Episode Transcript
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William Carroll (00:01):
Good morning.
This is Faith Walk with WilliamCarroll and lately, on the last
few podcasts, we have beentalking about giving the
different types of givingtithing first fruits, alms and
sowing seed and I have reallyenjoyed this.
I'm telling you, our men'sgroup, we talk about all kinds
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of subjects and and when we getin there and we talk about them,
we were studying Malachi 3 andit just it stirs me up to dig
into the scriptures and toremember and to go back and
study why I believe what Ibelieve on giving, and you know
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giving to me is it's a joy.
It ought to be a joy for allChristians.
Hey, did you know I had afriend that's mother was a
waitress and she was a waitressfor years and years and even up
until she passed away.
And I asked her one day.
I said “ What is the yourfavorite day to work?
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” And she said well, I can tellyou my least favorite day to
work.
And I said what's that?
She said well, it's Sunday.
The church crowd.
She said because the churchcrowd! She said you can't please
them.
And she said you know they'rethe worst tippers of anybody.
She said I'd rather work anyother day than the church crowd.
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Now, that is not giving Godglory.
See, we ought to be there.
We ought to not demand our way,demand service.
We ought to not be complainingabout everything with our food.
We ought to be happy, we oughtto be coming from the house of
God and we ought to be goingthere to bless other people.
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And then those that serve us weshould bless with our tip.
You know, we shouldn't bestingy.
I just couldn't understand itwhen she said it.
I said I just couldn't believethat God, people or the stingy
people.
Well, anyway, that's justsomething for you to think about
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.
You know, if you tip in adollar or two dollars, you
better reach in that pocket andbless somebody.
See, you're blessing, you'resowing seed to that person
because she or he waited on you,served you, and I mean filled
your tea glass up.
They got what you needed,brought you more, but they were
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serving you.
So in return, you bless themwith a good tip.
And I know it's not all myfriends, my friends don't do
that, I know they're contippers,but anyway, listen, that just
was one of my thoughts thismorning as I was coming to you
and I wanted to continue to talkand you know we talked about
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the tithe.
We talked about in Malachi, thetithe where God said bring all
the tithes and the offering tothe storehouse Malachi three and
10, so there will be enoughfood in my house, in my temple.
He said if you do, says theLord, then he would rebuke to
the vower for our sakes andopens the windows of heaven and
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pour out a blessing that wewould not be able to contain it,
you know.
And he said try me, prove me,prove me and see.
And that's the only place inthe Bible that God says prove me
, put me to the test, see.
If I won't do what I say, I'lldo.
And what is the devourer?
You know we talked about that.
The devourer is something thattakes money away from you.
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Well, a hundred percent of ourmoney comes from God.
That's the way I believe it asa Christian.
You know, I was bought for aprice, the price of the precious
blood of Jesus Christ, you know, and he sent his son to die for
me.
I'm bought with the price andyou know, everything that I have
comes from God.
So my check comes from God, youknow.
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So everything that I get comesfrom God.
So I take, I take, you don'thave to do it.
If you don't want to give, youdon't have to give.
I take 10%, I give it and thenI give offerings and I give
first fruits and alms and I sowseed.
But anyway, god blesses thatand he allows me to spend that
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other 90% as I see fit in theway of the Lord.
But we talked about that.
We talked about the firstfruits.
That's more like a bonus.
You get a bonus at the end ofyear.
You take that bonus and yougive a tithe off.
It.
It's one time, you know, it's aone time thing, off of a
increase that you're notexpecting.
We talked about alms.
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That's given to the poor, youknow, and Jesus said you have
the poor with you always, and wetalked about that.
And then we talked about theseed sower, you know, and Jesus
talked about the parable of thesower of the seed and he was
talking about the word of God.
But it also listen to this, I'mgonna tell you.
You say well, william, you tiedthat into giving, sowing seed,
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into giving.
And I'm just gonna read somescripture for you.
We're gonna go to Genesis onein chapter.
I mean Genesis, chapter one,verse 11,.
It says God said let the earthbring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the fruittree yielding fruit after his
kind, whose seed is in itselfand upon the earth.
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And it was so.
And it brought forth grass andherb yielding seed after its own
kind, and the tree yieldingfruit, whose seed was in itself
after his kind.
And God saw that it was good.
Now I'm gonna tell yousomething.
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When you sow seed, or sow seedin your garden, if you plant
tomato seeds, what do you expectto receive back?
Well, god says that whateverseed you plant, that's what
you're gonna reap.
If you plant apple seed, you'regonna get apples.
Right.
You plant corn, what are yougonna get?
Corn?
So If I use that and I applythat to my tithing, whatever I
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tithe, I'm going to reap back.
Now I'm also going to reap backspiritual blessings.
But when I sow my seed and Iask God where do you like me to
sow my seed?
Well, a lot of times it's indifferent ministries, it's in
missionaries and things likethat.
So I want to sow in amissionary.
That is good ground, so itproduces good fruit back.
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And I want to read over here inGalatians right, quick,
galatians, chapter six.
Let's go to Galatians, chaptersix and verse seven.
Let's start in verse seven.
Verse seven it says be notdeceived.
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God is not mocked, forwhatsoever.
Whatsoever a man soweth, thatshall he reap.
For if he soweth through hisflesh, shall he reap corruption.
Shalt he soweth to the spirit,he shall reap everlasting life.
Let us not be wearing wellduring for due season.
We shall reap if we faint, not.
So God says whatsoever,whatsoever a man reap.
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Now we know also he was talkingabout here sin.
If you sow to the flesh, yousow sin.
You're going to reap sin.
You're going to reap the wagesof death, which is the wages of
death.
So if you sow seed into goodground, into good ministries,
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what are you going to reap?
Well, you're going to reapblessings.
You're going to reap whateverGod wants you to reap.
You know you're going to reapmoney back.
Yet well, seed reproduces afterits own time.
The thing is, you don't sowseed to get money.
You sow seed out of thegoodness and kindness and love
of your heart, because God wantsyou to be a cheerful giver.
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He wants you to give cheerfully.
Why?
Because he's blessed you withall you have.
He wants you to bless otherpeople and that's how I go about
sowing my seed.
Well, this is one lesson that Ilearned about sowing the seed.
We was in church and my daughterhad broken her neck, she had
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broken her C3.
She was living at my house, herand her son, and she had no
money.
I mean, her car was totaled out.
They had paid on the caralready and they said you know,
we're not giving any more money.
She was still recuperating andliving at home and we hadn't
bought anything yet.
Well, we really didn't haveenough to buy her a whole new
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car, because the car, what theypaid you know, they never pay
exactly what you think it'sworth or what it should be worth
to buy a new one.
So we was just praying and wewas just asking God and
believing God to do something.
We was at church that morningand we were sitting there in
church and it was time for theoffering and I looked over and I
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said are you going to giveanything for the offering?
And she said I don't have anymoney, I'm broke and I knew it
was true.
Well, I pulled out $3 out of mypocket and I said here you go.
And she said no, I don't wantyour money.
I said here, you can put thisin the offering if you want to.
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She said, no, that's your money.
I said, okay, look.
I said this is my money and I'mgiving you my money.
So that makes it your money.
And I said you can take it.
You can go buy candy, you canbuy a Coke, I don't care what
you buy, do with it, I said, oryou can sew it and give it to
God, whatever you want to do.
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I said it's your money, itdoesn't matter to me so.
Well, she took the money andwhen it was time for the
offering, she gave into theoffering and she gave all of it.
She told me.
She said that wouldn't aboutmuch Coke and it wouldn't about
much of a candy bar $3.
And she said but she said Idecided that I would just pray
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and I would just give it to God.
Well, listen, I know thisdoesn't happen all the time, but
I do not believe incoincidences.
Okay, and so the next Monday Itold you the insurance company
have already said that there'sno more money.
You know, we've given all we'regoing to get.
You're not going to get anymore and that's it.
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And we've done everything wecan do.
I said okay.
So on the next it was likeMonday or Tuesday, probably
Tuesday I went to the mailboxand I got a check with her name
in it.
Well, she opened it up.
It was from the insurancecompany and I figured that's
what the letter was, stating tous what they had told us on the
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phone that you know that wewouldn't get any more money.
And she had $300 in there.
She got a $300 check and Icalled them and I said, hey, you
know she got a $300 check.
And they said, well, it didn'tcome from us.
I said, well, it sure did youknow, it came from the insurance
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that I was using.
And they said, well, we don'tknow what that's for.
And I said, well, I said it hasto be something about the wreck
, you know.
And they said, well, they saidokay, but they knew nothing
about.
It is what they said.
And they said they'd look intoit and they'd call me back.
Well, I never heard back fromthem.
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And Kristen, you ought to.
You ought to see her face.
She was so happy when she gotthat money because she had some
bills that she needed to pay.
She wanted to buy her son someclothes and some things like
that, and she just wanted to doa little something special, you
know, for him because she hadbeen without money for so long,
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because she was going to collegeat the time and she had that
broken neck man.
I'm telling you it was.
It was tough, you know, it wastough on her, it was tough on me
, it was tough on her son andshe.
She was just excited and I saidI said look.
She said where'd this come from?
I said you know, kristen.
I said thank back.
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I said you gave $3 in theoffering and I said God saw that
.
God saw that offering that yougave and he blessed you back for
that.
I said you could have took it,you could have, you could have,
you know, bought a Coke orwhatever you wanted to.
I said but when we prayed andyou blessed that offering and
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you put it in the offering andyou gave it to God, god honored
that giving and see right.
Then I started seeing this andI started studying and I started
I read in that Genesis, chapterone, 113, so how a seed
reproduces after its own kind.
Now, she didn't put it in thereto get money, but she knew that
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the money she had is kind oflike the widow's might.
The widow gave all she had untoGod.
Why?
Well, because that widow'smight was the same as my
daughters, that it wouldn't havedone a whole lot of nothing to
sustain her life.
But she decided to give it toGod.
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The widow gave it to God andwhen she gave it to God, god
accepted and honored it.
And Jesus said that her givingwas greater than all the rest
because, see, all the rest wasputting in of their abundance.
But she did.
She put in of her needs.
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She put in because she knewthat little bit wasn't going to
do her much good anyway and shewanted to honor God because it
was her heart.
Her heart was right in thegiving.
She didn't give to get.
But you can't out give God andGod doesn't want your money.
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You know so many people saywell, god just wants my money.
That preacher, all thatpreacher, he just all he talks
about is is tithing and giving,and all he wants my money, he
wants your money.
God don't want your money, hedoesn't need your money.
He's not trying to getsomething from you, he's trying
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to get blessings to you, and itcomes in so many ways besides
money.
But he wants you to have enoughto have abundant, where you can
give to His ministries.
See, the more you give to Hisministries, the more you bless
Him and bless those that areserving Him and those that are
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doing the ministry of God, themore money he's gonna get to you
, because he can trust you withit, because he knows, if he
gives you more money that you'regonna give unto the things that
he wants to, because you havethe heart of God.
See, that's how I want my givingto be.
I just want my giving to beafter the heart of God.
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I want it to produce fruit forthe glory of God.
I want it to be used andmultiplied.
You know we pray over theoffering so many times.
Lord, take this as what isgiven and multiply it, you know,
for your kingdom and for yourwork.
Well, that's what God does.
God likes to multiply whateveris given.
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So I just hope this encouragesyou, I hope it just makes you
begin to get in the Word andstudy His Word.
You know we read that bedeceived, be not deceived,
because whatsoever, whatsoever aman soweth, that shall he reap.
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You know, and if you and Jesus