2 Corinthians 9:10-11 now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness you will be enriched in everything for all liberality which through us is producing thanksgiving to God I want to talk about 5 uses of money that are spoken about here in this chapter but I want to focus on one of them Paul says here we can have seed for the sower bread for food sowing and reaping for multiplication increasing the harvest of righteousness and enriched in everything through generosity or liberality most people know understand the tithe most people understand sowing and reaping being generous people understand consumption bread for food but very few people I’ve run into understand what is increasing fruits of righteousness or increasing your harvest as righteousness I learned this from my good friend Earl Pitts with whom I co-authored the book Wealth Riches and Money what is increasing fruits of righteousness it’s the opposite of increasing fruits of wickedness what are fruits of wickedness I believe it’s this when the spirit of mammon uses money to oppress people a lot of people go to church even go to various clubs to use relationships to make money God hasn’t called us to use relationships to make money He’s called us to use money to build relationships and to bless people Earl Pitts my good friend shared this with me he said increasing fruits of righteousness is using money to break the power of the spirit of mammon in the lives of other people liberate them from debt liberate them from oppression and using money to build relationship sometimes it entails giving money lending money training people how to use money to break the power of the spirit of mammon and debt and after I understood that from my friend Earl I had an opportunity to practice it not long after that there was some money that Jan and I had saved we didn’t know what God wanted us to do with it but it was money that had been saved I was pastoring at the time I had two friends in the church one of them was very wealthy the other one seemed always to be in financial trouble and they were friends the wealthy man had lent the poorer man quite a sum of money it was actually about $25,000 over a period of time and the poorer man always said I’ll pay you back next month I’ll begin to pay you and the poorer man never lifted a finger to pay his wealthy friend I think he was just thinking he’s wealthy he doesn’t need the money he won’t miss it there’s a principle the Bible says psalm 37:21 when you borrow and do not pay back you’re wicked so the wicked is the man who borrows and does not pay back the wealthy man came to me one day and he said this is destroying our relationship because the poorer man never pays so I met with both of them made an agreement the poorer man said ok I’m going to begin paying a few months went by and the wealthy man came back and said he hasn’t paid the first $100 he said he’d pay $100 a month hasn’t paid the first $100 and again it was destroying their relationship we were going to meet again on a thursday it was a Saturday night and I was lying in bed I couldn’t sleep for some reason Jan couldn’t sleep either she went downstairs and she was praying I guess and I heard the LORD speak to me clear as a bell and He said this take the money that you saved and pay that poorer man’s debt to the wealthy man I was thinking LORD that doesn’t make any sense why would I give to this wealthy man $25,000 he already has millions of dollars why should I do that if I was going to give away $25,000 wouldn’t it be better to give it to missions somewhere to give it to the poor somewhere the LORD said no I want you to learn how to increase your harvest of righteousness use money to break the spirit of mammon in both of their lives I thought LORD if that’s you confirm it through my wife Jan came back up and I said what were you doing she said I was praying I couldn’t sleep I said did the LORD speak anything to you she said as a matter of fact he did I said what did He say? she said no, you first what did He say to you and I said no, no, no you tell me she said no, no, no the LORD told me I was to hear you first so I shared with her I think we’re supposed to use that 20 some thousand dollars that we’ve saved for this purpose to pay extinguish this man’s debt she said I believe that’s God I said why is that because she said the Holy Spirit told me that he was speaking something to you that was a little bit unusual but that when you told me what it was I should agree with you that it had to do with money and that we were to use our money that way so I believe that’s what we’re to do we confirmed it with one of the elders in our church Thursday came and I met with those two men I said to the poorer man first of all I rebuked them both I said to the poorer man the Bible says you’re wicked because you’ve borrowed and you haven’t even paid the first payment that you agreed not only are you wicked you’re a liar you told him you would do this and you didn’t do it it’s because you’re consumed with the spirit of mammon that consumes your mind then I told the wealthier man I believe the same is true for you you’re also consumed with the spirit of mammon because you’re always worried that everybody’s going to steal your money take something away from you and your focused on money as well I said I’m going to break that spirit today I said here’s what I’m going to do I looked at the poorer man I said I’m going to pay your debt He thought I meant something spiritual like I was going to do some kind of spiritual thing I said no, no, no I’m going to write a check right now to him to whom do I make it out is it your company or you personally and the wealthier man said no, no, no I won’t accept the money you can’t pay his debt and I said I can and I will the poorer man began weeping the wealthier man began to weep too so he did receive the money and he said I’ll just give it back into the ministry I said you can do whatever you want with it but it extinguishes the debt God told us to use this money for this purpose and then I prayed to break the spirit of mammon over both of them you know what happened it was the most amazing thing I began to see a floodgate open in the life of that wealthier man we went to a missions conference probably 4 or 5 weeks after that I saw him give $50,000 to missions I believe it was in Russia and he began to give more than I’d ever seen him give before I thought that’s a pretty good return that’s a multiplication of the money that I sowed into the Kingdom didn’t come back into our ministry but it went into all kinds of missions as a blockage was broken in his life and the floodgate was open the poorer man his business began to prosper prospered and prospered and prospered I asked him what are you doing differently than before he said I don’t know it’s just all the deals are closing everything’s working I knew exactly what it was we broke the power of the spirit of mammon that is increasing fruits of righteousness and the reason I share that with you I believe all of us ought to have a jar with some money set aside in it for increasing fruits of righteousness money that we can use to bless other people so I just want to pray for you today that God would teach you how to increase the harvest of righteousness use money and I pray that Father I pray for each one watching today that you would teach us how to increase the harvest of righteousness how to use money that you put in our hands to break the power of the spirit of mammon in the lives of other people to set them free and to release your kingdom resources to flow through everyone of us to accomplish your kingdom purpose I pray that in the mighty name of Yeshua Amen