In Money Matters

There have been teachers who have told all the people to sell out, and many of them have gone into fanaticism. We let the Spirit lead people and tell them what they ought to give. When they get filled with the Spirit, their pocket books are converted and God makes them stewards and if He says, "Sell out," they will do so. But sometimes they have families. God does not tell you to forsake your family. He says if you do not provide for your own you are worse than an infidel. Some are not called to go out and teach. We find some who have no wisdom nor faith, and the devil takes them to disgrace the work. Under false teaching, children have been left to go half naked, women have left their husbands, and husbands leave their wives to wash and scrub, and the Bible says that is worse than infidelity. Then they will go and borrow and cannot pay back. That person ought to go to work. The Bible says, "Let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth."

He sent those that were called out to preach the Gospel, to "take no thought what ye shall eat or drink." Get down and pray. Make your wants known unto God and He will send it in.

God does not expect all to sell out for He says in 1 Cor. 16:1, "Now concerning the collection for the saints, * * * upon the first day of the week, let everyone of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him." It does not mean for you to have great real estate and money banked up while your brothers and sisters are suffering. He means for you to turn loose because all that money is soon going to be thrown to the moles and bats. So it is better to spread the Gospel and get stars in your crown than to be holding it. But for us to go and tell you to do it, pick out somebody that has money and read the Word to them, would not be the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit will tell you what to do. He makes you do it. When He wakes you up at night and tells you what to do you cannot sleep till you obey. He says everyone shall be taught of God from the least to the greatest. God wants a free giver.

Ananias wanted to have a reputation that he sold out like the rest, so he plotted that he should give a portion and say he had sold out for the Lord. But the Holy Ghost told Peter that Ananias had told a lie. Peter told him the property was his. The Lord allows you to be the steward over it. The property was his and the sin was in lying to the Holy Ghost. It is right for you to have property, but if the Lord says, take $200 or $500 or $1,000 and distribute here or there, you do it.

We must know our calling. We can work when baptized with the Holy Ghost. Some think they have got to preach. Well, we do preach in testifying. Some think they must go out because they have the tongues but those are good for Los Angeles or anywhere else. The Lord will lead you by His small voice.