WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.920 In today's dollars, David would have been considered a billionaire or a multi-billionaire. 2 00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:09.880 So his son, Solomon, increased this wealth by tenfold. 3 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:12.520 Solomon grew the financial foundation that David had started. 4 00:00:12.520 --> 00:00:22.040 He invested trade, commerce, gifts from foreign entities, tribute money, and taxes. 5 00:00:22.040 --> 00:00:29.400 All right, so next guys, we're going to hop into our next point. 6 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:35.200 And that is that there are countless individuals in scripture that were extremely wealthy. 7 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:39.020 Let's start with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 8 00:00:39.020 --> 00:00:43.640 So many biblical scholars and archaeologists point towards the fact that these patriarchs 9 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:44.760 were extremely wealthy. 10 00:00:44.760 --> 00:00:51.200 A few key points on this, scripture says that they were skilled merchants working on transporting 11 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:54.200 trade around different parts of the ancient world. 12 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:59.240 Now this type of work in the merchant world is one that was not fully understood, but is 13 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:02.280 considered very lucrative in nature. 14 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:09.160 And this was an area that was largely focused on transporting goods all over the world, 15 00:01:09.160 --> 00:01:15.160 and that's largely where the Silk Road came into being in the ancient world. 16 00:01:15.160 --> 00:01:22.240 So starting with Abraham, though, it says that there were 318 skilled servants for battle. 17 00:01:22.240 --> 00:01:27.600 That is a large force, and that's what he used to bring back Lot when Lot was captured. 18 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:33.560 So this is not someone who didn't have a good amount of money to be able to have that. 19 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.000 And so Abraham had a lot of financial success. 20 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.420 It also says that Abraham passed his skills down, market skills down to Isaac. 21 00:01:41.420 --> 00:01:44.120 So this is Genesis 26, 13, and 14. 22 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:50.000 It says, quote, the man Isaac became rich and his wealth continued to grow until he 23 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:51.920 became very wealthy. 24 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:56.160 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. 25 00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:57.160 Think about that. 26 00:01:57.160 --> 00:02:00.960 An entire people group envying someone's wealth. 27 00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:03.540 That is some serious financial success. 28 00:02:03.540 --> 00:02:06.480 So these patriarchs were very successful. 29 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:13.160 Now let's do another kind of scriptural analysis related to the conquest of the Promised Land 30 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:14.600 by the Israelites. 31 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:19.080 So to start on this, scripture says that the Israelites took the wealth of the Egyptians 32 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:20.920 when they were leaving Egypt. 33 00:02:20.920 --> 00:02:22.520 This is very important. 34 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:27.520 So they come in wealthy, they go into the Promised Land, and there's more monetary blessing 35 00:02:27.520 --> 00:02:28.720 that occurs. 36 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:33.960 So after a brutal campaign of the land, the land is portioned out to different tribes 37 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:34.960 of Israel. 38 00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:40.120 Joshua, the leader of the conquest, says the tribes were then supposed to split things 39 00:02:40.120 --> 00:02:41.120 up. 40 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.960 So he said, this is a quote, go home, you're going home rich. 41 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:48.720 Great herds of cattle, silver, gold, bronze, and iron, huge piles of clothing. 42 00:02:48.720 --> 00:02:50.920 Share the wealth with your friends and family. 43 00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:53.320 All this plunder from your enemies. 44 00:02:53.320 --> 00:02:57.720 So within this military campaign, there's this entire transfer of wealth of the ancient 45 00:02:57.720 --> 00:02:59.400 world in that region. 46 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:03.280 And the Israelites stand on top because God's blessing them. 47 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:09.960 So the final example, and probably the most famous of all Old Testament characters, is 48 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:11.700 David and Solomon. 49 00:03:11.700 --> 00:03:16.240 So when David becomes the king of Israel as a young man, he becomes very wealthy just 50 00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:18.440 due to the status of where he's at. 51 00:03:18.440 --> 00:03:23.040 On top of this, though, because of the amount of conquests that occur and tributes that 52 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:27.680 are created, he starts to accumulate large amounts of tribute money. 53 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:33.160 In today's dollars, David would have been considered a billionaire or a multi-billionaire. 54 00:03:33.160 --> 00:03:37.120 So his son Solomon increased this wealth by tenfold. 55 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.760 Solomon grew the financial foundation that David had started. 56 00:03:39.760 --> 00:03:46.160 He invested trade, commerce, gifts from foreign entities, tribute money, and taxes. 57 00:03:46.160 --> 00:03:53.440 So Solomon's total net worth in today's dollars reaches literally into the trillions of dollars. 58 00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:57.800 He's considered by many as the wealthiest person literally ever to live. 59 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:00.680 So imagine living in those times. 60 00:04:00.680 --> 00:04:02.160 So these are countless examples. 61 00:04:02.160 --> 00:04:10.520 I mean, there's many, many more examples of Christians, of prior to Christianity, biblical 62 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:13.780 characters that accumulated these large amounts of money. 63 00:04:13.780 --> 00:04:15.520 But here's the main point. 64 00:04:15.520 --> 00:04:20.079 The majority of these biblical characters became wealthy because they walked closely 65 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:21.079 to God. 66 00:04:21.079 --> 00:04:24.240 Now, this isn't a prosperity gospel that I'm preaching. 67 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:29.960 But when you follow Christ, and whether or not you're trying to become wealthy or not, 68 00:04:29.960 --> 00:04:35.100 when you're doing the right thing and living by strong morals, indirectly that leads to 69 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:39.640 monetary success, especially today where we see that going out the window. 70 00:04:39.640 --> 00:04:45.580 of your ethical, moral, hardworking, most likely today, you're going to see financial 71 00:04:45.580 --> 00:04:46.580 success. 72 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:53.680 All right, guys, the last point I want to cover today is Proverbs 13, 22. 73 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:59.100 It reads, a good person leaves an inheritance for their children's children, but a sinner's 74 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:00.120 wealth is stored. 75 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:05.040 up for the righteous. So this is the point. God wants to remove money from the 76 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:09.720 unrighteous and put it into the hands of the righteous. So first of all, let me 77 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:14.320 break this down. How many times have you felt that there are people that have a 78 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:18.480 lot of money doing bad things? I know I can think of several. I'm sure all of us 79 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:24.760 can, but judgment is God's job. But we can feel the weight of this when people 80 00:05:24.760 --> 00:05:30.520 aren't doing money for good. But we can be rest assured that God wants to change 81 00:05:30.520 --> 00:05:35.360 that narrative. So God gives people time to repent of unrighteousness, time to 82 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:40.840 stop the the behavior they're doing, but Scripture points over and over that if 83 00:05:40.840 --> 00:05:46.640 they do not, there will be a point of no return with God. And we can we can rest 84 00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:51.520 in that. And so when the Israelites left Egypt, they left wealthy. When they entered 85 00:05:51.520 --> 00:05:54.760 the Promised Land, they took the accumulated wealth from the tribes and 86 00:05:54.760 --> 00:06:01.840 kingdoms of those areas because God had cast judgment on those tribes. So 87 00:06:01.840 --> 00:06:06.520 this is the ultimate example of what I call biblical karma. Those that do the 88 00:06:06.520 --> 00:06:11.640 right things, treat people right, do right and good hard work, they're gonna be 89 00:06:11.640 --> 00:06:15.800 blessed. And then those that don't, who take shortcuts, will lose what they have. 90 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:21.480 So my boss in the financial services industry, one of my favorite quotes he 91 00:06:21.480 --> 00:06:26.920 says is, the only shortcut is doing things right the first time. So from 92 00:06:26.920 --> 00:06:33.280 David to Jesus, this is how God works. For those that walk with God, there's massive 93 00:06:33.280 --> 00:06:37.080 amounts of blessing. That doesn't mean that life is is perfect, there's hard 94 00:06:37.080 --> 00:06:41.200 things that come, but God does shift the money towards those that will be good 95 00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:46.260 stewards of it. The backside to this though, is if you claim to be a Christian 96 00:06:46.260 --> 00:06:53.380 and you were lazy, you know, not doing the right things, not being righteous in 97 00:06:53.380 --> 00:06:57.900 the way that we're taught to, the ramifications aren't good. So this is 98 00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:03.780 true still today. God blesses his people monetarily, spiritually, relationally when 99 00:07:03.780 --> 00:07:06.820 we do the right thing.