Investing for Eternity Program No SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW, ED REID

Transcription

1 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 1 Investing for Eternity Program No SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW, ED REID JOHN BRADSHAW: Thanks for joining me today. There s one subject the Bible speaks about more than any other. What do you think it is? The Bible speaks about money about finances more than it does about any other single subject, which ought to suggest to us that the subject of finance and money management is important in the sight of God. Today I am in Eastern Tennessee, and my guest is Ed Reid, who has written a book about money management. Ed, thanks for joining me today. ED REID: It s a pleasure to be with you, John. JB: Let s start by asking you why you think there s not a lot of time left for planet Earth. Why are these are the last days? ER: Well, the Bible gives two ways for us to know. The first one is the great prophetic timeline, and we can see that time is running out. The other one is signs that Jesus gave us that we would see near the end, and they re in abundance today. JB: Such as? ER: Earthquakes, for example. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John talk about earthquakes in different places near the end as an indication of the end time. JB: Okay, now, devil s advocate, there have always been earthquakes. They had them back in Bible times. Why should we be concerned when another earthquake strikes today? ER: Five of the largest earthquakes ever to occur on the earth have happened in the last 50 years, over a 6,000-year history. JB: Jesus in Matthew 24 said these signs would be like birth pains, didn t He? ER: Yes. JB: Which indicates that they would become more frequent and more intense.

2 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 2 ER: Indeed. JB: Do you think we are seeing that? ER: I do, yes. JB: I believe that, and many people reading this today are totally convinced of that. The Bible talks a lot about money and finance clearly a very important subject, and very important to God. It s important to all of us. If we don t have it, life becomes a difficult proposition. How, then, should people of faith who are convinced that Jesus is returning sometime soon and I know that word soon is a relative word but how should people be approaching their finances, keeping in mind the end might be near? ER: Well, I think the first thing to do is to put God first in your life. I could give you a long recitation of things to do you know, budgeting, and all that. But the book of Proverbs, in the third chapter, talks about honoring the Lord with your possessions, and with the first part of all your increase, and your barns will be filled, and so on. Those are written to farmers, but they apply to us in the same way. And it says don t be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. We need to put God first. JB: Okay now, let me ask you a question. Right there in Proverbs 3, Honor the Lord with your substance. What does that mean? ER: Well, I use the New King James version, and it says your possessions, your stuff, we would say. Honor the Lord with your stuff. And this means, well, you mentioned that the Bible talks more about money than just about any other subject, and more than 2,000 verses talk about it. Somebody asked me, What is your favorite one? Well, it s not even a money one, but Genesis 1:1 says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So if God is the Creator, I m a creature. If he s the Creator He s the Owner, I m just a manager. So the way I manage God s money is a very, very important situation. I believe that we are saved by faith alone. The great Protestant tradition. But the fact is we re not saved by our money management, but we can manage away from God. Do you get what I m saying by that? We could move away in our management. JB: Certainly.

3 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 3 ER: Thinking in terms of selfishness and so on. In fact, one of the signs of the end is in 2 Timothy, the third chapter, where it says (2 Timothy 3:1, 2): But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money... That s an amazing one. Then the fifth chapter of James says that the rich will heap up treasures for the last days. It s all going to get burned up. That s the amazing thing. But the interesting thing is they are doing it. Let me give you an illustration of last-day stuff. JB: Sure. ER: If I am a professional person with advanced degrees, I could earn about $100,000 per year over my entire lifetime and this is amazing during 40 years of working, I will make $4 million. Recently, even during the economic downturn, some of the Wall Street bankers got bonuses of $40 million, which is 10 times more than a professional person will make in his or her entire lifetime of hard work. Now this is incredible. Do you understand? The rich are saving up for the last days. JB: Sure. ER: There could not be a better example of that, in my opinion. JB: So now, we are honoring the Lord with our substance, with our possessions, our stuff. ER: Yes. JB: Planning for the last days of Earth s history. Now, I don t expect that you are going to be an extremist on this. I don t think you re going to be a radical on this. How do we go about that? What should we be thinking? ER: People are asking, Is it time to get back into the market? Should we start investing again? And I tell people, If you have any debts at all, investing in your own debt is the best thing you can do. Guaranteed returns, best interest rate that you can get. It s better than the stock market, where you could lose it many people have, as you may know. And the amazing thing about it is that on average, $915 billion a month is not paid off on credit cards, and those amounts are carried over from month to month.

4 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 4 Those cards have a minimum 10% APR and probably many of those are up to 27%. So I would say, after putting God first in your life, which is managing from God s perspective and that would include tithe and so on then the very best thing you can do is get out of debt. JB: Okay. You mentioned credit card debt. What other debts are people carrying? ER: One example is automobiles. Almost everybody who is making time payments on a car actually owes more on it than it s worth. So I m suggesting, and I practice this myself, to drive your car at least 10 years so you get twice its value out of it. Take care of it. Manage it. Many new cars are sold on looks. You see someone on TV driving in the neighborhood, and somebody runs to the front porch to see their neighbor s new car. It doesn t tell you what kind of mileage it gets, how long it will last, or anything. The bottom line is: take care of your car and drive it a long time, then you re not upsidedown on the mortgage. JB: So you re suggesting how I might be ordering my priorities, but what if I really want that car? ER: You told me not to be radical, but I am going to be radical in one thing. In an ideal world, people would pay cash for their cars. If you pay cash, you are really going to think twice about do I really want to spend $30,000 of my money on this car? Do you see what I m saying? JB: Yeah. Whereas if you re putting down a down payment and paying it off over 10 years, it doesn t seem quite so painful, and the actual fact is it s way more payments. ER: Yes, it s actually 50% more by doing that over time. JB: Okay. We ve looked at a couple of things right now. One of them getting out of debt. Looking after yourself by paying down your debt and being free from debt. We talked about cars. I m sure we are going to talk about more things in a moment. Money management and stewardship as the approach of Jesus is near. Thanks for being with me today. I am joined today by Ed Reid, who has literally written the book on money management and on Bible prophecy. And today, we are looking at how a person should plan financially keeping in mind that Jesus return is near. JB: A moment ago, Ed, we were talking about how important it is that a person should want to get out of debt. We looked at what some of those debts might be. You mentioned clearing car payments. ER: And credit cards.

5 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 5 JB: What are some other areas that people typically carry debt on that they might perhaps even relatively easily clear those debts on and get out of debt? ER: Well, a lot of people don t think about this but I actually encourage people to prepay the principal on their home mortgage. Houses cost so much today, because there is credit available, so we almost always have to get a loan. Very few people have the cash to do it, so I encourage people to get an amortization schedule and prepay principle, like when you make a regular payment, make another payment s principal, if you can, each month if you can, and pay your house off in half the time. JB: Okay. Explain that a little more slowly. ER: If you have an amortization schedule, it has around five columns in it, and one of them is the number of the payments, like 1-360, and then it s how much the payment itself is, how much goes to the bank for interest, how much of that is principle, and what your balance is. Every time you make one regular payment, which you have to do every month, add next month s principal payment, which is a much smaller sum (for some people it will be something like $150). When you do that, you ve paid two payments in one, so you can pay it off in half the time. That s incredible. I ve done that two times in my life. JB: So you can pay it off in half the time without paying out twice as much money. ER: Oh yes. That s incredible. It s amazing, really. You save thousands, literally thousands. JB: Okay, right now someone is writing a note to themselves. They are trying to remember what you said. Let s make it easy for people. If someone wants to review this, that information you gave, how can they find that information quickly? ER: You can just look at an amortization schedule. You can find the amortization schedule for your loan online, for example, print it off, and then you can easily see what I ve just said. JB: Are banks happy when people choose to do this? ER: I don t think so. JB: But that s not really the point here, is it? ER: No. As long as there is no prepayment penalty, and most loans today don t have one, you can do that very easily.

6 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 6 JB: Talking about getting out of debt, because I don t think that it would be wise to be carrying a whole bunch of debt into troublesome times that are coming... ER: Yes. JB: How is a person supposed to get out of debt? If, say, they are wanting to buy a house, like you said, not everybody can go and pay cash for a house. You pretty well have to borrow money to buy a house. What is the right approach? ER: I would suggest a couple of things. One of them is to make sure you put 20% down so you don t have private mortgage insurance to pay. That is something that just guarantees your loan to the bank. It does not benefit you in any way. So have a 20% down payment minimum. In addition to that, every time you prepay a payment, it builds your own net worth. If the economy were to turn really bad, most people who don t prepay are upside-down on their mortgage, which means they owe more on it than it s worth. But if you have prepaid, that should not be a bother to you. So it s better to do that in my opinion. And I will just tell you that right now, today, aside from end-times, we are having 10,000 Americans retire every day of the week, starting this year, and this will last for 10 years in a row. This is the Baby Boomer generation. People know they are ready to retire when they have their debts paid off, including their home mortgage, when they have a reasonable income stream, and when they have health insurance. So, just to prepare for end-times would be the same thing, in my opinion. Try to be debt-free so that no matter what comes in the future, it does not adversely affect you. JB: Okay. Give me some more. What are the principles of money management? Why is financial planning stewardship? Should people be entertaining when they are thinking Jesus is coming back soon? Because I ve heard people say, The Lord is coming back and it doesn t matter. Let s rack up debt. Let s just go nuts, because the Lord is coming back and we don t have to worry about it. That s irresponsible. ER: I ve heard that as well. But I really believe that the Bible says in Psalm 37:21, The wicked borrows and does not repay. It is not a Christian perspective to rack up debts and walk off from them. In addition to that, before God s people are taken to Heaven, we are going to have a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, and the people that are in debt are going to have the worst time of it. Essentially, losing everything.

7 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 7 So I think we need to have a focus away from this Earth and toward our Kingdom. I would suggest very sincerely that the more we can, we should support ministries like It Is Written and others. All the stuff we have is going to get burned up someday. JB: It s true, isn t it? Now we have an opportunity to do something with our funds that one day we are simply not going to be able to use. ER: Yes. Think of all the money that was lost in the downturn in the economic markets from 2008 and If the money alone that people lost had been put into ministries, they would have been able to do so much good. We are talking millions, even billions of dollars, lost in the portfolios of many Americans. JB: Okay. Financial stewardship. Looking toward to the return of Jesus. Take us a step further with this. ER: Right now, we have very high unemployment. We need to be employed so that we can help support our families and do the work of God. So I would suggest do all you can to stay employed. In other words, be a diligent worker. And it s interesting. Proverbs 22:29 says, Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before unknown men. Be the best employee that you can be that s important. And if you don t have a job, I would suggest that you take any job that you can that does not violate your conscience. You would not want to be a go-go dancer or a bartender or something, but most any job would be of value to you if you didn t have a job. JB: It is important, isn t it, that people put themselves in a position and I say this kindly because I know some people are out of work and would do anything they could to change that. It s important to make yourself as employable as possible. ER: Oh yes. JB: What are some simple things somebody can do to enhance their employability? ER: Well, you can find out, for example, what kind of jobs are available. For example, healthcare in the economy right now. Go to a hospital parking lot and you can hardly find a place to park. Very few healthcare workers have lost their jobs. There is not very much unemployment in that area. Train yourself for some level of healthcare nursing, whatever it might be, lab tech, whatever. Those are things that are important. Computers are still important. Everybody gets their stuff on their cell phones and their computers and so on. Computer guys are staying busy and they are making good incomes. JB: Moving right along, what other advice can we give people who are thinking about the end of time and wondering what to do, how to manage their finances wisely?

8 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 8 ER: I would say, live within your means. Make a budget. This is kind of like going on a diet, and most people don t want to do that. Make a simple budget. Here s what my income is. Here s what my expenses are each month. Live within your means. Let me give you a simple illustration. Because of the bombardment of advertising today, most people think they need more stuff, but most of us can get along just fine with the stuff we already have. In fact, I ask people, How many of you think you have stuff you will never use as long as you live? And most people raise their hands. Have a yard sale. Sell off stuff. Put that money on your debts and so on. But if you don t think that you can live within your means or are too poor to save, visit a third-world country like Haiti or Central India, or some of those places, and you will realize that you are very rich. If you have a car, in any condition, you are in the top 5% of people in the whole world. So, let s just learn to live within our means, and that is going to be a very helpful thing near the end-time. You can t afford to get further in debt. JB: A simple idea. Live within your means. Yet, so many people find it very, very difficult to do that. We are talking today about how believers in Jesus should approach finances keeping in mind that Jesus is returning we believe soon! Now, the last thing we spoke about is the sort of thing we can talk about all day, how important it is for a person to live within their means ER: Yes. JB: If you have $10, don t spend $11. Which means that if I have an income of X and I want to buy an automobile that really belongs to someone who has an income of Y, or X times 3, I might want to scale back my expectations a little bit, right? ER: I think so. Yes. And let me also suggest that it is a good idea to have a little savings. Even if you have a smaller income than you would like, I would suggest saving something out of every paycheck. This is not for retirement. What I am talking about here is doing something for emergency s sake. JB: Now someone is sitting here watching our program. She is at home raising her kids, and dad has a job, it s not a high-paying job and she s saying This guy is saying save? I can t even get the groceries paid for each week. ER: I would budget savings just like groceries or utilities. It could be a small amount, like $50 every paycheck or something. But when you can build that up, many financial counselors suggest having at least a $1,000 for emergencies and try to have three to six months worth of living expenses in the bank. It s smart to have an emergency savings fund that you can draw upon should you have transmission

9 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 9 problems with your car, your refrigerator goes out, or you have a health emergency that your insurance doesn t cover. JB: This isn t for a trip to Disneyland? ER: No, and the real interesting thing I would tell you is, even eating out is kind of incredible. I would suggest that if you eat out once a day, it doubles your family s food budget for the month. So eating out should be a special occasion, you know, for a special thing, birthdays, anniversaries, that kind of thing. What s amazing is you go to any well-known restaurant and you have to wait to get in. Even though there is a downturn in the economy, people are still eating out. JB: I have wondered. I have marveled, as a matter of fact, many times, that the economy is apparently in such bad shape yet the restaurants are full. ER: Yes, isn t that incredible? JB: Yes. That s not something you have to do eat out. And that takes up money that could go into savings. ER: Lack of savings is the biggest reason people go in debt. They don t intend to go into debt, but something happens to their car, or something like that. They put it on a credit card, and then they pay for it two or three times over. JB: Now, what about investing? I know we ve gotta be careful here. We can t tell people what to invest in and what not to invest in... ER: Yes. JB: How should a person approach investing? ER: Well, this is a very good question because, obviously, wise and prudent people don t spend everything they make. As I said before, live within your income. But you should think in terms of the future when you can t work as gainfully as you used to, or should you lose your job or whatever. So I would suggest, first of all, invest in your own debts. That s the very best investment anyone can make. Guaranteed return. For example, if you have money in a CD, you might be getting 1% or 2%, but if you are paying off your credit cards, you re making 10% or 27%, so that s an investment that I would recommend. But another thing is, in these unusual times and by the way, your question is so good that I want to insert this BEWARE of get rich quick schemes. There are hucksters out there who want to get your money. So I would suggest that people always counsel with someone else before investing somewhere. This great thing comes along by the way, most get rich quick schemes

10 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 10 are introduced to people by their friends who sincerely believe they are doing their friends a favor. But you have to really look at it. Something you don t understand, you have to invest quickly, you know it s gonna promise high returns, all of that. And I m just going to tell you AVOID those at all cost, even if it means you are not friends with that person, because you are going to end up not being friends anyway. JB: Typically with investing, isn t it true, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is? ER: Oh yes, it almost always is. And the real interesting thing about investments, I would say, even though the government is trillions of dollars in debt, probably the safest investments are government-backed securities. Because the government has the unique ability to print money if they need to. So I would suggest, if you have to put money away that you re not investing in your debts, put it in a secure position. Because in the stock market, the higher the level of income offered, the greater risk it is. That s always true whether the people telling you believe it or not, whether you believe it or not, or whether it even seems possible. The higher the interest promised, the greater the risk. It s always true. JB: Now, if Jesus is coming back soon, if the end is near, and I don t say that as a doom merchant, I say that full of hope... ER: Aren t we all excited? JB: How important is it that a person really keeps an eye on the future? ER: Christian Bible believers have inside information. Now, in the investing world, that s not a good idea having inside info, as you know. But we have inside information, and it says in 2 Peter 3:10 that when the Lord returns, the earth will get burned up as well as all the works of men, which, as I tell people, will reduce its value considerably. All the stuff gets burned up. So I would say as a Christian, get rid of the stuff that you don t need. A lot of us have things we ve carried around for years that we really don t need. Divest yourself of the stuff you don t need. Sell it at yard sales. Now here s the real story. Christians are going to work together for the greatest event ever, and that s to work together to finish the work of God on this Earth. It is not going to be free. God is going to ask us to utilize stuff He has given us. Remember, honor the Lord with your possessions, your stuff, and that s the way we help Him do it, helping Him to finish the work of God. This Earth is not our final home. We have dual citizenship as Christians citizens here of whatever country we call home and citizenship in Heaven when we accept Christ.

11 It Is Written Script: 1229 Investing for Eternity Page 11 So we are moving from one to the other, and we want to move our assets from here to the new Earth so that we can be blessed and to bless others at the same time. JB: Let s go to the Bible, and a couple of verses that you believe are especially helpful, especially pertinent to people as they are wanting to honor the Lord with what they have, keeping in mind that the time is short. ER: Well, I would think of 1 John. That s a very interesting one. Chapter two. Don t love the world or the things in the world. If you do, the love of the Father is not in you, because all that is in the world, the lust of the eyes and so on, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And that s just giving this point. The world is passing away and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. So what that says to me is it s not going to pass away, it is in the process of passing away. With all of the natural disasters and things, the Bible says the world is waxing old like a garment. And we have to understand. I believe in ecology. I believe in separating my trash and all that kind of stuff. But we are not going to save the planet. The Bible is clear that it is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever. So I would say that as you read through the Scripture, look for the will of God, put that part in your life. JB: How about if we pray together, because a lot of people are taking on board what you have said today, and they are saying, Lord, some things have got to change around here. I ve got to get it right now. And it s not going to happen unless people are praying their way through this. Let s pray together, shall we? ER: Okay. PRAYER JB: Our Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus that you are willing to guide us in some of the most practical and important areas of our lives. There are few things more practical than our daily finances. We are all confronted with the importance of them and are sometimes confounded by them. As we have talked today, Ed and I, I pray that you would guide us all as we seek to honor you with our stuff, and our possessions and our finances, as we seek to plan prudently with the return of Jesus so imminent. I pray your Holy Spirit will guide us and keep us. Let your will be done. Please be first in our lives and let us face the future with confidence, confidence that comes from knowing we are honoring you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen. ER: Amen.

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