(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Welcome everyone to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab your song books. We'll turn our hymnals to song 165, O Worship the King. 165, O Worship the King. 165, O Worship the King. Song 165, O Worship the King. O worship the King, all glorious above, And gratefully sing his wonderful love, Our shield and defender, the ancient of days, A villain in splendor and girded with praise. O tell of his might and sing of his grace, Whose robe is the light, whose canopy space, His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, And dark is his path on the wings of the storm, Thy bountiful care what tongue can recite, It breathes in the air, it shines in the light, It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain, Frail children of dust and feeble as frail, In thee do we trust, nor find thee to fail, Thy mercies how tender, how firm to the end, Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend. Good singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for Steadfast Baptist Church and for all the people here. Pray that you bless this assembly this morning. It should help us to sing out to you from our hearts and fill our pastor with the Holy Spirit. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, for our second song, we're going to go to song number six, Beneath the Cross of Jesus. Song number six, Beneath the Cross of Jesus. Song six, Beneath the Cross of Jesus. Beneath the Cross of Jesus, I fain would take my stand, The shadow of a mighty rock Within a weary land, A home within the wilderness, A rest upon the way, From the burning of the noontide heat And the burden of the day. Upon that cross of Jesus, Mine eye at times can see, The very dying form of one Who suffered there for me. And from my smitten heart With tears to wonders I confess, The wonders of his glorious love And my own worthlessness. I take across thy shadow For my abiding place, I ask no other sunshine Than the sunshine of his face. Content to let the world go by, To know my sinful self, My only shame, My glory all the cross. Good singing. If I could please get an usher up here to bring a pulpit copy of the bulletin. Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. And thank you so much for that. If you don't have a bulletin, our ushers do still have plenty of bulletins. Lift up your hand nice and high. One of our ushers can come by. Get you guys a bulletin. And on the front, we have our Bible memory passage, Psalm 146. This is our grace week. And so if you're able to quote the entire passage, there is going to be a prize. Just so I can anticipate that, who's already, and I'll wait a second. I'm going to get a count here in just a second. I'll wait until the other day, passing out bulletins. I want to see who's been doing this. But on the inside, we have our service times, our soul winning times, and then our church stats. Also we have on the right our list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. We have a prayer list. And we try to update this every week. So if you have any prayer requests, please email those in. We'd love to be in prayer with you on that. Also upcoming events. So we're so close. It's literally tomorrow, we're going to have our theater premiere of the preserved Bible. And if you signed up and everything like that, we'll be emailing you tomorrow exactly where we're meeting. It is at 7 p.m. And of course you can come a little early if you want. It's probably encouraged, especially if you want popcorn and all the goodies to show up early. That way you can already go through the line and get everything that you need. They are going to be prepared for us, so I'm very excited about that. And we're going to show the movie, 7. It's about two hours, just so you have an idea of how long the film is. And some of our friends have already gotten to see the film. Our friends, Pastor Thompson, they actually showed it yesterday to their group. They did a Saturday matinee, and they put some reviews out there. And he said he didn't have any bad reviews yet, so okay. But they said they really enjoyed the film, and I'm really looking forward to you guys watching the film and giving us your feedback and everything like that. But it's definitely a really enjoyable project to work on because I feel like anybody and everybody that worked on it learned a lot, including myself. I feel like I learned a lot of different things, and I became better at understanding where we got our Bible from, why we even use the King James Bible. And really, it kind of squashes a lot of the arguments against the King James Bible, people that use other Bibles or modern Bibles. And really, there was even so much information that was really good, but we couldn't include it all. And so, God willing, we're going to try and put out a lot of the extra footage, and we'll wait a few weeks and everything like that, but we'll start putting out our deleted scenes and our full interviews and just a lot of other information. We have a website, thepreservebible.com, and hopefully we'll update that as well. And I'd like to put all of the source documents for all the stuff that we put in there, so if you want to do your own research and look these things up. And honestly, the film came out great. A lot of the pastors I've already spoken to want a lot of the material. They want the DVDs and stuff. And I know some of our previous projects, we've always had the nicer cassette-style DVD cases. I was thinking about also ordering kind of the smaller, the thin ones to hand out. And I was just curious, of you guys that go out soloing, would you rather have the nicer DVD or the smaller case? So if you want the DVD case as a preferred, what would you prefer more, that or the smaller case? Raise your hand if you like the nice DVD cases. Okay, what about the small sleeve cases? Okay, yeah. So that gives me a good idea of how I should kind of order things. We'll definitely order both. We're going to have some, so we're going to accommodate everybody. But just so I can anticipate how many of each quantity and stuff like that would be best. And so we'll be ordering a lot of those pretty soon. I do want to wait until we just kind of get the film through. So it'll probably take us a few weeks, but we're going to have the DVDs to hand out and everything like that, have the QR code. We have a website and everything like that. Maybe we can get some cards made immediately or something like that if people want. But of course, the best way a lot of times is just to share this digitally. Share it with your family and friends. We're going to be sending it out through email and posting it online. We've been even buying just some advertising just to try and share the film because I think that the good thing about the film is it's really just geared to Christians. I mean, if Christians want to know about the Bible, it's a great resource for them to learn where and why we use the Bible that we do. So please, please do share the film. And please, if you can't make it, you can watch it Tuesday night. We're going to release it online as a premiere Tuesday night at 9 p.m. Texas time, which is the only time that matters, so of course. But is there anybody here that wants to see the film tomorrow night but did not email me, that did not email me? All right. Okay. Just, we have space, so I just want to, but please, if you can, just email me. That way I'm just, I can anticipate you coming. But I do look forward to all of you participating. And you need to email me just so I can tell you where it's going, all right? So where we're going. The next event there was the Cleburne, Texas Small Town Sony Marathon, February 4th. We have the March 15th Old West Wednesday. And of course, this is just going to be kind of a special fellowship event. It's going to have a dinner. And really, it's going to be an awesome event. We're going to do lots of cool things at the place. We'll dress up. We'll have a photo booth. We'll have some cool activities. Have a little bit of a church service still. And so I'm really looking forward to our event. And so please, if you do plan for that, of course, cowboy hats are welcome and your six shooter, all right? And then also, we have April 1st as the Dallas Sony Marathon. April 24th through the 29th is the Bahamas missions trip. And so we have a lot of people emailing us itineraries. I think I already have like 25 people that have given me their itinerary. So not just the people that say they're going to come, but people that have already booked flights and stuff like that and sent them to us. And it's going to be a lot of work. We're going to go there and just work, work, work. And really, when you go to a place like this, it's fun to just go soul winning all day because you never really get to experience something so receptive. And so just please pray for that. One other thing I want to make note of, we do have the Bible memory, Psalm 146. Who's already completed this? Just keep your hand up for a second. Okay, who is not, but they're going to finish it. Okay, so it looks like we have about 30 so far and about 17 more that are coming. What about New Testament Challenge? Who's already completed the New Testament for this year? Okay, who's going to finish? All right, there's a lot of you that are ready to finish. Okay, so we got about 10, 12 people that are very diligent and go ahead and get things done early. And then the rest of us are procrastinators like me and there's about 30 of us. All right, so I just want to have an idea so we can anticipate for our prizes. And again, the prize is not the reason why we do those things. We do those things because we love the Lord and we want the Word of God into our hearts. But of course, we like to incentivize you because whether you did it with a good intention or not, I'm just glad you got the Bible inside of you. So that's a great thing that we want to encourage. And with that, we'll go to our third song, 63. Song 63 in our hymnals, What a Day That Will Be. Song number 63, What a Day That Will Be. Song 63, What a Day That Will Be. 63. There is coming a day when no heartache shall come. No more clouds in the sky, no more tears to dim the eye. All is peace forevermore on that happy golden shore. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon His face, the one who saved me by His grace. When He takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land, what a day, glorious day that will be. There'll be no sorrow there, no more burdens to bear, no more sickness, no pain, no more parting over there. And forever I will be with the one who died for me. What a day, glorious day that will be. What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon His face, the one who saved me by His grace. When He takes me by the hand and leads me through the promised land, what a day, glorious day that will be. As the offering plates being passed around, please turn your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy. . . . 1 Timothy chapter 6, 1 Timothy chapter 6. You can follow along silently starting at verse 1. 1 Timothy chapter 6, the Bible reads, Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness, from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings in oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. And let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Amen. The Bible says in verse number 9, But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which, while some covet it after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O men of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and has professed a good profession before many witnesses. Of course, this portion of Scripture is famous. There's a lot of applications that could be made. But the Bible makes it clear that when you have a love of money, when you desire to be rich, you're going to fall into a trap. That is a trap of this world is the desire riches, desire a lot of money. And the Bible describes it in verse 10 as coveting after. What is to covet? Covet is simply to desire. But sometimes the word covet can be used in a positive sense, having a good desire or coveting something that's good. But in this context, the Bible is describing someone desiring something that is not theirs, and something that they shouldn't want or shouldn't have, and desiring just large sums of money and being rich and these type of things that go along with wealth. The Bible describes it as the root of all evil, meaning that it is going to cause every evil imaginable. And we have to be leery of the love of money. We have to be careful with a covetous attitude because it will destroy Christians. You know, this passage of scripture is not written to the unsaved. It's not written to the casino owners. It's not written to the heathen. It is written to God-fearing Christian men. And specifically, if you even get more specific, it's written to Timothy. And Timothy is a man of God. Timothy is a preacher. Timothy is a pastor. And the Bible is telling him not to get infected with the love of money, to not desire to have lots of riches and to covet and desire to be rich, having this just love of money. And the Bible says that it will destroy you. It will cause all kinds of pain and woe. Of course, people desire money because they think it will bring them joy, happiness, security, and all kinds of special treats. But the Bible says that it's actually a trap and it's going to destroy you. You know, you think about a trap. What is a trap? Well, a lot of animal traps. What you do is you take something that looks appealing and you put it inside of a cage and the animal is snared by wanting or coveting that particular item. I know that my dad, he would always catch squirrels. Who's ever caught squirrels, okay? And what he would do is he found out that they love peanut butter. So he would buy these cages and he would just smear peanut butter in the side of the cage and basically the way the trap works is you walk in and as soon as you take, like you get too far into the trap, you step on a release and it closes the cage behind you. So they always walk in to get the peanut butter and then the cage closes like that and then they're stuck. Now what you have to understand about these cages is they get the peanut butter. It's not like they don't get to eat the peanut butter, but here's the problem. Now they're trapped and then pretty soon they're going to be disposed of and I won't explain how that happened. But it's not a good process. It's not a fun process. It's many sorrows, okay? And this is how sin is. This is how the love of money is, is that sometimes, yeah, you'll get a little peanut butter. You'll get a little bit of cheese. You'll get that one little treat and that's fun, but then it's just a trap. But then it just snares you. You know a bear trap or other animal traps, they're kind of open and you can't see them and you're just walking and if you step on that release, it'll just clamp up on your leg and it's chained down and so you can't leave. It's got a hold of you. It's going to hurt your leg or your arm or whatever body part gets trapped in the snare. This is what the Bible is describing about the love of money. Now, if I were to think about what is one of the manifestations of the love of money or what is one of these areas that really harms people, it's gambling. Because of course, what is the point of gambling? It's to get rich. It's to get money. It's to have wealth. And specifically, not even just gambling, but even sports betting is a form of gambling that's very popular in our society. And of course, people are doing this by and large because they have a love of money, because they are just infected with covetousness and they desire to be rich. If you didn't have any desire to be rich, there wouldn't be much reason to gamble. Of course, I'm not saying that there couldn't be other reasons that people gamble and there can't be other motivations, but let's be real. Let's be honest. The main reason people gamble, the main reason people are betting or going out and going to casinos is to be rich is to have more money. And not even just to have more money, to get it quick and fast and large sums of it. You know, the lottery is another form where people are hoping to just strike riches very quickly. They desire to have a lot of money very quickly. And when it comes to gambling specifically, I don't know that I can necessarily point you to a verse in the Bible that's going to say, thou shalt not gamble. You know, but there's a lot of things in the Bible that you shouldn't do even though there's not a thou shalt not. Now, I'll say this. I personally don't think that gambling in and of itself you can just say is a sin, but I would bet that almost every single person gambling is sinning while they're gambling. So, it's not like you can necessarily detach the two and just say, well, I heard Pastor Shelley say that gambling is not a sin so I'm going to go out and gamble. No, no, no. You have to be honest with yourself and realize that it's a foolish activity that is most likely, if not 99% of the time, always going to result in sin. And then that sin is going to take you to a place where you could possibly destroy yourself and, you know, you have to realize that the Bible is going to give us a lot of commandments and show you what is sin that is related to gambling. Go if you would to 1 Corinthians 6 for a moment. Go to 1 Corinthians 6. But I already showed you that the love of money is wicked. I already showed you the desire to be rich is a problem. So, if you're ever gambling with a desire to be rich or with the love of money or you're coveting, it's a sin. So, there's no way to tell me, well, I'm gambling but I have no love of money. I have no desire to covet. You know, it's just, I'm just out of my pure heart. I'm just, I'm gambling. You know, if that were true, then okay. But you know what? Let's be real. You're not doing that. And we're not often doing that. Of course, people like to justify everything that they do. And I grew up in a scenario where I was around a lot of people that gambled on a regular basis. I've been around people that have gone to casinos. Our golf team, you know, we would travel to different places in Oklahoma because that's where we played most of our tournaments. And you know, if you know anything about Oklahoma, it's filled with something. It's called casinos. And of course, our very moral and upright golf coach decided that we should stay in the casinos for our golf tournaments. So, you know, I've been in casinos a few times in my life and I'm not proud of that. It wasn't cool. You know, especially in Oklahoma, they, since they're Indian casinos, they like really jack up the antis. You know, and you're just, you're really a loser. You know, if you think that Vegas is ripping you off, the Indian casinos are ripping you off way worse, okay? And of course, living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you see a billboard or one of those things outside just advertising the win star everywhere. Why do you think it is that there's two casinos about one foot into the border of Oklahoma? I mean, you basically, you cross the bridge, you're crossing the Red River and it's just the first thing, casino. And then the next thing is advertised as the largest casino in the world or the largest casino in the United States. And you say, why is it that there's just, you go driving down the highway and you see an advertisement for the win star everywhere. It's not because they're losing money. I'll tell you that. It's not because they want to love on you. It's not because they care about you. It's because they want to take all of your money. They want to seize on your income and they want to ensnare you with a trap. Now, look at what it says in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 12. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. So, according to the Bible, there's a lot of things that are technically lawful for us to do as Christians or as even persons, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. In order to play any game, I played golf. And in order to play golf in a tournament, you have to pay money to play in the tournament. And of course, if you win golf tournaments, you can win money. But especially when I was younger, when you play in a golf tournament, you're not really playing for the prize because the prizes weren't that good. You're playing because you like to play golf and you like to compete and you're in the tournament. But what would be the difference between paying money to play in a sporting event with the outcome of possibly winning as opposed to gambling? Well, on the paper, there's not necessarily a big difference. You know, if you pay to play in a chess tournament and there's a prize pool, is there really a difference between that and paying for some kind of a gambling event or some kind of like a poker event or something like that? I would say I can't argue and say that there's really any difference between those two. And would I say that's necessarily a sin? No. But here's the question. Did you enter in the chess tournament just because you have a love of riches or is it because you like chess? Right? Did you enter into a ping pong tournament because you like ping pong? Or was it because you're just desiring to have covetous desires of money and the riches and all the fame and all the glory? I mean, you have to kind of ask yourself, why are you doing the things that you're doing? So, is that a form of gambling? I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me. You know, you get to decide for yourself what is right. But let me tell you something. When you're entering into a competition with one goal in mind, to get riches, or you have a love of money, or it's because you're a covetous person, be it known it's a snare, it's a trap, and it is a sin. I'm not going to sit here and excuse those things. Now, I was trying to think of a parallel for this. And here's my parallel for you to understand, okay? Because it's not drinking alcohol. Of course, this is what a lot of people would say. Oh, drinking moderation is cool, you just don't get drunk. You know, drinking alcohol is always wrong. Period. Any level. But there are some things where there is a gray area, but they're a dangerous road to go down because it can lead to very serious sin. What would be this? Well, I would say in dating, I wouldn't say that it's a sin for a couple that's dating to hold hands or to even be physically affectionate to a certain level. You know, is there technically anything wrong with a boyfriend kissing a girlfriend? No, I don't think that you could just say that's a sin. Okay? But, you know, for my daughters, I don't even want them to go down that road personally because I know where it leads. And I know what kind of thoughts it leads to. And I know what the reality of fornication is in this world. And if you think that you can just take two young people that like each other and allow them to do whatever they want in private and nothing bad will happen, that is the same foolish attitude as saying, oh, well, now I'm going to go to the casino and I'm just going to, you know, I don't have the love of money or I'm not going to be covetous about it. You know, you're fooling yourself and you're basically putting yourself in a situation where it's almost inevitable that you're going to sin and not even just sin, possibly commit horrible sins that will destroy your entire life. So, it's just better to abstain from all appearance of evil and say, hey, this is something that I just shouldn't get entangled with, I shouldn't do. And, you know, that would be my advice when it comes to, you know, any dangerous activity, not just gambling. You know, any activity that's close to or near sin, you know, I'm not trying to see how close I can get to sinning without sinning. You know, that's a bad attitude. The right attitude is to be like, I want to stay well away from that so that way I'm not going to get trapped into or ensnared or cross that line without trying. Now, I want to give you a little bit of stats real quick and then we're going to talk about gambling here from the Bible's perspective. But, in the United States, when it comes to sports betting specifically, it's just a subset of gambling. Let me talk about gambling for a second, then I'm going to get sports betting. Gambling is a $53 billion a year industry. So, if you look at just, I think it was either 2021 or 2022 that these statistics are coming from, so very recently, the gambling statistics industry for America was $53 billion. Now, what you do have to understand about gambling is there's legal gambling and there's illegal gambling. Every stat I'm giving you is from legal gambling only. So, I guarantee that the gambling statistics are way larger than I can even give you today just because there's a lot of illegal betting going on in the United States. That's not on the books, that there's no stats on, that we can't even regulate. But, because there's so much legal gambling, casinos, sports betting, and lottery, and everything like that, we have stats on that. And just that alone is $53 billion are being gambled every year, and it's going up and up. In fact, that was 21% increase from the previous year. So, COVID didn't slow anything down if anything had escalated it. You know, people probably got those COVID checks and went straight to the casino. Not only that, according to statistics, 85% of US adults have gambled at least one time in their lives. And I wouldn't even be surprised if it's higher than that. And, you know, there's certain cults in the world like Mormons and Amish people that have probably never gambled. So, of people in this room, it's probably more like 90 or 95% that I would be willing to bet of the adults that have gambled at least one time in their life. And so, it's not something that affects a few people. This is something that everybody's probably experienced. 60% of those people, or 60% of the US, has admitted to gambling in the last year. So, just in the last 12 months, 60% are gambling. 46% admit to gambling in the last month. So, almost half of America is gambling every month, just at least once. Now, I tried to find statistics that were more specific for the United States, but I couldn't find one. I found a Canadian one, which is probably going to be about the same. They said that Canada and the United States were about the same in gambling. They acted like Canadians were a little bit more prone to gambling than Americans, probably because there's nothing to do up there. They did a Canadian university, so this is also younger people. But in their study, they showed that only 27% did not gamble. So, only 27% of those interviewed did not gamble. 19% gamble between 1 and 5 times a year. 7% gamble 6 to 11 times per year. 18% gamble 1 to 3 times per month. 19% gamble once a week. 9% gamble 2 or 6 times a month. And then 1% gamble daily. Now, you say 1%, that doesn't sound like a lot, but if you think about it in percentages, I mean, America has 350 million people approximately. Maybe it's 335, statistics are all over the map, but that means over 3 million, if that is equally applied to the United States, that would mean 3 million people in America are gambling every day. Every single day, they're just gambling, gambling, gambling, gambling. And I've known people in my personal life where I think this is probably true. So, it doesn't even surprise me or shock me that 1%. Because if you think about it, if you know 100 people, one of those people that you know would be gambling every single day. And in my own personal experience, I feel like I know people that fit that category. So, it's not unreasonable for me to think that these statistics are real and a reality for our society. People are gambling. People are gambling, and I'm not going to get raised hands this morning to see how many of you guys. I asked for you reading the Bible. But when it comes to gambling, that's a wide array, casinos, lotters, whatever. There's another thing that seems to be just infecting our culture and increasing just all the time, is it's sports betting. And it used to be that sports betting was kind of limited to Vegas and just a handful of places in the world. But now with the internet and other states making it more legal, it's becoming so regular that people are betting online on every event. I mean, every sporting event. I mean, sports that you would think, who even cares, like baseball. People are sports betting on baseball all the time. In fact, you can even bet on games in the middle of a game. I saw there was a guy, he bet on a particular playoff game, or maybe it was a regular season game. It was really close to the end of the season. There was an NFL game, and I think it was the Chargers. Someone might know this better than I do. I think it was like the Chargers and another team. Well, they were losing, I don't know, 27 to nothing or 30 to nothing, something close to that. And it was like the fourth quarter or the third quarter, it was basically almost over. And the probability of them winning was like 0.0001%, the team that was losing. So a guy bet a million dollars or something like that on the team that was winning to win. And if he won the bet, he was going to win like $13,000. So he was going to bet a million and win $13,000. But if he loses, he loses the million. And of course, the other team climbed all the way back, broke every record that's ever happened in NFL history, and won the game. And this guy literally lost a million dollar bet. So in the middle of the game, he got the odds and he put a million dollars down to win $13,000 and he lost the entire million dollars. What kind of insanity is that? And I mean, of course the people, you know who the only people that win in gambling are the people that you're making bets to? The house. The house always wins. Now, when it comes to U.S. sports betting, in 2021, $57 billion were bet in 2021. So of the total amount of money that was placed on the line to bet, $57.2 billion was bet. And what ended up resulting in $4.29 billion being like the profits or the revenue coming into all the organizations that were taking those bets. So you want to know who's winning? The people that are allowing you to make bets with them. And you know how much by? $4.29 billion. Why would you want to get into an industry to make money when it's evident that you won't make money? Like it's evident that you'll lose. Again, it's a trap. It's just like if you could sit down and explain to the squirrel, hey squirrel, this is a trap. They're like, but there's peanut butter in there. Right, but you're going to die. Yes, it's going to kill you. It would be the same as showing people these statistics and they're like, well, I'm just going to still go to the casino. And you're going to lose, folks. People that even win, lose. You know how many people are winning at gambling? No one. No one ultimately wins at gambling. You all lose. It's just a complete loss. I remember we went to a casino when I was in college. This is the one time. And I went into the casino area with my friends. And because it's like an Indian casino, you could gamble like 18, I think. I don't think you even had to be 21 or whatever. But I see my friend, he's playing blackjack. And blackjack is essentially, you're going to just either double your money or not, essentially. If you win a hand, you kind of just double your money. There's other rules and variations of blackjack that could cause it to be a little bit different numbers. But generally speaking, you're playing against the dealer. And you either win your bet or you lose your bet. If you win, they double your money. If you lose, you basically lose the bet that you made. Well, they have a thing called an ante. And what an ante is, is it means you just have to pay money to even place a bet. And so I'm sitting here watching my friend play and they have a one dollar ante. So you have to put in a dollar no matter what. And then the minimum bet is a dollar. And every single time my friend would bet a dollar. And I explained to him, I said, look. I said, even if you win this hand, you break even. I said, if you lose, you lose two dollars. I said, you can never win money. You're just going to slowly lose two dollars every other hand. And then you're eventually going to have no money. And it was just like, he didn't care. And then he just lost all his money. And I'm just thinking like, this is the logic of many people that gamble. It's like you can't, you're literally going to lose. It's like, oh, well, I'm going to play the slot machines. You think that the computer programmers for the slot machines were like, let's make sure people win. You don't think that the house is deciding how the slot machine should operate and how it's going to win. You know, this is the logic of gambling. You really think that people, you know, playing the lottery, there's a chance of them winning. And of course, a lot of these systems, a lot of these programs have already been designed, they cheat too. And the people that win, it's all fake and it's not even real. No one's really winning. But I'll tell you what a lot of their methods are. In Vegas and in these casinos in areas like that, they, as soon as you walk in, they make a profile for you. And if you've ever been to any casino, they already know who you are. And by looking even at your face, they'll find out who you are on Facebook because you have pictures of yourself on Facebook. They'll instantly know who you are. They'll look up if you have property anywhere. They'll look up what assets you have and they'll immediately sign a number on your head. As soon as you walk into a casino, they'll immediately look at you and say, this guy is worth a half a million dollars. Or this guy is worth $300,000. And you would say like, well, I'm not worth that kind of money. Oh yes, you are. You just don't realize it. Because you know what they're basing it on? How much money you make per year. All the equity you have in your house. And what's the maximum amount of money you can borrow. And when you combine all that, even somebody in this room that doesn't have two nickels to their name could probably get taken for $200,000 at minimum. And you just don't even realize it yet. But as soon as you walk in, the casino already puts a number on your head. And this is what they do. They say, if this guy is a first time visitor, we're going to make sure he wins. We will make sure he wins. And they will rig all of their systems, all of their programs. You sit down in a slot machine for the first time, you will probably win. Because they already know who you are. And they're going to be like, turn machine seven on to winning right now. Because they know if you just start losing right away, you'll probably never do it again. So what they do is they purposely try to get you to win. They rig the system in your favor. They'll comp you. They'll give you a nice hotel room. They'll try to sucker you in. Because they just want you to get addicted to gambling. Because if you get addicted to gambling, you will lose all of the money that you have. Every single dime. And again, sports betting. People win all kinds of stuff. There's all these sites online where you can play. DraftKings. Who's heard of DraftKings? It's advertised online. FanDuel. This is the number one. Who's heard of FanDuel? It's supposedly the number one. You've got BetMGM, Caesars, Barstool, BetRivers, PointBet, all of those. You know, in a lot of these companies, what they do? Sign up on our account and we'll give you a free hundred dollars. For your first bet. Bet now and we'll double your bet. For free. Come now and we'll rub your back. Whatever it is, they'll do anything to just get you started. Free money, free hotel room, free trip to Peru or something. They'll do anything to get you started. To get you on their program. Why? Because it's a trap. Just like the peanut butter. We'll slap anything on that trap to get the squirrel walked into the cage. We'll put cheese, we'll put peanut butter, we'll put apples, we'll put steak. I mean, whatever it was, the hunter doesn't care. He'll put it out there. And of course, the casino is willing to put anything and everything out there. They'll put the advertisements. They'll act like it's super cool. And it's super fun. But think about the percentage of people that were winning all kinds of money. I'm sorry, not winning all kinds of money. That were gambling. How many of you know someone that's been super wealthy because of gambling? That's weird. How come 85% of people are gambling and then we don't know anybody that's just doing really great from gambling? It's because no one's doing really great from gambling. That's the reality. Now, the sports betting industry is rated at $150 billion a year industry. It's a conservative estimate. 50% of U.S. residents live in a state that's projected to have legal sports betting by the year 2024. So, currently, 50% of people don't live in a state. But they're projecting in just a few years it's going to increase and there's going to be more states where sports betting is legal. One of those states that's not legal yet is Texas. So, the three most populated states, California, Texas, and Florida, they're hoping to legalize this and increase the legalization of gambling and sports betting in the near future. So, I'm preaching this, which is coming on the horizon. Just like, you know, why is the casino right on the edge of Oklahoma? You know, the worst thing that could happen in Oklahoma is Texas becoming legal for gambling. I mean, it would destroy a lot of those casinos up there because they're counting on all of us driving up there and constantly feeding their casino appetite. Now, on average, people who make sports bets, the bookies, or the people that are allowing you to make bets with them, they typically make about 7.25% of all the bets made. Like, their profits are usually 7%. That's what they average. In Nevada and New Jersey, that's kind of about the same. But it also said in other parts of the country, it's like even worse. It said Delaware, they usually average a 14.5% profit. So, it said that these are the worst betters, pretty much the dumbest people. You know, Delaware is apparently where they live. Maybe it's because all their sports teams suck. You know, it's like all the teams over there are terrible or something. They're always betting on losers or something like that. Because people love to just make bets on their team whether the team is good or not. I'm sure a lot of Cowboys fans lost a lot of money in the last week or so. And I think that's great, you know, because they would have lost even more money going to the next game or something like that. And then the next game and the next game. You know, really, at this point, if you have any common sense, you would always bet on the Cowboys to lose in the playoffs. I mean, you'd probably be rich at that point. It's just the fact that everyone hates the Cowboys unless they're a Cowboys fan. So, they probably don't want to bet on them or anything or vice versa. So, you would think that there's all kinds of people getting rich off the Cowboys losing. But it's just the bookies, okay? Now, you know why I really hate gambling when it comes to sports? It's because it ruins sports. You know, there's been so many sports and competitions that have been ruined because of gambling specifically. Where the refs cheat, the players will even cheat. And it's all, you know, of course boxing is notorious for this. People lose fights and throw fights because of all the betting that's going on. And it's caused a lot of people to be threatened with their lives, you know. If you don't fall or lose in this particular round, you know, I'm going to lose $3 billion or $3 million or whatever the bet is. So, you better go down or I'm going to break your legs. And they threaten these people. They put a lot of coercion. And it's just a constant habit. You know, I like the idea of sports and I like the idea of competition. But sports betting makes it terrible. And it just ruins it and it causes all kinds of problems. There's a lot of corruption. You know, NBA officials have been caught rigging games. They've admitted to it. They said, yeah, we're getting paid and everybody's getting paid and the commissioner is in on it. And of course, you know, it just, the NBA just seems rigged anyways. I mean they take like eight steps to then dunk the ball. And you're like, why do we even have a rule for traveling? You know, it's like, I mean they just do whatever they want. You know, I like college basketball because it's not as infected with as much corruption and as much sports betting and everything like that. And the teams, there's more team aspect. And the NBA, they don't even play defense. There's a bunch of prima donnas just running, prancing around, just kind of throwing the ball up, dunking. And you say, why is it turned into that? Because betting ruined the sport. Because they don't care about that anymore. And their incentives aren't coming from their contracts and playing hard. It's coming from all the betting and the sports gambling. You know, even Michael Jordan, you can tell in some of the games that it was pretty obvious that he was in on it. Because he would basically like play terrible the whole game. And just so they could lose. But then right at the last minute, he would just make a whole bunch of buckets to get the game real close. It's because people would bet on the margins of these games. And these guys would know exactly what the margins were that they needed and how they needed to score or get touchdowns. Garbage time in football games. Often they're trying to score or not score based on the betting alone. It's also caused a lot of violence. And why? Because the love of money is the root of all evil. It's caused people to die, to be killed. You know, Michael Jordan's dad was killed because of Michael Jordan's gambling habit. Killed by all the wrong people. Now, of course, they won't admit that to you. They won't get out and say. But they control these people. And you would think, like, Michael Jordan, he's set for life. Look, the guy had no money. The guy's in debt. In fact, I have a little sample here of some stories. And I'll share a couple of these. I'm going to share some of these with you today. But the number one story I have here was Michael Vick. Now, Michael Vick was in the NFL. Who knows who Michael Vick was? He was a pretty different style quarterback at the time. He played for the Atlanta Falcons. And then he played for the Philadelphia Eagles. Very quick. He was a running quarterback. And very good. You know, went to the playoffs. But he had a problem. And his problem was gambling. And let me just read for you about Michael Vick. Go to Proverbs 23 in your Bible. Go to Proverbs chapter 23. It says Michael Vick did not It said this one did not lose his fortune at the craps nor online slots. So Michael Vick was not a traditional gambler in going to casinos. The former NFL quarterback created his own slots and lost his career and fortune while at it. The former Philadelphia Eagles player had just accepted a contract with the Atlanta Falcons when he was discovered to be running a dog fighting ring as a side hustle. He had also established a whole gambling section to the dog fight which was known as the bad news kennels. Well it was bad news for him as the NFL immediately suspended him while his team fired him. And demanded $20 million of the $35 million signing bonus they had given him. And they wanted it back. So I hope he didn't spend that. He also fell from grace and was sentenced to a 23 month in prison for his illegal scam that he was running. He was then sentenced and basically he did come back to the NFL at one point but he's been so heavily disgraced. And of course you know the leftists and the PETA they can't handle that there was dog fighting going on. But you know the big issue was all the gambling associated with it. And they would have all this dog fighting not because they cared about dogs or killing dogs or anything. It was just simply a form of way to bet. Just to place money and to gamble and he loses all of his money. I mean you would think these guys oh wow I made it big I finally got my dream I'm playing in the NFL and I've got all this money. And they throw it all away on gambling. Telling you that even having riches doesn't stop you from being infected with the love of money. I mean wouldn't you think like okay I have $30 million isn't that enough? I mean aren't I good for a while? But it's like no I gotta gamble I gotta get more money. I need to get wealthier and wealthier and wealthier. And it's because when you desire riches you're never gonna have enough. Look at Proverbs 23 verse 4. Labor not to be rich. Cease from thine own wisdom. The Bible's telling you your goal in life should not be to be rich. So that almost eliminates all gambling. Because if you're gambling to get rich you're already failing here. There should never be a reason to do that. Verse 5. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings they fly away as an eagle toward heaven. And you know what too bad your eagle Michael Vick flew away and you lost all those riches. He had $30 million gone like that. In fact it's not only just gone to these people. These people will go into extreme debt. Debt that you and I could never even accumulate. Millions and millions of dollars of debt. And then of course you know what happens. They can't pay that. So then they have certain shadowy figures come to them and say do X, Y and Z and we'll forgive your debt. Do this thing. And that thing could be all number of subjects. Kill someone. Produce a certain album. Say this public thing. Do this shameful act. I mean they are putting all kinds of celebrities and these gambling addicted people into bad situations. You know why do you think that they want judges and politicians to get into gambling? Because they are going to get these huge debts that they can't pay and then what? Now they control them. Now they can tell them to do whatever they want and get them to do whatever they want because they've ensnared them. They've trapped them. And you know what for a Christian it's no different. You could get down a dark road where you're trapped and bad people are trying to coerce you to do horrible things. You never even want to go down this road. Now I have three quick points and then I want to give you a few more of these stories. Point number one of reasons not to gamble is because you're going to lose your money. And I've been proving that over and over. I mean you're going to lose your money. You're not going to win. It's going to destroy you and it's going to destroy your finances. Point two though, go to Ephesians 5. Point number two is this. You're going to lose time. People that get addicted to gambling, they honestly can't focus on anything else. It's really not any different than a drug addiction or an alcohol addiction. People who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, it's kind of their only thoughts. It's the only things that they can focus on. It's the only thing they want. And people who gamble, they get to a point where that's all they can think about. I mean they get their lunch break and they gamble. As soon as they get off work, they're gambling. As soon as it's the weekend, they're gambling. They don't want to hang out with family. They don't want to go to dinner. They don't want to have relevant conversation. They don't want to play a board game. Well, they'll play a board game if we can put money on it. They can't get any kind of joy or happiness in life anymore unless they put a bet on it, unless they gamble on it, unless there's money on the line. Why? Because gambling is a dopamine release. There's a thrill associated with gambling. And what you have to understand about our bodies is our bodies cannot handle artificial dopamine releases. And if you just allow yourself to get these artificial dopamine releases, you will destroy yourself. And they come from everything. They come from video games. They come from gambling. They come from shopping. They come from social media. They come from watching videos. They come from TikTok. Why do you think it is that social media and videos have gotten a shorter duration and shorter duration and shorter duration and shorter duration? It's because everyone's addicted to the dopamine releases that come from videos. And so they have to just get, well, let me give you the next five-second video and the next 15-second video and the next 15-second video. And I just need another dopamine release and another dopamine release and another dopamine. And then they just get so addicted. Even your telephone will give you dopamine releases. Those likes on your cell, oh, I got a like, dopamine release. Oh, I got to share a dopamine release. Oh, someone commented, dopamine release. And it's the notifications, three notifications, four notifications, five notifications. You know, you would think that I'm like super happy. I've got like 500 unread emails, okay. No, sorry, 744 unread emails, okay. You're wondering why I don't answer you. No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, it's okay for them to be unread. It's okay to put things on pause every once in a while. It's okay. And look, just like the guy addicted to meth in the street corner that can't even hold down a job, people are like this with social media. They go to their job and they can't even focus. There's Facebook and social media and Instagram and I got to post a selfie and I got to do whatever. You know, it's not any different. And you know what, people that are addicted to gambling are the same way. They're always just checking their bet and checking their bet. I mean, they're so hyperactive. They can't even just make a bet on a game. They have to be betting on the game during the game. Like, well, I think, you know, they're not going to get a first down here. Or I think he's going to score a three-pointer next. Or I just have to gamble this one and gamble here and gamble there and gamble there. And they just can never get enough. That's why it's so dangerous to even go down this road. And you need to start getting dopamine releases from the things the Bible teach. A dopamine release from what reading your Bible? A dopamine release from what? Singing a song of worship to God. A dopamine release from church. A dopamine release from your wife. Because what your body does is it starts craving the dopamine releases that you get and the patterns you put yourself in. And if you give yourself this pattern, you know, it would be no different than just eating M&Ms all day. But you know what that will do? It will ruin your appetite. You know what's better is to wait and have steak later. And get that right, that proper outback dopamine release. And then not sit here and just pop Twinkie and HoHo and M&M and M&M and M&M and M&M. Why? Because your body has become addicted to dopamine releases. Just like gambling where you just become so addicted to just like, I've got a bed, I've got a bed, I've got a bed. And then people can't get off that train. It's an ugly, ugly, ugly thing. And you're going to lose all of your time. Ephesians chapter 5, look at verse 14. Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Do you think it's the will of the Lord is for me to go walk into a casino and spend all of my time, effort, and energy on trying to get riches? That's stupid. It's stupid. It's foolish. And of course, why do they want to get you addicted to sports gaming? So then you watch games. And why do they want you to watch games? So that the advertisers actually get money. Because the advertisers will give so much money based on how many eyeballs are watching the game. And when no one's watching the game, you know who's not getting money? The NFL. You know who's not getting money? The TV companies. You know who's not getting money? The Jews. And the Jews love money. And they don't care why you're watching it. They would hold you down and tape your eyeballs open if it would give them money. And they try to do that by every means possible. And they're like, fine, we'll just do the sports buddy. Because to them, they're just all obsessed with money. And they want to take your money and they want to dry you up like a raisin. You're a grape full of wonderful juice. And the Jews want to just suck all that juice out of you and just turn you into a raisin. Where everybody's like, I don't even want this anymore. I eat raisins every once in a while, but it's not as good. It's rough. Go to Colossians chapter 4. You've got to eat it with something, right? Who just eats raisins by themselves? Okay, you're weird. I knew it. The guy that eats anything. The guy that puts yogurt in his rice or something. Seriously. Colossians chapter 4, look at verse 5. Walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time. Notice what the Bible says again. We need to redeem the time. Our lives are important. Your life is important. You are a child of God put on this earth with a very important task. We should be preaching the gospel, worshipping God, raising families, loving our wives, spending time with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We don't need to waste time chasing the money that will never come. Look, hey, if everybody's getting rich off of gambling, let's go do it. Let's go make money if that's a profitable industry. But you know what? It's not a profitable industry. Obviously, even opening a business, there's a gamble to that. There's risk associated with opening a business. But you know what? In all labor there's profit. But gambling's not labor. You're just sitting there trying to get this money quick and fast and you know what? It's a sucker's game. It's a sucker's game. It's not legitimate. Why don't you do something that's actual work? Even banking is not really legitimate work because all they do is just hand you money and then make usury on it. Why don't you do a real honest job? Why don't you actually work with your hands or do something profitable with your brain to get that money? That's the proper thing that God wants us to do is to work. Six days shalt thou labor. He didn't say six days shalt thou play games and hope to get rich off of that. God didn't put us on this earth to just play games and watch TV until we die. But you know what? It seems like a lot of Christians are content to live that life. A lot of Christians are content to live a life where they just basically just go to work, make money. They want their 401K. Let's just go to the casino. Let's just watch the Jews' TV show and let's just do whatever they tell us to do. Never cause a problem. You know what? This is a foolish attitude. We only have a small amount of time here, folks, and it is escalating. The evil is escalating our country at such a rapid rate. We need to push back. We need to do something different. We need to draw the world into Christianity. Because they're being sucked in every second by evil and sin and wickedness. Go to Mark Chapter 8. Point one is this. You're going to lose your money. Point two, you're going to lose your time. Here's the last point I have. You're going to lose your life. This could mean in the sense that you die physically, but it could also just mean you're going to lose the lifestyle that you have. So many people, it's so sad, so many people destroy their lives through gambling. They destroy their job. They destroy their career. They destroy their physical body. They destroy their marriage. They destroy their children. They destroy everything. Every aspect. They destroy their mental health. They destroy their capacity to enjoy things. To enjoy life. It's just completely gone. Look at Mark Chapter 8 verse 35. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel of the same shall save it. You know, if you let your flesh run your life, you will lose your life. You have to let the Spirit take over. And you know, when the Spirit takes over, you'll end up realizing this is the better life. You think, well, I don't want to go to church and I don't want to read the Bible and I don't want to follow God's commandments and I don't want to raise that many kids and I don't want to love my wife and only be with my wife and I don't want to work a double job just to be able to pay all the bills and I don't want to obey my husband. You know, I want to be my own woman. I want to be like Miley Cyrus. I don't need no man. I can hold my own hand. That's pretty lonely. All these Hollywood celebrities that are on antidepressants nonstop and overdosing on drugs because they're so happy. They're not happy. They've destroyed their lives. Look at Britney Spears. Her life is destroyed. It's a train wreck. Nobody wants that anymore. And of course, you know, a lot of the women in our culture have destroyed their lives where men won't even want them. Where they're just kind of used up, they've just been taken by the world and now we just have a bunch of angry cat women. Fat, ugly cat women that have no qualities. They can't cook. They can't clean. They can't obey anyone. They're obsessed with animals. And of course, you know, whenever these ladies are obsessed with animals, there's another kind of animal that the spiritual dogs are always obsessed with too. And they're just obsessed with shopping and being entitled and they don't understand that they destroyed their lives. They think they're not happy. They're always complaining about how unhappy they are. And they're like, well, if we got rid of the patriarchy, then I'd be happy. No, you wouldn't. That's the one thing that would give you happiness and you're still trying to destroy it. Because if you let your flesh take over, it will destroy your life and you don't even know it. Oh, I love gambling. No, you'll hate it. Oh, I love drugs and alcohol. No, you'll hate it. You chase these things and you're going to lose your life. Go to Colossians chapter 3. Go back to Colossians and look at chapter 3 for a second. Don't go down this dark road. You know, I've known people that thought gambling was wrong and a sin. And then later in their life, they tried it. And now they're so addicted, it's like the only thing they can do. Now they make regular trips to Vegas. Now, if you try to have a conversation with them. It used to be you could sit down and just have dinner, play a game, conversate. But now it's like I have to be gambling while we're eating. And you know what ends up happening, and I know this. I haven't seen it, but I know what's happening is these people are gambling at work, I'm sure, too. Because when you're that addicted, when you're that consumed with it, people will start doing all these kinds of things that they can't even focus on anything. They're just going to they're going to and they're going to destroy their lives. They're going to destroy all their money. Colossians chapter three, verse one. If he then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sit on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you're dead and your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, which is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which he also walked sometime when you lived in them. So they're saying, look, don't be like the rest of the world. You have to mortify, which means kill, these aspects of your life, of your members. One of them is covetousness. And you know what? So many people, they're just focused on the things of this world and this life. Riches aren't going to bring you anything anyways. Who cares about money is meaningless in this life, folks. The things that matter in this life are your spouse. The things that matter in your life are your children. The things that matter in this life are your parents and your cousins and your family members and your church and the things of God and rescuing souls from the eternal flames of hell. You know what? Having more money is going to bring sorrow with it. It's going to bring anxiety and woe and fret and you're just going to be consumed and it's going to destroy everything to the point you can't even enjoy life. The things that you used to enjoy you can't even enjoy anymore. You used to play a board game and it was fun, but now it's not even fun because you're not gambling. You used to enjoy throwing a ball with your kid and tickling your kid and rolling around and just enjoying life. But you can't enjoy that anymore because you're not gambling. Because you're not betting. You used to enjoy playing a game of football or watching a game, watching someone play a sport and now you can't even enjoy it unless you're gambling on it. And it's gotten to the point where you just can't even focus. I remember I have the same affections as you guys. I have the same problems as you guys. We're all flesh. And I remember it first came out was fantasy football. Who played fantasy football? Alright, some of you did. I see that hand. You're like me. Now the thing about fantasy football is it tried to make the excitement of games go up a little bit because now not only are you just watching, you're kind of participating and you're hoping for your team and everything like that. But I easily got addicted to that stuff and I even started playing. I would have like five fantasy football leagues at the same time. So I'm like playing against myself with certain people and it was like hard to even keep track of all this stuff. But you know what happened? It would get to a point where you couldn't even enjoy the game anymore because you weren't just watching the game rooting for your team to win. You're like you got to pass it to this specific person or if you score a touchdown but it was the wrong player you're like mad. And then it just gets to a point where you're not even enjoying football anymore. Or you're not even enjoying basketball. You're not even enjoying what was the original enjoyment. It's now this twisted perverted thing and it just sucks all of your time, all of your effort, all of your energy, and all of your focus. And you just lose your life. And this is what the devil wants. The devil wants to take you as a Christian and try to get you addicted to something that's not church. Addicted to something that's not the Bible. And it doesn't really matter what it is. He just wants you to get hooked into something. Just sports or shopping or traveling or a hobby or an interest or whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with hobbies. There's nothing wrong with taking some time off. There's nothing wrong with enjoying your life a little bit. But let me tell you something, it's dangerous. It's dangerous when your affections are not on the things above. And what's your affection? Your desire, your wishes. You know, when it starts interfering with the things of God, you know you have a problem. Idolatry. What is this? It's in the place of. It's like, well, I can't go to church on Sunday morning because the Cowboys are playing. Idolatry. I can't go to church on Sunday night because it's playoffs tonight. Who cares? Who cares if the San Francisco 49ers or the Eagles win? Who cares? It's stupid. Nobody. I don't care. You know, of course, I'm sure there's some sodomites in San Francisco that care. But who cares about them? You know, why do I even want a team from San Francisco to win anything? Oh, I'm rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, who cares? You know what's more important than the Super Bowl? Church this morning. You know what's more important in the playoffs? Soul winning this afternoon. And, you know, we'll even go soul winning and there'll be people that need to get saved and want to get saved. But the game's on. And it's literally going to destroy. They're going to lose their life. They're going to lose their life going to hell. It's sad. I'm going to give you a few more verses, but I'm just going to give you a lot of stories. Go to Proverbs 11. Go to Proverbs 11. Point one, you're going to lose your money. Point two, you're going to lose your time. Point three, you're going to lose your life. And the sample that I have this morning is just a small, small sample of the reality of people that are gambling. Of the people that are sports betting. But this is the reality of many people. And no one wanted this life, but they decided to destroy it because they were addicted, not because they wanted to. Michelle Singelhurst. Michelle is a story that brings tears to people's eyes. I'm just reading for you. Online gambling with all those vouchers and free bonuses can be so confusing you don't realize when you lose lots of money. So, Michelle Singelhurst got sucked in with vouchers and free bonuses. Hey, what's wrong with gambling with house money? Because you get addicted. Michelle was also used to playing games as a stress reliever. Instead of reading the Bible and praying and hearing hymns as a stress reliever, gambling is a stress reliever. She started gambling online on apps. She realized that online slots gave her more satisfaction than Nintendo. So, she used to be addicted to video games. Now she's addicted to playing slots. She would wake up late in the night to gamble or stress away. You want to know how you have a problem? You won't even go to sleep. You can't even go to bed. You're just gambling all night. She bet her $25,000 salary away and then took loans from the bank and gambled it away. So, this is a lady who's married and has a side job. So, she works too. She makes $25,000 a year. She lost all of her annual income. She works the whole year and lost all of it to gambling. Then, after draining the accounts and hitting her credit limit, she started borrowing money from family and friends. The worst is her and her husband were selling their house to move and the house closed and the money got moved in the account. The husband didn't realize that the house had sold and they had $440,000 in equity from the sale of their house. She gambled it all away in a week. The husband didn't even know. Then she got divorced. Then she attempted suicide. She has no hope of ever buying a home again. Well, the free voucher. That sounds worth it. What does Proverbs 11 verse 28 say? He that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch. Go to Proverbs 28. Go to Proverbs 28. Jody Neely. Jody's gambling addiction story is one of the most shocking revelations about how a simple visit to a slot machine can ruin someone's life. Jody had a smoking addiction and managed to overcome it. However, quitting smoking and drinking for 13 years, she found herself at a slot machine when she was at a casino in Las Vegas in 2005 for a conference. Sadly for her, she won when she pulled one quarter on a quarter slot machine. So, a lady goes to a business trip and her company just happens to have a conference in Vegas. I've had that. My company has sent me to Vegas for a conference. Praise God it was in Henderson, not on the strip. But she goes on the conference and says, you know what, I'll just put one quarter in. Just my first quarter. Oh, she just happened to win on her first quarter. I wonder why. And on her first quarter, she won a bunch of money. Sadly for her, it says that was the beginning of the end of her marriage and the perfect life she had built. She established a dream life with a home, a marriage, a good job. She graduated with an MS from Indiana University. And after that win in Las Vegas, she went back to Massachusetts and became a regular at local casinos betting at slot machines. The thrill of her winning saw her playing thousands of dollars on $100 slots for $200 a pull. By 2007, she had lost her job since she had stolen money from her job to gamble. She also lost her home and even went to prison for two years for larceny. She got out of prison and sought treatment but now works for some compulsive gambling addiction health recovery center. She puts in one quarter, folks. She's never gambled in her life. She doesn't even want to. She's drug out there for a work conference, puts one quarter in, and now she's stealing money from her job. Now she's going to prison because she's so addicted. What does Proverbs 28 verse 22 say? He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. Stu Unger. Stu Unger is one of the saddest gambling stories of all time. Stu is a genius that came to Las Vegas and totally changed the history of poker. He has five World Series of poker bracelets to his name and is estimated to win over $20 million through his years as the best poker player in the world. He's like, how is this bad? A genius goes and he wins all of the poker tournaments and he wins $20 million? Well, Stu, also known as the kid, was known as the best poker player in the world. But he had a thing for sports betting. He also had a drug problem. Before he died, he had lost everything he had won and was in deep debt. He had borrowed money trying to stake in the 1998 poker championship but spent all of it on drugs and that was the end of him. He left nothing to his name. He only had $800 on him at the time of his death and a balance of $25,000 that he borrowed from a friend. But he had used on drugs rather than tables. The greatest poker player ever just happens to get addicted to what? Drugs? Betting? And of course, you know, the environment of a casino is not the greatest environment, folks. It's not the best and brightest. It's filled with prostitutes. It's filled with all kinds of drugs. It's filled with all kinds of other sin and wickedness and evil that you're surrounding yourself with. And you know, oh, it's just poker. Tell that to the best poker player at the time. Dead. How much is that worth? Is $20 million worth your life? Proverbs 28 verse 20, the Bible says, A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Eric Lindgren, also a top result in a Google search because of being one of the greatest poker players or winning some of the biggest poker tournaments ever, he was one of the biggest champions of the early 2000s poker boom with over $10 million in winnings to his name. However, he had a big problem making unreasonable bets on golf, NFL, and other sports and losing big. In 2012, fellow poker players started complaining online about his failure to pay money they had loaned him. It emerged that he had lost most of his winnings and he was over $15 million in debt. This guy won $10 million, fast forward a couple of years, he's now $15 million in the hole. In 2013, companies that he owed him money started coming after him and forcing him to file bankruptcy and now he's just trying to recover. What does the Bible say in Proverbs 21? Look at verse 17. He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man. He that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich. If you love pleasure, you love drinking, you love hanging out, you will not be rich. What does the Bible say? Think about this. Who's controlling all this and getting all the money? Jews. Right? But you know that Jews live a very strict life. They won't even eat a cheeseburger folks. You think that the Jews are going around just on drugs and getting high and drinking and gambling? No, they don't do any of those things. They get you to do them because they suck all your money. Because the people that do those things don't have money. They might own the business, they might own the casino, they might be selling you the liquor, they might be giving you the drugs, but they themselves don't do it because they're smart enough to realize no one that does drugs and gambles is rich. No one that's traveling and having all this pleasure is rich. It's a lie from Hollywood. It's a lie from the television where they show all these people like, oh I'm having so much fun and look at all the money I'm winning. Even the greatest poker players winning millions of dollars are broke folks. They have no money because when you love pleasure you destroy your life. The Jews already know that. They don't do that. And again, whether you believe the Bible or not it rings true. It's not like the Proverbs are for the saved. The Proverbs are just true. You could take an atheist. If the atheist follows the Proverbs, he will benefit from all of the benefits of the Proverbs, whether he believes them or not. And of course, those who are loving pleasure will never ever ever be rich. Matt Blanks, go to Proverbs 13. Proverbs 13. Matt Blanks is one of the most outspoken volunteers for Bet No More, an organization that helps people with gambling addiction find help. It also helps victims put restrictions on online betting apps. He started betting at the age of 11. At 11. The worst thing was that he won a 33 to 1 bet on a horse track. Then he got hooked at the age of 15. He bet away a thousand pounds, this is a European situation, of the inheritance of his grandmother and lost it all. Since that day, he started betting, hoping to recover that money but it never happened. By 2019, he had lost over 700,000 pounds in one decade. He was in such depression, he tried to kill himself twice. Proverbs 13.11, wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathered by labor shall increase. You know, there's nothing wrong with getting money by working. There's nothing wrong with buying nice things because you worked hard and earned that money. But you know what's a problem? Getting rich fast. Always a problem. Go over to Proverbs 10. Victor Gonnage, I don't know how to say his name. The Michigan Lottery is not what comes to mind when you think of gamblers, losing it all. The former real estate broker thought he had discovered a magical formula with daily tickets and started buying them madly. The prosecutor said he was spending a million dollars a week on tickets. A million dollars. This is an investor that is a millionaire. This isn't a poor guy. This is a millionaire guy who thinks that he figured out how to cheat the lottery system. That's how you know you're an idiot. You're not going to outsmart the lottery. When his own finances could not meet his estimated gambling habit, he set up a title company and convinced people to invest $26 million. 19 of which he gambled away. Now he's facing a 20-year jail term for stealing from his investors. You don't know. Look, you better be careful. There are plenty of people out there that have serious bad habits and they'll be like, hey, I'm starting this new company. We're going to have a big ROI. Come on in. It was what? So he could fund his gambling habit. Millions and millions of dollars. I worked at the bank, at Happy State Bank, and when we were there, there was a cattle loan that was like $8 million or something like that. So a guy had $8 million and was supposed to own several thousand cattle. Well, eventually someone asked questions and they said, well, how come all the cattle are branded with another company's brand? Why is it not his brand? And everybody was just like dead silent in the room. And then we went and checked it out. He didn't own any of the cattle. He owned zero cattle and had $8 million. But you know what he did like? He liked to bet on horses. Because you go into his office and you see all of his pictures on all the horses that he was betting on and constantly going to Vegas. And the guy lost over a million dollars every year. Now he's in jail. He's in jail for like decades. For being such a thief and stealing and lying to the bank. Maureen O'Connor. When you start lying to family and friends. Go to First 75. I want to go to a place there. When you start lying to family and friends to just secure loans for gambling, then you're not far from the deepest end of the drain. Maureen O'Connor, former mayor of San Diego. She appeared in court in 2013 to answer the charges for having embezzled over $200 million from her ex-husband's foundation to fund her addiction. So that's interesting. A politician has a donation fund, a charity fund, that this lady has taken $200 million out of to fund her gambling addiction. And you want to know, look, I guarantee there are Republican and Democrat going around town all the time with their little charities or whatever fundraising for their gambling habits. For their drug habits. And you don't even know. And people are just donating these people and they're just suckers. They're just in on the take. Just giving all this money and they don't even realize it yet. She had gambled. It ended up coming out that she had gambled $1 billion in a period of nine years. That's our politicians. And the only reason she got caught is she probably had dirt on someone else or something. They don't really care. They'll just cover it up usually. The addiction in the tabloids brought down to $300,000 a day. Her net losses were estimated to only be $13 million, but she lost everything. Second, third mortgages. She's lost all of her inheritance. And the lawyers said that she had a gambling problem. But they said that, you know when it started? When her husband died. Her husband died and all of a sudden what she starts doing? Gambling. What does the Bible say in verse 75, verse 14? I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some are already turned aside after Satan. You know what the Bible says is that the younger widows are supposed to get married again. And you say, oh, why do I need a husband? What is he going to do? How about protecting from gambling a billion dollars away? Oh, we need more women in politics. We need more women in San Diego so that they can just gamble all of their money away. And look, it's not like only women would gamble, folks. I'm not saying that. But a lot of women would think, oh, I don't need some man to tell me what to do. But you know what? How many husbands are going to let their wives do that? When he's dead, she lost it all. Sad. Go to Psalms 62, Psalms 62. You don't even know the evils that your husband protects you from. You should honor your husband and realize he's there for a reason. Terrace Watanabe. Sounds Japanese, I don't know. Watanabe is one of those stories that you hear whenever people tell you just how bad compulsive gambling can get. His losses are recorded as some of the highest in modern gambling history. He was the heir of an oriental trading company in 1997. So this guy is filthy rich. But he sold the company and started gambling. He was always treated as a whale in Las Vegas. Now, what a whale is, is it's basically someone that has just so much money and they're trying to take it all from them. He gambled over $825 million and ended up losing $127 million of it. I wonder why those casinos look so nice. Maybe because people are giving them $127 million a pop. I wonder why they want that guy to, I wonder why they comp his rooms. By that time, he had gambled away his net worth and was already in debt. He tried to sue Caesar's Palace. That's not going to work. Where he included his losses, but it never happened. In fact, he's now being sued by them for $15 million that he hasn't paid. Psalm 62, look at verse 10. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. Think about this. This guy has hundreds of millions of dollars. Not enough. Hundreds of millions of dollars, not enough. And again, this isn't even today. This is like way back when hundreds of millions of dollars was like a lot. I mean, where burgers are like a dollar or something, you know. Gas is a dollar. That was just a few years ago. Go to Proverbs 28, Proverbs 28. Look, I could do this all day. How many stories do you need? And you know what's sad about almost all of them? It's just like I was never a gambler and then later in life, I just put one quarter in. Later in life, I got drugged to a conference for my work and I just put one bet down. I sold, I got all this money and then I thought, why don't I get into gambling? And you know why a lot of times it will happen for rich people? It's because when you have $100 million, you have nothing to do. If you sold your company and now you have hundreds of millions of dollars, what are you going to do with your life? So they get into gambling. They get into drinking. They get into drugs. You know, when you don't have church, you have nothing to live for. When you don't have a wife, when you don't have children, you have nothing to live for. And that's why it's important to have these things to keep you grounded. You know, I don't want $100 million. If I had $100 million, I would try to get rid of like $99 million of that as soon as possible. Pay off whatever debt I have because I don't want to have debt, but it would be better to just give that all away. You know, I'd be better off never getting $100 million than never getting it probably anyways. But the last thing I want is to have $100 million in the bank trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it. The best thing I can do is just get rid of it instantly. And, you know, of course every brother and cousin and uncle will somehow like you now. Did I say you were in a cult? I didn't mean that. I love Step Past Baptist Church. T-shirts, mugs, keychains, you know. Money changes people. And it's sad. Money shouldn't change you. If you have the right character and the right integrity, the amount of money in your bank account doesn't determine anything for you. You know the apostle Paul talked about how he could abound with blessing or without. You know, Job doesn't change his character when he's the richest guy or the poorest guy. Joseph, his character doesn't change when he's in prison or when he's the richest guy. Why? Because you need to get your heart right first and then if God ever blesses you with riches at some point in time, maybe you can maintain that character and that integrity. But for a lot of people they can't even do it. That's why God told the kings not even to multiply silver and gold under themselves. Because, you know, most if not 99.99999% of all of us cannot handle money. Cannot handle riches. Cannot handle wealth. And I don't even want to try. My dad would always joke, he's like, you know, I'd like to try and just see if I could handle it. And it's like, I don't even think I want to. I already have too many good things in my life. I don't want to destroy them. I don't want to ruin them. You know, I don't even want our church to have a lot of money. You know, we try to spend a lot of it. It's kind of frustrating when you have people analyze your credit, you know, for the church and they're just like, we all aren't having these giant net profits. It's like, yeah, because we spend our money. It's like when we have extra money, we make a DVD. We buy more DVDs. We go on a missions trip. We have a fellowship event, right? You know, why do you think we get to have so many fun things at this church? Why do you think we're going to go watch a movie tomorrow? You know, and you think that was free? We probably spent $20,000 or $30,000 on that film already, let alone the amount of money we're going to have to spend on DVDs and all the other stuff. But you know what? I'd rather waste all that money on that, supposedly, than to just keep stockpiling cash and getting a love of money and getting infected with the love of money and getting to a point where we have this beautiful building, but we charge for everything. We have this beautiful building, but we never make any material to hand out. We have this beautiful building, but we send $25 a month to a foreign missionary. $25 a month to a missionary. And it's like, well, how much does the bomb cost? I'm sure tens of thousands of dollars. But you know what? We're going to get a lot of people saved. And I'm not going to sit here and pat. We give $25 a month to this missionary. Let's all just sing about how great we are and how wonderful we are and how we just love the loss and that one soul. They're praying that Johnny will come back to church and get saved when they learn the language seven years from now. Why? So they can maintain a, well, we have a really nice building, but we have all these other things. We have the private Christian school. Why waste money on that? Your school probably isn't very good. Every Christian school I went to is way inferior than public school, because public school is terrible. Homeschooling is where it's at. Here's the last story I'm going to give you. Jack Ritchie. Jack Ritchie rose eyebrows in 2020. He's from the UK, and he was gambling online. He was living in Vietnam at the time and teaching English, but he had a struggle with gambling addiction since he was 17. So Jack is only 24 years old, whole life ahead of him. He's traveling abroad, teaching all kinds of people English, probably a great benefit to a lot of people, a lot of people looking to him, and his addiction began when he won 500 pounds twice while he was in school. You know, Sad, all these stories, it's like they were a winner first. Oh, they won first, they won first, they won first, they won first. You know, the worst thing you could do is go to a casino and win. I remember the one other time I ever went, I went with a friend, and he like put money in a slot machine, instant winner. The first time, I mean, he literally put one dollar in and wins like $200. And then he walks over to like the roulette table, puts money on like a 30 to one, instant win. He puts five dollars down, wins like $300. I was just like, what in the world? But you know what I like about it? He was like, I'm done gambling for the rest of my life. And he was true. He like basically was done, he didn't care anymore. He's like the only person that's ever been a winner. And he just kept the $200 or whatever, the $300 or whatever. But you know, it happens all the time. Where you show up, it's just instant winner. But you know what? He won 500 pounds twice. After that, he installed multiple betting apps on his phone. And he started losing lots of money whenever he logged in, he just couldn't stop. It got to a point where it accumulated $30,000 in debt. And he felt like he was too embarrassed to tell his family, so he just killed himself. He wins money. He gets on his phone. His parents don't even know he's a gambler. And you know what? How many kids today are addicted to sports betting and gambling and their parents have no idea? Their little telephone just has the stupid app of sports betting and then they get to such an embarrassing point in their life that they just kill themselves. You know, you better be careful what's on your kids' phones. Well, it's just that I don't know what apps those are. We'll find out what apps they are. Be careful. I mean, this young guy just destroys himself. Look at Proverbs 28 verse 16. The prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor, but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days. You know what? Hating covetousness is going to benefit you. Notice he said prolong his days. What happened to this guy? He didn't hate covetousness. He was filled with covetousness and what happened to destroy him? You know who was destroyed for covetousness? Achan. Achan desired the Babylonian's garment, he desired the gold, he took it and he died. People are constantly, why did Lot and his wife go into Sodom? Covetousness. Why did Lot's wife turn back? Remember Lot's wife? Covetousness. Why is it that the Pharisees killed Jesus? Covetousness. Why is it that Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ? Covetousness. What is the root of all evil? It's the love of money, folks. Don't even start gambling. Don't even give a penny or a cent to these people that are trying to take you for all that you have. And they don't care. Judas came back and said, hey, I screwed up. And they're like, what's that to us? We're Jews, we don't care. We don't care what you did. And then what did Judas do? He killed himself. He killed himself. Don't even get sucked. If you've been betting or gambling, you need to immediately quit because you don't know how far that road can go down. And how much you might destroy yourself. And people that are gambling, you should warn them of these dangers. I don't want to hear about how somebody we know killed themselves or got into this trouble or is addicted to all this kind of stuff. And look, you say, oh, I don't know if that can happen. Well, if it can happen to the pastor of the church, it can happen to anyone, folks. And you know what? I guarantee every person, even him included, they didn't start out trying to be such a terrible person. They just won one time. They got the little thrill. And then they're addicted and they can't stop. They can't get off that train. It's so hard. And it's an easy thing to keep private. That's why it's so dangerous. And that's why you should never do it. And if you're addicted to gambling, you should tell someone immediately. Tell your spouse, tell your family members, tell an accountability partner and say, I'm addicted to this. What do I do? The worst that, you know, if my kid lost $30,000. OK, that sucks. But you know what? That's not embarrassing. Don't kill yourself ever. Never kill yourself. I will never kill myself. Period. You know, even the people in the Bible, when they were being tortured, they would not allow themselves to even get mercy. You know, don't kill yourself for any reason. Reach out, ask someone for help. And you know what? I would way rather have my kids and have to pay all their gambling debts than for them to kill themselves. I would way rather be able to help them or love them or whoever it is. And of course my 8-year-old doesn't have a gambling addiction. OK? Praise God. But we don't want to get them started either. And even if you think you're a responsible gambler, you're just prideful. You know, don't even mess with this stuff. Don't even get sucked into it. Let's just avoid it at all costs because it's not spiritual anyways. Let's close in prayer. Thank Heavenly Father so much for the word of God, for giving us wisdom from the Bible that we can be aware of the traps and the snares that are out there. There's so many traps, there's so many snares that want to destroy our lives. And I pray that as God-fearing people that we'd have a fear of God, that we could find pleasure and joy in the things that are from above and not from the things on this earth. That we wouldn't get infected with the love of money, with covetousness. That we would avoid the dangers and the perils of the love of money. And I pray that you would help those if anybody's struggling with that. That you could renew their heart and their mind on the things of God so that they could overcome the evils of this world. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Song 34, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Song number 34, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Song 34, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Song 34, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Song 34, And on the earth again shall stand. Song 34, I know eternal life he giveth. Song 34, That grace and power are in his hand. Song 34, I know I know that Jesus liveth. Song 34, And on the earth again shall stand. Song 34, I know I know that life he giveth. Song 34, That grace and power are in his hand. Song 34, I know his promise never faileth. Song 34, The word he speaks it cannot die. Song 34, Though cruel death my flesh assaileth. Song 34, Yet I shall see him by and by. Song 34, I know I know that Jesus liveth. Song 34, And on the earth again shall stand. Song 34, I know I know that life he giveth. Song 34, That grace and power are in his hand. Song 34, I know my mansion he prepareth. Song 34, That where he is there I may be. Song 34, Oh wondrous thought for me he careth. Song 34, And he at last will come for me. Song 34, I know I know that Jesus liveth. Song 34, And on the earth again shall stand. Song 34, I know I know that life he giveth. Song 34, That grace and power are in his hand. God bless. Thanks for coming. You are dismissed.