John Hagee - The Power to Get Wealth
Everything God does on the earth comes from the principle of seedtime and harvest. The Bible says in Genesis 8:22 that as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest are the principles through which the prosperity of God is demonstrated. Genesis 8:22 says that.
Consider the spiritual realm: how was it that Jesus came to the earth? Seedtime and harvest. In Genesis 3:15, "The seed of the woman", this is talking about Mary and Jesus, "Shall crush the head of the serpent". Jesus was born and he crushed satan at the cross. I love that word "Crushed". Jesus didn't go to the cross and win the battle, two to one. He wiped out the prince of darkness. Satan is a defeated foe. He totally defeated him. He is absolutely defeated. He cannot master you. He cannot manipulate you. He cannot torment you. You have the power to control him, in the authority of Jesus' name.
Consider the physical realm. How did you get here? Seedtime and harvest. Those two events were separated by nine months.
Consider the financial realm. Luke 6:38, "Give and it shall be given unto you". If something within you resents giving, that something is not from God. Giving is the only proof you have that the cancer of greed has not consumed your soul, because the day is going to come when all that you will have is what you have given to God. Think about that. Everything that God controls gives. The sun gives light without which life on earth would not be possible. God provides the clouds, and those clouds have rain. That rain falls and makes it possible crops of food to grow. Every one of you who eats has an interest in agriculture. And those clouds are God's meal ticket to feed you. "Whatsoever a man soweth," the Bible says, "That shall he also reap".
You must become seed conscious, not need conscious. When you look at how much you need, you're looking at the wrong solution. You need to start thinking about the seed. When what you have in your hand does not meet your need, it is your seed. And it needs to be planted. A seed can do nothing until it gets in the soil. And then it can multiply itself many hundreds of times. You sow wild oats: you're going to reap wild oats. You can't go home and pray for crop failure. It just doesn't work that way. God will let you eat them so that you don't want to eat them anymore. The people say, "Well, I don't have any friends". Really? If you'd quit walking around looking like a poisoned bulldog, you might have some friends. What you sow, you will reap. Whether it's emotionally, materially or financially, that's the law of God. And it works because God has his integrity on that simple principle. Can I get a witness?
There are seven principles I want to share with you quickly in this first message. The first principle is that givers gain. Say that with me, givers gain. You say, "Pastor, you mean that if I give to the Lord that I should expect to gain"? Absolutely. The Bible says very clearly in Luke 6:38, "Give and it shall be given unto you," listen, "Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over". That's a four-way gain. Wall-Street does not promise a four-way gain. You lay it down, cross your fingers, and pray. Every time God gives you an opportunity to give, he is giving you an opportunity to increase your income.
Matthew 13:3 and 8, Jesus said, "Behold, a sower went out to sow, and a seed fell on good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some 60, some 30". A hundredfold actually, with a calculator, is 10.000%. Wall-Street doesn't have that. You can't get ahead investing at 4% money, because inflation is 5%, which means you're losing 1% watching your money go down the drain. You need a major percentage increase to get ahead from what you've lost. I've heard people say all of my life, "Pastor, I'm so far behind financially: I'll never catch up". That's not true. God made a way for you to catch up. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, "God is able to make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more, so that there will not only be enough for your needs, but plenty left over to give joyfully to others".
Now that's gain. I really like that phrase, "Giving joyfully to others". I have watched people take the offering for 60 years. And people see the offering pan come down their aisle, and look at it like it's a coiled rattlesnake. And then they take out a one dollar bill and squeeze it. And watch it like it's its orphan child walking out. That's the only money you're ever going to see again, partner. To understand God's financial principles, you have to understand the principles of farming. I was raised, for the first 12 years of my life, in a farming area where my father pastored. If you weren't farming, you were ranching. If you weren't doing that, you were working at the refinery. And those were the only three jobs going.
So principle two, you must plant your seed before you can get an increase. Every person, who plants a seed in the soil, enters into a covenant with God that something good is about to happen. Ecclesiastes 3:2, there's a time to plant and a time to pluck out what has been planted. That's seedtime and harvest. Fact: without seedtime, it's impossible to have a harvest. If you give nothing, you get nothing. God can increase what you give, a hundredfold, but nothing times nothing is nothing. Jesus said in John 12:24, verily, I say unto you, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, it abideth alone and does no good". You can hold a kernel of wheat in your fingers all of your life and it will do nothing. But the moment you drop it in the soil, life springs, and that begins to produce something many hundreds of times of what you have.
You can do three things with seed. One, you can eat it: two, you can feed it to the cows: three, you can plant it. But you don't get an increase until you plant it. No increase until you plant it. "Pastor, I really have nothing to give". I've heard people say that all of their lives. Not true. And then people have said to me, "Well, I really don't understand God's economic system". You don't have to understand how God works to believe God, because his thoughts are far above ours. I don't understand how a black cow eats green grass, gives white milk, and yellow butter. But I still drink the milk and eat the butter and enjoy both.
The third principle, tithe. Hang onto your oxygen tank, harry: you're going to need it. The tithe is ten percent of your income. The tithe is not a debt we owe: it's a seed we sow. It's the first fruits of what God has given us. And then I have people all the time say, "Preacher, you expect me to give 10% of what I make to God"? And my answer is, "Absolutely not, but God does". I'm in sales: he's in management. He controls your income. He controls your health. He controls your next heartbeat. He controls your mother-in-law. He controls everything. You can tick him off if you want to. But don't stick your finger in the eye of God, and then come whining to the church about why things are not going right for you. God is the boss, period!
"All the tithe of the land, whether the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree, is the Lord's". The tithe was never ours to start with. Malachi 3:10, "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse". Not some of it, but all of it. Are you giving God what's right or what's left? Why tithe? Because God commands it. Refusal to tithe is rebelling against God. Why tithe? Because you live under a financial curse when you don't. Malachi 3:9, "You are cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me". This is God's word, "You have robbed me". God has your mugshot on heaven's bulletin board, "Thieves in San Antonio". Some of you came to church today driving stolen cars. You're wearing stolen clothes, stolen Jewelry. You took God's money and bought those things. Ooh-wee! It is the Lord that gives you power to get wealth. And when you play by his rules, the wealth is beyond your capacity to manage. Why tithe? Because God will give you an increase in your income when you do.
Malachi 3:10, "Prove me now, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out on you blessings that there will be not room enough to receive". You don't pray to receive blessings: you tithe financially. And when you honor the Lord, he honors his word. Would you like to prosper so much that you have trouble figuring out what to do with your money? Would you? God dares you. He says, prove me. Try me. Try what I'm saying. Let me show you how much I can do for you. And when you do, he says, "I will rebuke the devourer for your sake". That's satan. I will hold him on a leash and not allow him to touch you, because you are my property. You're my child. I'm not going to let him touch you.
Principle four, you determine the size of your harvest when you plant your seed. If you saw a guy with a thousand acres, and he had a handful of seed, and he went out and came back looking for a harvest months later, what's he going to have? A patch of weeds and just a few seeds. If you need a big harvest, you sow lots of seed. 2 Corinthians 9:6, "A farmer who plants just a few seeds will have a small crop. But if he plants much, he will reap much". That's 2 Corinthians 9:6. You determine the size of your harvest when the offering pan comes by. You plant your seed according to your need.
Attack the lack with the seedtime and harvest principle. Your prosperity gives God pleasure. Your prosperity gives God pleasure. Now I'm saying this very clearly. Psalm 35:27, "Let the Lord be magnified, which has pleasure in the prosperity of his servant". That's in the Bible in black and white. God, our father, is so wealthy: he paves the streets of heaven with gold. All we can afford is asphalt. But in that kingdom, it's solid gold.
Principle six, you must wait for the harvest. Be patient. How many of you have trouble with patience? I'm going to raise both hands. You stand in front of the microwave with instant popcorn, screaming, "Hurry up"! Instant potatoes, "What do you mean it's been three minutes"? The shortest distance in human existence is the time between when the red light turns from green to red, and the guy behind you honks his horn.
The point: you plant your seed abundantly in good ground. But you kill the harvest if you lack the patience. A lack of patience will kill the harvest. Galatians 6:9, "Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season, we will reap if we faint not". Now think about that. What does that mean? That means if you invest a thousand dollars today in the Kingdom of God, don't ask God to bring it back before you get to the lobby. It doesn't work that way.
When my older brother came home from school one day because he had an epileptic seizure, it was in the day when medicine was not nearly what it is now. The doctors told us, "There is no hope for your son. He is going to be this way the rest of his life. Don't let him ride a bicycle, because he will have a seizure riding it and run into a car. Don't let him climb a tree because he could have a seizure in the tree, fall out, and break his neck". My mother said, "Absolutely not. I'm putting him in the hands of God, and he's going to live a normal life every day that he can. But I'm going to pray every night until God heals him". I watched my mother for three years, every night of the world, Christmas, anniversary, it made no difference who was there or why they were there, praying that God would heal my brother.
And one Tuesday night in that little country church, he put her hands on his brow. He fell like he had been shot. But he never had another seizure for the rest of his life. Pray and keep praying and believing, and keep praying. Some prayer, some power: more prayer, more power: much prayer, much power. God will not fail you. He will show up. He will answer. The answer is coming. Don't be defeated. Keep working! You can kill your harvest by murmuring with a negative, bitter, toxic speech. How many of you know relatives that you have that have toxic speech? Some of you are raising both hands here. Mark 11:23, for verily I say unto you that whoever shall say to this mountain, "Be removed and cast into the sea " he shall have whatever he says.
Murmuring sounds like this: God's not going to do it this time. I've waited long enough". That probably is all week. "Where is God when you really need him"? And God just reaches over and cancels your harvest. When Israel murmured against God, God sent snakes into the whole camp of Israel. A snake is the symbol of satan. When you start murmuring, you are singing satan's swan song, and the prince of darkness has a license to invade your life. When you murmur and you whine and you complain, you are inviting the very demonic forces of hell into your life, your family, your business, your church. You're inviting satan and his demonic powers to destroy your harvest. Stop it! Stop it!
Let me apply that a little further. Let's surmise in the theatre of your mind, there are, right now in an instant, a million rattlesnakes are on the floor of this church. They're under every pew. There's one between your legs. They're crawling everywhere. And they're only going to bite the people who've complained this week. How many of you would be dancing in the pew? That's what I'm talking about. Stop it. Stop poisoning your own success with your tongue. Closing, your seed is placed in anointed hands.
In John 6:9, 14, there's the story. Jesus is preaching to 5.000 men, plus women and children. So there's a crowd of about 15.000 people. It's miles from the nearest chick-fil-a. They're all hungry. Think about this: Jesus was the Son of God. And he did not dare try to spiritually minister to people without taking care of their physical needs. That is a fact. So one of the disciples, Andrew, came up to Jesus and said, "There's a boy here with five barley loaves and two small fish, among 15.000 people. Jesus takes it and he begins to multiply it. Everyone is fed and there are 12 baskets left over.
The message was that there are 12 tribes in Israel. And God has enough food to feed everybody in the nation if necessary. That little boy went home with 12 baskets full, which was enough to start a Jewish delicatessen. Because he gave what he had and put it in the hands of God, and God multiply it. I'm saying to you very clearly: if you really want to know hilarious prosperity, learn to give to God with joy, be patient and allow God to cause that to explode. And it will expand beyond your wildest dreams.
If you are doing something God wants you to do, you have to look beyond what you have to what God can supply. Every church building we have ever built was not possible within our financial reach. But I would pray this prayer, "God, this is your cause, this is your church, and you have the money, and I know you will provide it". And suddenly it came from places you would not believe.
I had a man, this happened 30 years ago. We were in a building program. We were up against it. And I called my mother, and I said, "I need for you to pray because it's getting tight here". And she said, "Well, have you been preaching the Gospel"? I said, "Absolutely". She said, "Then the bill belongs to God". She said, "But I'll pray, and God is going to take care of it".
So I hung up the phone. And the next morning, a man called me from Texas. He's an oil man. He said, "Are you John Hagee"? I said, "Yes". He said, "Well right away I want to tell you I don't like preachers and I really don't like tv preachers". He said, "But I heard you the other night". And he said, "America needs to hear what you're saying. And so I'm going to send you a little help". I thought, he's drunk. I said, "Well, what's a little help sound like"? Yeah. I come from a long line of Germans. They want to know the bottom line, how much? He said, "I'm going to send you a million dollars". And he said, "Don't call me after it's over. I don't want any letters from you. Do not put me on any mailing list. We'll never see each other again". I said, "Okay". And I hung up.
Two days later, here came a little envelope, a personal check. I called the bank in the city where he was calling from. I said, "Do you know this guy"? I said, "I know you can't tell me what's in his account, but he's written a check for a million dollars. Is it any good"? And the lady said, "Many, many, many times over: it's good". And I hung up the phone.
And this is what the Lord put in my mind. He said, if the godly will not pay the price to advance my cause, I will give their reward to the ungodly because they were willing to do it. Can we stand? How many of you in this room have been praying for something for quite a while, and it hasn't happened yet? Let me see your hand. Be patient. Keep praying. Extend your hand toward heaven and pray this prayer with me.
Heavenly Father, I know you're going to answer my prayer. For with patience, I will pursue the patience of God. Heavenly Father, I ask for a spiritual outpouring into my own personal life to have the faith to practice these principles of prosperity. And now today, as I obey the Lord, I receive the power to get wealth: that God is going to send it to me, exceedingly, abundantly, above all I can ask or imagine. God's answer is coming. And I receive it, in Jesus' name.