Creflo Dollar - Trusting God in the End Times - Part 2
If you can have faith in Jesus being given to you, then you will be successful in navigating through hard times or challenges. And you will have some difficult times. But you gotta remember Romans 8:32, he gave me Jesus. Whatever confronts your life, you must encounter your dependence, whatever confronts your life must encounter, must encounter your dependence upon God as your source. Whatever confronts you, you gotta let that, you gotta let whatever confronts you know, God is my source. Whatever confronts you, you gotta let her know, God takes care of me. Your trust in God will cause you to be successful. I said your trust in God will cause you to be successful. I said your trust in God will cause you to be successful.
Look at Psalms 50, Psalms 50, verse 7 through 15 in the NLT; Psalms 50, verse 7 through 15 in the NLT. I ain't trying to be complicated. I ain't trying to be complicated. It would do nobody no good if I came up here and complicated you and gave you something that made you say, "ooh, ahh," and then, when you walk out of here, you have no idea how to practically apply it to your life. "O my people, listen as I speak. Here are my charges against you, O Israel; I am God, your God! I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burn offerings you constantly offer. But I do not need the bulls from your barns, nor do I need the goats from your pens. For all the animals of the forest of mine". You know what God's talking about now?
See, you think God needs your money. God's like, "I don't need nothing from you. I don't need nothing from you". "For all the animals of the forest of mine, and I own the cattle of a thousand hills. I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine". I love this. "If I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you, for all the world is mine, and everything in it is mine. Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats? Make thankfulness your sacrifice to me. Keep the vow you made to the most high God. Then call on me when you're in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory".
This thought that God needs you to be God, God doesn't need you to be God. Anything God's asking you to do, he's asking you to do it for your benefit, not his. And, if 2000 and some Scriptures are trying to get us to open our eyes, to see that he's committed to take care of you and that he wants you to learn how to depend on him, and you think, "It's about my money. That preacher, well", look at, listen to this devilish slogan, "All preachers want is your money". But they won't say all Kroger's wants is your money because the fact of the matter is all Kroger's wants is your money. You don't believe me? Go shop at Kroger's after church today. And, when you get to the line and they say, you know, "$115, please," you say, "No, you're just, you're concerned about me benefiting with the food". "Security"!
They don't care about no benefit or no food. All they care about is your money coming out of your pocketbook paying for what you just took off the shelf. But it's another mammon slogan to get you to thinking that somehow this thing called money is to be trusted more than you trust God. Somebody asked me one time, "Well, what if the preacher really is stealing"? You know what, that's between him and God. I'm doing what God told me to do. I'm giving what God told me to give. And I ain't sitting around there worrying about him. God doesn't need your money any more than he needed those Old Testament sacrifices.
And the point behind your giving is for you to learn to recognize God is the source of all of your provisions. It's one thing to say you believe God is your source, but it's another thing to prove it. And the way you prove to yourself, not to God, that you believe God is your source is to give a portion of what you make back to God. I realize this is bold to get up and to preach this kind of stuff in this day and time, but it is still the truth! People who don't really see God as their source are going to balk and refuse to give part of what they make because they don't see God as their source. But giving back some of what God has already given you is nothing when you see God as your source.
And I am telling you, unless you understand this, when this next year flows and a year and year after that year after that, if you don't know this, you'll only dream of God being your source, but you won't know him as your source because you get tripped up in that area where, "Oh, I don't wanna give the money," and mammon has already captured you because you trust it more than you trust God. Money is difficult to come by when you think of yourself as the provider. Can I say that again? Money is difficult to come by when you think of yourself as the provider. And there are lots of people, especially Christians, who think of themselves as the provider, and you got it all together. You can't think of yourself as the provider. You are not. You are God's creation. He is the provider, and you keep thinking that you're the provider, and then it moves over to your healing. You're thinking you're the provider, the provider of your health, the provider of your resources, the provider of your peace.
Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and 7, let's look at it in the Passion Translation; 1 Corinthians chapter 4:7, in the Passion Translation. You cannot think of yourself as the provider, stop it. You cannot think of yourself as the provider. He says in verse 7, "For what makes a distinction between you and someone else? And what do you have that grace has not given you"? My God. "What do you have that grace has not given you? And if you received it as a gift, why do you boast as though there is something special about you"?
You received it as a gift, and yet you walk around thinking, "Well, I'm all that," because you think you're the provider of it. And you gotta humble yourself because you're not the provider of it. And you gotta watch out, you gotta watch these messages that are coming through the airways and even some coming through the pulpit. You cannot be your source. You will fail miserably, and, when something awesome happens, it is only because of God's grace, and you need to be grateful and thankful to God for his unmerited favor. But you keep looking at yourself like there's something special about you. God help us. It's impossible to prosper without God.
Now, somebody asked me one time, "Well, is it possible to prosper without God"? Well, let me show it to you, Proverbs 10:22 in the NLT. Is it possible to prosper without God? Yes, you see people who are not born again prospering without God. But here's the part you don't get: it's possible to prosper without God, but it'll come with some heartache. He says, "The blessing of the Lord makes a person rich," not just in money, you can be rich in family, you could be rich in peace, and all of the other kinds of stuff. "and he adds no sorrow with it". But, what you don't understand, when you try to prosper without God, heartaches. I met some of the richest people in the nation, and, in front of you, they look like they're awesomely happy, but, in private, they're suicidal.
When God is your source, there is no sorrow added to your success. When God is your source, you can consider all that he cares for you with a blessing and then you'll be able to go to sleep at night. I mean, that good slobbering on the side of your mouth sleep... Thank you, Jesus. Look at 1 Timothy 6:9 and 10. I got about four more minutes. 1 Timothy 6:9 and 10. Somebody said, "When are you gonna be quiet"? You wouldn't be saying that if I was preaching on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But, now that I'm confronting that very spirit that holds you, I'm doing a type of exorcism right now while I'm preaching. And Lord help when we take an offering up, my God, some of you might spit up green stuff.
Look at this. "But people who long to be rich", oh, they long to be rich. They "fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction". Ooh, look at that. They fall into harmful desires, foolish and harmful desires, that plunge them into ruin and destruction. That's all motivated by mammon. Somebody say, prove it. Look at verse 10, "For the love of money", oh, yeah, money is not bad, but the love of money is. But, trusting money more than trusting God, that's the issue. Trusting money more than trusting God, Idolizing money and putting money ahead of God. That's "the root to all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money," that's mammon, "have wandered from the true faith and they pierced themselves with many sorrows".
See, that's connected to this great falling away. And then the Scripture keeps talking about it, in the last days there's gonna be a love of money where people trust it more than they trust God. And many are pierced with all kinds of things. And I am warning you of the manifestation of what is to come because of what has already entangled itself in our lives, that all of us may have a point in our life where we've come to trust money more in this area than God. And I am saying, let's recognize it, let's acknowledge it, and let's say, "God help me not to be deceived, and show me every area of my life where I have trusted it more than I trust you".
Wow, God has a plan for every Christian, and his plans are bigger than our dreams. Oh, my goodness, Jeremiah 29:11 and 1 Corinthians 2:9; Jeremiah 29:11 and 1 Corinthians 2:9, in the King James. God has a plan for every Christian. Everybody in here, there's a plan for you, there's a plan for you. There's a purpose and a plan for you. You are not alive for no reason at all. You are here for a purpose. There is a design and a purpose for your life. There's a blueprint that was drawn out before you came to this planet, but it's gonna require your dependence upon God to see it come to pass. You're moving into a time where a society won't believe nothing, but we will, but you will, we believe God, amen?
He says it again, "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, not evil, to give you an expected end". And then 1 Corinthians 2:9, he says, "But as it is written, Your eye hadn't seen, your ear hadn't heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him". You're on your way to something big. I said, you're on your way to something big. God will do great things, but you have to rely on him. You gotta trust and depend on God. He knows the path you gotta take to get where you're supposed to be. He knows the things you've got to go through. Will you have to go through some hard times? Yeah, but you'll be all right because he'll be there with you.
Notice God didn't show up in the fiery furnace to put the fire out in the furnace. He showed up to get in the fire with them. There was a fourth man in the fire. See, we think God's gonna take the trouble away from us. No, he's a comforter, he's gonna show up in the trouble with you to comfort you, and, if you need a way of escape, he's already provided a way of escape. God's getting some, getting ready to do something big in your life. Can you trust him? Hallelujah. God's getting ready to do something magnificent in your life.
Can you trust him, or are you willing to trust him when you can't see your way out? Are you willing to trust him when you don't know quite what's gonna happen? Are you willing to trust him when you don't know where the money gonna come from? Are you willing to trust him in between jobs because he said your assignment is finished here and he's moving you somewhere else? Are you willing to trust God when he tells you to do that or open up that or start that building or write that song or write that movie? Are you willing to trust that God knows what he's doing? Or will you sit there and question God, or will you put what God tells you on hold because you ain't got the money to do it right now?
Sometimes you got to do it before the money shows up, and, hey, and if you'll start doing what he tells you to do, he knows how to pay for it, and you don't need money to pay for everything because God will show up with some favor, glory to God. God will show up, and he'll do something, and you didn't even need no money to do it. God will show up and blow your mind with what he did. God will put you on somebody else's mind. Somebody else might show up and do it. Your job is not to figure out all the time how it's gonna get paid for, your job is to trust in Jesus and know that he will make everything all right.
So get ready, world changers. Get ready, world changers, something big about to happen. You're gonna find out that you ain't never been average, that God knew about you before you even were born. And they may look at you like they looked at David, some little old young shepherd boy in the backfield somewhere. They looked at everybody else to be king except for David. But I'm telling you, God will bring you from the field into the throne house, praise God, if you trust him. But, if all you can do is get mad at me because, "I can't believe he talked about money," I didn't talk about money, I talked about trust. So why is it that you still have the money on your head? Because mammon wants you to focus in on the money so that the trust won't remove mammon from your life. You are seeing Bible prophecy being fulfilled every single day. But, as for me and my house, we're gonna trust God. Did y'all get anything out of that this morning? We're gonna trust God, we're gonna trust God.
I pray that, by the Spirit of God, you will show manifestation of what I just taught. Your goodness, your mercy, your commitment to our care. We trust you. Forgive us for ever doubting you. Help us, Lord, help us not to walk in fear, not seeing how we're gonna make it, not seeing how this thing gonna work, not... Help us just to trust you, even when we can't see it. There are only some things, and I just believe it's everything, Lord, we can't do nothing without you. So take us, Lord, into your care, wrap your love around us, and may we be a demonstration of the grace and the glory of God. May we be a recipient of the early and the latter rains falling on us all at the same time, the anointing that was on Elijah plus the anointing that fell in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. Let it fall upon these precious people all at the same time, that when we walk in a room, our presence will demand an explanation. Glory to God, oh my goodness. Help us through the difficult times, show us how to move and to navigate through the stressful times.
Study these Scriptures, look at them over and over again, and ask God to show you areas where your trust has shifted, and get your trust back on the things of God. And we're not gonna be deceived in these last days by anything, not anything. For God is greater than anything that we will ever, ever encounter. He is the Almighty God, wow. When you live in society that is governed by mammon, everything is seen as an attack on mammon's attempt to try to get you to trust money more than God. And it looks like, "Oh, look at the preacher, oh, look at the church. Oh, they're only", and they can't see. And, like I said before, people do what they want to do. But pick the Bible up yourself and read it, and let God speak to you within the boundaries of that written Word. So that Word written can be safeguards to any crazy word that tries to come in. God is so good.