Paul W. Powell Legacy Library

9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: 10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. Introduction Open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs is almost right square in the middle of the Bible. If you come out in the book of Psalms, turn right and it will...

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Introduction  This sermon grew out of several convictions. One is that stewardship is a deeply spiritual matter. We do no...

  7 Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. 8 I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others, and to prove the sincerity of your love. 9 For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich,...

Someone asked John D. Rockefeller how much money it would take to satisfy a person. He wisely replied, “Just a little bit more.” Every one of us must be on guard constantly against that greedy, selfish spirit that makes money a god and things the supreme desire of life. To save us from the slavery of materialism, the Lord commanded us to use our possessio...

One of the principal dangers we all face is placing too much value on making money and accumulating material possessions. It is such a great danger because this desire has a way of crowding out the best and finest things of life. For one thing, it can crowd out our family. I have seen more than one person neglect their family while trying to provide more and more thi...

How do we know what’s in a person’s heart? We know what’s in a person’s heart by what they do with that which is in their hand. David was not able to build a house of God, but he went as far as he could in building the house of God. He raised the money. He collected the material. He had the plans drawn. He went as far as he could possibly go to...

The parable of the laborers in Matthew 20 reminds us that it is not too late for you to go to work in God’s vineyard. He hired workers until the 11th hour. And the 11th hour was the last hour before quitting time. And even though they had failed up until that moment to find employment, when the Master called they answered that call and until the last hour our Lo...

I read some time ago that one of the directors of the Rockefeller Foundation said that the members of that organization are either patrons or they are partners. A patron is a person who lends his name and his support to an organization. He occasionally will attend one of the annual meetings. There is some kind of slight attachment to that organization. A patron intend...

I had the privilege this week of meeting Stanley Tam, the president of US Plastics in Lima, Ohio. He is a Christian businessman. I would have said a few years ago, and he would have said too, that he was the owner of US Plastics. But now he is only the president of US Plastics, because he has given his business to God. In fact he has written a book about his life enti...