Reversing Financial Consequences

Instead of planning for the future, we live our lives paying for the past. But Dr. Tony Evans says there's a cure for the epidemic of debt that cripples families, ruins marriages, and threatens our economy. If you're going to reverse the consequences of debt, then you must establish God as your source. It changes everything. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative.

I want it and I want it now. It sounds like something you'd hear from a toddler having a tantrum. But Dr. Evans says whether we realize it or not, that's the attitude that's gotten so many households into so much debt. Let's join Dr. Evans as he talks about ways to break that bondage. My challenge today is to tell all who are listening to what God has to say how to get out of debt. God has, like in every other area, an answer to your financial dilemma.

The problem is that God can't get people, including his people, to pay attention. And as a result, the addiction to debt has become the newest form of slavery. Proverbs 22 says, the borrower is a slave to the lender.

And many people know what it is to be enslaved to bills, to be owned by them. In our story, in verse 1 of 2 Kings, we have a single parent who can't pay her bills. Her husband has died.

The provider for the home is not there. She cannot make ends meet and finds herself subjected to the creditors. Being subjected to the creditors has placed her whole family in disarray. For she says, they've come to take my two sons, that is, to work off the debt. Many families know what it is to be disturbed by bills. Instead of planning for the future, we live our lives paying for the past. Because if you owe $8,000 and you pay minimum payments, you're gonna be paying for 21 years and have paid $21,000 to liquidate that expense.

It will own you. Let me be inextricably clear here. Illegitimate debt is to be abnormal, not normal in the life of the believer. Therefore, if you are living in debt, if you have more month than money, it is because you are living outside of the will of God. God makes it clear in Psalm 37 verse 21, the wicked borrow and do not pay. He describes it as wickedness. Debt does not mean the absence of bills.

Debt is having bills you do not or cannot pay. This lady goes to the prophet. In other words, she made a spiritual connection, which is why she went to the prophet.

She needed God to intervene in her circumstances. It is unfortunate today that believers separate God from the subjects of economics and finance. Luke 16 verses 10 and 11 says that if God can't talk to you in this area, He will not talk to you in other areas.

He says, if I can't trust you here, then I can't trust you elsewhere. Because this is an indicator light of whether you take God seriously. Illegitimate debt exists for a number of reasons. Number one, there is ignorance of God's method of handling your resources. People just don't know. If they knew, they would do it, but they've never been told about it. So some people just don't know it. Some people know it and don't like it.

Like a lot of things in Scripture, they reject it, and so they have to bear the consequences of their rejection. So they have the information, but not the obedience. One of the main reasons that this problem does not go away is greed. Wanting to live a lifestyle of indulgence, buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't know. And so they keep themselves spinning with all the commercials and all the advertisements, and you can't do without this, and this is now new and improved, and they gravitate and greed takes over.

And then there's another reason, and that is poor planning. And I will show you what the Scripture says about that. So now I am going to walk you through three words. And if I can get you to believe God's Word, because I'm going to give you the three words from the Bible, if I can get you to buy into these three words, apart from trials that God may send your way or allow you to experience, you will begin to see a reversal of financial consequences, where you're living your life in debt, and this thing, this evil, has got people by the throat and strangling them to death. Most people think when they're in this situation, I just need more money. I need to make more money.

I need a better job. So what they will do is jump outside of God's will to get more money, thinking that more money solves the problem. But if you get more money with the same mind— and that's why you have rich people who go bankrupt— if you've got the same mind, then all you're going to do, given time, is revert to the same situation. These three words will begin a process of rolling back the consequences of debt. Give, save, spend. Those are the three simple words. Give, save, spend.

Honor God, honor yourself, and then spend what you have. If you're going to reverse the consequences of debt, then you must establish God as your source. You see, for most people, even Christians—they may use the word—but God is not their source. Their job is their source. Their bank is their source.

The stock market is their source. Therefore, a one is their source. But if you make it your source rather than merely a resource, then that means you're depending on that to fix your problem, and that is idolatry. And thou shalt have no other God before me, even your job. You must establish God as your source. In Deuteronomy chapter 14 verse 23, God said to his people, you are to bring the tithe to me to demonstrate that you take me seriously. He says, I want to see whether you recognize me as your source. And the way you do it is not by just saying you do it.

The way you do it is by honoring me with the firstfruits, which was the tithe, the firstfruits of what I give you as proof that you are seriously believing that I am your source. It reminds me of Danny Simpson. Danny Simpson robbed a bank—true story— robbed a bank in Ottawa, Canada. He robbed the bank and he stole $6,000. The gun he used to rob the bank with was a 1918 semi-automatic Colt worth $100,000. He did a $6,000 robbery using a $100,000 gun. The problem is, he didn't know what he had in his hand.

Because if he would have known what he had in his hand, it wouldn't be worth going to jail for $6,000 if you knew who you had in your hand. Once God becomes your source, you're no longer owned by your resource. That resource doesn't own you anymore, because God can use any source he wants, any resource he wants, once he's your source.

It changes everything. Okay, so, moving along, you establish God's ownership first. Secondly, you save before you spend. You do not save if you have it left over. It's like you do not give if you have it left over.

You honor God, then you honor yourself. The Bible says it is a wicked man who does not leave an inheritance for his children's children. You're supposed to be helping to take care of your grandkids. We're not leaving our kids an inheritance. We're leaving them dead. In fact, we're leaving a whole country of kids dead at $20 trillion.

No, no, no, no, no. You save first. The Scripture says in Proverbs 21, 20, in chapter 30, verse 25, save before you spend. You honor God, then you honor you. You do not live your life and work your life for everybody else, and you lose. You must develop a mindset that having honored God, you honor you through saving. Joseph told Pharaoh, you gotta save up front for when the bad days come. It is denying expenditures today, so you have something tomorrow. For who knows what another day will bring.

But if you spend, spend, spend, you can't save, save, save, and you have nothing to show for your work, your labor. Dr. Evans will come back to tell us about the next step in the process when he continues our message in just a moment. First, though, what you're hearing today is just one part of Tony's life-changing series, U-Turn, Reversing Spiritual Consequences. This collection will teach you what it takes to turn your life in a whole new direction, even if you've spent years dealing with issues like financial responsibility, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, or family sins that go back generations. To expand on these lessons, Tony has just written a helpful companion book titled U-Turns, Reversing the Consequences in Your Life.

Together, these two resources can help you finally discover how to reverse flaws and failures that you thought were irreversible. Request them right away, and we'll send you the book and all 12 lessons in the U-Turn series on both CD and digital download as our gift when you make a donation to help support Tony's ministry. And if you're wanting to gain an even deeper understanding of this important subject, Dr. Evans has produced an in-depth U-Turns Bible study kit and DVD featuring custom content for six sessions, including tips on how to lead a group study on this topic. You can find out how to get this entire package of U-Turn resources when you visit us at TonyEvans.org. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Or let one of our resource team members help you with your request day or night at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans, we'll come back with more of today's message right after this. What if the church led the way towards racial reconciliation? What if God's people routinely offered the gospel as the remedy to the hatred that plagues our society? What if the loudest voice for truth and love and justice came from those across racial lines who professed Jesus as Lord? The answer is that nothing would be able to stop the advancement of God's kingdom. That's the call Dr. Tony Evans issues in his book, Oneness Embraced.

Get your copy of Oneness Embraced today. Now, to save means there must be a shift. It means you must become future-oriented. See, if you're not future-oriented, see, kids tend not to be future-oriented. They want now. Everything they want, they want it right now. They're not thinking about the future. They're just thinking about now.

But their mamas and daddies are supposed to know better. Even when it comes to eternity, he says you must be future-oriented. Now, after you've established God as your source, after you've become future-oriented, because what stops being future-oriented is spending it all now, then you spend.

You spend. But you spend, according to Scripture, with a plan. Proverbs 16, 3, Proverbs 21, 5. God honors the plans, it says, of the diligent. We don't even give God something to bless.

Oh, just bless me. And the proof that we don't give God something to bless in order to get our needs met is, folk, play the lottery. No, you give God a plan with what you have left, Proverbs 16, 3, 21, 5, and you do it in this order. So here it is. Let me give you the order for spending, the biblical order.

I'm not making stuff up. The biblical order for you to spend. Number one, you start with needs. The Bible says to be content with your needs being met, the essentials of life, food, clothes, and shelter. Philippians 4, 19 is a great promise in Scripture, and it promises to those who have their things in order, he says, my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. He is a need-meeting God. He loves to meet needs. You start with needs, then you graduate to wants. A want is a higher level of need. For example, I need transportation. That is a legitimate need because we have to work.

You don't need a Benz. What you need is dependable transportation. You're living in a nice apartment, but you want a five-bedroom, four-car garage, ten-acre house.

That is fine, but you better give thanks there is a roof over your head that you're not sleeping under a bridge. Then comes desires. Desires are things outside of any of those areas that you do with surplus. God is not against desires. He even says, I will give you the desires of your hearts. I know this is hard to accept for many, but it's like getting in shape.

It's hard, but when you start losing weight, it's worth it. So this means a resetting, a recalibrating of your priorities. It may mean selling your desires so that you can adjust your wants to make sure you've met your needs. Selling your desires, if it's necessary, and start again the right way. Okay, so let's close, but let's go back to our lady in 2 Kings 4.

The creditors are knocking at the door. She is desperate. But recognizing that this is a spiritual issue and not just a financial issue, she goes to Elijah and says, I'm stuck.

Elijah asked her two questions in verse 2. He says, what shall I do for you? In other words, what do you need? And tell me, what is in your house?

What do you have? Wait a minute, Elijah, I told you the creditors are at the door. So I need to be able to pay off my bills. That's what I need. In fact, Elijah, if you really want to know the truth, all I got is some oil. There's some oil in my pantry.

That's it. There's some oil in my pantry. I have anything. Creditors don't want oil. Show me the money.

That's what the creditors want. Show me the money. Elijah says, here's what I want you to do. Go to your neighbors and borrow from them all their empty pots and don't borrow a few. Get as much, watch this, of your neighbor's emptiness. Empty pots. Get all the emptiness and bring it to your house. Just tell me you want to borrow that pot for a little bit. When you borrow that pot, he goes on to say, then go into a room and shut the door. Why? Because what God's going to do, He's going to do in secret.

This is not for public consumption. Then I want you to pour the oil into the empty pots. Pour the oil into the empty pots that you borrow from your neighbors.

So, she went, she got him. She starts pouring oil into the empty pot and this pot gets full and she pours all this pot, this pot, this pot, this pot. This oil keeps coming. This oil keeps coming. She tells her son, go get me another pot.

He says, mama, that's all the pots we have. Once that happened, bam, the oil stopped. All she thought was, she has a little jar of oil in her closet, but God had not been attached to the oil, so she had no idea of what God could do with a little when it got attached to God to turn it into something totally different.

Guess what I'm trying to tell you? The solution to your debt, you may already have been looking at it and not even know it's there, because God never got hooked up with it. But when God got hooked up to the oil, she is filling the vessels. He says, now go back and sell to your neighbor oil, and then you and your sons can live on the rest. Retire.

Girlfriend has gone from debt to an entrepreneurial program in one day with retirement benefits, all off of a jar of oil. Because what I'm trying to tell you is when you get in line with God and God begins to move, He can do exceedingly abundantly above all you can ask or think. Luke 6.38 says, give and it, the thing you give, will be added back to you.

It will be pressed down, running over, because other people will circle. If God was talking in today's language, He would say, if you do this thing right, what goes around comes around. Because whatever you need, He says, give it to somebody else. Find a neighbor you can deliver it to, even if it's just a dollar, to somebody who needs a cup of coffee, or helping somebody go, you do that, because when you send it out, God works that thing back around so that it boomerangs back to you. What I'm trying to tell you is we're dealing with a debt-canceling God if you get back in line with Him. Dr. Tony Evans, with some encouraging insight on how God can help reverse the consequences of debt. As I mentioned earlier, today's teaching is just one part of 12 powerful life-changing lessons in the comprehensive two-volume U-Turn series, and it's available along with Tony's brand-new book, U-Turns, Reversing the Consequences in Your Life. For a limited time, we'll send you both these resources as our gift when you help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Just visit tonyevans.org today to make your donation and request your copy of the U-Turn series. And don't forget to look into obtaining the companion U-Turns Bible Study Kit, including the DVD featuring six video lessons from Dr. Evans. Drop by tonyevans.org today or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222. Team members are standing by to help you day and night. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Even though we know worry does nothing but eat us up inside, sometimes we just can't seem to stop. But that stronghold can be broken, and on Monday, Dr. Evans will tell us how. Be sure to join us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.