The DEVOURER. Ps. Antony Njoroge 31 August 2014 The Four Horsemen of Financial Ruin Sermon Notes HORSEMAN 4:DEVOURER

Transcription

1 The DEVOURER Ps. Antony Njoroge 31 August 2014 The Four Horsemen of Financial Ruin Sermon Notes HORSEMAN 4:DEVOURER If you are joining us for the first time today we are going through a sermon series titled the 4 Horsemen of Financial Ruin. What are the four big mistakes, four trends of money management that would destroy us and ensure that we never live the abundant life that God promised us? According to Luke 16:11 God is greatly interested in how we handle money such that if we are not prudent with handling money then we don t jeopardize our chances of enjoying the true riches of abundant life...a critical part of being prudent is guarding the financial resources God has given us against the elements of financial ruin. We chose to call these elements the four horsemen of financial ruin, drawn from the prophetic four horsemen of apocalyptic ruin in the book of Revelation 6. We started with the first horseman called the Hustler. We said that the goal of the hustler is to ensure that you waste your most productive years by living your life without a vision and a plan. To defeat the hustler you need to realize that Financial Wealth does not begin by how much you make, it begins in the mind. Develop a clear financial vision, set a timeline and exercise discipline. We thereafter looked at the second horseman called the Enslaver (also known as Debt). We saw that his goal is to make you borrow from the future to pay for the present. He wants to ensure that you are enslaved and that you spend yourself paying debts for the rest of your life because the borrower is a servant to the lender. To defeat this horseman, we need to purpose to control our spending. Live like no one else today to live like no one else tomorrow! Last week we talked about the Desolater, who comes to destroy our financial resources by using emergencies that leave us devastated and in debt, he also comes in the form of unbelievable opportunities to create wealth only to sock up all your money and leave you high and dry. We said that the best way to beat the desolater is by imitating the ants by developing the discipline of building an emergency fund and exercising wisdom in investments. Don t sacrifice your Ultimate financial destiny at the altar of the immediate desires. QOD: Of all the childhood stories, which scared you the most? For me when I was a kid, my mum would tell me and my siblings to always wash our hands and to wipe our lips and wash around our mouth before we went to bed. And the reason was because; if you didn t then the rats would come and nibble at your fingertips because, there were the remains of stew and posho on the fingers, and so she would tell us to wash up. I am telling you the prospects of waking up in the morning and finding my fingertips and my toes are gone was most scary. This rat story reminds me of some other scary prospect in the bible.the prospects of the 4 th Horseman called the Devourer. The devourer is like a rat, he nibbles away at your wealth, he nibbles at your flour and you have to throw it away because the rats have been at it. And you don t know whether it contains disease, so you throw it away, he nibbles at your fruit. And then he nibbles at the cables in your fridge and he short circuits them, and your biscuits. He brings disease on things, nibbles, nibbles, nibbles until there is nothing left. Now. I think there are actually 3 times in

2 the bible where the devourer is mentioned. One is Malachi, but there are two other instances in Haggai and in Deuteronomy, however let us start by briefly looking into the Malachi 3: "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed you?' In tithes and offerings. (NKJV) 9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. (NKJV) 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the LORD of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. (NKJV) 11 "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," Says the LORD of hosts; (NKJV) 12 "And all nations will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land," Says the LORD of Hosts If this passage had been written in modern English, because many of us are not farmers, so when he talks about vines dropping, their fruit. If it was in modern English it would say something like this.. test me and see, if I will not open the floodgates of heaven for you. And pour down upon you an overflowing blessing, and I will rebuke the devourer for you so that he cannot destroy your business profits, and I will protect your investments and your salary, so that they will not fail to bear says the Lord. Then all the peoples around you will be amazed and call you blessed for your wealth will be a wonder to behold say the Lord. Why does the devourer Strike? You see God was saying if you steal my tithe. I will unleash the devourer upon you, so instead of upgrading your financial position you will lose it and in the end you will have less than you thought you d have. How does the devourer do that, he s like a rat. He nibbles away at your car, and you are forever taking it to the garage. He nibbles away at your business and your workers are robbing you, he nibbles at your farm and your potato crops get potato blight and your harvest is lost. He nibbles away at your home and robbers steal everything. Your car is written off, your computer is stolen, your creditors are hiding, the banks are calling, your kids keep going to the doctor, your electricity has been cut off and left, right and center you keep bleeding money and yet everyone else around you is doing quite fine. The devourer has been unleashed on you. Now it s actually quite easy to know the modus operandi of the devourer. Whenever these things start happening to me, I am always in the hospital, the kids are getting sick, one after the other, and the car keeps breaking down. You fix the wheels, then the engine knocks, then it s something else, and you are constantly there. I ask myself the question, have I stolen the lord s tithe or did I make a promise or vow that I did not keep and the devourer has been unleashed on me. A careful observation of the other two texts will reveal that it is the same devourer principle at work in Haggai 1:1-11 God reprimands the Israelites for neglecting to invest their resources in supporting the building of the temple, and because of that God says He has allowed a drought to devour their resources. In Deuteronomy 28:15-44 the same devourer principle is at work and God declares that failure to obey his commands would attract a wasting curse that wastes the disobedient in the same fashion that the devourer would. In all the three texts there is a common thread; obedience vs. disobedience. Both the texts in the book of Haggai and Malachi point to a certain aspect of disobedience, the failure to support God s work embodied by the temple. Malachi is very specific about the failure, it was the failure on the side of God s people to support the temple/ work of God by paying their tithes (10 %) of their income

3 The Blessings of obedience are very clear Lord will open up the heavens where he stores his riches. He would bless everything. Who wouldn t want that? But listen to what happens when the devourer is unleashed upon you. (Read Deuteronomy 28:15-44). Curses for Disobedience 15 However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.[a] 21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. 28 The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. 29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. 33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. 34 The sights you see will drive you mad. 35 The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.36 The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. 37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. 41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. 42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail. Doesn t that sound like the devourer? It s important to say this, not every trial that comes your way is the devourer. 1)God sometimes sends trials our way because he s trying to teach us something and trials refine us, they grow us.so God will send trials your way and it s not the devourer 2) some of the trials that come our way are the attacks of the evil one Satan, you have an

4 enemy and he will attack you. It may not be the devourer, it maybe God trying to teach you or it could be Satan attacking you. The bible says when Satan attacks you, resist the evil and he will flee from you. You never run away from the devil you resist him. You engage in spiritual warfare you command over him, in the name of Christ and you resist him and he will flee from you. But when God sends a trial, God is trying to humble you and to get you to listen so that he can grow you. So that you can become humble under the hand of God. You listen and you grow. Not every trial is the devourer but it could well be that the trials you see coming your way are in fact the devourer, when I see what I think could be the devourer. The 1st question I ask is, have I been faithful to the Lord, and in my vows and commitments? and the 2nd question if it s not that and I have been faithful. Is this the attack of the evil one so that I engage warfare or is it God teaching me so that I have to humble myself and learn? It s actually not difficult to answer the above questions. If you ve been stealing Gods tithe right now the Holy Spirit is convicting you and you know and you don t need me to tell you. Your feeling very uncomfortable just about now and convicted about these things I have shared with you. Maybe you have been fighting the devourer and you now know what has been going on or maybe he is on his way to your house. But here is the irony as we talk about the devourer and talk about tithing. God calls you to be faithful in tithing but he doesn t actually need your money. Isn t that amazing? He calls us to be faithful but he doesn t need our money. Why is this? It s because God is not poor. He doesn t call us to tithe because he s desperate for money. He calls us to tithe for our own good. I want to give you several reasons why we tithe. Here are ten reasons why he calls you to be faithful to tithe. 1) Tithing is an Act of Worship. A tithe: a way of showing God how grateful we are for his forgiveness, his love and his mercy. It s a way of saying thank you Lord for what you ve done for me. This tithe is my show of gratitude, because you have been so good to me, you ve given me eternal life, you have saved me, you have forgiven me from my sin, this tithe is my way of saying thank you Lord The bible tells us a story in 1 Samuel 24:23 and its of David who had seen the mercy of God and He decided to offer a sacrifice to God. He goes out into the country and sees a field that would be the perfect place to sacrifice to God. So the principle is the, ouch principle of tithing, give until it hurts and you say, ouch!! Because tithing is not about giving the left overs, it is about giving the 1st fruits. And if you are faithful to tithe, you will feel the pain coz you know what you could have done with that money, but it is your way of showing your gratitude. 2) It is a sign of How Much We Love God. You give according to the measure of your love for God. He who is forgiven much, the bible says love much. So you give according to the measure of your love for God. Do you love God enough, to forsake that handbag, that dress, that smart phone, that car, which you were going to buy so that you can give to the Lord? Denying yourself so that you can express your love. In this sense then, you remember when Jesus went to the temple and saw the woman with two mites, then a rich guy comes and gives a lot of money. Behold, today that woman that widow gave more to the kingdom because she gave out of her need. He gave out of his abundance and this woman has given more. Even when we say 10% to somebody who earns 20k its very expensive and God rejoices over their faithfulness, 10% to someone pocketing 30m a month is also a lot of money. Let your giving be a sign of how much you love him and it is not just about the 10% it is about abundant generosity because God has done so much for you 3) It is a sign that we trust God more than we trust money. Truth be told many of us think all I need to accomplish my dreams and goals and everything I want in this life is just money. I can do it with money. I don t really need God. Between being given 3B and being given God, give me the 3B. The world says money makes the world go

5 round. Money is key, money brings you happiness. Money is worth dying for. But when you give you declare to the world, God makes the world go round. God is king, God brings you happiness and only God is worth dying for and so tithing is a sign that we trust God more than we trust money. 4) Tithing shows who our real master is: You see, you don t tithe because you have enough and you ve accomplished all you need to do and this is left over money. You tithe in spite of your needs being met. You tithe in spite of the fact that you have, something very urgent you could do with this money. You tithe in spite of the fact that you haven t accomplished all that you needed to and in doing so you say to God. I have only one master.matthew 6:24..You can t serve God and money and so tithing is my way of showing who my master is. That it s God even in spite of my need. 5) It s an antidote to our greed or against our love for money. Tithing checks our greed because left to ourselves we quickly become greedy until God says give. Tithing unlocks the spirit of generosity and as a result we begin to give in generous measure and give to the poor around you and give to my work. Greed makes us want to hold onto but tithing breaks that. Tithing is an antidote against our greed. 6) It is how God invites us to participate in his eternal work. You see God is in the business of redeeming the world with acts of mercy, kindness, gospel, and mission and preaching, church planting, missionary work. God doesn t need your money and my money to get his mission done but he invites us to join him in the work of mission. What a privilege it is. This church gives very generously and for this I bless each of you who have been faithful in giving your tithe and for you I pray the blessings of Deut 28:1-14. But I don t think that even with the generous giving of this church that we have fulfilled the full capacity of giving that God has given us as a people here. On average you give about 28M a month but I think that we are still short by another 15M a month if all of us were to tithe faithfully, regularly. Right now we have plans to start a Campus service, a Teens service and plant Mavuno Entebbe but also to secure a home for Mavuno Kampala.But we can t plant the churches... Why? If all of us were faithful to give generously to the lord I think we would be able to do it without batting an eyelid. We would be able to purchase spaces in Kampala without having special collection, special giving, pleading because we would be able to accomplish the full measure of what God has called us to because the full tithing is coming in. The secret to getting that is that all of us give our tithe. We then don t have to push, plead, cox, if we are all faithful but with a shortfall we can t accomplish the things God had called us to participate in his mission 7) It shows a real character. We have an experience called Man enough and in one the gatherings they were seeking to define biblical manhood. The leader said these words that I think are spot on. If you want to see the real character of a man watch him when he has no money or when he has lots of money. When he doesn t have the money the demon in him comes out. When he has a lot of money the pride and arrogance comes out. So if you want to know the character of man give him a lot of money or take all his money away then you will see what he is like on the inside. Tithing shows our real character because it shows the true state of our heart. We will hate it when we elect public officials, put people in positions of power and they steal our taxes and our public money from the national coffers. They are thieves and we really dislike it. But may I suggest to you, that if you are stealing Gods tithe, then may God help us as Ugandans. That you never go into public office because, it is easier to steal the money of man than to steal the money for God. 8) Because it says God I am trustworthy. I have been faithful with little so you can trust me with much Luke 16: So if you are being dishonest with the little 10%, even when you are young and poor. How will God entrust

6 you with wealth, if you are stealing the 10%. And if you are faithful when you have little then God can trust you with more, Why would God bless you with wealth of your own when you are already stealing from him? 9) Because God has commanded us to give. You know tithing is not only an act of worship, it is also an acts of obedience. To withhold your tithe is disobedience. You know sometimes we get clever with God, we take all for this month, but next month I will give you more than double. I will give you for this month and next month and will add nyogesa on top but let me tell you something. God doesn t want your deal with him, God is very happy. God doesn t need your deal. God wants your obedience, to negotiate a deal with God and to try and throw in extra so that you can mesmerize him doesn t work. Sometimes we say I don t agree with my church and what s its doing. I d rather they fed the poor rather than planting churches in Kampala. God has called for your obedience. You can come and sit down and we talk about church planting in Entebbe.. as opposed to giving to the poor but he has called you to obedience. God I don t like my church leaders so I do a protest vote with my tithe, you are not tithing to your pastor you are tithing to God. Here is one that would occasionally hear. You know God, me I don t trust pastors and churches especially here in Uganda, because they milk people and use the money on themselves. In this church our accounts are audited and we invite you to interrogate those accounts. And every 3 yrs. we have forensic audits of our accounting systems. May God help us to understand that as He calls us to be faithful in our tithe it is because: My tithe is a statement; In God I Trust. Our take out for today is a simple one. We are approaching end month. Plan to obey God in this instruction, I want each one of us to plan and commit to pay your tithe. God says to us in His word Test Me in this. I challenge you to test Him and see what happens. Test Him and kick out the Devourer from your life before he destroys you. Prayer 1. Repentance for robbing God 2. Salvation