#151 April 6-7, 2024

Seminar: Religious Folklore Part 3
Scam Alert: Sports Betting Scam
Clark Howard: Long-lasting Cars
John Maxwell: “Dream”
Q&A: Listener Questions

(UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT)

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Financial Freedom God’s Way radio, where you will learn, apply, and pass on, Bible-based financial principles and applications so that you and your family will not only just survive, but thrive during these very uncertain times.

Hi and welcome everyone, this is Bob Louder from Christian Financial Ministries, and it is an absolute honor to have you with us—it really is.

• What can you expect to hear during our 30-minute time together today?
  • During our Radio Seminar time together, we are going to wrap up our three-week series on Religious Folklore as we see how to avoid Religious Folklore all together.
  • You will learn of a sports betting scam from the BBB.
  • Learn all about the cars that last the longest from Clark Howard, and
  • Hear what John Maxwell has to say about the word “DREAM.”
  • And we’ll wrap up with a couple of great, real-world family finances questions from listeners.

Wow, lots of great info so stay tuned, you do not want to miss a single minute of this week’s program.

Let’s start as we always start and that is a word of prayer.  Father, thank You for meeting with us again today.  Please give us ears to hear all that it is you have planned for us, to Your glory, in Jesus’ mighty name, amen.

BODY

Radio Seminar

My friend, in all of our times together you can see we are drawing heavily on the Word of God.  For example, you’ve seen the importance God places on his belt of truth, the logos, the written Word of God—your Bible.  And from your Bible you’ve discovered the two most important financial principles in all of God’s Word; recall the first is wealth–wealth according to God’s definition.  What does it include? Everything the Lord has ever put into your spiritual and financial trust account—yep, it includes all your material wealth, but it also includes such things as your time, talent, ability, skills, plus your role as a husband or wife and on and on.  And remember, God is the owner of all that you have been given.  The second most important financial principle in all of God’s Word is the principle of Stewardship.  Here we need to remember that God is the owner of all that we have been given—He is the owner.  Our job is one of a manager, of a steward.

But for right now—for last couple of weeks during our next Radio Seminar time together we are taking a step back so we can raise a red flag for you to consider.  What kind of red flag?

• Well, recall that you and I often tend to get into trouble for two reasons. Sometimes you get into trouble because you are entirely too close to the world.  Other times, well, other times you get into trouble because you’re not nearly close enough to God. Right?
• You see, sometimes you may think you are close to God, and you are following His principles, but you still slip, trip, stumble and fall. Has that ever happened to you, I mean, you’re moving along just fine in your faith when suddenly you seem to crash and burn in some financial or material part of your life.  Does that sound familiar?  Now, why might that be?  Well, it could be because some of

your material beliefs and actions are based on stuff that sounds spiritual but is not scriptural.  This “stuff” is called religious folklore and I’m telling you from personal experience, religious folklore can really get you into a whole lot of trouble.  Religious folklore can lead to worldly habits that will get you into trouble.

All this being the case, we are stopping for just a minute so you can learn to recognize and deal with religious folklore.

• Last time
  • you discovered the definition of religious folklore. Do you recall that definition?  Well, according to the Bible, religious folklore includes the sayings that get you into trouble when you are not close enough to God.  It includes all those sayings that sound spiritual but are not Scriptural.
  • For example, you have seen some great examples of religious folklore such as
    • “Never a borrower or lender be.” Writings of Shakespeare, not find in the Bible.
    • “God helps those who help themselves.”—nope, God wants to help those who could never help themselves.
    • “Money is the root of all evil,” I have to believe this is the most common example of financial religious folklore. Recall, it is not the money that gets us into trouble, not how much we have or don’t have, what gets us into to trouble is our attitude about all that we have been given.  It’s not wrong to have wealth in our hands, it is wrong before the Lord to have wealth in our heart—to love what’s in our hands rather than the One who put it there.
    • And no, poverty is not spiritual.
    • And finally, we saw that
      • “Riches are NOT THE evidence of God’s blessing, and
      • “Problems are NOT THE evidence of sin in our lives.”
      • They be an evidence but never THE evidence.

These are just some of the many, many examples of religious folklore that you as a Christian face today.  There are a whole lot more as well.  For example,

• The world says that it takes breaks to get ahead. God’s Word says Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things.  In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. (1 Chronicles 29:12.)
• The world tells you that it takes money to make money. But God tells you In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.  (Psalm 127:2)
• Even some of your friends will tell you that you can’t be too honest and get ahead today. But Proverbs   12:22 says that The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.

The list of religious folklore can go on and on.  I’m sure you can think of some, or many that we didn’t mention. But what is so critically important is for us to know is that we can completely avoid all religious folklore, all together.  How?  How can we avoid religious folklore?  Actually, you already know the answer.

• Let me explain. Now, I don’t know this from personal experience, but I’m told that bankers–that there used to be a time when the most counterfeited bill was the $20 bill.  Now I guess it’s the $100 bill, that’s why they’ve made it look a whole lot different.
• I’m told that bankers had a particular way to teach the tellers how to recognize a fake $20 bill.  What they would NOT do is to show them a good $20 bill and a fake $20 bill and point out the differences…that is not what they did.
• What they did was give each teller a stack of good $20 bills—some new and some not new—they would give each teller a stack of good $20 bills and have them count those $20 bills one at a time, time after time—two, three, maybe four times a day. Then after a week or two of counting good $20 bills, the banker would slip in just one counterfeit $20 bill.  Without knowing anything was different, the tellers would continue to count those $20 bills.  The banker would not tell his tellers about the fake $20 bill, he just put one in each one of the stacks and had the tellers continue to count the bills in the stack.  What happened? – and this is a true story—what happened was that almost every time the tellers would immediately identify the fake bill when they touched it.  How so?  Because they had been handling the truth for such a long time that the lie was readily apparent.  You see, in the face of truth, a lie is always readily apparent.  And this is exactly what God is telling you here about religious folklore.   He says, “Listen, you need to be so close to the Truth (capital T) that when you see or hear a lie, you’ll be able to know it doesn’t come from God, its religious folklore, it’s something you need to stay away from.  So, remember, you get into religious folklore, you get into trouble not only because you are sometimes tool close to the world, but often times you get into trouble because you’re not nearly close enough to God.
• And again, why is understanding what religious folklore is and how to avoid it so important to moving right on down your road to financial freedom God’s way? What’s the point of this entire time together?  You need to recognize that the truth of God’s Word is hard to grasp because you have been exposed the lies of the world for such a long time. You need to become so familiar with the Truth, the Logos, the written Word of God—your Bible, that you can clearly see the difference between words that sound good and the Word that is good—to be so close to the Truth that a lie is readily apparent. You need to invest yourself into the spiritual disciplines of hearing, reading, memorizing, and meditating on the Word of God.  Find out what the Bible does say about the material areas of your life so the lies of the world will stick out like a sour thumb.  Only then will you be able to replace the words and habits of the world with habits based and founded on the Word.  Only then will you begin to discover Debt-Free Living God’s Way.  And by the way if you would like to re-listen to this or any of our programming, simply go to our website at christianfinancialministries.org.

SCAM Alert

It’s time for a SCAM ALERT from the Better Business Bureau.  It’s a sports betting con that promises “guaranteed” wins.

As you probably already know, sports betting is big business – for scammers as well. According to recent BBB Scam Tracker reports, con artists are posing as self-proclaimed handicappers who use insider information to place guaranteed bets on upcoming games. Don’t fall victim to these “scamicappers.”

How this scam works

You come across a social media post or get an email about an experienced handicapper with a record of picking consistent wins. This handicapper is allegedly using insider information to place sure-thing bets on upcoming games. For a fee, you can get in on it too. This person is so confident about their information that they even offer you a money-back guarantee. For example, they may promise you free picks if you make a losing wager.

While it sounds like a safe bet, you’re really dealing with a scammer. These “scamdicappers” have no intention of ever providing a refund or free picks. And their “insider information” is fake, too.

That’s how this scam works, but how can you spot them so you can avoid them.

• Avoid sports handicappers. A handicapper’s goal isn’t to win bets for their members, it’s to get people to buy their picks. Once you’ve purchased their picks, the handicapper has already won. It doesn’t matter if the pick wins or loses, the handicapper keeps the payment.
• Don’t believe promises that sound too good to be true. If a handicapper promises you will never lose a bet, or they will refund your money any time you do, think twice. Scammers love to entice their victims with get-rich-quick schemes. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• Finally, don’t fall for tempting ads. Be wary of gambling-related pop-up ads, email spam, or text messages.

Good information, great advice, and thank you Better Business Bureau.

Clark Howard

Looking for a car that’s built to last?

• According to our consumer advocate friend Clark Howard, there is a new study that lists the vehicles that are most likely to reach the 200,000-mile mark on the odometer.
• To come up with this list, the folks at iSeeCars.com analyzed more than 14.9 million vehicles sold in 2021.
• What did they find? Toyota dominates with six of the top 10 vehicles, including the #1-ranked Land Cruiser.

Now, according to Clark, 200,000 driving miles isn’t as big a deal as it used to be.  As the matter of fact, it is common for vehicles to last for a quarter-million miles or more. How can you quite possibly make it into the quarter-of-a-million-mile club without buying a new car?

• Keep your oil changed. We used to be told to change our oil every 3-5k miles.  But now according to AAA, we should focus on the 5-75k mile oil changes. Fewer trips to the shop to change your oil should save you some cash.  However, for specifics pertaining to how frequently you need to change your particular vehicle’s oil, refer to your owner’s manual.
• Take Care of the Little Problems. It may be easy to brush off an odd engine sound here or there, but you don’t want to continue to ignore little issues with your vehicle. The longer you delay small fixes, the more likely you’ll soon need a big (and more expensive) fix.
• How can you take care of the little problems? Bring your vehicle to your local mechanic. Tell them what’s going on with your car and get a written estimate on the repairs.
• “Have a relationship with a mechanic you go to for the low-voltage things, by that I mean regular maintenance on your vehicle,” Clark says.

So, what did we learn about cars today?

• New Toyota brand cars seem to last longer.
• But there are things we ought to do to keep our current cars running well as well—in other words, we need to be a good steward, or a good manager of the car that the Lord places into our hands. According to the Bible, we will stand accountable to the Lord one day for the way we managed everything He placed into our hands to include our cars.

Thank you, Clark Howard.

Minute with Maxwell

• Well, it’s time for one of my favorite times with you, and that is our Minute with Maxwell. Recall that each time we hear from this world-renown Christian author, speaker, and coach—during each Minute with Maxwell, you are going to gain insight into a single word—and that insight can really add a great deal of value to you in every area of your walk with the Lord.
• Today, let’s see what John Maxwell can teach us about the word “DREAM.”
• What can we take away from this Minute with Maxwell? There’s a reason people use the description “dream team.” I know Christian Financial Ministries has a fantastic Dream Team. But what about you and your dream.  Get yourself a group of people who are the best at what they do and can help bring your vision to life. Be sure to surround yourself with people who are passionate and willing to give all their efforts, so your dreams become their dreams and can become a reality!  Thank you, John Maxwell,

Q&As

For the last several times together, we’ve been fielding some questions that relate to family financial issues…that wasn’t planned by me—it was just the way the Lord had it work out.  Sooo, that being the case, let’s continue along that same line for just a bit longer.

For example, here’s a great “family money question.”

• How can we teach our children about money in a productive way? We have two boys, ages fourteen and twelve, and a girl who is nine.  They’re so caught up in materialism that they look at us as money trees.  I don’t like that, and I think it’s going to hurt them in the future.
• John, it is true that many American kids are very materialistic. They have been raised in a society that directs billions in advertising dollars toward them, and most of them do think money grows on trees—with an unlimited harvest.Your 14-year-old is old enough to begin managing his own money.  I suggest you have a plan:  Whether he earns his own money, or you provide an allowance, hold him accountable to a budget.  Now, I have to say that I’m definitely against giving any child an allowance—but that’s a topic for another day.  You child needs to begin to learn to budget early on.  But start simple.  For example, set up a plan where 10% goes to giving, another portion to savings (say, 25 %) and the remainder is his to spend.  John, you can help your children become financially wise adults, but it is important to start right now.  As the matter of fact, you and your wife ought to come to our next “How to Raise Money-Wise Children God’s Way Seminar and Workshop…you can check out our website for the next date.  By the way, as you learn to teach your children Bible-based financial principles and applications, be sure you follow those same principles and applications yourself.  The Bible says in Psalm 37, “The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just.  Wait for the LORD and keep his way.  He will exalt you to inherit the land.

Great question—and I believe we have time for one more…here it is.

• Bob, what would you say is the most important thing we ought to teach our daughters about money? I have two daughters, ages 16 and 15, and we know that when they get married they’re going to be faced with a lot of financial choices.  Since we don’t know their future husbands, all we can do is teach our daughters how to manage money.
• Sally, I have to believe that according to the Bible it’s best to teach your daughters first is that everything we have belongs to God and that we are merely managers or stewards of the money He gives us. 1 Corinthians 4:2 says that “it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.
  How, you also need to know that the majority of family money handlers in America are women.  They write the checks and pay the bills, and if there is a budget they are usually the ones who are responsible for it.

So, I suggest you teach them the basics of budgeting.  For example, teach them how to balance their checkbooks.  Then teach them what a budget is and how to live on one.  Teach them how to live within their incomes so they are not spending more than they make.  If you do, they will be wiser that 90% of all the young ladies of their generation who are getting married.

Great questions.

CONCLUSION

There you have it, another time for us to talk about your personal finances from God’s perspective in in the books. Where all have we been together today?

• First, you learned that one reason you may fail financially even when you are trying to work with Bible-based financial principles is possibly because you are to close to the world and not nearly close enough to God…when that happens you can fall victim to religious folklore. You now know the definition of religious folklore, have seen some examples of religious folklore, and now you know how to avoid religious folklore all together.
• You learned from the BBB about, and how to avoid a sports betting scam that’s going around.
• Clark Howard shared with you that, at least as far as 2021 is concerned, Toyota cars are the ones most likely picked that will stay on the road the longest. You also picked up a point or two on how to make your used car safely run for a whole lot longer.
• John Maxwell shared with you his thoughts on the word “DREAM.”
• And we’ll wrapped up our time together with a couple of great, real-world family financial questions from listeners.

One final bit of information for you, normally you could go to our website to either relisten to or get a copy of today’s program transcript.  However, we are working on the sit right now but God willing, we’ll have the site updated and back in action soon…I’ll keep you posted.

So, that’s it for this week, sure hope you will be back next week. For right now, for now, let me close us in prayer.

• Father God, I thank you for bringing us together today and for each of the days to come to Your glory in Jesus’ Amen.

Have a blessed day, won’t you, and we’ll see you next time as we continue down your personal road to Financial Freedom God’s Way.