three. United States number four, Bermuda, 35:52 Greenland, Luxembourg, Norway, New Zealand, U.K. The list 35:55 changes each year slightly but the top 16 nations sort of take 36:01 their ranks in the top. But look at the column on the right-hand 36:06 side, today's top 10 nations. But the percentage who answered 36:09 said no religion is not important in my every day life. 36:13 The percentage that answered no in the poorer countries at the 36:16 bottom. There it is again. Credit Swiss. It's easier for a 36:21 camel to go through the eye of a needle than for man, for a 36:24 rich nation, to get into heaven. When God blesses us, we tend to 36:31 walk away from him. Some of you will have noticed 36:35 something interesting about those top 10 nations. And that 36:43 is that those top 10 nations were founded on which religion. 36:49 Yeah, most of them were founded on Christian principles. Our 36:51 laws were built on God's word and God blessed us because of 36:57 it. And what the children of Israel when they walked over 37:00 the Jordan River to the other side and lived in homes that 37:04 they didn't build and cities they didn't build and ate from 37:07 vineyards and olive groves 37:08 that they didn't plant and drank from wells that they didn't dig 37:11 What was Moses warning to them before they crossed over. He 37:14 said that's going to happen to you when you get over on the 37:16 side you're going to be blessed millionaires, but do not forget 37:20 the Lord your God. And what did they do? In the midst of the 37:26 luxury they walked away from God. It's not a modern problem. 37:32 Well it is a modern problem but it's been around for a long time 37:34 John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, a man of God, 37:39 said this in 1799. He said that: 37:58 Friends, I've seen that in my life. I've seen it in the life 38:03 of my nation. It's true. Wherever true Christianity 38:09 spreads it must cause diligence and frugality, which in the 38:14 natural course of things creates riches and riches naturally 38:20 create pride, love of the world, and every temper that is 38:26 destructive of true Christianity It's a dangerous circle. I asked 38:34 a friend of mine to illustrate for me, to do a drawing that 38:38 illustrated what the inside of my heart looked like in those 38:42 years when I was looking as a cross-eyed Christian. Revelation 38:47 three Jesus says behold I stand at the door and knock, the door 38:50 of my heart, the door of your heart. But what I had done is 38:52 I had taken the blessings that God had given me, and by the way 38:55 I didn't earn all of these blessings, we sold the 38:57 Eiffel tower many years ago, but the things in the 39:02 picture represent things that might be in your life that were 39:05 in my life. It could be sport. It could be travel, it could be 39:08 education, it could be preaching ability, it could be the music, 39:11 it could be screen time, it could be a collection of 39:14 something that you just love to collect. But it's getting 39:18 between you and the door of your heart. It's getting between you 39:21 and your relationship with Jesus Christ. It's taking your 39:23 time, your money, your energy, your focus, your attention and 39:28 drawing you away from the urgency of the time in which we 39:32 love. That's what my friend drew for me. Billy Sunday, the 39:37 American evangelist, said that many a man is going to slip into 39:41 hell with his hand on the door knob of heaven. Maybe there's 39:47 something in there that you see in your life that you really 39:50 need to talk to God about, heart to heart conversation. In the 39:57 Review and Herald, November 2, 1886, says the true witness 40:00 behold I stand at the door and knock. The heavenly guest is 40:04 standing at your door while you are piling up obstructions to 40:07 bar his entrance. Friends, I had never read this when my friend 40:10 drew this picture. This is just my experience. Somebody sent 40:13 this to me a couple of years ago and I was in tears when I read 40:16 it. Jesus is knocking through the prosperity he gives you. 40:19 He loads you with lessons to test your fidelity but then they 40:22 flow out from you to others. Will you permit your selfishness 40:26 to triumph. Will you scorn God's talents and lose your soul 40:29 through idolatrous love of the blessings that he had given you? 40:33 In Luke 16 verses 13, 14 and 15, we read Jesus again saying 40:43 You can't serve God and money. In verse 15 it says that the 40:50 Pharisees who loved money were sneering at him and what did 40:57 Jesus say to them? Man looks at the outward appearance, but God 41:05 looks at the heart. He said what is wonderful in your eyes is an 41:10 abomination in the eyes of God. God looks at the heart. In 41:16 Ezekiel 14 verse 3 we have a similar problem. In fact, if 41:23 you've got your Bibles turn there very quickly. Ezekiel 14 41:27 verse 3: Remember Ezekiel was this reluctant prophet. He was 41:34 sent out and before he went God had already told him that the 41:36 people aren't going to listen to what you have to say. Imagine 41:39 that. A life calling where God says go out into your life 41:43 calling. You'll basically be of no effect but you need to go. 41:45 Man, Ezekiel went out and in chapter 14, verse 1, let's start 41:51 there: Now some of the elders of Israel came to me, came to 41:55 Ezekiel and sat before me and the word of the Lord came to me 41:59 saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their 42:05 heart and put before them that which causes them to stumble. 42:09 Ouch. Idols in my heart? Put before me things that are 42:17 causing me to stumble. So what was the solution? What was the 42:25 solution to me my faith versus finance battle? Friends, I had 42:30 to have a heart attack. I had to have a heart attack. You see 42:33 the heart I was born with is a selfish heart. The only way that 42:37 I could clear all this stuff out of my heart wasn't through 42:40 trying to daily stop looking at the advertising and not focusing 42:45 on it and selling it and all that sort of stuff. What I 42:49 needed was found in Ezekiel 36 and that's where I had an 42:54 epiphany. One morning I was battling this faith versus 42:55 finance battle. I was doing my morning worship. I came across 42:59 Ezekiel 36 verses 25-27. I'm going to share what happened 43:03 to me in that time. One morning my son came home from school. 43:11 He was 14 years of age. And he said in front of me that 43:15 afternoon, he said, Dad if I stand here like this can I turn 43:18 over my hand from there to there without twisting my wrist? 43:22 And I said, no it's impossible. And he said, No, I can do it. 43:24 And I said you can't and he said I can. I said show me. And he 43:29 went like this: One, two, three, four, five, six. When God puts 43:42 blessings in our hands it's the exact same message that he gave 43:48 to Abraham. He said, I'm going to bless you so that you can be 43:50 a blessing, so that you can pour it out. I'm going to keep 43:54 putting them in your hand but you keep pouring them out. Don't 43:56 put them in your heart; pour them out, pour out those 44:00 blessings. Let's have a look at Ezekiel 36:25-27. Do this 44:05 movement with me if you'd like. Put your hand out in front. 44:08 We're going to go up, across, out, up, down and out. I'm going 44:14 do it as we read this text. Every time I say I will or you 44:17 will we're going to move our hands once and we're going to 44:19 see God do a miracle. He's going turn off from my selfish heart 44:23 that wants to hold onto every thing to pouring it out. 44:26 You tell me how much do you do and how much does God do. 44:32 Let's go. It's God speaking: Then I will sprinkle clean water 44:35 on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your 44:39 filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new 44:41 heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the 44:44 heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 44:47 I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my 44:51 statutes. Which way is your hand facing? How much of it did you 44:55 do? None. God did it all. He gave you a new heart and then 44:59 you will keep my judgments and do them. Make a note of that in 45:03 the margin of your Bible. That's a good one to share. Ezekiel 36. 45:11 Ellen White Steps to Christ page 18 and says it is impossible for 45:15 us of ourselves to escape from the pit of sin in which we have 45:19 sunken. Our hearts are evil and we cannot change them. Education 45:23 culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, attending 45:26 ASI, going to church every week, teaching lessons, being an elder 45:30 of the church, going on mission trips. They all have their 45:32 proper sphere but here they are powerless. They may produce an 45:37 outward correctness of behavior but they cannot change the 45:51 heart. Remember in John chapter 3, a man called Nicodemus. 45:59 Nicodemus was rich, he was powerful, he was respected and 46:01 he had lots of other problems too. He was a member of the 46:07 Sanhedrin, the 70 leaders of Israel, religiopolitical 46:11 leaders. He was looked up to, he was respected. On the outside 46:15 everything looked good, but in his heart Nicodemus knew that 46:21 he wasn't saved. So he went to Jesus at nighttime in the garden 46:24 and remember that Jesus said a number of things to him and one 46:27 of them was Nicodemus you need to be born again. Nicodemus was 46:32 a bit confused about what that meant. We understand it much 46:35 better now. It's a pillar of our faith, it's a foundation of our 46:38 faith. And he said, Nicodemus, I will be lifted up, I must be 46:42 lifted up. And later on in John he says that when I am lifted 46:44 up I will draw all men unto me. Another beautiful illustration 46:49 that Christ gave of the message of salvation and of Calvary. 46:54 But both of those fade into insignificance when you realize 46:57 that it was Nicodemus, a one-man audience, out there in the dark 47:01 of the garden that Jesus said Nicodemus God so loved the world 47:07 that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in 47:10 him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Nicodemus was 47:16 convicted but he wasn't converted. Nicodemus was 47:20 convicted. He went back into the Sanhedrin. On two occasions we 47:22 have record of him acting to save the life of Christ when the 47:27 Sanhedrin wanted to kill Jesus. He was convicted but not 47:30 converted. Friends, when was Nicodemus converted? At the 47:37 cross. When he and Joseph of Arimathea came to take the 47:43 body of Christ down. It's the same time the disciples were 47:45 converted. When I am lifted up I will draw all men unto me. 47:49 We're told in Desire of Ages that Nicodemus died a poor man. 47:53 If you want to know what he did with his money, read the book of 47:56 Acts. Nicodemus funded it. He funded the gospel going to all 48:00 the world. Friends it's not business as usual today because 48:03 Nicodemus set us an example that if God is blessing you it's so 48:08 that you can take the gospel to the entire world. In Florence, 48:15 just up from what my wife and children tell me is the 48:18 world's best 48:19 chocolate shop is a museum with a statue in it and it's called 48:23 the Florentine Pieta carved by Michael Angelo. Michael Angelo, 48:32 incredible artist. It was carved for the top of his own tomb and 48:36 the Pope came to Michael Angelo and said Michael Angelo you've 48:37 done so much for us we want you to carve this for your own tomb. 48:40 And so he carved it, Nicodemus and the two Mary's taking down 48:44 Jesus off the cross. The reason I wanted you to see this is 48:47 because of the plaque beside it and historians say that the face 48:51 face of Nicodemus is the face of Michael Angelo. It was a self 48:55 portrait. Michael Angelo was converted late in life. After a 48:58 life of much success finally he gave his heart to Christ in the 49:03 midst of success and he wanted everybody to know that if he 49:08 had been there when his Christ had died he would have done what 49:11 Nicodemus did. It never made it to his tomb. There were some 49:14 faults in the marble and he pushed it aside. But to me it's 49:17 a reminder that no matter where we are in life God is a God of 49:21 second chances and third chances and 77th chances. My dad used to 49:27 say to me as I was growing up and he was on fire for Christ 49:30 I was a teenager he'd say Julian if you died tonight could you be 49:32 sure that you had eternal life? And I didn't know. I want to 49:38 tell you for many years I knew that I didn't have eternal life. 49:40 But through that process in Ezekiel 36 getting a new heart 49:46 from God. I want to tell you it was the most painful but the 49:50 most beautiful thing that's ever happened to me. A new heart. 49:54 And now I love that verse John 5:13 where John says beloved I 50:00 write to you speak to you who believe in the name of the Son 50:04 of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. Not that 50:09 you might hope that maybe one day you could if you're good 50:11 enough or if you give enough. No he said, I write to you so that 50:16 may know that you have now eternal life. Ministry of 50:24 Healing: The life of the apostle Paul was a constant conflict 50:28 with self. Friends that tells me that when you get the new heart 50:30 the battle isn't over. The battle is a daily battle. 50:48 In Philippians 1 verse 6 we have that beautiful assurance that he 50:54 who has begun a good will in you will complete it. And then in 50:59 Steps to Christ, p. 64.... 51:30 Friends we do need to be cross- eyed Christians, not because 51:33 we've got one eye on heaven and the other eye on earth, but 51:37 because we've got both eyes on the cross of Jesus Christ. Paul 51:42 said, I'm determined not to know anything among you except Jesus 51:46 Christ and him crucified. In 2 Timothy chapter 4 the very 51:55 last letter that we have of Paul's life, in chapter 4 verse 51:59 7 is a verse that to me is really important in this 52:01 this faith versus finance battle. 52:03 He says I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, 52:07 and I have kept the faith. Friends, I encourage you to keep 52:15 the faith. It's a battle. It should be faith and finance. 52:20 It should be faith regardless of finance. But in my life it's 52:26 been faith versus finance and I thank God that whilst we have a 52:31 problem, God has the solution. I encourage you as your blessings 52:38 go up may your knees go down. |
Revised 2022-07-19