Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 15, 2017 | Men's Fraternity - Spring 2017, Session 6

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February 15, 2017 | Men's Fraternity - Spring 2017, Session 6 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, man.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you all here this morning.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd heard somebody say one time that um no person is totally useless, that if anything, one can be a bad example.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think that might be the uh might be the case of uh Judas Iscariot today.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you know I've often kind of thought about, you know, well, gee, if Jesus knew what he was gonna do, why'd he choose him?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's like, well, if he was looking for perfect people, he wouldn't have chosen anybody.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um obviously he said that uh scripture had to be fulfilled.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So he knew exactly what all was gonna happen.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I know Judas didn't because he didn't uh I don't I don't know what all he believed.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and in fact I thought this was one of the more interesting of uh Gene's chapters, because I thought there was some interesting questions and and maybe some insight into uh into Judas.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when he when he actually uh betrayed Jesus, I I I think that he was he was trying to force his hand.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was trying to make something happen, get something going.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Gee, if this guy's gonna be the king of the Jews, it's high time that he that he do something.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think it all kind of backfired for him.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I'm gonna turn it over to uh Derek and Jim and let you guys talk to us about Judas Iscariot.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, you're always thanks, Paul.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he always makes the most insightful comments.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know you started off in that comment, Paul talking about sort of from Jesus' perspective.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the most interesting questions and Paul raises, okay, why did Jesus?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the nasal quality.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need to lose the nasal quality.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, man.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh why would Jesus pick him?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if he's picking disciples, why would he pick such a loser?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a really good question.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: But then he answered then just casually, as Paul does always, because he's got like 180 IQ, I guess.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: He mentioned first, well, if uh Jesus said um if he was only hiring, you know, the top-of-the-line guys, none of us would be you know, would be part of the party.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then second, uh Paul, you mentioned um, you know, it was I forget your line, it was better than this one, but it was sort of part of his plan.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was uh all things had to be fulfilled.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I forget what you said.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, uh profundities from from Paul at this hour of the morning.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then you switched to from Judas' perspective in your comment and um and mentioned uh Judas didn't know what's going on.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today, about Judas' perspective and Jesus' perspective, and I agree it's a good chapter.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think it no, I know it had a little bit more beef in it than last week's chapter.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're gonna be good for a couple weeks.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, last week it was like that old advertisement for I forget what what it was, Wendy's Where's the Beef.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was absolutely nothing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's let's talk about three apostles, and it just mentions their names.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at this chapter, and and Gene is just blowing smoke for about 15 pages in there, and we're going, what are we gonna say?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, I've got a Judas story because I went to the game on Monday.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh uh, and Judas got beat in the last two minutes.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: No, um no, Bob, Bob, uh, what's his name?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who's the coach for West Virginia?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Huggins?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Huggins.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:29
  unknown: Huggy Bear.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Huggy Bear, who only spent he spent like 15 years at Cincinnati, and and uh, you know, none of us liked his teams there either because Cincinnati slapped and fouled.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Only went one year to K-State and and did really well there, and he should have stayed.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: If he'd stayed there, I'd have liked him.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then he left, and so now I can hate him again.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the fact that he always yells at his players.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, during that game, you'd look over and and he's always yelling, always yelling at his players.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I got a text yesterday from a guy who was at the game.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I was watching this, trying to get your attention.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You you had your head down just constantly, four minutes, three minutes to go and so forth.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Really?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Were you praying that whole time?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I texted him back, I said, No, I was trying to talk myself into staying in the arena.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was so disgusted, I had a headache and I was depressed.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then came that comeback.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you that don't know, they were down, KU was down 14 with two minutes and 45 seconds to go, and and somehow came back.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you read the blogs as I did, because I couldn't go to sleep for the next two hours after I got home.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh West Virginia fans all believe that the referees stole the game.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: But uh anyway, it was pretty exciting.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the kid who's shooting here, that was one of the key three-point shots.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Devante Graham, and he uh turned into a passive performer and suddenly took over the game.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was incredible.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Good for that guy.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, good for him.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's good for Kansas.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um not related to KU.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Winter Olympics coming up soon.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: Next year.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Next winter?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Seriously?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Winter Olympics?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, next winter.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: That was random.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was very random, but other people are advertising for it already, so I figure we should too.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: You'll see you'll see some Winter Olympic uh articles and ads and things coming together.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Are you taking the high schoolers to huh?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then that's right.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where's he going?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: He's done he's retiring or something, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, as long as they have Aaron Andrews, we'll be good.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of these guys are retiring.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you going are you going skiing?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking the high school or skiing this year?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: We are by the end of March.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed she hadn't invited me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, do you want to go?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: He invited my wife, but not me.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to go?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I don't want to go.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to go with her?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell her.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, no, no.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'd go with her.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: My wife is the kind of person who is able and willing, of all things, to watch, to see who the slowest girl skiers are who want to take all day to make one trip down the mountain, step by step.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she patiently goes and does that with him.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I married her.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's not like me.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be going, I'll see you at the bottom at 2 p.m.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, hey, let's talk.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing the Apostles of Jesus, as you know.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: None of you here is new.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And today, Judas the Greedy Thief, part one, meaning we're gonna do the last half of the chapter next week.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we've done a lot of guys here.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've done Peter the Leader, James the Warrior, John the Lover, Andrew Connector, Philip the Realist, Matthew the Businessman today, and next week Judas the Greedy Thief.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what page we're on, but uh uh Gene begins with talking about this Broadway hit.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, when I was in college, there was uh a rock opera sort of that came out.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: No words were spoken.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was all sung uh about 1970, I think it was, called Jesus Christ Superstar.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it was the day of the hippies, and so the disciples were hippies.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: It showed Jesus like a hippie.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh here's Judas, a black guy kissing him.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Judas was the most tragic and really likable figure in the whole thing.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: He uh, you know, he struggled with the fact that Jesus, you know, uh was gonna let himself get killed, and and then he felt real remorse later, and and um and this was a controversial moment, black man kissing white man, I guess.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: But um anyway, it was uh it was kind of a big hit.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So um so anyway, so that's why now why does he be oh yeah, Judas was greedy.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's our story.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Judas was greedy.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, that's kind of where we jump in.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: The very first big section at the bottom of 163, a root of all kinds of evil.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the question that he lists here is how many people have you seen, including Christians, who have been sidetracked by greed, particularly a desire to become wealthy?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And this is one of the characteristics that we see of Judas, because it seems like almost every time we turn around, he is chasing after money somehow, or chasing after power, chasing after wealth somehow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I want to read this verse, 1 Timothy 6 10, this is the top of 164.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we hear money is the root of all evil.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Lots of people have heard this and have no clue that it's from the Bible, but it really is.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the important things is that money in itself isn't evil, but what's spoken of here is the love of that money, and where we pursue that money, we pursue that wealth as more important than God and more important than no other things in our lives.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, kind of at the end of here, we see the the few verses in Matthew where Matthew's saying, you know, the the eye is the lamp of the body, and how really as we navigate our lives, we filter everything we see, we filter everything kind of how we interact with the world through our eyes, through the things that we see.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're we're generally gonna walk in the direction that we're looking, we're gonna drive in the direction that we're looking.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're either going to see things or not see things based on where we're looking.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so for Judas, he was constantly looking at how can he get a leg up, how can he be in the power seat, how can he accumulate um all of this wealth, and I think Getz really summed it up at the end of the paragraph on 165.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, greed became his God.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Greed essentially became the thing that he prized and that he wanted more than other things.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: We don't just see you know this greed as as this sin and kind of this evil just in the Bible, but we see it in our our secular world as well.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I just went online, I searched for some different articles, and I found this a Time article, uh their money section, and the title is Six Ways Greed Keeps You Poor.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I have no clue if this is a Christian or a non-Christian, but it's Time Money Magazine, so could be non-Christian.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: But this the six ways are one um wanting it all.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: So basically the point is that you want all this stuff, and because you want all this stuff so so much, whether it's TVs or cars or shoes or whatever it is, you're gonna have to pay for that somehow.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like an addiction.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: The more you get, the more you want, and the more you want, the more you get, and all that costs money, which which is greed.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um living to excess.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: This is kind of interest interesting.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: That overeating is a$210 billion health care industry in America.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Taking care of people who've overeating.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: So that they pay, you know, in general in America,$210 billion on healthcare costs due to overeating.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of interesting, because that's a lot of money.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um breaking the law is something that comes from it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a guy named Scott London did some insider trading, which is obviously illegal, and got locked up for 14 months in prison.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some of these people avoid generosity.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Number five, gambling away everything.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: They have all this money, so they want to make more really, really quickly, and for whatever's going on in their brain, they feel like they have to and do it quickly.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: So gambling is a quick way, which obviously leaves a lot of people broke and poor.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: And six, uh, the impact of corporate greed.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I was looking at this, I thought of you know, just recently, uh a few months ago, the whole greed thing with the epipins came to mind.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the competitors got knocked out because of a recall, and so I think it's my land um jacked up their prices like 400% for epipins because they basically had a monopoly on the market, and so they could raise the price simply because they could.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Not that that was right, but because it was a greedy thing to do.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: That is really an interesting article.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I want to copy that.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think of if you don't mind, I think of a couple stories related to that.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and you mentioned um uh Greek can make you poor because you know, maybe you commit crimes because of it, and also I think of uh, you know, the guy who won the Washington State Lottery was arrested for robbing a small grocery store afterwards.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he has this monthly huge income of like forty thousand dollars for the rest of his life and still was robbing a local grocery store.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um when when it you talk about greed can keep you poor, and otherwise, I don't know if any of you ever go to casinos when my brother was a uh brother who was a professional gambler, casino gambler, blackjack, and so forth.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when he was living, he's he's dead now, but I used to go out and visit him Las Vegas area and uh other areas.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he'd been kicked out of every casino once, he said, uh on the Mississippi.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I used to go watch him, and um and I used to sit in there sometimes at machines with all these blue hairs.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever been to a casino or even visited one or even eaten one, you see that the average age of the people in there, the average person in there is a woman who's about 68, 75 years old.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of men too, older.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and you're watching them play slots, which is absolutely, I know a lot of stuff because of my brother, absolutely the worst thing you can play.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because they have depending on the casino, casino can can put in whatever hold they want.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, how much of an average average money they'll keep out of every dollar.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it can go up to like twelve dollars, twelve dollars every dollar.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you just play over the long haul, you'll only get back eighty-eight dollars for every dollar you put in, which means uh you're gonna lose your money really quickly.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can lose hundreds of dollars every hour.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And yet these are older people on limited income, Social Security, who go and they cash their checks, and oftentimes the casino, I hate casinos for this reason, they'll give them a 10% uh surcharge if they'll bring in the Social Security check and cash it right there, because they know these are people who are addicted.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then they run through their money, and and it's absolutely crazy.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these people actually, if they would just invest their money well, they've got 150,000, 200,000, you know, from a lifetime of working.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: If they'd invest it well, they'd be fine.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, I you know, I a lot of stories come to mind that illustrate you know what you said.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Yeah.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's interesting how it's not necessarily it's it's not the actual money, but there's something that happens in our brains with I mean, really any kind of addiction.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: And the more we want, the more we feed it, the more we get, the more we want, the more we feed it, it becomes really an issue kind of with our mind.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because for whatever reason, people who are addicted especially to money want that thing so so so so much that they'll do anything to to have more of it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: From robbing people to doing things that are illegal to you know, gambling, to whatever, whatever it's gonna take.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'll just think for a minute, I hang with Les Steinlaggy there a lot, and you know, we'll tell stories and and in his car business, you know, it's interesting because sometimes he'll talk about somebody and he'll mention somebody and because of greed or because of wanting more, you know, they'll they'll perhaps represent a car uh maybe inaccurately, or they'll push a little bit hard.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: In my occupation, um glory is generally considered the number one addiction.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Most pastors uh know that they're not gonna get rich, you know, but but what they want is they want fame, glory, they want to become known like Francis Chan or somebody else.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: But we've I've known, I can name people down through the ear.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Some pastors really are Mark's been a pastor.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: We we know there are pastors who really do greed does eat at their souls, they're always wanting more money.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're always coming back to the elders every single year saying, I need more, I want more.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're asking if they can work jobs in the evening or whatever so they can make more money.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so you know, I find this in my own occupation, even though the pastoral occupation usually it's it's gri it's it's glory they're looking for, is the addiction.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I'm we're just talking now.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, uh this guy, Judas the Scirot, in Hebrew, uh IS or ISH means man.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so this this is sort of his last name, Ishkariot, means he was a man of Karyot, which is a town in southern um southern Judah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's this little section in your book on page 160 something, you know, tells you about that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's just your little seminary moment for this morning.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Judas Iscariot.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really his last name, that's it's telling you where he came from.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think um you were mentioning um the last paragraph of the section you took and this verse, Matthew 6, 19 to 24, and I stuck it on a screen not knowing if you were gonna use it, and I forgot to ring it up.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: In the last paragraph on um where is it, page um 165 in the first major paragraph?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Gee imagine Judas's mindset when Jesus said when Jesus said, the eye is the lamp of the body.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: But if your eyes are unhealthy, because of greed, say, your whole body will be full of darkness.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in the context, the next verses are you cannot serve both God and money.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can't serve two masters.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh I think it's helpful for us this morning to think about guys that we work with, people that we've known, and and you know, who are materialistic, who always want more.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I've got the next section, which is going to be really brief, which is he knew what was in man.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is on page 167.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there, you know, there's this verse at the end of John 2.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what what we're saying here is that Jesus knew, uh, this ties in with what you said, Paul.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus knew it was inside Judas.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: He knew he was greedy, he knew it was all about money for him.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, can I stop and and say, in my observation in 40 years, I would have never guessed 40 years ago that I would say the percentage of greedy people in our population is twice as high, at least, among lower middle class people, among people who don't have money as versus those who do.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been I grew up poor, you know, we grew uh a family of twelve children, a little farm, and so forth.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: And somehow I always thought it was those rich people that were always wanting more and greedy.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I find out in 40 years of the ministry that some of the most magnanimous, generous people are the people who have money, the CEOs, the businessmen, and so forth.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I can go to wealthy people in our church and I can tell them I need five thousand dollars, I need ten thousand dollars for something in Haiti or something.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that I can get that money today, if I, you know, so I don't I don't overuse that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: But the people who are always talking about money and envious uh of money are in my experience are the people who don't have it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the way I was.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was always thinking about money when I had no money, and now that I have more and more money, I hold it much more loosely.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's just I don't know if you found that to be true as well.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, are full of greedy people.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think in different ways.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think Republicans are greedy in the middle class and upper middle class for more and more and more.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're never satisfied.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I find to my disgust that Democrats, the Democratic Party oftentimes is spending its time trying to make the lower middle class people envious of the others, and and I don't like it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was a side comment that doesn't come out of the Bible.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Judas was Judas probably said something about that, didn't he?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he did.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's not in this Bible.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Judas, yeah, because they didn't have money.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: So uh this is page 167.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: The question being, when was the last time you considered the fact that God knows everything about you, including what you're thinking about, including if you were greedy?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, has this really interesting verse in here.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where is it?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where is it?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Where is it?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um is this Oh no, no, no.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is gonna be your verse.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't you gonna take the next section about the father of lies?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And this verse, Jesus saying, Haven't I chosen you and yet one of you is a devil?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's yours.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Bottom of 167.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you've seen a professing Christian betray the Lord because of the lure of power, prestige, and money?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the on the at the Last Supper, Jesus says, now I'm on page 168, we're whipping through, we're almost done.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Um I've chosen all of you, and yet one of you uh is a devil.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think he meant that Judas is really a literal devil.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Just like he called Peter, I think, get thee behind me, Satan.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: He called him a devil at one point.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, greed can get into you.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean you can you can really be a devilish, you know.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um Okay, I I how do I do this without telling any so so I live in a large family?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Large family.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can just say this and you won't know.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: But there are people in my immediate family who I would say at times have horns jutting out of their head because they so badly want money.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm guessing that many of you can point to one person in your larger family circle who um maybe one of my family members um had a holiday when we were all sitting together, she turned to the person next to her.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: She ruined the whole day.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: She she started crying, she says, I have no money.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have worked so hard all my life, which is not true.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: She's in her fifty, and you have lots of money, you should give me money.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can imagine what that does to a family gathering in a holiday when you sit around all of you, and all of a sudden one person tells another family member to give her just to give her mom money, and she's sitting there.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I probably you don't have a family member that's it's that's that bad, but I was pretty sick.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: So are you gonna take he was a thief?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna do anything, Derek for me?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not doing for me.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not doing anything.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: They've taken the father alive.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: The father alive.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: The question When was the last time you've seen a professing Christian betray the Lord because of the lure of power, prestige, and money?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's exactly what we see from Judas really throughout his time in the Bible, is that this lure of the power, the prestige, the money is the thing that lured him away from Christ.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of the interesting statements that gets made on 168, second paragraph from the bottom, and right in the middle of the paragraph, he says, When many of the other disciples turned and walked away, he was probably elated, talking about Judas.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: The fewer the better in terms of carrying out his own selfish plan.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then a little bit further down, Jesus was so blunt in calling Judas the devil, the same word he used to later refer to Satan in John 8 44.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um Jesus knew that Satan was a liar and the father of lies.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you think about maybe people who have turned away from the faith, or maybe turned away from the true gospel, or maybe not even turned away from it, but maybe shade the true gospel or shade some of the truth for the for the money, for the greed, for the prestige.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um one kind of example that comes to my mind is you know, you've got some of these, you know, really famous preacher guys, and they're always talking about, hey, I need money for this, hey, I need money for this, hey, I need money for this, you know, multimillionaire guys.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: And amidst asking for all this money, the true gospel has been shaded.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: The true gospel has kind of been put on the back burner and almost as a secondary to feed these guys wealth, to feed these guys egos, because kind of what you know, like Jim was talking about a w a little while ago, sometimes in the pastorate the the thing that people really want to go for is glory.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: People want to go for glory because they don't think they're gonna be rich, but then there's also some of those who hold you know a title of pastor, lead a ministry or whatever, and they do want the glory, but then they also want the money too.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so they do all these ploys, um, which I think ties into what you're saying about you know, kind of the the a lot of a lot of lower class being very greedy, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of these huge, famous guys um who are greedy for money, famous pastors greedy for money, they'll often try to lure in a lot of um lower socioeconomic folks into their group, into their congregation, because they're pouncing on their on their greed.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so if they say, hey, if you give us ten dollars, you're gonna get a hundred dollars back, and that's what God's gonna give you, they're like, I'm on board, I want more money.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then so that's how they kind of pull these people in, and somewhere the gospel is not spoken.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I've gone over to Africa a lot, and these these you would not think that these promise makers, these help and wealth makers, these give me$10, you'll get a thousand back.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't think they'd be popular in Africa because who in Africa has any money?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're all poor over there, and yet these are the really popular people, and it's the saddest thing about the African church.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about real Christians, is you go over there, and one of the first questions I always get asked is, what do you think of?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then they'll name some famous jerk, TV preacher from America, who's always on there where driving a Rolls-Royce dressed in a white suit or whatever, always talking about send me$100, it's not$10, send me$100, you'll get a thousand back.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And these people are they they go over to Africa and and and and these people give their one shekel, you know, their last little bit of money, believing that somehow now they're gonna become rich.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't understand it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's so sad that poor people are suckered by this.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But these are these are poor people where if there was a casino, they'd be going in the casino too.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: So finish us up on the greed.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then the last little story in our chapter that we're gonna talk about this week is on page 169.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was a thief.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we sometimes inadvertently reveal the sinful thoughts and desires of our hearts?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: The story is that the last weekend before his death, Jesus goes when he was down near Jerusalem.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's he's visiting his best friends, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, right?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they have this big feast.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, Mary, out of her love for Jesus, gets this expensive perfume.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Remember that story?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's carried in like three of the four gospels.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: She breaks the neck of it, she starts anointing his feet.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Judas uh is is you know, does the pious thing.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor as if he really cared for the poor?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, you know, and I hear the whole poor stuff from from Democrat, from Democrat leaders, I think the same thing.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, come on, you're you're living a mega million dollar life as if you really care.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, plus, we know from your tax records you gave a total, thinking of Al Gore now, you gave a total of$200 last year in charity.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I go, yeah, really?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you care?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he did not say this.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is the only gospel where we're told this about Judas.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say this because he cared about the poor.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Lord.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: But because he was a thief.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: As keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And um, wow.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that's really good.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And now a couple, so so we're talking about greed, and then a couple of cartoons that I really like on this.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh guy lying on the couch.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not supposed to tell you this, but the true secret to happiness is having more stuff than everyone else.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's the psychologist that says that to him.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, George Carlin, uh, the late George Carlin said, trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about it for a minute, it makes great sense.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Happiness is internal, accumulating possessions is on the outside.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like satisfying hunger, which is inside by taping sandwiches.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I thought it was profound.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Carlin, you know, is not a Christian, was not a Christian, but this is this came right out of the Bible, uh, and it should have, anyway.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now we got two principles.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, we're on page, I don't know, whatever page we're on, but greed is a normal temptation that we all face, and we we must be on guard against it.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Can I get an amen there?
• 31:19
  unknown: Amen.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, please.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: You you you you want more, I want more.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the way it is.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hit principle too.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, second principle, when it comes to material possessions, Satan understands our vulnerability more than we do, and he targets us in this area of our lives.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes he knows us better than we know ourselves, and he knows that we're vulnerable.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when we are vulner vulnerable, then that's the time that he typically wants to strike.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're willing for people at the store to make a mistake, you know, and at the checkout counter that benefits you, but you know, you'll you know, uh you'll go over to, as I did yesterday, you'll go over to the customer service counter if if they overcharged you by 13 cents.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, um or you're tempted to take stuff from work, you know, just little stuff.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not paper clips.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's the illustration given.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who wants paper clips?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, stamps or tape or something.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: When I was working at Target, some people would, you know, this is a distribution center, not the store.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: But so they take whole boxes stuff rather than yeah.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: People would take a computer, oh my, whatever.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I mean it's the warehouse, so that's everything you can want is in the stuff in there.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I always said if there really is a zombie apocalypse, I'm going to the Target Distribution Center.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's food, there's drinks, there's entertainment, there's everything.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: So you guys might want to take that advice too.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Don't come to the church.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's no target distribution center.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: All we've got here is Bibles.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's say the memory verse together.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you've already you you read it earlier, I think.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: For, say it with me, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: 1 Timothy 6 10.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: So next week we're going to read chapter 10 again, Judas, especially the last part, during your small group discussion time.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've got four pages in this chapter in which there are questions.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So handle it that way.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Would you pray for us?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, thanks for bringing us here this morning, being able to go through your word, being able to learn about you and help guard us from greed.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when we when we do feel greed or we feel tempted to be greedy, God, please use your spirit and guide us on the right track and help us to be generous and not greedy.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.