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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you All right everybody welcome to steadfast baptist church glad to have you here this Sunday morning Go ahead and take out your hymnal and turn to song number 15 lead me to Calvary Again that's song number 15 Song number 15 lead me to Calvary all together King of my life I crown thee now Thine child of glory be Me Lest I forget thy thorn-crowned brow lead me to Calvary Lest I forget Lest I forget Lest I forget Leave me to Calvary Calvary Show me the tomb where thou was slain Tenderly morn dead Angels and robes of light arrayed Guarded he was a slip Lest I forget Gethsemane Lest I forget thine agony Lest I forget thy love for me lead me to Calvary Let me like Mary through the gloom come with a gift to thee Show to me now the empty tomb lead me to Calvary Calvary Lest I forget Gethsemane Lest I forget thine agony Lest I forget thy love for me lead me to Calvary May I be willing Lord to bear daily my cross for thee Even thy cup of grief to share thou hast borne all for me Lest I forget Lest I forget Lest I forget thy love for me lead me to Calvary Calvary Amen great scene inspired to order prayer Dear father. We just thank you that we could be gathered together in your house You hear the preaching of your word and have good fellowship. We just pray you bless the service today bless pastor Shelley as he preaches your word to us helping to be spirit-filled and edify the people here and Continue to bless our church with soul winners and bless us as we go out so winning that we could try to evangelize Our city and the rest of this world. We love you father and pray these things in Jesus Christ name. Amen Next song is going to be three hundred and seventy nine bringing in the sheaves Song number three hundred and seventy nine Song three seventy nine bringing in the sheets sewing in the morning sewing seeds of kindness sewing in the noon tide and the Waiting for the harvest and the time of reaping we shall come rejoicing bringing in the Ringing in the Shook on rejoicing ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves We shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves sewing in the sunshine sewing in the shadows Fearing neither clouds nor winters till it breathes By and by the harvest and the labor ended. We shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves We shall come rejoicing Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves we shall come rejoicing Ringing in the sheaves Going forth with weeping sewing for the master though the loss of Saint our spirit often grieves When our weeping's over, he will bear us welcome. We shall come rejoicing Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves We shall come rejoicing Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves Ringing in the sheaves We shall come rejoicing Ringing in the sheaves Amen Good morning, thank you so much for coming to steadfast Baptist Church If you didn't get a bulletin You can lift up your hand real high and we get a usher come by and get you a bulletin We have on the front our Bible memory passage Exodus chapter 20 and The verse is thou shalt not kill and so I'm kind of expecting a lot of ice cream might get taken on this Wednesday but you do have to show up to claim that prize so but that's a really good verse and Any child that's able to quote that 18 or under can receive an ice cream treat at our Bible study on Wednesdays We have our service times there on the inside Sunday mornings at 1030 We have a Spanish service at 4 30 and then our evening service at 5 30 as well as our Bible study at 7 Also, we have several churchwide soul winning times as well as regional so winning times So just make sure to check with the respective leaders if you'd like to just show up for so winning for the church why just show up to show up at the building and We'll we'll put you together with someone and we'll show you how to go so winning Also, we have our stats and then on the right we have the list of expecting ladies as well as a prayer list We try to keep our prayer list updated every week And so if you have a continual prayer request, please just try to continue sending that in to us Give us updates on those and then also you can fill out a communication card if you would like You can also put prayer requests on that whether it's public private Also, just have your information Below we have a baby shower in honor of all Or not all but all ladies are invited to come to the baby shower It's in honor of Kim Faye canary and RG or bannock and it's on May 1st. It's coming up Also, they are registered on Amazon. It's nursing's only preferred if you're able to participate on the back We have the announcement for our ladies T This is an honor of Mother's Day and it's gonna be Saturday May 8th from 2 to 4 at the Rose Garden tea room It's in Arlington All ladies and daughters are invited but you do have to sign up just to ensure that we have everything set up for you and everything's taken care of and so there is a sign-up sheet that's on this cabinet and If you will, please put your name your email and the the number of people in your party I my wife had sent out like a general text or email to a lot of ladies a long time ago Just kind of seeing like who was interested and that was just to get an idea to know exactly where to go and like how Much space that is not a for sure on the list You have to get your name written in the in the book of life over here Okay You got to get in the list of life or whatever and she's already sent out a preliminary email to every single person That did sign up. So if you have not gotten an email Then it could be one of two reasons It could be you're just not on the list or she couldn't maybe Read your email correctly or something like that If you did sign up and you did not get the email Please see my wife and just double check with her on that email If you have not signed up and please make sure to sign up and then if for whatever reason you're not here physically but you're just hearing my voice you can send us an email and We'll try to communicate that way but please please sign up and please make sure to get the email it's completely free and we would really like for everyone to participate and so Please do that. Also. We have the upcoming events We have some sports days. They've been going on on Saturdays. I we have a sign-up sheet for that as well We also have on May 16th pastor Joe Jones from shield of faith Baptist Church, he's gonna be coming and preaching for us He is in Boise, Idaho, and I got the privilege of he invited me to go out there and preach for them this past Friday Yes, or it was like two days ago, I guess and It was great. I've never been to Idaho, but I really enjoyed it. It's definitely a Nice area and Dylan, you know, he's brainwashed and thinks it's better than Texas, but you know, we'll work on him, but Yeah, it was a lot of fun the church was great it was a great time of fellowship and I uploaded the sermon I think Dylan uploaded our sermon on on our channel if you'd like to listen to it And so but please come out pastor Jones a really good guy and I really enjoy his family And so, you know pastor Jimenez likes you then you've got to be a great guy. So Also, we have our men's conference May 20th through the 22nd I have to submit numbers and everything to them by the end of the month And so please make sure to sign up for that As well, it's also completely free. All of our events are always completely free and it's gonna be a lot of fun we're gonna have pastor Anderson come and preach for us on Friday night and There's a lot of great activities that we'll be doing plus. It's just a good time. Just relax. Hang out do whatever you want There's no pressure while you're there I mean you can literally sleep the whole time if you need to okay, so and we'll try to wake you up through the preaching but Also, we have a couple slow winning marathons June 12th and July 3rd Please keep those on your radar a couple other just quick announcements We do have a few house rules that we have for the church and I kind of updated these but I don't go over them That often but I just want to remind people again We do have a nice machine in a fridge over here that we ask that children Don't use have their parents help them. The the fridge has lots of water and stuff in there. Please use it for soul-winning Also, please no running in the building and don't let your kids get on stage we don't want them to get hurt or you know cause any kind of damage or anything like that and I'd recently said something about This area over here by the door just because just sometimes kids love to gather over there And we just don't want anyone to get hurt or anything So, please try to keep your kids away from the door area just so they don't run away run away or side and everything Like that, but just try to make sure that they're not congregating at the door like an angry mob or something like that and I'd send one other thing about toys and Here's the thing. I don't you know, I really would prefer that you don't bring any toys You know to the church at all because I just feel like it's not beneficial for you and in training your kid and everything like That but it's not something that I'm going to you know Go around and police or do anything like that and I know that some people they travel from really far to church And so they like to bring something for the kids to do in between services or whatever. That's completely fine I understand that I'm not trying to just rain on your parade it's just that when some kids bring like, you know a whole bag of toys like they're Santa Claus or something and they start handing out to everybody and also little toys could be dangerous for Children or toddlers like that if they're not yours and everything like that. So just please be respectful of everyone and Try to make sure to keep a safe environment for us. All right, so that's pretty much all I have for announcements Let's go to our third song 106 abide with me In that song number 106 Abide with me So I'm number 106 Altogether Abide with me fast falls the event I The darkness deepens Lord with me Abide And other helpers fail and comforts flee Help of the helpless so abide with me Swift to its close Allies little day Oh It's glories pass away Andy All the round I see Oh That who changes not abide with me I need thy presence every passing What but thy grace can for the tempters Like myself my guidance day can be Cloud and sunshine Oh thou thy cause me for my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the sky And morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee And life in death With me Amen As offering place are being passed around please turn your Bibles to Exodus chapter 22 Exodus chapter 22 You You We'll be here I'll put in a piece of heat in another man's field of the best of his own field of the best of his own Vineyards If a fire break out intention For the stacks of corn He that kiddos the fire surely make restitution If a man shall deliver on his neighbor money or stuff to keep and if he's stolen out of the man's house To the master of the house Judges All manner of trespass whether it be for ox for ask for sheep for raiment or for any manner of loss which another Because the both parties shall come before the judges in whom the judges shall condemn he shall pay double on your favor man deliver on the neighbor You You You You You You Amen Let's look back at Exodus chapter 22, let's look at verse number 25 the bible reads If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee thou shalt not be to him as a usurer Neither shalt the lay upon him usury And the title of my sermon this morning is this interest and unjust gain interest and unjust gain and i've been doing a Bible a biblical financial series and this is going to be part three of that series But I want to talk to you this morning about interest and how the bible describes interest as being unjust gain And a synonymous word for interest would be usury Usury is what you find in the bible and it is a synonymous term with the word Interest in our modern vernacular and the bible makes it clear here that you're not supposed to lend any Uh usury or any interest onto your neighbor and especially it says that's poor by thee now Some people say oh, so it's okay to lend money To people that are not poor now The reason why it's bringing up the fact that they're poor is because those are the people that need money Those are the people that you're going to be lending money to or the people that are poor People that have plenty of money. They don't need you to lend them any kind of money and When you understand things about interest and usury you start to realize that the poor Are the ones that are taking the biggest advantage of by interest by usury and they're the ones paying the most amount of usury and interest Now it also says in verse 26 if thou would all take thy neighbor's raiment to pledge thou shalt deliver it unto him by the sun By that the sun goeth down For that is his covering only it is his raiment for his skin Wherein shall he sleep and it shall come to pass when he cries unto me that I will hear for I am gracious So the bible does say it is lawful and it would be okay to take Collateral or some kind of a pledge for a loan. So if I were to lend money to somebody There's nothing wrong with having something as collateral to that loan to ensure that the loan's paid back But the bible is saying that you should not take anyone's collateral That's of a necessity something that would be a need that they have his coat is his covering at night. So it's saying You don't want to take this guy's covering at night and hold it hold on to it because that would be you know Unrighteous that wouldn't be loving that wouldn't be kind and all the laws of god Are always under the umbrella of loving thy neighbor as thyself, okay So it's not unloving to ask for collateral on a loan But what is unloving is to ask for any kind of interest asking for any kind of money getting it back After loaning him any kind of money and it would also be wrong if you are going to take collateral to take something That's a bare necessity to someone's life In fact, that's why a lot of times people, you know, they can't lose certain bare necessities even in the united states You know, it's it's difficult to take someone's home. It's difficult to take something. That's a necessity because Of this principle, but you can lose your home in america I'm, just saying that it's much more difficult than other assets to lose go to leviticus chapter 25 I want to show you virtually every instance of the word usury in your bible So that we get a biblical foundation a biblical understanding of usury according to the word of god Now this is not a sermon that you would hear in very many churches because whenever you start preaching this sermon You know, it's going to be really offended Everyone that's a usurer And you say well, who's that? Well, everybody that works at the bank Everybody that works at the payday loans everybody that works, you know And and basically has some kind of a high interest rate scheme that they're using to rip people off You know, they don't really like this kind of a sermon, but you know what? It's not my goal to please you my goal is to preach the word of god And i'm not saying everything in the finance Area arena is sinful. But what I am saying is charging interest or charging usury is sinful There's no ifs ands or buts. The bible is crystal clear leviticus 25. Look at verse 35 And if thy brother be waxen poor And fallen in decay with thee then thou shalt relieve him. Yay Though he be a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with thee Take thou no usury of him or increase But fear thy god that thy brother may live with thee. So notice how usury is defined increase And what is interest it's any amount of money above what was borrowed it's any amount of money that's above Essentially what was asked of you and the way a lot of churches will interpret the bible is they'll say well It's okay to charge interest just not high interest rates Okay, or like a really exorbitant interest rate, you know, that's the type of logic where we would say Hey, the bible says thou should not kill but you can beat someone half to death You know, it's like no just because the bible obviously would condemn things more harshly You know doesn't mean that it's not a sin to charge any level of interest It is it is a sin to charge any level of interest, you know, especially to these people now In exodus 25 you mentioned or 22 i'm sorry, he mentioned your brother, okay Here he's mentioning a different group But they're still categorized as a brother because he's saying a stranger or a sojourner Meaning someone's dwelling among you. They're dwelling in your nation. They're dwelling in your town. They're dwelling amongst you yet They're not from here. They're originally from some other area or they're just basically Spending time there as a sojourner sojourner is someone that doesn't really live there permanently They're just kind of traveling or they're temporary or you know, we could think of people that have like a work visa, right? There's certain people that live in the united states, but that's not their permanent residence They're just here for school or they're just here for a particular job Or they're just kind of here on a temporary basis and the bible's saying you should consider this person your brother And you should not charge him interest. You should not charge him any kind of usury That would be a sin now go to deuteronomy chapter 23 go to deuteronomy chapter 23 And we have to take leviticus 25 in connection with deuteronomy 23 because we don't want to get the wrong doctrine here It says in deuteronomy 23 look at verse 19 Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother usury of money usury of vittles usury of anything that is lent upon usury Vittles is food. Okay, so he's saying you wouldn't want to charge interest on food or anything Okay, he's basically saying it's not just charging usury for a particular case It's usury period on anything that you could possibly loan anything you could possibly borrow You're not supposed to charge usury now look at verse 20, okay? Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury But under thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury that the lord thy god may bless thee and all that thou set is thine Hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess it now some people would maybe look at this verse and say well that seems like a contradiction because Earlier he had said that you're not supposed to charge any kind of usury or any kind of un you know This unjust gain on your a stranger and now he's saying hey strangers. Yeah charge interest Well, you have to first take them both in context in leviticus chapter 25 He's describing someone that's a stranger that's dwelling among you. Okay, that's actually in your area in your town in your nation This would be someone that's a stranger and does not live with you This is someone that's in a foreign nation and is a complete stranger and he's saying that there's a provision there to technically charge that person Usury, so what would this look like this would look like more like a loan from our nation to a foreign nation, right? Like the united states lending money to china, let's say And then charging china interest. Okay, or it could be obviously on a smaller scale It could be smaller groups states or an a group or an individual Loaning money to someone that doesn't live with you is a complete stranger a foreign nation or something like that But what we have to understand is this charging interest or usury to somebody Is is an evil practice you're doing damage to that person. And so you really are making them an enemy Okay, you would you would only want to charge usury to someone that's your enemy because you're hurting that person You're doing damage to that person. There's nothing good or fair about charging interest or usury to somebody So if we were going to charge interest to a foreign nation or something that would be making them our enemy That would be a negative thing They wouldn't look positively on the fact that you were charging them any kind of interest And you have to understand obviously at this time they're going to enter into the promised land. They're going to have enemies, right? They're going to have uh people that don't like them the assyrians or they obviously they don't eradicate the kainanites and the philistines, but They should have but even then they still would you know if they were going to loan money to an assyrian that doesn't live with Them the bible gives a provision to give to charge them interest Now what you have to understand about the bible and what you have to understand about the law of god Is just because something is mentioned in the bible as being legal does not mean you should do it. Okay We have to take the bible as a whole and then look at his commandments There's plenty of commandments and plenty of situations that are described in the bible and it's not a recommendation It's not saying do this the bible will give you provision and it'll say hey if you have another wife These are the rules associated with having another wife. It's not saying like go have another wife though It's not saying like hey go ahead and just have as many wives as you want It's just saying if you have happen to have an extra wife or you actually take another wife You need to make sure you're still providing for her. You're still doing the duty of marriage Okay, there's other provisions in the law where it'll say hey when you have a king These are the rules for your king to have but it's not saying go and get a king It was actually very wrong. God never wanted them to have a king yet He gives them provision in order to handle that situation. He gives you provision. He explains to you. Hey if you've been divorced You're not supposed to get And then you get remarried which is a sin But then if you decide to get divorced again, you're not supposed to go back to that other spouse, okay But it's not saying like have a divorce It's not saying hey, this is a good idea It's not telling you these are all the good things that you should be doing It's basically just setting boundaries for all kinds of different situations All kinds of different scenarios and I will submit to you that the bible does not teach for you to charge interest to anybody Okay, it's just saying from a legal perspective or from god's law's perspective Is there someone that you could technically charge interest to and still be within his boundaries Yes, it would be a stranger that's not dwelling among you. That's not your brother It'd be a foreign, you know enemy it would be an enemy or somebody that you're wanting to make an enemy essentially Okay, so don't take this verse and then be like, oh, it's okay. This guy's not my brother So i'm going to charge him interest that is that is a gross Uh misinterpretation of what the bible is clearly teaching now go to nehemiah chapter number five go to nehemiah chapter number five We have to understand the commandments of god, you know It's the same people that then will go to where what jesus said about marriage when he says When he's asked of the jews, they're like can a man divorce his wife for any cause? And he's like have you not read that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female You know, therefore what god has joined together let not man put asunder So when jesus is asked he's saying no In fact, never hey, you know when it's appropriate to divorce your spouse never He says these two have become one flesh You know when it's appropriate to get divorced never Now they bring up something in the law, don't they though then they say well then why did moses give a writing of divorcement? And he says well save for the cause of fornication You know whosoever put his wife away causes her to commit adultery And what christ was saying is yeah There is a technical provision in the law That if someone were to defraud you and to trick you and deceive you and lie to you about your marriage And say they're a virgin when they're not And then you find out on the wedding day. They lied to me. There's an issue here The bible gave you a provision to have an annulment essentially and avoid that marriage But even in that case jesus christ is not saying that you should have an annulment He's saying hey you're married stick with it, you know be with that person But yeah, the law did give you this technical provision But at the end of the day just because there's a technical provision in the law doesn't mean it's a good idea Hey, you know, it's it's legal in the united states to drink alcohol. It's not a good idea though You can do all kinds of things according to the law in the united states. Hey, you can sue people But you know what? You shouldn't sue people. You shouldn't shoot your brother and sister in christ according to the bible So just because something's legal doesn't mean it's a good idea And so we shouldn't take things that say oh well It says if I have a second wife, I can do x y and z that's not an endorsement to have a second wife Okay, and just because it says hey, you could technically charge an enemy or a stranger An interest rate doesn't mean that's what you should do doesn't mean that's a good idea And i'm going to prove that even further from places in the bible look at nehemiah chapter five And look at verse number one Now this is when the jews came back into the promised land there They're trying to rebuild and re-establish their society It says in verse one and there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the jews For there were that said we are sons and our daughters are many therefore we take up corn for them that we may eat and live Some also there were that said we have mortgaged our lands Vineyards and houses that we might buy corn because of the dearth There were also that said we have borrowed money for the king's tribute and that upon our lands and vineyards So the the children of israel they've come back And they have no food They and they have no money to pay taxes So they've literally had to mortgage their land mortgage their house mortgage all the things that they have So that they can just even eat so they can have food so that they can basically pay their taxes So they're not in trouble with the law and the reality is that's the kind of society we live in today People today do not have enough money to just own all their property the majority of people in america have a mortgage today Why so that you can eat so that you can have you have a place to stay you're gonna think something to eat You you can pay your taxes and not get in trouble with you know, uncle sam or whatever Maybe it's like aunt sam now. I don't know what you call in america anymore But The reality is that's the kind of society we live in today and it's a negative thing It's not a positive thing mortgages are not good Okay, don't let the mortgage banker tell you how wonderful mortgages are. Okay mortgage is a negative thing. It's a bad thing They're saying man. This is terrible because of the dearth because we have a bad economic Woe that happened unto our society We don't have money so we had to resort to mortgages. Okay mortgages is not something that should be desired It's not something like oh great You know, I have a mortgage no, but it's a reality for most of us, isn't it? you know most people can't just own everything they have outright because Of the society we live in and it's because of interest. Okay, and i'm gonna get there but Look at verse number five Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren Our children as their children and lo we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants And some of our daughters are brought into bondage already neither is it in our power to redeem them? For other men have our lands and vineyards and I was very angry when I heard their cry in these words So nehemiah's saying hey when I found out everybody's you know up to their eyeballs in debt and everybody has a mortgage And they are being in bond in bondage and imprisoned And they're being taken advantage of and oppressed I was very angry Verse seven then I consulted with myself and I rebuked the nobles and the rulers and said to them ye exact usury Every one of his brother and I set a great assembly against them And I said to them we after our ability ever deemed our brethren the jews which were sold unto the heathen And will ye even sell your brethren or shall they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace and found nothing to answer so what is he explaining explaining this Because the children of israel are taken into captivity. They're taking captivity to multiple nations spread over the entire earth After 70 years of captivity and babylon eventually babylon is destroyed by the medo-persian empire And the jews are then given an option to return back to the land But in many cases the jews were still imprisoned they were still owned they were still a literal slave And so in order for them to come back to the land in many cases they had to go and buy them back They had to literally go and buy them from the spaniard or buy them from whoever obviously I don't know if spaniards didn't really exist back then but i'm just saying like they had to go buy them from the different Uh countries buy them from the asyrians or buy them from whoever's in these different areas and allow them to come back And he's saying why would you go and buy him? From his slave owner in this foreign country bring him here and then literally enslave him yourself Literally then go ahead and put him back into bondage make him a servant again Make him a serf again by charging him usury by charging interest upon them He says in verse nine Also, I said it is not good that you do Ought ye not to walk in the fear of our god because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies I likewise my brethren my servants might exact of them money and corn. I pray you let us leave off this usury so he's saying Hey, I might you know exact usury of my enemies But why are we why are we doing usury on our brethren here verse 11 restore? I pray you to them even this day their lands their vineyards Their olive yards and their houses also the hundredth part of the money And of the corn the wine and the oil that ye exact of them Verse 12 then said they we will restore them and will require nothing of them. So will we do as thou sayest so Nehemiah's just ripping into the nobles ripping into the bankers ripping into all these money lenders Ripping into the jews for exacting usurish usury upon their brethren And notice when he's telling him give stuff back. He says to give the hundredth part of the money That was the interest they say what's the hundredth part? 1% interest Now in America today, you can't get a loan for 1% interest. I mean that doesn't hardly exist I mean, maybe does anybody have a loan where your interest rate is only 1% or less. I Mean that's pretty much unheard of and so when people say oh they have these really high interest rates That's sinful. Well according to the Bible 1% interest is wrong Why because any increase would be wrong? He's taking it to an extreme saying even 1% is wicked even 1% is detrimental Even 1% is not walking in the fear of God if you're going to walk in the fear of God You would never charge interest on your brother Now look at verse number 13 This is the Nehemiah says this also I shook my lap and Said so God shake out every man from his house and from his labor that performance not this promise even thus be shaken out and emptied and all the congregation said Amen and praise the Lord and the people did according to this promise. Hey, this preaching was popular back then He got up and he said hey any of you that decide to exact usury or interest upon people God shake him out God shake out all that interest and all that money and just go ahead and take advantage of that guy and all the people said Amen at that kind of preaching Go to Psalms 15 go to Psalms chapter 15. We're just kind of getting a sample here But the Bible is really clear on this subject It's not a confusing subject. It's a crystal-clear subject It's just not a popular subject why because there's so much interest in our country today There's so much I mean virtually all businesses at this point are a usurer I Mean virtually every business is usury and you say what do you mean? Almost every time I check out of the store. They say hey, do you want to sign up for our credit card? Like every store has their own credit card I mean, it's the Home Depot credit card and it's the Walmart credit card And it's the Target credit card and it's the Best Buy credit card and it's the Dillard's credit card I mean who doesn't have a credit card these days? And look credit cards are not 1% interest my friend They're like one of the worst usurers, okay? You go buy a car Interest I mean they're gonna they're gonna jack up interest rates on you You want to buy a house? You want to buy a boat? You want to buy an ATV? Hey, you want to just go to the grocery store and buy groceries for your family put it on the credit card Just interest interest interest just everywhere and you know, it's wicked. It's wicked. It's not right. It's not What the Bible teaches? Psalms 15 look at this verse 5 He that putteth not out his money to usury nor taketh reward against the innocent He that doeth these things shall never be moved Now this is a psalm that we sing and in the context is look at verse 1 Lord who shall buy my tabernacle Hey, you want to dwell with God? Hey, you want to be in God's house? Hey, you want to draw close to the Lord? Who's that? He that putteth not out his money to usury The guy that's not charging interest the guy that's not exacting unjust gain upon his brethren Go to Proverbs 28. Let me prove this to you Proverbs 28 that the Bible teaches that usury is unjust gain Now what is unjust gain it means that it's not a legitimate way to make money It's not a righteous way to make money There is a righteous way to make money and there is an unrighteous way to make money What would be an unrighteous way to make money stealing lying deceit fraud Okay, obviously, how about this selling liquor selling drugs? Oh That's the pharmacy at Walmart. That's the pharmacy at CVS. It's funny Hey, you go to you go to CVS and it's like everything in there. They're selling they shouldn't be selling drugs alcohol That's the only thing they even make money on They're not making money on their food in there. The food is on the shelf for like ten years You got to be careful when you go into places like that You know where they're making all their money is on the trucks and on the liquor and all the other, you know The tax high-taxed goods. Hey the lottery that's not a legitimate way to make money Hey, you know, it's another illegitimate way to make money charging interest Banks just are in like just flawed They're fatally flawed, you know, and I've worked for banks and and I finally decided you know what? I just don't want to work here anymore and To be honest, I wasn't really specific about the interest that bothered me, but it was mostly just the love of money But here's the thing if you have a lot of money you're gonna do whatever you whatever to make it You're gonna just do things that aren't right and you're gonna make money in ways that you shouldn't you know It's a good way to make money working Providing a good providing a service and let me tell you what interest is not a service You're not providing any anything beneficial to the society. You're ripping people off. You're charging them really high rates It's a predatory practice Proverbs 28 look at verse 8 he that by usury notice this and Unjust gain Increases the substance he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor Notice the guy that's gathering by usury and unjust gain is someone that does not Pity the poor because charging interest means that you hate the poor you're taking advantage of the poor You're ripping them off you despise them. It's not a legitimate way to make money and Isn't it interesting that you know where they make the majority of their money on poor people How could you say that's a righteous practice to say you know what I want some more money I'm gonna go ahead and rip off all the poor people in society And you why a lot of people are poor. It's just because they're stupid Because they're ignorant because no one you know, maybe they didn't have a father love them and taught them things They didn't have a mother that taught them things. They don't have a good education. No one's loved them They're down on their luck and because they're down on their luck. They're ignorant. They've never been taught anything or they're in a bad situation What is it? Oh this really nice Baker is gonna rip them off and take advantage of them. Oh, how nice and Then guess who's usually on the deacon board at your Southern Baptist Church the banker Yeah, oh he's so loving and let's get up here and clap for him and tell me how he's such a great guy And he's so nice All the guys charging interest in usury, let's get up and praise them he can't even quote a single verse in the Bible Yet because he has so much money and is ripping off all the poor people in the congregation Let's bring him up and tell him how wonderful he is. Well, I'm not going to I'm gonna make him feel real uncomfortable Because it's not a righteous way to make money go good. Isaiah 24. Good. Isaiah 24 See a few more verses here I'm gonna try and make this real practical for you because let me tell you something interest is your enemy Interest is your enemy and it it does not benefit anybody except for the usual and The usual is doing it And it's very sinful. It's very wicked way to make money. It's a bad practice. It destroys Societies it destroys the poor. It's destroyed people for Since the beginning of time, okay, it's not like usury is a new invention Okay, it's the same inventions. It's the same devil. It's the same sins that people have always been guilty of And usury is a detriment to a society now look at Isaiah 24 verse 2 and It shall be as with my with the people so with the priest as with the servant so with his master and with as with The maid so with their mistress as with the buyer So with the seller as with the lender so with the borrower as with the taker of usury So with the giver of usury to him now you say well, what is what is this list? He's just basically saying hey all of the people that are in this situation are gonna end up being destroyed Okay. Now in this context we have to understand. He's just giving a list of all kinds of people But what I do want to point out in this verse and I'm kind of taking you to all the verses in usury Whether they're really related or not is notice. What does it says? It says as with the lender? so with the borrower as With the taker of usury so with the giver of usury to him So notice this and the synonyms here the lender the borrower The giver of usury or the taker of usury Usury and the one that what is the giver of usury? Notice the synonymous terms with lender and the one that's taking usury now you could technically lend something without doing usury, but that's a Parallel relationship is someone that's lending money and the one that's a usurer. Okay, go if you would to Jeremiah 15 go to Jeremiah 15 now if you look up usury on the internet You just type in the word usury Wikipedia will be one of the first articles you click on it And it'll say oh someone that charges really high interest rates and blah blah blah but then you get to the second paragraph and they'll say now historically a Usury is considered any Interest or any money given on loan and this has been taught by Christians and blah blah blah So they're like, well now we've changed the definition to just really high interest rates, but I mean it historically Yeah, it did mean any level of interest in any level of money and here's the thing What definition am I going to take the modern definition or what the Bible's always taught and Look even historically usury is just literally interest. Okay Jeremiah 15 look at verse number 10 Jeremiah 15 look at verse number 10. Woe is me My mother that thou has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth I have neither lent on usury nor men have lent to me on usury yet Every one of them doth curse me now in this context Jeremiah saying like why does everybody hate me? He's like, why is everybody mad at me? And he says I've never lent on usury now you say well Why is he bringing that up? Because when you lend money on usury that person's gonna hate you That person's gonna be mad at you. That's why he's bringing it up. He's saying look I don't know why everybody's mad at me And the reason is because he's preaching the truth and look people don't like the truth Okay, when you start preaching the truth and you get really truthful man you get banned quick, okay You get censored real quick you get killed or whatever very quick ask Jesus all about it. Okay He didn't live very long when he started preaching the truth In fact, they tried to kill him very many times before he ended up dying I mean it was a constant just running for his life because he's just sitting here preaching the truth And look all he did was preach the truth So he can kind of it kind of a parallel passage Jeremiah's like why are people hating me? I haven't done anything wrong But you know what that him also applies this lending on usury is wrong Sorry, and if someone hates you because you charge them interest, it's legitimate You should be mad at that person because it was wrong go to Ezekiel chapter 18 go to Ezekiel chapter 18 I feel like the Bible has a real consistent message here. It's not gonna change Now I will say this there is two mentions of the word usury in the New Testament I'm not gonna go there because there's no real point But essentially there's a couple guys that are given a talent or five talents or ten talents and they're told to basically, you know Occupy till I come and basically their masters and trusting them with this money and the one that has ten trades and does work and Does labor and adds another ten when that's five trades and does labor and adds another five But the one just buries it in the earth and he comes back to him and he says, you know Wicked and slothful servant and he's rebuking him and then he kind of just says you should have at least Given my money to the bank. So then you could I could have gotten some money on usury or whatever We have to understand about parables is everything in the parable is not necessarily a good thing Okay Just like I preached last week About how there was a parable of the unjust steward who ripped off his employer and was cooking the books and taking advantage It's not like in that parable. The Lord was commending him on ripping his employer off. Okay He wasn't commending him on stealing from his employer taking advantage of him ripping him off doing financial fraud That wasn't what he's commending him on He was commending him on the fact that he realized if I have friends that have money they'll help me out in the future That's what he committed him on is the fact that he had that viewpoint He understood that point and again in the parable of the the talents. He's not saying like wow I'm really glad that you got some money on usury. That was a great idea He's just saying in the bare minimum You could have done this and hooked me up and in the parable the guy's known as a hard man He shows where he doesn't reap. So obviously someone that's just an unsaved person. That doesn't fear God That's a hard man would not care about receiving money on usury. He just wants to make some money Okay, and most of you probably even work for a company that has something to do with interest Okay, and I'm not saying go and you know rip off your import You should do a good job for your employer, even if he's gonna do things that aren't right Okay. Look if you're looking to work for a company or business that does nothing sinful. Good luck Where are you gonna work? Hey Walmart sells alcohol. I mean you know you can't work for them Okay, virtually every company supports some kind of a fag company or you know Maybe they voted for Biden or I mean you can't find a secular business where there's not some level of sin Introduced obviously you should do your best to stay away from that and not participate in sin I'm not advocating for sin, but you can work hard for your employer despite the fact that they're sinful Okay, and the reality is that's not a legitimate thing saying like go make money on usury It's just saying this guy should have at least done something with his master's money and at least put it with the bank And you know what pretty much ever in this room puts their money with the bank Okay, and let me give you a sad reality the bank loans money Did anybody not know that did you know that every bank loans money, okay And I'm not telling you that it's sinful to just put your money in the bank. We all do it It's just the reality that we live in Hey, we pretty much all probably have a loan of some sort, you know I'm just telling you that you shouldn't be charging interest You shouldn't be the loan the lender the predatory lender taking advantage of these people and ripping them off and there is no No positive mention of charging interest, okay Don't take that parable and come come up to me and be like pastor show. Did you never see the pearl? It's like yeah, I know all about the parable. Okay, that's not that's not a good example All right Now you sound like a Pharisee now trying to bring parables up There's Ryan explain things to me. You're gonna get a fork and a knife and eat Jesus Christ with the Catholics too or what? Go to Ezekiel at 18 look at verse number 10 if you begin a son that is a robber a shedder of blood and That do it the light to any one of these things and that doeth not any of those duties But even hath eaten upon the mountains and defiled his neighbor's wife Have the press the poor and needy hath spoiled by violence have not restored the pledge and have lifted up his eyes to the idols Have committed abomination now Is this list like a pretty good list or like a really bad list? This is a pretty bad list wouldn't you say committing adultery murder stealing just like worse things What's the next thing on the list verse 13 have given forth upon usury? Hey, you want to see a list of really bad sins, you know, it's on there usury and it's in the relationship to this Because he's saying see people that robbed he's saying people that have oppressed the poor and needy That have not restored the pledge. They're just ripping people off He says this have given forth upon usury notices and have taken increase. Hey, you want me to define usury increase? Then we already see that before Interest is increase and it's wicked. It's sinful. He says shall he then live he shall not live He hath done all these notice this Abominations he shall surely die his blood shall be upon him. So how does God look at usury? He calls him an abomination and he says that person's worthy of death Now when you get the context of Ezekiel chapter 18, he's not saying this is what men will do It's saying what God will do it's saying man failed to execute judgment man has failed to do that, which is right So, you know what? I'm gonna repay man myself I'm going to go ahead and avenge myself and he's saying people that have charged money on usury You know what? That's an abomination and he's worthy of death God will destroy that person go to chapter 22 go to chapter 22 and look at verse number eight Ezekiel 22 look at verse 8 thou hast despised mine holy things and has profaned my Sabbaths and The are men that carry tales to shed blood and in thee they eat upon the mountains in the midst of thee They commit lewdness in thee have they discovered their father's nakedness in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law and another in thee Humbled his sister his father's daughter This is some sick stuff here verse 12 in thee have they taken gifts to shed blood now has taken usury and increase And now is greedily ganged of thy neighbors by extortion He's a man. You're greedy. This is wicked. You're evil He's saying in the same breath in the same sentence committing all kinds of adultery and incest And murder and then he's like, oh yeah, let me add this one usury You're like, oh it's the respectable banker I mean imagine I brought some up on stage and I say well this guy is a pimp and he murders women and He's from Kentucky. So he's committed all this incest Sorry And he's just and I'm just like let's add him to the deacon board That's the same as bringing the banker up and praising him for being a banker You disgusting pimp you disgusting usurer and wicked person of interest Say how many people are from the bank you're gonna come to your church. I don't know but you know Maybe they should quit being a usurer Verse 13 the old therefore I have smitten my hand at thy Dishonest gain which thou hast made well, I think users a pretty good idea No, God says it's dishonest gain. It's wicked. It's evil. There's nothing righteous about it and you say well People are making, you know hand over fist money at the bank. You're right But you want to make lots and lots of money be a usurer I Won't lie to you. Hey, they're they're making tons and tons and tons and tons of money In fact, it's one of the best ways to make money as far as if you just care about making lots of money You don't have to do anything You do literally nothing You just give money and you just sit there and just take money from them You just exact interest and user against them and the bank they make sure that their loans are so airtight They'll rip you off. They'll take all your collateral. They'll take all your goods They're not just gonna hand money to somebody that they get they're not gonna get their pound of flesh back from Someone that can't someone that they've already taken their pound of flesh from that's already really poor now They're gonna be like, sorry, you don't qualify now now that I've ripped you off and taken advantage of you Now I'm gonna make this real practical for you I'm gonna bring my board over here. Okay interest is not your friend Interest is a wicked and unjust gain and you know what people in America are just getting ripped off and they don't even realize it Last sermon I preached on net worth if you want to destroy your net worth pay lots of interest Because interest is not an asset Interest is nothing good for you now Most people have credit cards who owns a credit card. Okay, everyone. All right. Now most credit cards have Varying interest rates. Okay, but the average interest rate I looked at an article said the average interest rate for a credit card is 24% Okay, that's your average interest rate on credit cards. Some are higher some are lower Now let's assume you had a credit card and you buy $1,000 worth of goods Let's say you want to get the new iPhone. I don't know how much cost let's just say is a thousand bucks, right? Thousand bucks you're like man. I can't wait to get my hands on that And a lot of a lot of credit cards their interest rate will be twenty nine point nine percent APR now Here's the thing let's assume that you buy this and for a whole year You don't make any payments on it. How much money would you owe? Well, you kind of look at this and you thinking like what? You know, I'd probably owe what two hundred and ninety nine dollars in interest, right? So you would think that you know this much money At the end of the year You know what you won't know that's much money because there's a thing called compounding interest So what they do is they literally calculate the interest that you owe and they charge you every day Every day Your interest is calculated every single day and it'll be like 40 cents or something and you're thinking like that's not much But every day that thing ticks up. In fact, if you don't pay it back you owe One thousand three hundred and fifty three dollars and Ninety five cents you say where that extra fifty bucks come from It's called compounding interest because let me tell you what they've come up with every possible Invention to try and take as much money from you as possible Okay. Now, let's go back to our scenario here Compounding interest I've done just giving you an example you say yeah, but I I can't just get away With the fact that not paying it because in fact Let me say this if you didn't pay it it would be way higher than that because you had been hit with all kinds of late fees and late payments and just been Jacked up. It'd probably be like two three thousand dollars by the end of the year. Okay I'm just saying on the interest factor alone and that compounding interest hits your your late fees, too Okay, but if you're let's say you're making the minimum payment you say okay pastor Shelley. I'm gonna make the minimum payment It's a twenty nine point nine percent interest credit card I'm gonna make the minimum payment the minute payments 25 bucks a month Who has a credit card where their minimum payments about 25 bucks a month? Yeah Mine are usually like 25 30 bucks is the supposed minimum payment that you have to make on anything if you make a $25 a month payment on a thousand dollar credit card with this interest rate. You will pay it off in over 30 years And you will have paid $9,886 and 32 cents That's a pretty good deal, right Now I have an iPhone in my pocket anybody want to give me $10,000 for it. I'll sell it to you right now That would be kind of stupid right to buy it for $10,000 but that's literally what they're doing You just don't realize it They're charging you $10,000 for this and some people are so stupid They'll literally do it and this is assuming that you never even missed a payment because you miss a payment They're gonna slap 25 30 buck late fee charges on that and that's gonna really start jacking up these numbers and they can get really Big really quick. That's assuming you never make another purchase on that credit card. Look the credit cards are literally designed to take advantage of you and Some people they're they get they buy something on a credit card and they say oh I pay 25 bucks sweet But they don't realize what's happening That's why there's so much legislation that's been passed like if you get a credit card statement now Typically, there'll be a little box go look for it and it'll say this is how much interest you'll pay if you pay only the minimum payment and They started happen to put that on there because it's kind of starts showing them for who they are But it's usually kind of head over in a corner or that you're not looking or whatever But look credit card interest is very exorbitant. It'll destroy you. How about let's say you spend a little bit too much more money Let's say you spend $10,000 You buy $10,000 worth of goods on your credit card, it's the same credit card twenty nine point nine percent interest And you make the minimum payment of $250 a month because that's what your minimum payment would be typically on a credit card like this You're making 250 bucks on this $10,000 credit card, you'll pay it off in over 30 years and You will pay $98,855 and 91 cents And literally people are doing this all the time And hey 10,000 bucks while it seems like a lot of money that's not that much some people need this That's like a couple months rent and some food I mean most people can't live more than two or three months on less than $10,000 I mean unless you're just a single guy that's like, you know living with a roommate or something eating ramen Sorry, that's college for most people. All right, but I'm saying look this is not that much money I mean if most families or something like that you you've got to make you know 10,000 bucks every couple months or you're gonna you know be in the poorhouse yet they Get behind their car breaks down something bad happens They have to use their credit card they get here and they don't already have enough money They don't have a lot of money. So they just start making minimum payments But here's the thing the credit card companies like sweet Just taking in that money and this balance virtually never even changes It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and they're just ripping you off and laughing all the way to the bank Let's talk about payday advances for a moment All Right payday payday loans now who I'm not gonna I'm not gonna ask, okay Most people honestly have not in this room probably even gonna pay the advance and if you go Let me say this if you go to a nice area Let's say you go to like South Lake Okay, the nice area or you go to what's some other nice areas Collieville, right? You know, you're never gonna find payday loans Yeah, you go to the ghetto and you know, you find a payday loan in every corner a payment advance or whatever The average interest rate on payday advances so they did all of them 391% interest average average Not Only that if you miss your two-week payment because typically they take your check and give it to you before your two weeks when You get paid because most people are paid bi-weekly If you miss your two-week pay period the interest rate is typically five hundred and twenty one percent Look if you want to just completely go to the poorhouse get a payday advance This is absolutely the worst thing you could ever do Look, this is why you should go to church If you get in a hard time ask your brother for some money and I'm telling him he's not allowed to charge you interest Hey, someone's tries to charge you interest in this church. You tell me I'll deal with it Not only that the payday industry The payday industry. All right So we're talking about the payday industry because you look at these little stores in the ghetto and you're thinking like They're not making that much money. Well, let's see. It's a 29 billion a year industry Okay, now all that 29 billion 9 billion of that money Came from fees alone They're making 9 billion dollars in fees from all the poor people and in the United States How About high mortgage interest rates now, this is really crazy I've done interest rates on mortgage and I've kind of talked about that and typically if you look at a mortgage If your interest rate is five and a half percent on your mortgage You will pay Double what the house is worth in interest if you have a 30-year loan and your interest rate is five and a half percent about That number you'll pay literally double So if you have $100,000 home, you'll pay about $100,000 interest you have a $200,000 home You'll pay $200,000 in just on a 30-year note. Okay, fortunately interest rates are a lot lower right now But again interest will literally destroy your finances my first home when I got it. I was at six point something So I'm paying more than double in interest and eventually I went to a 15-year with a lot lower interest rate was way better But interest doesn't add to your net worth. It only takes away from it It only destroys you it's it's an enemy now sometimes it's a it's an enemy that we just have to deal with I mean, you know, what's the other option not having any assets not having a home not being able to have anywhere to live so You know a lot of us are gonna have mortgage. I have a mortgage but you know what having a mortgage is not Great, what would be better is not having a mortgage? Okay, not paying interest because it's literally just destroying you but there's a thing and predatory lending Where people will literally find individuals who can't afford to get a mortgage or they don't have enough high enough credit and they'll still sell them houses and I learned about this when I was working in the baking industry a lot of people do this but they'll literally charge people 20% interest on their mortgage and They'll sell them a home for $100,000. Okay, and And They'll charge them 20% interest on a 30-year note, which would be about This per month, okay, so they'll say hey for 16 1700 bucks a month. We'll sell you this house and They say if you want to rent it, it's 1750 a month. And so someone's thinking like, okay well, I might as well own it rather than You know rent and it seems like it's a good idea and they're like Oh, we're helping society and we're helping people buy homes and they're like we finance things You want to know how much interest this person will make if you actually pay this note off a 30-year note at 20% interest 100k note you would pay this much money in interest over life alone a half a million dollars an Interest from the poor guy that can't even afford to buy a home. You're gonna take that much money from him That is what's happening in our society today you want to know why people are filthy rich Interest okay interest is an enemy. It is evil. It'll destroy you don't pay interest and Like I said in this series, you know, it comes to finances. There's nothing wrong giving all your money to God But why give it to the devil There's no glory in giving it to the banker there's no glory in giving it to the wicked Okay, go to Proverbs 28 still go backwards if you would I'm gonna read you a few articles real quick Why were the Jews expelled from England in 1290 Now this is some of these articles you probably can't find if you search through Google, okay, I use duck duck go all right You have to be careful because Google doesn't show you anything anymore, right? This is from the University of Oxford. Okay. This is not like just some random Yahoo. I hate Jews website This is from Oxford. In fact, they're very pro Jew. They're talking about the woes of all and all the anti-semitism in the world today Okay, they're gonna tell you what happened in 1290 Okay Jewish people have only been in England since the Norman conquest and invited to settle there by William the Conqueror From the late 11th century onwards the Jewish community quickly became an essential part of the English economy Jews were permitted to loan money at interest something Christians were forbidden from doing That's one I wonder why Jews Jewish settlements and Important towns such as London, Norway and Lincoln prospered England's Jews were skilled individuals who worked as doctors goldsmiths goldstein almost like goldsmiths and poets but lending money was their primary source of income and Jewish people were fundamental to the working of the English economy Jewish lenders provided loans for many of the most important figures at the royal court for the purchase of castles payment of dues to the King etc. They were also exploited by kings who are often in dire need of money now I quoted this article just because they're real pro Jew. It's like very positive about them Then they're talking about the woes, but they'll admit that it's a historical fact That Jews were only money lenders primarily like that was their business They were the bankers and yes what they've been bankers since forever Okay, and you want to know why Jews have been kicked out of every country. Let's keep reading Jewish lenders often sold on the debts owed to them by Christians and the new owners of the debt pressured the debtors to pay up as English Knights became increasingly indebted Jewish lenders got the blame in Parliament from the 1260s onward local representatives of man and measures to be taken to curb Jewish lending and is likely these changes contributed to several thousand Jews deciding to leave England so Jews and Christians started getting a stronger divide in England and they started exposing them for the fact of all their doctrine and stuff like that and Eventually it got to the point where Christians Jews didn't like each other So all the Jews started selling all the loans that they had to Christians to other lenders They were like hey take my Christian loans from me because this guy doesn't like me or whatever and the other guys Ended up having to collect on those debts and so Jews got blamed eventually the law got changed where Jews could not lend money in England so from that fact alone just the fact it was illegal to do interest and usury They just left like thousands of them are leaving the country Says this and by 1275 Edward the first decreed that Jews could no longer loan money for a living and would have to convert to Being merchants laborers or owning farmland. Oh, they actually have to work for a living. Oh, man This statute also confirmed long-standing rules for Jews requiring Jews to wear badges now, they didn't make them wear badges Okay, this is not Adolf Hitler alone. All right to identify them Then he eventually was having pressure. He raised taxes Exposed he took advantage of the Jews now I have another article and this article is still pro Jew, but he's actually gonna give you a lot more details than this Oxford Well, I read that one because it's real reputable, you know source of information They're confirming this is true all of history will confirm the fact that Jews have just been money lenders all the time now This guy Greg Delgadillo is also a university student and he wrote a paper all about this and It's called the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 He's writing why they were expelled in 1290 and he says this in medieval England was primarily an agricultural society. Hence Investment of capital did not come readily to them yet because they could not own land talking about Jews in England The only profession which Jews could participate was money lending Kings of England would use the Jews as a way of indirectly taxing their servants The king could tax the Jews which in turn Would cause the Jews to demand payment on their loans from their debtors if the Jews and their debtors could amass the necessary funds Then the king had his revenue if the Jews could not secure the tax then the king could imprison them and seize their property This property was in many cases the deeds the land which debtors had used as collateral Therefore the king through the taxation of the Jews was able to enhance his absolute power It says in fact Henry the third requested 16,000 pounds for army pay and 1236 10 of the richest Jews were used as a security deposit to force their brethren to pay 10,000 pounds and 1240 the Jews were called upon to pay a tax of 20,000 pounds or one-third of their property when the Jews refused to pay the Crown took their properties payment for the tax and arrested them along with their wives and children. So basically The Jews are the lower-level pimps okay, basically they tap they charge interest on everybody and It's an effective way to gain a tax and then guess what then the government taxes them really high Oh, it sounds like Joe Biden want to increase the corporate tax like 35% Whoo So all the Jews taking advantage of all the poor and getting all this money from usury and interest and unjust gain And then the government taking their money and then taking advantage of them same practice That says the Jews continued as money lenders until 1274 when King Edward returned from a crusade It says the Jews did this by lending money to English Knights. It says they made a great deal of money Says the Crusades had ironically allowed the Jews to make a great deal of money Ironic, yes real ironic the Jews did this by lending money the English Knights who wanted to wage wars against the Muslims in the East Moreover monasteries borrowed money as well to create a church Hey, it's interesting the Jews made a lot of money when the Western world was at war with the Muslims Hmm. I wonder if that happens today I wonder if there's any wars in the Middle East today where anybody's making any money off of it I don't know. In fact, this is this in what instance? 27 pounds word were borrowed from a Jew and four years later It's how much money they owed say they borrowed 27 pounds. Guess how many pounds they owed in four years? 880 Talk about interest rates That's pretty high Says when Edward returned from the East he created the statute of the Jewry in the statute Edward dictated from henceforth No, Jews shall lend anything at usury either upon land or upon rent or upon any other thing. That sounds like the Bible Hey, it sounds like when Nehemiah saw them not to charge interest and then later in Ezekiel God telling not charge It sounds like they never changed their ideas, didn't it? And then Edwards happened to make the same statutes In fact, is this in this statute statute of the Jewry? Edward announced money lending but he continued to tax the Jews who Roth claimed to have been reduced to pawn brokers So instead of being an end user and charging interest they went to being the pawn shop owners Consequently the uncrease the unceasing taxes Decimated the Jewish community's ability to survive so they're not allowed to survive if they can't do illegal Practices based dishonest game furthermore the statute did not allow the Jews to practice usury thereby making it possible the Jews to keep their position as the chief money lenders of England all Sad they can't rip people off anymore Says this in the 13th century The English accepted foreign artisans in their land and participated in foreign trade abroad Christianity was the bridge that made it possible for the English to conduct business with aliens Unfortunately the for the Jews England's improved foreign relations allowed relations with Italian money lenders Who maneuvered their way around the usury laws? They would offer loans with grace periods Sounds like credit cards with the when these grace periods elapsed normal interest would accrue This payment of interest could be written off as an expense for the sending of money in addition as long as the Italian merchants allowed these grace periods they were allowed to loan money at 60% annual interest Now let me explain something alone with a grace period is called a credit card They Were already doing back they're saying well, we can't charge interest all right credit cards And it says that the Italians charged 60% says 17% higher than Jewish money lenders so the loans that the Jews were making were 43% interest 43 percentage I wonder why people were mad at them In fact after that in order to make it This is what it says because of their economic Obsilence the next logical action would be to expel the Jews from England So they're trying to talk about how they should get him out says a new Segregation would help to speed this process along the Jews were accused of clipping coins in this process the coin is clipped or filed down on The clippings or filings are melted down into bullion It was this allegation that led Edward the first to order every Jew in England arrested 600 Jews were arrested and over 200 were found guilty and hanged now you say what's clipping coins well Because we have monopoly money This doesn't make sense to you Okay if you cut a dollar if you cut like the edge off of a dollar you can't take like the edge of that dollar and be like hey it's a Dollar in order for a Federal Reserve note to be accepted you have to have at least fifty one percent of the dollar, okay? Otherwise it is not accepted so you could actually cut a third of your dollar off And it would still be technically considered legal tender, but if it's less than fifty one percent of the bill It's no longer legal tender because if let's say it was forty percent people just cut their dollars in half and double their money, right? Well, here's the thing this is what the Jews would literally do because they had their money was coins and the reason why their money Was coins is because a coin was made of silver gold or some kind of precious metal and had intrinsic value, okay? Go if you would to a proverb chapter 11 for a moment go to Proverbs chapter 11 Because of that intrinsic value what they would do is they literally shave The coins off a little bit or they'd clip a little piece of that coin And they'd still try to pretend like it was a legitimate coin And they would take all the clippings from those coins And they would melt them together into a little bar of gold or a little bar of silver, and then they would sell that So they're really trying to rip off the federal government Money system by shaving coins and by clipping coins So because they can't charge interest Well, I can't work for a living so I'll just rip off the Federal Reserve System It's called you know the Federal Reserve System Which is also not owned by the government. It's a separate private entity that prints its own money Hmm. I wonder if there's anything related to clipping coins and printing dollars. That's a different sermon all right But look at Proverbs chapter 11 verse number 1 a False balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his life Hey, that's very wicked to literally you know change the value of that coin Deceitfully and then go around and pretend like it's still worth the same amount of money That's wicked God can cause that abomination Go to first this one in chapter 2 go to first listen chapter 2 think you have to understand about The Jews and let me make myself very clear here I'm not talking about a certain ethnicity, okay I'm not talking about a certain race because you know God's not a racist God doesn't hate people based on who their parents are the color of their skin or any of those things but You know when the Bible condemns Jews It's talking about a religion Now it is very closely associated with ethnicity in a lot of cases especially historically You know it's been tied to a particular group of people But it's not because of their parents or the color of their skin. It's because of what they believe that makes them wicked It's because of the things that they do that makes them wicked and look the Bible Does not say to bless some group of people based on the color of their skin or based on who their parents are You go to most Christian churches today, and they say oh we better bless them You know we better bless the Jew because God told Abraham You know whoever blesses you he's gonna bless and so we got to bless that Jew we got to bless Abraham Where's the thing Abraham was not blessed because of the color of his skin? He was blessed because he had faith in Jesus Christ And you want to talk about who you should be blessed people that are saved Not people that are not saved now the people that practice the religion of Judaism Are the people that are being condemned here because remember the categories it was Jews and Christians in these articles It's not saying white and black people or white and brown people or kind of brown a little different brown or whatever It's talking about a religion versus a religion It's saying about people that believe on Jesus Christ and people that spit when they hear his name People that hate Jesus Christ that despise the Lord that despise God's Word. Oh, I'm shocked that they don't follow his commandments either I'm shocked that they're doing the exact opposite of what God told them to do And when Paul the Apostle Paul goes out and preached the gospel for a really long time. He starts realizing these people hate God These people are not our friends That's someone I'm gonna bless look what it says in first. That's when he's chapter 2 verse number 14 For ye brethren became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen even as they have of the Jews who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets and have Persecuted us and they please not God. Oh We gotta bless the Jew because God's it's God's chosen people. No God's not pleased with them They killed Jesus. Why would God why would Jesus be pleased with the people that killed him? He says notice this and are contrary to all men Hey, I wonder why they got kicked out of every nation Well, you have to understand something the law of God It's fulfilled in one word love Love every commandment of God is loving and the people that hate following God's commandments. You know what that makes them unloving Those that practice Judaism hate the laws of God do not follow the laws of God they are not loving That's why when Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees He's saying you oppress the widow and you're afflicting the fatherless and you're ripping them off. You say how the payday loans And all the interests and all the unjust gain and they're constantly doing it and they've done it throughout history and they're predatory They're predatory Let me give you a quote from this article this is it's a poem that Christians wrote okay This is what Christians wrote. All right says it admits noble presence that hither came also the wretched wicked Jews That weaned well to do and a rich present that they prepared with great pride and sent it to the noble king But small thanks them betide for the king was somewhat vexed and took it for great shame That from such unclean things as them any meat to him came So he's saying hey these wicked Jews were given money to the king But he got offended and then he made a rule don't give these unclean things. He's calling the Jews unclean He says don't give them any meat. Don't give them any food. Don't give them any money Why because he wanted to get him out of his society out of his area people that hate Jesus Christ and blaspheme the Lord You say oh you're an anti-semite look I love Semitic people Ben's one of my great close friends here. Okay, I Have a problem with a seam height Hey, I hope every Jew gets saved But you know what? I'm talking about ethnic Jew the religious Jews They are often reprobate my friend and they hate the Lord Jesus Christ and I'm not gonna bless them I'm not gonna do good at them go to Proverbs 28. I'm out of time. I'm gonna show you one more Verse here interest adds nothing to your life All you're doing is giving more money to the global elitist. You're giving more money to the Jews that hate Jesus Christ You're giving more money to the bankers. You're giving them more power. You're giving them more influence Look stop paying interest figure out ways to reduce the interest that you pay in your life Don't pay interest and why do people often pay interest because they have to have it now You know And we'll get there in another sermon, but Proverbs 28 look at verse 5 evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways, though. We be rich Look you say well if I don't charge interest pastor Shelley, I'm never gonna be filthy rich. Yeah emphasis on filthy Why do you want dirty money? Why do you want filthy lucre? Look, there's a right way to make money and there's a wrong way to make money And interest is the unjust gain Not a legitimate way to make money You should never be involved if you're involved in some kind of interest you should figure out a way to get out of that Because you're not pleasing to God when you're doing that God doesn't like that and they're ripping off the poor in our society And if you know what's good for you, you'll pay as little interest as you possibly can Okay, and I'm not saying that you know, I don't pay it I pay interest we all pay the interest because we're all screwed by the system that we live in They're taking advantage of us But you know, we should be wise and realize what they're doing to us and stop paying so much interest It will destroy you financially Get rid of the interest in your life. And you know, I'd rather be poor and right with God than be filthy rich and at the end of the day you say well This sucks. I just learned that I'm just funding evil. Basically. I pay so much interest every year pastor Shelley. Well, guess what? Eventually, we'll inherit the earth You may have paid for the earth five times over but guess what you'll eventually get it Because you know what all that interest is gonna eventually given to someone that pities the poor you know who pities the poor Jesus Christ and God and you know eventually the meek will inherit the earth eventually the poor will inherit the earth and You know what? We don't need to get filthy rich in this world. There's no point to it only to run your life Anyways, let's go some prayer. Thank you father so much for your word. Thank you for Commandments. I Pray that we would take heed to your word that we'd walk in the fear of the Lord that we wouldn't try to exact usury upon our neighbor and upon our brother and Upon those around us that we'd realize that it's an unjust game that it's a dishonest way to live And I pray that you would just help people to just avoid as much usury and oppression that exists today that they would be wise They'd be good with their money That they'd be good stewards of the things that you give us and that we would try to avoid all this predatory lending And I pray that you would just destroy those predators that you could just find a way to just shake the lap of all these Wicked evil people that you could just redistribute funds away from these evil satanic God haters and that we could just live peaceably among all men as best as we can in Jesus name we pray. Amen Amen with that. Let's close it out for one more song. Go ahead and take out your hymnal again and turn to song number 353 from every stormy wind Give that song number 353 353 Every stormy wind that blows from every swelling tide of walls There is a calm, a sure retreat This ground beneath the mercy sea There is a place where Jesus sheds The oil of gladness on our heads A place and all besides more speed It is the block of mercy sea There is a seed where spirits blend Where friend holds fellowship with friend Though sundered far by faith they meet Around one common mercy sea There there on eagle's wings we soar And sin and sins molest no more And hand comes down our souls to greet And glory crowns a mercy sea Amen. Glad to have you here this morning. Have a great afternoon. God bless. You