Fortress Or Foundation Setup

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All right, welcome back again. This one dealing in Proverbs 10, verses 15 and 16, I'm gonna start by giving it a title. And we're gonna call it Fortress or Foundation. What Proverbs 10 is really trying to tell you about money, labor, and the soul. So, no longer warm-up, let's get straight into it. Because what I want to talk about is something most of us have been taught to have a comfortable, I don't know, regular opinion about. And I think that comfort is costing us more than we realize. So we're in Proverbs 10 today, and we're talking about money, wealth, poverty, and what your labor is actually doing to your soul, not just your portfolio, but your soul. And I'm gonna tell you up front, I'm not gonna give it to you in a nice balance take where we leave everybody feeling good. No, I'm not here to do that because scripture doesn't do that, and so I won't either. What I'm going to do is draw a hard line and make you and I look at which side of it we're standing on. Because the Bible draws a hard line on this, and somewhere along the way the church seemed to have softened it into a motivational poster. Well, let's see if we can end that today.

Riches Have Wings And Leave

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The eagle in the room let's start with a verse most people skip over because it's uncomfortable. Proverbs twenty three verse five. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Now let's read that again slowly. Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. Now we spend years, maybe decades grinding, sacrificing, building. We give up sleep, time with our family, our peace, our health. We build the pile, and God says it has wings, it's not yours. It never was. It's just stopping by on its way somewhere else. That is a footnote. That is the entire framework for everything Proverbs says about money. Wealth is not a fixed object. It's a living, fleeting thing that will leave you without a warning and without an apology. So right out of the gate, Proverbs is telling you something that the financial industry, the prosperity gospel, and the American dream all refuses to say out loud. You do not own your money. You are temporarily holding it for someone else. Now does that mean stop working, stop building, stop being

Work Hard But Hold Loosely

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diligent? Absolutely not. Proverbs ten four through five makes that crystal clear. Lazy hands makes for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during the harvest is a disgraceful son. Remember that? That is not soft language, that is not a gentle suggestion. Lazy is lazy, disgraceful is disgraceful. God does not honor irresponsibility, and he does not romanticize poverty because by a lack of effort, you need to work hard, be diligent, build with excellence. That is our call. But here is where Proverbs does something that almost nobody is willing to do. It holds both truths in the same hand without letting either one go. Work hard, build wisely, and what you build has wings. It can be gone by morning. That tension is not a contradiction. That is the whole point. A fortress is not a foundation, and the difference will bury you.

Fortress Versus Foundation Defined

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Proverbs ten fifteen is one of those verses that people read and immediately try to explain away. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but the poverty is in the ruin of the poor. That is not a compliment. That's a diagnosis. The rich man looks at his bank account and sees walls. He thinks those walls mean he's safe. He thinks what he's built will hold when the pressure comes. But Proverbs has already told us what those walls are made of. They're made of something with wings. You can't build a fortress out of eagles. Now here is the distinction I want to burn into our thinking today, because this is the nerve of everything. A fortress protects you from external attack. A foundation holds you up when the ground shakes. Money can be a fortress. It was never meant to be a foundation. And those two things are not the same, not even close. A fortress, emergency savings, margins, the ability to protect your family, pay the bills, help people in crisis, now this is legitimate. That is wisdom. Proverbs thirteen twenty two says a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children. God is not against practical provision. He expects it and he honors it. But the moment the fortress becomes the foundation, the moment your peace, your identity, your sense of security is resting on a balance sheet. You have built your life on something that is, by God's own description, preparing to fly away. And here's the brutal truth about that shift. It doesn't announce itself. It happens slowly, quietly, almost invisibly. One day money is a tool in your hand, the next day it has you has its hand around your throat, and most people don't even notice a transition until that has already come and you feel yourself suffocating. Ecclesiastes twelve describes what that suffocation looks like from the inside. The sleep of the laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep. The man who worked all day with his hands, who may not have much to show for it, he goes home and sleeps like the dead because he's not carrying anything. His soul is free. And the man who built the huge portfolio, who has the house and the cars and the business and the reputation, he's lying awake at three AM, sweating, scrolling, calculating. Why? Because he made the classic exchange. He traded a foundation for a fortress, and now he lives in the terror of the day the walls come down. That is not prosperity, my friend. That is a prison with a nice view. And I should know. I'm a born again Christian, but I lived that way for years. Remember how we mentioned in the last one that God finally said, put a stake in the ground, son, get over it. So now I'm growing personally to trust more in his word than my bank account. And it's not easy going back. So if you can learn this now and grow with this foundation that we're teaching, you're gonna be way better off in the future.

Clean Money Versus Radioactive Gain

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Now let's talk about something that rarely gets brought up in conversations about money, because it makes people uncomfortable, especially people in business. Proverbs ten does not just talk about having wealth or losing wealth. It's talking about how you got it. And the Bob the Bible draws a line that there is no subtlety. Ill gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death. And another one in Proverbs ten sixteen that we're working on the second half here is that the wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death. Now remember, hearing God more and more and walking with him is what we're after. That's the word of righteousness. That's not being a goody two shoe. So if you're cutting ethical corners to close a deal, if you're exploiting the people who work for you, if you're shading the truth in your marketing, and if you're building something on a foundation of manipulation, that money is not neutral. It is radioactive, and that radiation works from the inside of you out. Now you may fill your house and get bigger and bigger, but you'll have more anxiety. You'll have more resources and less peace. You'll acquire more and enjoy less because sinful gain always, always carries hidden torment as part of the package. You don't get to buy the benefit without paying the spiritual tax. And that tax rate, my friend, is a hundred percent. I have watched this happen. I have watched businesses that were built on manipulation eventually wrought from the inside out, not just financially, but personally, relationally and spiritually. The whole thing goes because money earned through compromise doesn't just fail you eventually. It works against you the entire time you're holding it. Now there's a contrast, verse twenty two. The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, and with no painful toil for it. That is not a promise of effortless income. The whole chapter appraises hard work. What it is saying is this with God righteousness work is blessed, honesty, diligent, righteous labor. The money that comes from righteousness is clean. It doesn't come with a ghost in the closet. There is no lie to maintain, no victim to avoid, and no secret to protect. You can sleep, you can build on it, because it is what it appears to be, built on the word of God. Now, let's not let fancy words confuse the main theme here. Remember Abraham? God spoke to him personally. Abraham believed God, and God reckoned that to him as righteousness. Look, clean money and dirty money can look identical in your bank account, but they do not feel identical in your soul. So righteous wealth versus idolatry as wealth. This is not a gray

Wealth As Stewardship Not Suspicion

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area. I want to deal something head on here because I know someone listening right now has been told either directly or indirectly, that having money is somehow spiritually, you know, suspectful, that if you really trusted God, you would not be so focused on building and growing and providing. That is not what scripture teaches. Not even close. Abraham was wealthy, not just comfortable, wealthy by any standard of his era. Joseph administered one of the most powerful economic systems in the ancient world. David was a king, and Solomon's wealth was unimaginable, and God called all of these men his own. Their wealth was not the problem. Their wealth was, in many cases, a direct expression of God's blessing on righteous stewardship. Proverbs twenty one five says the plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to property. Prover profit is not a dirty word. Planning and diligence that produces abundance is not something God is ashamed of, and we need to stop being ashamed of it too. But and this is a massive but the Bible is equally unambiguous about what happens when wealth transitions from a tool of stewardship to an object of worship.

Two Masters And The Heart Test

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Paul does not beat around the bush in first Timothy six, where he says those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and too many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have withdrawn wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. Now we've heard that a lot, but did you catch what Paul says? Not that those who are rich, those who want to get rich. That is a heart condition, not a bank balance. You can be broke and be fully in the grip of the money worship, or you can be a millionaire and hold it with an open hand. The bank account is not the issue, the throne of your heart. That is the issue. And then he tells the wealthy what to do about it in two verses later. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in the wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. He does not tell the rich to become poor. He tells them where to put their hope and what to do with what they have. Generosity, stewardship, open hands, that is a path out of the trap. The difference between righteous wealth and idolatrous wealth is not the amount, it's the posture. One says God gave me this to steward and deploy for his purpose. The other says this is mine, and I will do whatever it takes to protect it. One of those postures produces peace. The other produces the man in Ecclesiastes five, who's lying awake at three AM. Look, money reveals masters. It doesn't create them. Jesus did not leave any gray area on this matter either. In Mark Matthew chapter six verse twenty four, he goes on to say no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you'll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. He did not say it is difficult to serve both. He said it's impossible. You are either serving God or you are serving money. These are the only two options on the table. And money, let me tell you, it's a demanding master. It wants your time, it wants your thoughts. It wants your ethics, it wants your relationships when they stop being useful. It wants your peace in exchange for the illusion of security, and it'll take all of those things if you hand those over to them. Look at money reveals masters more than it creates them. And what do I mean by that? I mean wealth doesn't install a new character in you. It strips away the filters and shows everyone, including yourself, who you really are serving. Give a man who loves God access to more resources, watch what happens. Generosity expands, ministry becomes possible in new ways. People around him get blessed. The tool serves the kingdom. Give a man who loves himself access to more, watch what happens. The ego inflates, control tightens, fear grows, because now there is more to lose. The tool becomes a master, and the master becomes a tyrant. Same resources, completely different outcomes, because the money did not create the master. It just made it impossible to him hide anymore. That is why Matthew six hundred thirty three is not just a nice verse for a coffee mug, it's a survival instruction. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Kingdom first, provisions second. That is the order. Modern culture has spent decades trying to flip that. Get the provisions first, factor God in later if it's convenient. And it will tell you that the inversion produces. It produces people who have built impressive things on completely

What Your Labor Produces In You

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unstable grounds. It produces the man in Proverbs twenty three who looks up one day and watches his eagles fly away. And when they go, there is nothing left underneath him because he was standing on the fortress the whole time, not on the foundation. Psalm sixty two describes what the alternative actually looks like and feels like. It says, Yes, my soul find rest in God. My hope comes from him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God. He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Notice, God Himself is described as a fortress, the real one, the permanent one, the one built out of something that does not have wings, and when that is your foundation, you can hold your material fortress loosely, because you know which one is actually keeping you. I have a question for us. What is your labor producing inside your soul? Let me bring it all the way down to ground level, because at the end of the day this is the question Proverbs ten is actually asking. What are you trusting in? And what is your labor producing inside your soul? Not in your account, in your heart. Soul might be kind of heavy, let's say in your mind, what's going on up there? Is your work producing peace, generosity, gratitude, a growing dependence on God? Or are you becoming someone who holds things loosely, who can bless people freely, sleep soundly, and face uncertainty without going to pieces? Is your labor making you look more like the man in Psalm sixty two or more like the man in Ecclesiastes five? Or is your work producing anxiety, comparison, pride and fear? Is the way you do business slowly pulling you away from integrity? Are you building a kingdom for yourself that is quietly, steadily competing with the kingdom you were made to serve? Look, Proverbs eleven twenty eight is direct about where that road ends. Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. There's that word righteous again, trust in riches. Trust in them, not have them. God knows the difference even when we spend years pretending we don't. And all I'll say is that someone who runs a business, these are not abstract theological questions. They're the questions I ask myself. What is this producing in me? Do I hold what I've built loosely enough that if it went away tomorrow I would still know who I am and whose I am? Or has the fortress

A Personal Loss And A Warning

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started to feel like a foundation? My answer, be honest, I really don't know. I'll share, so you'll not think I live in some you know fairyland. As I mentioned before, I have lost millions. And I was still at rest in my spirit, but also had to battle my thoughts. Because in my spirit, I knew I was doing the best I could to follow God, and I knew he would respect that and that he was able to get me to where I was again, but also at the same time, you know, he allowed me to have a great business, still doing fine. So I lost millions in one venture, but I still had a the other business that can keep me afloat. So was I really like 100% devastated and knew who I was in Christ? And that's like in my brain, the concept, like, well, what am I really believing in? And then I realized that was another thought of the enemy because I built everything on righteousness, i.e., like I've taught, hearing his voice and doing it. So it's not a situation where I think the business is going to go under because I built it in him. And the reason I lost a few million dollars is because I thought I was doing it righteously. But to be honest, it's because I heard a great evangelist on TV saying, Is your money just sit around doing nothing? He was talking about the uh widow that went before, you know, the prophet and said, Hey man, my husband died and we're starving, and I'm gonna take my kids. And he's like, What do you got in your house? Well, I got a little oil and I got some other, you know, some pots to put it in. So he's like, anyways, make a long story short. Basically he said, you might have things in your house that could be making you money, you don't realize it. And I realized I had this money just sitting there tied up. I'm like, I could invest it over here, make a simple 3%, which is like 60 grand a year. I'll do that. I felt right about it. The pastor talked me into it, not talked me into it, but I believe what he was saying, you know, without taking it to the Lord. So it's a $2 million fail. Now, the Lord did give it back to me like three years later, praise God. But I learned something that moment. Even if I'm saying something to you, remember Mark chapter four, don't take it as you know, fruit for you. It's fruit for me, it's seed and water for you. You put it in your heart and you open up the scriptures and you keep watering it. And then when the Lord says for you to Act, then act. Don't act just because you're hearing me say it. And that alone, friends, will save you a ton in the future.

Integrity As Real Security

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All right. Colossians three, twenty three to twenty four gives you the rest reset when the answer to that question is uncomfortable. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. So that kind of confirms what I just kind of mentioned to you. Listen to your master, who is your creator, who is God. We have insight, how he's led us, just as an example for you. Like this says in the New Testament, follow those who follow the Lord. So don't do what I tell you to do until you hear from him. Just use it as something that might inspire you. Get into the word and then do it for yourself. So work hard and work excellently. Build with integrity and diligence, but do all of it with a different audience in mind. Do it as an act of worship. Do it as stewardship of what God gave you to manage. Not as an empire building for yourself. That shift in motivation changes everything about what you labor. And Proverb ten nine tells us what that kind of work produces in the long run. Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be find out or found out. Integrity is its own kind of security, and unlike the fortress, it does not have wings.

Storm Proof Faith And Final Challenge

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So in closing, the storm is coming. What are your feet on? Let us land on this. Wealth can absolutely function as a fortress in this life. Emergency savings, provisions, the ability to protect your family, to help people, to leave something behind. This is legitimate. That is wisdom. God is not asking you to be financially reckless and call it faith. No, but only God can be your foundation. Only He is a rock that does not move when the ground shakes. Only He offers what is what Ecclesiastic describes as the sleep of the laborer, peace that is not contingent on the market, on the economy, on the business cycle, on what your competitors are doing. And poverty, real material poverty is not a virtue. Proverbs is honest about the fact that it brings real ruin. We should care about that. We should be diligent enough, wise enough, responsible enough, stewards, that we do not create unnecessary poverty through laziness or foolishness. But riches without righteousness will ruin something far more important than your circumstances. Material poverty ruins your season. Spiritually poverty ruins you, and a man whose soul is impoverished can have a net worth of fifty million dollars and be the most destitute person in the room. The storm is coming, that is not pessimism. That is Proverbs. Economic storms come, markets turn, businesses fell, health breaks down. You know what? That eagle takes flight. And when the storm sweeps through Proverbs ten twenty five says When the storm has swept by the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever. Not the wealthiest, the righteous, the one whose feet were on something that does not have wings, the ones who built with diligence and held it with open hands, the ones who worked hard and served God. So here's your question. Not a soft one, but it's a hard one, and just you know, ponder for over this next week. If everything you built sprouted wings and flew away by midnight tonight, would you lose your fortress or would you lose your foundation? Because the honest answer is the foundation, that is not the end of this conversation. That is the beginning of it. God can rebuild what pride has taken, he can restore what compromises has ruined, he can reorder what got inverted, but he needs you to be honest about where you actually are. Well, that is the episode for this week. Now if this one hit home, send it to somebody who needs to hear it. Not because I need the numbers, but because somebody in your circle is building on something that is about to fly away and they do not even know it yet. Well, I look forward to next week, and in closing, like usual, if you want to learn to hear the voice of the Lord and you're like, I can't hear him, and you're frustrating and spinning out, just get my book, God Why Won't You Talk to Me by Edward L. Carpenter. I mean, the reason I keep pushing this is because I stared at the wall for months, and finally I learned to hear his voice, and it changed everything. And I want that for you too. So y'all be blessed, and we'll talk soon. Bye bye.