We can't serve God and Mount Money! Can't serve God and Mammon, so we're either serving one or the other. Now God doesn't say money's evil. You need money, money is needed to make anything happen, but the love of it and being ruled by it is the issue, so He says you can't serve God and Mammon. So Mammon is a spirit. God is a spirit. There's a spirit called Mammon that rules, controls and works through money and you've got to decide whether you're going to be under the dominion of the Lord in this area. Now He didn't take your money away from you. He wants you actually to be blessed and grow, but He wants you to become a channel of blessing but you've got to actually break free of the things that rule people and so we want to shape our world with the word of God. Oh, getting exciting now.
Next year I want to speak a little bit on that area because an awful lot of people are ruled by a credit card and ruled by debt. They actually can't serve God, because they're serving debt, see? If you're serving debt, and can't serve God, you need to make next year the challenge, get out of that thing. Shape your world according to the word of God. We had one couple come into the church this year, and they were in debt for a range of reasons. They got their life right with God and then miraculously God was able to arrange the whole debt was cancelled, the whole thing. They were able to pay it off. They got the money, paid the whole thing off. Now when they came in at the beginning of this year, they came in as a result of the concert we did in the park. They came in and then what happened was God was able to intervene in their life and totally shift their financial circumstance, because they ordered the inner world and then their outer world began to come into alignment.
See, everyone wants to see something happen, but you've got to shift on the inside first. We getting the idea? Getting the idea, so change your outer world. Now I'll just give you one last thing on that one, your realm of responsibility. Have a look at this in 1 Samuel, Chapter 17. Dave referred to this the other Sunday, it was just great. Now here's ruling your outer world, and it says here in 1 Samuel, Chapter 17, Verse 42; The Philistine - that's Goliath - looked at David, and he despised him, because he was just a youth. You're just a little boy! He's a hardened battle warrior, and he says am I a dog, you come to me with sticks? And he cursed him by his gods. Now what you understand is he's releasing a spirit of intimidation upon David. He's releasing cursings upon him. He's attacking him, and this is the way the devil tries to deal with us, in terms of life. He tries to accuse us, put us down, make you feel little, remind you of your failures, but David - notice this - he stood up, and he spoke the word of God. He began to declare how the battle would work out. He said today I'll lay you out fully on the ground, and I'll take your head off, and the birds in the air will eat you! I like that, that's good talk. That's fairly positive affirmation about how the battle will go.
Now you've got to realise, he's actually speaking prophetically. He's not speaking because he's hyped up, and he's really excited with youthful enthusiasm. There's much, much more to him than that. He's got a proven track record of battles won, depending on the Lord. See long before he met Goliath, he met a heap of other things as well, including a lion, and a bear, and you see he said the Lord who helped me there, is going to help me here. You see there was an anointing on his life, and he knew see, that the enemy comes at him cursing him, putting him down, trying to intimidate him. Now you've got to understand this. This is a battle-hardened man, and he's got demons operating around him, and he's intimidated a whole army, including Saul, who was the champion. He was actually head and shoulders above everyone. He should have been able to take him on, but even he's intimidated. You see there's a spiritual atmosphere has been released that's intimidated everyone, shut everyone down, and in the middle of it, a young boy rises up who's got something in his inner world!