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Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition, a Pathway to Victory.
Solomon says the secret to financial success in life. is not in earning, winning, or inheriting. The secret to financial success that God wants all of us to experience is through spending. You heard me right. The Solomon Secret for Success in Your Finances.
is to spend your way to wealth. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffers. Tragically, most Americans live way far beyond their means. And as a result, the financial pressure in many households has become unbearable.
So how do we break that cycle of death? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffers shares the key to achieving financial independence, and that's according to the richest man who ever lived. But first, let's take a moment to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome to Pathway to Victory.
In our new study of Proverbs, we're talking about Solomon's counterintuitive wisdom and its application to our lives. Today, we'll discover the key to achieving financial independence. My premise is based on the conclusions from the richest man who ever lived. In Proverbs 21, verse 20, Solomon wrote, There is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man swallows it up. That's a curious statement, and we'll discover what it means in a moment.
But before we get started, I'm inviting you to take advantage of the helpful resources that complement these daily studies. The first is a book I've written called The Solomon Secrets: 10 Keys to Your Success. In this popular bestseller, I've addressed relevant topics such as managing your money. Cultivating a healthy marriage, and overcoming your fears. The book is yours.
When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Plus, if you've never been in touch with Pathway to Victory, I'd like to send you In God We Trust. A two-disc collection of 12 beloved patriotic and sacred songs performed by the First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra. It also includes two full-length teaching messages on America's Christian foundations. As our nation celebrates 250 years, this is a treasure for every Christian who calls America home.
It's my gift to you. Just for getting in touch today.
Now, let's get started with today's message. Are you looking to find financial margin and peace in your life?
Solomon suggests that one of the keys is to spend your way to wealth. People have always been fascinated by the subject of money. And for good reason, when you think about it. I mean, despite all the bad press that money gets from us preacher types. The fact is, money can do a lot of wonderful things for people when you think about it.
Money can relieve stress. A money can provide independence. Money can help us fulfill our dreams in life. When you think about it, money can do a lot of the very same things that God promises to do for us. At least at first glance.
And I think that explains why Jesus said in Matthew 6, verse 24: no man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, Or he will despise the one and hold on to the other. You cannot serve, you cannot worship God. and money. Notice Jesus didn't say, you cannot worship God and your work.
Or you cannot worship God and sex. It's not that those other things cannot be idols for us, they can. But Jesus understood that money has a unique ability. To take our hearts' affection because of all of the things it can do for us. That also explains why Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:10, for the love of money.
Is the root of all sorts of evil. And some, by longing for it, have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many a pain. And yet most people I talk to They don't have any desire to fall in love with money. They don't want to worship money. Instead, most people's attitude about money is like one couple who talked to me recently.
They're facing the first-year tuition bill for their child's college education. They said, Pastor, we just want to have. Enough. We just want to have enough. Did you know, by the way, that is a biblical goal for your finances to have just enough?
Enough to meet your current and your future needs. Turn over to Proverbs chapter 30, if you would. Proverbs chapter 30.
Solomon was the wealthiest man of his day. He understood both the benefits of money, but he also understood the limitations of money. After all, he had a lot of it. And you look at Solomon's writings in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
Solomon taught, for example, don't worship money because it can be easily lost. In Proverbs 23, verses 4 and 5. We read, Do not weary yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on money, it is gone.
For wealth certainly makes itself wings and like an eagle that flies toward the heavens. Money can increase stress, Solomon said. In Ecclesiastes 5:12, he said, The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much. The person who doesn't have a lot, he's able to sleep at night. He's not worried about his finances and what he's going to do with all of his money.
But the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.
Solomon said, Money can rob us of present joy in this life. In Ecclesiastes 5:13, he said, There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt.
So given the benefits of money and also the limitations of money, Proverbs tells us what a reasonable goal for us ought to be in our finances. And it's found in Proverbs 30. Look at verse 8. The writer said, Lord, here's my prayer. Give me neither poverty nor riches.
But feed me with the food that is my portion. That I not be full and deny you and say, who is the Lord? or that I be in want and steal and profane the name of my God. The writer is saying, Lord, here's my prayer. Don't give me too much money because if I have too much, I could be tempted to say, I have no need for God.
How many wealthy people do you know just like that? But he also said, Lord, don't give me too little. Lest I be tempted to do something wrong, to steal and profane your name. God, what I'm asking is that you give me just enough. That ought to be our goal and money, to have not too much, not too little, but have just enough.
The question is. Do you have enough? Do you have enough money, enough financial resources to meet both your current and your future needs?
Well, let's take an exam right now to determine if you have enough, okay? I'm going to ask you four questions. They're not the only four questions I could ask, but here are four questions that will help you determine the state of your financial health right now. You ready for this? Here's question number one.
If you or your mate were to lose your jobs, neither one of you had a job. How long could you survive? How many months? without a paycheck. Question number two.
If you add up all of your assets, that is everything you own, and subtract all of your liabilities, everything you owe, is that number a positive or a negative number? Question number three: For those of you with kids still at home who are facing college bills. Do you have enough to provide for their college education if they choose to go to college? How much do you need for that? I went on a website this week, collegedata.com, and according to this website, the average cost for a four-year public education, public school, That's tuition and all the other expenses.
The average cost is $100,000. For a private college, it's $170,000. Do you have enough to provide for your kids' education? Question number four: what about your retirement? You know, there's a day coming for everybody.
It doesn't have to be 65 or 70, but there will be a day when you are no longer working with a study paycheck coming in. Do you have enough money? For retirement, for when that day comes. How much money should you have right now for your future retirement? There are all kind of formulas that people use, financial planners, to determine how much you ought to have right now for your future retirement.
But here's a real simple formula. Take your age. Multiply it by your current salary. And divide by 10. And that's the amount of money you ought to have right now.
Your current age times your salary divided by 10. For example, if you're 40 years old, you make $50,000 a year, multiply 40 times 50,000 divide by 10. That means right now you ought to have $200,000. You can do the math.
Now, what do those four questions reveal about your financial health? Do you feel pretty good about where you are? Are you ready to go out and slit your wrist right now?
Now, before you reach for the razor blades, if it's the ladder. You need to understand that most Americans owe more than they own. have not made adequate plans for retirement. and could not go more than a few weeks without a steady paycheck. You see, most Americans believe that the way to financial security is to earn a bigger salary, to win the lottery, or hope Aunt Gertrude dies before the first kid has to go to college.
But as we're going to discover today, Solomon says the secret to financial success in life is not in earning, winning, or inheriting. The secret to financial success that God wants all of us to experience is through spending. That's right. You heard me right. The Solomon Secret for Success in Your Finances is to spend your way to wealth.
Now, to know exactly what I'm talking about and what Solomon is talking about, turn to Proverbs chapter 21. Proverbs chapter 21. Financial consultant Dave Ramsey, who was in our church about a year ago, a year and a half ago. He tells about two couples that came to see him for financial advice a number of years ago. And the first couple that came to him was a couple that was earning $35,000 a year.
Even though they were earning $35,000 a year, they had accumulated $150,000 in their 401 plan. They had no credit card debt, and they only had three years' worth of payments left on their $70,000 home. That was couple number one. Couple number two, that came in right after the first couple, had $64,000 in credit card debt. They drove two leased cars.
They had a $175,000 outstanding mortgage on their home. What was their problem as compared to the first? Couple, you might assume that this second couple that had $64,000 worth of credit card debt and $175,000 left on their home, they must have earned less money than the first couple, earning $35,000. No, Ramsey said this second couple was earning $84,000 a year.
So how is it that one couple, admittedly, a few years ago, could survive and thrive on $35,000 of income, and yet a second couple earning twice as much money was on the brink of financial insolvency? The key is, the first couple had learned the Solomon's secret for success in money, and that is margin. financial margin. You see, a lot of people, again, believe: well, if I just had more money, if I had a bigger paycheck, I'd be financially okay. But Solomon exposes the fallacy of that thinking in Ecclesiastes 5:11.
He said, When good things increase, those who consume them increase. In other words, the higher your income, the higher your expenses. The more you make, the more you spend. Can I hear an amen on that? I mean, we all know that's true, don't we?
And so that's why Solomon said, no, the key to financial security is in margin. It has to do with your spending. What is margin? Write down this definition. Margin is that comfort zone.
It's the buffer zone between where you are and your limits in life. Margin is that buffer zone between where you are. And your limits in life. Let me illustrate it for you this way. Take your outline right now, hold it up so I know you're paying attention.
Take out your outline. I want you to look at the outline very carefully. Did you notice all the wasted space on that outline? There's a lot of wasted space. It's white space, white space around the margins, white space between the words.
I mean, if we wanted to be more economical around here, we could have filled up every inch of that outline with black type. But it would have been very difficult to read, wouldn't it? Margin gives it ease of reading, it provides comfort to the reader. It's the same thing that is true in every area of our life. If we fill up our life completely, if we have no buffer zone between where we are and our limits, in our work, in our relationships.
And in our finances, it produces a great deal of stress. Dr. Swenson, in his best-selling book, Margin, describes what life is like without any buffer zones. I bet some of you can identify with this. Living without margin.
Is being thirty minutes late to the doctor's office because you were twenty minutes late getting out of the hairdressers, because you were 10 minutes late dropping the children off at school, because the car ran out of gas two blocks from the gas station, and you forgot your purse. That is life without margin. The fact is, when you're always pressing the limits, you're going to feel stress in life, and that's true about your financial life as well. People who live in their finances without any margin, that is, they're spending everything they have. Are under incredible stress.
Perhaps you know people like this. Perhaps you're a person like this. You live from paycheck to paycheck, hoping and praying you run out of month before you run out of money. And if there's anything unexpected that comes up in the month, a car repair bill or a medical emergency, there is no way to cover that. And as far as big ticket items for the future, like a college education for your kids or your own retirement or caring for elderly parents, why, don't even think about that.
There's no way to plan for that. And yet, people do think about it. And so they have this nagging fear in the back of their minds that not all is well in their finances. And because of that stress, they live under unbearable pressure that extends to their relationships. Did you know, a financial consultant, one noted financial consultant, says that 90% of divorces are precipitated by financial pressure.
That's the result of living without any margin. And that's why Solomon gave this Solomon's secret for success with money. Look at Proverbs 21, verse 20.
Solomon said, there is precious treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man swallows it up. The foolish person is the one who consumes everything he has. In Solomon's day, it was oil. That was a priceless commodity. The fool is the one who spends everything that he has.
The fool is the one who lives from paycheck to paycheck, who says, I can't think about tomorrow.
Someday I'll get my finances under better control.
Sometimes the foolish person actually wraps his apathy and laziness in a spiritual veneer that says, Oh, I'm going to trust God for the future. After all, Jesus said, live one day at a time. Does God want us to have financial margin? Does He want us to have this buffer zone between what we spend and what we earn? I need to offer a caution here about what the Bible says about finances.
There is a difference in the Bible between saving money and hoarding money. The Bible draws a distinction between saving and hoarding. You know what saving is? It's setting aside a reasonable amount of money to meet future expected and unexpected needs. Saving is setting aside a reasonable amount of money to provide for future expected and unexpected needs.
You know what hoarding is? It's stockpiling as much money as you possibly can to protect yourself from every adversity in life. And of course that's impossible. But a person who is a hoarder doesn't understand that. He's the guy who's always running around.
Turning off lights. Realizing that he's probably costing more by the wear and tear on the light bulbs and the energy he's saving doing so. He's the person who will drive across town to save a nickel on a loaf of bread, oblivious to the gas that he spends doing so. He's the kind of person who will never take a vacation. He never has quite enough money because he's always saving for a rainy day.
instead of enjoying the sunshine of the present day. That's what a hoarder does. I have found, by the way, in my experience, that many people who went through the Great Depression, I'm not talking about the one in 2007, I'm talking the one back in the 30s. Many people who went through the Great Depression find it very difficult to spend money. They remember the horror of those four years in our nation's history.
And so they hoard and they hoard and they hoard instead of being reasonable in the amount of money that they set aside. Listen to Ecclesiastes 5:13.
Solomon says, There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt. You see, the problem with hoarding money is it robs you of the joy God wants you to have in this life as well. You've heard me speak before about my father. My father was a wonderful Christian man. In fact, he's the reason the rest of my family, my mom and all of us, became Christians.
And I learned a lot of great lessons from my dad. And one of the lessons I learned from my dad was the importance, the discipline of saving money. I remember when I was a little boy, my dad would get paid two times a month. And on those Fridays, he would take me with him to the bank, to the Hillcrest State Bank across from SMU. And he would take me with him as he would deposit his check.
And then he would purchase a United States savings bond and would go downstairs to the vault and would walk in there to his safety deposit box and he would deposit that savings bond. He did that twice a month religiously. And when my dad was a relatively young man, He was uh diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Totally had just a few months to live. And I never will forget sitting around the kitchen table with my dad going over his affairs.
He knew he was about to die. I'll never forget what he said to me. He said, You know, Robert, I spent my whole life setting aside this money so that I could enjoy it one day. And now I have to end up leaving it to you knuckleheads. You know, Solomon said basically the same thing.
In Ecclesiastes 2:18, he said, Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor, for which I labored under the sun. for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And when we're talking about financial margin, we're not talking about being a hoarder of money. We're talking about setting aside a reasonable amount in the present to take care of future expected and unexpected needs. What are the benefits of doing what Solomon said, of not consuming everything you make and setting some aside?
I want you to notice in the Bible there are three benefits of having financial margin, a buffer zone between your income and your expenditures. Number one, financial margin offers freedom. to do the right thing. It offers us freedom to do the right thing. Years ago, I was listening to Dr.
Laura Schlesinger. Remember her who gave the advice on the radio all the time? Everybody listened to Dr. Laura. I was driving somewhere and had it turned on to Dr.
Laura, and this lady called in and she said, Dr. Laura, I don't know what to do. He said, My father's been diagnosed with cancer. He lives in another state, and I would love to go visit him before he dies. But I can't afford to take off work the two weeks.
I can't survive without two weeks of a paycheck. And not only that, I don't have the money. For an airplane ticket without going ahead and racking it up on my overextended credit card. What should I do? Talk about being on the horns of a dilemma.
She had two choices and neither one of them was good. Do I experience financial insolvency? Or do I experience a lifetime of regret for not seeing my dad? See, that's the kind of choice you have, or lack of choice, when you have no financial margin. Financial margin gives us the freedom to do what we need to do.
Financial margin, having that buffer zone allows you to change jobs. and do something you really want to do in life. Financial margin allows you to take that mission trip that you've been dying to take. Financial margin allows you to start that new business that God has placed on your heart to start. All of us need financial margin in our life.
It is the freedom that provides the freedom to do the right thing.
Solomon's Book of Proverbs will give you nuggets of wisdom that are guaranteed to bring success. And Pathway to Victory has assembled a collection of helpful resources to help you learn more. First, I've written a book that dovetails with this series. My book is called The Solomon Secrets, 10 Keys to Your Success. This is one of the most highly requested books I've written because it's so practical.
Many are using this book to guide their discussion in a small group setting and it's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of pathway to victory. Second, you can request the entire collection of 10 messages on audio CD or video DVD. David will explain what's required in just a moment.
Well, it's possible that you've never contacted us before, or maybe it's been a long time. This is the perfect day for you to request these helpful materials. Plus, God will use your generosity to encourage someone who's going through a rough season. Not long ago, we heard from Michelle who said, Dr. Jeffress, I'm struggling with some issues in my family right now.
And Pathway to Victory keeps my spirit up and keeps reminding me that God is in control. Thank you so much for making this available to me every day on the radio and on TV. I really need this ministry. When you give, you're becoming light in the darkness for people like Michelle. Thanks so much.
Now, here's David to tell you more. Today when you give a generous gift to support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory, You're invited to request a copy of Dr. Jeffers' best-selling book, The Solomon Secrets. Here's our toll-free phone number, 866-999-2965. Visit ptv.org or text ptv to 78800.
And when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you this month's teaching series also called The Solomon Secrets on DVD video and MP3 format audio disc. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or make your request online at ptv.org. You could send your donation by mail right to P.O. Box 223-609 Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O.
Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas. 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Join us again next time when Dr.
Jeffers continues his series called The Solomon Secrets with more biblical wisdom on managing your finances. It's Wednesday here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. The Apostle Paul sailed these waters, walked these streets, and the church was never the same.
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