Barber Family Mission Update
April 23, 2026
This week’s missionary letter is from the Barber family. It says, now at 82% support. This past month was a month of blessings for the Barber family. Megan delivered our fifth child, Melody. She was born on March 30th, weighing in at eight pounds, seven ounces, our largest baby yet. Please pray for Megan as she is experiencing some postpartum health complications related to blood pressure and heart rhythm.
Additionally, we have secured a meeting place in Nashville with a six-month contract. Our grand opening date is set, and we are preparing for Operation Go. Operation Go is an outreach campaign designed to invite the community out to our grand opening. It has been broken down into two phases, fall and spring. Many churches and individuals have expressed interest in helping us with boots on the ground. This is your opportunity. This mission opportunity will take place on Saturdays from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
It will begin with a short time of prayer and organized canvassing, followed by a meeting for lunch and group prayer. You may be wondering what you can do to help. First, we ask that you pray for God to move during our grand opening. Second, consider contributing to our startup fund. We are now at 62% of our startup fund goal. For more information concerning this fund, and where to send contributions, please email me. Their grand opening is set for November 15th of this year.
So we’ll definitely need to pray for that. And it’s exciting to see the Barbers have this in front of them. We know they’ve been working for it for a while. Let’s bring the Barbers to the Lord in prayer.
Dear God, we thank you so much for these dear friends, the Barbers, as they are bringing your word to Nashville. Got a place that’s so close to us, but yet still so unreached. We pray that you would just give them safety as they plant their church there. We thank you that they have somewhere to meet for at least six months once they start. We pray for this Operation Go that your hand would be on it as they canvass the areas. They spread your word through door-to-door soul winning and trying to get people to that first service. God, our church started 25, 26 years ago in that very same way. We pray that in 25 or 26 years, they’d be able to be supporting as many churches in… be supporting the missionaries like we are. God, we pray that you would help them with funding. You would help them as they raise more funds and they get to that starting point that they needed to be. Lord, we pray that you would be with Megan as she has some issues postpartum from the birth of their fifth child. We pray that that child would just grow up in your love and admonition and ask you to be her savior as soon as she is ready. God, we just pray that you would be with, I’m sure the many more prayer requests that the Barber family has that aren’t mentioned here, and just help them as they prepare for this grand opening in November. We ask all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Amen. Barbers are great, excited about them starting. Now, they’re using different churches in the area on those Saturdays, kind of host them. We’ll be one of those churches. It’s in November. I can’t remember the date, but we’re already scheduled to be one of those churches, and we’ll have a luncheon form afterwards and all that stuff, and want you to be very involved in that. That’ll be a good, good fun day for all of us to be involved in.
If you need a prayer request card, one of those chairs in front of you ought to have that. Get that, fill that out. We’ll get those passed over to Brother Baxter. By the way, it’s such a blessing that the Hamiltons are back with us. They have been out due to I think they had the blue monic peg plague and they had all the above, you know, and good to have them back, glad they’re feeling better on that. And don’t forget prayer on the square, May 7th. It’ll be here. Anyone need a flyer? Anyone need a flyer? Or forget, anyone need one of those? Get those passed out, invite people to come to that.
Looking forward to that. And then May the 2nd, that’ll be here before we know it, and T at the Four Seasons. Please ask you, please ask these three speakers. This is a good speaker, Tammy Chisgar. What about that? And she’ll be bringing the heat in that meeting. And no, I’m teasing. It’ll be a blessing for you. And garden tea attire, and that means pink shirts for the ladies, best dress contest, and door prizes, and on and on. See Miss Angela Rennick for tickets and reservations. And that’ll be great. Appreciate them working on that.
And then that Sunday, May the 3rd, it’s going to be a grand, grand day. We’ll have our morning service here, and we’ll get out a little bit early, then we’ll head over there, and we’re going to have where the new building will be at. We’re going to have it staked out, and we’re going to circle that thing. I want to be able to just circle that thing, pray over it. I don’t know. Y’all tell me what you think. I thought, coming in, coming in on the side of what I’m talking, brother Steve Page, and I was kind of joking, I thought, maybe I ought to do that. I thought about marching around it seven times. I’m not sure, but we’re going to pray over it, I promise you on that. And he said, “Now, if we do that, we can’t say anything until that last time,” you know. And we may fall in, right? You know, we may fall out, but we’ll have a good time, and we’ll have some heavy equipment over there. And so plan on that May 3rd. That’s going to be a day you want to remember, and excited about it.
Now, so many, Lord bless Saturday. Had two different people praying, ask Lord to be their Savior, and want to be out there. I love it, kind of going behind the enemy lines, and just out there where they’re at. So if you can come, go with us, that would be great. I checked earlier this afternoon. No one had signed up for breakfast to make breakfast. And I, if somebody wants to jump in there, Ms. Padre, you sign out for this coming Saturday. Good deal. We will have breakfast Saturday morning, 9:30 at Rutherford County Baptist Church. And amen, praise the Lord for that, that’ll work. And so we’ll meet here and we’ll head out and just God bless us and use us in a great, great way.
And then Brother Almas Raymer, he went home to the Lord, course last Friday morning. His service will be this coming Monday 11 o’clock, and it is at Anderson and Garrett in Jolton, Tennessee, a little bit away, and Brother Steve Go Forth will be preaching that service. And I’m excited about that. I appreciate that. I cannot be there. So I appreciate him doing that. And it’ll be a great, great blessing. You want to go and be a blessing of family. Ms. Sandra Beard, can you imagine over 30 years taking care of her dad? And we want to be a blessing of that family. So be there for that if you can be on that. And that will be a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Got your prayer request cards filled out, passed down to the aisle. Our ushers walk by and collect those. Mitchin to you Sunday 9, I think it was Miss Donna Russ and Donna. She fell and broke her arm. At first they said no surgery needed, but they called back and said it’s needed. And so she’s got surgery, I think tomorrow, if I’m going to talk to her a little bit today, and so tomorrow. So let’s pray for Ms. Donna, if you would, please.
And then your prayers. We’re going to keep praying about the sell of this property. We have had some movement, and it is not anything solid. And so I don’t want to get all our hopes up. I want to just keep praying, though. We’ll pray here in a bit about that, but there has been some movement on that. And some folk coming back that wanted to buy it and look like maybe they got the financing. So let’s continue to pray about that.
We did talk with the owner of SRM yesterday, Smurdery Mix, and he is going to give us just some great discounts. And praise the Lord for that, and he was just a blessing. You know, and I love one thing, a little bit into it. He said, “Well, I’ll do this, this, this, this,” you know. And he said, “I’ll tell you what, for you,” he said, “you don’t have to put my name on anything. You don’t have to tell anybody. I’m not for all that.” I said, “Man, you’re doing it the right way. You’re getting a full reward this way.” And what a blessing, a lot of blessings. So keep praying about all those things. Things are happening, and those are significant things, and thousands and thousands of dollars. And he’s going to give us some things, just give it to us. And, of course, some things have to pay for or whatnot, but that’s just thousands of dollars. So keep praying. It’s amazing. You know, we try to make things happen and nothing really happens when God’s people start praying. You know, you gain traction and things begin to happen. And so keep praying about all these things and God’s working and it’s exciting to see the Lord works. So keep praying and let’s just keep going to the Lord in faith. We’ll pray over this prayer request and just a bit. We’ll pray about the sell of our property too. But good to have the Hamiltons back with us. I missed them. I did. And Sunday’s cold and everything. Good, good to have them back. And Brother Baxter, would you lead us in prayer at this time, please?
All right, good evening, everyone. It is good to be back. We missed everybody. Prayer request: Sarah, a cousin-in-law lost her 24-year-old brother in a head-on collision. Christian praises: Thank God for answered prayer, yes. Prayer request: Pray for Nigeria’s election. Party primaries are currently going on. Pray that qualifiers and good candidates will emerge from pastors. So pray for the Nigerian elections. Tim and Jennifer praises: Father’s surgery went successful. Please pray for continued healing. Prayer requests: Jennifer, new car for my mother. Cousin was hit and dragged by car. He has surgery soon Monday. Please pray for healing and salvation awareness. It was a hit and run. The Hamiltons: God is good all the time. Pray for my mom, Elaine. She’s traveling. She’s in South Carolina, and she’s going on a little trip to Europe. So pray for her that she’ll have good, safe travels and continue to help requests for Nancy.
So I’m going to read over these while we pray and if y’all lift them up as I read them out. Dear Lord, we just come to you at this time and just pray over these requests that we have been given. We know that you’re the great healer, the great provider, that you can comfort everyone. Just please, Lord, take these prayers up to you. We lift them up to you and just hope that you will do your will, Lord, and just take over in these situations. We pray for Jennifer’s intense father’s surgery that he’ll heal up from it, that there’ll be no infections. Pray for Jennifer’s mom’s car that she can find one. We also pray for her cousin that was hit by car and will have to have surgery soon. Hopefully they’ll find out who did this. We want to lift up the prayers for Nigeria and their election that’s coming up and just be with those that they put forth as candidates and hopefully they will serve you, Lord. Pray for Sarah’s cousin-in-law that lost a brother and just be with that family, Lord, and just put your arm and comfort around those that are going through this and suffering with the loss of this person. We pray for Elaine and her trip and the upcoming trip to Europe that you’ll just be with her. Pray for Nancy and her health issues and just comfort her and just be with her and her doctors. We just lift these prayers up to you, Lord. We know that you can, it’s your will and what your will is that you’ll do it. Just please comfort the families that have lost loved ones and those that are sick, those that are just in need of your comfort, your forgiveness, your healingness, and you’re providing. And just pray for this church, Lord, in the upcoming sell, and just be with us and each and everyone and those that are going to be working on the building, and just let it be a beacon of this community, Lord. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Amen. By page 496, I owe it all of you, Lord, 496. Take your bottom, turn to Proverbs, Proverbs chapter number 29. Starting to have our Bible study down here on the lower level with you on Wednesday nights, and Proverbs chapter number 29. And once you find that, just let me talk to you for a bit. Proverbs chapter number 29. And good to see you here on a Wednesday night tonight.
Good deal. We started our study last Wednesday on the introduction to Proverbs. We started without notes. Amen, we made it through that. You know, and I have a little bit of a system on to follow, but we are changing our benevolence just to touch here at the church and really delegating it out a little bit more. And the chairman of the deacon board will be the go-to man instead of myself. And still I’ve got to talk with another deacon myself, whatnot, but we have little procedures on that. But I thought since we’re making some changes, we’ll just talk about dealing with or helping the poor, seven principles from Proverbs in dealing with the poor. Since that subject is very relevant to our church at this moment, we’re making changes in that area. I’m very happy that our church is able to do. Last year, we gave out about $4,500 last year to individuals and all kinds of different things, some church members, some not, but just helping people. And, of course, 26 years involved in it, you have interesting stories from that. And Pastor Go Forth, pastor 21 years, and I’m sure he has stories to tell, and we could go on and on about those things. But we just get some biblical principles from Proverbs about that. By the way, there are so many. This is where we’re using our day in time scams out there.
And I think of a senior man we had in our church, and someone scammed him, and even family called police. And the police—that we see this every day, and the shame is in instances like this, we can’t do anything about it because he’s willingly doing this. And that man had a house, lived in a house, and he ended up living in his car in the Walmart parking lot. I remember going over and getting a place, whatnot. And it’s just all kind of scams and bleeding hearts and all those things in our day and time. So just some principles about these things here for a bit, about seven principles from Proverbs in dealing with the poor. And for just a bit tonight, let’s do a little differently here tonight. Let’s just go ahead and pray. And then we’ll get these seven principles. We’ll dive into it here in just a minute.
All right. Y’all pray with me that God would let us get his vision of how we should handle this subject in our day and time. You pray with me. Father, Lord, we come to you tonight. Lord, thank you that your Proverbs gives us wisdom of how to live in a sinful world. And Lord, let us be wise about it. And yet, Lord, we want to please you in it. And Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom when our heart’s going in a certain direction that we follow the wisdom you give us and grow us in it tonight. And we’ll thank you for what you do. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Now, it wouldn’t feel right if we didn’t stand while reading the Bible. Let’s stand. We’ll just read one verse. Let’s just stand. I like to show the Word of God respect. We’re going to start over here in Genesis 29 and verse number seven. Genesis 29, verse number seven: “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor.” But the wicked regardeth not to know it. Did you notice that first part? The righteous considereth the cause of the poor. We’ve already prayed. You can be seated. Thank you for standing, just showing the word of God respect.
First principle, seven principles. The first one is you should at least consider helping the poor. Did you notice what it said? The righteous doesn’t mean they gave, but they consider. Sometimes the complexity of helping someone, and there’s so many scams out there, so many people just lazy, don’t work, and all the rest of that causes us to say, “I’ll just write it all off.” And that’s not biblical.
Look, we’re going to all be in Proverbs tonight, but look in chapter 21, chapter 21 and verse number 13. Chapter 21 and verse number 13. We’ve already read, “The righteous considereth the cause of the poor.” Now let’s look and see what he says in Proverbs 21 and verse number 13. He says, 7 o’clock, we’ll pray here just a minute. I think it’s, is that to go for us? They’re ready to pray. We’ve got a couple of them now. We’ve got a couple of them. All right. Hey, we’re going to pray in just a minute here. Look at this, 21:13. 21:13: “Whoso stopeth his ears at the cry of the poor.” There’s pretty strong language. He also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.
Look in chapter 28. Look in chapter 28. These are all from Proverbs, just wisdom how to live in this world. Remember we mentioned last week, it’s a little bit like a reference book. So we’re going back in this subject, and we’re pulling some principles out of this reference book. What does chapter 28 and verse number 27 say? He says there, “He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack.” Watch this: “But he that highteth his eyes shall have many a curse.” Wow. And he said, “I just don’t, I’m just sick of it all. I’m not going to help anybody.” And the Bible says, you’ve got a curse. Wow. That’s pretty strong language. That’s what the Bible says. Don’t let the complexity of it all.
I got a story. You’ll got a little twist on it at the end. It’s a little interesting story for this principle number one. But mad of our church, he was telling me about one of his relatives, I’m not sure who. And he has a farm out, and he was coming in into town. And he got off on an exit, and there was a man there holding his sign up saying, “We’ll work for food.” Well, there’s a true story. And the old farmer, he stopped and he said, “I tell you what, sir,” he said, “I’m going to put a fence up today. I need help. You come work for me. I’ll pay you good.” And the man said, “Well, I got a bad back, whatnot, you know.” And said, “Okay, all right, I get that. It is hard work, you know. Post-hole diggers are hard work, you know.” You say, “You got a Ph.D. degree?” “Yes, post-hole digger,” you know. And that’s it, you know. And he said, “All right, all right,” he said, “well, I tell you, once I get the post in there, I just need someone to come along and nail the wire in there, and then nobody just use a hammer, swing a hammer, you know, and I’ll let you do that part.” And he said, “Oh, my shoulders messed up, can’t do that,” you know. And he said, “All right, all right,” you know, “there’s going to be the post. I want them painted.” And he said, “Surely you can just paint.” And he had an excuse for everything. He, everything he said, he just had an excuse why he could not work.
Well, what the, what the fellow was asking, “We’ll work for food,” he didn’t know this old farmer was getting—I mean, his blood pressure was going up and up and up. And the anger, the smoke was starting to come out of the ears, you know. And pretty soon that old farmer, he said, “Look, buddy,” he said, “I’m going into town. And he said, ‘When I come back, if you’re still standing here, I’m going to run you slap over.’” He said, “When he came back, he wasn’t there.” You say, “How are you using that for the first point?” At least consider the cause of the poor. Hey, at least he stopped to consider it. At least he tried. I am. And that’s the Bible says, consider it. Don’t just, “I’m not going to help anybody.” No, no, no. You should at least consider it. Is this thing real or not? So very, very important.
Let’s go to the next point. Let’s go to the next principle. Principle number one: You should at least consider helping the poor. If you don’t consider, you don’t check it out, you’ve got a curse. God said you didn’t hear them. You’re not going to be heard. You ought to consider it.
Number two, look over in Proverbs 13, and look in verse number 13. And look in verse number 23. Proverbs 13 and verse number 23. You’re there tonight, would you say amen? Amen. Look what it says. He says, “Much food,” not just, but much food is in the tillage of the poor. Now, what does tillage mean? Tilling it up, plowing it up, planting, working the land. “Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment.” And that that’s there is that is destroyed or ruined, if you will, for want or for lack of judgment, or for lack of consequences, you might say. You know, some people that are very capable, we’re able. You know, the Bible said, “If a man will not work, neither shall he eat.” They get hungry enough, they’ll start working.
Now here’s the second principle: Don’t create a bad pattern in people. Or they would say in our day and time, don’t enable, is what many would call it. You’re not creating a bad, and you’ve got to be careful about that. And it’s hard to know. You want to help, and you ought to want to help, and you should consider it, but you don’t want to create a bad habit inside that individual.
Well, yeah, it’s amazing. I think I mentioned this Sunday, somewhere on the line, but you know, God, the Bible talks about the Lord feeds the sparrow, and he knows when one falls, and he feeds the birds and all that. You know, a bird, a bird has to go get the worm, though. You know, he does. He can’t just sit there. And so here’s just something little we do at our church: but they have to, if someone’s asking for help, which is the first step, all right, you have to fill out an assistance form. If you’re interested in what they look like, we have some of them in the kitchen, and the ushers—where the usher’s jackets are there—there’s a plastic box, and inside of that there’s assistance forms in there. And that’s detailed. It’s two pages, front and back, one page, but front and back of it. And we ask about their bills and their income. The honest truth is they can lie to us. They really can. We don’t verify. We don’t call their employer. We don’t do all that, you know. But it’s amazing just that little step, especially people just calling the church, for the most part, that little step, they just have to fill out a form, weeds out most of it. It’s amazing. I mean, all the guy does is just drive over, get here, fill a form out. They could lie on the form if they really want to, but typically that little bit of work will weed out like 90% of those just calling. Those calling the church asking, it’ll weed out, I’d say at least 95% of it. Every once in a great while, we may have them actually come in and fill out a form. Now, we have a lot of other ways, and there are ministries here and whatnot, or our people, but we want to fill out a form, and we want to help, but we need to know some information here about that. So that’s one thing right off of that. Then we don’t give cash out. And I would even say this, if it’s someone—I’ve had a lot of people, you know, asked, you know, “Give me, give me”—and I’ve taken people down to the gas station many times, giving them gas. We’ve taken them to McDonald’s, whatnot—not McDonald’s, but McDonald’s—and gotten them food. We’ll do all that, you know. But we don’t give them, we don’t give them cash. We just help someone.
Well, the end of last week, and their water bill that had a leak, and the bad thing is that had another leak within the year. The water company will help adjust, but they’ve had two recently, and so this one they owe a great amount. And so, but we didn’t give them cash. We actually called the water company and paid a good amount of their bill, but we dealt directly with the water company. If we help someone with rent or electric, whatnot, then we’ll, we’ll need to know your landlord or who’s your electric company. And we don’t get—now, there are exceptions to that. We had some of our good faithful, you know, Sunday morning, Sunday, that ways, not people, that they were, they had to stay in a motel during the ice storm, and they didn’t ask for help, but we wanted to help them. That’s, man, inexpensive you stay at the motel. Now, we gave them cash because they’re suddenly more than that, people we know. And they’re not going to spend it on anything that you ought not spend it on besides maybe a little marijuana. I’m joking, of course. But we don’t give—we got to keep you listening, you know.
We don’t give cash out. We don’t do that. And I would say, I would say, don’t give cash out. No. I remember I was maybe six months ago going up to St. Thomas Midtown up there in Nashville and I-40, and I got off that little circle ramp. About halfway around there, a fellow waved me over. Another car in front, so I thought when I was broke down and whatnot. I was in a hurry, but I said, well, I’m going to stop down and stop and try to help out just real quickly, you know. But the fellow wanted some gas, you know. It was a little bit leery, but I said, “Well, I’ll get you gas.” And then it went into wanting money. And then he started pressuring. And I told him, I said, “Fella, I probably would have helped you, but when you pressure me, I’m not giving you a dime.” And I left. And I left. I think, Paul, don’t give these people money. And he was pulling the heartstrings a little bit, you know. Now, I don’t give them money. And I probably went and filled up his gas tank, but he started pressuring when he did. Something clicks inside him when that happens, and I thought, that’s the Lord. You know, don’t give them cash.
Let me say something, just not create a bad pattern in this. One of the things of our church is if we’ve helped someone, we will not help them for another year. And we have records of that and when’s the last time? And sometimes we’ll help someone, but it cannot—more than once, but it cannot be in the same year and so on. So just don’t, we’re not wanting to create a bad system inside of someone. We don’t want to enable them or create a desire just to get something for nothing inside of them, all right?
Number three, number three, look over in Proverbs 13. Proverbs 13, and look at verse number eight. Proverbs 13, and this is going to be a little tough principle, but I want you to see it because I think when you’re dealing with this subject, it’s reality that you need to know, all right? So Proverbs 13, look at verse number eight. Proverbs 13:8. You’re there? Amen. Look at verse number eight. He says, “The ransom of a man’s life are his riches.” Watch this. I want you to hear this: “But the poor heareth not rebuke.”
Look over in chapter 21, Proverbs chapter 21, and look in verse number 17. 21:17. This is interesting. Proverbs 21:17: “He that loveth pleasure…” You remember I’ve spoken about this a little bit in the last year or so, but someone said that we’re all typically tempted to make one of these four things our idol: Maybe someone it’s honor, someone it’s money, someone it’s power, and some it’s pleasure. Now, sometimes we get mixed up. It’s kind of hard to know, is it money or pleasure? Because pleasure people want money, but it’s not to have that money and collect the money; it’s to get and go do this, have this pleasure. But it’s interesting when you think about that. Notice what he says there: “He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor.” Wow. “And he that loveth wine and oil,” which typically kind of represents luxury in the Bible, “he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.”
Now here’s the principle. It’s a little tough one, but I think it’s good we cover it: Realize that monetary gifts likely will not change their character. Typically it’s not for him. It may put another meal on their plate, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to do. And I’m not saying y’all not to help them, but typically, look, I was in Chicago and went to the Bible called it a little south of Chicago, and their ministries—a lot of our ministers up in Chicago on the weekend, and we’d go up there and have bus routes and whatnot and spend the weekend up there pretty much. And the philosophy of many of the government was like it’s all about the environment. This is 30 years ago for it. And on the north side of Nashville, for those that know Nashville a bit, and it’s all about environment, environment, environment, environment, you know. They’re a product of their environment. And so they go through a block, a city block, and spend millions of dollars updating and making the buildings nice and whatnot. And just been milked. We’re going to have to give them a better environment, it’s going to change them. And those same city blocks a couple years later were messed up, ragged, stinky. I’ve walked through the hallways and had to step over drunks laying out in the hallway, literally.
And I’m saying, I’m not saying don’t help, but don’t think this monetary gift is going to—very rarely is going to change the character. You understand? And you need to understand that when dealing with these things. It’s so very important. By the way, that’s why it’s important to witness to them. I’m not against giving a meal or whatever, but witness to them. We had feeding of the 5,000 years ago. How many was with us when we had the feeding of the 5,000? And good, a good amount of folk here. And that was a good day. I don’t know how many. We had 50, 60 people saved. I don’t know. And it was a couple of days we did that. And I think we fed every 1,200 people came through and all these things. And it was good. We had a man come from Alabama, help us. And he just heard about it, want to be involved in it. And he came, and he said, “You know, my church does something similar at Thanksgiving where we feed the homeless and whatnot, and we give them a serving, a meal. But he said, ‘You know, we don’t do like you’re doing where you take them to a room and give them the gospel.’” And that man said, “I wish my church would do that.” Now look, that will change the inside of a man. I’m not against feeding them. We fed, you know, over a thousand people. But while you’re doing it, give them something that will change them: Jesus Christ.
But when you’re dealing with the poor, at least witness to them. You say, “Well, they’ll just give you a line while they’re trying to get money.” Well, I’ll take their line. I won’t get the gospel in there some way, though. But very seldom is it going to change their character. It’s very important. That’s one thing I like about the Murfreesboro Rescue Mission. We support them, and they’re not where we want them to be, but they’re working towards that. But he wants—he wants to have a home where there’s a program where they’re learning and growing and whether they can get out of where they’re at. We support them monthly. That’s one reason why we we’re still involved in that. So number one, we said if we all at least to just consider helping the poor. Number two, don’t create a bad pattern in people. Number three, realize that monetary gifts likely will not change their character.
Number four, number four, looking for chapter number 19. Chapter number 19. We’re the halfway one right here. Not hump day—well, Wednesday’s hump day, but it’s a hump principle. Amen, we’re halfway right there. Principle number four right there. Let me just, I’ll just name this principle at, and then we’ll read the verses. All right. This is the interesting one. There are a lot of things worse than poverty, a whole lot of things. How many ever heard this saying, “We grew up poor, didn’t know it”? I’ve never—I always had my food, meals, and everything else, but I never even realized it until years, recently a year or two ago, you know. I was 13 years old before I always lived in either a camper or a trailer until I was 13 years old. First house I ever lived in. And it’s a little different back then, but there’s a whole lot of things a little worse than poverty. The Lord lived in poverty, you know. Jesus did.
Let’s look at a couple of verses. Chapter 19, verse number one. Chapter 19, verse number one: “Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity than he that is perverse in his lips and is a fool.” That man over there, Luke, he was successful, as the world says, and he’s, “I’m going to build bigger barns so I can put them all in there.” And the Lord said, “Your soul shall be required of thee.” To not. He said, “Thou fool.” You know a lot of different types of fools, biblically. But the Bible there, he says, “Hey, better is the poor that walks with his integrity.” He’s got some old school—some of you, some of you, some of you, I ain’t going to say older, you wiser folk here—you ever hear this thing? They got some scruples about them. They got some scruples. Brother Goforth, you ever heard that term? Yes, sir. Yeah, some integrity. And the Bible says, you know, the poor man that’s got some integrity about him? They’re better off.
Look over, if you will. Well, look down verse number 22, chapter 19, verse number 22: “The desire of a man is his kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar.” Well, that fella got rich, he’s ripping everybody off. Well, that poor man over there that didn’t lie, he’s better off. Look in chapter 28. Chapter 28, verse number six. We got to hurry along. Chapter 28, verse number six: “Better is the poor that walketh in uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich.”
I think we may just stop with this principle. I’ll talk a little bit about it. Maybe we may just stop for the night. We’ll keep going next Wednesday on it. But I was listening to a man. He was talking about missions. I was flying somewhere a couple years ago, and we were doing some changing their missions or something. I was listening to some—I don’t know if it was a podcast, whatnot—about missions. And I heard this guy, and he said that he grew up on the mission field. He grew up there. Got saved, missionary led him to the Lord. And now he’s a missionary himself, and he’s been back and forth the states. But he said, “It bothers me when I go to church, and all they do is show pictures of poor people that are, they’re rural country, and all they just show their poverty. And they’ll show a little boy, little girl, you know, kids out there washing themselves at the river, and they never focus on giving the gospel.” He said, “That bothered me.” He said, “I was a little boy that I watched in the river, and I was happy as could be. I loved life as far as my little boy, my mentality. We had good families, we were happy, we were doing good.” You know, there’s some things a whole lot worse than poverty. And he said, “Those missionaries, they just show those sad pictures to raise a little money, and they never try to get anybody saved.” And he said, “They bother me because all that money is spent on something that is just really relative. He said, ‘I was happy living out there, and we had a good life out there.’ He said, ‘Focus on all that. Go out there and tell them about Jesus Christ.’ I’m glad he said, ‘I had a good missionary come and tell us how to get saved.’ I said, ‘Now that right there, I needed that.’ There’s a whole lot of things worse than poverty.”
Some people, poverty makes them—some some some grow up better off. Well, you know, some people get right with the Lord. I’ve seen it over the years when things are just tough, man, and they don’t, you know, back in the day farmers had to pray if it wasn’t raining, they’d pray. Nowadays, they go to the government, you know. But I’ve seen people get right with the Lord. Boy, they just, they get sincere. They get right. They get right. They get all the games and all that are just out of there. They get thoroughly right with God during tough times. And you know what? God often, he blesses them, whether they get in church or get living for the Lord. And I’ve seen them sometimes they get blessed monetarily. And six months later—friend, there are some things that are a whole lot worse than poverty. It can be your friend sometimes.
Hey, they’re saying, we’ll go back to it more next week, but you should at least consider. Don’t get the mindset, “Well, there’s somebody liars and frauds out there, we don’t know who to give to anybody.” No, don’t get that mindset. You’ve got the curse there. By the way, I’m going to be honest, it’s just me, you can do whatever you want, but I don’t give them any causes in these fast food restaurants or whatnot because I really don’t know where the money’s going to. Now, there are a couple of them I will, but a lot of them I won’t. If it’s going to scholarships, I’m worried about some of those scholarships being some of the scholarships about them helping teach people about, you know, this, you know, well, it’s just a different lifestyle. I know what’s sitting for, you know, but I don’t want to give to a lot of things, but I want to consider it. Number two, principle: Don’t create a bad pattern in people. Number three, realize that monetary gifts likely will not change their character. And I’m not saying don’t help, but I think it’s just an intelligent, informed mindset. I think if a person came to our church years ago, they came, they want a little bit of money, and we got them fill out a form, whatnot. And I told—I can’t remember who it was, one of our deacons, whatnot—I said, “I think, bought it, let’s give me at least 50 bucks. We’ll probably never see him again, but I think we’re doing the right thing.” We didn’t give them cash. I can’t remember what we gave them, but we never seen them again, but I think we did the right thing. But I’m telling you, just be careful of the mindset that’s going to change them. Typically, it’s not going to change their character. Then number four, there are a lot of things worse than poverty. A whole lot of things worse than poverty. And I think it’s why we’ll talk about some more principles next Wednesday night on that subject right there.
I’m going to ask you to do this: Let’s come down to the altar and pray. We do it. There is a chance—let me just talk to you for a second. There is a chance some people that have looked at our property more than once, and they have wanted our property. They didn’t have the financing. They’ve come back as of Monday, and they say they have gathered the financing. And there’s still a little snags with the septic tank and sewage. We’ve told them all this from the beginning about it, but all those things are all going on. But I say that just to say, let’s pray. And I say it to say, when you start praying, God’s people pray, that’s when things happen. So would you come? Let’s just pray about that. Would you do that? That haven’t let us in prayer over this—Brother Tim, have you let us in prayer over this? Okay, Brother Tim, can I get you up here? And Brother Chip has, and he’s willing, I appreciate that, but we’re just trying to… Brother Bill Senior, have you let us in prayer over this thing yet? Have you? Brother Patterson, have you let us in prayer over this thing here? Have you? Okay, okay, okay. Good. Dear brother for the page, have we got your leads in prayer over this thing here? Okay, brother Page, let’s get you up here. Yes, sir, yes, sir. If you will, brother Chip, we’ll get you. Thank you for being willing. We’re just trying to get new people involved here. These men will lead us, but let’s let’s just pray with them and let’s pray that the Lord just be at our prayer is that he would provide where we don’t have to take from that long paying all these bills and we’ll have to take this long at the end of the thing at the beginning of it, and you know those things. Would you pray with these men as they lead us in prayer?
Well, our loving Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for a house to worship in. Lord, you’ve been so good to us over the years. Even long before I came here, you’ve been good to Pastor, good to his family, good to the church that he’s led here in your name, Lord. And so, Lord, as we prepare to go into this next chapter of this church, Lord, we just pray, first of all, that you give Pastor the wisdom. Lord, whatever decisions need to be made, Lord, we know that it’s not just a question of buildings, but it’s a question of how the church is going to continue to be led through the years. So before we even think about buildings, Lord, we just pray that you would give our pastor wisdom and help him to be a man of the word. And Lord, when it comes to this building, Lord, we know that it’s just a place to meet. You are a good and wonderful God that we get to worship here. Lord, we pray that since this is your house of worship, Lord, we pray that you would pay the bill. Lord, we pray that you would provide the sale of this property. And Lord, we really do pray, Lord, that it would be sold to people who would use this property to preach the gospel and to do your word and to love you more. Lord, we are praying right now for the sale of this property at least 2.5 million. Lord, we are asking you, Lord, for a deal in which we could continue to use this property to meet. And Father, just for buyers who are gracious, who love you like we love you. Lord, this new set of buyers, Lord, we pray that you would be with them, Lord, that you would equip them and prepare them, if it’s your will, that they would be the ones to buy this property. Lord, we pray that you would just take control and make that happen. But, Father, we just want to stay faithful to you in this building and the next building and the good times and the bad, Lord, we just pray that it would all be to your honor and to your glory. We pray that in Jesus’ name.
My Heavenly Father, we always thank you for the privilege to gather in this place in your name. We give you all our praise. We thank you, Lord, for what you did. We thank you for what you do for us from day to day, Lord. We ask you if you would intervene and find someone that wants to buy this church house, Lord. And may it be filled with people for you, Lord. We depend on you for everything, Lord. You’re the only hope we have. We thank you so much. We bless our time together, Lord, and thank you for what you do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Original File: 2026-04-23 - Pastor Paul Chisgar - Wednesday PM 04⧸22⧸2026