A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church

Featuring John Louis Muratori & Michael Q. Pink

This document is a transcript of the 6 hours of discussion contained in the

Christian Wealth Building seminar. It is intended to serve as a reference for
the listener in order to enhance the learning experience and reinforce the
understanding of the concepts contained in the seminar.

Copyright © 2007 Selling Among Wolves, LLC

All Rights Reserved.

www.ChristianWealthBuilding.com
 Contents

HOUR 1 –– LEADER ‘‘SHIFT’’ –– EXIT, PROCESS, ENTRANCE 4

HOUR 2 –– WHY DO THE WICKED PROSPER? –– 7 GATES INTRO 29

HOUR 3 –– 7 GATES (CONT.) –– A JEWISH FINANCIAL LESSON 54

HOUR 4 –– WHAT THE JEWS HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN ABOUT MONEY 81

HOUR 5 –– LAWS OF: TIME MANAGEMENT & THE BRAND 105

HOUR 6 –– LAW OF DIVERSIFICATION –– CONCLUSION 130

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS 157

FOR ADDITIONAL RESOURCES 158

Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

Hour One –– Leader ‘‘Shift’’ –– Exit, Process, Entrance

David
Welcome to hour one of Christian Wealth Building: a Candid Look
at Rich Church, Poor Church. I am David Johnson, serving as
moderator today, with these two special gentlemen, men of God,
John Louis Muratori, a Pastor and businessman from the
northeastern United States and also with us, of course, Michael Q
Pink, who is the founder of Selling Among Wolves, is a Biblical sales
trainer, as well as a widely-recognized speaker.

John Muratori has written the book Rich Church, Poor Church and
we are going to be taking a candid look in these next few hours
together, at this concept of Rich Church, Poor Church. The sub-title
of the book is: Unlock the Secrets of Creating Wealth and Harness
the Power of Money to Influence Everything. And so this particular
book comes from John’’s wealth of experience, both in the business
world and as a man of God, that has been leading a congregation for
a number of years now, looking at the concept of how the church
has or has not impacted culture in the United States, in particular,
and certainly more on the global perspective, as we get into this
topic today.

Michael Pink, of course, has, for many years, been working in the
marketplace, training folks, providing Biblical materials, looking at
the Word of God, and the works of God to obtain Biblical principles
and concepts for being effective in the marketplace. Michael, you
got your hands on John’’s book Rich Church, Poor Church, here just
a little while ago, and I know that what happened when you got
your hands on this book is that something about it really grabbed
you and made you say, ““This has got to be exposed to lots of folks.””
And, I just want to throw this first question you’’re direction then
and say, tell us what it was that made you say, ““Other people have
to find out about what John has written.””

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Michael
Well, thank you for the question. I have to tell you the scripture
says, Paul writing in Corinthians, ““That I have planted the seed,
Apollo watered it, but God gave the increase.”” When I read John’’s
book Rich Church, Poor Church, first of all, I thought it was an
absolutely brilliant title, and it captivated me. I had a little bit of
concern. I thought, okay, he’’s got a brilliant title, but does the
content match? A lot of times, the content doesn’’t match up to the
reputation of the title. The title carried with it tremendous promise
and I wanted to know if it really delivered and how he would
position the entire message. Because it is such an important
message, it is widely misunderstood. As I read it, it felt like my soul,
by comparison, had been unknowingly parched. I was being
watered and my heart was becoming snuffled, as I received and
absorbed the things he was saying in there. So, I got pretty fired up.

Secondly, there were things I knew and it was great to see that there
were other people saying those things. There were a good number
of things that I was unfamiliar with, had never heard or perspective
that I had not seen, that really fired me up. For example, we’’ll get
into it later, but some of the Jewish history and the whole Jewish
connection and its relationship to wealth, was a real eye opener.
Then he talked about mind molders and I heard it in a different
slant. I’’m looking forward to hearing more about that. He talked
about wisdom, four different kinds of wisdom, and I’’ve never heard
that before. He talked about things that I’’ve explored a little bit in
Jewish tradition and I’’ve gone and done my own studies on, but I
haven’’t heard any other Christians do that. I was going into Jewish
sources and I see he’’s done that. So, I got pretty fired up.

When I got to the second half of the book, he just tears into it and
he starts saying, ““Okay””. To me, the first half was giving us
permission –– in fact, more than permission, but, if you will, a holy
charge –– to take the Gates of Finance... to take that area. The
second one is - Okay, now here’’s how, and he goes into twelve very
practical things I think are very necessary. I am looking forward to

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us getting into this. We are not getting into all of them today, but
we’’re going to be turning it up. That’’s what happened to me. I read
it and was lit.

I didn’’t know John at the time, so I had somebody else send me the
book and he put John’’s contact number at the bottom. I thought it
was that guys contact and I called him, but I didn’’t know the fellow.
He apparently is a subscriber on our list or something, and I called
thinking I was getting a hold of him. PJ with John Muratori’’s office
took the call and I began to share with him my excitement. To my
delight, John Muratori got on the phone with me and we were able
to connect. It was like a flash of lightning and peels of thunder. It
was this energy charging, going back and forth, back and forth. I
knew we had to go further. So, having said that, John is on the line
with us, and here I am just raving. John, you’’re here right now.
Why, what made you write this book? You had to know, you had to
know that there was going to be resistance. You had to know you
were going to be pigeonholed. You had to know you might lose
some friends or get a reputation you might not want. Why in the
world did you do this book?

John
Well, I want to just say right at the front of this, I’’m very excited. It
is so good to be with you gentlemen. Michael, we have a
relationship that is growing and really beginning to see the fruit of
our labors, and I’’m so glad that you did call. You know, the question
of why, and also the concern, has been with me for a number of
years. I have been very hesitant to even approach this subject,
because I didn’’t want to be pigeon holed. With all the negative
connotations, I’’m amazed when you mention wealth and you
mention a believer.

When you mention Christianity and wealth building, it stirs up

something. It stirs up a lot of negative connotation. It stirs up name
it and claim it and, you know, with my years of ministry and the

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work I do with consulting and working with the Department of

Mental Health and Homeland Security, I didn’’t know if I wanted to
go down this road. But, I also felt the charge in my spirit that this
subject was so important, that the Gate of Finance was so critical,
that we’’re living in a society that absolutely the church must weigh
in when it comes to finances. I noticed the pattern in the book of
The Apostle Paul and he didn’’t shy away from difficult subjects. He
had a two-step process, he gave correction and then he gave
instruction. If you could get through the correction, you would get
so much instruction. So, I tried to implement those two steps in the
book to also bring correction to some of the abuses –– to maybe
shore up the line –– to bring the church back into the Biblical
boundaries that the Scriptures speak about when it deals with
finance and wealth creation and wealth distribution. Then, at the
same time, also to bring instruction.

As for the why, to take that a step further, I spent the first three
chapters of the book just pouring out about seeing my father, him
being an immigrant, coming to America and not being able to be
equipped in the church with tools necessary when it comes to
building finance. Struggling as a young man, as a young boy,
wanting to have more, wanting to be successful, wanting to kind of
get out of the restraints I felt my community had upon me.

Growing up in the inner city, growing up in an impoverished

community, and looking for wisdom and looking for instruction and
direction from so many different places, I really was compelled to
pen out these words, give some direction and address this subject
and what I believe is a pretty comprehensive look.

One of the problems I ran into with this book is, when you say one
thing it stirs up so many other things. I found that I just kept
writing and writing and was relying on God that he would fit all of
this together.

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Michael
I think you have done an outstanding job on that. And this isn’’t a
booklet. This is a three-hundred-plus-page, (three hundred twenty
pages, whatever it is) hardback book. It is a tremendous book you
have got. I’’m going to tell you that everybody needs to get a hold of
this book. I have a question we need to discuss right off the bat. We
mentioned it, both of us slightly, but we really need to hit this one
and get it dispensed with right now.

There are people, when they first hear us talk about this subject,
listening with a critical ear to see if, in fact, we are the name and
claim and the blab and grab or whatever that group, or, whether we
are saying, no, we really should be poor and rich in good works.
They kind of want to know where we are on that issue. So, let’’s deal
with the first one right now, if we could.

The excess, what you call the reference to the ““name and claim””
thing, the excesses that have given some things a bad name... the
whole message of prosperity... as if prosperity were a bad thing... as
if God somehow wanted us to be unfruitful. I was at a garden center
yesterday and I saw a tree that had fruit on it that we were looking
at and perhaps buy, but the fruit had some kind of scabby, mangy
stuff on the outside of it. I thought, ““Nobody is going to want to buy
that tree. There is nothing appealing about it.”” And I would think
that God is not sitting there thinking, ““How can I make these
people, really in an unfruitful, unattractive kind of way....”” I don’’t
think He gets glory from that. He can get glory in it from a sense
that people in those situations can certainly glorify God, if they find
themselves in terrible straits as we read in the Hall of Fame in
Hebrews eleven. But, with respect to the whole concept of this name
and claim thing, tell me why or how this shows me how this is
different from that?

John

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Well, I think at the outset of that, he can deal with ““self.”” I think a
lot of messages that deal with finance coming from the church
begins and ends with ““self.”” It is self-centered, it is self-indulging, it
is about the size of a car an individual has. We have even seen how
the culture, the secular culture, has locked onto these things, and
the wealthy multi-millionaire pastor. They kind of prop that up
with the expensive dog houses and all these things and I think when
you see that message, as it funnels all the intention, all of its energy
toward me myself and I, it is not the Biblical teaching of finance.
The Biblical teaching of finance is not about me. It is not about self.
In fact, God does not want to bless me, he wants to bless through
me.

All wealth that is created within the Scriptures is always

generational wealth. So, when God blessed Abraham, the real
blessing was in Abraham’’s seed. Abraham was the conduit, he was
the starter, he was the wick, but the real explosion happened
through the generations. So, when we approach the bible, or the
bible teaches about wealth, it teaches, not from a self centered point
but from a selfless point. It speaks about the Kingdom, it speaks
about the power to gain wealth in order to establish God’’s covenant.
In the process of being a steward; which really that word means
managing another’’s finances or estate, as I begin to have the ability
to manage more, yes, my lifestyle is going to increase. Yes, I’’m
going to experience the fruit of being able to handle more. As my
abilities increase and God puts more in my hands, I will also move
up the ladder with them.

The intent that God has in the direction in Scripture is not for us to
be selfish, not for us to be self centered, but for us to be selfless and
to have God bless through us. He wants to draw out of us certain
things. He wants to work through us. I think that when we have
that mindset, that mindset invades our life, and we are really at the
point of seeing untold resources at our hands. Even more than
riches, or finances, we can have everything that we need to
accomplish the very calling of God on our businesses, our

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companies, our family, or whatever spirit of influence God has

given us. God will increase it.

David
You know John, I know that we are going to talk later –– probably in
hour three –– we are going to get a little bit more into some of the
poverty mindset that we are finding today, in terms of controversy.
When you bring up wealth and you bring up Christianity in the
same sentence, you find you have a hornets’’ nest on your hands ––
different people’’s opinions and different people’’s ideas. So, we will
talk a little bit more (later) in terms of how all of this got into the
church. But, one of the things you bring out in the book and that
most of us have seen, that have begun to see wealth for what God
intends it to be is what you mentioned just now, it is not about self,
it’’s about building the Kingdom.

When we think about church leadership today, and the folks who
have been tasked with leading Gods’’ people, where do you see the
role of the leader in terms of, imparting wealth building principles,
or not imparting? In other words, is leadership really doing its job
in that arena today?

John
Let’’s look at leadership. All of us are involved in leadership in every
sphere. In fact, everyone listening has a sphere of leadership and
leadership has its basic element or foundational platform in
influencing, whether it is a father in his home influencing or it’’s a
high school kid influencing someone else. Leadership is really, as
John Maxwell mentions, ““Everything rises and falls in leadership.””
There has been organizational leadership training. We’’ve seen
successive leadership, family, business seminars, conferences, but
what I’’ve noticed is that, while we have a lot of leadership training,
there is a need for a ““leader shift.””

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We have got to kind of shift out of what we are producing. The

cookie is producing the same type of cookie, year after year. So, I
propose, in this book, that leadership has to shift out of this cookie
that is being reproduced, and really get at the forefront of leading
for the transference of wealth, to be able to lead in this area of the
business sector, being able to lead when it comes to the finances
and wealth, and to be able to equip members of the church to equip
business owners that are looking for financial spiritual oversight. It
is really a dimension of leadership that we have got to move
towards, even in bible schools and every level of training. We
cannot eliminate finances, because finances are a vital component
to the Christian being successful, the Church being successful, the
businessman who has morals and is looking to God, you cannot
eliminate finances from them.

David
You know, when you talk about the concept of being successful, I
think, again, we need to connect that for the folks that are listening
to the fact that, when we are talking about success, we’’re not talking
about measuring a bank account. We are talking about impacting
culture. You know, historically, we can look at revivals and every
time you see a true revival in history, culture has always been
changed by the spirit of God working through the people of God. So,
when we are talking about success today, and this comes up again
and again, I’’m sure, throughout these several hours of recordings
here, we’’re talking about impacting culture and making a real
transformational difference in the earth with the Kingdom of God.
Now John, when you dealt with the subject of the leader shift, you
got into the story of King David, who found himself, prior to being
actually placed on the throne of Israel, found himself, sort of
automatically, just placed in the role of leadership and he had a
group of people around him and he suddenly, somewhere along the
line, recognized his need to reproduce something in that group of
people. Can you tell us a little bit about what grabbed you about
that particular sequence of events of David’’s life?

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John
Yes, well, David’’s anointed. He’’s been declared the King of Israel,
but he finds himself a king without a country. He’’s a fugitive and he
finds himself before Achish, the King, the hometown of Goliath, and
as he flees from his presence, he is in Adullam’’s cave, and I kind of
look at that as a leader shift moment in his life. A moment of
transformation and transition, and he’’s there, he attracts a motley
crew of individuals. These are the outcast men and a list of things
there that caught my eye, looking at this through the lens of
finances, these men were in debt and debt is mentioned in that list
there. So these men were not fit for Saul’’s army, they were outcast,
they were in debt and they gathered themselves together and said,
““David, we’’re going to make you a King.”” I kind of looked at that
and said, ““Why? I don’’t know if I want to be... I mean I’’m already in
trouble; I’’m already fleeing for my life. I’’m not a king, and I don’’t
want to hear that.”” Here he is at a pivotal moment in his life with
what he has to deal with and the cards that have been dealt to him
don’’t look so favorable. You know, in twenty years of ministry, I
can say, many times the cards were not stacked in my favor and
God has placed me in situations that I didn’’t want to be in. That
really challenges who I am, it challenges the calling in my life. David
is challenged in that moment –– what is he going to do?

David goes through this process, of shifting his original, you know,
being king and how that process was going to come to pass. He was
now going to take these four hundred and fifty men, who really
become –– this is like the key of his life –– because these men become
the mighty men. Through these men he will inherit a kingdom.
Through these men he will defeat every king that rises up against
his God. But he had to bring these men through a process –– get
them out of debt, get them out of emotional discouragement and
remove the outcast mentality, victim mentality off of these men and
pour into them and be their leader, even if it was in a cave.

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When you are in early ministry, many times pastors will have a
greater vision when they have the finances or support to fund that
vision, and I used to pray early in ministry, ““Lord, bring me wealthy
individuals. If somebody would donate to me a large sum of money,
I could fill the call of God.”” I oversee compassion ministry. I just
don’’t preach this, I live this. I oversee a drug rehabilitation center,
we have outreach teams, we are compassion driven ministry, along
with doing the ministry of church.

At times, I would say, ““God, if I just had maybe ten or fifteen

wealthy individuals.”” Like David, God had challenged me that they
were in the church, they were there, and they were around me. I
remember saying one day to the Lord you know, prompting for the
Holy Spirit, ““Well Lord, where are they?”” He said, ““They are right
there.”” I said, ““These people don’’t. This is not what I define as
people with the type of resources for this vision.”” Just like the David
in my own life, it was there, it just needed to be developed. So, I feel
the Body of Christ needs to be developed in this area. The potential
is there but the ability needs to be developed.

Michael
Well, you know John, as I’’m listening to you, the picture I got in
this shift, as I see David in the cave of Adullam, and he has got these
distressed, indebted souls, and, it was in turning that around and
forging something out of that, that did everything that you said. It
made me wonder, what would happen if there were individuals in
Peru and Chile and in Poland and numerous countries you could
name, around the world that are fighting for their existence, what
would happen if in some of these places, a righteous man would rise
up and show them a way? ...first of all, to get out of poverty on the
inside?

I was in Jacksonville, Florida, and I was doing some work with a

client. I was on a very good retainer with them. At the end of the
first quarter, we set a goal of $100 million worth of new business

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that year. They were hoping in that year, if they could do what they
did in the previous year, they would consider that a major win. So,
to go from $75 million to a $100 million was a huge thing, and
seemingly impossible to them. At the end of the first quarter, two
weeks later, we were doing our review in the middle of April –– April
15th or so. As we did a review, our first quarter, we were slightly
ahead of goal, a little over $25 million the first quarter. It was going
wonderfully well. They were very, very happy with it.

The CEO asked me what I thought of the team I was working with,
the various teams at various locations, and I said, ““You know, they
are good people, but they’’re ‘‘B’’ level players, they’’re not ‘‘A’’ level
players.”” And he said, ““How long do you think it will take me to get
them to be ‘‘A’’ level players?”” I said, ““Well, really and truly, it will
take a couple years to get them up to ‘‘A,’’ I think, from where they’’re
at.”” So, to my surprise, he said, ““Well, you know then, I’’ll tell you
what I want to do. I’’m going to reorganize this group and I’’m going
to find other people who are already ‘‘A’’ players, and I’’m going bring
them in.””

He terminated our agreement, with saying... he wrote me this

wonderful letter, ““This is the best thing I’’ve ever had and this has
been terrific, and boy-o-boy... and, it was so good....”” But I was
stunned that my contract was terminated because it was doing so
well and he wanted to do better. He wanted to change the dynamics
and for the next little while, he didn’’t want to invest what he was
paying me –– to invest in these people that he decided he wasn’’t
going to keep.

I went back to my room that night and I was a little despondent and
I was thinking, God, I know there is something here, what is going
on? First of all, I knew in my spirit that my time was over and that I
needed to come to terms with that. As I was walking, apparently, it
was evident to a homeless man standing by the river; that I was
despondent, and he said, ““Hey, don’’t look so down””, or something

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like that to me, and I looked at him. As soon as I did, he asked if I

could spare a couple bucks for a hamburger.

Well, I didn’’t feel very charitable at that moment and I wasn’’t in the
best of moods. So, I said to the man, ““I’’ll do better than that, I’’m
hungry too let’’s go out for dinner. Where is the hamburger place?
Let’’s go eat.”” He looked at me quite surprised, and as it turned out,
it was about a mile and half away and it was dark. We started
walking through some pretty shady areas at night and, as we were
walking and talking, I realized I had left my wallet in my room on
purpose. I don’’t remember how much cash I had, either forty or
sixty bucks or something like that. Whatever the amount was, about
three quarters of the way there, I said, ““You know what,”” I don’’t
remember his name; we’’ll call him Chuck. I started talking about
God and salvation and those kinds of things and I said, ““Jesus
didn’’t come to take people out of poverty as much as he came to
take poverty out of people.”” He looked at me strangely. I said, ““Let
me say it again. Jesus didn’’t come so much to take people out of
poverty, as he came to take poverty out of people.”” I said, ““Here.”” I
gave him all the money I had. I said, ““Now you have money and I
don’’t. Do you still want to go for dinner and are you going to buy
me something?”” He said, ““Yeah.””

So we got to the Burger King, and actually I was surprised to see

the delight on his face when we walked up and ordered at a place he
must have gone to fairly often, but now he was buying dinner for
me. It did something to help his self esteem. It was a beautiful
thing and we shared about a little business he could do and other
things. He was in his fifties. It was a good encounter. Later, we
prayed and he prayed, hopefully a sincere prayer of salvation, and
then he would hug me and tell me repeatedly he loved me and he
thanked me and all those kind of things. It was a very moving
experience for me, because it was at that moment that I realized or
that I came to realize the concept, that the poverty that is in us is a
far bigger curse than the poverty that surrounds us.

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So, that was something that I wanted to deal with myself. I think a
leader has the ability or will say to people, it is not the externals,
because if you don’’t deal with the internal the external is going to
come back.

I’’ll give you another example. I was at a client’’s in some other state
up north, and my first moment when I went to this man’’s place of
business, I walked into his office, which was actually in his home,
and I was appalled at the absolute filth, the squalor that this man
lived in. Even though he had hundreds of thousands of dollars in a
bank account and a business, he was living in absolute squalor and
it was disgusting. It was so bad I didn’’t even know where to sit. The
first thing I said to him was, ““Can I be candid with you?”” He said,
““Well, I’’m paying you thousands of dollars and I certainly want you
to be.”” I said, ““There is no point in dealing with the external
confusion that you have all around you. We can bring order to it,
but, if we do, it is going to come back, because it is a reflection of
the chaos and the mess and the disorder that is on the inside of you.
Unless we deal with that, there is no point in dealing with the
outside.”” At that point, he agreed and went someplace. Later that
day, that man came to know Christ, and it was a wonderful,
wonderful thing as we did that.

So, when you talk about the Adullam and you talk about these
people, I don’’t know how much the scripture chronicles this, but it
seems to me, that at some point, these men that were in a Adullam
went from having this horrible poverty on the inside to being nation
builders. Do you have any clue as to how that happened?

John
Transformation. I think the Gospel, the Message, the Talmud, and
the Torah, is all about –– the Old Testament to the New Testament ––
it’’s really about transformation. It’’s about that process. I want to
just say, the Bible wants, desires, or, I’’d say commands it to be
fruitful, productive and to have multiplication. That is the charge
that God gave to Adam. That is a part of our dominion. That is a

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part of our responsibility. Fruit is a must. That is a parable that

counts. Fruit is a must.

You know, when I wrote this book, it wasn’’t about a quick fix. It
wasn’’t about pulling back a slot machine and inheriting some
heavenly blessing. It was about a process and a process is very
important. In fact, in culinary arts there are two things that are very
important to making food. It is the process and consistency. I love
those two things because food, in order to be a dish to be produced
or cooked the proper way, it has to go through a process. When you
take just maybe, one part of the process, it might not taste good. If
you just put the flour in and try to eat just flour, it is not going to be
a cake, but if you follow the process, take the product through the
process, the process is the same every single time, and it will
produce what is the goal, consistency.

When I visit a restaurant, time and time again, the dish I order is
consistent, it has a consistency. But, when you falter the process,
you spoil the product. This book is really about a process and the
bible is about a process, a process of transformation. I believe that
David took his men through a process, and David himself was in a
process, and Joseph was in a process. God lead Israel from Egypt
through the wilderness in order to establish a process to inherit the
promise land.

Many believers, nowadays, don’’t want the process, we just want the
product. I find that without the process, we spoil the product. When
we raise our children, it is a process. My marriage is in process. So,
this process of transformation, you’’ll see glimpses of it throughout
the scriptures and when you grab all those glimpses, all those
mentions of it, all those sightings of it and you combine them
together, you’’ll find out that’’s the real process of transformation.
What I see in the scripture, is a three step process.

There are three things that transformation has to have in order to

really produce the product that we need to produce. That is, it needs

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to have an exit. It is very important it has an exit. Then it goes

through this wonderful process. You know Israel needed to exit; it
needed to go and exit Egypt. They needed to go through the
wilderness. The wilderness was a needed part of the process. In
that part of their life they needed to detach themselves from what
was behind them, old mentalities and ideologies. They were in
process.

That is a dangerous place for many companies that are in process,

families that are in process, Christians that are in process. Many
times, the stretching of that wilderness experience and the process
of taking some old things away from us in order for new things to
come. Many times they will just stretch right back to the actual exit.
The third part of that process is the entrance. I think that is what
David did, he brought his men through an exit, brought them
through a process and then he brought them through the entrance
of a new frontier for them, a new place of leadership, a new
wineskin of how they see themselves.

Michael
Oh, you know, I’’m listening to you and what I hope is that people
will have a lot of ““Selah”” moments, and stop the CD player and they
will say, ““What did he just say? An exit, a process, and an entrance,
and how does that work in my life?”” One of the things I’’ve seen,
John, is that a lot of the wisdom of God, that is so important to us,
is not written in obvious places. In other words, you have to dig or
search, and it is a struggle to acquire that, that we gain the maturity
that we need to steward that knowledge. There is something that
happens in the straining, struggling and the searching and knocking
and seeking and the diligence going after. There is something that
happens to us, I believe, that forms us and is part of what you call
the process that shapes and changes us so that we can steward the
thing that we are going into.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

When you said of David... there was some mention here and
passages there, and what is not there is, ““OK here are the 7 steps
that David went through to get from this; or, here are the 8 things
that the guys in the Adullam went through.”” It is never like that.
You might remember in Proverbs 9, verse 1, it speaks about wisdom
and Solomon says, ““Wisdom hath hewn out her seven pillars.”” I was
fully expecting that verse 2 would begin to tell you what the seven
pillars of wisdom are, but it doesn’’t. It doesn’’t reveal it there, but it
is revealed in Scripture, very clearly, seven attributes of wisdom,
Godly wisdom that is from above, which, first of all, is pure and
peaceful and gentle and easy to be entreated. James, in 3:17, gives
us the seven pillars of wisdom. James, coincidently, is also called
the New Testament equivalent or counterpart, rather, of the book of
Proverbs.

And so there’’s this digging that we must do. And I think, for
example, the folks that are listening to this: I’’m hoping that you
won’’t just say, ““OK, now I’’ve got this,”” because you really don’’t. You
need to take what you are hearing today and do your own exit and
let God bring you through a process and find that place of entrance
that he has for you. You have to do your own digging and your own
searching, and say I just heard these men talk about this, but I need
to know how this works in my own life. What is my Egypt? What am
I exiting from and get clear on that?

There is a work –– a labor –– that I think we need to walk through and

we need to encourage folks to walk through. Because there is this
mentality in the Church, that either... You have one group that says
money is not good, so they want to stay away from it and they are
poor, other than doing fund raisers and asking some people to give.
The second part of that, it seems to me, is that you have a group
that are very eager to get resources, but they want to do it in a
somewhat magical, mystical way. They want to play the vending
machine. They want to take the hundred dollar offering and put it
in the divine vending machine in the sky and kick it until it gives
them a thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars, or whatever

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returns they think they are supposed to get on that. And I think that
even though the laws of giving and receiving are immutable, they’’re
there, they’’re factual, there is no denying that. But to use that as a
shortcut, as a way to, as if it is ““the way...,”” that God doesn’’t require
stewardship, and responsibility, and discipline, and management,
and maturity, and sonship and all those other things that need to
come to the fore –– that we can never have to develop that. ““If I can
just throw some money in a pot, I’’m going to get everything else
met.”” There are examples in many peoples lives, perhaps in your
life, where you have given in a point of need and a great deliverance
came, but what I’’ve seen, and I’’ve had that happen, but what I’’ve
seen in those times of giving, the vast majority, if not exclusively, I
think about it in my own life, what God has given to me has been
the capacity to obtain wealth. I never gave something and went out
to my car and found out that my steering wheel had turned to solid
gold, ““I think I’’ll go cash that in. I didn’’t find a suitcase full of cash
in my trunk. What happened many times for me was that there
would be favor, and opportunity, and a capacity to obtain wealth.
Does that make sense?

John
Absolutely! You know, when you talk about process, you mentioned
something that I think you will find in scripture. And we live, for the
most part; the church has produced many formulas. The formulas
are the four steps to this and the seven secrets to this. I have always
looked at formulas. You know I have two boys at home and formula
was always something that we provided for them when they were
babies. Then they had to get weaned off of formula. The scripture
supports this, that new babe’’s in Christ need to have the milk of the
Word.

Then the Hebrew writer comes along and says that there is a time
that we need to now be teachers and we should have been weaned
properly off of those formulas. So, Israel has a time in there that
God is providing everything and that wilderness generation. Yet,

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

when you get to the promise land, you have to till the ground, they
have got to work. No longer did they have manna. I find that there
are some hidden things and private things in the process that are
customized to every believer.

I can’’t give you my details of the process that God brought me

through, because it was customized to my life. So, the forty years on
the backside of the mountain for Moses were pretty customized to
his life. There is a gap there that he doesn’’t even write about. He’’s
the writer of the first five books of the Bible, but it doesn’’t explain
what happened to him. Paul enters into ministry, gives his life, met
Jesus, was knocked off of the horse, is blinded and goes to Agabus’’
house and has unbelievable success at ministry and he’’s gone into
the Arabian Desert for over fourteen years. We don’’t know what is
going on with him, yet he is in a process that is customized to his
specific issues and what God wants to deal with. Then he shows up
and you see him in his successful sphere of ministry.

Joseph is a dreamer, unbelievable potential in this man, but he

spends seven years in prison and the word of the Lord tries him and
he’’s in process. I kind of hesitate, even when I teach and when I
instruct, or consult businesses, I don’’t want to give them all of the
details of the process because it is kind of customized to their
organization, customized to their life. But, once you learn that
process, I don’’t know about you, but I’’ve got a couple of God’’s
processes that when I see them, I know what He is doing. When I
see them enter into the mixing bowl, others might not see it as a
mixing bowl. You know, the ““pit”” might be ““Preachers In Training””
for others it might be a place of ““Potential Individual Training.”” But
it is common to me. I know what the lions’’ den looks like. I know
what the fiery furnace looks like because God has brought me
through the process.

Then, I know I’’m in process and I know if I submit to His will, if I

learn the tools that He wants to give me, during that time, if I pick
up the dust off the ground and let it be a part of me during that

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

process, I’’ll be consistent in my exit, and when I get into my

entrance I’’ll learn some things that will keep me, sustain me on the
mountaintop. I say this all the time, I’’ve never learned anything on
the mountaintop; I’’ve always learned it in the valley. The principles
of the valley sustained me for success. People who don’’t have a
process, even if they are given untold riches, will find themselves
broke within a matter of years. That is a staff that is very consistent
with people who win the lottery, who did not have the capacity, who
have never been through a process, who cannot handle and do not
have the ability to handle that level of success. You know what; their
lifestyles will be brought down to their capacities?

David
Now, I’’m as a third party here, listening to the two of you guys talk
today about some of these various concepts and I can imagine,
already, the person listening and they’’re probably falling into some
categories here. As I’’m hearing you guys talk, I might see myself as
one of David’’s guys in debt, in a struggle, feeling like I’’ve lost my
purpose in life, and I’’m just wandering. You know, I’’m trying to
escape, as much as possible, from the mess that my life is in. I
might hear you guys and see myself as David, surrounded by and
leading, a bunch of people who appear to be worthless. You know.
They’’re in debt; this is a fact in the Kingdom of God today, in
Christianity, particularly here in the U.S. It is a fact that we are
dealing with enormous levels of consumer debt. We have folks who
have no freedom to pursue the purpose of God for their life, because
they are so weighted down by their financial situation.

We have also probably got some other folks who are saying ““You
know, I’’m somewhere in the process you’’re talking about. I’’m being
stretched. I’’m seeing myself in transition, in this ‘‘leader shift’’
process to bring transformation to people.”” So, there is probably a
group of different folks that are hearing all of this and I just want to,
as we are starting to wind down this first hour, get into an area of
this for the sake of those that are hearing. What is it that God wants

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to do with respect to wealth, because we see it in every covenant in

scripture? There’’s always abundance; there’’s always... we have
already said today that the scripture mandates fruitfulness. We’’ve
talked about the selfishness that is so entrenched in the lot of the
prosperity thinking out there.

But let’’s talk about selfishness from another angle here. What about
the person that says, ““Wealth building, that’’s okay for somebody
else, but all I need for me is just to get by. In other words I just need
to pay my bills and not be a burden to anybody and maybe tithe to
my congregation, and then just exist in that state, and that is really
what I’’m aiming for. If I can get these bills paid off, this credit card
bill down, or whatever else, then I’’ll just pay for myself, my family
and you know.””

Michael
There’’s an awful lot of that. I see that, David, and from my
perspective, when I hear that, we get that sometimes on our blog, is
people want to live on a bagel, an apple and sleep in the back of a
VW van or something. What they are thinking about, ““As long as
I’’m covered. As long as my tail is covered and I’’ve got something
over me and I’’ve got my food, that’’s all I need and that’’s all I’’m
worried about.”” To me, we have a whole culture, whole
environment, whole setting, there is a whole extended group of
people in relationships that we are meant to touch and impact.
Some of that takes finances, as John pointed out. I realize that you
can impact people in many ways and you don’’t have to have money
to do this.

But, when you are only looking after yourself, then you are
automatically, by extension, not taking care of other people. And we
are commanded to have, if you will, a ministry –– as John Muratori
has –– of compassion and outreach. You are cutting off other people.
I think that’’s a mistake and somewhat of a travesty. One of the
things that, John , you say in your book that I love, the topic is, you

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

use the term ““war chest”” talking about finances. And yet we are
very comfortable, most of us. I want to have enough food to eat and
we don’’t have a problem believing for food and all those kinds of
things, but having a war chest of finances, sometimes seems carnal.
When, in fact, we are comfortable having food, we are comfortable
having shelter, but a war chest to actually wage war in the
marketplace, is a concept that is foreign to people. And I think when
they think of only themselves, by default, really at the epitome of
selfishness and probably there is an underlying fear. What do you
think of that John?

John
Absolutely. I believe it limits God and we don’’t reach our potential.
Whenever we limit God and we say to God that I’’m only concerned
about myself. I just want enough to eat. I just want enough to take
care of my family. This is what Elijah faced when he went to the
widow, and she said, ““Listen, I only have enough food for me, and
my son.”” She was saying ““I’’m concerned about me.”” And I find that
that philosophy –– that mentality –– always causes frustration.
Christianity, for these individuals, that mindset will always be
frustrating because God is trying to work and bring us through a
greater potential. He’’s trying to not limit. He’’s trying to see us in
an unlimited lifestyle. And we get frustrated. We get frustrated,
then, with certain messages. We get frustrated with the pastor. We
get... ““Why do we need a bigger building? Why do we need to do
this?”” It also produces stagnation. When we fail to move forward ––
when we fail to carry the mandate –– and we fail to be productive in
our life and grow every aspect: soulishly, civically, spiritually,
financially, we’’ll reach a level of stagnation. And that always opens
the door to disorder. It always takes us out of alignment. It
alienates us. It brings us into a place of separation.

This is not God’’s plan. This is not God’’s plan. Our experience
cannot just begin and end with ““me.”” If I’’m going to reach my
potential, I have to recognize that part of my potential is connected

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

to other individuals. It’’s connected to God flowing through me.

You know, the transformation of the first miracle of water into wine
didn’’t take place –– if you read the scriptures –– it was always water
and it will always be water while it stays in the flesh pots, those
pots. The transformation took place, the scripture says, as the
disciples drew the water out. And so it is, that’’s almost a sign for
the believer that I have great capacity, I am filled with the Holy
Spirit, but that won’’t be activated until it’’s drawn out of me... until I
begin to see these trading places. Instead of being a taker, I become
a giver. Instead of wanting to be served, I become a server. And
that transformation happens, and it opens up a whole new world.
For those of us that have experienced that, man, I tell you... If I was
the disciples, I would’’ve been telling people, ““Drink. I gotta get... I
want to go back.”” And if somebody said to me, ““I’’m already full; I
don’’t want any more...”” I’’d be, ““No no, listen, you’’re going to drink,
because I want to go back, because I want to see this miracle of
transformation. So you keep drinking because I want to get back to
those flesh pots. I want to dip my cup into that water, pull it out,
and see the transformation of water into wine.””

And that’’s really what... you know; I don’’t want to limit God. And I
don’’t want to have a frustrating walk with God. I’’ve been serving
God for many, many years. I’’ve been in ministry 20 years. In
2008, it will be my 20th year of ministry. I’’m more passionate today
about God, about the Word of God, about the Kingdom of God than
I was when I got saved. I’’m more in love with Jesus today. I don’’t
have past miracles I’’m going after. I don’’t have past testimonies. I
see a future in front of me that is just full of productivity. I don’’t
want to be stagnated, I don’’t want to be alienated, I don’’t want to be
separated. I want God to draw out of me as much as possible.

Michael
You know, you speak about that in terms of the Spirit and the water
into wine and I thing that’’s fabulous and it’’s very insightful. But,
John, let’’s put it in a more physical context for just a second if I can

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

–– or another context, and that is money. Greenbacks. Paper cash.

Federal Reserve Notes. Even if it is a fiat currency, it’’s what we use
right now. To take that wad of money and to transform it into... it
could be a meal, it could be a drug rehabilitation center, it could be
an outreach to the homeless, it could be something that funds the
spread of the Gospel. In other words, there’’s a... when we take it
out, and we draw it out, we can actually transform it... take those
pictures of dead Presidents that we call money and transform it into
something that actually transforms the culture. If that’’s true –– and
it is –– then I want to a lot of it so we can do it.

John
Absolutely. If we want double anointings and God to use us, then
we should want double the resources and we should want to see
God flow through us and put the resources in our hands that we
can, ““...sow to every good work.”” I’’m in absolute agreement. Watch
the multiplication take place –– not the addition, but the
multiplication take place. And God’’s faithful. This is just an area
that God is absolutely faithful in.

Michael
Well one thing I want –– as we draw down on this –– and there are
some things I want to carry over into our next session because there
are some things you said about process and the role of suffering
that I want to talk about. And we’’ll have to get into that in the next
segment. But, just to be clear, from your perspective, do you think
that God is wanting –– that it’’s His plan –– that everybody (or every
believer) be rich? That’’s a question. That’’s thrown at us all the
time. You know, my perspective is that it has everything to do with
what your calling is. If I’’m a Bible translator for Wycliffe in the
Amazonian rainforest, my needs are entirely different than
somebody here, quite possibly, in terms of what we are called to do.
And so, I want to know what your perspective is, because that it is
certainly something that we will hear.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

John
Yeah. Wealth and riches are relevant to your calling, to your
situation. And true principles have got to be transferable to any
nation, any situation. God has made available in money, actual
money, is inclusive in His covenant to provide for us the things that
we need to be successful. I think as we continue to grow in our
ability... and I don’’t want to dance around this issue. There is made
available for us everything that we need to be successful. And also,
to be wealthy. I was in South Africa a few years ago. When you go
to Third World countries, sometimes they look at you and desire,
““Can you write me a check? Can you put resources in my hands?””
It was important for them to change their mindset –– that God
wanted to work through them. That God had creative ideas, that
God had innovative ways for them to begin to create the resources
that they need to fulfill ministry at the level that He’’s called them to
do this. So, I think that God does make available for us everything
that we need to fulfill His calling.

David
You know, as we’’re winding this down, and I want to just bring this
last final thought out in Deuteronomy 8:18 because this is a
foundational scripture that we’’re going to come back to any number
of times... God said to His people in Deuteronomy 8, ““...that you
would remember the Lord your God for it is He that gives you
power to get wealth so that He may establish His covenant which
He swore unto your fathers.”” And so, as we’’re talking about all of
this... concepts of wealth and improving your life condition, it’’s not
just for ““self.”” It’’s not just so that you can have a bigger bank
account. And it’’s not just so that you can say, ““Well, I’’m going to
pay for my own situation.”” But instead, God is doing something
bigger... and this is what we’’re all saying here as we’’re winding this
down, this hour. God is doing something bigger in the earth and in
this coming hour we’’re going to get into the subject of why the
wicked prosper, and why the Kingdom of Heaven, in current,
modern-day times, seems to be behind the 8 ball where that’’s

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour One

concerned. Why is it that the wicked seem to be prospering? And,

when it comes to the culture, the Christians seem to have little
impact. And what is it that God wants to do about that? And as
we’’re winding this down, it seems clear that God’’s desire is to bring
His people to a level of influence in the earth so that we can take our
war chest and impact the culture. So, gentlemen, thank you for
what we’’ve covered in this first hour. I think it’’s a just a tiny
foretaste of what’’s to come in these coming discussions.

If you’’re listening to this, we want you to stay tuned. Make sure you
jump into this next hour for some really juicy stuff on what God is
doing in the culture today.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Two

Hour Two –– Why Do the Wicked Prosper? –– 7 Gates Intro

David
Welcome to Hour 2 of Christian Wealth Building, a candid look at
Rich Church, Poor Church with John Lewis Muratori, who is the
author of the book Rich Church, Poor Church, and Michael Q. Pink.
Now, in the first hour we dealt with some of the why we got into the
subject of leadership. In this hour, we are going to get into the
subject of why the wicked seem to be prospering and what does the
scripture have to say about that.

Now Michael, before we go down that road, just as we were winding

up Hour 1, the subject of the process seemed to be on your mind. I
know you wanted to explore that a little bit further here.

Michael
John, you said there were three things in transformation. There
was an exit that we are leaving behind, that we are stepping out of.
There was a process, a preparation it seems. Then there is an
entrance. Most people listening to this have come to a place in their
life at one time or another and maybe they are there right now
where they are eager to make an exit. They are eager also to make
an entrance. It’’s the process. It’’s the process that scares them. It’’s
the process that scares us all. It is something that we don’’t want to
go through. It is something we would rather have now.

I heard Dennis Peacocke say, ““The devil said I could have it now, I
want it now.”” We don’’t want to go through the process, yet there is
so much that is formed in the process. I wanted to get your take on
this a little bit. I wanted to know more about what the process
entails, knowing that it is a customizable thing that my process and
your process will be different. There will be some common
element. There is a purpose in the process. I have theories on that,
but I would really like to hear you elaborate a little bit more on the
process. What is the purpose of the process? Are there any
common aspects of the process that many people might expect or
reasonably anticipate to go through?

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Two

John
I would like to say first, that the direction that we have gone and the
looking at embracing this process, these things aren’’t even read in
Rich Church, Poor Church. When I am brought in as a consultant
for a company, I most of the time come in as a strategic planner. I
am helping a company go through transition. We, really discussing
this, have added a benefit for the listener of this series, because,
again, we are actually discussing some things that are not a part of
this book. That is the beauty of this synergy between us.

So, when we look at a transition and we look at the process, I find a

couple of things that are very important. Because we are in a now
generation, most people sell the deal with the subject of transition.
I would say 99% of the time people want experienced change. Our
culture provokes and glorifies change as almost the answer, I would
say, to life’’s problems. If you’’ve got an unhappy marriage, our
culture says, well, just change. Get a divorce, have an affair, cheat.
We have #1 shows on television like Desperate Housewives or Wife
Swap. If I’’m unhappy with the job, all I need to do is change my job
and quit. Unhappy with life, change your surroundings. Unhappy
with my spiritual walk, change churches, change gods. So, as a
culture, I find that people seldom ever deal with the subject of
transition. They confuse change with transition.

I grew up in an inner city. My parents did not have money. Twice a

year my mother would rearrange the furniture. I would come home
from school and I would walk into the house, nearly bump into the
couch because now the couch is in a different place. The kitchen
refrigerator was on the other side of the kitchen. For a week, I
thought I was in a new home because all the furniture was
rearranged. Now, we didn’’t change our surroundings. We were
still in the city. We still had the same amount of resources. We
were still in the same house, yet, for a small period of time, a short
duration of time, it felt like we transitioned, but really all we did
was change.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Two

Most people who want to have transition don’’t go through the

whole process. They just experience a short term change.
Transition is not situational. Change is situational. Transition is
psychological. It is not the events, but it is the relearning. It’’s the
transition of disorientating me to what I have become familiar with,
certain philosophies, ideologies, and then reorienting me with a
turning point in my life to a new way of thinking. The Bible is all
about transition, not about change. 2 Corinthians 4:16 is just a
simple scripture verse and here it says, ““The inward man is renewed
day by day.”” We are told to pull down a strong hold. This is what
the gospel is for. Ephesians 4:23 says, ““Be ye renewed in the spirit
of your mind.”” Colossians 3:10 says, ““Put on the new may which is
renewed in the knowledge after the image of him that created him.””
I find transition in my life and have to start with a new mindset.

When God is bringing me through the process, the #1 thing he is

after is getting out some old philosophies and ideologies and
implementing some new……a paradigm shift. He is trying to bring
me a way of thinking that I have not yet been accustomed to. Paul
really focuses on this even writing to the Corinthian church. He
looks at three areas of human development. He says, when I was a
child I spoke. This word, in original Greek, speaks about
communicable skills and that is something we need to always learn.
He says, when I was a child I communicated like a child. I
understood. This word talks about comprehension, talks about
intellect, knowledge and how do we process things. Children don’’t
process things the same way an adult does.

When my kids recognized the power of the credit card, we went

shopping one day and they said, ““Dad can you buy me this?”” I said
I don’’t have the money for that. They said, ““Well, just charge it.””
They didn’’t understand that I still have to pay for that. The charge
card is not some god connected to some stream of wealth; I have to
pay for that.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Two

The last thing he spoke about is, I thought as a child. It speaks

about the powers of judgment, the powers of reason. It deals with
logic. God is really trying to bring us through a process to change
those things. He is bringing us through a process to transition us
out of. Now the result of transition is obviously; things do change;
but we can’’t glorify change, we have to follow the process of
transition.

Michael
Okay. Let me ask you this question that comes up. It has to do in
the transition stage, but it deals an awful lot with the wealth
subject. There are an awful lot of people that seem to endlessly
celebrate the virtual of suffering. Because it is true, it seems to me;
in a crucible of suffering many golden valuable lessons are learned.
It is not like there is not something to it. Would you say that
suffering, in someway, is part of our process? When we go into this
process, we are exiting from something, there is something that has
to be broken or I’’m not quite sure the right word for it. There is
something that happens in suffering, there is a place for it. I think
that place might be because we have some growing to do. So I am
trying to get your figuring, your sense, as to what part will, if any,
suffering play in the life of a growing Christian who is also wanting
to be a wealthy Christian and do the kinds of things that we are
going to talk about.

John
I believe that it is a vital component. When I look at suffering, I
look at it within the wineskin of trial and tribulation. Something
that James tells us is that we are to joy in trial and tribulation.
Most people don’’t joy in it. James recognized that on the other end
of that suffering. This word tribulation talks about it as a
tumultuous tornado that comes upon your life. You are in a time of
tribulating circumstances. He said; Count it all joy because it is
going to bring about some things that in no other way can it come
about. The scriptures are clear that it rains upon the just and the
unjust. Job said, ““The Lord giveth and taketh away.”” We are going
to have to face giants and we are going to have to go through things.

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Paul said, ““I know how to be abased.”” He knows how to have

wanted. He has been at places where he has been so hungry he
didn’’t know where to turn. He also knows how to abound. He has
had times in his life where he was completely full. The believer, I
find sometimes, tends to glorify suffering as if God is receiving
some glory and that he takes pleasure in the suffering of his
children. I have two boys at home. I don’’t take pleasure in their
suffering, but I do understand that they are going to go through
some level of trial and tribulation. I have to let them go through the
process. It is going to bring them to a place of maturity.

Michael
I think this is an area where folks need to come to an understanding
that suffering is a part of the world. Jesus said, ““In this world (this
is one of the least-quoted promises in scripture), but in this world
you will have tribulation.”” It’’s not on anybody’’s refrigerator that I
know of. There is a part of that there and I know that, as much as I
don’’t like it, that my greatest growth has come from my greatest
challenges and the greatest struggles and the greatest suffering.

My first born child, Jennifer Lynn, was born with Down Syndrome.
That was not something that I had put on my wish list. If fact, it
was something that I feared. It was the only thing that I knew of
that I feared greatly. It came upon me. It happened. When it
occurred, I realized that I spent some time before the Lord with my
infant daughter, laying on the floor, and me looking at her and
praying over her and asking God to teach me. He showed me that
there was this big backhoe, if you will, that was digging up this hole
in me and it was filling up with water. It could be a reservoir. It
could be something that was good to help people or it could become
bitter; but, for me, it was going to become something else.

I knew that I had an opportunity here to get wisdom beyond my

years. I was going to learn things in this struggle that I would never
learn otherwise. I wouldn’’t have chosen it. I wouldn’’t have signed

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up for it, but there I was in the midst of it. And because I was
already there and because I was already paying the price, I might as
well get the benefit. How silly is it to pay $1000 to go to a seminar
and spend the whole time on your cell phone, for example. So, why
would I want to go through a much more painful process of hurt
and disappointment and all those things that can be part of this
without gleaning what is possible?

As it turned out, of course, my daughter was this most wonderful

human being that I have embraced more than I think I would have
any other child. In fact, I remember saying: most people I know get
stuck with normal kids. We have an opportunity here to get
incredible wisdom, incredible for such young people. There was so
much opportunity there. It really helped me. That was an example.
That is not the worst example or the hardest one, but it was one
where there was some real trial in my life. We lost her after 18
months, buried her just 2 or 3 days before Christmas back in 1979.
That was a very painful thing for me.

I had one pastor friend of mine say that faith is the ability to live
with unanswered questions. I really got a lot of help on that. There
are certain things that I don’’t understand, that I don’’t anticipate. I
don’’t feel like I have to know the answers to everything in this
world. I am afraid of people who do, that think that they do. I
think there is so much for us to learn. There are some things that I
learned that this happened. I don’’t get it. It might not have lined
up with what I believed. But nonetheless, it is happening. In this
process I am going to grow. I am going to get something good from
it.

To grow, I have been through struggles in the financial route, where

losing hundreds of thousands of dollars as a young man and being
led from my head and learning all kinds of things that I didn’’t
intend to learn. I read and believed in; I had a lot of expectations of
how things were going to turn out. I am talking how more of a
quarter of a century ago and invested in some things and efforts

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that absolutely sunk me financially. There were certain things that

I didn’’t know.

But it was in that process, in the pain of all of that, when as a young
man I am hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and my partners
are individually filing for bankruptcy, and I am thinking, ““Why
would you do that? Why would you file for the bankruptcy?”” I
know you are getting free from the bank thing, but for me it
was……first of all, when they did that I would inherit their share,
because we were signed joint and several with the bank. For me,
what I said to them was, right now the amount was $232,000. This
is a $232,000 seminar. I will be danged if I’’m not going to learn
something from this. I am going to get something, I will learn
more going through this fire and going through this suffering and
going through this pain which a lot of it, I am not ashamed to say,
was of my own doing.

In other words, I made some foolish mistakes and choices and all
that. That’’s fine, but I sure wasn’’t going to go through that and go
through the pain of that without going through the process. The
process instead of learning how to hunker down or find an exit from
it is to come through the other end. I said to my partners, I said if
you file bankruptcy right now that would alleviate the pressure on
you. By the way it adds a lot more to me. You won’’t learn from
this. You will find yourself back in this situation again and again
and again. I don’’t intend to make this mistake again. I tend to
learn everything I can from it.

Therefore, I am going to walk through this process which involves a

whole lot of humility, a whole lot of hard work, a whole lot of
rethinking what I thought I knew, the things that I know. I know
this, but I didn’’t. I begin to walk with a limp. My hip has been put
out of joint. My leg had been broken if you will. I began to get a
hold of things in this process so that the one thing that I would not
go that way again. I said to them, you know one day I am going to
be on the other side of this. This will be behind me. And when I do

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get it, when I do succeed, I am not going to make these mistakes

again. I won’’t be where you are at. I won’’t be repeating the process
of losing it, losing it, losing it. God willing, I certainly won’’t make
those mistakes again. To me that is part of the process. That
process involves suffering. Have you ever had anything like that in
your life?

John
Yes, absolutely. What you are saying here is very important for
listeners to grab a hold of or wrap their arms around it. I would say
that I can almost (hearing that story) say that probably your
business philosophy, again also your Christian philosophy was
shaken during that time. It was via the character and morals and
value and integrity was really forged into who you are today. That
time was a time that absolutely forged something in you that really
could never have been forged any other way. In fact, your ministry
probably in some ways while we know Jesus is the rock and we
stand on Him. In many ways these areas of our lives, these things
that God brings us through, are stepping stones for us that we are
able to stand on…… from here fulfill our callings.

Likewise, I have had many circumstances. I have been in business

deals with individuals that I thought were believers. I warned this
in the book about making sure that you are really asking the
questions that nobody wants to ask. You just don’’t do business on a
handshake because somebody has a name sake of Christ on them.
You look beyond what would be fickle and beyond the surface and
make sure you are building with somebody with the same
philosophy, somebody who has been shaped, some body who has
been molded. If there has been no process and there has been no
molding, they have not been in the fiery furnace, then I usually have
the hesitance. I am usually a little stand offish of what I want to get
involved in. To keep my name and when I vow a vow I want to
make sure when I give my word.

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Now days, me and my family, me and my wife, we are very hesitant

to give our word to something. We know our word is our bond and
we are going to commit ourselves to that. So we don’’t just say we’’re
going to pray for you. We are not just going to say it. If we say it we
know that all of what we stand on is to make sure that those words
come to fulfillment. If we have to stand, and I have lost literally
thousands of dollars because I have committed to something and
knew that God was requiring for me to fulfill the very commitments.

David
You know, as I am listening to all of what is being said and we are
talking about process, the analogy of Israel making their departure
from Egypt and then progressing to the Promise Land is one that
lends itself beautifully to this subject. They were certainly in
transition. They were being shaken from a slave mentality and
God’’s goal for them at that time was to turn them into the
possessors of the Promise Land rather than the inhabitance of the
slave’’s quarters in Egypt. Through that transition process, which
one generation of them was unwilling to engage, they experienced
some real suffering as a result.

I think one of the things that are coming out of this as well is this
idea that transition is a high risk adventure. If it is not navigated
with a real heart of openness towards God that there are many
opportunities to get off of God’’s path for us in times of transition.
God is doing this in the Body of Christ right now. The Church as a
whole, you gentlemen jump in, we are in a process of transition
right now because God is taking us from a generation of folks who
have traded away our influence in the culture and our impact on the
earth. He is transitioning us into a generation of folks who will say,
we want to engage the Kingdom of God in the earth in a way the
causes our culture to not just be impacted a little bit. But to
absolutely be transformed by the kingdom of God and by the power
of God, by the influence that we bring to bear.

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This is part of what God is doing even through this series, Christian
Wealth Building. It is about bringing about a group of people who
are willing to engage the culture. With the permission of both of
you, let’’s transition into that subject a little bit and talk about the
culture. John, you bring up an interesting version of the Golden
Rule in the book. You talk about the fact that the real Golden Rule
in terms of reality is: he who has the gold makes the rules. Can you
talk to us a little bit about that in this context of the culture?

John
Money is a tool. It is a resource and in the hands of good it could be
used to propagate to expand things that are good. In the hands of
wicked or in the hands of immoral it simultaneously can be used to
propagate wickedness, things that are unrighteous and things that
are not in line with the word of God. I recognize that the golden
rule is a very simple rule, but it is key. He who has the gold makes
the rules. How important it is for the believer to understand that.
By not taking what is on the table, by not accessing God, for Him to
flow through us and for him to access the wealth of the Kingdom of
God as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God to be on this earth, to
be an ambassador, to do business for the Kingdom of God, to make
sure that God’’s voice is heard from the streets of the palace, to the
places where wisdom is taught……if we are not there to share as a
representation of God, then we are allowing the wicked to rule.

We are also allowing those who possess wealth and listen, we

shouldn’’t shy away from this notion, but people who are wealthy
are trying to shape the life in which they live in. They are trying to
shape their own life and they are trying to shape the life around
them. From the Trump’’s to the wealthiest actors in Hollywood, we
see more and more in our generation of them using their wealth to
sway the culture. The Church needs to use its wealth, not to build
big buildings and have very expensive stained glass windows and
have a community within a community but to impact a community
and to use this wealth that God desires to put in our hands to have
the message of the Kingdom of God explode upon a community.

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Michael
I think, John, when the Church gets a hold of this idea, when they
free themselves from the shackles of self-imposed poverty mindset,
when they find out that a prayer life and the power of prayer and
financial power are not mutually exclusive. If in fact, one can
leverage the other. A strong prayer life can give great leverage to
financial means that a person has. We see a lot in the Church that
people will quickly point out people that were poor that made a
difference. I don’’t know who they would be off the top of my head,
but I have the names going now and I won’’t name them. There are
folks that would say, hey you know what, they have done some
things and they were known for their charity or they were known
for the sacrifice or they were known for whatever and maybe a great
prayer life.

Take a look at the way the United States became a Nation. We were
not dealing with at that time, the people that won the independence
from the slavish mentality that was there from the King of England
in terms of how the colonies and the people there were to be
controlled. People that won that freedom, what they didn’’t do was
merely gather together in secret and pray and bind the spirit of the
red coat, for example. They didn’’t do it that way. They may have
prayed like that but then when they finished their prayer meetings,
they got up and they got dressed and they got weapons and they
made sure their coats really did turn red. That is how it was done.

This was a battle. It was ugly. Throughout history, we see warfare.

There were physical things that had to be done. And there were
godly people that said, we are going to resist here and we are going
to rise up against it. The preachers, they called it the black
regiment, came from Scotland. A lot of Scottish preachers came
over because they were really continuing the war that they lost over
in Britain in the 1700s when they were brought under tremendous
subjugation by the English. They came over to America and they
preached the fiery storm. They gave the people a very strong

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theological basis to give legs to their prayers and to give them some
actionable items. I think that is an important thing.

In Christianity, we have to have; it’’s not a mutually exclusive thing.

We can be not only prayer warriors; I hope that we are that, we
don’’t ever substitute anything for that. But at the same time, we are
not simply trying to have these prayers like we bind the devil from
ever affecting our culture again. That is just not going to happen.
Tell the devil to leave America alone. That is just not going to
happen like that. We need to take our prayer and our revelation
and turn that into something that is actionable. Instead of being
afraid of finances, to actually step into those things and use those
finances to change the culture. I want to know why this is an age
old question? David asked it. I’’ve asked it. You’’ve asked it. Tell us
why do the wicked prosper?

John
Well that is a question. It is an age old question. It is the number
one question that has been asked in the open sessions when I
lecture and teach on wealth and finances, is why do the wicked
prosper. Everyone has asked it. Why do the wicked prosper?
Jeremiah asked it. He says, ““Why does the way of the wicked
prosper? David asked it. The Psalm 73 asked it. He said I was
envious of the foolish, my feet almost slipped. I almost back slid
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. In fact the Psalm 94 said,
““How long will the wicked prosper?””

There are three reasons that I have seen in scripture, three reasons
of why the wicked prosper. The first one is the Golden Rule. They
prosper because they are captivating and grabbing a hold of the
wealth of our society, the wealth of our nation. Let me just say this.
There is a mystical aspect. There is a spiritual aspect. And there is
also an earthly aspect to spiritual warfare. Unfortunately, most of
the time the Church only enters into the two, the mystical and the
spiritual. We become so heavenly minded, we actually minded, we

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actually become no earthly good. We used to do prayer walks and

pray. Finally I got to a point; I got so tired of praying over a drug
infested building. I said I’’m just going to buy it.

The fastest way to transform a community, not just to pray over a

street, not just to but to begin to possess the land. It takes other
resources to do that. I submit to you. One of the best ways to
change your city is to buy the city. If we don’’t like what is
happening to the theatre up the road because they won’’t play
Facing the Giants and movies that are wholesome for families, but
yet they will consistently attack Jesus. They will consistently attack
the Gospel with such movies as Broke Back Mountain and the
DaVinci Code. Then why don’’t we buy the theatre and control what
is being ministered and taught to the minds of our society? If we
are going to be gate keepers and we are going to be pastors of our
community and then let’’s begin to possess the community.

Put down the picket lines and begin to buy the very things that are
in front of us in order to transform that community. There is
something about owning land. I am absolutely adamant that
Christians need to be home owners. There is a deed that happens.
The wicked prosper because one of the reasons is because the
wicked are supporting the ongoing expansion of immorality. The
ongoing expansion, I’’ll say it again, of immorality. I give just a
glimpse of that within the book. There wouldn’’t be enough room to
write down the amount of money in the war chest of the enemy of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the enemy of our soul.

I believe the porn industry brings in $200 billion a year. Heroin,

American users spend $77 billion a year, $22 billion on heroin, and
$77 billion on cocaine. The government has a ‘‘Just Say No’’
program. The total drug business is $400 billion a year. All these
things are happening. So the Golden Rule, he who has the gold,
makes the rules, in this money is being a mass for the propagation
of the continual perpetuating and mind altering society that is
impacting our kids. Our young kids are prayed upon by the porn

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industry. Just driving down the road and seeing the bulletin
boards, you have to shut down the shades and close it because we
don’’t want our kids to see it.

When is the Church going to use its resources, grab the axe of
finance and begin to cut down some of these things? Our society
wants us to be broke. There is a social movement that is happening,
a cultural movement that really doesn’’t want the Church to hear
this. There are forces that are working right now against hearing
this message of Christians having resources. It is probably one of
the most threatening things for the leftist movement right now is
wealthy, wealthy Christians. They understand that wealth is power.
They understand that when it is used for good it can change a
culture. This is why we see so many Dateline specials and CNN
specials and Time magazine had an article out last year, with a Rolls
Royce on the cover, and ““Does God want you to be Wealthy?”” In
the article, it explained that shouldn’’t we follow the example of
Jesus that didn’’t have a place to lay down his head. They are telling
us that we should not have resources, so in many ways our culture
thinks the best Christian is a broke Christian who is enslaved with
debt and poverty, who cannot change the world around them.

Michael
That is a pretty desperate thing when the culture who hates God
starts quoting scriptures, trying to teach us and instruct us in a way
they must as a culture. There is a spiritual mindset behind it. They
must be doing everything possible to limit, to have Christians not
wake up and grab a hold of resources. There has to be a fear behind
that. It makes me think that we are about to see a shift take place.

It reminds me back in the early part of the 20th century, Margaret

Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood; her goals were not
good of course. In fact, she was a big student and fan of Adolph
Hitler and enjoyed a lot of his views on ethnic cleansing. One of the
things that was driving her for abortion wasn’’t a matter of

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convenience as much as it was as a means of keeping the poor

people, especially racially different from her, keeping them from
reproducing. She would go into black communities and try to find
pastors that would start preaching. She went down to Mississippi
and other places and started finding some and selling them a bill of
goods, so the pastors would begin somehow getting on that band
wagon with her to lift them out of poverty so to speak. When in
fact, it was the whole point of it was to keep them from reproducing
and being, in her mind, blight on society.

Thirty million later here in America abortions later, it is a horrible,

horrible thing. People don’’t know the roots of it. She was
incredibly racially hateful in her writings. If you could put that on a
billboard that would scare an awful lot of people, some of the things
she has said in her writings. Dr. George Grant did an excellent
writing on The Foundation of Planned Parenthood. What we see
there on that issue, is that you have somebody, ultimately a
movement that tries to find a way to get the Church involved.

Now the Church has come around from that and they are not on
board with that message. There was a time when they thought this
was a good thing. Fortunately, they don’’t. I think and I am hoping
there is this ground swell that is beginning to happen where
Christians are realizing; now wait a minute, this financial thing isn’’t
about as you said earlier, a faster car, a nicer car, a bigger house or
stuff for ourselves, but this is a means for us to build the war chest
and actually buy that billboard. There are things that I have wanted
to put on billboards that I am certain that the billboard companies
would not allow me to do. It would be nice to actually own the
blinking billboard and put up a righteous message.

I remember in Nashville, where I lived for a number of years, it was

considered, statistically they had done their study based on the flow
of pornographic materials and so forth, Nashville had more of that
per capita than any other city. I think New York City might have
trumped it. In itself, it was number one. I wanted to put a billboard

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up that said, ““Welcome to Nashville, the porno capital of the south.””

The point of that was to embarrass. They say wait a minute, if this
is what we are, we have to change this. I was thinking about the
resources it would take to wake up a city, wake up a population and
that took money. There are people that have been praying and
marching and praying. That hasn’’t done it.

Finally, you get somebody like Gideon who gets up one night and he
knocks the altar over. The baal, he pulls that thing over. They get
somebody who finally reaches down and finds the stuff to get up
and take action. What I love about you, if you are a pastor of a
church and that is a major thing, but you have so many other
business accomplishments and reaching into the culture with drug
rehabbing, compassion and buying up properties. You are just
expanding in so many ways.

I wrote a friend of mine yesterday. I said you remind me of

Abraham Kuyper. He was a Dutchman in the late 1800s who
became the leader of a political party and ultimately became the
leader of a country. He was a businessman, a preacher, a
theologian. He had a whole lot of these things piled together
because he saw them all fitting together. It wasn’’t like you had to
live one apart from the other. I see you doing a similar thing. I
want to see everybody that is listening to what we are talking about
right now start to get a vision for actually acquiring resources and
go in. If all you can do is think about it for your own self, your own
second home on the lake, then you have missed the point.

If you can see this as a means, a deliberate conscious means of

actually building a war chest and winning that back the culture and
buying up the neighborhood literally. That is a profoundly
important concept to buy up the forms of media. What if, as I have
often said, what if Christians owned CBS News? It is quite possible
Dan Rather might have been looking for a job a little bit sooner
than he was. What if Christians owned CNN or Fox News, the
supposed conservative news network I don’’t find it that terribly

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conservative myself. Oh, do you know, John, in 1850 the New York
Times called abortion ““child killing.”” Child killing! That was in the
1850s when the New York Times was owned by Evangelical
Christians. It has changed hands now. But what if some people
have a…… it takes money and it takes millions and millions of dollars
if you want to buy the New York Times. It takes that and why not
do that. Why does it always have to be, no I am just going to have
my yogurt and my apple and sleep in a VW van and that is it. Why
does it have to be done? That is nonsense. We are doing that and
watching our culture go down the tube and it breaks my heart.

John
Absolutely. Michael, there is a battle waging between the Kingdom
of God and the ““kingdom”” of Hell. The reality is Jesus said He will
build His Church and the gates of the kingdom of hell will not
prevail against it, understanding why the wicked prosper and the
three reasons. I just don’’t list the three reasons that actually give a
strategy and we are talking about some of that strategy right now.
There is a battle going on when Jesus was tempted, we see in the
scriptures, that in the Book of Matthew, one of the things that Satan
offered Jesus was the kingdoms of the world, all of the world and
the glory of them. That word Glory talks about the finances of
them. He offered Jesus the Lure the temptation of power and
success and wealth that He could get all of the kingdoms and all of
the wealth, meaning that they were under his possession. Jesus
didn’’t respond to him and say, you don’’t own them. This was a real
temptation.

The Gospel, this humanity that we look at from a theological

standpoint……these temptations had to be real in order for Him to be
able to equate our own temptations, to be able to understand the
sufferings that we go through. This was a temptation of Satan
offering Him what was in his possession. He had gained this. He
had usurped this authority because the deed has been handed over
to him from Adam himself and so Adam comes and he turns God’’s

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garden into a wilderness. Jesus comes and the Holy Spirit takes
Him to the wilderness to get back his garden. We see this battle
going on in scripture.

If the believer understands, really understands why the wicked

prosper, they will understand…… how the war chest of heaven... They
will understand that this is the key that unlocks untold wealth and
riches. God is looking for movers and shakers. He is looking for
entrepreneurs. He is looking for the listener who is listening to this
and saying, ““I want to be a mover and shaker.”” God, if you put
resources in my hand, I want to change this, this bears witness with
my Spirit, and we really want to speak to the Spirit. We want to
speak to the spirit, to that individual who is listening to this
program right now that is saying I want to be a world changer. I
want to be a cultural, changer of the culture.

My heart breaks for what is happening in America right now.

This... this opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hollywood and
the money that is being amassed by the enemy of our soul are being
used to oppose Jesus, not Hinduism, not Buddhism. In fact, our
nation is embracing Islam right now. I am stunned that we are at
this level embracing Islam to this point as if Islam was a religion of
peace, when it’’s own book states that it is not a religion of peace.
We are opposed to Jesus Christ. From the Rosie O’’Donnells, to the
media, to the Hollywood, this nation has become opposed to Jesus
Christ.

The Church has got to wake up. It has got to transition out of this
lethargic mediocre... I am only worried about myself. It isn’’t
affecting me yet. Well it hasn’’t bothered me yet. We have been
lulled to sleep with this self help life coach message by pastors who
are not accessing the anointing of the Holy Spirit, leading us in the
charge, awakening the Church. We need an awakening message to
say to the Church, ““Wake up!”” Really this message of wealth, you
wouldn’’t think that wealth could be an awakening message, but I do
feel like this message of wealth could be an awakening message. To

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really see us transform our communities and propagate the gospel

of Jesus Christ in our culture that we live in right now.

David
There is an old saying, ““Everybody talks about the weather but
nobody does anything about it.”” For decades now we have heard
from the Christian right, the so-called religious right, all the things
wrong with our culture. We could go on about that. The fact of the
matter is that the Sangers of the world and the folks who have
endeavored, John, in the book you deal with the Tale of Two Men.
You compare a Hugh Hefner with a Bill Gates. You talk about some
of these folks who have been executing a long-term strategy. They
know this may take a generation or two for that strategy to bear the
kind of fruit that they really want to see. Yet in the Church what we
have got really good at doing is complaining about the culture and
not doing anything about it. Michael you mentioned Kuyper. One
of the things that came from his thinking and that is making a
resurgence today in some new ways, is this idea that there are
certain spheres of influence within the culture that are the
determining factors for what is going to dominate the cultural
scene. Those areas are now being referred to in terminology and
John you get into this in the book, the Seven Mind Molders of the
Seven Mountains.

John
For the Seven Gates. It is different terminology for the same thing.

Michael
John, you talk about the Seven Mind Molders in your book. I would
like to ask you if you would share with the audience a little bit of
what they are and how did you come up with those seven. In other
words, maybe people have different ideas of what they are. I want
to know how you came up with that. The Seven Mind Molders
concept. I know I have heard of it a few places but I want to know
where you got it from and how you particularly got those seven.

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John
Well it’’s the third reason why the wicked prospers. There is a
shortage of churches engaging the enemy. When we say engaging
the enemy we have to put some flesh on that. We have to have a
strategy. When we look at this, we see first of all the terminology
that I use is Gates. I don’’t use mountains, and I base these seven
out of scripture and also searching through history and identifying
these throughout the chronicle of history. You first see gates in
Genesis Chapter 22, verses 17-18. Here is what the word of God
says to Abraham: ““In blessing, I will bless thee and in multiplying,
I will multiply thy seed.””

Again there is that truth, that Biblical truth, that promise that
wealth is not going to just stay with Abraham. It was God’’s purpose
wasn’’t just to give Abraham a covenant. But the covenant was to be
activated through his seed. Here is what the scripture says here,
““Thy seed shall possess the gates of his enemy.”” This gate is used in
the New Testament. Jesus refers to it as the gates of hell. Gates
were very common as the place of authority during mid-evil times
during Old Testament times, New Testament times.

The gates were places that parliament decrees were read. It was
places that the elders, Lot was a man that sat at the gate, if you read
the scripture verses when Lot got to Sudan, he became one of the
elders of the city. He was promoted to a place of influence within
the city. Jesus refers to Lot saying that during the time right before
his second coming it will be like the days of Lot. What does that
mean? It will also be like the days of Noah. There will be a group
that are very Noahic in a sense and have prepared an ark, have
prepared something to get us through the difficulties. Then there is
going to be a group that’’s like Lot who sat at the gate yet had no
influence in the gate. Could not be a changer within those gates.
Those gates are where courts were held. Elders met. Decrees were
read. Heralders would come. They came on horseback. They

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would put decrees of kings of government. They were the place of

influence. They were the place where minds were molded.

We find that there is a promise that God desires for us, the Church,
to be possessors of these Gates. The group that possesses the Gates
will influence the culture. The group that possesses these Gates will
be positioned. It is not a question. They will influence a culture. In
fact, militaries go after these Gates in the art of war, in the strategy
of war. They focus on these Gates. These Gates are seats in places
of authority that have the greatest influence or shape the
philosophies, ideologies and beliefs of the people.

I have somewhat of a different list. I base the Gates upon the Word
of God. You will see in each of these Gates, scripture verses
references like for instance, the Gate of Counsel. The Gate of
Counsel is a very important Gate. It provides direction, emotional
health, spiritual healing for such things as dating, marriage,
parenting, conflict, forgiveness, spirituality, religion, business,
mentorship, physical health, psychological wholeness. If you
remove counseling from the safety of privacy then it is paraded on
Jerry Springer shows. We have seen this move that counseling has
come out of the safety of the private place.

In many ways, the Church isn’’t really offering a lot of counsel. Yet
Proverbs tells us……counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I am
understanding, I have strength. Proverbs 11:14 says, ““Where there
is no counsel the people fail.”” The international version speaks
about where there is a lack of guidance a nation falls. Notice that
Proverbs is connecting the counsel provides direction for a nation.
If we let the direction or we let this Gate of Counsel... if we do not
share the counsel of scripture... I am a lover of the Word of God. I
believe it is the best book ever written. It is no longer on the Times
Best Seller because no book could beat it. It is the all time best
selling book of all times.

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The Bible has counsel for every aspect of an individual’’s life. It

shouldn’’t only be looked in the spiritual aspect so that businessmen
come to church, they get spiritual guidance. They learn about
parables and stories of the Bible and Jesus riding on donkey on the
back of a donkey. Church should be a place where they are getting
oversight and counsel and direction for their businesses, for every
aspect of life.

Michael
Well, you know in Isaiah Chapter 11 it talks about the spirit of
counsel. The spirit of wisdom and knowledge and understanding of
course and the fear of the Lord, might and strength. The spirit of
counsel was one of the seven fold manifestations of God Himself,
was this whole area of counsel. It is an area. We get counsel in our
culture today. We make decisions because we saw how they did it
in this movie. I saw it in a movie where a guy did this. There is sort
of a back handed way we are getting counsel. Not only in the shows
like Oprah, who provides all kinds of counsel that doesn’’t always
follow a Biblical guideline, to say it subtly or softly, than how to say
it. You have lots of other folks that are presenting Goths of counsel
in a public form that isn’’t helpful. It is very damaging. What if
there was a Christian voice once again. This comes back to the
same thing. Oprah, as an example, was a poor woman who
managed to go from Kosciusko, Mississippi, a town I have been to
many times, and work her way from that to probably the wealthiest
woman in America. By many standards has hit a lot of levels of
success. She pulled herself from A to Z.

What if it was somebody that had a profoundly Biblical worldview

that had an equal position or similar position of influence in the
culture? I think that would be good. What if somebody got
together $25 million or $30 million and said I am going to wager
this sum of money. I think it was $30 million. I can spend $30
million of my own cash because I have it. I am going to make a
movie. I am going to make a movie that doesn’’t attack Christ, but I

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am going to make a movie that reveals the greatest thing that He

has ever known to have done. I am going to call that movie, The
Passion. The Passion of the Christ. I am going to do this. That
movie as you know has gone on to the last number that I saw was
$650 million in world wide sales. It is probably higher than that
now. There was a guy who took $25 million or $30 million of his
own dollars and created something that went around the world. He
created something in a powerful movie.

My question is why in the world we would not want more believers

to have that kind of impact. Why does it have to be something that
we think is what an exception? Can you believe that guy actually
made it with his own money, a movie that was honoring Christ?
What if there were people that said, let’’s do that all the time. That
was a growing mind set of tens of thousands and ultimately millions
of Christians all around the world that said I want to have that kind
of impact. That is what I want to see, John.

John
Likewise. You mentioned this movie and that movie fits into
another Gate that is critical at this hour for the Church to grab a
hold of. That of course is the Gate of Media, Arts and
Entertainment. It has been said, ““Give me the music of the
generation and I will possess it.”” Propaganda is used during war
time. The Gate of Media, Arts and Entertainment, this is the
greatest hour for the Church to grab a hold of this Gate of Media,
for our young people in church. I believe that the Apostle Paul
would have used every means available if he was here today, he
would say, Let’’s use every means available to shape the culture. In
fact, he went to Mars’’ Hill. He went to the most influential place
when he went to a city to have a platform to preach the gospel. He
would use every Gate available. He would use media. He would use
the Gate of Media, Arts and Entertainment in order to propagate
the gospel.

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Hollywood once put out films like the Robe, the Ten
Commandments. These were epic films today. It has made a
deliberate move towards movies to propagate homosexual lifestyles.
Television is propagating. Everything from Charmed and Witch
Craft and some of the best selling books of those that come out of
the revival of spiritualism and The Harry Potter series. This is what
our kids are being told in the public schools to read. This is the
hour for the Church. Right now as you well know there is this bill
that keeps coming up before Congress. It started in Houston. It
really is a gag order that churches and pastors that are going to
minister on anything that is considered to be controversial. They
would have to get a permit for that message. I would have to
submit my message if I am going to preach on the position of family
versus the new position of the family unit, meaning that love is the
basis of family. Me and my dog, if we were in love with each other,
could be the basis of the family. That opens the door of the
homosexual agenda. If I am going to preach on homosexuality, I
am going to have to get a permit. There would be a gag order on me
to get a permit.

It is so important that we do not lose the right to preach the gospel,

the right to broadcast the gospel, the right to do what we are doing
right now is take this message. If we lose this Gate and we are
quickly seeing this Gate being controlled right now by the MTV
world, the pop culture. Young girls are being faced by what they see
in these videos and they are acting out because that is what they are
seeing.

The Church is still wrestling. I am just stunned that the Church still
wrestles with, are we suppose to have money? There are people
listening to this that are still struggling with the first part of the CD
which was I am a Believer. I don’’t know if God wants me to have
money. Here we are on the next CD and we are moving towards
possessing the Gates, but there still is a portion of the body that is
glorifying lack and want, that thinks it is a cloak of humility. It
doesn’’t see the need to have more than just what they can consume

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themselves, just enough bread for me to eat, just enough

comfortable lifestyle for myself. Don’’t recognize that we are at a
critical time in history right now. We are at a time when the Church
really needs to understand the authority and power of money and
use it to grab a hold of these Gates.

Michael
I agree and we have to wrap this up right now, but I will say that the
other five Gates they are mentioning, we will do that on our next
segment. Beyond that what we are going to do, what we are also
looking forward to, is not only going to discussion and laying
foundation for this, which is critical, we have got to deal with the
why. We are also going to get into the how in the last few CDs as we
progress through this thing, but we still have some very important
issues that are self limiting. If we don’’t deal with them, the ““how””
will never manifest. David.

David
You know we are making our way to creating a common
understanding from which to apply these principals. It is important
as you are listening to this conversation between Michael and John
that you stay with us and track with the conversation so that the
level of common understanding that is created will give you the
leverage to implement what is coming in turn. There is a lot of
practical application coming. Michael, I appreciate you bringing
that up. In the next hour we are going to continue briefly on this
subject of these Seven Gates. We are going to deal more with the
concept of God and prosperity. How does God feel about
prosperity? How can we look at history and discover what God
intends for prosperity to look like. How can we deal with the
slavery, poverty mind set that is so restrictive and limiting us?
Make sure you join us as we get into Hour 3. We are looking
forward to diving into this subject even further.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Three

Hour Three –– 7 Gates (Cont.) –– A Jewish Financial Lesson

David
Welcome to hour number three of Christian Wealth Building: a
Candid Look at Rich Church Poor Church with Michael Q. Pink and
John Louis Muratori. You know, as we dive into this third hour,
we’’ve just been wrapping up the last hour on the subject of Seven
Gates –– sometimes referred to as Seven Mind Molders or Seven
Mountains. There is a Scripture that comes to mind that is a good
launching off point for this discussion, Luke 14:8. Jesus is telling
the story of the unjust steward and he says, actually verse 8 says,
““And the Lord commended the unjust steward, because he had
done wisely for the children of this world are in their generation
wiser than the children of light.””

Jesus actually saying that there are folks who are ungodly, who are
applying more wisdom to accomplishing their objectives and are
impacting the culture and their doing so, more wisely than his own
children. Michael, how does that make you feel? Ha! Ha!

Michael
First of all, we have to take that and not try to spiritualize things
Jesus is saying. I think when he says something as a fact; we need to
take it at face value. After hearing that –– not to say he doesn’’t have
things that have multiple levels of meaning –– but as I’’m hearing
what that is saying, it is true. I think it has to do an awful lot with
what Christians feel. By and large, they are uncomfortable with, and
they have an allergic reaction to, money. And that reaction is not
something that is inherit in them, they were fine with it until they
became a Christian, and shortly after becoming a Christian, the
devil almost right at the beginning, begins to come after them and
says, ““Okay, this is real important, don’’t touch this, you can’’t have it
anymore.”” And then we get foolish about it.

We think that, ““If I just pray, if I just fast, or if I do something along

those lines, if I do a spiritual act, I will have the result that I’’m

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looking for.”” Fasting and praying and spiritual discipline are critical
and important without a doubt, but as I said earlier, it is not
enough. We have to go beyond simply the spiritual disciplines. They
are a key and critical component but they still require a physical
dimension to it. So, I want to see us go from this spiritual
application only, and say, ““You know what? People of the world
many times are far wiser. They understand the rules of the financial
game. They understand that he that has the gold makes the rules.
And therefore, they take control of all the other Gates.””

John, you’’ve talked about Seven Gates, Seven Mind Molders. One of
them is Finance; I want to leave that one until the end. To me, the
Financial Gate is the Gate that funds the other Gates, that makes
the other Gates either possible or certainly gives them a
megaphone. And you have already talked about the spirit of
Counsel. You’’ve already talked about the Gate of Counsel, and I
think that was a profoundly important conversation to have. I
haven’’t heard anybody else really share on it that way, so that was
good. You talked about Arts and Media and Entertainment, which
again we only touched on it, but it was still an incredibly important
one. And the fact that now Face the Giants, a movie, and other
good movies that have started to come forward now, that have a
Godly message. It’’s great, and about time. It’’s way overtime, but I’’m
glad to see that.

But you talk about another Gate here, and I want to get into this a
little bit, because I think all these Gates are affected by Finance. It is
the Gate of Judicial and Moral Law. I want to hear from you about
the importance of that Gate and how finances will affect who is in
these positions of judicial and making moral law, if you will?

John
Well, Proverbs 29:2 tells us, ””When the righteous are in authority,
the people rejoice, but when the wicked beareth rule, the people
mourn.”” This Gate of Judicial and Moral Law is a Gate that was
once absolutely possessed by the Church. The Church had its hand

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around this Gate and the Supreme Court justices, along with the
lower court justices, looked to the Bible. The Bible was the
document that shaped the very…… the founding fathers looked at this
Judeo-Christian document, the Bible, the Christian principles as a
guide for creating and establishing the laws of the land. And today
our courts are implementing what I call judicial evolution. Our
courts, in many ways are established in order to keep people on a
path; a city, a nation, moral, to keep it within a certain set of
boundaries.

Today, we’’re seeing judicial evolution; and what that simply means
is that they are attempting to evolve with the society as it evolves.
Unfortunately, we are not evolving, we are kind of, we have the
opposite happening. It’’s almost like reverse Darwinism and you
know, we’’re not going from chimpanzee to humans; we’’re going
from humans to chimpanzees. To eliminate the guidance and
leading of the Holy Spirit from our humanity, it’’s what separates us,
you know –– our soul and our spirits –– it’’s what separates us from
the animal kingdom. Then we do begin to act like animals. So then
we are seeing the movement of our court system evolving with the
signs of the times, with the direction of lawless community. They
are allowing a more relativism to slip in. Whatever is relevant,
whatever feels good to an individual, then it is right. And if he feels
it is right, then it is okay. Proverbs tells us that ““There is a way that
seemeth right unto a man, but in the end there is destruction.”” This
Gate has to be possessed, we have got to get involved in Judicial
and Moral Law.

I talked to Judge Roy Moore a couple months ago, and as he read

through these, he was just moved by these Seven Gates ––
specifically this one here, is a man that refused to remove the Ten
Commandments from the foyer of the court house. He was willing
to give up his pension, to give up his livelihood, his career in order
to stand on his belief that you cannot rule in a court –– judges cannot
rule –– without some moral compass. And we have got to have this
Gate of Law influenced by the Word of God. The Judeo-Christian

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principle has to have its place within our court system. I am scared
to live in a land that has no moral compass. I’’m scared for my
children and my children’’s children. To be a man that wants to
leave a righteous heritage to my children’’s children, I am very
nervous about the direction of our judicial system, the direction of
the law of the land, and very important for the Church.

You know, this separation of church and state, you know, has kind
of shunned the Christians from getting involved in these arenas, but
we need to grab a hold of this Gate and not let it slip before our
hands. Ezekiel 44:23 says, ““And they shall teach my people the
difference between holy and profane.”” And let me say this Michael,
not only do I see judicial evolution within our court system, but I
also see it creeping into church leadership. I want to say that from a
pastoral point of view. I am, and I’’ll say this as a strong word to use,
but I am appalled that there is a growing number of national
preachers who have publicly stated that they do not feel it is their
responsibility to preach on sin or the effects of sin. It’’s not their
responsibility to teach people about right and wrong for they might
offend somebody.

These are some of the biggest names in Christianity. This is a

dangerous shift when the law of the Body of Christ, the law within
the pages of Scripture, is going to be captured by public opinion. We
see this with men that fall. We see that society is always trying to
tell the Church what they should stand on, how we should judge,
and have judgment and judgments within the Body of Christ. And I
think it is a dangerous thing that Ezekiel’’s pointing, when the
leadership of this day isn’’t a difference between holy and profane,
between unclean and clean, and we’’re living in a day where the
most sought after books are self-help, you know, and it’’s not on
proper church government, proper church law and this is a
dangerous thing.

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Michael
Well, with the judicial thing, it just occurred to me, I have been in
church services many times when they have laid hands on men and
women for the mission field and prayed for them, and set them
apart. I have been in services where they set them apart for the
work of the ministry and possibly for Pastorhood or going off the
seminary and praying for them. But I’’ve never been in a service
where they said, ““Who here is called to or is on their way to it or
feels very called by God into the judicial route. Who here feels they
are called to be a judge in the land or a ruler in the land,”” ...that they
get the proper training they need to have, to go and be another
Judge Moore in the marketplace. Have you ever seen that? Who do
you feel calls to that gate, have you ever seen it happen?

John
No, and a lot of times it’’s we pray... and I don’’t think I have a
unique life, but let me just say this, many times when I pray for
something is because God wants me to have something activated
within my sphere of ministry or lifestyle. And so, I think we pray
sometimes for certain rulings to go in our direction, but one of the
quickest ways to do that is to begin to train up a generation, educate
a generation that this gate needs to be captured. I don’’t see that
either.

Michael
They need to have... sorry, go ahead.

John
I don’’t see many churches even praying in this. I don’’t see an alarm
being sent through the shock waves of Christendom that gag orders
and laws are being brought before Congress that are going to silence
the voice of ministers. I don’’t see uproar of this, I just don’’t see it,
articles on it, and I don’’t see the sounding of the alarm coming from
the Church.

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Michael
Well, it’’s coming now. You’’re doing it, I’’m doing it, and others are
beginning to do it and it needs to go forth. I am saying that even
with just this one area, the judicial, so many people in the Church of
Jesus Christ have no clue, there are Gates, the Gate of the judiciary,
have never looked at that and said that’’s a strategic place in our
society. I can do more for the world... I can do more for the culture,
my children, my grandchildren and those that follow them, if I
capture the local county judgeship in my county. I can do more for
them, and I can have a great influence. I can be at a place of
righteousness. You know, at some point, possibly in the future,
being called in front of an ungodly judge, because you’’ve preached a
message about the evils of homosexuality.

What if God already positioned young men and young women who
went to law school and ran for the position of judge or appointed or
whatever the process is (depending what kind of judgeship we’’re
talking about) but that’’s what I want to see happen. But we need to
make them aware that, that’’s it. I think it would be a good thing in
our churches from time to time, to say, we want awaken or address
or recognize that this Gate is there... and is there anybody here that
feels called toward that Gate?

You know, Matt Stavers, he’’s a wonderful guy over at Liberty

University: I’’ve met with him a number of times. He’’s heads up a
law school department there and they just graduated fifty-some
young people. I have come through that with the whole point that
there’’s a small yet growing army of Christian attorneys that are
going to fight for the culture. They got a vision of this and it’’s a
wonderful thing to see that happening and I hadn’’t heard it. He was
on CNN or Larry King, or one of those shows, not that long ago,
because it was such a anomaly that a Christian lawyer would
actually, at a Christian University, have a vision to raise up
Christian attorneys who would argue, if you will, against the ACLU
and places like that and would also rise in the position of rulership
and judgeship. They have a vision for that, and I think that’’s a

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remarkable thing but it’’s very small at this point –– it’’s in its
inception really, it’’s just coming together. I want to see that happen
all over the place. And I’’m glad that you identified that as one of the
Seven Gates. I’’ve heard, and it makes sense to me, but I haven’’t
seen it before.

John
Yes, when lawlessness reigns, history is on our side, you know
history is a guide of what has been and it also directs where we are
going, and history often times repeats itself. We have a revisionist
movement taking place in America right now, which is the rewriting
of history. There is a group of individuals in our nation that
recognizes that if you want to change where you are today, let’’s go
back and alter where we’’ve come from. That’’s why there is an attack
on the Constitution, an attack on the philosophies of the founding
fathers and they are trying to suggest that they did not have a
Judeo-Christian moral code. They were not looking for religious
freedom; they were looking for the state to rule the land, so we have
this revisionist movement. But history does tell us that when the
wicked beareth rule, we see time and time again the demise of
nations with lawlessness. When lawlessness reigns, and societies
become extinct. And for a nation that is only 300 years old, if the
Lord tarries and we get to 2190 and this nation becomes extinct,
we’’ll be just a page in the history books of a nation that came with
great expectation. Yet because of internal immorality and an
immoral court system, an immoral set of laws and values, this
nation was brought to its knees. It was brought to extinction
because it had no moral compass.

The great philosopher came to America and said, ““America is great

because America is good. When America ceases to be good then it
ceases to be great.”” And we are on that road. We are on that road.
This is a strategy, we have got to grab those Seven Gates, we have
got to employ a strategy, it’’s grassroots. But if even in some of these
Gates we don’’t have a grip on anything, we still have to employ our

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strategy, a multi-generational strategy, in order to capture these

Gates.

Michael
Well, it takes finances to capture the Gates, including the Arts and
Entertainment and certainly the Judiciary, if nothing else, than to
put your kids through law school. It takes resources. Certainly the
Gate of Counsel, there’’s a role there too. Now, there are four more
here that you touched on. The fourth one in our discussion is the
Gate of Social Services. Tell us about that Gate.

John
Well, it’’s my belief that God places a church in the community to
evangelize it and serve its residents. I think that we have been
commanded to shine a light. Jesus, in a series of Scripture verses,
creates the framework for compassionate, humanitarian ministry,
and you’’ll see that in the Church. Social services, in the Bible, are
inclusive of feeding the hungry (for instance), caring for the sick,
clothing the naked, and ministering to the imprisoned. Christians
have started hospitals. You know Christianity gets a bad name, but I
want to tell you that anywhere Christians go in the mission field,
they raise the level of lifestyle in every place that they go. Every
place missionaries end up and the gospel of Jesus Christ is
preached, the lifestyle of that nation goes up notches upon notches,
because Christians pioneer hospitals, orphanages, adoption centers,
shelters, treatment centers, water projects the Life Today water
project, and many other things.

There are some dangerous statistics I have in the book that less
than 7% of churches in America have an arm of compassion. I’’m
convinced that the government is neither equipped nor set up to
effectively deal with social services. Instead, you know what people
see? When they look at the Church this is what they see: they only
want your money, instead of seeing a light that is shined. A church
that changes its culture from the bottom up is willing to deal with
the leprosy of today, willing to deal with the affliction of today.

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It’’s like Jesus, with the woman with the issue of blood after she kind
of touched him, he had a holistic view of ministry, looking to heal
an individual wholly. He wanted to see a person healed emotionally,
physically, spiritually, psychologically, and he said, ““Somebody
touched me,”” and power went out of him, anointing. Somebody was
healed, and I need to find that person. The disciples stated, ““Let’’s
just keep moving, there is too much of a crowd.”” You know, we do
not want to stop our movement and Jesus was convinced that he
needed to stop. And this was a woman that lost all she had. Because
of the sickness, she was demanded to leave her village. She wasted
all of her goods: she needed a personal touch, she needed another
type of healing, and Jesus wanted to give it to her. Compassion
ministry has to be an arm of the Church.

Michael
Just looking at that whole thing, social services, obviously, feeding
the poor, the water projects that you were talking about, helping the
homeless, helping people whether in orphanages, adoption centers,
food banks or whatever it is, those things require a lot of money.
You know, maybe they give them fifty bucks a year or something
like that. What if, you say, okay, get over the fact that it’’s not about
your car and it’’s not about your house, why don’’t you go and make a
bunch of money and then do something with it to have an impact.

So the next time, another Katrina hits another part of this country,
or an earthquake or a fire, or something, there can be a quick rush
of resources there. What a great thing to do. Why not do that? See,
that again is another example of the short-sighted selfishness that
says, ““No, I don’’t want to have money.”” It just angers me and gets
all over me. So, if ever there was an argument for finances it
certainly would be the Gate of Social Services. But you have more;
you talk about the Gate of Education. Chesterton said –– in your
book, you quoted him –– and he said, ““Education is the soul of a
society, it passes from one generation to another.”” And somebody
else said, ““The Church must teach or die,”” which reminds us that

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the Christian faith may always be one generation away from

extinction. I want you to talk about the Gate of Education, because
this is a critically important thing, not only in our culture, but if you
could touch on it, its role in the Jewish culture.

John
I was actually going to speak about the Jewish cycles. You know the
Jews do this well, and I had the pleasure of sitting at the foot of a
rabbi and studying for a couple of years. There I learned about the
Cycles of Torah I learned about the Cycles of Feasts and many other
sacred observances. The fact is that the Jews do very well to bring
their generations through these continual observances and the
cycles. In order to educate the next generation, they solidified the
process –– even the process of Bar Mitzvah, to solidify the transition
of a young boy into adult maturity, adulthood. And it is designed in
order for them to have a mature participation in the service, in the
reading of Torah, a participation in the feast and all the other
observances.

The Church has led in education. The one-room schoolhouse of the

early colonies was always controlled by the Church. In fact, if you
look at the most solid cornerstone of the control of the Church in
the area of the Gates, it is the Gate of Education. From Yale to the
seminaries across this country, the Church had done a wonderful
job of putting education on the map and controlling education from
the Biblical standpoint, from a creation standpoint. And then we
began to see in the early 1960s, ‘‘62, ’’63, ‘‘64, that prayer was taken
out of school. It was more than just prayer, it was the abandonment
of the value of God in the school halls. And we have seen the
demise, I mean the public school system is one of the most
dangerous places for young kids today. There are more rapes, more
robberies; there are more thugs that go to school, in the public
school system. They learn anything and everything that is contrary
to the Word of God.

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And one more thing to add to this, you know right now on college
campuses the fastest growing religion is Islam, and it is not, for no
other reason, the commitment of the Saudi government. Billions,
right now, are being spent by the Saudi oil family to spread Islam to
every area of the world. Listen to this: this is out of the newspaper,
the Saudi English Weekly, and here’’s what it says, ““The Saudi Royal
Family’’s efforts to spread Wahhabi [this is Islam] through the
world.”” And here is what the Prince’’s motive is, ““...to establish
strong seats in prominent American universities to help advance
Islamic agenda through education.”” This is what Prince Alwaleed
bin Talal, the richest man in the Muslim world, he’’s coming to
America, and he’’s buying a seat. What that simply means is he’’s
buying a seat for an Islamic professor to teach a course to students
and he’’s given 20 million dollars to Harvard and Georgetown to
have a seat there. And he is funding an agenda through education,
to promote the Islamic religion.

Michael
Thick of what you just said. Twenty million dollars, okay, that’’s a lot
of money... maybe not to him, but that’’s still a chunk of change. And
maybe it’’s way too much, but on the other hand, he says it’’s worth it
to spend 20 million dollars to get our agenda in there. To get
somebody with, you know, basically taking the Wahhabi, the Islam
faith, and getting it established in schools.

John
He’’s buying credibility.

Michael
Yeah, and that’’s it, money talks and, you know, they may not have
wanted to do that, it wasn’’t on the agenda before, but suddenly you
show up with 20 million dollars and okay, Mohammed whatever
your name is, come on in and have a seat. $20 million gets it.

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I think this goes back to something David said at the beginning of

the program, the wicked, they have more wisdom when it comes to
money than the Church does. They say, ““Hey, wait a minute, twenty
million dollars, I’’m going to get this influence in here, let’’s do it,””
because they know how it will impact the culture to long term, and
they get it. They’’re happy to trade twenty million dollars to get that
position for influence.

John
It’’s the golden rule. ““He who has the gold makes the rules.”” And,like
I mentioned earlier, the best way to transform a city is to buy it. It’’s
revolutionary, it’’s not taught in the Church. It’’s not mentioned. We
shy away from dominionism. We shy away from having any level of
influence within our society, but the reality is, is this Prince is
buying seats, he’’s is buying credibility and he is seeing converts to
the cause of Islam.

While at the same time, the Church is losing its grip on education
and Christian schools are closing left and right. This is one area that
I always provide strategic planning. I’’m always looking to see any
school that calls us... I’’m working with a college right now, that has
ask me to consult with them, a Christian College, about expanding
their influence, about capturing this Gate of Education, and I like to
come up with ways to fund education, ways to see Christian schools
started and also well funded, so that not just through the tuition,
but through other streams of income.

Michael
What are the big reasons John, why they are being shut, and
Christian schools are shutting down? From your exposure, what is
the reason they are going down?

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John
Lack of support, and the tuitions have to be so high because of the
hiring of the teachers, and this is something that the Jews do very
well. We will mention this in a later series, but part of their self-
imposed tithe or tax in the Jewish community is to provide second-
to- none education to all of their children. This is why they excelled
so much throughout history, because they have been the best
educated group within any society which they have sojourned. So,
Aristotle said, ““All who have meditated on the art governing
mankind, have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on
the education of youth.”” And, we have got to really put that value
before, and really it is back to money.

Michael
It goes right back to money, it’’s a Gate that needs to be captured
and it takes money to do that. There are Christian schools, that you
just told me, that are shutting down because lack of support. You
have some guy who is willing to buy, or drop down twenty million
dollars so he can put a teacher in a seat there at the university, and
we’’re trying to just keep the doors open to educate our own children
and that should not be. If somebody needs a reason to make money,
let’’s talk about education. You know, if you don’’t want to have more
than just than whatever you have, then fine. Work hard, excel and
take those resources and plow them into the whole Gate of
Education. There needs to be Christian schools, a Christian school
system that not only teaches Biblical values, but also gives them a
complete worldview that allows them to succeed and thrive when
they graduate and not just be able to recite certain pieces of
information. But, they actually have some wisdom to know how to
thrive when they get out.

John
I am an educator by calling. That is my passion. That is my heart.
It is this Gate that I believe God has really strategically placed me
and this whole book is about educating the Body of Christ. It’’s

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about, and we’’re seeing it now being put into curriculum, it’’s going
to be used by bible schools across the country. My heart is to see
people like you who have been an educator for many, many years, if
you see the Church have this sphere of wisdom and knowledge and
see our children……one of the reasons I wrote this book at the top of
the list is my two boys. I did not want them, as pastor’’s kids, grow
up with a poverty mentality. I wanted them to also be educated with
a Biblical worldview that the Bible would direct and cause the lens
of which they see the world around them, that that lens would be
the Bible. A Biblical worldview of what they see and education is at
the core of the Church right now. It has to return to the sanctuary
and we must teach the Word of God. We must have it taught in such
a way that it can be applied to everyday life.

Michael
Here we are going Gate after Gate after Gate is critical and they
need Finance for those Gates, and we are wondering, ““Should I
make money?““ We’’ve got two more Gates, the last one is the Gate of
Finance, we’’ll get to that in a second, but the Gate of Government
and this is an important Gate. And it has been my observation that
again, he who has the gold, more or less, picks the government,
even in a democracy. If you look at the election cycles that happen,
and right now there are certain candidates that are running for
office that get the majority of the press and certain people in
influence have deemed that certain individuals should be at the top
of the heap, and they deemed that other individuals should not be
there and not get exposure. Some of those secondary peer
individuals as they are referred to, have better ideas than some at
the top. But they don’’t get the exposure because money controls
media and the influence and that control the kind of government
that we end up having.

We are given, often times, choices between two things that may not
be either one, our favorite choice or our best choice. So I’’m looking
at finance and I’’m saying that affects the kind government we get

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simply even in the electoral process. What do you have to say about
Government and that Gate?

John
Well, I was watching the BBC news a couple weeks ago, and they
were comparing the wallets of American politics to British politics.
And in the last election, the total amount of money spent on the
election in Britain was seventy million dollars. They were
comparing it to the Democrat and Republicans, and so far in this
early race, already 500 million dollars have been spent, 500 million
dollars in just this process of getting through the first stage of the
electoral process in our nation. So money, in fact, some men are
going to drop out of the race, some individuals that are running for
president are going to drop out of the race for the lack of money.
And if you look at the polls along with the polls of popularity, the
second number they give you is how much money they have,
because if though a candidate may be popular, if he cannot collect
money, if he cannot receive resources and get the money he needs,
he will fizzle out. So, it’’s amazing at how you can look at one stat of
popularity and another stat runs right along side of it, does he have
enough money to run the race?

Michael
Right!

John
He might say, ““Is somebody buying the election?”” Could it be
almost looked at as the election could be bought depending who has
enough money to propagate their views? It is so important. I don’’t
know where we have seen, you want to talk one of the most
inaccurate, historical views of a document, is the separation of
church and state, which I know you are well aware of... which was a

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letter from Abraham Lincoln1 to the Danbury Council of Churches,

which secured that this Danbury Council of Churches was
concerned that the state was going to come in and rule the church,
and Abraham Lincoln secured the fact that there is a separation of
state and church. They don’’t have to worry about the state coming
into the church.

That document, which was just a letter, not a part of the

Constitution, it’’s a letter written from Lincoln to this group of
individuals has now become almost law, separation of church and
state. What does the Church have to do with politics, our 501(c)(3)
forbids us to use the pulpit to accept a candidate or endorse a
candidate, so we see the government say, we’’ll give you tax, tax
exempt, but don’’t you tell us who should run.

In the early days, before the Gate of Media is at the level that it is
today, no political hopeful could even think about getting elected
into office if he didn’’t have the platform of the pulpit, in order to let
his views be heard. The Church was in control of this Gate and
secured this, but once the Gate of Media exploded, the world got
smaller, global, because of news and availability of that Gate. We
see that the Church is being completely bypassed. It doesn’’t matter,
the Church at this stage cannot unify around a candidate. And this
is a Gate we have to possess.

Michael
There are reasons for that, the church and state thing. That has
been a hot point of discussion, not only with Abraham Lincoln
apparently, but also goes back as far as Thomas Jefferson, when he
talks about that issue. It’’s been around for awhile, but the original
intent was never, never to limit the churches influence, it was the
other way around, as you pointed out. With the 501(c)(3), one thing
I’’ve noticed in the Bible, it’’s interesting, I don’’t know how it was
possible, but apparently Jesus had a ministry and was able to get it
1
[Editor: The letter being referenced was actually sent from Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Muratori inadvertently
identified the author as Abraham Lincoln during the seminar, but corrected this after the fact.]

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done without a 501(c)(3). So, if He can do it, I imagine we got to

find a way that we can do that too, because the basis in which rights
are taken away is, under the agreements made in order to get that.

But, moving past that just a little bit, the Gate of Government is
important. You said, the Scripture says, ““When the righteous are in
authority, the people rejoice.”” I think that is critically important
that the righteous are in authority. In our time, our governmental
system, they are elected and there are two things that control who
gets elected. Generally speaking, in the natural, God can and does
intervene. He did in Norway in the year 2000, and I’’m sure He does
other times that we may or may not see.

But, what we do know is, the money it takes for a candidate to run,
you can’’t even get a congressional seat in some low area that is not
even in the spotlight for less than a million dollars. It just costs so
very much anymore just to be able to purchase the exposure. Of
course, during an election, advertising rates just skyrocket just like
gas goes up at Thanksgiving, whenever people are traveling. For
some reason, all those prices go up, the same is true in political
campaigns. If you try and buy an ad at that time, everything is at the
top level price. So it takes that kind of money.

But secondly, the other money that goes toward the media, the
truth is selectively... I have looked and seen of late, numerous
promotions for certain debates that are coming up, for example,
and they are talking about this candidate or this candidate. They’’ll
nail it down to possibly two or three, and they will talk about those
three and totally ignore the five others, for example, on the
Republican side that are running, some of which have raised more
money in the so called top tier, and so there are influences gained at
that level.

I think another great thing for a Christian that’’s thinking, ““I don’’t
know about making money, and I don’’t really want too much for
myself.”” Well fine, make a boatload of money and use it, shape what

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happens in our government. Use it to get behind campaigns of

righteous men and righteous women that are running for office all
over this country. Use it to obtain some controlling influence in
various forms of media that can give a righteous exposure because
nobody in media is unbiased.

I have a bias, and I’’m going to tell you that I’’m biased toward
righteous and I want to see that established, I’’m not apologizing for
that, I’’m not ashamed of it. I don’’t want to have a sort a balance of
good and evil. That’’s not what I’’m interested in. I want to see
righteousness go forth and be established in this country in a big
way, and that my friend requires the last Gate we are going to talk
about, the Gate of Finance. That’’s the Gate we need to possess.
That’’s the Gate that we need to quit apologizing for and get over the
trinkets and the materialism and all that kind of stuff, and get
beyond that. There are Gates waiting to be controlled by Christians
right now, that are being controlled by the enemies of our soul and
they are making us be subjugated to their influence, their control.

I went to a medieval fair about a year ago. My wife and I went there.
She’’s an artist and she does wonderful representational art, and she
thought it would be nice, and we had never been to one before. She
thought it would be really nice to go to one of these things and
capture people in costumes, because she wanted to paint from
another time. So she thought it would be a great place to go. It’’s out
in a farm field and this big fair that comes to Sarasota, as we were
walking through the gate of this pretend city, there is crier at the
city and he looks at people as they are coming through and he
pronounces a curse over them, at random. He says, ““The plague, the
plague,”” and decries this thing, and I looked at him with this look
that said, ““You better not say that over me.”” It reminds me of the
influences that are at the gate, that control when Christians are
coming through these gates and are having curses spoken over
them, if you will. They are being cursed by the influences that they
must be subject to live in it.

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You know, you don’’t have to watch television, that’’s true, but I
found that when I drive with my eyes closed, I go off the road. I’’ve
done it twice, more than twice, both times fell asleep, once I went
off a cliff and once I drove into a semi truck. It is not a good practice
to drive with your eyes closed, and yet, when you are driving down
the road in my city, and John, you alluded to it earlier in your city
too; there are billboards that have images that I do not want to look
at. I do not want my children to look at and yet they are there. We
have got to start to taking places of dominion, so that we can
control these gates back and control those influences. Sometime
that very thing will be the image, the picture, there will be a
demonic force that we that will perch on somebody’’s shoulder and
speak to them at a moment, that will incite something in them that
doesn’’t need to be incited and lead to a devastating act that can
change or even end a life for somebody. So, we can’’t take these
things lightly and it takes the realm of finance to do it.

And this camp of, there’’s a prosperity camp and you call it the
eternity camp. These two camps are there, but to me that is
dualism. The idea somehow spiritual things, eternal things are good
and virtuous, and material things are somehow dirty and unclean.
When God created the earth and he made it material, he said, he
called it good, very good. He was very happy with the physical role
he made and we should not be ashamed of it and we should not call
unclean what he has called clean. I’’m sorry; I’’m getting on a bit of a
tear here. (Laugh)

I’’m not really trying to educate you in anything because I know

we’’re of the same mind on this thing. But I look at these things in
these camps and they are just driving me nuts. We should have to
come together. We are doing these things, we possess the natural,
and we are possessing the material too. It affects eternity. To affect
the eternal, to affect the destiny of nation of millions of people that
are being led astray because the Church is bickering about what
kind of car they drive and what they should be doing. I’’m ready to
pull my hair out, John.

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John
Absolutely, it is a debate, and it rages on and just with mention of
riches or with the mention of money, wealth, along with
Christianity or the Bible stirs up still, negative connotation. You
know, when you take this through what we just done, these Seven
Gates, I don’’t know how a viewer, how a listener can stay with an
understanding of that small concept, that small philosophy or what
I really believe is a poverty mentality, which causes it to hang on too
tightly to what they have, and it limits God. Wealth, it’’s bigger than
me or you. This whole thing of the Kingdom is bigger than me or
you.

We’’re just a small piece of the puzzle and to God be the Glory if He
puts resources in our hands and continues to increase... I tell you, I
see it in the Scripture, you know whenever I teach on wealth, or
lecture on wealth, I always include the parable of the talons. And in
it, the first man received five, the second received three and it went
down to two and one. We talk about transference of wealth, but in
that scripture verse, and in the late midnight hours you can flip
through the channels, you can hear the preacher say, ““The wealth of
the wicked is stored up for the righteous.”” You know, we have
predatory intentions over individuals in the community that we are
going to get their house, their car, but in that definition, or in that
parable, Jesus defines the wicked servant as the one who is not a
multiplier. He was someone who buried his resources and he uses
his talent. I know it is a parable, but talent is monetary, has
monetary value, it is an amount of resources, and he put it in the
servants hands according to their several ability. And notice, the
rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That comes out of this set of
verses. That adage comes out of the parable of talons. He took from
the man, transferred from his house, his hand, the things he wasn’’t
doing well with and he put into the man who had five and
multiplied it and created five more.

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So, in that parable the man who had five and he added five more, he
also got transferred blessing because the rich got richer in that
verse, if you understand what I’’m saying there. There’’s a
transference of wealth happening in the Body of Christ, that’’s so
important for pastors to listen to this and for businessmen to listen,
that God is going to start taking the unprofitable Church, the
unprofitable, if the Church doesn’’t move in this paradigm shift, I
believe there is a movement coming right now, that God is really
looking to shape the culture we live in. God is going to start, not
only, creating wealth or distributing wealth to individuals within
the Body of Christ, he is going to be transferring some from
profitable individuals who will not move in this wineskin, who will
not move of the Kingdom worldview.

Churches that have amassed millions in trust funds, in their

accounts, that are not changing the community. We have churches
that have thirty thousand people, yet they are, there are Houston
churches with thirty thousand individuals, yet Houston’’s
lawlessness and poverty level is skyrocketing at the top of our
nation’’s statistics. And instead of bigger buildings, bigger
coliseums, we should get our strategies together, we should equip
our members, not to sit in the seat and listen to message after
message, but equip them to activate their gift to change their
culture. Man……..if we could get thirty thousand believers, just in one
city, to begin to get a Kingdom worldview, we could turn a city. And
let me just say, it did not take thirty thousand, disciples didn’’t say,
““I got to go start a church.”” You know what, two of them turned
cities upside down, two of them. It only took two believers with a
Kingdom worldview and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to turn
cities upside down. That’’s what they said when they seen Paul and
Silas, these are the men that turned cities upside down. Just two
listeners, just a handful of people, my congregation will grab hold of
a Kingdom worldview, will embrace what God wants to do to, work
through them and be willing, not self serving, but others serving
and not selfish, but selfless, then God will raise them from

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obscurity, like Isaiah 50:8. They will be rebuilders of the breaches

and God will use them to transform the communities. If not, like
Mordechai told Esther, deliverance will come from another avenue,
but don’’t think you’’ll escape this tragedy that is coming upon the
people. This is the time for people to rise in obscurity and grab hold
of this message, it is a Biblical message, its’’ not my message, not
your message, we are quoting scriptures, we’’re using the Bible. It’’s a
message, you know, it is one of my desires to represent, we hear
that in the new culture, the young culture, the hip-hop culture, that
talks about represent. That is really my drive was represent the
Kingdom of Heaven, represent God and pen out a book that would
bring out a smile, something that when it hits the nostrils of my
Lord and Savior, he would say well done, good and faithful servant.
You’’ve penned out something that I’’m pleased with and I’’ve tried to
carry this through this book from beginning to end. This is
important.

Michael
You’’ve done that, John. You’’ve brought forth something from
beginning to end and it carries you from page to page and chapter
to chapter, and theme to theme. And even in the six hours that we
have allotted for this, we’’re not getting into so much of the content
that is so important. When people talk about finances, so often, I’’ve
had it on my blogs, at www.SellingAmongWolves.com/blog/ where
they come and they are on our list and they read this stuff and they
will say the talons, that is all spiritual; that wasn’’t real. Yet when it
talks about food, we are willing to say that is real, I mean they will
say spiritual food. They’’ll realize if I don’’t have physical food, in a
few hours I will get hungry and a few days I will get miserable and
in a few weeks I may not be here or whatever the time frame is. So
they are quite willing to say I can have natural food, natural water,
and clothing and shelter and a few things like that. But when it gets
down to this lucre thing, this filthy money, if you will, there is a
problem.

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They want to spiritualize that and we have got to get away from the
spiritualizing that and actually be very comfortable with the
handling of that. Who better to steward what that is, the godly or
the ungodly? Who do you want pointing a gun at your head? You
know an ungodly person, that is drunk and trigger happy or would
you rather have a Christian behind that weapon, who is responsible
and knows how to handle a weapon. Who do you want to have
control, what kind of judge do you want to stand in front of? What
kind of movies do you want to impact the culture? What kind of
education do you want to make available? All those things are there
and all have this need for finance, which we are going to talk about
the how of it.

I do have one question left in this segment that I want to get into.
And it has to do with the Jews and prosperity, and it is somewhat of
a historical look at the Jews. They have a mindset that is different. I
have to throw out this one statistic I read recently, and then I want
you to comment on it. Recently, in the last couple months, I wish I
had made note of this, but I haven’’t found it. But it listed the top
one hundred most influential people in America, and they pointed
out that fifty-one of those, or the top one hundred most influential
people in America, fifty-one of them were Jewish; fifty-one. Now,
what percentage of the population are Jews in America? Well, I
don’’t know, but it is probably less than one percent. Yet, fifty-one
percent of the top one hundred were Jewish. How did that happen?

John
Well, when I approached this book in the beginning, we mentioned
that I was going to come under fire and I understood that. So, when
I looked at this issue of spirituality and prosperity, it just drove me
to the Jews. Do you know that this debate, if this was being sent out
to synagogues and rabbis’’, this wouldn’’t even be a debate. This book
would give them no information at all, because they have not
separated spirituality and prosperity. They are not debating
whether they believe that they should be prosperous. They believe
that their spiritual covenant have the fruit of financial security and

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that is for their posterity and in order to secure themselves for

multi-generations and keep them from being under the hand of
wicked government, that they need resources.

This argument is only found in the Church; no where else will you
find this argument of spirituality and prosperity. You will not find it
within the Jewish circles and they specifically believe they possess a
promise from God for success, influence and riches. They believe
they must prosper and flourish and that their covenant is that God
is given the power to gain wealth in order to secure and propagate
the covenant of God. That is why I looked at the Jews as an
example, and I really go through the history of the Jews. They
weren’’t always a people, a people that were dismantled as a nation,
they were pillaged at that time, they were persecuted, and trample
under foot for a span of a thousand years. They didn’’t have a nation.

For three thousand years of their history, they were a people

without a country. Yet they still believed in every place that they
were to sojourn, every place that their feet were to hit the ground,
that they were destined to be the lenders not the borrowers, the
head and not the tail, and listen, once that kind of luck, but twice,
okay they might have something going. But four thousand, three
thousand years in as far east as Asia, through Europe, through
persecution, then there is something else going on there that
transcends any type of luck. These people are covenant people, and
we as Christians are connected to that same covenant.

So as I draw the line from Abraham, I find out that Abraham is,
according to the Apostle Paul, he encourages me that I shouldn’’t
just be looking for the crumbs off the table, but I should have a seat
at the table, and that I am a part of that covenant and my part of
that covenant is a spiritual covenant. Shouldn’’t that come with also,
the covenant blessing of being the head and not the tail, being the
lender and not the borrower, and being successful in accessing this
stream or flow of the Covenant Father who desires for us to be
mover and shakers in the community?

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Michael
Absolutely, just hearing what I read in your book, you chronicled
the sojourn and the travel, if you will of the Jewish people, and give
us a historical perspective and their whole way of economics and
banking and how that got going. An abstract economics and that is
a whole other concept. The reason why they were able to establish
themselves the way they did, was because the word meant
something. When we get into……you use it in different places, but I
think it would tie very much into the law of the brand in today’’s
world. We can talk about that on our next set. But there are a whole
lot of those kinds of things that you talk about in the tracings, how
in the world they did it. It was not just because they were Jewish,
not just because they were covenant.

First and foremost, God made the covenant and they believed it and
they never questioned that again. They are not like the Christian
Church; they are not wrestling with that, as you pointed this out.
They are not debating it; they are not having these discussions at
mitzvah. That’’s not what they are dealing with, they have other
issues and that is fine, but they are not dealing with this. As a result,
when you have less than one percent of a population that claims to
be Jewish controlling fifty-one percent of the influential Gates, if
you will, the top fifty-one people, then frankly, those fifty one
people, if you think about it, control, usually they say the top twenty
percent control eighty percent, so in all likelihood, I don’’t know
who they are, I haven’’t seen the list, I bet you, they have over eighty
percent, well over eighty percent of the influence on our culture.
That’’s a pretty big deal.

John
It is, and the Church is still wrestling with whether wealth and
riches, and influences and success should be a part of the New...
whether it is a part of the New Testament. You know, the Jews had
a series of innovative systems that their leaders implemented to see

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the covenant flushed out, and I know we are going to deal with this
in the next section. I think it will be refreshing, you know, God is a
God of systems. The Bible is a book of patterns, principles, and
promises, and we have got to begin to ask God for some systems.

Michael
Amen

John
And Michael, your whole ministry is really about, in part, a major
part, of creating systems, systems of sales.

Michael
Well, you’’re right.

David
You know, you’’re hitting on an area we want to explore even further
as we progress through the day, and this is where we are sort of in
the gearshift between the conceptual and the application of these
principles.

Michael
Sort of the correction and the instructions as John talked about,
that Paul talked about. We are making that shift.

David
As we are winding down hour three, we’’ve covered quite a bit of
ground, but I want to promise you that in hour four, we’’re going to
explore this even further. We’’re going to get a little further into this
question of prosperity and the debate. We are going to talk a little

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bit more about the Jews and the systems that you learned about,
John. And we’’re going to deal with the poverty paradigm and get
into some of the laws of wealth creation that you have laid out for us
in this book. So, as you’’re listening to this as we are winding down
on hour three, you want to kind of roll up your sleeves, as you dive
into hour four because there is some great stuff coming up.

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Hour Four –– What The Jews Have Always Known About Money

David
Welcome to Hour 4 of Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at
Rich Church, Poor Church with Michael Q. Pink and John Louis
Muratori. In hour 3, we got into a little bit of discussion about the
influence of the Jewish people. We talked a little bit about the
covenantal aspects of why they are so influential and why they have
been repeatedly throughout history. In this hour, one of the things
we are going to cover is going back into the history, and certain
aspects of history, looking at what the Jews did that contributed
beyond the spiritual aspects and the covenantal aspects. How did
that grow legs and actually work itself out? John, in your book, you
spend a fair amount of time, and as you mentioned previously, you
studied, significantly under folks that were rabbinical type folks in
order to gain a good grasp on this. Let’’s get into this subject about
the history of the Jews, diving back into the banking systems etc.
that we have today.

Michael
I’’m listening as Dave sets this up, I’’m thinking that it wasn’’t just a
theological perspective. They actually put legs and set into motion
certain actions and certain training. Their result was not accidental
and it was not purely theological. They went from an intellectual
understanding to inside of them and then they acted on it. I’’d like
for you to begin to open up for us and for our audience a little bit of
the history where some of the things we deal with now, capitalism
and abstract economics, where all this comes from. Take us back
and give us a historical look at the Jews beginning any place you
feel comfortable.

John
The Jews are a very innovative group and very innovative nation.
This is the people who historically should not even be a nation
today. They should not even be among the nations of this world,

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because of the oppression and because of the possible extinction

they have faced numerous times, not just once, but numerous
times. As I said in a previous session, almost three thousand years
they had functioned without a country, all over the globe, being
invited into European countries to reside as a middle class. These
Jews, through all of this persecution, the Jewish people have
survived, and this came from innovative systems that were put into
place by Rabbis and Jewish leaders.

At the onset, let me just say this, the Jews possessed two major
documents which are the Oral Law which was communicated to
Moses, that Oral Law framed out the first 5 books of the Bible and it
is inclusive of the 613 mitzvot that is the Oral Law. They also would
have, let me get that straight, it was the written law. It was penned
on the stone. Then there was the oral law which makes up the
Talmud. So, you have the written law from God, the first five books
of the Bible, then you have the oral law, Jesus’’ argument with the
Rabbis of his days that they put more emphasis on the oral law that
they did on the written law. So I want the listeners to know that I
said the backwards in the beginning. I want to make sure that they
get that right. So, you have the written law 613 mitzvot, first five
books of the Bible and then you have the Talmud.

The Talmud has been put together through probably 3,000 years.
It is a document that was added to and not till the Middle Ages did
every man’’s Talmud be put together. This had in it everything the
law stated, but how Israel was to function as a nation. How Israel
was to deal with trade and banking, and interest, and torte, jurist
prudence, you will find that in the Talmud. The Jews put this
innovative system together in order for them to function and they
have done this very well. For instance, the Jews were kind of set up
by God for success.

You know all things work out together for the good- that is what the
Bible says and when I read through the history of Jews, I see the
sovereignty of God. This is a group because of their universal

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education, they were absolutely literate because they were

monotheistic and had an invisible God. Their intellectual powers
were absolutely heightened and not only that but they had a
portable tabernacle. Nothing held them to down to any specific
place. They would move when opportunity and were in complete
unity, whereas other intellectual groups, Romans and Greeks, they
looked at work as ignoble where Jews looked at it as something you
actually had to strive for.

The Jews have a system of social organization that is very, very

unique. We see the influence of this and if you look at the history of
the Jewish people, you will see that Jesus was a Rabbi, that the New
Testament writers were Jewish, you will see the frustration in Paul
dealing with the Church or dealing with what would be Gentile
individuals, Gentile people who were not underneath the law of God
and were not familiar with the principles of the Talmud and he uses
this rich set of systems, these principles to instruct the Corinthian
church, to instruct the church of Galatia. It is amazing that God
chooses him to write a majority of the New Testament and the fact
that he was a Pharisee to Pharisees and was absolutely a law giver of
both the oral law and written law. Listen to some of these
innovative implementations, these systems that Jewish leaders put
in in order to survive as a nation, as a state within a state, in order
to provide self discipline, in order to survive when nations were
displacing them amongst the world in the diaspora.

Anytime ten Jewish males over 13 years of age lived within a

commuting distance could establish a minion. As soon as one
hundred and twenty males over 13 years of age within commuting
distance, they had the authority to establish social community.
They could establish a court of their own, and they could deal with
disputes amongst themselves. Each community had to incorporate
certain principles. Every community had to have imposed upon
itself a tax in addition to the state tax or the country tax. They had
no problem with giving. People would say that tithing is not in the
New Testament. That is not true. Tithing is in the Old Testament

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and the multiple taxes within the structure of the law of God
required Jews to give up to 33% when they factored in the self
imposed tax the synagogue tax and the giving, or the religious and
the sabbatical giving. These Jews were givers.

Now this money was put together and held within the synagogue
and it was used for Jews to stay self supported so that at no time
would any Jew have to rely on the Christian government or a pagan
government for financial help. They set up their own school system
so this money was used for educating. This is through the Medieval
Period, this is through times when women were not allowed to
receive or given the opportunity to receive an education. The Jews
provided for their women’’s education. Jewish women were the
most highly educated women in the world. They hired their own
teachers. They gave them good salaries to make the profession of
education more attractive and honorable. No Jew could go hungry.
Charity had to be provided with dignity. No Jew must ever have to
ask for charity from the state. He could only ask from his Jewish
community. Business Jewish men would be able to borrow money
from the pot of resources in a local synagogue in order to start
businesses and create wealth. This is amazing.

They were not to go to court to sue each other. This is where Paul
pulled these Talmudic principles and challenges the Corinthian
church. He says can you not judge even the simplest things
amongst yourselves? How could you go to court? How could you
go to a pagan government to resolve disputes amongst your own
church? Because he is so accustomed to the Jews, even Jesus had
to go through the Jewish court system and then he was offered up
to the Roman Court System. They had court within themselves.
The host nations would allow them to do that. These principles are
time tested. They are in the scriptures in the New Testament.
These patterns, principles, and systems really should be employed
within the Church. This is step one to Jewish survival. This is the
Jews and their innovative system of organization in order for them
to survive as a nation.

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The second step that Jews took was because of the ongoing
difficulty of settling of nations, being called upon by nations to erect
companies, to start lending institutions; a lot of anti-Semitism was
beginning to take place such as they were considered to be
predatory capitalist. In a short period of time, these Jewish sons
and business men went from the ghettos of the community, not the
ghettos like we see today, but in medieval times were one-gated
cities that were made up of the servant quarters of a city and they
were able to travel into cities. The Jews were able to take that
ghetto life and raise the level of that lifestyle to a place that was not
common prostitution, pillaging and lawlessness.

The Synagogue governed the level and standard of living within

these ghettos and Jewish business men quickly went from rags to
riches. Just like you gave the stats about the wealthiest people the
top 150% of them being Jews, these Jews were able to sustain
themselves with these principles and go from rags to riches. Then,
in every circumstance throughout history, they were
excommunicated. They were cast out of these nations only to have
to start over again.

I guess one of the most dangerous things that happened to the Jews
really started the birth of capitalism. When I read this history, I
recognize that when you are faced in difficult circumstances
sometimes your difficulty is your greatest asset. I try to say this in
ministering and lecturing and also in consulting with businesses.
Sometimes, the greatest need is also the greatest asset. When you
find a need and you fill it, do you know that is a principle of
management and also a principle of creating goods and services?
This situation of them kind of being cast out of the futile system and
being removed from the threat of society really was the starting
point and the birth of capitalism. I am going to pause here,
Michael, in case there is something I didn’’t address that you wanted
me to address.

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Michael
No, you are going on a very interesting track and it reminds me
oddly enough when you talk about the Jews and you obviously are
familiar with the day of Pentecost and how they were told –– the
disciples –– to tarry and the Holy Spirit would come. This Pentecost
was the Jewish festival. It was an important one and people came
from around the world to participate in that festival. There were
Jews coming. The Book of Acts Chapter 2 records I think, 16 or 17,
different nations that had come. It took tremendous means to get
there. In other words, think about what state you live in.

John
I am in Connecticut.

Michael
You’’re in Connecticut. I am in Florida. If we wanted to visit one
another and we didn’’t have the transportation we have now and we
had to go by horseback, it would take a while to get from where you
are to where I am. Furthermore, supposing there was an annual
event in Florida, Pentecost, and you live up in Connecticut, but it is
down here. For you to come to that event would take a tremendous
amount of planning up front. You would not travel it by yourself.
Good chance you might bring your entire family, but certainly you
will bring an entourage of other people, if nothing else but for
protection, because you don’’t want to be on the road with thieves
and robbers by yourself. It would take days, weeks, possibly
months to make that journey, depending on how far they had to go
and what the terrain etc. was like. In order to do that you would
have to take a tremendous resource with you. So, the people that
came on the day of Pentecost, the Jews that came, a lot of them
were men of means. It took a lot of means to get there and so they
already had a system that worked for them and they were exercising
through Asia Minor and other places. They were already use to
living with and it was already prosperous enough they could make
the journey and no doubt as they were making the journey, they are

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making stops along the way, selling their goods on the way down
and acquiring their goods on their way up and doing that kind of
thing.

Then what we see is that the Holy Spirit is poured out and we see
the disciples speaking in those languages of those other people from
those other nations. We see them get born again. We see them
naturally when the feast is over get turned over to go back home
along their way. Those three thousand people that got born again
that day and another 5000 a little bit later. Thousands of people, a
good number of them were wealthy, reasonably prosperous at least,
business men, Jewish business men that were now going to go back
like a flame and ignite the rest of the known world. That ignition
took place through the channels that had been developed, channels
of finance, the channels of commerce, and channels of trade. God
marched along through those channels with those Jewish people
who had a system. They had a way. It was no small undertaking to
accomplish and to attend that feast and yet they did. There was a
whole economic system there to support that activity and God rode
upon the back of that system and brought the gospel to numerous
nations that way. So I just wanted to tie in with you a little bit and
say that history is important and I love to hear about it and have
you go further and I am just picturing as you are doing this the Jews
of antiquity and knowing as you fill in the blanks for me, they had
these systems there, systems of business, enterprise, and finance,
and banking and I’’d love for you to continue down that path with
us.

John
You know the Jews, it has been said that Judaism is the hand that
rocked the cradle of Christianity, and for the first three hundred
years, the Church met in synagogues and was kind of married to
Judaism. Not until Constantine did this anti or this movement
toward a different way of thinking out of the cyclical thinking of the
Jewish wineskin, the Jewish principles. It became more linear. We
see the separation from that point and we see more and more the

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Church has been separated from it’’s Jewish principles to the point
that even today most people think, most believers don’’t see the
significance of reading the Old Testament, because the say they are
New Testament believers not knowing that the New Testament was
birthed out of the Old Testament. We kind of cut this part off of our
connection with Judaism.

I say in seminars all the time there is no money in Heaven and it is

kind of a refreshing thing to say because most people are praying
for money. He doesn’’t have printing presses or dwarfed angels
running Ryobi presses or old A.B. Dick presses. He doesn’’t have
that, but He is going to give you, and this is what the Jews
understood, He is going to give you power, He is going to give you
the ability to gain wealth. If it is during the age of agriculture, then
He will give you the ability to have farms and cattle. He increased
the riches of Abraham.

If it is the age like we are today in innovation and technology, He is

going to out that. Any nation, anywhere on the earth, He is going to
give you the power to gain what is considered wealth. It is multi-
generational promise, it is multi- ethnic, and it is applicable to any
time frame any place, wherever I am placed. Whether it is the
shanty villages of Haiti, God can give me the power to gain wealth.
God, please give me innovative ideas. Give me creativity. Give me
inventions that I can create the type of resources. So God is not
going to be held back by the euro dollar, by the stock market. He
has the ability to give Israel to the power to gain wealth. You will
see this in Exodus, Chapter 31. Here God says in verse 3 , God is
requiring Israel to build a tabernacle, a portable tabernacle that
would not be considered if it was not portable or physical and
would have stood their for years, it would have a been one of the
wonders of the world. He was requiring them to build something
they did not have the wisdom, they did not have the talent or the
skill to do it. It was like putting an architectural plan in front of a 6
year old. They are not going to know how to build a house. Here is
what God had to do. Scriptures say that He filled them with the

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spirit of wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in manners

of all workmanship to devise cunning works of gold, silver, brass,
the cutting of stone, carving of timber and workmanship. He gave
the women the ability to embroider blue, purple colors that weren’’t
even at that point created yet. Scarlet, fine linen and all the weaver
abilities, God in one night, the Holy Spirit came upon the camp of
Israel because God had a job to do.

Now these same Jews that created and used their gifts, talents, and
skills in order to create or build the tabernacle also traded those
same goods, the colors, all of these things, with the surrounding
nations that came to buy their workmanship, to buy their ability of
stoner and pottery and linen and all these things. So Israel was
getting skill from God. The were getting innovative ideas and even
today, they get innovative ideas and this is why the believer needs to
tap into the creativity and the innovation that God has in systems
and God is ready to distribute. When we look at wealth, in one
night God could give me an idea, a creative concept or strategy. If I
am a company employee, he can give me a system like the
McDonald system of producing a hamburger in less than a minute.
You know that can actually take me from lower to partnership, so
we have to be open for God to move in our lives. Not to just keep
everything in the spiritual world but allow this spiritual world to
invade the natural world so we can truly be supernatural.

Michael
I want to say 100% amen. I want to go even further. We have to be
open to it, number l. That is sort of a starting point, but secondly, I
think there is a proactive assertive role and I know you will agree
with me on this, we need to not only be open to it, but seeking. You
might have some examples, but I am going to give one to start with
that profoundly affected things by people seeking God just for the
kind of innovation you are talking about. It was a black gentleman
named George Washington Carver, who one day went out and
looked at the stars and said to God, ““Mister God, show me the

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secrets of the universe,”” and the story goes that the Lord said back
to him, ““Mr. Carver, you can not possibly contain the secrets of the
universe, but I will show you the secrets of the peanut.”” He
instructed him to take the peanut apart in its various elements and
recombine it in different ways. That innovation taking a peanut and
changing it from something you eat into the ability to develop
plastics and synthetics and numerous other things absolutely
revolutionized the South and agriculture because of one man who
went to God and asked for an idea. That isn’’t like, ““Isn’’t that
amazing that in whatever it was”” The early 1900s, 1800s, it happens
all the time. I would love for you to share any story you might have
of people who have done it, people that we respect that are Godly
people who brought us that kind of innovation. We need to see that
happen again. I want to see another whole 1,000, 1,000s and
1,000s of Christians who are rising up and they are becoming the
new leaders in the innovation and information world. We have that
opportunity and I think it helps sometimes to that there have been
others that have gone on before us, Godly men, Godly women that
have cut a trail and I am going to ask you if you know of others that
have done this.

John
Absolutely. I chronicle many of them in this book including Carver
and all of his achievements. Let me give you a little bit of a stat.
Early in our country, 90% of all of our inventions came from
Christians, medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries,
technological advancements, including social structures, and
organizational strategies. Now, that is an unbelievable stat that the
Church was behind, believers were behind this innovative push, this
innovative and creative push. Proverbs 8:12 says: I wisdom dwell
with prudence and I find out knowledge of witty inventions. We
can list some of the big names and I want to give you one of the
simplest things, because I think these principles, that this book
needs to be read to our sons and daughters.

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I have my young son who is 13, but at the age of 11 he got intrigued,
and my son used to have the concept of ““Can you buy me this?””
Now, he has the concept of, ““How do I create enough resources to
purchase something that I want?”” Instead of saying I want to work
for that company, every time I set down, I say I want to work for
that company, I said, ““Why not own that company?”” For years they
have been hearing these concepts... own, own. Be the head and not
the tail. At 11 years, he got intrigued with poison dart frogs. They
are rare. They have to have these special tanks with vapor in them
and all sorts of things. He did searches on the internet at 11 years
old and started to raise these poison dart frogs. We took seed
money and put it in his inventor for him. Here we are two years
later and he probably has 100 different dart frogs and they are
having babies. He prayed the Noahic anointing upon them. He
prayed that they would multiply and bear fruit. He is now
beginning to sell them. He has been selling them on the internet for
100s of dollars. This kid is making 100s of dollars at 13 years old
per month, learning how to post things on the internet. He has an
internet business at 13.

I want to speak to the single mother at home now. I want to speak

because sometimes you hear about... I can’’t come up with that type
of it. I have a son who is 13 years old who is making money . He is
making 100s of dollars a month selling poison dart frogs with a
simple hobby but yet the hobby came about with an entrepreneurial
mentality. He is now selling them and purchased his own
television. He did not run to us to get it. I think he just now picked
up a German Shepherd and he wants to raise that so he is selling
more frogs and he has all these things. He is in the business of
buying and selling . He is now getting tadpoles shipped to him
because he can buy tadpoles for $5.00 and when they grow in 6
months he can get a $100 for them. He is buying tadpoles across
the country and they are being shipped to the house That is an
innovative, creative concept of raising money and he has had the
freedom. He has never been held back with poverty mentality. He
has never been told you cannot do that. In fact, he has been told the

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opposite. Instead of wanting to work for someone, why not be the

owner?

Simple things like this I see across the country. God is beginning to
move a creative stream like never before. Time is short and He is
beginning to do that. And again to the single mom and the father
who is trying to make ends meet, open yourself up. God speaks
some of the simplest things. Some of the simplest necessities of life
are your opportunity and we are going to deal with multiple streams
of income at the later session or diversification.

Diversifiers are always looking, the Greek commission, if you read

the Greek Commission, it says to make disciples of all men and to
observe all things, all things, not just spiritual things, but all things.
Diversifiers are observant to all things. When they look at their
community they are looking what is needful, what is lacking. What
needs to be produced, what is not being produced? They are very
innovative in their ability to see things. How many times have you
driven by a 4 way cross street and said, ““Boy, there should be a
McDonalds here or maybe I ought to put a Dunkin Donuts here?”” A
year later, there is a Dunkin Donuts there or a Home Depot there.
You say, ““Man I predicted that.”” It is because God is trying to
prompt you. It is because he is trying to encourage you. He is
trying to say, I can do this. I can show you the new trends. The
Church should be at the forefront. Too many times in our 21st
Century is the Church catching up. In fact, in many ways we are
following our culture other than being trail blazers. We used to be
trail blazers. We should be at the forefront. We should be at the
head of the pack. We should be looking for the new move in the
market. We should be getting words from God and creative ideas of
what is coming around the corner a year from now, two years from
now. We need to know what things to get out of and into so that we
could be set up for success. I would just encourage the listeners
that you are yet to tap into the creativity that God wants to give you.
Many ways we limit God. We box Him in because of our
experiences, yet Paul told the Corinthian church the eye has not

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seen, the ear has not heard the things in which He has in store for
us. God wants to blow our minds, but in many ways our own
philosophy is our stronghold, the way we see things, the way we
limit them.

Michael
Well John, we need to do what you are doing right now, to call this
out of people, to prick this, to tap into that. There are so many
ideas that are within Christendom right now, wonderful,
tremendous ideas that people have had and they think, well, who
am I? I remember back in the mid 70s, I had an idea when I lived
in Canada, an idea for a magazine that I had never seen before.
There was kind of a little rag type magazine that sold and used for
people to get rid of household furniture, their car, or whatever. I
thought, wouldn’’t it be something if they had one of those
publications for real estate. There wasn’’t anything of the sort. So I
made a mock up of one and got pictures and put it all together, but I
didn’’t act on it beyond that because I didn’’t know who to present it
to, I didn’’t have the confidence at the time. This was probably 30
years ago, it was in fact. I didn’’t act on it. Now you can’’t go into a
city without seeing multiple choices of that. But that is one
example. Fortunately, the majority of the ideas that I have seen
since then are things that we have acted on and done. Some years
ago living in Tennessee, our pastor was preaching a sermon one day
and said, ““Instead of getting God to bless what you are doing, why
don’’t you find out what he is doing or what He is blessing and join
Him?”” I thought about that and said, ““God what are you blessing?””

At that point He spoke something specific to me that which was

blessed are those who publish the gospel. I thought publish the
gospel, I don’’t know anything about publishing, but if you will give
me an idea, I will do it. That night my wife and I went for a walk
and a prayer and we asked God for an idea. We got one that night
and it resulted in a book called the Bible Incorporated in your Life,
Job, and Business. It was the very first book we ever did. And it’’s a
compilation of scripture, compiled conversationally on a 101 work

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and business topics. We had the idea for the book, but we did not
know how to publish it. We didn’’t know anything, but we went
ahead and got the book published and it went on to become an
international best seller selling 100s and 100s of 1,000s of copies
around and is still doing well to this day. That was an idea that we
had got if you got any ideas.

From there I would be praying and I would get other ideas. One
day I went to my wife and I said, ““Sweetheart, I keep getting these
ideas for books. I don’’t know what to do them.”” She said we are a
publishing company so why do you need a telegram? I got to
thinking she is right. I should do something with this. So we
published a series of best selling books. A number of the books we
have done have gone into the hundreds of 1,000s of copies and we
still publish. We didn’’t know the rules of the game. We didn’’t
know what you should do and shouldn’’t do, but we did that. Once
you start getting that, people start thinking okay you found
something and you were lucky.

Let me fast forward another 20 years to today. I am doing work

with an organization, some friends of mine, to start a university,
part of the education thing. I think we need a lot of these Christian
universities that teach business in the schools. I expect to see
schools of business popping up all over this country teaching
Biblical concepts and Biblical ethics. In fact, a week ago yesterday I
was in Dallas, Texas. I had the privilege of leading the devotions for
a new friend of mine, you might know him, Zig Ziglar, he told me
the most important half hour of his week was his devotions and he
invited me to lead it with the group. He was sharing with me the
Biblical foundation on so many things that he had and I believe it
was the Nazarenes that someone had put up a million dollars and
they were raising another million to build, and they are doing a
Biblical school of Ethics based on the concept that he teaches.
There is a guy who is trying to take that realm. Moving forward, we
want to impact the culture and rise up business leader just like you
do, so we are thinking, we are going to need some cash to do this.

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How are we going to do this? My dear friend who got the initial
vision for the school of business that I am helping him with thought
he was going to need ten million dollars to get the ball rolling, but
very soon that became a hundred million to get going. How are we
going to do that? What we did was ask God for an idea and we got a
very innovative idea, a very innovative revolutionary way to attract
capital in significant amounts to attract resources that are in the
tens of millions of dollars, just the last few months, because we have
a God ordained way of getting value to corporate America. They
give us, in exchange, the resources that we need to build an
endowment for a school.

The idea and the way that is being done, if you will, it is a somewhat
of a repackaging of an old way. In other words, nothing stays the
same. Go back to the town that you were born in, if you haven’’t
been there in 20 years, nothing is the same. You go back and visit a
friend in ten years, everything has changed. There are some things
I guess that remain similar, but everything keeps on moving.
Culture, what might have worked ten years ago, either way, could or
couldn’’t have worked, now it is a whole different ballgame.
Suddenly God can give you something and you might say well, that
has been around for a long time, but He gives you a different twist
on it and suddenly it comes to great life and can be a phenomenally
successful, not to even count on or to mention the fact of what
happens when God chooses to blow, to breathe upon something to
give it some favor and give it some life. We are experiencing
currently, as we speak, last week I think it was close to two million
dollars that came in to this thing. That is just a normal, and I
should point out it is asset value that is not straight cash, but
nonetheless, it is an innovative idea that God id helping us with so
that we can raise an endowment for a business school, an
innovation. Your son, he is doing something, that is innovation.
Who would have thought to make a business out of raising poison
dart frogs. To me, that is a story that needs to be told everywhere. I
don’’t know who owns poisondartfrog.com but I hope it is him.

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John
We tried to get that rather quickly. We move really fast on picking
up the website names and diving into patents and things like that.
But you know what you are saying and what I am saying is a reality
that if the Church can begin, see for so long we have moved away
from ministering true message of Biblical economics because we
have allowed it. We have allowed it to be fashioned as the name
and claim it, get rich quick. In essence, because we didn’’t want to
be a part of them, we walked away from them and we left that arena
to be defined in that wineskin. My desire, my passion was to have it
taken back to a Biblical point to a place that is balanced, that is on a
firm footing, and to be able to have pastors, business men, and
leaders, and I think the fact that I own businesses and been in
business and then gave my life to the Lord and a pastor, I have tried
to look at both of those poles and bring the both of those together.

From a scriptural standpoint and also from a business standpoint,

connect those two things like two sides of a coin and marry those
two things together and if this could be ministered and taught,
members of the Body of Christ, Christians across this country and
across the world could grab a hold of this. Do you know the influx
of capital and the influx of wealth that can wield into the Church
and then the Church and also the Body of Christ can use to shape a
culture. It could change the very tide of what we see in our nation
today, simple things. I think sometimes that people complicate this
and that is why I wanted to give an example of my 11 year old son,
who is 13 now, who has seen the fruit of his labor. More than that
his concept of how he approaches even just vocational and fun
things in life has the component of , I can make money, I can create
income, I can generate wealth with this concept.

David
You know, John, you have created an environment for your son that
in that context, in that setting, it caused him to think a certain way.
That is what I know is the heart of both of you, gentlemen, with this
product is that as people hear these recordings they are thinking in

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terms of how does this change my approach? Not only is God

blessing these types of things but these opportunities exist, but I
need to start looking for them, I need to start asking for them, and I
need to start receiving the creativity from God. I know, John, one
of the laws you get into, we are going to get into these twelve laws of
wealth creation in a little bit later. I know one of these laws you get
into has to do with this concept of innovation. One of the things the
Jewish people did in their development and the development of
what we know as modern capitalism was very much the same kind
of thing. They received an innovative way to transact business. You
get into this concept of concrete economics versus abstract
economics and how the Jewish people were at the forefront of
developing some of those concepts, can you just give us a quick
history lesson on how that developed?

John
Absolutely. That innovative system is a big key to this and what they
did. Let me say something about capitalism because abstract
economic and concrete economics go along with capitalism and the
birthing of capitalism. Capitalism is not profit. Buying low and
selling high is what we consider being a profit. The goal of
capitalism is absolutely a profit. Capitalistic mentality is to get
profit. Capitalism is commonly understood, not my definition, is a
commonly understood definition of capitalism. Here is what it is.
It is a system of specific applications of established principles that
govern wealth in order to create surplus wealth. Now notice that. It
is principles that govern wealth so that wealth can create surplus
wealth which is then used to create generational wealth, three
stages of wealth, wealth, surplus wealth, and then what are we
leaving to the next generation, generational wealth.

These components or the components of the system, in order for

capitalism to work, and to function has to have certain elements. It
has to have certain components to flourish and has to have open
market. These are just a handful of them. It has to have enforceable
contracts. Business isn’’t business without enforceable contracts,

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international or judiciary. There has to be an international court.

There has to be an ability if we are going to trade from one nation to
another to hold each nation accountable.

There needs to be the free movement of labor and money. So I need

to be able to move labor around and also money. There needs to be
an open wage working class. What that simply means is that I need
to be able to go to the marketplace and hire individuals. I need to
have financial liquidity. I need to be able to sell off all of my assets
in order to create liquid resources to stay afloat. I need to have
feasibility to trade and the ability to transfer negotiations. That is a
long list, but you can rewind the tape and read it again. All of these
things today are common. I don’’t think anybody would say, well,
that makes sense, capitalism, absolutely have to have that. Yet in
the time of the Jews, the Medieval Times, these things were
considered to be strange and wicked. These Jews were being
forced.

Everything that was being done with business in those days was
done cash on the barrel head. Did you ever hear that phrase? We
consider it to be concrete economics. It comes from the shipping
industry. When ships came in, trader ships, they would put their
barrels of grain on the dock and you would literally if you wanted to
buy, you would put cash on the barrel head. There was no such
thing as leverage, promise to pay, and promissory note. Everything
was considered to be concrete economics.

Now with the Jews there was no such thing as abstract. Abstract
economics refers to monies that have yet to become tangible. The
best way to understand abstract economics is that I can go to the
bank and get a loan for a home and based upon the contract and
based upon the property, I will be loaned from the bank the money
to buy the house. The interest of the bank is in abstract economics,
not concrete, because if I didn’’t have the full sum of money, if I
didn’’t have cash on the barrel head to buy a $400,000 house, I
didn’’t have $400,00, I might have had only a $100,000. The

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$100,00 given, they will take their money over 15, 20, 30 years and
it will be in the mentality or understanding of abstract. The are
going to get it over time. They are going to get interest for that.
During this time of the Jews in the Medieval Times, there was no
such thing as abstract economics.

Not until the Jews were in the Middle Ages kind of thrown out of
the system of social structure, I don’’t want to complicate that, the
futile system in those days was not made up of the merchant class.
The futile system in those days was made up of clergy, nobility and
serfs was what the futile system or the social system was made up.
When the Jews were cast out of that system, it was the demise of
them as a people. How could you function when you had no place
to be a part of the nobility, no place to be a part of…… the whole
structure of society eliminated you. How are you going to survive,
you have no land, no nation, you’’re spread out, spread out among
all the nations of this world, what are you going to do? I am amazed
at how God set them up for His sovereignty and had prepared them
to sustain themselves. Well, what they did, they were used to
functioning in the abstract. They served an invisible God. They
have a portable tabernacle. They functioned in an abstract world in
the sense of being upon every nation…… They were a nation within a
nation and they had rally learned this abstract concept. What they
did since they were all over the world, they formed a merchant class
that had not yet been established. Because the Jews were on every
continent from Asia to Europe, every continent, if you wanted to
have international trade, you didn’’t have this promissory note, you
didn’’t have any jurist prudence, you didn’’t have international law,
but the Talmud was international law. Jews had something the
other nations didn’’t have. Every synagogue functioned the same
way. Every Jew was held to the principles of the Talmud, just like
every Christian should be held to the principles of the Bible.

One of the most disappointing things to a business man is to do

business with a Christian who separates their business life from
their spiritual life. They are able to go to church and worship God,

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but steal like the devil on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday who
have cut throat business tactics and will step on anyone to get
advancement, but yet they go to church and they are leaders in the
church and worship God. They separate their business life from
their spiritual life. The Jews didn’’t do that. They did not separate
their business life from their spiritual life. The Talmud provided a
universal international document that governed everything from
currency to interest rates, it had in it jurist prudence, it had in it
tortes. So if I am a trader, I’’m a grain owner and I want to trade
with someone in another country, I wouldn’’t think of using anyone
else but a Jewish merchant owner who would trade with another
Jewish merchant owner in another part of the world and that Jew
would insure that I would not be robbed because the synagogue and
the Rabbi, that community of Jews would excommunicate any Jew
that had ungodly business practices.

Michael
Excommunication had some serious financial ramifications. It
wasn’’t that I would miss all my friends. It wasn’’t just being
ostracized. There was a significant serious and immediate financial
impact if that happened. So they were amply motivated to make
sure that they didn’’t stray on the path and fulfilled their obligation
and the word because the impact was so strong. Comparing that to
today where one Christian man cheats another guy, they will either
change their business or move out of town, move across the street,
do something and start all over again. It doesn’’t seem to have the
same kind of impact, but back in that time when it was more
covenantal in nature, it had a serious impact.

John
Well, the Church has become so anti-law that when we look at the
law, we naturally go to the Mosaic covenant and we say, ““Well, we
are free from the law,”” and that is true. I’’m not saying we are not.

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Yet, the system of the Bible, the system of morality, ethics and
character within the Bible are transferable to every covenant. Just
because we are free from the law, meaning we don’’t receive
salvation through the law, we are not free from the law of Christ to
be moral law abiding citizens that have a system of ethics. This is
what Paul is trying to stress to the New Testament churches saying
they are becoming very lawless. They are actually using their
freedom for an occasion to sin. He sees these practices creeping in,
are really creating an atmosphere that God cannot flow in. The
Jews under the Talmud had international law. It regulated their
moral, ethical, and business conduct as well as their religious life.
In fact, the Talmud also dealt with important tortes, trade
regulations, damages, real estate, commerce, sanctity of both, the
enforcement of contracts. It was the system of national law. It
provided what we consider today to be recognized a modern
capitalism.

Before the Talmud hit this place, before the Jews created this
merchant class, there was no such thing as abstract economics. In
fact, the Jews began this after they fashioned the merchant class.
The now became shareholders. They were able to ship. They were
able to get better rates. They became 3% partners in the merchant
trades that were happening. So they joined partnerships with these
business owners and we saw lending. They were able to if an owner
didn’’t have enough money to ship the product to an available
resource in another nation, that Jew would take a portion of the
profit. He would front the money because the synagogue on his end
and on the other side would loan the money so they instantly
started to loan money.

All of the practices that we use today can be found within the
scriptures. And I think that is why the Bible is such an amazing
book. They cannot dismiss the influence of the book that you read.
It is not some ancient parchment that has no life in it. It is a living
document. The Bible is alive and today is should be just as living,
just as fresh as it was for the Jews as it is now. It should be just as

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much alive today for the Christians. They should look at this Bible
as a code of how I want to live my life. I look at that and get
frustrated as a leader because I see so many contrary attitudes in
conduct within the Church that is not becoming to that of a
believer. It is not consistent to what the Bible considers a believer
to be . It becomes a bad example. It does not shine a light to the
business workers who show up late to their work rather than be
there early, you know what I mean, just steal from their bosses, and
they don’’t handle themselves in a proper way. We should be the
model of ethics, we should be the model of business practices
within our community.

David
When you talk about what the Jews set up in terms of the merchant
class and many of the principles that affect modern-day capitalism,
also historically there were some things in place that limited abuses
of that system. One of the modern criticisms of capitalism is that it
is cut throat for the sake of profit or the lending business, the credit
business they virtually created is usurious in nature today. The
interest rates are so high. How did the Jewish culture prevent those
kinds of abuses in their time?

John
Rabbis had to know –– and here again is that leadership –– Rabbis
had to be trained, not only in ritual services, but also commercial
regulations and the business men who were lending did not set the
interest rates. The Talmud did not allow usury which is the lending
money at exuberant rates. The Talmud forbade usury of excessive
interest rates. The 18% that credit cards are doing today is at Mafia
rates. That would be unheard of. The rabbi in the synagogue set
the interest rates to control that. When the Jews were kind of
thrown out of England and Christians took over the money lending
institutes, the interest rates sky rocketed to the point that the
Europeans begged for the Jews to come back and set up banking
systems. But again, the Rabbis had to set the permissible rates of

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interest in order to insure reasonable interest rates and it

eliminated Jewish lenders from controlling or hiking interest rates.

So, what does that say to me? That says to me as a pastor, which is
my first calling as a pastor, I have a responsibility to know what
interest rates are. I should not only know religious observances, but
if Melchizedek is the model or Melchizedek depending on whether
you looking at the New Testament wording, or the Old Testament
wording and their spelling, if he is the priesthood in which Jesus
flows from and Michael, you are going to be familiar with this
phrase, there has been the argument of kings and priests and we
need more kings in the Church and the priests really shouldn’’t be
kings and there was two types of understanding of finances. The
kings were to be in the community and be the financial wealth
creators. Priests were to do the religious observations. Yet
Melchizedek, the scriptures say, was a king and he was a priest and
Jesus flows from both that anointing. That He was both king and
priest means that the Church should employ that 2-phase anointing
of kings and priests and it is not forbidden for the pastor to also be
good with business. In fact, we need the pastor to be good with
business to be able to give business insight to the business men
under him. He needs those anointing of both kings and priests or
the kingly anointing and the priestly anointing and I pray gets
reconciled in many of the listeners today.

Michael
Without that what you have is priests training priests and nobody is
training the kingly side of it, if you will. And so we have this heavy
one- sided view of the world that again is the dichotomy, or
dualism, this split thing where the emphasis is always on the
priestly or the spiritual where the relational side of things as
important as they are they are not the only part of it. Christ became
flesh and dwelled among us and so the incarnating of God’’s word
and his principles is a critical factor.

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David
We are coming to the end of hour number four, and as we do that,
let’’s look ahead at hours five and six we are going to explore. John,
you created, you’’ve lifted out your research and experience twelve
laws of wealth creation that we don’’t have time to get into all
twelve, but we are going to explore several of them and so these are
going to be things that we can further create actions with. In other
words, we have gotten a lot of –– we’’ve started and we have really
dived into a lot of –– actionable things so far, but this is where we are
really going to ratchet it up a notch in terms of how this gets applied
and how people can create the kind of results in terms of creating
wealth that God has created for us. As we are winding down
number four here let’’s look ahead. We are going to cover several of
the laws. We are going to talk about the law of time management
and the law of the brand. That is all coming up in number five so as
you are listening to this be sure that you dive into number five and
get into those topics.

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Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church Hour Five

Hour Five –– Laws of: Time Management & The Brand

David
Welcome to hour 5 of Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look at
Rich Church, Poor Church. Once again, we are talking with John
Louis Muratori and Michael Q Pink. In this hour, we’’re going to get
into what is known as the Twelve Laws of Wealth Creation that
John Muratori here has identified in his book Rich Church, Poor
Church. As we are diving into this, we are getting into the real
practical side, and this is the rubber meeting the road, right here.

Michael
This is the how. We started on it really in the last series, getting
into some specifics of the power to get wealth, the power, the
capacity to create wealth and how that comes about. Now we are
going to get into the Twelve Laws.

And one of the things that has been on my heart, John, is Isaiah
48:17 and it says: ““Thus says the Lord your redeemer, the Holy One
of Israel, I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who
leads you by the way you should go.”” And when I think about that,
I’’m saying, ““Lord, I need to be taught. Teach me how to profit.
Teach me on the way I should go.”” And, I think there was a great cry
in the Body of Christ, a great cry in the world today, that will
somebody teach you. Because so many of the people that have,
don’’t want to teach. Then there are those who are willing to make
you an apprentice, yet if you ever did become conformed to their
image, you wouldn’’t like what you saw in the mirror. There are
concerns on that end. And here is God Himself saying, ““I’’m Lord
the God who teaches you to profit””, and He’’s willing to do that.

So, I look at Rich Church Poor Church and this excellent book that
you have, and you were telling me earlier off-line the other day,
about a presentation you made to one of the Ivy League schools,
and you gave a summation of this content. It was at a school where
you wouldn’’t have been expected to be received well for a Biblical

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worldview of financing, yet you brought these contents. And not

only did you not get thrown out of the school, but you got a
standing ovation, because of the stellar quality of the information
that you presented, which was in fact, Biblical truth. I think that’’s
something that says people everywhere are still looking for the
answers. What does work, what is real?

And so, that is what I wanted to discuss a little bit, and again you
have twelve laws, of time management, intellect, creative power,
divine endowment, the brand, which I love that one…… I love them
all, but that is one of my favorites. You talk about Discipline, about
First Things First, about Synergy, and Management
Communication, Generosity, Diversity, and these are important
things you touch on. We are going to touch on them a little bit here.
You develop them very masterfully in the book, so let’’s start off with
the first law you have, which is an issue all of us, I think, struggle
with, and you call it the Law of Time Management. Tell us about
that.

John
I just wanted to say that, I found through lecturing especially at the
Ivy League school, the truth. When it is truth and it is properly
communicated, it’’s received. How we fashion the truth sometimes
has everything top do with the receptors of individuals receiving it.
When I sought out, ““What are the principles? Are there a set of
laws? And what governs wealth?”” And I looked at Genesis and I
questioned, ““Is God really in the habit of pushing buttons? Is He
always in the habit of interjecting Himself in the affairs?”” And while
that is true, He does do that. Yet I see in the book of Genesis –– God
has implemented systems –– in every animal was the ability to
reproduce after his own kind. He set up laws that govern nature, He
set up laws that govern the tides, He set up laws that govern the
rotation of the earth, and these laws just are. Like the law of gravity,
they just are and they are perpetual. They go on day after day as we
go through our lives, we live our lives, and sometimes we function
within these laws and don’’t know it.

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So, when I looked at wealth, I recognized that God began to show

me, that there are some laws that govern the complete spectrum of
wealth. And if we will adhere to them, then we will see wealth find
us, instead of us chasing after wealth, which I don’’t recommend.
Nobody should be seeking or chasing after wealth, we may miss
God in the process. We should seek the Kingdom of God first, and
its righteousness and these things will follow. Meaning Jesus is
saying, ““If you put God first, first things first, all these others things
are going to follow.””

So, also if we ignore these laws, you will not be able, I have found
and this is true in history, that you will not be able to create wealth
nor sustain your existing wealth. And these laws govern the whole
spectrum of wealth and it is so vital for the listener to really get all
of them. It is like a matrix, it’’s a net, and when it is properly put into
place, as each one of these laws get activated in your life, it will
produce success. It will produce longevity, it will produce resource,
it will produce all the things most of the time, and believers are
praying for when really if they would implement these strategies,
these laws, they would see these things invade their life.

The first one is the Law of Time Management. And there have been
many books written on time management, and I find that long
before all of these books and the habits of highly effective people,
the Bible had something to say about time management. God had
something to say, since He created time, He is the best individual to
help a believer maximize their time. Time is a commodity; I don’’t
think any one of us is rich enough to lose.

You know, we can’’t go back and repeat yesterday, we can only deal
with today and tomorrow, and there is a reaper chasing us down on
a chariot that refuses to let us go back and redo some things. There
is no time machine, I have to make the best of my time and that is
exactly what Moses was praying in Psalms 90:12. He said, ““Lord,
teach me to number my days.”” Not just to number my days, ““Teach

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us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.””
Hebrew word there translated for number means assign sequence
to a lot, to a point; it means that he was praying that God would
help him. In a time when there were no palm pilots, no
blackberries, no Microsoft Outlook, no pocket calendars or flow
charts, Moses was asking the question. ““Lord, I want to get the most
out of my life.”” You know Moses was asking this question toward
the later half of his life. If he had asked earlier, he might have
gotten more success or more out of life.

It was so important that I asked this question early on, that I apply
myself by saying, ““Lord, what is the law of time management. How
can I get the best out of every bit of my life? How can I maximize
the moment? James said this about time in chapter four, verse
fourteen, he says, ““You don’’t know what your life is, or what
tomorrow will be like. Life is just a vapor, it appears for awhile and
then it just vanishes away.”” And I find that foolish people think they
are going to be around forever, but wise people understand the
window of opportunities and they want to seize every moment.

I’’ve employed in this chapter of the Law of Time Management, my

own personal strategy that I developed many years ago, that I used
in companies that I oversee and every single year, I go through the
same process in order to maximize my years. Of course, I don’’t
believe as believers that we should be rolling the dice, making New
Years resolutions and hoping in luck or chance that this year is
going to be good. We got to have a better strategy than that. We’’ve
go to have a well-defined strategy to manage time every single year
and to deal with our twenty-four hour allotment of time in our
months. I find people who within the first quarter say, this is going
to be a bad year, and we can’’t give up on a whole year because we
have a bad quarter.

Now, Jeremiah 29:11, probably one of the most common memory

verses that Christians recite, and memorize, is: I know the plans I
have for you. God has a plan for me. Michael, God has a plan for

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you. David, God has a plan for you. He has a plan for every member
of this Church, every believer, God has a plan for. I need to know
that plan, He needs to communicate that plan to me, and the best
way for me to maximize my year, is to divide it.

This is the strategy that I use in every company, at the beginning of

the year. We take our company leaders, our managers, our workers,
we take administrators, our leaders, our ministry leaders, we take
them away and we lay out the four quarters of the year. We ask God
to speak to us, what He is planning for the first quarter, the second
quarter, the third quarter, and then the fourth quarter. And like a
football game, as I was watching a football game, I recognized that
one of my teams was losing in the first half, and they mounted a
second half comeback that I thought was just amazing, and
afterwards, at the post game interview, they ask the coach if he
thought his team could come back, he said he approached every
quarter like a game in itself. He knew that if he could put up at least
two good quarters, that if the two good quarters were better than
the two quarters that he didn’’t do well, his team would be in the
best position to win.

That’’s really the philosophy I like to employ in life, that I’’m looking
to have some good quarters, three months, what am I to be
accomplishing in January, February and March? I am not held to
this, God can change it. I’’m not wrecking the spontaneity of the
Holy Spirit, but I find in Scripture, not much is written, or not
much is done through the spontaneity of the Holy Ghost. God chose
David and worked on him long before he became a king. God
already knew the plans he had for Jeremiah.

He’’s reminding Jeremiah, that I knew you before you were formed
in your mother; God had a plan before Jeremiah was formed. God
already knows what the end is at the beginning, so I need to access
that. I need to say, ““God what are your plans for the first quarter,
second quarter, third quarter, and fourth?”” I, also know that I might
have some sub-par quarters in a year, but I don’’t need to fret, I

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don’’t need to get nervous, because the previous years quarters are
sometimes going to give me dividends years, not just one year, but
three years, four years and I’’m receiving a profit from quarters that
I have sowed five years ago. They are now coming perdition, they
are producing a harvest, my labor five years ago and eight years ago
are still producing a harvest in my life. And those harvests are
sustaining me during times of lack and drought, the seven year
principle of Joseph and the time management of those seven years,
to employ helped him to save Egypt and all of Israel at that time.

David
You know, one of the concepts that come up when we talk about
time is this idea of stewardship. Which is to say that, and you’’ve hit
this already, but a lot of times, as believers, we recognize
stewardship in some areas of our lives, but not so much in others.
You know, the New Testament defines for us the fact that we are not
our own, that we have been bought with a price. Just like we talked
about stewardship of finances, where we recognize stewardship is
the management of that which belongs to someone else. That the
stewardship of my time is really no different, because it really is not
my time, it’’s mine in the sense that it is what I’’ve been given to
steward over. But it’’s really been purchased by the Lord Jesus at a
great price. So stewardship begins to take on a whole new measure
when I think about time being equivalent to life. That life is actually
linear; life is measured in units of time.

Michael
I’’m glad you brought that up because I think that, John, to your
point about planning, and to seek God for a plan of strategy for a
year. And I love what you’’re doing to break it down to manageable
time frames and so that if you have a bad first quarter, you don’’t say
well that just threw that year out. You’’ve got another quarter ahead
of you, in fact three more quarters. So, I think that is a good
strategy in terms of how we view the year, and getting hold of the
whole concept of actually looking at our time as the resource that

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we are all given an equal amount of, that is in any single given day
we may live life longer than others. In any given day we have
twenty-four hours, and in a year, we have 365 days and so, how we
do that, we’’re given that as an awesome thing. I watched as you
have and seen some men and some women in remarkably short
time do remarkably substantial things because they had a different
way of looking at the time they had and many of them see it as a
resource, that have definite limits in terms of how they spent it.
Like you said, none of us is rich enough that we can afford to waste
that.

Do you have other time management strategies that you want to

address? Certainly the first one, that you mentioned has to do with
looking at the year’’s quarters, but you referenced something about
priorities, and I’’d like you to go there a little bit further.

John
Well, in the business world we have heard the adage that time is
money, and when we want to get things moving fast, we tell them,
““Hey, time is money, come on let’’s go.”” So it is the, that time
management could be loss of money. And if life is measured in
terms of time, the amount of time I’’ve been given; then wasted time
is an abuse of life. That principle has to set; an individual has to
recognize that this law is governing the fruit of our time.

In business we talk about OPT, other people’’s time, and OPM, other
people’’s money, and leveraging and using time is a commodity, in
order to create wealth. So when we look at wealth, we look at the
seven year rule, and finance and any financial planner will tell you
that every seven years your money has the possibility of doubling.
Banks use time management just to look at the rates for 15 year
mortgages, 20 year mortgages, and 30 year mortgages. And I have
to look at time, as how much time is something going to take, how
much is it going to require of me as I get into certain business
ventures as I look at start-ups, as I look at many things I’’m involved
in. I have to take into account the time, because in many situations

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that I have got involved in, it has taken more time than I thought it
was going to take and because of that, it is overlapping into other
areas of my life. It is being something that is draining me and taking
from me, all of my available resources and energy.

Not only do you have the separation of the four quarters, I do

something in the first quarter that I think is very, very important. I
take the first 21 days as a first route to God. And in the first seven
days, for the whole 21 days, I go on a Daniel fast for 21 days, no
television, no nothing; I want to seek the Lord. For the first seven
days, I want God to consecrate me, because I can’’t hear from Him if
there are issues, and God doesn’’t wash me and cleanse me. Isaiah
went into the house of God and the seraphim was there and he said,
““Whoa unto me, I am a man of unclean lips.”” Not until the coal was
put upon his lips, did he hear the voice of God saying, ““Whom shall
I send?”” So, very important at the beginning of the year that I get
washed and cleansed and I have a time of consecration, something
that isn’’t taught from the pulpit any longer, because we are in a self-
help, self-centered community within the body of Christ. But, I take
some time to say, ““Lord I need you to consecrate me.””

Then, the second seven days I say, ““Lord I need you to re-vision me.
I need you to give me vision, I need you to tell me direction, and I
need you to whisper the path I am to go in.”” So, for seven days, I ask
God to re-vision me and to give me vision. Maybe some old dream
or old promise God had given me that have lain dormant for seven
years. There are some things that I have gotten involved in years
ago, even business things, that I have looked at and said that was a
waste of time, but yet today, I have had to pull from those
experiences and I have had to bring them to the forefront. Though
they didn’’t produce a monetary value, they did produce an aspect of
wisdom that I need today, so I need God to revision me and give me
vision.

Then the last seven days, is the strategic planning between me and
God. I want God to give me a strategy, in order for those visions to

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come to past. Now that I’’ve been washed, now that I’’ve been
consecrated, now that I’’ve been re-visioned, I need a vision without
a plan is never going to come to pass. It is like a table without legs,
or a dream without any system for it to come to pass, and I don’’t
want to go around sharing my dreams. I want to go around fulfilling
God’’s vision for my life. So I take that seven days and say, ““God give
me a system, give me a system that I can manage the rest of the
year. A system that I can implement these things.”” So, I sow
firstfruits to the Lord and I take those first 21 days and I say, ““Lord,
I’’m going to give you the first fruits of the first 21 days that you
might sanctify the rest of the 300 plus days left of that year. This
has proven for my family, for my leadership team, and my
businesses to be a pivotal time for us to hear from God, so that we
don’’t end up wasting a year.

There are some adventures that we have pulled the plug on in those
first 21 days, because we felt the leading of the Lord, that when our
hearts were right before Lord, we were open to God. He spoke some
things and directions to us that maximized our time for that year.

David
You know, one of the things that comes up when you start to deal
with taking this kind of an approach, is that you’’ve got to have the
ability to discern between opportunities that are good opportunities
and opportunities that God is behind or involved in. How does this
affect your ability to say no to things that might look good at first
glance?

John
I think that most of our success depends on our failures. When I
was a young pastor in a meeting with a bunch of pastors at 23, 24
years old, they went around and stated sharing all the testimonies
of what they were doing and the exploits. Man, I had no exploits, I
wasn’’t doing anything, and I was failing. Everything I seemed to
touch seemed to have failure written all over it, so when it got to

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me, I had no great swelling stories of success, and I had no stories

of accomplishing anything, so I started sharing some of my failures,
and some of my mistakes. I recognized that that set the platform
and it really helped me today. That really was the foundation today
to really stop me from moving into every good thing.

Sometimes, sometimes the enemy, life throws at you so many good

things. Like I love tag sales, I can’’t drive past a tag sale. Yet my wife
says to me, ““Not every good thing is a good thing.”” ““But Honey, I
got this for 99 cents, do you see what I picked up for 99 cents?””
What she is saying is that not every 99 cents thing, while it is a good
deal, is going to produce anything, so I think we have to learn to put
the brakes on certain things and take it to prayer. When you
practice this a little while, you are a little hesitant and I have turned
down some deals that were worth in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars, because when it was a good thing, it wasn’’t a God thing.

David
I think we have really hit the concept of the time management
thing. That is law number one, and you’’ve got twelve laws and we
are going to explore just a few of them and so I want to skip ahead
to law number five. This is one that you identify in the book and you
call it the law of the brand. Now, I got to tell you, when I saw the
law of the brand, I wasn’’t sure where you were headed, because I
think that most of us when we think about brand names, we
understand the huge corporations spend a lot of money building a
brand. But you bring this down to whole different level as it relates
to the individual and certainly the small business owner, which I’’m
sure a lot of our listeners are going to find themselves in those kinds
of situations. How did this one come about?

John
Well, because I teach in business circles, branding is, like you said a
very, very important component to successful business. You know
companies employ lawyers, they insure that their brand is always……

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you know with the failure of certain athlete, one of the quickest
things a company will do, is remove them from their contract,
because they don’’t want any negative press to be associated with
their brand. I started to look at the brand and you know, I started to
really look at what is, not everyone is going to own a company, not
everyone is going to look at this branding. Yet, when I was reading
through the Bible one day, I came upon a scripture verse that, you
know, the Lord just made alive to me. Here it is, Proverbs 22:1 says,
““A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.”” And that
word great riches here, I kind of link onto that because, here I am
looking at the creation of wealth, and wealth building. So I have
seen riches and I’’ve seen that as Solomon was saying, that a good
name should be chosen. If you were sitting at a table and there was
unlimited wealth on one side in a bag, and a checkbook there, and
yet a good name was also there, he is saying that you should choose
the good name, because the good name should be chosen rather
than riches and loving favor, rather than silver and gold.

When we look at the brand, I brought the brand down to the

person’’s name. My name is a brand, it is something that I will hand
down to my children, my children’’s children, and it is a legacy. This
name means something, it is marketable. You want to know how
good your name is? Just do a credit score, and it’’s the easiest way to
find out if you have a good name.

While people in the Church are dancing around the altar, people are
praying for God to take away all these things, they should be picking
up their bills and paying them on time so that their credit score
doesn’’t look low and their name is good. I have been around
Christianity long enough to know people don’’t look at there name
as a brand. Just as much as companies spend millions of dollars,
they need to look at their name and they need to know their name is
worth more than riches; more than all the other riches on this
earth. My name is worth more than that.

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Michael
You know, I’’m sorry; I’’ve been camping out for a second. On that
point, on your name, and I appreciate your passion; I’’m so glad you
wrote this chapter because it is never occurred to me to look at my
name, my reputation as a brand. You put a sack of money and your
name on the other side, a lot of people will take the sack of money.
The problem with the money is, you can spend it in one time. If you
don’’t have a name, then you are going to probably spend it foolishly
and make that name even more solid. So, if you have a name, you
can take away all the wealth that there is, but you have a name, that
name will open up opportunity and favor and because of what that
name represents, the inherit character that is built into it, that will
allow you to basically have a renewable resource. Cash, gold, or
silver, you can spend it one time and then it’’s gone. You have it and
you spend it and it’’s gone, but a name is something you can use
over, and over, and over again.

I have found as I approach the later years in my life, I tell people

I’’m turning sixty in September, which is true, just not this
September. It’’s coming sooner anyway. The point is, the older I get
the more valuable my name is to me. My wife, I’’ve told her that her
position is the chief name executor; her job is to guard my
reputation. There were things that I want to do or things that I’’m
invited to do and I’’ll run them by her and she may say, ““You know
what, if you do that, look what you are associating your name with.
Do you want to put your name at risk for this? You have spent
twenty years, thirty years, a lifetime building up a name and a
reputation; do you want to put it on something that has that
element of risk on it?”” She kind of helps guard my name and think
of things I might not think of and put my name at risk. I realize it
took a long time to build that brand and now to consider losing it by
taking a roll of the dice on some opportunity that might not be so
good is not a smart thing. So I’’ve learned to appreciate the power of
a name.

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I was able to get with some high level individuals because

fortunately and unbeknown to me, my name had gone before me,
and I’’m starting to get some of the dividends of that. I could not
have got in there with cash. I’’m so glad that you are hitting it
because people who are listening to this right now, you might think
my company doesn’’t have a brand name that will be recognized like
Coca Cola. It may not, but you know what, your name can mean
something and it will cost you something. You will have to invest to
hold onto your name.

John, we were down to Guatemala to do a seminar, let’’s see,

thirteen years ago now. And at that seminar, we were doing a
Biblical principle for business type seminar. We had 250 people
who had paid; I think it was $75 was the price to come to this
seminar in Guatemala. $75 was two weeks wages for the average
school teacher, so to give some idea, it was a lot of money for folks.
We didn’’t fully understand the dynamic at that time, but that was
what was going on. But we had a tremendous amount of effort. I
had a husband and wife team go down six weeks in advance. There
was a tremendous amount of dollars spent to get this thing set up
and then to pull it off. Two hundred fifty people at 75 bucks wasn’’t
much, but we went through it pretty quickly, just in trying to pull
the event off.

One of the things that happened after I got down there was the
poster that was all over town and announced the seminar, when it
left my office, it said ‘‘lunch not included’’. When it got translated
into Spanish, it said ‘‘lunch included’’. I think somebody did that on
purpose, I’’ve always wondered how that really happened. So here I
am, I’’m down in Guatemala and my man on the ground said, ““I
need to tell you, the posters all say lunch is included.”” We are at a
nice hotel, we’’re not at Holiday Inn, not that that can’’t be a nice
hotel, and they didn’’t have them down there that I know of. We’’re
at an expensive hotel in Guatemala City and I have to make a
choice, either explain to the 250 people that came believing lunch
was included telling them it was a typo, was a translation error, I’’m

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sorry there’’s a McDonald’’s across the street, there are restaurants

here, help yourself, we will meet you back in an hour.

Maybe they would understand and hoped that they would. Or, do
what we did do, we bought 250 people a nice catered lunch, which I
didn’’t want to do and didn’’t have the money to do, but we did it
anyway. I felt like my brand, my name meant something and this
was a time to make a choice and it was an expensive choice. But, not
only did it do good for me, but it also did good in me. You know
what I’’m saying; making that hard choice.

John
Absolutely. There are two things I want to say based upon what you
just said, first I want to give you two quotes. One by President
Theodore Roosevelt, who said, ““It is better to be faithful than
famous””. The other is by Socrates, who said, ““Regard your good
name as the richest jewel that you can possible be possessed of.””
Two things, a bad name can’’t be concealed and a good name is
marketable. I find that the believer needs to recognize that one of
the tools of the enemy is with character assassination and scandals
and attacking a person’’s reputation.

I believe this for many years that sometimes the enemy couldn’’t get
to my ministry, but attempted to attack my reputation. If I had not
labored to have a good name that was reputable, some of those
things might have stuck, but because I have labored for so many
years in the law of the brand, that my name had preceded me, that
those attacks began to cease. My name had now been associated
with integrity, character, and pastor said listen to this business
people; don’’t allow the enemy to come against your name. Defend
your name; it is a marketable thing to defend. It is a valuable thing
that you are going to hand down to your children to your children’’s
children, and it is a law of creating wealth. I want to be able to walk
into the bank and when I sign my name and need a loan of maybe a
couple of million dollars, to be the type of borrower that my bank
will know when I walk in the door, that I’’m a reputable person and

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my name is always associated with paying on time. My credit score

is there, so that I can make the maneuvers that I need to make to be
successful.

Michael
Well, you know, a ministry that you and I both know well, the
National Ministry, the head of that, called me some months to a
year after I had got back from Guatemala, and he had heard from a
pastor in Arkansas, who had heard from somebody who had heard
from somebody, that there was somebody in Guatemala that felt
like…… when we left the country, which we left devastated financially.
It was terribly costly for us but we stayed to make sure everything
got cleared up.

There was one fellow that felt like, it was a gentleman that we
rented a car from, and somebody had stolen the radio from it. We
replaced the radio, it was a 10-year-old car and we put the same
radio that was in there, he asked for no money, but we gave him a
fair bid, but still he spread the word that we gave him a radio that
was a used radio to replace the used radio that was in there, and he
wanted a new one. So he started spreading a bad name for us, and I
was upset. I was devastated because I thought you told me I don’’t
owe you any money. I had emptied my bank account and gave you
every penny anyway. I was trying so hard to make sure that I left
everything in an absolutely clean way, and to think that my
reputation was being sullied by this thing. This ministry called me
and said, ““I just want you to know what is being said about you.”” I
said, ““No problem””, and I made the arrangements and I got the
best, fanciest doodads that he needed and overnighted it to him
down in Guatemala.

He wrote a letter saying okay your name is now clean, and even
though I felt I was being held hostage, and even though I felt it was
completely wrong, what I knew was my name meant something. So,
for a few hundred dollars, most of that was shipping, but for a few
hundred dollars, I could clear that up. What the ministry told me

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later…… He said, ““Michael, over the years, on occasion, I have had the
opportunity to talk to others that say, ““Look, I’’ve heard this about
you and I thought you should know””, and you are the only person
that took the action and walked through it. I’’ve got all the
documentation and everything, so I could say to a point with that
man, everything is fine between us. I made sure it was as clean as it
could possibly be.

It is a rare thing that people will go to the extent to do that, but the
law of the brand, the law of the name, because of that I believe,
years later has invited me numerous times to speak at his
conferences, teach at his business school, and he feels, I’’m sure, a
confidence that I am somebody that can be trusted. I didn’’t know
that was going to be part of the deal years later. What I saw was that
he put some stock in the name. That is something you have. That is
something that it should be synonymous with Christians, it isn’’t,
but it is hopefully, increasingly becoming that way in more and
more people. That is a powerful wealth building concept, it will
open a door.

Now mind you, if I have name and my son doesn’’t walk that out for
example, he can go on the strength of my name, but that child may
very well not live up to that and that becomes his issue that he has
to work through. We have the responsibility to build our name and
that will open up doors. We’’re going to ask people, sometimes it will
be lenders, sometimes it will be business people, we’’re going to ask
people to attach meaning, strength and stability to word, that our
promise means something. We are going to ask them to do that.

Talk about abstract, you know, we may not have anything else to do
but the look in the face and the glint in the eye, hope they will take
our word for it. You know what, many, many times they won’’t. I
have relationships around the world, mostly in the United States,
where we know that if it is said, it is a done deal, we can take it to
the bank and that means the world to me. I can pick up the phone
and secure a tremendous favor right now if I need it, in a number of

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different places, simply because I’’ve labored to make my name my

brand. Not that I have been perfect in my ways and all my time, but
when I have made my mistakes, I’’ve gone back and said, how do I
correct this and how do I make sure, how do I cherish the thing?
People may think I’’m silly, but I go to lengths to not only protect it,
but to also make sure I don’’t get into situations that could ruin it.
As you well know, it takes years and years to build a name and it
takes moment, seconds, minutes to lose it.

John
You know, Ecclesiastes2 tells us that, ““When thou vowest a vow to
God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that
which thou has vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow,
than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.”” You mentioned
something about your children, and when you take the law of the
brand and you understand it to this level, I am already educating
my sons. I want them to be a participant in building a multi-
generation name. So by them understanding the law of the brand by
teaching our children these principles, we will position them to be
partakers but also contributors to that name. I need them to work
with me to build a multi-generational name for their children, and I
don’’t think it is unrealistic to ask them at fifteen and at eleven, you
know, or whatever age they begin to get them to connect the dots,
that their name really means something. Their name with their
friends, their name with the kids they hang around with, not that
they just have to follow my name, but that they are co-laborers with
me. We’’re together as a family, building something for our
children’’s children.

Once they catch that, my kids have begun now to catch that, with
books being released, and national exposure and all those things.
To walk into a Barnes and Noble and punch up your Dad’’s name
and you know they are contributors to that. When they lend me to
write, and it took two years for this specific project, and they lost

2
Ecclesiastes 5:4-5

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me for a lot of time, that they sowed their father into this venture.
They’’re contributors in this and I needed to connect the dots with
them that this law of the brands of good name, and they will reap
from it. This is going to give dividends to them also, and you know
in many ways, it keeps us from doing things we shouldn’’t do,
because we recognize that we pass down. I want to be pure with the
people around me and I want to have healthy business practices,
because I’’m going to leave that name to my children and they are
going to inherit that. I encourage our listeners to, in this
philosophy, in this understanding of the law of the brand, to start to
educate their children at 7,8,9,10,11,12,15 and start getting them to
be participators in the name.

Like you Michael, you have a name Michael Pink, and you would
have never thought that your name could be the name of a
company, you know. Well, it’’s just my name and it doesn’’t rank
there with Coca-Cola and these different things and the listeners
needs to recognize that when it comes to the Biblical laws of wealth
creation, it means something.

David
Law five, the Law of the Brand. And so, what a powerful law and
what a critical one for wealth creation. As we keep going here,
you’’ve hit on this concept of passing an inheritance, Proverbs 13:22,
we may have already quoted it today. ““A good man leaves an
inheritance to his children’’s children and the wealth of a sinner is
laid up for the just.”” That is Proverbs 13:22. You are talking about
creating something that can be transferred and transferred again.
You’’re duplicating a duplicator. One of the things you cannot do, in
terms of creating an inheritance of any size or substance, whether
it’’s a name or whether it’’s measured in economic terms, or a bank
account, you cannot pass along something of value without good
management. So, I want to move to law number nine. John, again,
of the Twelve Laws, the ninth one is laid out as the Law of
Management. Tell us about where this came from? Why is it you felt
like it is one of the items that should be one of the twelve laws?

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John
Well, as I read through the Bible and had the pleasure of having
20/20 vision and not had to live through the failures of the former
prophets, and kings and priest. I really looked at how many
individuals like, Moses, for instance, he was anointed, well
anointed, yet his management skills were lacking. I began to see
that I could be highly anointed, highly called, very talented, but yet
if I lack in a level of management, I could actually negate –– short-
circuit –– everything that God wants to do for me. That life, in
essence, needs to be properly managed, and management is in a
simplistic form and art of coordination and harmonizing everything
we have in our lives.

I have just seen so many people with dreams and they have
aspirations, yet they don’’t manage their life. They don’’t have a
system for their life that brings them in a direction of what their
goals and plans are, or even pursuits and facts. They have dreams,
plans and pursuits, but yet how they’’re living their life doesn’’t
coincide with their dreams and direction in life. As I look at many of
the men of God, who had poor management skills, in the Bible, I
identified that as management. I felt God speak to me about
management, and you’’ll see management from the Old Testament
to the New Testament. From the seven years of planning to be able
to manage that type of product in order to have the seven years of
planning to provide for the seven years of drought.

Jethro comes to Moses in a stage of his life that really, he says to

him, ““The thing in which you’’ve done is not good.”” Really, he says
that what you’’re doing is not good. You’’re judging the people from
morning till night and you’’re going to frustrate them and you are
going to short circuit your life. I realized that the law of
management is so important that people begin to put a system of
management into their lifestyle for growth, success, and prosperity.
It doesn’’t happen instantly, and it is going to happen over time and
you’’ve got to employee some management skills to deal.

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I pastor a church, I own businesses, three different ministries we

oversee, I’’m a father, I’’m a husband, and in order that I don’’t leave
any of those things deficient, I have to have management systems.
And under those I have management systems, and even under those
I have to have secondary management and systems in order to
manage what God has given me. God will not and can not bless a
mess.

Michael
You’’re right. You talk about systems, and I think that’’s an
important thing. A system over time will beat the improvisation
hands down. Sometimes improvising is a good thing, but as a rule
of thumb, having systems are important. For example, I teach about
this in the Genesis model, the seven days of creation, I teach about
business and we go through day one through day six. It has to do
with things like strategic vision and guiding principles and
operating strategy, management strategy, marketing strategy and
team strategy, reveals on each of those days I was referring to. And
at the end of it all, you see on day seven God rested, and what he did
was in my estimation, he let the systems work.

He created a host of systems, as that we see.. I’’m studying the

rainforest right now as a business model, and it is a powerful
model, and I study the process of photosynthesis, what I see is that
this plant somehow takes water, H2O, and carbon CO2, and light.
Basically animal respiration and light, and it turns it into plant
material, trees, fruit and to stuff we can see and build houses with.
It is an amazing thing and we can’’t duplicate it in a lab, and yet it
produces C6H12O6, which is the chemical formula for glucose (or
simple sugar), which is the building block of the plant. But what I
noticed is it never turns it into C7, H13½, O5, and then tomorrow we
will try something else.

There is a system, a process, a precise way of doing things that is

done, like you talked about earlier, on a consistent basis. When you

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talk about management, one of the things that are important is to

determine, as you just referenced, what are the systems I can put
into place so that I do not have to constantly be the guy that is
dependent. People are depending upon the system. ..the system is
something that is guided by a vision, and if we don’’t have the
systems in place, we find our self in a very weakened position.
Having to improvise all the time and never really getting a good
hold on our business interest, and often times finding ourselves in
very vulnerable way. David, I would like you to share a little bit
about the systems.

David
You know, when it comes to systems, one of the things we have to
learn to do is measure on a consistent basis, and this comes in with
any form of management. If you can articulate the outcome you
want to create, in terms of a business process, in terms of a result
from the business as a whole, or from a certain situation that you
are working with, if you can articulate the outcome that you want to
have, we have to learn to have measurable ways to quantify our
progress. And the part of systemization that we see, coming about,
is that we have got to have the ability to measure.

John, as you were talking about Jethro approaching Moses, you

know, he gave Moses some very specific advice based upon a
measurement. You know, you are spending x amount of hours a
day, and you’’re accomplishment result is not taking you to the right
place. So he gave Moses a set of principles that he could put into
place, a very actionable plan and a strategy that could be measured.
And so, as we measure results, then we have the ability to tweak
systems as we go, and we have the ability as we measure and
evaluate, to examine what works well, and duplicate. Then we
examine what hasn’’t worked as well, and tweak and then duplicate,
as we’’ve engaged in that process.

Systemization is one of those areas that, you know I like to go back

to the things that I do in the morning, right? I get up in the

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morning, I shave, I brush my teeth, all of those things I do and

some days I do them and haven’’t even realized I have done them. I
don’’t think about them, in fact I am able to engage in those things
without requiring a lot of emotional or mental energy, and therefore
they don’’t drain me. Why? Because they are systemized, they are
almost automatic. I can do them in my sleep, and I can do them
without thinking. In fact, I use the time while I’’m engaging in those
systemized processes to think about what’’s coming.

So a lot of times what we do in the world of business, and even in

managing our lives, because we have not systemized certain
repeated actions, things that need to be duplicated on a consistent
basis, we are draining ourselves emotionally, mentally, and
otherwise, just like Moses was doing. He was draining himself and
we come to the end of a period in time without achieving the results
that God has created us to achieve. We’’ve missed our capacity to
produce and to be fruitful and to multiply, because we are having to
recreate all the time rather than have systems to do the work for us,
by allowing us to achieve results in a more automated way.

Michael
John, if you would just go ahead. Do you have any more you want to
comment on?

John
Successful management systems kind of synchronize five specific
elements. Management again synchronizes five specific elements.
It’’s planning, organization, leadership, motivation, and supervision,
and I need to employ those five elements and they need to be
synchronized, overlapping each other and filtering information
back and forth to each other. So my planning and my organization
are done with proper leadership. My leadership is done with proper
motivation and also supervision which is to make sure I’’m getting
to the accomplished goal that has been articulated. The desired goal

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that is at the end of what would be: what I’’m looking to see as profit
margin and the success ratio. These five elements employed into a
management system will give an individual the greatest foundation
for success.

How much can God give you? That is a question we’’re asking God,
many believers are coming to God asking Him to bless them with a
skyscraper, yet they only provide him with the foundation of an
outhouse. The more God builds, the more it becomes oppressive.
The better question is not how much God can give us, because that
is a number that reaches past infinity. The question is how much
can I manage? I mean, that is the ultimate question, not how much
He can give me, how much can I manage, because if He gave all that
He had, I couldn’’t manage it. So my capacity, of what I could
manage, the proportion and the ability and willingness to manage
what God wants to give me is really what God is looking at. Though
my prayers may desire many things, God is saying I cannot give you
that out of my mercy and I will not do that, because if I do. ..you
know, Paul talks about the weight of His glory, and he puts it a
weight, meaning that if God were to put His glory on us, it would be
like an elephant sitting on us. The weight of His glory, and Paul is
working out, he is laboring in his spirit, his soul and his body to be
able to contain more of God’’s glory. To be able to spiritually fit to
handle more of what God has to offer him. So the law of
management employs these five components of strategy, a system,
in order for God to continue to give me what He wants to give me,
because I have created the system, the structure for Him to put it
on.

Michael
If I hear you correctly, what you’’re saying is that one of the essential
foundational laws of wealth creation is the fact that we must
increase our capacity to manage, manage the resources that He has
entrusted. It’’s not that He wants to hold back, but He doesn’’t want
to crush us with those things. So, in learning how to manage,

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learning how to set up systems and there are numerous models. We

could study the Scriptures and I see systems. When I read Genesis,
I see systems. When I look out my window, I look at nature and see
what God built and I see the way rain is formed and rises up from
the ocean and falls on the forest and goes back out. Numerous ways
and there are more systems than I know how to count. Talk about
the respiratory system, the circulatory system, the skeletal system,
this was in our body, there are five different systems they talk about
frequently. There are systems upon systems upon systems. And that
is what is required for us.

If we want to manage wealth, if we want to create wealth we are

going to have to learn how to manage and that is part of the
schooling and training, that is not something you get going up to
the front of the church, and like you say throwing down some bills
in front. That is not where you learn management. You learn
management with what you have now and actually turning that into
something else. And if you don’’t do that and you hide it, then he is
going to come back and say what have you done with it? Well, I
didn’’t manage it, I hid it and you’’ll lose what you even have.

John:
You know, we see record numbers of burnout, exhaustion,
frustration, and confusion in the Body of Christ, and in many ways
that is the fruit of a poorly managed life. Even this year, we are
looking at what new management we need to implement. Our
church is moving into a new sanctuary, which is in the process of
being erected. God is opening new spheres for us, and our
management system we have right now has been adequate to
handle where we are today, but I know it is not adequate to handle
08. Wisdom is saying to me, that I need a deeper, a wider, a more
detailed management system, and the beauty of this is that God
desires to be in the details. He desires to be, if the foxes were
warned to be watched out for because they spoil the vine, then
clearly God wants to be in these details. God wants to be a part of a
highly managed life and if I allow Him to come in, He’’ll give me

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direction; He’’ll give me wisdom of how to manage, how to set up a

better system to manage all the things He is trying to do in my life.

David
Boy, these are excellent principles of fruitfulness and
multiplication. You know, the parable of the talents tells us, and
even the parable of the sower tells us that God is a wise investor, is
looking for multiplied returns on that which He has given us and so
excellent, excellent practical application and we are winding down
hour number five, as we looked at several of these laws of wealth
creation. We’’ve looked at Time Management, we looked at the Llaw
of the Brand and now we’’ve looked at the Law of Management,
which is law number nine in the book. Looking ahead, we are just
about to head into hour number six. We are getting into law
number twelve, which is the Law of Diversification. This gets fun,
because you’’re looking at some ways of rapidly multiplying
resources, so I am excited about that one. As you’’re listening to this,
make sure that you are taking good notes and getting some of this
down and get ready to dive into hour number six.

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Hour Six –– Law of Diversification –– Conclusion

David
Well, gentlemen, here we are at hour six of Christian Wealth
Building: A Candid Look at Rich Church, Poor Church. Michael
Pink and John Muratori, this has been a great discussion. We have
covered a lot of ground today. Everything from shifting leadership,
why the wicked prosper, and the Golden Rule. We talked about the
Jews and prosperity and how they’’ve operated the creation of
wealth and some of the laws related to wealth creation. As we are
moving into this last hour of wealth creation, we are going to dive
into law number twelve, and again, we have not had the time to go
in detail with all of the laws. We’’ve only had three of them so far,
and we are going to hit a fourth one here, the Law of Diversification.
The book, Rich Church Poor Church, contains some great material.
If you like the laws that you are hearing about, you need to read the
rest of it.

Michael
That’’s what I want to point out David, that we’’re touching on these
topics, but in fact we’’re not fully covering the content on each of
these chapters.

David
No.

Michael
We’’re referencing it and we’’re pulling things out of it and discussing
it, but there is a lot to be gained, so people need to make sure they
have the book that goes with this.

David

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Absolutely, so as we dive into this law, we are also going to look,

before we wind things up today, about what all of this
means……where is it all going? What is the vision for the future for
the Rich Church versus the Poor Church and what can result from
that? So, John, you identified the Law of Diversification, and I like
this one in particular, because this is the one of the laws that really
shifts your thinking from where I am today, in terms of creating
wealth, and ratcheting up to a whole new level. And I would like to
think of it as addition thinking moving to multiplication thinking,
because this is were we can really start thinking about seeing things
increase. So, talk to us a little bit about where this came from in
your thinking. How did diversification become a subject that you
felt like was one of the Twelve Laws?

John
Well, it came from…… it is kind of a fun spot where it came from. I
like to preface this with the fact that, you know, teaching on giving
and teaching on finance, I would consistently get the question:
John, I have been faithful, I have tithed, I give my 10%, but I’’ve
never seen the busload or the train come in. I can teach a whole day
seminar, not teach on tithing at all, and I would like to preface this
with kind of having, it is important that we shift and the Church
shifts from the 10% to the 90%. Once you shift from the 10% over to
the 90%, the Law of Diversification comes in. As long as you are
only focused on the part of giving which is, ““I give my 10% and am
now waiting through osmosis for God to bless me. I am waiting for
him to do his part, because I’’ve done my part.””

David
I like to call that one mailbox economics. ““I sowed some seed or I
prayed a prayer and now I go stand by the mailbox.””

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John
I exclusively teach on the 90%. I don’’t even address the 10%. When
I go to an economic summit or go to a lecture, and I never teach on
the 10% because it is not mine, it’’s God’’s, and I believe that’’s just
the premise, and I don’’t expect to be rewarded for giving God back
what is his. My area of teaching is on what’’s left over. What do I do
with the 90%? ...because the 10% is not a blueprint for increase. If I
loaned you $20 and you gave me back a $20, I will say thank you,
but in reality you have not given me anything.

But God, in the law of first fruits, sanctifies what’’s left over, so when
I give to Him, and I’’m a giver and when I give God His portion, He
now removes the curse over the 90%. If I devour my seed, and I
don’’t allocate a portion or diversify the 90 left over, and I consume
what is left over on my mortgage, on my whatever, cars or other
things in life, hoping that the 10% is going to produce increase,
them I’’m going to find that I can be very consistent, and I can be a
consistent giver. But I will not access, the book of Malachi, can be
kind of abused in the local church, and sometimes when I’’m visiting
and I see someone get up and say you know will a man rob God and
I don’’t think it is so much for motivation to declare to the
congregation that they might be robbing God.

That Scripture verse, if you read the whole content of the Scripture
verse, here’’s what God said, ““If you put me first, if you will give to
me what is mine, I will open the windows of heaven and pour you
out a blessing that you will not be able to receive it.”” He gives you
four promises that are over the 90% not over the 10, because the 10
is His. It is important for the listener to make sure they get this.
He’’ll rebuke the devourer (this is the first one), He will not allow
the enemy of our soul to kill, steal, and destroy all the affairs of our
life. He will not be able to destroy the fruit of our ground.

The fruit of our ground is a common phrase used in the Old

Testament to refer the wages earned and so God will make sure we
don’’t put money into pants with holes or pockets with holes and

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your vine will not cast your fruit before the time. It simply means
that God is going to insure the timing associated with your financial
endeavors and we have already looked at timing, how critical it is to
create and sustain wealth. Also, all nations will call you blessed, and
you will be in a delightsome land. God will raise the level of your
influence locally, nationally, and internationally. He’’ll cause your
successive influence and reputation to explode. This is over the 90
left over and when we look at the law of diversification, it has to do
with the 90 left over. Really, when you speak of diversification, it is
mostly used by financial planners, that’’s the phrase or the
profession that phrase comes out of, the law of diversification. It
insures your portfolios with stocks and bonds, it lowers your risk.
You know it is a common strategy in investment strategy to make
sure that you diversify through mutual funds and many things.

And in the same way, we need to employ the law of diversification

over our finances. I list three types of income in this chapter, earned
income; that is money earned from my job, the result of my labor.
Then there is passive income; that is money that is making money
for me, that I am not working for, it is working for me. Most people
are working for their money, so their not. You know the first
employer in my life, needed to be the money I was making. So, I
kind of looked at the money I was making and I was either going to
use it to purchase things or I was going to hire that money and send
it out to work for me, almost like employees. If I had a thousand
dollars I wanted, in essence, employ that thousand dollars go to
work for me, and that creates passive income.

Then there is unearned income and that comes from inherited

money or donated money, and these are the three areas of income
that need to be diversified. Wealth is not going to be built on just
earned income, it’’s going to come through diversifying and creating
multiple streams of income. The more pots that I present to the
Lord, the more baskets I present to the Lord, the more ventures
that are available to him, the more those four promises are going to
become activated for those areas. So, I have to allocate.

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You know, Rockefeller taught his kids about giving 10%, keeping
10% and investing 10%, and living off the 70% left over, and that is
a good strategy. We should give our 10%, spend 10%, because we
also worked and we need to express and experience the fruit of our
labor, and then we have the last 10%, we should invest in ventures.
That is a good place to start. Just taking some start-up resources
and diversify your income in places that God can begin to bless us.

David
Alright now, you said a moment ago, you hinted at something you
talk about in the book. You said, ““The more pots you present to
God....”” Talk about the pots, because I think this was an interesting
application of diversification from a Scriptural standpoint.

John
Well, the pots come from the story of second Kings, that has to do
with Elisha and the woman there with Elisha——she is broke, she has
no resources, no money, and Elisha comes to her and presents this
set of verses to her, and it says3, ““It came to pass when the vessels
were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel.”” So, she
is broke and Elisha instructs her to go and borrow a pot, to get as
many pots as you can from your friends and everyone around you
and bring them back. So basically, he would say that there is an
unending flow of resources that was available to her and as long as
she collected pots and presented them before the Lord, the Lord
was going to fill those pots. So this multi-pot diversification is really
what... I kind of got a revelation of this verse, and that is what God
is looking for me to do, is to present him with some pots.

Now, God filled that pot with oil, all those pots He filled with oil.
She then was instructed to go and sell the oil and pay her debts and
live, and her children, off of the rest. So, not only did God fill her

3
2 Kings 4:6

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pot with oil, but it seems that God understood the market. He
understood that He filled it with a marketable, can you imagine if
he had filled it with oil; I mean black oil like they’’ve got in Texas.
What would she have done with motor oil, you know what I’’m
saying; or crude oil, it would have been filled with something that
had no use, but yet God knew He was going to give her something
that she could sell. God had already set up the sales transaction in
this verse, because He said, I mean if she couldn’’t find someone to
buy it, she could have come back to the prophet and said, ““You’’ve
filled it with something that I have no market for. There is no
market for this.”” But God in His sovereignty and the fact that God
knows markets; He is going to fill those pots with a commodity that
can be sold and is in high demand and this is what God wants to do
for the believers.

In this Law of Diversification, and I remember when I first, you

know, linked onto this law of diversification many, many years ago,
and we were working and doing ministry and we wanted more but
are on fixed income, so what are we to do? I had an income tax
check come in and it was for around $1,500 and I said to my wife,
many, many years ago, ““Let’’s take this money and use this as seed
money. Let’’s try to put this money in some places. We are going to
tithe off of it, but let’’s put the remainder, give me the remainder
that I can do some research and put this in some area that might
produce some income from other streams.””

So, I researched penny stocks and because you can’’t really buy
many, I mean what was I going to buy, ten $100s, you know?

David
Right

John
So, I’’m looked at now going down to the nickel stocks, the quarter
stocks, and I’’m not recommending anyone do this, I’’m just simply

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saying this is the path that God brought me on and I did the
research in it and I bought some small oil company that was trading
at 10 cents a share. So I leveraged there my $1,300 and I bought
that stock and I went and I prayed and I said, ““God please do
something.”” Week after week I looked at it and it wasn’’t moving and
I kind of forgot about it for a small season, for four months. Then
one day I called up my security company and said, ““How’’s that
stock doing?”” Do you know that stock was trading at $3.50?

David
Hallelujah!

John
I mean, can you add that up. Many a listener will pull out their pads
right now. We had hit the jackpot: we had put before the Lord
something other than my earned income and also out of that my
tithe and we presented the Lord with another pot to fill. And God
spoke to me and said, ““If you will give more pots to fill, even if the
pots seem obscure and don’’t seem like much, if you’’ll do that””.

We started some internet businesses and other things, and

throughout the year, I like briefcases, I’’m a minister, a traveling
minister and I love briefcases. So many years ago, just to get
briefcases cheaper, I started buying them by the cases, and buying
them by the truck loads. So, I decided, all my minister friends loved
my briefcases, so I can get them wholesale for them because we can
buy them by the bunches.

So I started a corporateleather.com, and a few years ago sold that.

and there are many things we can do when we think outside of the
box, and we say, ““Lord there is 90 left over, the 10 removed the
curse.”” Hannah went before the Lord, her womb was closed, she
couldn’’t conceive. She prayed before the Lord, and when she left
there, the priest told her that God has heard your prayer. Now, she
could have gone home and done nothing, and said, ““Lord just give

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me that baby,”” she still had some stewardship. She had a

responsibility to go home: she had to go home and receive seed in
order for the child to come to past, in order for this child to be
birthed. In many ways, we presented God, we got the promise, but
we now need to receive a pot for Him to put seed into. This is so
important, for we need to create some multiple pots for God to fill.

David
Now, what you’’re talking about, though, sounds like a four-letter
word. This is a four-letter word particularly in the circles of
Christianity, it sounds like work. (Laughter)

Michael
What do you mean, that you have to do some work in setting it out?

David
Well, you know you have to work. I mean, you know you’’re talking
about selling pots, right, even identifying them. I mean we’’re
talking about these various categories of income, earned income,
passive income, unearned income, even the four promises that
John, you just pulled out of Malachi, which are that, you know, we
can expect God to rebuke the devourer. We talked about the fruit of
the ground, the wages, and you talked about the vine not casting its
fruit. Well, the fruit of the vine is a business... or it’’s work, right?
The fruit of the ground is also work; it takes work to get all of that
stuff growing and so the 90% sounds like work. This is not what we
are normally taught, when we’’re talking about economics and
sowing and reaping.

John
It is not a free ride. Believers need to get away from the free ride
mentality, the welfare mentality, the check in the mail mentality,
and you know as successful, and if God were to put a billion dollars
in my hands, I’’d still be a work tomorrow. I want to be productive, I

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want to be fruitful, and I would work at how to allocate those funds,

in order for them to create perpetual gains, and generation of
wealth. I don’’t think there’’s a place, there is only one way that I’’m
going to get away from working and that is when I’’m in the grave,
and even then, I think this is another chapter to the book that God
wants to do. And we are going to rule with Him and that’’s even
work. I don’’t think the Bible puts forth a welfare system; it puts
forth an involvement and a work ethic that we need to be
productive in life.

Michael
This is an important thing you just said that I want to digress a little
bit on, or camp on it a little bit. About the whole concept of work,
I’’ve heard well known preachers say, that when we get to go to
heaven, it’’s going to be, as far as they’’re concerned, we’’ll be fishing
all the time –– this eternal bliss of retirement –– that I don’’t have to
do anything productive ever again, which goes against God’’s nature.
God is productive, He is working, and He is always working. Jesus
had to be about His Fathers work. Before God gave Adam a wife, he
gave him a job. So work was not part of the curse, work preceded
the curse. Work is something that we participate in, now to this day,
and I firmly believe it is something we will be participating in for all
of eternity. It is a good thing. There is fellowship and things that are
developing, labeled with God, in His field, there are good things
that result from laboring with Him. I obviously think that work is a
good thing.

Now, when it comes to diversification, you talk about earned

income for people to get wealth. Yes, I need to earn some income.
Some people are in sales, some people are in other kinds of
enterprises and they are working for somebody in the job. There are
ways they can increase their earned income. This is just one thing
we should talk about; if you could increase your value to the
corporation, because not everybody is in this stage of life at this
moment to have their own business, or they have been and they’’ve

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gone broke and need to find a job, there’’s a place for discipling
people who work with you and work with you, so that they will be in
a position to step into their own enterprise. Some people will say
they are going to do this for a period of time.

They can take their earned income and they can increase that
substantially, in a number of ways. First of all, it is important to say,
““How can I increase value to the organization?”” You need to find
out—— What does the organization value, what do they need and how
can I bring more of that to the table in the roll that I’’ve been
given……If possible, if I could provide more of what their vision is to
them in another capacity, then I’’m going to put that on the table.
There are people that I have read about that lobby with their
employers to work out of their home. By and large, it is not always
the case if you have small children, a lot of cases; people are more
productive working from their home. If they can concentrate their
time, there are people that become, if they are measured on their
fruit or their produce, or productivity, if they are measured on what
they actually create for the company, sometimes they can create
what they are supposed to create in a period, let’’s say for discussion
purposes, in twenty hours. There are people who can create, if they
are given the latitude to work the way they want to work, they can
create more for their employers in less time if they are given certain
freedoms. And in those freedoms, they can use that extra time,
they’’ve freed up, to pursue some other venture that will give them
ownership and possibly passive income.

So, one of the things I want to make sure we talk about is what we
are doing is that earned income isn’’t just, well it’’s like the slave
days, earned income is an opportunity where you can earn a certain
income and you can increase an income and not have to increase
your standard of living. You can take the excess, the difference
between what you earn and what you spend, which most people
spend more than they earn but if you use a discipline to bring into
control, and you can take that difference, that $1500 you’’re talking
about and buy that ten cent stock and you know, look at it six

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months later and maybe it will be worth $3.50 or whatever. I think

that was a wonderful thing. You prayed and sought God, and He
really did something for you in that. That was while you were
basically getting a fixed income in the ministry.

Earned income is something that people need to look at and give a

fresh new look. It is not, when I’’m paid by the hour is when I’’m paid
the least, but when I’’m paid by what I bring in, I have the potential
to earn the most. People need to look at their jobs and say, ““How
can I bring you more of what you’’ve wanted me to bring?”” Let’’s
identify what those things are, what those expectations are and let’’s
remove from the expectation that it is a certain amount of minutes
in a day, certain amount of hours, but rather, in fact, a certain
amount of productivity, a certain amount of produce, if you will,
that you are expecting from me. If I can produce that, you are happy
to pay me x number of dollars to produce x number of products or
units for productivity. Then, if that is a fair trade, if I can find a way
to do that in less time, will you let me have that extra time to do
something else. So there are ways to actually leverage our time so
that our earned income is increased or the time it takes to do it is
decreased, freeing up the time to do other things. That makes
sense?

John
Absolutely, you are using the law of time management to squeak
out more income and more dividends off of the amount of energy
that you are using. You know, in the book I use a diagram of one big
bucket, one bit keg bucket, wooden crate or barrel, and all the
income comes in and every time I buy something that is a liability,
that would be health insurance, recreation, credit card debt, it
pokes a hole in the bucket and water drains out. Vehicle expense,
home expenses, mortgages expense and all those things. You know
that if you keep poking holes in the bucket and you keep creating
payments for liability, and it takes water out of the bucket, then you
are going to have a rough time staying afloat. You’’ve got to have

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other things pouring into that bucket. It is wisdom to minimize the

amount of holes, maximize the amount of flow that is flowing into
the bucket, and then look at other investments. Buy assets, assets is
anything that produces an income, it is unearned income that I’’m
not working at. You know, some businesses are not technically
assets because I have to work the business. I have to look at how do
I buy an asset?

We encourage young couples in the church starting out, they are not
coming from a silver spoon, and they got married and they got some
seed money from their marriage and they are going to buy a house,
and we highly encourage them to buy two families and three
families (houses), at an early age 24,25 or 27 years old. If they buy a
three family, they’’re expenses at the end of the month, if they rent
two floors and are living in one: their house is now an income
stream for them. They are young, and they are not paying the high
mortgage, because they have assistance coming from two floors.
They have a time when they do get enough money now, because
they are living at a lower expense, because of the home, they can
then keep that home and rent out the third floor or because it is an
investment property, they can flip the property and it really starts
them on the entrepreneurial event. It really starts them on the
diversification road to say, ““You know what, we have something.””

Lots of people in our church have done that and across the country,
that hear about diversification and one young man has been able to
secure his home and even when he went for a season without a job,
he was able to pay his bills because he had other income from the
two other floors coming in. Many times we go after the American
dream; we get a mortgage, a high mortgage. We get furniture that I
don’’t have to pay interest for three years or two years, that is now a
balloon payment at the end of that, and we get overwhelmed in debt
and that’’s why we have 250,000 bankruptcies in the United State
per month, right now. People who went out with low interest and
furnished their homes and are not able to pay for them. So, we have
to use wisdom and stat buying assets, not liabilities. We have to buy

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things that put money in our pocket, not things that take money out
of our pocket.

Michael
Let’’s talk about that for a minute. This passive income, I love the
way you put it awhile ago, John, where you are hiring your money
to go to work for you. You initially, more than likely, earned it in a
job. Now you have some of it and you’’re going to put it to work for
you instead of taking that Hawaiian vacation……you’’re thinking, I’’m
going to make this go to work for me, we’’ll do Hawaii in a couple of
years and we’’ll stay at the Ritz Carlton. But right now we’’re going to
stay here and watch the movie ““Blue Hawaii”” or something like that,
and we’’re going to invest this money in a way that generates
income. What are some ways that you would say to people that
think they want to get into this? They want to go from simply
earning income and being a slave to that and barely keeping up, to
actually having money working for me. What are some ways you
would recommend to some folks that is listening to this now, so that
they could generate passive income? You mentioned one, which
was a good way. A young couple buying a home, possibly a two or
three family home, and letting two of those floors be rented out. Do
you have any other ideas on that, which would be helpful to our
audience?

John
Yes, absolutely, and I believe all of these stem from knowing your
community, knowing your area of influence and what the needs are
of your community. A year ago, I did a seminar at my brother-in-
law’’s church in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and spoke to his men,
about a hundred men, about finances and diversification of funds
and the twelve laws there. It started this energy within his
congregation, the men gathering together, networking together, to
look at business venture.

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My brother-in-law, who pastors, and my sister... there was a

tremendous need for carpet cleaners in their area, and they out of
their vehicle started to do a few carpets, they ended up getting a few
contracts from some large housing developments and today, they
employ six people. They have three vans and they don’’t have to
work the jobs, but they have passive income coming in. They are not
getting rich on it, in the sense that they have income. They are able
to raise the level of their life without stressing out their financial
circumstance. They have paid off all of their equipment. They have
a quarter of a million dollar business that is now paid off and they
are flourishing in that.

I think the individual has to look, rather than just take an example
of an internet business, which are probably some of the most easy
things that an individual can do, with the age of information,
information is very key, but to the songwriter, writing his song and
making it available to be recorded and making a royalty off of that,
to the books that need to be written, to the story that needs to be
told. To really opening yourself up to what God is prompting you in
your area. The best place to start is, if you have a network of
individuals, look at what is available in your community, in your
church, what is lacking and see if God will give you a vision of how
to fill that need in your area.

Michael
I’’m going to throw in one, that a friend of mine, he’’s got a high
school diploma and that was it. I don’’t think he had a remarkably
stellar education whatsoever. He was saved at the age of 18 or 19,
right around graduation time and he went after God in a really big
way. He started a company at the time and he still has it, called
Impartation Idea. His belief was God would give him ideas and so
he sought God for ideas. The very first idea he came up with was a
board game, this was back in 1984.

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At the time, there was a game that had taken off, called Trivial
Pursuit. He came up with a game based on the Bible and it was
called The Book Game, and it was using the Bible as sources of
information, but it was using the version that the 700 club at the
time was promoting called The Book, it was in conjunction with
Tyndale Press, and he created a board game. The board game,
actually in the games industry, because it was so well done, awarded
him Game of the Year in 1984. He had done a tremendous job of
creating an excellent product which went on to produce him a
tremendous amount of revenues for years to come. But then after
that he did another game and then a third one and he started doing
books. In the last twenty three years, I’’ve lost count, but he has
done over one hundred books and or games and or audio projects.
One of which, the last time I heard, is in the 50- or 60-million copy
range for one particular book –– an idea God had given him which
was, at the time, was not being done. It was along the lines of The
Greatest Story Ever Told. It was animated version of the Bible for
children, but it was done in a Disney style or caliber, in terms of the
art work and so forth. It was a phenomenal book, and is being
translated in multiple languages and is being done tens and tens
and tens of millions of copies around the world.

This guy, he didn’’t seem to have anything lined up, but what he did
was, he goes to God for one idea after another. He is partnered with
James Dobson, Larry Burkett, any major minister you’’ve heard of,
he’’s probably partnered with them. I wouldn’’t be surprised, if you
have children, you don’’t have some of his products in your home as
we speak. The guy has done incredibly well, and each one of those
things, maybe not all of them at this point, I don’’t know for sure,
but a good number of them continue to generate a stream of income
while he is working on his next project.

So, there is a simple way of taking information and packaging

knowledge, information and revelation in a different way and
releasing it, in his case, he works with a publisher, they publish the
book and it generates an income stream and he’’s off to the next one.

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There’’s an example of creating something of worth and once you’’ve

done it, and partnering with somebody, in this case a publisher,
who will carry that forward.

David
You know the biggest thing coming out of this, and I’’m hearing it
right now, is the simple fact that we have got to retrain our
thinking. One of the Biblical things in Scripture in the New
Testament is this idea of renewing of the mind, and as we retrain
our thinking alone these lines, and John, just as you did with your
son and created an environment in which he started to think about
creating the resources for what he wants opposed to just asking
Dad, ““Can I use your credit card and pay for this?”” If we begin to
retrain our thinking along these lines, there is no limit of what we
can accomplish of creating new streams of income and new wealth
as we go.

This has been a phenomenal way to sort of wind down our brief
treatment of a few of the laws, John that you put in the book, Rich
Church, Poor Church, with respect to the 12 Laws of Wealth
Creation. This idea of diversification, I think, we could go on for
hours just on this one topic, and it would be very, very easy to do
that. As we’’re thinking about the law of diversification and how it
might impact the law of wealth creation for us, it kind of brings me
to a point here as we’’re thinking about transitioning and winding
these last few minutes down and kind of trying to pack these last
few minutes with valuable stuff. Let’’s kind of recap, because today
we talked about in this six hours of content, with respect to
Christian Wealth Building, we talked about the struggle that faces
the Church right now. This idea of poverty mentality versus the
prosperity mentality, and not in the traditional sense, and not in
two camps that folks tend to fall into, but in the notion that God is
expanding his Kingdom and he is raising up a generation of people
who are going to create wealth to advance the Kingdom and secure
the influence to impact culture, to bring transformation to the lives

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of people, and truly do what Jesus calls us to do in Matthew 28,

which was to make us disciples of nations, not just individuals, but
nations, and to create wealth, using these laws of wealth creation
that you have identified for us, John.

One of the things that starts to bubble up inside of me as we just

mow over all this material and digest it, and discuss and talk about
it, there’’s a transition occurring, we talked about this earlier, there’’s
a transition occurring from the sort of poor church mentality over
to sort of the rich church mentality. I keep borrowing the
terminology from the title of the book. What does this do, as this
begins to play out, what is God doing right now? What is going to
change in the Body of Christ as we embrace and apply these
principles? What’’s going to begin to look different, from your
perspective, John?

John
Well, I think we’’re going to again, begin to see the Kingdom of
Heaven, a message that Jesus consistently ministered, the Kingdom
of Heaven is at hand. We are going to see the level of influence of
the local church, the Church across the nation, the global Church,
begin to really impact this society, and this culture. This is such a
critical time in the history of mankind, and the church in this
generation. If we miss this link, there might not be much left for our
children and our children’’s children.

This is so important for the listener to understand. This is more

than just moving or going up the scale of income. I hope they have
got out of the six hours, the fact that we are talking about so much
more than just raising the level of their lifestyle. We are talking
about so much more than going up $10,000 a year and getting a
raise. We’’re talking about transformation, social transformation,
spiritual transformation, and we are talking about invading our
culture. We are talking about passing the baton from one
generation to the next generation, to give spiritual oversight to

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resources and finances for the Gate of Finances to be embraced by

the Church... to begin to teach and train the Body of Christ when it
comes to resources, to be better stewards when it comes to
spending our money, to make sure we are not propagating and
putting our resources in places that are propagating lawlessness, to
be just a steward of things that God gives us, creating multiple
streams of income, to really seeing the Church take a role that it
really hasn’’t taken in many years, but to be in the forefront of
entrepreneur ventures, compassion ministry, to begin to captivate
these Gates and be the movers and shakers of the culture world.
The invaders of the culture like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, to really make a stand and to have the funding, and to be
able to have the tool of finance, to be able to have at our fingertips
the ability to change or transform our community. That’’s what I
see. I believe this is a move of the Holy Spirit and yet there are
inappropriate, and yes there are name it and claim it, and yes there
have been abuses and there will be abuses, but we cannot throw out
the baby with the bath water. These laws work, God wants us to be
successful, and he wants the transfer of wealth to the believer so
that the believer can make an impact in the world in which we live
in.

Michael
Excuse me, I wanted to comment. This reminds me of back in the
fifties, with five missionaries down in the Amazon, Jim Elliot, you
might recall that they were the men who were slaughtered there.
The natives came after them and instead of fighting them off and
shooting them and whatever, they decided to lay their life down and
their wives returned to this brutal scene and went to the men that
killed their husbands and ultimately led them to Christ and the
village. Do you remember the story?

John
Yes.

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Michael
Okay, they did the movie, End of the Spear, about it. It’’s a very
moving and factual thing, but when that happened there was a
response in America. It was such a shock, there was this response of
missionaries that rallied to the call and they headed off in droves to
answer the call because of a few men that chose to suffer death at
the hands of people they could have defended themselves from.
They chose not to do that and they died. It rallied missionaries for
decades and I don’’t know, probably by the thousands that have
gone down there. There was this rallying cry that went forth and I
think about that and I think about this and I’’m thinking, right now
what I have in my heart to see, John, and what your book does in
me, it stirs up, and a cry that goes out and is saying, ““Our culture is
going by the wayside.””

Instead of sending everybody down to the Amazon, which was a

valid and appropriate response, nothing wrong with that, I am not
faulting that, but I’’m saying come to the marketplace, come to the
business arena, and come take places of dominion and authority
and control and influence. Come let’’s buy up the land, let’’s buy up
the media, let’’s buy up the advertising venues, let’’s own the
buildings, let’’s provide the housing, let’’s own the bank, let’’s do
those things and get ourselves in that position right now so that we
can be the head and not the tail.

I saw it today in today’’s news, Citibank was stuck for cash because
they lost half of their liquidity to this current crisis in the mortgage
market. So some Arab folks, presumably Muslim fellows had to
come and step up to the plate and give them a cash injection, seven
and a half billion dollars at twice the interest rate. These guys have
been doing something right and playing by a different set of rules, I
suspect, than Citibank was, but they injected this money. But what
I’’m saying is, we as the Church ought to be in a place of strength
and I want this, your book in part, to me, is one of the voices calling
a rallying call and saying, ““Come””, but not to the Amazon, but to the

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marketplace, ““Come and be trained, come and learn, come and be

discipled, come and be disciplined, come and learn how to manage
your time and resources, come and learn about the laws of
diversification and the law of the brand, come and learn about these
things.”” That’’s what I hear, and I’’m hoping a flood, a flood of
thousands of people will come and sit and learn.

In fact, you have something that I want you to share with the
audience, we have I think about ten minutes left. I want you to
share with the audience, you know, we’’ve tried in six hours to pull
this out, but we haven’’t unpacked it all. We haven’’t even come close
to unpacking it all. Tell me what your plans are to help people who
want to get more of this?

John
Well Michael, what we are doing is looking at how to implement
this on different levels and since the book’’s release, it has only been
released since the end of October, we are just seeing this spread
across the country. We’’ve already, with the endorsements and the
partnership, we have a numerous bible schools that are looking to
have us put this in the curriculum and we have already started that
process. We have a group that consistently produced curriculum for
major theological seminaries across the country, that is for the next
three months, going to put this in a college curriculum fully
accredited, and then it will be taken down one level and it is going
to be put in curriculum for church-based seminars. So that
churches can grab a hold of these principles, and not just the
principles in the book, but the curriculum is going to cover all the
failed systems of economics, Marxism, socialism and many other
things. It’’s going to be a curriculum that allow the student to get a
Kingdom worldview, to be equipped with these principles, to
understand money, how it works, to understand capitalism,
economies and so our heart and our desire is to see, really the
Church free from a poverty mentality.

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Hopefully, over the years to come, we’’ll see more and more of the
emerging generation. We have such a commitment to the emerging
generation, we reach out to college students across campuses and
across this nation and we always are making available for them,
resources for free if they contact us, log onto the internet. They are
under attack on college campuses by credit card companies to get in
debt. Most of these college students will graduate school and not
just seminary, but normal business school or college, and they will
be in debt for tuition and credit card debt, because they were living
off it and it will take them years to be free from that debt. They will
be married and have children and still paying that debt, all for their
student loans. So our heart is to see this merging generation grab
these principles, and that to, is a missionary strategy to educate the
next generation. So I would like to see God do this in a shorter
period of time, but we are really looking at a multi-level
implementation of the truths that are in this book and the
principles in this book to see the Body of Christ equipped.

David
You know, I’’m reminded of a Scripture that we always quote at
Christmas time, and it is from the Prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 9, it
says, ““For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the
government shall be upon His shoulder,”” and of course it goes on,
““His name shall be called wonderful counselor and so forth.”” Then
in verse seven, it says, ““Of the increase of his government and
peace, there shall be no end.”” I think for so long in the Church, we
have looked at Jesus’’ rule as King as being such an eternal thing,
such a spiritual thing and so disconnected from the earth, when in
fact He taught His disciples to pray, ““Let your Kingdom come, let
Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”” In fact, you know,
we’’ve developed this mentality somehow that God was going to
rescue us out of our...

You know, Michael and I had this conversation, we’’ve had this
conversation on more than one occasion, somehow God is going to

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rescue us out of our miserable failure in the earth, when in fact, and
we are His hands and feet, His legs, His arms, His Body bringing
His government to bear on the culture and the world around us. I’’m
excited, John, to hear about your plans and what you’’re doing with
the curriculum, what you do on the college campuses, what you do
in your local congregation, what you’’re doing with training and with
education and of course that is very near and dear to our heart as
well, with education, and training and equipping people.

What we are finding is that as people revamp their thinking and

they’’re starting to look at this, they’’re recognizing their need for
more resources. They are recognizing their need to be better
trained, to be equipped. To take the Kingdom of God and to really
assert a combative authority over these Gates, you know. You’’ve
identified these Seven Gates, and these are an area where people
are going to feel a call. As you are listening to this, you are going to
feel a call to Government, you are going to feel a call to the Judicial
arena, you are going to feel called to Counsel, to Media, to Arts, to
Commerce, to Finance. You’’re going to be called to these things and
you need to recognize that the Spirit of God is available, and the
wisdom of God is available.

Folks like John Muratori has put into this book are available to you
to obtain the resources and the abilities and the skills to go for it.
What just burns in my heart, is that people recognize that they’’re
not trapped in their circumstances, you know there is such a
mentality that I can only do and be, based upon my environment,
based on how I was raised, based upon what I know, based on the
quality of my education and in fact, there is no limit what we can
accomplish because of the residing indwelling Spirit of God, Who is
enabling us to become this army of well-equipped economic
warriors that we’’re talking about today. This is a very, very powerful
thing and so as we are just beginning to wind up, I just want to
check in with both of you and give you space now for whatever is a
final thought, whatever the things on your heart that you want to

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make sure we either reiterate or get out today as we are winding

things up. Michael, I’’ll throw it to you first.

Michael
Well, thank you. I look at the words, ““an army of well-equipped
economic warriors.”” That is such a foreign concept to so many, but
yet, I think it is such a mandatory thing, such a necessary thing, and
my heart leaps at the possibility, the kind of things that John
Muratori is talking about in this schooling and education, going
well beyond what we’’ve even talked about today. Curriculum,
getting engrained in people, so actually transformation that occurs
in people, we go beyond information to transformation. I want to
see that these people in the settings that will be resulting, not only
in college, but in church courses and other possible coaching that
may evolve from this, where people actually have a vehicle and a
place in time set aside to develop—— What is the idea I can develop,
what is the diversification strategy for me, what can I bring to the
table? I have an interest in... poison dart frogs, which is an amazing
thing. By the way, is there a website attached or associated to that?

John
Oh, yes, you can just for poison dart frogs, you can find hundreds of
sites.

Michael
But I meant for your son. Does he have anything I can tell anybody
about?

John
Yes, he is on Dendroboard.com If you punch up Josh’’s frogs, you’’ll
find him on Dendroboard.com.

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Michael
Okay, I just want to salute your son, and salute you for doing that.
You see, you are raising up a young entrepreneur. So often, in the
Church, we are raising people who learn to take offerings. They
don’’t learn how to give them, or they don’’t learn how to be
productive enough to do them. I’’m so proud of you and to know you
are doing that. I want to see, not only your son or mine and others,
that will be raised up an army of well equipped economic warriors
who will have a vision, an eye bent on transforming the culture, the
cash is something they see flowing through them to get to the
transformation and the redemption, if you will, of the buying back
of the culture and the salting of it so that it actually becomes a good
place we want our children to be brought up on. Over to you, John.

John
I want to take a moment to thank the both of you for the chain of
events, contacting our ministry, and really having the vision for
these six hours. I think this series has, you know, gone a portion, in
a direction that is even a little different from Rich Church, Poor
Church. It is going to be a resource tool to be handed down, or to
other individuals. I’’m just very proud to have worked with both of
you and with that I do believe that God is challenging the believer’’s
posture to change. Posture is very important. There is a posture of
war, there’’s a certain posture.

I tell my leadership all the time, ““I need people who know how to
fight because the posture of going to dinner for me is over.”” You
know, there are people in life that you go to dinner with, but you
wouldn’’t necessarily go to war with the people you go to dinner
with. So our posture is changing in the Church and we kind of need
to know who to go to business with, and who to go to church with,
and sometimes they are not the same people. So, the listener really,
I want to challenge you that God wants to try to change your
posture, change from the head to the tail, a total different posture.

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Change from victim to victor, a total different posture. He wants to

change you from being a taker to a giver, total different posture.

God is bringing us through this identity change, this posture

change. How we walk and how we talk and how we hold ourselves
and I pray this book will be a part of that. This 6 CDs, or 6 hours, or
how many CDs it will be, these sessions will assist in changing your
posture, because God wants to do some things here and he is
looking for some willing vessels. He is looking. That voice that four
thousand years ago said to Isaiah, ““Whom shall I send?”” I think is
still reverberating through the heavenlies and is looking to find
some willing vessel that would say, ““Send me Lord.”” That’’s what we
need to be, we need to be available for God to work some of these
things out in our lives and for our posture to change.

Michael
You know John; I think that the future is going to be fraught with a
lot of change. There is certainly enough uncertainty, and as we head
into 2008, there are plenty of uncertainties that loom on the
horizon and yet we don’’t need to be afraid or intimidated by those
things, but rather to be positioned. As you said earlier, there is
going to be wealth that will be moved from unproductive sources,
not because they are Christian, but to those who know how to
manage and steward those resources and have the heart of God
resident in them. They will be transferred over to them and we’’re
going to see a lot of that shift in the next few years.

I think in the next few years, the potential for a significant amount
of tumult, in certain finance areas and the kinds of things you talk
about here put us into a position, not only can we survive those
times, but quite possibly thrive and thrive incredibly well and
therefore, in that position, be a beacon of hope and compassion to
the culture of which we are around and want to serve. I think God,
will therefore as the need increases, He will transfer the resources
into those who have proven themselves, who have trained

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themselves, discipline themselves to be submissive to the ways of

God. The things you are talking about, these are the ways of God;
this isn’’t the John Muratori School. You’’ve put it together and
you’’ve pulled it out, but you’’ve pulled it out of the Scripture. This is
God birth, God breath, God born, you, I don’’t know when I’’ve ever
called anybody and let’’s do a six-hour teleseminar and get together
and let’’s invest a whole day just to record this, because I just had
not done that.

What you’’ve done is just remarkable. Your spirit, you know I’’ve had
the chance, not only in this recording, but offline as well, to listen to
you and to talk with you and the more I do that, the more I’’m
thrilled and honored to be able to do that. You bring something to
the Body of Christ that is immeasurable in terms of value and I just
want you to know we salute you, we think the world of you, we want
to help you. We want to bless you in what you’’re doing and it is a
privilege to lock arms with you and to go into the marketplace to be
an economic warrior standing side by side with you.

John
Thank you so much and likewise. We are honored and our team is
honored to work with you and your team. This has been the start of
something that will go on for many years for our ministry. Isn’’t it
exciting? I hope the listeners just aren’’t listening to us tell each
other how much we like each other, but our goals and our purposes
are in alignment and there is joy seeing other people reach the place
that God wants them and it is joyful for us to be in ministry and be
coaches and be pastors and be ministry leaders and market leaders
and see people reach their place of success. Nothing is more joyful
than that.

David
Boy, I’’ll echo that and you know, I think many believers could
identify with the feeling of just wonder and the awe and excitement
when you see someone brought into the Kingdom. When you see

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someone set free from some bondage in their life and you see liberty
and freedom come to bear on their circumstance. That is very much
the joy we experience when we watch people. I remember the first
people I counseled through launching their entrepreneurial
endeavor, and watched them and today, they are still flourishing. It
is so exciting to see financial freedom in their lives, where they used
to be in bondage. It is such an honor in watching the Kingdom of
God and the liberty of which He has called us invading every aspect
of our lives and not just the quote, unquote, the spiritual aspect. So,
as we’’re winding down, we want to thank you, the listener for being
a part of this event; this Christian Wealth Building: A Candid Look
at Rich Church, Poor Church. Thank you again to you, Michael, and
to you, John, for investing yourselves, your time and your energy
into this project and we are excited to see what’’s coming in the days
ahead.

Michael
Well, John, thank you. It’’s been great and thank you to PJ who has
been an integral part of helping put this together, behind the scenes
and knitting us together, so my hat’’s off to him as well.

John
Thank You.

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About the Speakers

John Louis Muratori

John Louis Muratori is a sought-after speaker with a unique message
that crosses denominational and cultural barriers. He is a recognized
authority in organizational management and strategic planning,
advising numerous agencies including the Department of Homeland
Security and the Department of Mental Health. John has consulted
many national ministries and mentors CEO's, millionaires, and
ministers across the nation. John is the founder and president of multiple companies and
non-profit corporations. John is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Life Family Worship Center in
Cheshire, CT. He is also the Executive Director of Turning Point Christian Center, a
nationally acclaimed faith-based substance abuse rehabilitation program. John has authored
several books, including Seven Women Shall Take Hold of One Man and Rich Church, Poor
Church. He resides with his wife Carmela and two boys in Connecticut.

Michael Q. Pink
Michael Q. Pink is best-selling author, speaker and founder of Selling
Among Wolves, a Biblically based sales training and business
management resource center. For over seven years he hosted a two
minute daily radio program heard on over 200 stations and has done
guest interviews on numerous radio and television programs including
American Family Radio’’s ““Today’’s Issues””, Larry Burkett’’s ““How to
Manage Your Money””, Moody Radio’’s ““Midday Connection““, and
““Prime Time America”” and ““The 700 Club.”” Michael also heads up the Rainforest Institute
in Panama studying business lessons from creation. In addition, he currently serves as the
Endowment Director for SeedAmerica to build an international school of business. Michael
is married to Brenda, the love of his life who is also an incredible artist. (Visit
SellingAmongWolves.com to see a gallery of her work.) Together, they have five grown
children (two in heaven, two in British Columbia and one in Nashville, TN) and two
grandchildren.

David G. Johnson, Moderator

David is the founder of Epiphany Marketing, LLC in Sarasota, Florida and is a sought-after
speaker and Bible teacher with a passion for advancing the Kingdom of God through the
marketplace. In 1993, he started his first company and spent a number of years developing
and implementing technology-based automation solutions in a wide variety of industries,
including legal, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, communications, healthcare, broadcasting,
government and not-for-profits. In addition, David spent 9 years as Associate Pastor of a local
congregation. David is the co-host of the ChristianBusinessDaily.com Friday Wrapup Podcast
and serves as General Manager of Selling Among Wolves, LLC. He and his lovely wife, Jill, have one daughter
and make their home in Sarasota, Florida.

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For Additional Resources

If you are interested in locating additional materials to assist you as you build
wealth, John Louis Muratori and Michael Q. Pink would like to connect with you.

Please visit

www.ChristianWealthBuilding.com

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