GYC 2008: For This Purpose

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Ed Reid: Faith and Finances in the End Times

G. Edward Reid

Creator of Heaven and Earth

Well, I've been a speaker at GYC before, but my name is Ed Reed, and my wife Kathy is with me here.

And we just flew in last night from Maryland.

And we're glad to be here and hope that you have a wonderful session.

This 1 is not the lottery ticket, you know, how to get rich or anything.

What it is, is what we want to do is understand the biblical principles of money management.

And I can tell you that if you function in society you will need to know how to manage or you're going to be in really, really deep trouble.

And that's the real situation that we'll talk about.

So I will use the Bible a lot, especially for the first 2 sessions.

And then after that, we're going to talk about how to manage.

Most of you know that we're presently experiencing the most unusual financial situation in history.

I believe that it's for anyone living, really, for most people that could remember the Great Depression only kids, you know, where kids back then could remember it today.

So anyway, I think what we'll do is just have a prayer and begin, and then I'll give you some Bible principles to begin with.

Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for the opportunity we have to be together.

I pray that you'll bless each of us as we contemplate these important things, and may our hearts and minds be open to the understanding of your word in Jesus name.

I actually am the stewardship director of the North American Division so my day job is teaching money management.

And I say the day job because I also enjoy eschatology and in-time things.

And for those of you who have a general interest in that, you will likely know that the Bible actually predicted what we're seeing today.

And that is 2 Timothy, the third chapter.

And you know the first couple of verses, know this, that in the last days perilous times will come because men will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money.

All of the unusual things you've seen recently in the American economy are a result of 1 word.

And people are walking away with millions of dollars in their pockets.

And some of the people who are their employees or investors are losing lots of money.

So I'm not going to spend so much time talking about the problems more than we want to see about the solutions.

First of all, I want to show you something.

I usually give handouts, but this is a special time.

You guys are very, very unique and special people to me.

So I've been working for about 4 years to produce a new small group Bible study on money management and it's called Faith and Finance and you see it up there.

This is just an advanced copy but I brought enough for everybody to have 1.

It's going to be introduced actually at the Ministries Convention in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina next month.

But you guys will be the very first ones to see it.

And for everyone, I'm going to put you on your honor.

If you attend at least 4 of my sessions, I will give you 1.

It's a $13 value, but it's a 12-lesson Bible study on money management, and it covers everything you could ever think of about money, including, you know, planning for school, how to get through school without a student loan, how to buy a house, how to buy a car, how to plan for retirement, all those kind of things, what Christians should do for investments.

I think you'll find it to be very, very helpful.

And The cost is, it's complementary to those who come to at least 4 of the 6 meetings.

So at the end of today, if you've been to all 4, you'll tell Kathy, and we're going to open it up.

And I say open it up because I've got a box here that I brought on the airplane.

Real honestly, I don't want to carry it back with me, but you understand.

We could actually, I'd like to know, just for my sake, Kathy's going to circulate a little thing for you to sign your name on.

But ultimately, it will be up to you to tell me that you have been here 4 times.

And if you don't do it today, by the way, when I look down through the seminars, I wish I was somewhere else right now.

But there's lots of good ones, I can tell you that.

But anyway, There will be a number of them, but this is very, very valuable information.

It's about 25 years worth of my research, and it has the latest information, including the subprime mortgage debacle and the current crisis.

You understand with the $700 billion bailout that the federal government is now $11 trillion in debt, that's in here.

It's that's, this is that valuable a book.

The problem with it, books like this on money management is that they soon get out of date when you have terrible problems, but it's as current as we could get it.

And we also put a spiral binder on it so that when you're doing the worksheets and so on, it will lay flat and you'll find it to be real helpful.

Can some of us that are going to attend all choose to purchase a few more for Debbie?

Because I actually brought more than I think we're going to need.

So if you want to buy some at the end, we'll make them a special price for you, a special Adventist price.

I want to ask you a question now, and this is a very serious question.

Why do you think God asked us to give Him tithing offerings?

The real situation is that he does not need the money.

Someone just sent me a manuscript, which I think is going to be a pretty good book with some modifications and it's called Rich God Poor God.

And do we serve a rich God or a poor God?

Do you think he wants us to go through life in debt our whole lives and really struggling to make ends meet?

The Bible has some amazing principles in it, and I'm going to share those with you.

And I believe that God wants us to prosper.

That doesn't mean you're going to become wealthy, but it means you have what you need when you need it.

I think it's really, really valuable to know.

So what we're going to look at is just some basic things about the Bible to begin with, and then I'll show you what I consider to be the real foundation.

Two-thirds of Jesus' parables deal with money, money, material possessions, and our attitude toward them.

More than 2, 000 Bible texts deal with money.

Only about 500, for example, deal with prayer and less than 500 deal with faith.

So you understand how important this is to God.

When you read through the Bible, it's very, very interesting that you can see this principle there.

There are people who sell books about how to become a millionaire.

I'm sure that most of you know that this is a true statement.

I want you, if you take notes, to write down a reference right now.

It's in the little book, Steps to Christ, and most of you have probably read this or you have access to a copy.

It's Steps to Christ, page 44, and it says, the love of money, the desire for wealth is the golden chain that binds men to Satan.

The love of money, The desire for wealth is the golden chain that binds men to Satan.

The love of money, the desire for wealth is the golden chain that binds men to Satan.

Now I just told you that God wants us to prosper.

There's a real, real unusual situation and that is between prosperity and wealth is a tipping point.

Financial Planning for the Cycle of Life

Okay, we're ready to start our second session.

And I wanna talk to you a couple of items of information before we get started.

I see some of you are here that weren't here in the last session.

We have just finished writing a new book called Faith and Finances.

You can see the title up on the screen here.

By the way, we also will have it in about 6 weeks in Spanish, Fe Finances, the whole thing in Spanish also.

But at any rate, we will have it in English.

We just picked these up at the press on Tuesday, so I didn't even have time to send them.

I brought them on the airplane yesterday.

So anyone who comes to 4 of the 6 presentations that I have, I will give you a complimentary copy of the book.

The Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy, I have to say, about money management and Christian finance.

Kathy is going to start a little sheet around here.

If you didn't have your name on the first 1 and you were here, make note of that somehow.

Just click there, check it, or make a little note.

And basically, this is going to be your honor system so if you tell me you were you know I'll pretty well trust you because if you lie you're not going to heaven and so yeah Pretty much the bottom line there.

If you will pass it on this side to the back.

I would like to have Daniel start it on that side.

I'll pass it across the yard on the back.

Tom asked me to mention something during the break here that I want to share with you also.

The last session, which is tomorrow morning at this time, I believe, we will talk about the rewards of financial faithfulness.

In fact, I actually assigned it to another person who felt that what he was finding was so incredible that he was afraid to write about it because it almost seemed self-serving.

In other words, You don't want to give for hope of reward.

But God is very clear in the Bible and is also explicit in the spirit of prophecy that every 1 of us have an account in Heaven and I will talk with you about that.

Now the big question is will people who gave huge amounts have huge rewards and all those kinds of things.

When you read the Bible, the real reward to people is the joy of seeing souls saved.

But then beyond that, you have greater responsibility in Heaven.

But it is also true financially, and that's what I'm going to talk to you about.

It is not in vain that we serve the Lord.

And it's interesting also that he says many times, great is your reward in heaven if you do this and so on.

There are many, many passages, and I won't give you that 1 today.

But what we're going to talk about now is the planning for the cycle of life.

And the cycle of life I'll just give you right now is everybody has a lineal life cycle, Just like we have a lineal history of the great controversy on the earth.

By that I mean you have all the way from the fall of man to the second coming.

And sometimes things happen cyclical, but we have basically a line.

So that's what we're going to talk about here.

And so that when you get to my age, you're not wondering what's going to happen to the rest of your life.

If you plant it properly, things really will work out very well for you.

If you eat all of your seed, there's nothing to plant for next year though.

So we're gonna have a prayer, then we'll start right into this.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your blessings in our life.

I pray that you'll help each of us to look carefully to your word and scan and glean what we can best benefit from individually.

May your Holy Spirit that inspired the Bible writers inspire each of us today in Jesus' name.

Okay, what I'm going to do is get into this 1 and planning for the cycle of life.

And I want you to see, by the way, all of this is in the book also, but I'm just going to do the highlight part of it.

And this is kind of a picture and I have it in the book also, but this is kind of like your life, your planning and your personal finances.

What are your borrowing decisions going to be?

Most of you likely know that there were 2 major problems with what we call the subprime mortgage situation, which started the big snowball of the current financial crisis.

First of all, there were greedy lenders trying to get more people to borrow money so they could get fees for it.

But then there on the other hand, there were individuals who should have known they couldn't have made the payments getting houses.

I actually feel more sorry for those people than I do the mortgage bankers because the average person will only buy a house once, twice, or maybe 3 times in their whole life.

But mortgage bankers were selling mortgages every day and they're professionals.

They knew the people could not pay their mortgages.

They were called what we call, boy, there's all kinds of names for them, but Nina loans, no income, no asset verification.

And they were giving people a hundred percent mortgages, which is really, really incredible because there's no wiggle room.

So many of the people that are being foreclosed on now actually owe more on their house than it's worth.

10% of the houses in America right now are subject to foreclosure for that reason.

But I'll talk to you a little bit more about that, but we're gonna talk about how much will you borrow and under what circumstances.

But I will just tell you right now, for example, I am a person who discourages getting involved in debt, but would it be appropriate under certain circumstances to get a student loan?

And you'll be able to see that why in a few minutes.

The problem is, I'll tell you, I'm just going to pick out a school that's a long ways from us.

Let's just say you're a student at Andrews University.

I just taught there this summer, and I was at Berrien Springs Village Church a few weeks ago so I really enjoy Andrews.

Our daughter Melissa graduated from Andrews.

But let's just say that in your second quarter or whatever you realize you're not going to be able to finish, you know, pay your bill without getting some money from somewhere And so you go to the student aid office.

Give us your parents' 1040 forms for the last 2 years.

So they contact you, and they tell you, guess what?

Say thank you, but use it as a line of credit, if you please.

Do your very best to borrow from every, I mean to get money from every other source possible, and then only borrow as much as you have to have to finish.

If you can get by with $2, 780, that's what you should borrow.

And I'll show you some more things about that in just a minute.

Tithe and Offerings as the Foundation of Management

I have about 25 years of experience teaching stewardship and money management.

I have a graduate certificate in personal financial planning, and I've just passed a certification to be a senior financial advisor.

But None of that stuff matters unless you know God and you're in partnership with Him because the whole business could implode very easily.

But remember that God is the owner of everything.

And if you're in covenant relation with Him, you can count on Him to take care of you in your everyday life, just like you count on Him to take care of you in your eternal life.

He says, you're going to bless you, He will bless you.

That's why this particular topic, just like when I teach the seminar on getting out of debt.

As I showed you the last time we were here, just the first 4 principles.

First thing, establish the tithe, moratorium on debt, you understand, make a covenant with God, list your debts, those kind of things.

But what we're gonna talk about this time are the biblical principles of giving.

And I want to, I'm gonna go really fast because when I get through I want to have you guys ask me any question you could ever think of on tithe.

I'll just spin that a little bit for you.

Isn't it true that Ellen White gave some of her tithe to independent ministries?

You can tell me, and I'm an attorney, I will give you citations, chapter and verse, the place you can find the answers to these things.

So just so you'll know that it's important to know.

Okay, what we're going to do is why do we give?

First of all, this is an offering situation.

We give to glorify God as our creator, to integrate God into the material side of our life, and to show thanks for God's grace and blessings.

Those are just kind of things that you see.

We're gonna talk about tithing first, and this tithe is a 10th part of our income, or our increase if we're self-employed.

This is the first part of our God-given increase that he claims as his own.

And the word for tithe and tenth are used interchangeably in both the Old and New Testaments.

For example, if you were to look at the case of Abraham and Melchizedek, I think I may have this.

The first mention of tithe in the Bible is Genesis 14, 20, where Abraham gave Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God, a tithe of all the spoils of Sodom, which were given to him by the king of Sodom." Now this is very, very interesting.

This was long before there was a Jew or the children of Israel.

Now this is amazing because the last mention, some of you understand because of your academic types, the first mention of something in the Bible and the last mention of something in the Bible are both very significant.

And the last mention of tithing in the Bible is in Hebrews chapter 7, the first 10 verses.

And it's the recounting story of Abraham and his encounter with Melchizedek.

In this account, we're told that Abraham, the patriarch Abraham, gave a tenth of the spoils.

Now remember that this is very, very interesting to me because in the Old Testament it says he gave him a tithe of all.

Now another real interesting thing is, this is the chapter about Christ after the order of Melchizedek.

Now this is interesting because the first mention and the last mention of tithing have nothing to do with Israel and the Old Testament Judean system.

They're both Melchizedek and the last Melchizedek.

So you understand tithing is still valuable today.

That's what I wanted you to see from that.

OK, so I'm going to ask you a question right now.

Does anybody know what the real purpose of GYC is?

To learn about how to be more effective as a Christian and be inspired, right?

Some of you are going to actually do some witnessing or go out and make contacts with people.

So I'm going to just give you a little illustration.

I go to lots of workers meetings, like pastors and teachers meetings and so on.

Kathy and I were just asked to go to the Trans-European Division last year in the Netherlands where all of the ministers for all of the Trans-European Division were together and we had sessions with them about pastors' personal finance and church finance and so on.

You understand that we have workers' meetings, but you understand that we're part of the great controversy.

You understand that the forces of good and evil.

Do you think the devil also has workers meetings?

And 1 of the most unique experiences that Ellen White ever had was to actually see 1 of the devil's workers meetings and she got to hear what he said to his imps.

Now you may not be aware of this, but I'm going to show it to you.

Series

Ed Reid: Faith and Finances in the End Times

Financial Planning for the Cycle of Life

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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