Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 200 - How to Break the Bondage of Materialism

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Ep. 200 - How to Break the Bondage of Materialism · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:06
  Emeal Zwane: My brother was very kind and generous.
• 1:07
  Emeal Zwane: He gave me this almost brand new Isuzu rodeo back in that time.
• 1:13
  Ray Comfort: I don't know?
• 1:14
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, I remember those.
• 1:15
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, it was a cool little car.
• 1:17
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, back then I think he paid like 22 grand for it, which back in 91 was a lot of money.
• 1:20
  Emeal Zwane: This thing was nice, it was black, it had license plate said after dark, afdr dark.
• 1:24
  Emeal Zwane: I coveted that because I was a covetous individual, yeah, you remember that.
• 1:27
  Emeal Zwane: So, anyway, one day I was in the gas station.
• 1:30
  Emeal Zwane: Some guy came to you know pump gas, he gets out of his Jalopy of a Truck or whatever it was.
• 1:36
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, this thing was just absolutely horrendous.
• 1:39
  Emeal Zwane: And he starts walking in toward the station and he left it and drive Goop and I'm standing there watching this thing going straight toward my Nearly brand new isuzu rodeo that I really, really, you know, enjoyed, and it just crashed right into it.
• 1:57
  Emeal Zwane: Ray comfort, you've always lived in your current home since the day I helped you move into it, which, believe it or not, was about 28 years ago.
• 2:11
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, you're right.
• 2:12
  Emeal Zwane: How strange to talk in numbers like that rate.
• 2:15
  Emeal Zwane: Tell me, how adamant are you about never moving out of your house?
• 2:20
  Ray Comfort: I don't want to move.
• 2:20
  Ray Comfort: We've got a chicken coop.
• 2:22
  Ray Comfort: Who want to move?
• 2:23
  Emeal Zwane: Chicken coop, which is my next question.
• 2:25
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, what if they outlawed the ownership of chickens on your property?
• 2:30
  Emeal Zwane: I'd move out of the country.
• 2:31
  Emeal Zwane: Would you move right?
• 2:33
  Emeal Zwane: Oh yes, oh yeah what if?
• 2:35
  Emeal Zwane: They outlawed the owning of dogs.
• 2:38
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I'd move too.
• 2:39
  Ray Comfort: I love my dog, I'm my chickens, love my wife.
• 2:41
  Ray Comfort: Net order.
• 2:42
  Emeal Zwane: What if they outlawed having an Arab son-in-law?
• 2:45
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, but my net at all.
• 2:46
  Ray Comfort: I'm pushing for it.
• 2:50
  Emeal Zwane: You would definitely stay.
• 2:51
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, ray, your house is it?
• 2:55
  Emeal Zwane: It's a very interesting place.
• 2:56
  Emeal Zwane: You remember that day I helped you move right.
• 2:58
  Oscar Navarro: It feels like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
• 3:00
  Oscar Navarro: It's all sorts of gadgets and gizmos everywhere.
• 3:04
  Emeal Zwane: Ray, seriously, what, what, what is it with you and and Stuff like that, I mean I I say talking about, I'm a normal human being, everybody else is weird.
• 3:16
  Emeal Zwane: I cannot believe how many holes you have in the walls of your well that really all in the beds.
• 3:22
  Ray Comfort: That that just shows the holes in the bed.
• 3:24
  Ray Comfort: I've got a real and my friendships.
• 3:29
  Ray Comfort: I've got a real tolerant wife.
• 3:32
  Emeal Zwane: Boy I wanted.
• 3:33
  Ray Comfort: I wanted to put a hose from our kitchen throughout so the birds could drink Water outside, or something like that.
• 3:38
  Ray Comfort: So I just drilled a hole through the wall out the other side.
• 3:40
  Ray Comfort: She didn't worry.
• 3:41
  Ray Comfort: I cannot believe you, and it's because our treasure is in heaven.
• 3:44
  Ray Comfort: All this is just junk.
• 3:45
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, it's gonna be a burn.
• 3:47
  Oscar Navarro: Daniel comfort said that you were like this when he was growing up.
• 3:49
  Oscar Navarro: He said at one point when you sat down on the couch there was like a string and if you pull on the string the TV would turn on.
• 3:55
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:56
  Ray Comfort: Well, that's before the times of remotes.
• 3:57
  Ray Comfort: We take remote control site.
• 3:59
  Ray Comfort: It wasn't string, it was fishing tackle and I could turn the volume up and down and change the channels from about 20 feet away.
• 4:09
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I was that.
• 4:10
  Emeal Zwane: I was the human remote control in my house for everybody, so I was a young, as they'd make me stand at the TV and just do that.
• 4:17
  Emeal Zwane: That's why you have kids.
• 4:18
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, ray, you had that.
• 4:20
  Emeal Zwane: And then you had you had your bird Avery, which was basically you built a cage around your window and that's why you had the thing, the going the hose going from the sink to the.
• 4:32
  Emeal Zwane: So you just turned it and you and had to you have to carry water.
• 4:36
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, and then you had the race.
• 4:37
  Oscar Navarro: Is no problem with this, by the way?
• 4:39
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, he's like yeah.
• 4:42
  Emeal Zwane: And then you had.
• 4:43
  Emeal Zwane: You used to have the counter balances on your door.
• 4:46
  Emeal Zwane: I mean used to.
• 4:47
  Emeal Zwane: You still have those.
• 4:48
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, of course you open the door instead of getting like one of those door closer.
• 4:52
  Emeal Zwane: And just he put these awaits.
• 4:54
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, so the doors close automatically when you go through them.
• 4:57
  Ray Comfort: Stop the mosquitoes getting.
• 4:58
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, and then what's?
• 4:59
  Emeal Zwane: what that?
• 4:59
  Emeal Zwane: What's what?
• 5:00
  Emeal Zwane: Those like Plastic streamer things that make me feel like I'm walking into it?
• 5:04
  Ray Comfort: That's to stop mosquitoes getting in, because I've you don't realize this got super quality blood.
• 5:09
  Ray Comfort: The mosquitoes Recognize, they love it, and so they'll dive after me yelling woohoo, my only surprise, whenever I go to race houses, that I don't run into an oompa-loompa.
• 5:21
  Oscar Navarro: What?
• 5:22
  Ray Comfort: Loompa-loompa.
• 5:23
  Ray Comfort: I don't know what I'm blue for is yeah, an oomper-loomper.
• 5:26
  Oscar Navarro: No, charlie and the chocolate factory.
• 5:28
  Emeal Zwane: Okay, it was before my day and then the hole in your bed and Look when I'm dead, you look back and say that guy was a genius.
• 5:37
  Ray Comfort: Everybody's adopted the hole in the bed and Kyra practice are out of what's right?
• 5:41
  Emeal Zwane: The writing on your shower wall, that's normal.
• 5:46
  Ray Comfort: Everybody should do that.
• 5:47
  Oscar Navarro: That's when you get ideas with his dog.
• 5:49
  Emeal Zwane: We found out last time with the head showering with the dog in the shower.
• 5:52
  Emeal Zwane: What else right you?
• 5:54
  Emeal Zwane: What else do you?
• 5:54
  Emeal Zwane: Have your prayer, your prayer list, taped to the ceiling of I used to have that yeah.
• 5:59
  Emeal Zwane: I didn't hear about that one.
• 6:03
  Ray Comfort: And a prayer list tape to ceiling.
• 6:05
  Ray Comfort: Now you're starting to make me sound weird.
• 6:07
  Ray Comfort: I Wanted gospel of John wallpaper too, but no one picked me up on that.
• 6:13
  Ray Comfort: I'm having your whole house.
• 6:14
  Ray Comfort: The gospel of John wallpaper so you can read scripture all the time.
• 6:17
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, that's the height of fanaticism you are, you are seriously intelligent.
• 6:22
  Ray Comfort: You're a Nick.
• 6:23
  Emeal Zwane: Naked man.
• 6:24
  Emeal Zwane: I've never met anyone like you in my life.
• 6:26
  Emeal Zwane: I were not even.
• 6:27
  Emeal Zwane: This isn't even the tip of the iceberg of the stuff you've done over the years.
• 6:30
  Emeal Zwane: My poor wife, hmm, growing up with him painting that, painting the, the pool black.
• 6:36
  Ray Comfort: Well, that's intelligent.
• 6:37
  Ray Comfort: It makes the water heater what?
• 6:41
  Emeal Zwane: What happened?
• 6:42
  Ray Comfort: alright, Well, it's some two.
• 6:46
  Ray Comfort: Two things happen.
• 6:47
  Ray Comfort: I did it with black plastic.
• 6:48
  Ray Comfort: Firstly, I didn't want to paint it because I didn't want to put paint in the pool.
• 6:52
  Ray Comfort: But what happens?
• 6:53
  Ray Comfort: The plastic kept floating to the top.
• 6:55
  Ray Comfort: Set up a bricks and all the plastic down to heat the water up, and that didn't work.
• 6:58
  Ray Comfort: So I painted it black, and then Paint pieces started coming up and so and I also had a black hose Circling up and down the roof so the water would heat up on the roof.
• 7:08
  Ray Comfort: This is before they had solar panels to heat the water up.
• 7:12
  Ray Comfort: So we come down to the swim.
• 7:13
  Ray Comfort: It's only just little swimming pool.
• 7:14
  Ray Comfort: What?
• 7:14
  Emeal Zwane: is the killer ones right, you know, you know how, when you get your driver's license, they give you the option to donate like your organs.
• 7:21
  Ray Comfort: Mm-hmm, I don't play one.
• 7:22
  Emeal Zwane: Do you put one on?
• 7:23
  Ray Comfort: I didn't play an organ.
• 7:27
  Emeal Zwane: See, ray, you need to donate your brain to scientific research.
• 7:30
  Ray Comfort: I thought they wouldn't know what to do with that.
• 7:32
  Ray Comfort: They just need a small jar.
• 7:33
  Ray Comfort: I think it's disgusting.
• 7:34
  Ray Comfort: I've got Einstein's brain in a jar.
• 7:36
  Ray Comfort: It was horrible.
• 7:37
  Ray Comfort: Is it really yeah?
• 7:38
  Emeal Zwane: it's just disgusting.
• 7:39
  Emeal Zwane: I'm sure, though, your brain looks different somehow.
• 7:41
  Emeal Zwane: It'd be nice a little pink, fresh color, because it definitely functions differently.
• 7:46
  Emeal Zwane: Anyway, I imagine it with a beard.
• 7:48
  Emeal Zwane: I Was good, I was good.
• 7:54
  Emeal Zwane: If you imagine it seriously, pull it out.
• 7:56
  Oscar Navarro: It's kind of it's got his beard and it's very short.
• 8:00
  Emeal Zwane: It's like two inches.
• 8:00
  Emeal Zwane: All right, friends.
• 8:02
  Emeal Zwane: Enough of that, guys.
• 8:03
  Emeal Zwane: This is a very, very special episode, and you guys don't know why, but I do.
• 8:07
  Emeal Zwane: It shows that you don't pay attention.
• 8:09
  Emeal Zwane: You're not clued into these things, you're not very intelligent, I figured it out.
• 8:11
  Emeal Zwane: This is because you looked at my screen.
• 8:12
  Oscar Navarro: No, I didn't, this is the 200 that's living waters.
• 8:18
  Emeal Zwane: Podcast episode.
• 8:20
  Ray Comfort: Did you look up Einstein's brain spins?
• 8:22
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, just leave your computer alone.
• 8:24
  Emeal Zwane: This is a time to talk about Einstein.
• 8:25
  Emeal Zwane: I just said this is our 200th episode.
• 8:27
  Ray Comfort: I know he's going to pull up Einstein's brain on the computer.
• 8:32
  Emeal Zwane: Guys 200 that's wild 200.
• 8:35
  Ray Comfort: that is incredible, I'm sure what is he who would have believed that we'd last for 200 episodes.
• 8:39
  Emeal Zwane: Seriously, what a what an amazing journey, friends, and thank you all so much again.
• 8:43
  Emeal Zwane: We don't thank you enough for for listening.
• 8:46
  Ray Comfort: Yes, we do support.
• 8:49
  Emeal Zwane: We need to do every two minutes, right?
• 8:50
  Emeal Zwane: That's enough.
• 8:51
  Emeal Zwane: I like it, it is it is very humbling.
• 8:53
  Oscar Navarro: We are, I would say, like a reflection that I've had over 200 episodes is one I love to hear from you guys and learn from you guys.
• 9:00
  Oscar Navarro: For those who don't know, we we don't do any planning or prep work together, other than we get a title and then on our own we prepare and Everything's organic.
• 9:10
  Oscar Navarro: We come to no one's like, okay, you cover this and you cover that.
• 9:13
  Oscar Navarro: That's probably pretty obvious if you listen to it.
• 9:15
  Oscar Navarro: But the second thing is is it's been really cool.
• 9:19
  Oscar Navarro: I know easy you and I have talked about this.
• 9:20
  Oscar Navarro: It's been really cool To see the relationship grow between us and our listeners.
• 9:26
  Oscar Navarro: I love it like we reflect on, like for the TV show and for YouTube and even for speaking engagements.
• 9:32
  Oscar Navarro: There's not enough time to really like get to know somebody.
• 9:36
  Oscar Navarro: And it's so fun because when we, when we travel now and we meet Somebody that here's the podcast like they share our inside jokes with us.
• 9:43
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah you know, and they, they know they'll poke fun of you know, poke fun of one another for something weird that we do and it's just, it's so fun.
• 9:51
  Oscar Navarro: It feels it's weird to say this but it feels very personal, yeah, to have listeners Tune in so often and spend time with us.
• 10:01
  Ray Comfort: I made a call this morning.
• 10:02
  Ray Comfort: A mum said a 16 year old boy had it was his birthday when I call him thing because he listened to the podcast.
• 10:07
  Ray Comfort: I think of him and his family have listened 180 times and he did one of those things.
• 10:11
  Ray Comfort: He did a ray comfort accent and Easy asked how it was and I said it was absolutely terrible, but a thousand times better than what you do.
• 10:20
  Emeal Zwane: Well, I talked to Jeremy this morning as well.
• 10:22
  Emeal Zwane: It's Jeremy 16th birthday and we want to give him a shout out.
• 10:26
  Emeal Zwane: Jeremy was such a joy to talk to you this morning and thank you for listening and his mom, tammy, and you know his dad's serving in the military, so it meant a lot and Ken Hammon I asked him gave free tickets to the family because they live in Kentucky together.
• 10:39
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, what are you wanting for Oscar?
• 10:40
  Ray Comfort: They the arc, the arc of the covenant.
• 10:47
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, yeah, anyhow, thanks again, Jeremy.
• 10:50
  Emeal Zwane: God bless you and and use this 16th year of life to glorify the Lord all the more.
• 10:55
  Emeal Zwane: All right, friends.
• 10:56
  Emeal Zwane: This comment is a friend friends.
• 11:01
  Emeal Zwane: This is from ash pretty 03, my favorite podcast of all time Hello Living Waters podcast.
• 11:08
  Emeal Zwane: My name is Ashley and I'm 20 years old.
• 11:10
  Emeal Zwane: I just wanted to tell you how grateful I am for this ministry and the podcast, especially when I first became a believer around 2021, I did not have a godly community due to the college I was going to.
• 11:20
  Emeal Zwane: I would listen to the podcast every day and almost every episode.
• 11:24
  Emeal Zwane: You guys equip and give biblical viewpoints on many interesting topics that have helped me with my faith.
• 11:29
  Emeal Zwane: My favorite podcast has to be Christian contentment, because I struggle with being content due to the circumstances of my life.
• 11:37
  Emeal Zwane: I pray that the Lord continues to use you guys to advance the kingdom and do the Lord's work.
• 11:41
  Emeal Zwane: I thank God for a comfort, for creating this blessed ministry, because it has had an impact on a lot of my close friends.
• 11:47
  Emeal Zwane: You guys will be easy.
• 11:49
  Emeal Zwane: You guys are all like my father's Oscar, like my great-grandfather in a way, and I'm thankful for you, for the four of you.
• 11:58
  Emeal Zwane: Thank you, ps.
• 12:00
  Emeal Zwane: Easy makes me laugh every episode and seems like such a cool friend to have.
• 12:08
  Ray Comfort: I can only call you put it a book just called compliments about me.
• 12:12
  Emeal Zwane: Blessing.
• 12:12
  Emeal Zwane: Ashley knows what's up.
• 12:14
  Emeal Zwane: Thank you, ashley.
• 12:16
  Emeal Zwane: That really made our day and what we're made you was Double made my day.
• 12:21
  Emeal Zwane: All right, friends, this episode is about to you by a treasure chest.
• 12:25
  Emeal Zwane: We just call it treasure chest, but it is the wooden treasure chest with 310 commandment coins, guys, a gospel message on a coin.
• 12:35
  Emeal Zwane: Only Ray comfort Could do something like that.
• 12:38
  Emeal Zwane: It's got the 10 commandments on one side and a brief gospel message on the other 300 of them and this really cool wooden chest.
• 12:46
  Oscar Navarro: By the way, I have a I have a what sort of word on or a theory.
• 12:51
  Oscar Navarro: I want to test something here.
• 12:52
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, but so I'm a I didn't plan this but for that.
• 12:56
  Oscar Navarro: So this is the 200th episode.
• 12:57
  Oscar Navarro: So the next comment that comes up after the 200th episode is posted that mentions either Mark or Oscar or Ray and not easy, I will send them a free mug, or all three of us, and there is no mention of easy.
• 13:14
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah the problem is, I won't read that one.
• 13:18
  Ray Comfort: Is he that that treasure chest they're talking about?
• 13:20
  Ray Comfort: It's one of my favorite products.
• 13:21
  Ray Comfort: Every time I pick one up it's so cool, it's such a quality wooden chest and you open it up on all these 300 coins sitting there waiting to be given out.
• 13:29
  Emeal Zwane: It's yeah, you could put it by your door you know yeah.
• 13:31
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, all right friends.
• 13:33
  Emeal Zwane: And don't forget the living waters Mug, and they have it in study Bible.
• 13:37
  Emeal Zwane: All living waters Dot com.
• 13:40
  Emeal Zwane: Oh, that was fancy.
• 13:42
  Emeal Zwane: All right friends.
• 13:44
  Emeal Zwane: Today we are talking about I don't even know what we're talking about.
• 13:48
  Emeal Zwane: How to break the bondage of material, material, material, material.
• 13:58
  Emeal Zwane: Are you material girl?
• 14:01
  Emeal Zwane: Right, was that, was that Madonna?
• 14:04
  Ray Comfort: Yeah yeah, because I'm living.
• 14:09
  Oscar Navarro: And I am a material girl.
• 14:11
  Oscar Navarro: I think she's just sick of it.
• 14:12
  Oscar Navarro: I'm not sure who is it?
• 14:13
  Oscar Navarro: That's fair.
• 14:15
  Mark Spence: The first concert ever went to before I was a Christian 1984 was Madonna, was it?
• 14:19
  Mark Spence: Yeah, the man and the Beastie Boys opened up, really yeah boy.
• 14:24
  Emeal Zwane: I can't believe Madonna is seriously still going.
• 14:27
  Emeal Zwane: She's in the 60s, isn't she?
• 14:28
  Emeal Zwane: I think she's 80s, close to 70, 70.
• 14:31
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah really.
• 14:31
  Emeal Zwane: Well she's still wearing those silly, stupid outfits.
• 14:34
  Emeal Zwane: And boy she, really.
• 14:36
  Emeal Zwane: She's a.
• 14:37
  Emeal Zwane: She's a God mocker, isn't she?
• 14:39
  Ray Comfort: Yes, we'll look at her name.
• 14:40
  Emeal Zwane: Cabala Donna.
• 14:42
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, so the way her costume designer is a big fan of the podcast.
• 14:45
  Oscar Navarro: What?
• 14:51
  Emeal Zwane: Very nice, very good.
• 14:52
  Emeal Zwane: That was funny, oscar, alright, friends.
• 14:58
  Emeal Zwane: So yeah guys, materialism, you guys are very, you guys are probably the most material.
• 15:09
  Ray Comfort: Second Lamborghini that convinced me of that.
• 15:13
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, boy, life changes, doesn't it, when you come to the Lord.
• 15:17
  Mark Spence: As far as things are Concerned, you know, the scripture that hit me easy when I became a Christian was what would a prophet, a man, if you were, to gain the whole World and yet forfeit his soul?
• 15:25
  Ray Comfort: Well, would you put it anyway?
• 15:27
  Mark Spence: Exactly.
• 15:27
  Mark Spence: You know, the 10th commandment about you shall not covet was really the commandment that God Used to get all the me, because that was when I was going to steal a bunch of Levi jeans from my department store in Southern California, and when that preacher had shared that scripture, it just pricked to my heart.
• 15:42
  Mark Spence: Well, I realized what a covetous individual I was.
• 15:45
  Ray Comfort: I didn't know that.
• 15:45
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I knew that we're gonna steal Levi's, but I know that was the scripture you know I knew I was a changed person.
• 15:51
  Emeal Zwane: When this happened many years ago, I was probably 16 or 17.
• 15:55
  Emeal Zwane: I was working for for my family, but my brother had a gas station in Huntington Beach and he had.
• 16:03
  Emeal Zwane: I stole from that.
• 16:04
  Mark Spence: You stole from that.
• 16:05
  Mark Spence: I stole from that gas station man mark.
• 16:08
  Emeal Zwane: You need to pay that back.
• 16:09
  Mark Spence: I don't want to tell Frank.
• 16:10
  Mark Spence: Frank will be.
• 16:14
  Ray Comfort: When, when his easy's brother owned it easy's brother owned the gas station.
• 16:18
  Mark Spence: Yeah Well, what happened was people would come in and they'd pay with a credit card.
• 16:21
  Mark Spence: And my friend worked there, my friend Jason I won't say his last name, but, oh, jason's.
• 16:26
  Mark Spence: Oh yeah, people would leave their credit card and then you go out and you, you pump your gas, but you leave your credit card up with the, with the teller, yeah, and so sometimes people would leave their credit card behind.
• 16:37
  Mark Spence: So Jason would call me up, we'd take the credit cards and we would Go shopping with those credit cards.
• 16:43
  Emeal Zwane: It's evil, evil, evil, evil.
• 16:44
  Emeal Zwane: Such a wicked man, mark yeah.
• 16:46
  Mark Spence: So when I got saved, though, I went to return the material to the sporting goods store.
• 16:51
  Emeal Zwane: The last sporting goods store.
• 16:52
  Emeal Zwane: But we knew it was Mark because we would always find all these Wienerschnistle wrappers all around the gas station.
• 16:59
  Emeal Zwane: But anyway, before I was really interrupted by Mark's story, we had another gas station.
• 17:04
  Emeal Zwane: You didn't well, you might have gone to that one.
• 17:06
  Emeal Zwane: The other one was on Beach in Yorktown and Beach.
• 17:12
  Emeal Zwane: Remember Ellis and Maine, where they split Ellis and Maine.
• 17:16
  Mark Spence: You know the jack in the box there Towards the high school.
• 17:18
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, there's a jack in the box and then, anyhow, we had a Texaco.
• 17:21
  Emeal Zwane: It's not there anymore, but I was working there one day.
• 17:24
  Ray Comfort: There's too many details.
• 17:25
  Ray Comfort: It's not there because I stole the gas station.
• 17:27
  Emeal Zwane: You stole the whole gas station.
• 17:29
  Oscar Navarro: You should have told stories like old Maine, my brother was very kind and generous.
• 17:32
  Emeal Zwane: He gave me this almost brand new Isuzu rodeo back in that time.
• 17:36
  Ray Comfort: Is this in the car?
• 17:37
  Ray Comfort: I don't know what.
• 17:38
  Oscar Navarro: It's a 91.
• 17:38
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, I remember those cars.
• 17:39
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, Isuzu rodeo those were cool little cars Back then.
• 17:41
  Emeal Zwane: I think he paid like $22,000 for it, which back in 91 was a lot of money.
• 17:44
  Emeal Zwane: This thing was nice.
• 17:45
  Emeal Zwane: It was black.
• 17:45
  Emeal Zwane: It had license plates that are after dark AFDR dark.
• 17:48
  Emeal Zwane: I coveted that because I was a covetous individual, yeah, you remember that.
• 17:51
  Emeal Zwane: So, anyway, one day I was in the gas station, so the guy came to pump gas.
• 17:55
  Emeal Zwane: He gets out of his jalopy of a truck or whatever it was.
• 18:00
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, this thing was just absolutely horrendous.
• 18:02
  Emeal Zwane: And he starts walking in toward the station and he left it and drive, and I'm standing there watching this thing going straight toward my nearly brand new Isuzu rodeo that I really, really enjoyed, and it just crashed right into it.
• 18:21
  Emeal Zwane: And I remember I mean I remember like it was yesterday I remember I grabbed my soda can, casually, walked out there, looked at it go, and I just go, oh, all right, no problem.
• 18:32
  Emeal Zwane: And I remember just distinctly thinking Lord, you have really changed my mind.
• 18:37
  Emeal Zwane: That's true, I could not have cared less.
• 18:39
  Emeal Zwane: It was like the things of eternity are what mattered to me.
• 18:43
  Emeal Zwane: It was just transformational.
• 18:45
  Ray Comfort: Wow.
• 18:46
  Emeal Zwane: And I think that's something that we, as believers, need to ask ourselves, because I can admit, sadly, that as I grew in the Lord, I found that there were times when I didn't have that attitude, you know, when lesser things irritated me, frustrated me and affected me.
• 19:05
  Emeal Zwane: And I think I had that attitude back then because of the freshness of my conversion, because I was so consumed with the things of eternity, they were so fresh to me.
• 19:14
  Emeal Zwane: But I mean, you're still like that today, materialistic for sure.
• 19:17
  Emeal Zwane: Very, yeah, in the grand scheme, yeah, I'm not possessed by the things of life, but there are times when things can grab ahold of me and affect me.
• 19:27
  Emeal Zwane: And yeah, oscar.
• 19:32
  Oscar Navarro: I think the thing about materialism or greed, which is the root sin of materialism, is that the nature of greed is that it's blinding.
• 19:42
  Oscar Navarro: It blinds you.
• 19:43
  Oscar Navarro: You don't realize it, like I heard someone say one time nobody like I.
• 19:48
  Oscar Navarro: He said he's never had to tell somebody hey, watch out, you might be committing adultery, because everyone knows when they're committing adultery, but nobody realizes when they're greedy, when they're dealing with materialism.
• 19:58
  Oscar Navarro: Matthew six the eyes, the lamp of the body.
• 20:01
  Oscar Navarro: If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
• 20:04
  Oscar Navarro: But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
• 20:06
  Oscar Navarro: So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness?
• 20:10
  Oscar Navarro: Exodus 23, verse eight do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the word of the innocent.
• 20:19
  Oscar Navarro: The scriptures are telling us we are blind to our own greed.
• 20:23
  Oscar Navarro: And if you think about it like, no one right, like we've all been in pastoral positions before man, I've had guys confess to me that they are looking at pornography.
• 20:31
  Oscar Navarro: I've had a guy's confessed that they've lied, that they've stolen.
• 20:34
  Oscar Navarro: I've heard stories of guys confessing sins like that.
• 20:38
  Oscar Navarro: Never once in my time in ministry has everyone and anybody ever walked up to me and go man, I'm greedy.
• 20:46
  Oscar Navarro: I have to confess to you that I'm full of greedy materialism because we're blind to it.
• 20:50
  Oscar Navarro: We all think, well, I'm not as greedy or materialistic as that guy over there.
• 20:54
  Oscar Navarro: We all can point to a family member, a friend, someone who goes to church with us that we think they are, now that's a greedy person, and so we are all blind in ways to our own greed.
• 21:05
  Oscar Navarro: But I do think that there are symptoms that helps us realize that we are greedy.
• 21:10
  Oscar Navarro: And we live in Southern California, by the way, we live in Orange County Like if there was ever a place that dealt with materialism.
• 21:16
  Oscar Navarro: Oh yeah, you live in LA County, but if there was ever a place that was embedded in the sin of materialism, it is here.
• 21:25
  Oscar Navarro: Like, where I live, rancho Santa Margarita is a city that I live in.
• 21:30
  Oscar Navarro: I don't live in Rancho Santa Margarita, but it's a city that's near me and that is one of the safest cities in the world.
• 21:36
  Oscar Navarro: And yet there's gated communities inside that safe city.
• 21:40
  Oscar Navarro: People don't buy gated communities in safe cities because they're afraid.
• 21:44
  Oscar Navarro: They buy it because of the prestige.
• 21:47
  Oscar Navarro: And you'll hear people say like, oh, I live in Dove Canyon, I live in XYZ.
• 21:52
  Oscar Navarro: You'll hear people talk about homes, like, oh, my home.
• 21:55
  Oscar Navarro: They don't just say, oh, my old home, they'll tell you the square footage of their home.
• 21:58
  Oscar Navarro: Right, see, we like, we, we have to.
• 22:02
  Oscar Navarro: We just breathe the air of greed Like we are constantly dealing with it.
• 22:06
  Oscar Navarro: And the worst part is that I think a lot of pastors don't want to preach on this.
• 22:10
  Oscar Navarro: I used to have this pastor went to a very respected school that you all have, we've talked about on this podcast, and he got up and he talked about greed and he starts by talking about false idols.
• 22:20
  Oscar Navarro: We live in Orange County and he starts talking about the false idols of Buddha and Muhammad.
• 22:25
  Oscar Navarro: And don't get me wrong, those are false idols.
• 22:26
  Ray Comfort: Are they real idols or false?
• 22:28
  Oscar Navarro: idols.
• 22:28
  Oscar Navarro: Well, the scripture is called false idols.
• 22:31
  Oscar Navarro: But here's the thing.
• 22:32
  Oscar Navarro: He lives in Orange County.
• 22:33
  Oscar Navarro: Why didn't he talk about the Mercedes Benz that everyone's pulling up in the obsession over Teslas, the obsessions over bigger houses, the fact that we all have garages and that we all, on top of the garages, some of us even have storage units to store the stuff that we can't store in our garages because we've run out of room.
• 22:49
  Oscar Navarro: You see what I mean.
• 22:50
  Oscar Navarro: Like we are all materialistic, we are all greedy, but we're all also blind to the greed that is within us.
• 23:00
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, yeah, there definitely is a blindness to it, and I think that it's also important to know that sometimes people who don't have can be the greediest you know.
• 23:10
  Emeal Zwane: Sometimes we'll look at the materialistic realm as belonging to those that have a lot that you have, those that are poor, but they're still greedy and covetous and wanting and they're more materialistic than even people that have a lot.
• 23:25
  Ray Comfort: I think you're talking about Timothy, where he says they that would be rich fallen to a temperature.
• 23:29
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, in fact, let me read that for us.
• 23:31
  Emeal Zwane: I have it here.
• 23:31
  Emeal Zwane: First, timothy 6, beginning of verse 6, now, godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
• 23:40
  Emeal Zwane: And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.
• 23:45
  Emeal Zwane: But those who desire to be rich fallen to temptation and a snare and the many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
• 23:54
  Emeal Zwane: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith and their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
• 24:03
  Emeal Zwane: Mark, it really does come down to a love of money, doesn't it?
• 24:09
  Emeal Zwane: We both know people that are extremely affluent and they're very non-materialistic.
• 24:15
  Emeal Zwane: Thank you, in terms of their attitude, their heart, and it's really the love of money that is the problem.
• 24:24
  Mark Spence: Yeah, it's often misquoted, isn't it that money is the root of all kinds of evil?
• 24:27
  Mark Spence: But it really isn't.
• 24:28
  Mark Spence: It's the love of money, jim Carrey.
• 24:33
  Mark Spence: He said I wish everyone could experience what it's like to be rich, so they can see that it doesn't bring the happiness that they think it does.
• 24:39
  Mark Spence: Try me.
• 24:40
  Mark Spence: To which one person responded with well, maybe you're shopping in the wrong places, jim Right, our friend Thomas Partel.
• 24:48
  Mark Spence: He said some people are so poor that all they have is money.
• 24:50
  Mark Spence: It's what are you doing with the resources that God is entrusting to you?
• 24:57
  Mark Spence: I want to live my life in such a way.
• 25:01
  Mark Spence: I had an old pastor friend that said let nobody know whether or not you have a dime in your pockets or a million dollars, you're not living in a way that you can be accused of mishandling God's money, because it's his.
• 25:15
  Mark Spence: Everything we have belongs to him.
• 25:17
  Mark Spence: Rich Mullins I know that he had some really crazy theology but he had some really beautiful music.
• 25:22
  Mark Spence: Way back in the 80s when he died and they went inside of his apartment, they saw a little mattress that was on the ground, no table, no chairs, no other furniture.
• 25:33
  Mark Spence: He had lived off of 10% of the money that was coming into his life and he was given away 90% to the mission field to reach the field.
• 25:41
  Mark Spence: But he wanted to live in such a way that when he died there wasn't the ability.
• 25:47
  Mark Spence: If he was asked the question, what do you want to take with you?
• 25:50
  Mark Spence: He goes well, I have nothing to take with me because I gave it all away, I sent it forward, I pushed it upwards, so good.
• 25:57
  Ray Comfort: That's really good.
• 25:59
  Ray Comfort: Sidney Postel.
• 26:00
  Ray Comfort: Paul was a tent maker.
• 26:02
  Emeal Zwane: If you look at the word content, con was and Paul's dwelling place, yeah, and Hebrews 13.5, I think, really nails it Let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said I will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 26:20
  Emeal Zwane: We've done a podcast episode on contentment before and we talked about this passage here.
• 26:26
  Emeal Zwane: But, ray, ultimately freedom from materialism comes down to contentment, specifically in Christ.
• 26:33
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, we often will hear right, for he himself has said I will never leave you nor forsake you, but we forget the context.
• 26:38
  Emeal Zwane: I mean the first part of the verse is let your contact be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have, for he himself has said you have Christ, which means in him you have all that you really need.
• 26:50
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, it's really hard to be without covetousness, and I just say covetousness.
• 26:55
  Ray Comfort: But America says covetousness, covetousness.
• 26:58
  Ray Comfort: Okay, I've got the chess, I'm down with it.
• 27:00
  Ray Comfort: Because everywhere, everywhere we look, there is our advertisers advertisers trying to get rid of our contentment.
• 27:06
  Ray Comfort: Are you happy with your car that you got last year?
• 27:09
  Ray Comfort: It's trash, you need the next one.
• 27:12
  Ray Comfort: Are you happy with your iPhone?
• 27:13
  Ray Comfort: No, no, the next model, everything, the whole money industry is run on discontentment, trying to make us discontent.
• 27:20
  Ray Comfort: So we've got to be very careful what we look at, what we listen to, because it's going to take away our contentment.
• 27:25
  Ray Comfort: I think comparison is the fuel that fires jealousy.
• 27:30
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's true, and if you compare yourself to other people, that's when it's going to stir up discontent.
• 27:35
  Ray Comfort: So you just got to be very careful who you can pay yourself to and what you can pay yourself to.
• 27:38
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, and I think another element of discontentment and that leads to materialism and wanting more is losing kind of a sense of what it is we really deserve, where we really should be.
• 27:55
  Emeal Zwane: We should be consumed in the eternal flames of hell and we're not.
• 27:59
  Emeal Zwane: And then you look at what we do have and then you know it's always looking everywhere else.
• 28:05
  Emeal Zwane: Like you said, ray, you could be content with something that you're enjoying and then you look at what someone else has and suddenly you almost forget about that thing.
• 28:13
  Mark Spence: Yeah.
• 28:13
  Emeal Zwane: And then it's like what you know I mean even to me, even pausing to remember the simple things.
• 28:24
  Mark Spence: I think of you a lot, but aimless.
• 28:27
  Mark Spence: I remember being at Bible College and reading the scripture in Mark, chapter six.
• 28:31
  Mark Spence: Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat, what you'll drink.
• 28:35
  Mark Spence: And then he goes on to say look at the birds of the air, consider the lilies of the field.
• 28:41
  Mark Spence: And I remember reading that.
• 28:42
  Mark Spence: I remember I was on my knees right next to my bunk.
• 28:45
  Mark Spence: I was reading that text and my jaw just hit the ground that God takes care of the birds of the air.
• 28:55
  Mark Spence: And this is one of the reasons why, to this day, when I wake up early in the morning and I hear the birds singing, it just brings joy to my heart that God's going to take care of them.
• 29:06
  Mark Spence: He's going to take care of me.
• 29:07
  Mark Spence: And what do we do with the scripture like this?
• 29:10
  Mark Spence: We underline it.
• 29:12
  Mark Spence: Do not worry about your life.
• 29:13
  Mark Spence: We underline it.
• 29:14
  Mark Spence: Some people color it and it's been said that some people's Bibles are nothing more than an adult coloring book.
• 29:20
  Mark Spence: Right, that we become hears and not doers.
• 29:23
  Mark Spence: We underline, we highlight and then we walk away and we worry about our lives when we have the greatest authority on the subject.
• 29:34
  Mark Spence: He has said that he's going to provide for all of our needs.
• 29:38
  Mark Spence: Listen, you do not want that thing.
• 29:41
  Mark Spence: If God does not want you to have that thing, you do not want to hit the lottery.
• 29:47
  Mark Spence: If God doesn't want you to hit the lottery.
• 29:50
  Mark Spence: Listen, stop playing the lottery.
• 29:51
  Mark Spence: You don't need to play the lottery.
• 29:53
  Mark Spence: You did Oscar, oscar, stop it.
• 29:56
  Mark Spence: $100 a week.
• 29:57
  Mark Spence: Oscar away, he goes.
• 29:58
  Oscar Navarro: It's coming guys, it's coming a day and then you will be laughing.
• 30:04
  Emeal Zwane: We'll suddenly become Oscars best friends.
• 30:06
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, we love you, Oscar.
• 30:07
  Mark Spence: But JD Rockefeller.
• 30:08
  Mark Spence: During his time he was worth more than $900 million In today's equivalence.
• 30:11
  Mark Spence: I looked it up as something like more than $26 billion by today's, with inflation, everything else.
• 30:17
  Mark Spence: But he was asked the question how much is enough?
• 30:19
  Mark Spence: And his response is the response of our hearts.
• 30:22
  Mark Spence: It's famous.
• 30:23
  Mark Spence: Just a little more, just a little more.
• 30:27
  Oscar Navarro: Well, and going back to what I said earlier, like I love where you're going with this, because to own a nice home isn't the sin, to have a nice car isn't the sin.
• 30:35
  Oscar Navarro: What happens is we get a case of the ifonelies and that's what you're alluding to.
• 30:40
  Oscar Navarro: That if only it starts when you're young.
• 30:42
  Oscar Navarro: If only I can graduate, then I'll be happy.
• 30:45
  Oscar Navarro: If only I meet my spouse, then I'll be happy.
• 30:47
  Oscar Navarro: If only we have kids and get married, I'll be happy.
• 30:49
  Oscar Navarro: If only I buy a home.
• 30:51
  Oscar Navarro: And then anybody who's ever bought a home, especially in Orange County, they know right around the two to four year marker that if only is keeping again.
• 30:57
  Oscar Navarro: If only we had an extra room, only had a bigger yard.
• 31:00
  Oscar Navarro: If only you know, if only is.
• 31:02
  Oscar Navarro: Make it so that you're never satisfied.
• 31:05
  Oscar Navarro: Ecclesiastes 510,.
• 31:06
  Oscar Navarro: Whoever loves money never has enough.
• 31:08
  Oscar Navarro: Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
• 31:13
  Ray Comfort: We have a case of these.
• 31:14
  Ray Comfort: Only Roger Whitaker, you've probably never heard of, had a song called I don't believe it if anymore, and it was really powerful song because it had that whole thing.
• 31:22
  Ray Comfort: That if is ridiculous, it's an illusion and it never brings what it should.
• 31:27
  Ray Comfort: What?
• 31:28
  Mark Spence: is the scripture that says just as hell and destruction are never full, sort of the eyes of man, never satisfied, you'll never be satisfied.
• 31:34
  Mark Spence: So, right now, where you're at, pause, and give thanks, this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.
• 31:40
  Mark Spence: What is the will of God?
• 31:41
  Mark Spence: Pause, give thanks.
• 31:43
  Emeal Zwane: This is the will of God Give me thanks always for all things I mean.
• 31:48
  Emeal Zwane: That's what the scripture says.
• 31:49
  Ray Comfort: At all times.
• 31:50
  Emeal Zwane: It should cover every aspect of our lives and, like I was saying a little bit ago, you know, when you think about just pausing and contemplating the simple stuff that we take for granted, which really isn't simple, I mean eyesight, the ability, to hear.
• 32:07
  Oscar Navarro: I thought you were talking about Ray when he said simple.
• 32:10
  Emeal Zwane: The ability to speak, the ability to remember, the ability to enjoy good food.
• 32:15
  Emeal Zwane: I mean, we don't need anything outside of ourselves to have more than we could even imagine to give thanks for and to become content and grateful for.
• 32:23
  Emeal Zwane: You know, and even those of us that are able-bodied, I mean I love the saying that says a man who had no shoes complained to tell him that the man had no feet.
• 32:32
  Ray Comfort: you know, just even being able-bodied, being able to get around, and the man who had no feet complained to him that he met a man without legs and the man without legs complained to tell him that the man without a head Oscar didn't get that one Go ahead.
• 32:45
  Oscar Navarro: Oh, I got it.
• 32:45
  Mark Spence: He'll get a head.
• 32:48
  Oscar Navarro: The thing, too, is that our lives, it's like we are fixated on all of the things that make us unsatisfied, to make us long for more, and our phones have a big part of that, and we even ourselves like if you think about the way people post on their social media and the way we scroll on our social media social media Did you?
• 33:06
  Ray Comfort: realize what you subconsciously did then what you pointed to your phone.
• 33:10
  Ray Comfort: I looked at your phone and you pulled it closer to you.
• 33:13
  Ray Comfort: I hit it.
• 33:13
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I hit it.
• 33:15
  Oscar Navarro: My precious materialistic Oscar.
• 33:17
  Oscar Navarro: No, but you know, social media is designed to make us want.
• 33:21
  Oscar Navarro: It's designed by organizations that want you to be materialistic so that you consume, and we play a role in that.
• 33:28
  Oscar Navarro: When people post online, they're posting all their best things, all of their favorite moments, all of the places they visited, all the things that they own, and what it makes you do is it makes you desire, it makes you want, it makes you wish that you also had that thing.
• 33:43
  Oscar Navarro: I went to, I was in Singapore recently and we you know, my wife and I got to sit down and just experience and enjoy this amazing view.
• 33:50
  Oscar Navarro: And people like we're traveling from all of the world.
• 33:53
  Oscar Navarro: They show up with their phones, they take their pictures and they'd leave.
• 33:56
  Oscar Navarro: It's like they themselves are not even being able to experience the satisfying joy that comes from delighting in God and His creation, because they're obsessed with taking the picture and then moving on to the next thing that they need to take the picture so that they create envy in the people that follow them.
• 34:16
  Oscar Navarro: It's like this ongoing struggle that we all live in is to create in us a desire to consume, which is what moves our economy.
• 34:26
  Emeal Zwane: And you know, I think the ultimate solution to materialism is to be a generous and giving person.
• 34:34
  Emeal Zwane: Paul, when talking about not being a person who loves money, and he talked about being content with what you have, in the same chapter he addressed those who do have a lot.
• 34:44
  Emeal Zwane: So that means that, look, god does bless believers with material things, and at various different levels and for different reasons.
• 34:54
  Emeal Zwane: But I love what he said in verse 17 of 1st Timothy 6.
• 34:57
  Emeal Zwane: He said command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God who gives us richly, all things to enjoy".
• 35:09
  Emeal Zwane: So I mean right there.
• 35:10
  Emeal Zwane: He could have said command those who are rich to no longer be rich and to get rid of it.
• 35:15
  Emeal Zwane: All right.
• 35:15
  Emeal Zwane: But he's saying look those who are rich, command them not to be haughty and don't trust in your riches.
• 35:21
  Emeal Zwane: They're uncertain, right.
• 35:22
  Emeal Zwane: Trust in the Lord.
• 35:23
  Emeal Zwane: He's given you all things to enjoy.
• 35:25
  Emeal Zwane: God does that for His people.
• 35:26
  Emeal Zwane: He gives them things to enjoy.
• 35:27
  Emeal Zwane: That's okay.
• 35:28
  Emeal Zwane: Let them do good that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come that they may.
• 35:41
  Emeal Zwane: May they hold a paternal line.
• 35:42
  Emeal Zwane: So that's the call to those that have and look, all of us sitting around this table probably everyone listening to me today is extremely rich when you compare what we have compared to what other people have.
• 35:55
  Emeal Zwane: And the call is to be generous.
• 35:58
  Emeal Zwane: The call is to give, to be a person who isn't possessed by things.
• 36:02
  Emeal Zwane: We possess things for the purpose of being a generous people who give and who share and who love.
• 36:10
  Emeal Zwane: I love what Randy Alcorn said.
• 36:11
  Emeal Zwane: He said another benefit of giving is freedom.
• 36:14
  Emeal Zwane: It's a matter of basic physics the greater the mass, the greater the hold that mass exerts.
• 36:20
  Emeal Zwane: The more things we own, the greater their total mass, the more they grip us, setting us in orbit around them.
• 36:26
  Emeal Zwane: Finally, like a black hole, they suck us in.
• 36:28
  Emeal Zwane: We think we own our possessions, but too often they own us.
• 36:31
  Emeal Zwane: Every item we buy is one more thing to think about.
• 36:35
  Emeal Zwane: Talk about clean, repair, rearrange, fret over and replace when it goes back.
• 36:42
  Ray Comfort: That is so true.
• 36:43
  Ray Comfort: You know you get an ornament, I love this.
• 36:45
  Ray Comfort: You put on a mantle piece and about 10 years later you think that thing looks dusty.
• 36:49
  Emeal Zwane: I mean that's all it is.
• 36:49
  Ray Comfort: It's just gathering dust.
• 36:50
  Ray Comfort: What did it get that for?
• 36:51
  Ray Comfort: There are some things that are treasure, like the plastic chicken that Ken Ham sent me.
• 36:57
  Ray Comfort: That goes oh, that's about it.
• 36:59
  Oscar Navarro: I think about that every time I start to want a new car is I think, okay, wow, I really like that car right there.
• 37:05
  Oscar Navarro: But then I'll think, okay, look at that 15 year old version of that car.
• 37:09
  Oscar Navarro: And then I'm like, yeah, I don't really want that car.
• 37:11
  Oscar Navarro: You know what?
• 37:12
  Oscar Navarro: Here's the thing.
• 37:12
  Oscar Navarro: I like what you're saying, zee.
• 37:14
  Oscar Navarro: I also think that there's a step between the two, because we can't just replace one action with another action.
• 37:20
  Oscar Navarro: That's just like stapling fruit onto a tree that's not producing good fruit.
• 37:24
  Oscar Navarro: Right, we cannot replace the action of materialism and greed with the action of generosity, or we'll just be whitewash tombs, and the temptation is that then we will use the little bit of generation that we have to keep us blind from all the stuff that we actually consume.
• 37:40
  Oscar Navarro: So what needs to happen between those two gaps is true deep repentance.
• 37:46
  Oscar Navarro: What do I mean by deep repentance?
• 37:48
  Oscar Navarro: Deep repentance is when we repent of the underlying lies or idols that we believe, and so that gets at like how we use money.
• 37:57
  Oscar Navarro: I think that people use money in things for one of two reasons either for approval they want to have the approval of other people or because they want to feel important.
• 38:08
  Oscar Navarro: I was actually at this backstage show.
• 38:11
  Oscar Navarro: I have a friend who's in a band.
• 38:12
  Oscar Navarro: I was at a backstage show and there was this person who's a pretty sought after public speaker and not a Christian.
• 38:20
  Oscar Navarro: She started talking about the writer.
• 38:22
  Oscar Navarro: She's like I won't show up for anything less than X, I won't go anywhere.
• 38:27
  Oscar Navarro: That is X.
• 38:28
  Oscar Navarro: And I just thought, like you use money to make yourself feel important, you have a desire to feel approved or important.
• 38:37
  Oscar Navarro: So, first off, do we use it to make us feel important or approved?
• 38:41
  Oscar Navarro: Another one is some people use money to feel safe, to have control.
• 38:45
  Oscar Navarro: This is, I will tell you now.
• 38:47
  Oscar Navarro: This is my confession.
• 38:48
  Oscar Navarro: That is where my temptation is.
• 38:50
  Oscar Navarro: I grew up, you guys know, I grew up poor, far below the poverty line, and before I'm generous, I'm always like do we have enough saved?
• 38:58
  Oscar Navarro: Because if something happens, will I keep control, will I keep my control, will I keep my family safe and control?
• 39:03
  Oscar Navarro: And there's prudence behind that, but there's also the temptation to maintain control rather than give it over to God in the context of generosity.
• 39:13
  Oscar Navarro: And so what we need to do you know what I love in regards to this is ultimately the question is what is most precious to you?
• 39:21
  Oscar Navarro: I love Lord of the Rings.
• 39:22
  Oscar Navarro: In the middle of the Lord of the Rings story there's this ring that has power.
• 39:27
  Oscar Navarro: And anytime somebody gets that ring, eventually they start calling it the precious, my precious, and they obsess over keeping it.
• 39:39
  Oscar Navarro: So the question is in order for you to go from consumer to truly generous it's not just a matter of action.
• 39:47
  Oscar Navarro: The question is what is most precious to you?
• 39:50
  Oscar Navarro: And here's the gospel, because we got to have the gospel.
• 39:53
  Oscar Navarro: In all of this, what was most precious to Jesus?
• 39:57
  Oscar Navarro: Isaiah 53, which we just talked about Jesus.
• 40:00
  Oscar Navarro: It talks about the suffering servant being satisfied with the results of his suffering.
• 40:06
  Oscar Navarro: In 1 Peter 2, it calls those who are saved by his blood his prized possession.
• 40:13
  Oscar Navarro: In Deuteronomy, it calls us the apple of his eye.
• 40:17
  Oscar Navarro: In all of creation, everything that God has ever created, all of the worlds, all of the plants and animals that are here on earth.
• 40:25
  Oscar Navarro: Out of all of that, his prized possession are his saved people.
• 40:31
  Oscar Navarro: You are God's precious and that should release us from having these other preciouses in our lives.
• 40:38
  Oscar Navarro: To cling to the God who calls you precious through his blood.
• 40:43
  Oscar Navarro: That's the gospel, freedom that will truly remove ourselves from materialism into generosity and ultimately, becoming generous is becoming more like our Savior.
• 40:53
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, Amen.
• 40:55
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, it really comes down to what we're told in 1 Corinthians 13,.
• 40:59
  Emeal Zwane: You can even give away all of your possessions to feed the poor, you can give your body to be burned, but if you have not love, it profits nothing.
• 41:07
  Emeal Zwane: And love is really at the heart of it all.
• 41:10
  Emeal Zwane: Right, I mean the two greatest commandments upon which all the law and the prophets hang to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
• 41:15
  Emeal Zwane: To love your neighbor as yourself.
• 41:17
  Emeal Zwane: And that's really what needs to be the fuel behind why we give and why we're generous.
• 41:24
  Emeal Zwane: And really at the heart of it, true love is a genuine care for the supposed object of your love.
• 41:33
  Emeal Zwane: Right, I mean again, you're giving all your riches to the poor, but you're not doing it because you care for them.
• 41:39
  Emeal Zwane: You're doing it for your own glory or for your own reputation.
• 41:41
  Emeal Zwane: You're not walking in obedience because you love God.
• 41:45
  Emeal Zwane: You're doing it because you want to maintain your own standard of holiness and righteousness, for your own spiritual reputation or whatever.
• 41:51
  Emeal Zwane: Genuine care for the supposed object of your love, demonstrated in action and, like you're saying, having Christ at the center of it all.
• 41:59
  Ray Comfort: It's also moved.
• 41:59
  Ray Comfort: Yesterday I mentioned to you guys individually what I experienced at the local college where I asked college students if you were God for a day, how would you change things?
• 42:08
  Ray Comfort: And it's just so provocative the question and it made them think.
• 42:11
  Ray Comfort: But one young guy said something that blew me away.
• 42:14
  Ray Comfort: I didn't expect it.
• 42:14
  Ray Comfort: I said if you were God for a day, what would you do?
• 42:18
  Ray Comfort: And he said I'd make everyone empathetic.
• 42:19
  Ray Comfort: I thought, boy, how profound that is for a non-Christian to say everyone empathetic, because if we've got empathy, we will give, we'll be the good Samaritan, we'll be good and kind to other people.
• 42:30
  Emeal Zwane: So that's really good.
• 42:31
  Ray Comfort: Humanity can't get that level of empathy towards other people until we come to Christ, and then we've got a genuine empathy that comes from God.
• 42:37
  Emeal Zwane: That's good, all right.
• 42:38
  Emeal Zwane: Here's a quote by Augustine.
• 42:40
  Emeal Zwane: Wow, listen, listen, that's empathy Quote, close quote, fitting, because Augusta never existed.
• 42:50
  Emeal Zwane: Now listen to this quote by Augustine God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.
• 43:00
  Emeal Zwane: Mark, that reminds me of something you've said for a long time, and that's that if our arms are full right, we can't fully embrace Jesus.
• 43:11
  Emeal Zwane: We have to drop everything in order to be able to wrap both our arms around Him.
• 43:15
  Emeal Zwane: You know, and that's so true, alsterbeg said hold material goods and wealth on a flat palm and not in a clenched fist.
• 43:22
  Emeal Zwane: Mark, how key is that to recognize that nothing really belongs to us.
• 43:31
  Mark Spence: That's right.
• 43:32
  Mark Spence: You know, christina Partel sent me a picture of a plaque that she has up inside of her house and it says I still remember the time I prayed for all I have today, right, yeah, we have to understand that everything we have belongs to the Lord.
• 43:48
  Mark Spence: And that's not to say that it's easy to give things out, right.
• 43:52
  Mark Spence: I mean, it may not be easy for a firefighter to run into a burning building, but he still does it.
• 43:57
  Mark Spence: You don't have to wait for this weird unction to feel an amazing amount of joy in order to do something.
• 44:04
  Mark Spence: And that reminds me of a text with Jesus canceling the rich young ruler.
• 44:09
  Mark Spence: Remember he had all of these great possessions.
• 44:12
  Mark Spence: He says if you want to be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor.
• 44:16
  Mark Spence: You'll have a treasure in heaven.
• 44:17
  Mark Spence: Then come and follow me.
• 44:18
  Mark Spence: But then in verse 22 of Matthew's Gospel here it says but when the young man heard the saying, he went away, sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
• 44:27
  Mark Spence: We need to note something here.
• 44:29
  Mark Spence: We don't know what he did.
• 44:31
  Mark Spence: Yeah, we don't know if he went and sold or if he went and kept.
• 44:36
  Mark Spence: We assume that he still hoarded everything to himself.
• 44:41
  Mark Spence: Listen, this guy and what he did is not the narrative of the story.
• 44:45
  Mark Spence: Jesus and his dealings with mankind is the narrative of the story.
• 44:50
  Mark Spence: So when we deal with text like this, we have to also remember that that is us, that at any given moment, god requires different actions from us, and we don't have to feel amazing when we respond in the affirmative to what he is calling us to do.
• 45:06
  Mark Spence: Sometimes we just need to do what is right because it's right.
• 45:09
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, that's right, that's good.
• 45:11
  Emeal Zwane: Let me draw to a close here with a couple quotes by John Piper.
• 45:17
  Emeal Zwane: I don't even know how to follow him up, because they're so one one by one, by pretty close one, at her quit, being satisfied with little 2% yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rest of death.
• 45:32
  Emeal Zwane: Invest in the blue chip, high yield, divinely insured securities of heaven.
• 45:38
  Emeal Zwane: Giving your life to material comforts and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole, but a life invested in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending Right.
• 45:53
  Emeal Zwane: What do you say after that?
• 45:53
  Emeal Zwane: And then listen to this one says if you don't see the greatness of God, then all the things that money can buy become very exciting.
• 46:01
  Emeal Zwane: If you can't see the sun, you will be impressed with a street light.
• 46:05
  Emeal Zwane: If you've never felt thunder and lightning, you'll be impressed with fireworks.
• 46:09
  Emeal Zwane: And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God, you'll fall in love with a world of shadows and short lived players so what do you say after that?
• 46:21
  Emeal Zwane: After that man yeah, amen, that's it Right, and I love that image, you know, if you're not, if you're not content, I mean, if you're not blown away by the sun, you know you can't see the sun yeah, street light Whoa, you know, I mean, fireworks are pretty amazing.
• 46:41
  Emeal Zwane: We had 4th of July not too long ago.
• 46:43
  Emeal Zwane: It's like, oh he's, what are you?
• 46:45
  Emeal Zwane: You've seen lightning and thunder, man, you know, and that's just good.
• 46:50
  Emeal Zwane: And then this is this little poem by an unknown author.
• 46:52
  Emeal Zwane: I counted dollars.
• 46:54
  Emeal Zwane: I counted dollars while God counted crosses.
• 46:57
  Emeal Zwane: I counted gains while God counted losses.
• 47:00
  Emeal Zwane: I counted my worth, my things gained in store, and he sized me up by the scars I bore.
• 47:07
  Emeal Zwane: I counted honors and sought degrees.
• 47:10
  Emeal Zwane: He counted the hours I spent on my knees.
• 47:13
  Emeal Zwane: I never knew, until one day, by the grave, how vain are the things that we spend life to save.
• 47:20
  Emeal Zwane: You got to put those quotes down in the description.
• 47:23
  Emeal Zwane: Those are amazing.
• 47:24
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, there's a.
• 47:25
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, I don't know who.
• 47:26
  Emeal Zwane: This is an unknown author, but but yeah, friends, that's, that's it.
• 47:30
  Ray Comfort: He writes quite a lot.
• 47:31
  Ray Comfort: I've seen him around Unknown.
• 47:34
  Emeal Zwane: The most prolific author ever.
• 47:38
  Ray Comfort: He's my son, he's my son, unknown.
• 47:40
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah.
• 47:41
  Emeal Zwane: So anyhow, guys, I'm I'm refreshed personally just to to step back and say, lord, are there things that I'm allowing to possess me?
• 47:49
  Emeal Zwane: How do I react when something is misplaced?
• 47:53
  Emeal Zwane: How do I react when something gets damaged?
• 47:56
  Emeal Zwane: How do I react when I can't have this or that, or the funds are shorter?
• 47:59
  Emeal Zwane: Am I eternally minded?
• 48:01
  Emeal Zwane: Am I concerned with the things?
• 48:02
  Ray Comfort: of your day.
• 48:02
  Ray Comfort: You can't just got written off on that in the parking lot.
• 48:04
  Emeal Zwane: Yeah, so all right, anything else to add guys?
• 48:10
  Emeal Zwane: Evidence Bible oh yeah.
• 48:13
  Oscar Navarro: One thing that's not materialistic is owning your own evidence.
• 48:17
  Emeal Zwane: Don't be content until you can be friends, yeah, and get that wooden treasure chest.
• 48:23
  Emeal Zwane: Oh, there you have it.
• 48:29
  Ray Comfort: Anyway, get those things, friends, that's probably the funniest thing that this podcast has ever said.
• 48:35
  Ray Comfort: It's really good.
• 48:37
  Emeal Zwane: Well, thanks for joining us.
• 48:37
  Emeal Zwane: Friends, make sure again to email us at podcast LivingWaterscom and to keep subscribing and giving us those ratings and comments and telling people about the podcast.
• 48:47
  Emeal Zwane: Thank you for joining us.
• 48:49
  Emeal Zwane: We'll see you here next time on the LivingWaters podcast.
• 48:55
  Emeal Zwane: The ultimate cure for insomnia.
• 49:04
  Ray Comfort: Like a whistling pig.