Having A Sufficient Livelihood

Let's start with prayer. Abba Father, we ask you to speak the things unto us this morning that we need to hear, and Lord, work it for good in many lives, I pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The message this morning is about having a sufficient livelihood, and it's come about by me seeing and dealing and working with people and trying to help Christians, believers, children of God who are in dire financial straits, even on the point of look like they're becoming homeless. And years ago, I received a letter from a Christian lady in South Alabama whom I've never met in person. She had read my books, and she wrote me that she was living in her car, had to get out of her rental house because of no money to pay rent.

And I want to address such things this morning. If you will look at Matthew 22, 36, where the man came to Jesus and said, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. God gave us commandments to be obeyed. Obeying his commandments glorify God.

They're a testimony before the lost world around us, which also glorifies God. Obedience edifies the body of Christ, and it brings many wonderful blessings and benefits to us that we need. And worldly, carnal-minded Christians often trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ for fire insurance.

They don't want to burn forever in hell. And after that, they want to just be left alone and live their own life to do what they please instead of loving the Lord God with all their heart and doing exactly as he commands and guides them to do. If you want to back up there to Matthew 6, 31, which we have memorized 6, 33 probably, we have another important command.

I want to read all the way from Matthew 6, 31 through 34. Therefore take no thoughts saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed. You know your own life and the life of Christians around you, and just consider how much we give thought to these things that he tells us to take no thought of in verse 31.

For after all these things to the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Praise his name that he does. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

Therefore no thought for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. And we, mostly all of us have memorized verse 33, and I sing it as a children's song with the children.

He commands us to seek first the kingdom of God, and we look on Christians around us seeking that which pleases them. He commands us to do these things and regard our daily livelihood needs in the manner as he commands us here in these verses I just read. In chapter 6 here in 11 we are in the midst of the Lord's prayer where he says, he teaches us to pray give us this day our daily bread.

If we obey Matthew 6.33 the necessities of this life will not be a problem to us. We are to fully believe and genuinely do all these things commanded of us, and the result will be the blessing of a proper livelihood provided by God, and we won't have to worry about it just as he tells us not to think about it in Matthew 6. We can expect God to put us through seasons of poverty for our good, and if we truly love him all such will be a great joy to us. I've experienced that and will give some testimony to that in a few minutes.

I look around at Christians living like kings. I wouldn't doubt there are kings in third world poor countries that do not live near as well as some of the Christians whose homes I have the privilege of visiting in now, and some of those are in great agony because the people inside those homes because they cannot pay their bills and wonder what they're going to do when the rent is due next month. Our Lord Jesus Christ is always the supreme example in these things, and we can fairly well logically conclude that while he was here on this earth he owned nothing but the clothing that was on his back.

You remember when they started casting lots for the coat? It was so well woven they didn't want to tear it apart, so they cast lots for it. I suppose his mother had made that years ago. That's just speculation.

She was still alive when he was hanging on the cross, but we can fairly reasonably conclude that he gathered up no other earthly possessions than that. If we were to follow that supreme example, we would be most rich and ask him to give us each day our daily bread, and if we were content with having food and raiment as he commands us to be, it would be a most blessed life. Most of you know that the Lord called me to serve him as a missionary in Japan while I was there serving in the United States Marine Corps, so I got discharged from the Marines in Japan as my time was up then and started serving the Lord with no salary, no promise of any support or anything, so the natural reaction for me was to become as frugal as I could be, and that's a wonderful virtue for any of us to practice.

I went into a missionary language school and studied full-time for two years living in a small room with no thrills. I walked everywhere I went because I didn't have a motor vehicle and didn't even want to spend the money to buy a bicycle, which many adults use in Japan instead of a car. I walked just as my Lord walked while he was here on earth, and it's a wonderful way to commute.

After I finished that language school study, the Lord led me to move into the house that I'm still living in. I moved into it in August of 1978. It was completely unfurnished, and it more or less stayed that way.

I had no refrigerator for about two years until friends visited me from the States, and it seemed like I needed one then. I would buy a half a liter of milk and drink it with the next meal. In the winter time, I could put milk or juice out on the north side of my house outside, and it would stay cool enough so that it didn't spoil there.

I looked around for any tent making jobs and began to teach English conversation as opportunity afforded. I was not idle, and I'll get to that later on down here in some scriptures. When I became hungry, I just went hungry and searched for more tent making jobs.

One of my tent making jobs was to often arrive about 1 a.m. in the morning when everybody else was off the streets and it was dark and take a wire coat hanger that had fashioned into a hook for my this job and a small flashlight and head out on my bicycle. By then, I had a bicycle, and you're probably thinking, oh, he became a burglar. Well, not exactly.

Vending machines everywhere in Japan, and I found out there's often a sprinkling of coins under vending machines there, and I was somewhat embarrassed to be kneeling down looking under, peering under vending machines in the middle of the day with everyone walking by. So, I would go out at night with that little flashlight and shine it under vending machines and often get up to two dollars or more. That would buy a small sack of potatoes that would last me a while, and there's always things we can do not being idle to earn some money or get some money to buy our food that we need.

When about three years later, going to Guam, I rented an apartment in Tumon Village to have children's services, and it was unfurnished, and at first the children sit on the hard tile concrete floors until I gathered up a few little cushions and such from church friends for them to sit on. And my first days there, as soon as I arrived on Guam and rented that apartment, a friend was good enough to loan me his car. I go to the supermarket for a little food, and I get several cardboard boxes and bring them home and flatten them down, and they would be my bed on that concrete tile floor.

And I had my laundry, dirty clothes, in a small cloth laundry bag, and I'd roll it up and make it my pillow. And I felt so blessed to be there. Daytime, an average of 20 something children would come.

A large apartment complex, and almost daily there were decisions of children to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. My Lord had no place to lay His head, and the closer I live to the way He lives here on this earth, it just fills my heart to overflow Him with joy. Those first years as a missionary were the leanest time physically in my missionary life thus far, but they were the richest time spiritually.

And the joy the Lord gave was just such a spiritually rich, physically poor. Psalms 37, 4, you've probably memorized it. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.

As you listen to fellow Christians complaining that they do not have the desires of their heart, they wanted this, they wanted that, but they never were able to achieve it. It's simply a testimony that they have not delighted themselves in the Lord. And they never think on what a testimony they're given there, but that is exactly the case.

More and more, my one delight becomes to love the Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart, to seek first the kingdom of God, to follow the Lamb with us wherever He leads. And as that becomes my delight, when I have a need or something, I often cry out to the Lord for it, and it's amazing to see how that He so quickly and so readily provides what we need. 2 Thessalonians 3, 10, Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica saying, we command you that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

That sounds sort of like a harsh commandment, but that's from our Lord, and I love that, and that is the way it should be. If a person is not willing to work, he shouldn't expect to have any food provided for him. Our Lord is not much of a Lord of welfare, if you want to put it in those words.

One time, a Japanese man came to me and asked me for money, said he needed money, and I said, well, I've got work for you to do. I'll put you to work for hourly wages. He walked away.

It was simple work that he could have done, but he wouldn't work for wages, so he walked away without working, and he walked away without any of my money. This is a good verse to keep in mind and to speak it and preach it to others when the occasion calls for it. Christians know the experience of ending up unemployed, what an agonizing situation it is, but there's no need to be idle at all.

We can work for our Lord and expect Him to give us good pay. Exodus 20, in verse 9 there in the Ten Commandments, he says, six days shalt thou labor, and in Matthew chapter 20, we're told that the man went out at the eleventh hour still hiring, so we see that the Lord God ordained a twelve-hour work day for us, six days a week. If you will, turn to Matthew chapter 20.

We were in it. This is a very important chapter. It has several important points made here.

You can start glancing at verse 1 of chapter 20 to see the man, like the householder, going out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard, and he hired some for a penny a day. That was the wages then, well, long before inflation. Verse 3, and he went out about the third hour, and later on he went out about the sixth hour in verse 5 and the ninth hour.

And verse 6 of Matthew chapter 20, and about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle. Being idle is a curse. God did not ordain that we be idle.

Twelve hours a day, six days a week, He ordained that we labor. If you'll do that, it'd be a wonderful thing. It'll be something that God will honor.

And you know, if you're a math genius, you can figure out that's seventy-two hours a day, I believe, six times twelve. You can see how many more hours that is than our forty-hour work week. And any man who wants to labor diligently for seventy-two hours per week, you can expect him to be able to earn a good good livelihood with that many work hours per week.

He found others standing idle, so he said unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? And in verse 7 they say, Because. Because no man hath hired us. I've hit some of these points before, but they're in the message again today.

That's a curse of the system of the world. Instead of the farmer going out each morning to his own land to kill it and work it to take the necessities of life for him and his family, his family laboring with him, now we go out into the world and prostrate ourselves before some human employer and beg him to hire us. God didn't ordain that we have to live such a life.

The good news here is that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the hiring business. If you want a wonderful taskmaster, labor for our Lord. Why don't we go on to Luke 10, 7 at this point.

I want you to keep in mind what a terrible curse that it is for a person to be idle. And you know how if you're sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring, you put out your resumes, you signed up at the employment or unemployment office, and still you sit there, your heart hemorrhaging because waiting for the phone to ring and it never rings. It is a horrible situation, very perplexing situation to be idle.

No Christian has to be idle at all. The Lord has work readily available for you, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. In Luke 10, the Lord is sending out the 70 after sending out the 12 in chapter 9. And we go on to verse 7 of Luke chapter 10 where he's told them, take nothing for your journey.

He spoke that in one of these chapters, maybe both of them. And in verse 7 here, he says, and in the same house remain eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.

If Almighty God hires you to work for him, he deems you to be worthy of your hire, and you can rest assured that he will not cheat you out of any of your wages. I think one of the most high and lofty works that we can do while we're here on earth is that of an intercessor. Praying without ceasing in intercessory prayer.

You can take the Bible one verse at a time and pray it for yourself or for anyone you know. Let me give you a wonderful true story regarding that. I don't know how many of you might know the name Pastor Jack Howes, who pastored the Lord's First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana for many years.

And he's with the Lord now. Went to be with the Lord at age about 75. He was a very zealous preacher.

And because of that, he won many souls and his church became a quite large church with a few thousand in church on Sunday mornings. And he stressed soul winning, going after the lost souls for whom Christ died. And as he won lost souls, they took on the same burden.

And it was amazing to hear some of the stories of soul winning. And a dedicated Christian in his church got a burden for a drunkard friend. We call them alcoholics today.

God's Holy Bible calls them drunkards. Let's stay with this perfect language that the Lord gave us in his Holy Bible. And the Christian brother with the burden began to intercede in prayer for this drunkard who he had Christian friends and he would laugh as they witnessed to him.

Apparently, he was a large, muscular, strong man who loved his whiskey. And when he would get high on that whiskey, get drunk, he really enjoyed life. I don't know if he fought or messed with people or what, but he really liked to tie on a good drunk.

And as they would witness to him and tell him how the drunkard's going to have a part in the lake of fire and such, more or less, he would laugh at them and go on his way. But all that time, the Holy Spirit working in there in his heart from what the witnesses told him. But one godly man got a burden for him.

And he started with Genesis 1-1, praying each and every verse of the Bible for that man. I don't know what he said about each verse. Lord, help George to believe this.

Help him to repent and trust in you and obey this verse. Give him full knowledge of this verse. And I don't know how many years it was.

It was probably at least two years or more that that dedicated Christian prayed without ceasing. He went through the Bible once, through the Bible twice, praying each and every verse, spending many hundreds of hours in intercessory prayer for that one drunkard. He had gotten through it two times and was in the third time or the fourth time one when that man trusted in the Lord.

He had been attending Dr. Howells' church from time to time, the drunkard, because it was sort of an exciting place to be. Souls getting saved and such, and friends inviting, and he would come. They have an invitation after most every service, and Dr. Howells said an invitation was going on, and I was quite busy.

I turned and looked, and there was George standing there near the altar, and I wondered what George might be doing coming up there. He said he wanted to get saved. And George got wonderfully saved, and Dr. Howells baptized him.

And after he baptized him, he and Dr. Howells were back in the same place, same little room, getting out of their wet clothing, I suppose, and he said that man, George, was sitting there looking out toward the baptist, and he said he was chuckling to himself. And Dr. Howells said, George, what are you chuckling about? He said, Pastor, I'm sitting here thinking that baptistry probably wouldn't hold all the whiskey I've drunk, but I've never had such a good time drinking all that whiskey as I had when you put me down in that water and brought me up again, signifying death and resurrection and new life in Christ, lest, my friend, that comes from praying without ceasing. If you find yourself idle, you can pray 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, and you can get up in the morning and say, give me this day my daily bread.

Lord, I need some rent money. And I would expect the Lord, who's a faithful and just One who hires, would give you your food and your rent money and supply all your needs according to His riches in glory, just as He promises to do. A second employment unto our Lord, work unto our Lord that any Christian can do is to take Him up on His wonderful invitation in Hebrews 13, 13, let us go unto Him without the count, bearing His reproach.

I listened to Brother Jeff talking to you folks about that a while ago. You know, Brother Jeff, as we're out there in the flea market singing praises to our Lord, just about everybody going by, just about all the children of the devil, readily manifest that they're children of the devil with their large tattoos all over their body, with the cigarette they're smoking, with the foul language coming out of their mouth. It's no effort on their part to manifest that they're a child of the devil.

Why should it be thought incredible that we would stand there singing wonderful hymns of praise to our Lord, manifest in the whole world that we're a child of the King? And I was listening to Brother Jeff as he told you that it seemed sort of peculiar what we were doing, and he used that word. If you look in a strong concordance, that word is in the Bible a very few times, and it usually talks about us Christians. We are a peculiar people.

The Word of God plainly tells us that. Don't you be ashamed to be a peculiar Christian. Don't be ashamed to go unto the Lord without the count, bearing His reproach, it says in Hebrews 13, 13.

So few Christians will do it because they have so much sinful pride of self, sinful love of self, that they will not bear that reproach. They want men to think well of them. Read Luke 10, 7. The laborer is worthy of his hire.

If you're unemployed, cry out, Lord, hire me and guide me daily as to exactly what you would have me to do. Twelve hours a day, six days a week, intercessory prayer, testifying outside of the count, preaching outside of the count, witnessing, singing outside of the count, and also any other work the Lord would guide you into, call on Him in your needs and see Him supply ever, ever so well. I mentioned how my first few years in Japan were very lean financially.

And the language school I attended was in a summer resort town up in the mountains where tourists flock to in the summer. And you know how the shopping area there is like a vanity fair. And walking up the main street there are the little shops with all their trinkets and toys.

I saw car tags on sale for $12 apiece. Car tags from the States. You might know them as license plates.

And the cogs started turning in my brain because I said, I can get them free back home. And when I came home on furlough finally eight years later, I gathered some up in 1986. I shipped back by ship a few tons of them and started standing out on the street there selling license plates.

And I wasn't idle. I didn't have any idea how to sell them. So I just stood out on the street and put a price on them and people started buying them.

And soon I start singing and preaching while my goods are sitting out there for sale, building and battling back there near where they had to hold a sword in one hand, you know, to keep the enemy off as they built that wall. Building and battling, building and battling. It's a wonderful thing to do.

I want to stress here that you do not have to be idle. Cry out to the God, to your Lord as to what he would have you to do when you find yourself idle. Lord, what work do you have for me to do today? Other examples really impressed me.

I guess it was well over 30 years ago that I read a story in Reader's Digest, a true life story that really the wisdom of it lodged in my mind. It might have been as early as about 1950. If it was after that, it wouldn't have been much longer after that, that a Chinese man escaped from Communist China into Hong Kong.

You well know how many of them would try to escape China and get out to freedom. And at that time, Hong Kong did not belong to China. It belonged to Britain, I suppose, wasn't it, back then before they gave it over to China.

It was freedom. And this man later on started a ship building company in Taiwan. He later on went from Hong Kong to Taiwan and started, formed a large company building ocean-going ships.

So you know, you can well imagine what a large-size business adventure that is. But he came out of China penniless, and the Reader's Digest story said that he started out selling pencils on the street in Hong Kong. And I immediately saw two reasons of wisdom that he would sell pencils.

Now, this is long before the digital age, and everybody from a little child who draws pictures up through adults used pencils. They used ink pens, too. But this was before ballpoint pens.

I'm old enough to remember when the first ballpoint pens came out in the 1950s, and we thought, what a convenience. You don't have to have an ink bottle in that fountain pen with a little lever-like pump on it. There's a squirt ink everywhere if you're not careful, and you put a cheap fountain pen in your pocket, and it leaks that ink out, and you can't ever get it out of your clothing, no matter how much you wash them.

And everybody knows you had a, unless you throw the shirt away, knows that you had a cheap fountain pen which leaked. But everyone uses pencils, and a pencil is a cheap item. He may have come out of China with enough money to go to a wholesaler there somewhere and say, and buy a dozen pencils.

If he had come out penniless, I know he had a brain on him, in his head, because he founded that shipbuilding company. He would have walked into a wholesaler. He wouldn't have been frantic or panicky.

He would say, hey, I just got out this morning, and everybody in Hong Kong knows what that's all about. I need to get a start. Let me have a dozen pencils, and as soon as I sell them on the street, I'll be right back to pay you and get a dozen more.

The man would have probably handed over a dozen pencils to him. If not, he would have gone to another man and asked for it, and if necessary, he would have gone all the way down to, well, six pencils. Well, three pencils.

And he would have gone out on that street and just stood there holding up those pencils, and in a very, not a very loud voice, as there's many passive eyes on a crowded street, he would say, I just got out today. Help me get a start. And people on the street there know what that's all about, getting out of China to freedom, and people would have bought a pencil.

He would have gone back, plopped down every bit of money he got for those three pencils, and said, give me six, please. And that man would have just kept a running ledger of his money paid and how much he's taken out and the money he owes. He would have come back, I just sold those six, and said, give me twelve now, and three of your ink pens will sell the best.

And he'd gone out there with that. Next time he'd come back, he would ask for three little notepads. The next time he would come back and ask, have you got a folding chair or anything I can use for a stand out there to put some of this stuff on? He might have gotten that, but he would have increased his wares throughout the day and gotten in the black during that day.

And by the third day or so of selling on the street, I would expect he would spend every night on the street to save all the money he could. And in the evenings, he'd go looking for a small shop to rent. And he might go back on the second end of the second day to that man who he's already bought much from, and that merchant has made a profit from what he sold this street vendor.

And he'd say, I found a little shop that's for rent, and I've got enough money now to pay half a month's rent. How about you going with me and vouch for me that I'll do right and try to get that realtor to give me a start by just letting me pay a half a month's rent at the start and the key money later also. And they might go to that realtor, and this man might be able to start out like that.

And he just slowly increased. Within three months, he'd be in a larger shop. Soon he goes to Taiwan.

He has enough good of a reputation that he can sell stock there to start a large shipbuilding company. My main point was that as soon as he got his freedom flat broke, he was not idle. Oh, the curse of being idle.

Intercede in prayer. Go without the count. Any elderly Christians around you that need yard work or anything from some younger Christian that the elderly person is not able to do, do it as unto the Lord and expect him to pay you.

When I started selling those license plates on the street, that story about the Chinese shipbuilder, it often stayed in my mind. And it's amazing how that I started out with nothing when the Lord called me to be a missionary. And I labored and labored and labored preaching on the street till my voice was gone.

I would intercede in prayer for days. It was no trouble to fast because often I had no food to eat. And fasting is another thing that will bring on power, honors God, and will give answers to prayers.

Those three things are three things that anyone can do. Nothing, no equipment, anything is required for them. And you'll find yourself greatly blessed by doing so.

As I preached this on the 5th of February, 2017, two days ago, a man in his 50s was talking to me. I'm here in the States, in Gulf Breeze, Florida, preaching this. A man in his 50s was talking to me.

As we just was in conversation, he mentioned, well, I mentioned that I'd been to the dentist the day before. And this man does not profess to be a Christian. And he reiterated how he has no upper teeth.

And he reiterated how that when a lower tooth gets bad enough that it has to be pulled, he scrapes together a little money and goes to the dentist and gets it pulled. He said dental work is hard. He can't afford dental work.

He hasn't trusted in the Lord as his Savior. He's not serving the Lord. He's working a secular job.

And many of us here in this, here in Gulf Breeze, have witnessed to him. I pray he'll get saved. But I thought about the he and I. The day before he lamented that to me, a kind Christian dentist lady took me into her dental office, gave me a thorough exam, x-rays, cleaning, and filled the one cavity she found that needed filling.

And I walked out of there without her taking one penny of money from me. That's the reward for loving the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart and seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and letting Him add all these things unto you. Another Christian dentist in Japan always worked on me free.

One time on Guam I had a cavity and I made a dental appointment, went to the dentist and he filled it. I'd never met him before. In conversation, I told him I was a missionary in Japan and we chatted somewhat.

And when I walked out, he said, no charge. Truly, it is a blessing to work for the Lord. Truly, He supplies all our needs according to His riches in glory.

I'm just past my 71st birthday and my upper and lower teeth, that horseshoe pattern, the biting surface is solid from all around. There's no gaps, nothing missing. A lot of it these days is man-made, but the Lord has kept me in good dental repair.

And I think about that man I talked to, 53 years old, I think. I don't know how long all his upper teeth had been gone and one by one his lower teeth are going. When one gets bad enough that it needs pulling, he goes and gets it pulled.

Truly, the devil is a hard taskmaster. If you refuse to give the Lord your all, refuse to love Him with all your heart because you love things of this world and such, you are the loser. Rest assured that you are the loser.

I want to end this at this point. If you're well taken care of by the Lord, thank God for it each day. God will bring people in touch with you that you can share things from this message this morning, people who are hurting financially.

Lord willing, I hope to post it in audio on my website so that anyone can listen to it from there. These are things that Christians need to know today and in all ages. Each and every Christian believer should delight themselves in obeying the greatest commandment, love the Lord God with all your heart.

Truly, He is worthy and truly you'll benefit eternally by doing so. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for each and every command in the Bible.

Truly, your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Old people balk at obeying you because they love themselves and have so many things they want to do to please themselves, and then godly Christians around them have to listen to all their graphing and complaining about their lot in life simply because that's what they chose when they could have had a perfect lot in life. Lord, I have no complaints.

I thank thee that I'm the most blessed human on the face of this earth. I thank thee for each and every day and week and month of poverty that thou hast led me through, how rich it's been, what wonderful lessons I've learned, and what close fellowship I've had with thee. Lord, work in each of our hearts to love you with all our hearts and glorify you to the fullest while we're here on earth.

In our Lord's name I pray, amen. Amen. Amen.