TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles - Morning Manna - July 2, 2025 - Proverbs 6:1 - Handshake with a Stranger: The Trap You Didn't See Coming

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

In today’s Morning Manna, we unpack the entire weight of a single verse—Proverbs 6:1. What seems like a simple handshake or promise can quickly become a snare for your future. Solomon warns us about the hidden dangers of becoming surety for another person, whether in finances, relationships, or careless commitments. This isn’t just ancient financial advice—it’s wisdom for guarding your freedom, your integrity, and your future. Before you make promises, co-sign loans, or obligate yourself in ways God never intended—pause and listen. One verse. Big consequences.Join the leading community for Conservative Christians! https://www.FaithandValues.comYou can partner with us by visiting https://www.FaithandValues.com/donate, calling 1-800-576-2116, or by mail at PO Box 399 Vero Beach, FL 32961.Get high-quality emergency preparedness food today from American Reserves!https://www.AmericanReserves.comIt’s the Final Day! The day Jesus Christ bursts into our dimension of time, space, and matter. Now available in eBook and audio formats! Order Final Day from Amazon today!https://www.amazon.com/Final-Day-Characteristics-Second-Coming/dp/0578260816/Apple users, you can download the audio version on Apple Books! https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/final-day-10-characteristics-of-the-second-coming/id1687129858Purchase the 4-part DVD set or start streaming Sacrificing Liberty today. https://www.sacrificingliberty.com/watchThe Fauci Elf is a hilarious gift guaranteed to make your friends laugh! Order yours today! https://tru.news/faucielf

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Morning Manna. We're delighted to have you with us. And today we start chapter six in the book of Proverbs. We're going to study verses one through five. Let's invite the Holy Spirit, then Doc will read the word and we'll get started. All right. Most gracious Father, our dear Heavenly Father, we pray in the name of our Savior, your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Father, bless this class. Bless the reading and the studying and the receiving of your word, Father. Come, Holy Spirit, take charge of this morning man of Bible study and teach all of us. Make us stronger disciples, brighter lights, saltier witnesses, more loving people

in a world that is lost in In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen. And welcome to Morning Manna. We're so glad that you have chosen to take time out of your day to join us for this live edition of a Bible study that is joined by people from all over the world, about a dozen different countries. Join us each and every weekday morning live here in the 8 o'clock hour on the East Coast for Morning Manna. Morning Manna is a ministry of faith and values fellowship here in Barrow Beach, Florida. We welcome you and the hundreds of people that join us each and every weekday morning to study the Word of God.

We are studying the Book of Proverbs right now and we continue our journey today picking up in chapter 6. We'll be looking at the first five verses of chapter 6 so if you have your Bibles read along with me if you will. I'm reading from the King James if you'll read along with me here chapter 6 verse 1. My son if thou be surety for thy friend if thou has stricken thy hand with a stranger thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. Do this now my son and deliver thyself, and thou art come into the hands

of thy friend, go humble thyself and make sure thy friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes nor slumber to thine eyelids, deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler." Well, today, Rick, we get into money. Yes, this is a really interesting set of verses in Proverbs. We'll start with verse 1. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger. I'm going to break this into three

segments. The first segment, my son, if thou be surety. We see again, God is speaking as a father, speaking to a child. Now, I say a child, He's talking to an adult child. He's saying, My Son, but this could be my daughter. It's a father speaking to a child, an adult child, giving wisdom about money. This is about money have come after the instructions about getting entangled with people outside of the covenant. So the Holy Spirit placed chapter 6 at this particular place in the book of Proverbs, at this particular place in the book of Proverbs, because the first five chapters gave us a foundation.

Now this is practical stuff now. So we see the family relationship appeal, my son. This is a fatherly warning, a fatherly advice to a son or daughter against making rash financial commitments. Advising the son or daughter to exercise caution in their financial dealings, to avoid entanglements in risky obligations. It starts, my son, if thou be surety.

My son, my daughter, if you be surety, well, what is surety? It's a word that we don't use. It is used in the financial world, but it's not used often in common conversations. What is surety? Surety is collateral. Right. So, what's collateral? Well, you go to the bank to borrow money and the banker says, what do you have as collateral? Yeah, we're interested in giving you this loan.

What do you have as collateral? Collateral is something pledged as security for repayment of a financial debt the collateral will be forfeited in the event of a default right so if the if the banker says your collateral is sufficient we're willing to give you the loan. They may say put up your house. Okay, I'll tell you this. When we bought our church building years ago, all the bankers said to me, Rick, we're glad to loan this money to your church, but we need your house as collateral. Your house, my house. The only way we were able to buy, I didn't want a mortgage on that church to start with. You know, we were asking the true news audience at that time,

if enough people donate, we don't have to get a mortgage. Actually, even if we didn't have enough to pay the entire cost of the property, if the down payment had been higher, there would have been no collateral. But the banker said, Rick, we desire to do this loan. We desire to finance this church, but we need your house as collateral. And so my house was the collateral for the church loan, which meant if people stopped donating to the church, the bank took my house. Look, that happens often in church financing for small churches. Collateral is what the bank takes if the loan goes into default.

Bank regulators require banks to prove that they have sufficient collateral for every loan. And I remember the banker telling me that. Right. It was the banker telling me that. Right. It was the president of the bank. And he said, Rick, I have to have it because the bank regulators will go through our books and I have to show that I have collateral.

He really didn't want the collateral. He knew we were good for the loan, but he said, I have to show on paper, I have collateral. If the bank regulators come and go through our books. So lenders require collateral from a borrower for that collateral to be forfeited if the borrower does not make the payments if the borrower goes into default.

Right. So let's read Proverbs six, verse one this way. My son, if you have become collateral for a loan, when you co-sign a loan, you become the collateral. You, you're the collateral. The bank is coming after you. Now does this make sense? Do you understand the gravity of becoming collateral for somebody else's financial obligations. You yourself become the collateral.

The lender, the bank, the loan company, whoever it is, they're coming after you. Because you're the collateral. Whatever you have, they're going to take it. Till they get their money back. They don't care to strip you, strip you down to your undies. They don't care. They're going to get their money back. They have people they answer to.

Yeah, they've got to answer to people. And they're like, well, you signed it. You knew what you were doing when you signed it. Most people don't know what they were doing when you signed it. Most people don't know what they're doing when they sign these loans. So when you co-sign a loan, you become the collateral of the loan. So becoming surety, becoming collateral for a friend

is a dangerous snare. It risk personal ruin through misplaced trust. What this verse is doing, it's urging us to approach financial obligations with caution, approach financial obligations with caution so that we preserve our resources for God's purposes on earth. How much money leaves the hands of God's people

to go into the accounts of lenders? to the accounts of lenders. Interest, usury. God doesn't like usury. I mean, he actually put a law against it in the Bible. I'm drinking this. I can't drinkiness. So I can't drink that. I get if you weren't here in the beginning. I didn't wash all the soap out of my coffee cup. It tastes like Dawn dishwashing liquid. That's why

I'm blowing bubbles right now. So if you become sure the If you become sure D collateral for your friend, this can be a personal friend, it can be a neighbor. Modern English says your neighbor. So let's just say your friend or your neighbor. So this is emphasizing the danger of guaranteeing another person's debt for your friend, for your neighbor. This is specifying the context of this pledge. It's teaching us as disciples that even well-intentioned acts for friends and neighbors can lead to financial ruin.

It's your friend, your neighbor, personalized. A friend. A friend. It's your friend. So this verse one of chapter six is telling us to evaluate our relationships, to avoid financial obligations that compromise our stability. So a friend or close neighbor, it's this is referring to close relationships. Could be any kind of close relationship, a coworker, a long time friend, a high school friend, a college buddy, a church friend, it could be any friend.

So it's a person that you have a close intimate relationship with. Notice friends and neighbors are mentioned, but not close family members. And I'm not going to make a definitive statement on this. I think each person needs to make their own decision about how to handle family members who ask for you to ask you to co-sign a loan. I have done that in the past and I didn't get burned, thank God. But each person needs to make that decision, okay? Where I'm at now, at this stage of my life,

I'll tell you my personal preference. Most co-signing requests are for auto loans. Right. Or I've never had, yeah. I've never had somebody ask me to cosign a mortgage for a house or something like that. It's usually an auto loan or something at that level. So this is the way I handle it now. I prefer to ask the family member or friend how much money do you need for the down payment to qualify for the loan without

a co-signer? Right. If the amount is something I can afford, I'd prefer to just give it to them as a gift, instead of doing a co-signing. Look, you need $3,000, you'll get the loan on your own name, here, I'll give it to you. Whatever the amount is, $1,000, $2,000, whatever it is, what do you need to qualify? Now if they say to me, the issue isn't the down payment. What is the issue?

My credit record. Oh, you don't pay your bills? But you want me to vouch for you. Yes. See? But you want me to vouch for you. Yeah, see, if they say, and I just had that happen not too long ago, or I offered, I said, I'll just give you some money for down payment. And they finally, weeks later, I how did how did it go did you get the car no what I found out was their credit record was horrible nobody was going to give them a loan okay well why is it horrible because you don't pay

your bills right but you you want you're asking me to sign for another debt that you don't really plan to pay? If you haven't paid off your other debts, how why are you gonna pay off this one? Of course they'd never admit that but no you have to but you're asking so they couldn't get the credit but they want you to grant them the credit for them and then Your credit score comes down because you're attached to them now I mean you you get contaminated your credit score comes down simply by being contaminated with the person you co-sign for Um So but my my preference is if they can get the loan with a bigger down payment, I'll just

give them the money if I have it. If I don't have it, I just say, I don't have it. I'm not going to co-sign, but I do have this much money I can give you. Right. And I've done that and just in giving it, you know, whether you get paid back or not is beside the point, you're just giving it. Sometimes you get paid back, sometimes you don't, but you're, you're just giving it anyway. And just say, if you can pay it back, pay it back. But if you know, the the trustworthy ones will pay it

back. Right, you know, I'll work with a person like that. Right. But, you know, some but if they don't do it, then I'm going to hesitate if they ask a second time. Right. So, you know, this whole verse here, Rick, is really not about money. It's really about wisdom, isn't it? It is. That's what it's all about. It's about wisdom in all things. Yeah, the whole book of Proverbs is about wisdom, right? Now personally might in my own way with close friends or family I Don't even say pay it back. I just say it's a gift and the reason is it it releases them from the pressure and They they don't fear that the relationship

is going to be damaged if they can't repay the amount I gave them for a down payment. Right. So I'm like, look, I'll just do this. You don't owe it to me. I can't think of anyone who's ever come back and said, I know you didn't ask me repay, but I'm going to do it. I don't I can't think of anybody who ever did that.

Okay. But anyhow, it takes the pressure off of them. Here's your opportunity and I'll tell them, I'm giving you an opportunity you can straighten out your credit record. Do this one right. If you don't do this one right, don't come back to me. I'm not going to do this again. You know, if you wreck the car because you're a careless driver, you total look, I've seen that happen too. You help somebody get a car and the next thing you know, they've wrecked it. Well now what are you

gonna do? You got a loan on the car. That's right and you signed for it. Yeah. Okay I think this is hitting home with with a lot of people right now. We all have our own stories right? We all have memories. We got all all of us have situations. At the core of this Proverbs 6.1 is a warning against misplaced trust because of affection. Right. There you go. That's wisdom. Wisdom. Yeah. Don't let affection for somebody cause you to make a financial decision you would not make if you didn't know that person. It's also a warning against misplaced pride. Let me explain.

Okay. This applies to generous people. Generous people can become overly generous because they don't want anybody to tarnish their image of being generous and gracious. They're not gonna, doc, they're not gonna express it. They may not even consciously know it. This may be a subconscious attitude

where they're not even verbalizing it to themselves. But they're thinking, you know, a lot of people know I'm generous. But if I don't help this person, this person is going to go out and say, I went to so and so for help and turn me down. And I'm a member of the family. I'm a fifth cousin. I saw them at the reunion 10 years ago. cousin. I saw them at the reunion 10 years ago. I don't talk to them, but I saw them. Right. Yeah. But anyhow, a generous person may think, I don't want that person saying I asked him or her for help, and

they rejected me. And then the generous person goes too far, forgets about sound financial management principles and makes a foolish legal commitment to endorse a bank note, not only because of affection for the person, but for affection for their image. Wow. Did that one hit home anywhere?

Did that one hit home anywhere? So the generous person is at risk of suffering financial loss because he or she made a reckless decision to back somebody else's debt who had a record of not paying his or her bills. I have a feeling this week there are loan requests being denied. All over the world there's people watching this. Somebody is going to be saying, but Uncle Joe what happened? You were going to do it for him. I don't know. I was I watched his Bible lesson. Blame it on Rick and Doc. Okay, so the third part of verse one is if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger. What does this mean? stricken your hand what what take a hammer and hit your hand with a stranger. What does this mean?

Stricken your hand, what? Take a hammer and hit your knuckles? No, that's not what it means. This is talking about the folly, the foolishness of binding agreements with strangers. It's telling us to avoid risky alliances, to trust wisdom, to ensure our personal financial security. Strangers, as we've been learning in Proverbs, stranger represents people outside the covenant of God. The phrase, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, it means if you have struck your hands in a pledge for a stranger, like in a contract? A contract. A formal contract. A formal pledge.

This is telling us to avoid commitments with unknown parties. What did we... In the first part of this verse, we're talking about friends and neighbors. People that you have close relationship with. You have affection for them, you have love for them, you have concern for them. Now it's talking about a stranger. The term stricken by hand, this is an old Hebrew phrase that means the gesture of entering a binding agreement. We shake hands on it. Right. And usually required witnesses.

You made an agreement, two parties made an agreement, there were people that were witnessing to it. Sometimes in the agreement there was an exchange of a pledge like salt or something like that, but it was a formal agreement. But the warning here is don't enter into a formal agreement with strangers. It doesn't say don't do formal agreements. Don't do it with strangers. Don't do it with unknowns. So in ancient Hebrew culture, it signifies a public, irrevocable pledge.

It's an irrevocable pledge that's made in public, as you said, eyewitnesses. And the fact that it's made in public and that it's irrevocable speak of the gravity of such commitments. What would it be like in modern times? It would be like somebody going down to the county courthouse and filing a lien against you, against your property. You've struck a public agreement, a commitment, and the commitment requires the other party to put a lien on your property.

Yes. In public at the county courthouse with eyewitnesses. So these financial commitments entangle our souls in obligations that defy wisdom. It puts you in bondage. It limits your freedom. Yes, yes, it's taking away your freedom. So again, affection for a friend, a neighbor, a relative. That's understandable. But why would you become collateral for a stranger? A stranger is somebody outside the covenant of God. There are people all over the world this very hour in every country entering into business arrangements with strangers Deals are being made somewhere in the world right now. Yes

People are signing contracts people are shaking hands Collaterals being pledged It's what It's what makes this world go around, it's business. Right. Okay. So this part of the proverb is a warning against, it's a warning about the risk of unfamiliar alliances. Right. Why would someone enter into an alliance with a stranger, an unfamiliar alliance? Because they really, it's going to be either because of greed or pride or jealousy. Those are the only reasons. Because if you're using common sense, common sense will tell you don't do it. but sometimes greed kicks in.

Man, this is too good of a deal to pass up or jealousy. If I don't do this, someone else will or pride. I have to do this for this reason or that reason. Boy, you hit it on that one. I got to do it before somebody else does. Right. I gotta do it before somebody else does. Right. What did I heard Mark Cuban give an acronym

on Shark Tank one day for that motivation? It was like a four or five letter acronym, which meant I'm gonna invest simply because I don't want somebody else to get this. Right. And I think I know what the deal was. I don't remember what it was. But hey, Mark's a billionaire. All right.

So he's learned the lesson that that told me when I heard him say it that in his earlier days he made investments Wrong investments because he didn't want somebody else to get the investment. I Learned a lot watching shark tank Wow that's you learn a lot about money watching that show I That's you learn a lot about money watching that show I Wouldn't get in the way of Kevin O'Leary and his money who? He watches out for his money, okay I'm not saying he's didn't say he's greedy. I don't think he's greedy at all. I think he's a sharp businessman

and he watches his money and he can smell bad deals, okay? He's got a good sniffer. I think more than anything else with Kevin O'Leary and I love Shark Tank too, it's not about smelling the bad deals, but smelling bad management. It's in bad character.

Right. Bad character. Right, you can have the greatest product in the world, but if you can't manage a business, man, you don't wanna get in bed with someone like that. You don't want to get into an agreement with someone like that because they're going to ruin you. And if you watch Shark Tank enough, you'll see, you notice Kevin O'Leary's most popular

proposal. He won't invest money. He'll say, I'll loan the money to you at, you know, 8% interest. And I want a royalty on all your sales. What has he done? If the person takes that deal, they're putting their company up as collateral. Right. Everything. He's not behind the scenes when that shows off the television and he's working out the deal. You can be sure he's getting collateral.

So why does he do that? Because he's not just going to give somebody $500,000. that's gonna give somebody $500,000. All right, Doc, I'm gonna give three real examples. I'm gonna be extremely sparse on describing these examples because I don't want anybody to try to figure out, well, who was this? All right. And so, Doc, I don't want to give away any clues at all. Okay.

You know all three of them. Okay. But I'm giving you these examples. I'm going to show you real life. This is what I've had to deal with. Okay. So, years ago, I was invited to invest in a business. I was really interested in it.

I thought, wow, this is awesome. But I'll tell you what I discovered that made me run the other way. When I carefully examined the prospectus and read the fine print, I noticed a requirement that I had to give this startup company the legal right to borrow money from my bank based on my personal line of credit. Which meant if the company ran out of money, thank you. Jody just brought me some coffee. Non-soapy coffee. It has no soap in it.

Thank you. So anyhow, this business proposal, everything about it was wonderful except that part. Wait a minute. Am I reading this right? If I sign this document, I'm obligated now as an investor, I have to go to my bank and sign documents that give the company the right to tap into my personal line of credit. Pretty slick, wasn't it?

Yeah, I know the situation you're talking about too. Right. Yeah. So I just politely said no, I don't think at this time. Okay. Didn't want to burn bridges. This is not something for me. Second one is that we had a ministry that offered to donate to us, some of you may remember this, they offered to donate to us an online Bible college, and it was real, it was functioning. It was licensed by the state, it had students, it had courses, it was issuing degrees. It was a real Bible college online. And, you know, Doc and I, we were excited, like, wow. And, you know, Doc and I were excited. Like, wow! Yes. I said, wow, dude, this is awesome. This is awesome, man. But here's what the Lord revealed to us. This is why you have

to do your due diligence. This is where the guys like Kevin O'Leary, you know, start looking at the fine print, looking, digging in, asking questions, doing the research, because two things appeared that had not been disclosed to us. Number one, the college was in debt. Yes. If we would have accepted this gift, what they were doing was giving us their debt. Well, that's nice of you, isn't it? That was So if you admit that was the first one that we discovered. And the second one was the Lord spoke to me. I heard the Lord's voice and he said, ask the college president if who owns the college's intellectual property?

Now, what intellectual property would a college own? Right. The courses. You're taking a course. I mean, if it's a university and you're taking a law degree, I mean, they have courses in law, okay? That's the intellectual property of the university. They legally own the course.

You can't copy it and steal it and take it from you. Try doing that to Harvard. Try doing that to the University of Nebraska. They're not going to let you do that to them. Those courses belong to the university. But the Holy Spirit said, ask the college president who owns the intellectual property. And so I sent this letter and I had a long list, not just that one, but I had a long list, a checklist. Verify this, verify checklist, you know,

verify this, verify this, verify this, all right? I was doing my due diligence as a businessman. Yes, they want to give me something. And we have just discovered it has debt. Now we're contemplating is, are the assets of this college worth accepting the debt? That's where we're at. Really? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, that's a legitimate question.

What assets does the college have? Does it have enough to cancel out the debt? I mean, you know, those are things you have to weigh out. We were disappointed when we discovered it had debt, but it wasn't the deal breaker. We were like, okay, it's got debt. Now, do we want to go ahead? So now we're thinking through, if we started a college, how much would we have to spend to get a college up and running at the level that they were at? Would we spend more than what their debt is?

We're thinking this through, okay? However, the Lord told me, ask the college president who owns the intellectual property. So I sent this list, a checklist of things to verify, you know, kind of like a title search, okay? And the answer came back within a week and he answered everything but that one question. He didn't answer the intellectual property.

And I noticed that and so I called him and I said to him, I said, you know, thank you for quickly replying. Thank you for answering all my questions. I noticed you skipped a question number or whatever it was. Okay. And he hesitated. And I said, can I, I'm just gonna ask you straight out, does the college own the courses? And he said, no. And I said, can I I'm just gonna ask you straight out does the college own the courses and he said no

And I was shocked I said who owns the courses he said each professor I Said so you're telling me that if you give me this college The professors could walk off and leave and take their courses with them. Well, I don't think they would do that. No, but could they? Could they? Yes, they could. Do you have any contracts with the professors?

No, we don't. So the professors could leave and go start their own college. But I'm holding the debt. Right? Is that where we were at, Doc? Yeah. So theoretically, we could end up in a position where we have nothing but a big old bank note and we would be legally responsible to pay it because we became the owners. Some of you listening to me right now, you've already been through real estate deals, business deals, you already know, you've like, yep, been there done that before. Okay. You get a little bit crusty, the

older you get, right? Like, I, I'm going to look at this real carefully now. So the third one, and again, I'm going to be extremely sparse on details was that we were doing business with a company and we were dealing directly with the present CEO and owner one-on-one. I'm CEO, he's CEO, we're doing business one-on-one at that corporate level. And then something happened. I got an email from his daughter informing me that he did not own the company that she did. that he did not own the company that she did. It was a shock. And we did, we obviously called him. And it, what it turned out, listen to this,

he had years earlier, moved all of his assets into the legal ownership of his daughter to keep them from his ex-wife from claiming in a divorce. And so for years, he ran his, what used to be his business, because in his mind, it was his business. He started it, he built it, he ran it. He claimed it.

He promoted it. Talked about it. But on paper, in the state government of where they were located, all of his corporations, all of his assets were owned by his daughter. And what she did one day is that she decided to act like she was the owner. And she kicked her father out. And I was in the office that day, folks. Okay.

I was sitting right next to Rick. Doc, come look at this. I mean, this is like a soap opera. See, that man made a very foolish decision years earlier. Because he was deceptive, he wanted to hide his assets from the woman he was divorcing, who was his second wife, not his daughter's mother, second wife.

He moved his assets into the legal ownership with his daughter and just said, hey, on paper you own it, but I'm going to run the company. You don't have to do anything. I'll do whatever you want. What we learned that day is the apple didn't fall far from the tree. It turned out the daughter was deceptive too. Wiley. And what we kind of pieced together was that eventually the daughter got a boyfriend and a boyfriend figured out, wait a minute, this young woman I'm dating legally owns millions of dollars worth of assets.

And I think the boyfriend is the one, but I'm telling you this stuff to tell you, this stuff is, this is real stuff. This happens in the world. Right. Okay. People lie. This is a news bulletin.

This just in, people lie. People deceive, people cheat and they have no conscience about taking you down with them right okay people conceal things they'll conceal that they have no assets. Look, if this is in the book of Proverbs, this is like what, 3,000 years old. This tells me that back in Solomon's time, people lied, people cheated, people concealed in business deals. Hey, human nature has not changed. Human nature is the same today as then. And Solomon is telling us here, Solomon said, I'm not going to go into detail and tell you

about the crooked deals. What happened? But here, son, your daughter, here's the wisdom I came up with. This is what I've learned. In dealing with people. Don't shake your hand in public and make a deal with a stranger. I'm still in verse 1. Yeah. So I used to go to Panama a lot.

I love Panama. I love the Panamanian people. I had a desire to expand the ministry in Panama. But I had a conversation with a Panamanian attorney and he gave me some advice. He said, Rick, let me tell you, if you are serious about doing business in Panama, I want to tell you the Panamanian way. I said, sure. I want to hear it. He said, you Americans are eager to rush into business deals.

That's your nature as an American. You want everything now, let's move, let's sign it, let's move on. He goes, we don't do it that way in Panama. I said, well, how do you do it? He said, well, if there are two parties that are thinking about entering into a business relationship, here's the way it works. The Panamanian investor will invite the foreigner, the American or whatever country they're from, they'll invite them to their home for dinner with their family.

He said the whole family be there. Grandma, everybody, the whole family is checking you out. They're all giving you the up and down. They're looking at you. They're listening there. And when you leave the house, they have a meeting to talk about what they think about you. And then it's your obligation to invite the Panamanian investor to come to your house

and meet your family. And this may go back and forth for months until they have the inner piece we can do business with this person. What you're doing is you're eliminating the stranger component there. Yes, you're no longer a stranger. Okay. You're no longer a stranger. Business partnerships can go sour. They can start out beautiful, everybody's happy, everybody's doing great, but something can go wrong.

One of the investors could get sick, can't work. Well, you have to pick up his or her work and carry on and keep the business going and pay his or her share of the debt. One of the investors may get a divorce, go nuts, lose his mind, check into an insane asylum, become an alcoholic. Maybe you find out later the person's an alcoholic. Maybe you find out later the person's an alcoholic. A lot of stuff can go wrong. So there are high risk in trusting strangers with financial obligations.

The message here is do not make unfamiliar alliances, exercise caution. familiar alliances exercise caution. But the core message in verse one is striking hands with a stranger, shaking hands on a deal in public with witnesses, legalize commitment is the same as you going to a blacksmith shop to forge your own shackles You have created yourself imposed chains of financial bondage Your hands have enslaved you to somebody else's financial folly. Right.

Well, I only got to verse one. I guess I should just wait and not pick up verse two. We'll do this tomorrow. We only got about four minutes left, Doc. Well, I think just in verse one here, there's so much information, so much wisdom as relates not only to how we manage our financial arrangements and relationships, but as mentioned earlier, this is all about wisdom. Wisdom tells us don't enter into agreements or partnerships based on misplaced confidence, flattery,

impulsiveness. Impulsiveness is the big thing. I remember back in my early 20s, Rick, you know, just married and everything, every get rich scheme that came along I was in on. I'm, you know, from, and not to talk bad, there are some people that do really well in some of these, like Amway and Shackley and what was the Bill Gates internet thing that TiVo, TiVo was new then and they, it started out as multi-level marketing. And so, and when I look back now the only reason why I pursued any of those was because of greed and impulsiveness I said saw someone else had more money than I did

and I wanted that not that I was willing to invest and build a business but that I wanted something somebody else had. Yes. And they made it sound easy. They always make it sound easy. Right. A lot of those business opportunities, you could make money, but it's not easy. Right. There's not one business you can start that's easy money. Right. There's not one business you can start that's easy money. Right. Not one.

They all require time, labor, energy, focus, resources. You can succeed, but don't listen to somebody who says this is easy money. That just doesn't exist. I got to share a story and Rick I had a great aunt my grandfather's sister and of course they grew up during the Great Depression and stuff like that but my great aunt her name was Bessie so I'll just tell everybody what her name was Her name was Bessie. Back during the Depression, she and a friend actually traveled across country. And they would knock on doors asking people for money, saying they're on their way to such and such a place. And they

would, you know, they would ask for people would give them money, even broke people would give them money. Help them out because they're you know, and they would tell a great story but it was all a scam. You know, I just be honest with you, it was all a scam. And she and her friend lived on this for a couple years, doing this, just traveling town to town. You know, they had a circuit that they would go through and they didn't work a job, didn't do anything. All they did was knock on doors and ask for money. And they made a good living doing this. They bought a car, they bought a house, they, you know,

doing this. And one day I asked Aunt Bessie, she was telling me the story. And I said, well, Aunt Bessie, why'd you stop doing that? She said it was too hard, it was hard work. And so I was like going, so even scamming people is hard work. Scamming is hard work. It's hard work. Yes. She went straight because scamming was just way too hard.

She went legit. But isn't that the story of a lot of us, especially when we're younger and we have not been taught wisdom and basic financial principles? We see someone else with something more than we have. We want it. And our nature is to do whatever we can to get what our neighbor has. It's covetousness. It's greed. It's, oh Lord, forgive me for those decisions I've made. Oh my goodness. Putting my family at risk, put my my future at risk.

And if you don't get anything else out of this lesson today, let this be a warning. Don't enter into agreements or relationships without wisdom. Don't enter into impulsively if it's a good deal today, it'll be a good deal tomorrow. You know, so much to learn just from this one verse today. Doc, I'll tell one more true story. There's not so much the finances, but the deception. When I was a, when I grew up in Maryland

and I knew this man, I was a teenager and I would assume he was probably in his 30s when I first met him. I met him through politics. I had gotten involved. I got recruited by a man running for Congress later, became a congressman. That's how I got involved in politics. I was a teenager and i met this uh state senator who got elected to the u.s house and that opened up doors for me to meet other people anyhow that's where i met this man and it wasn't like doc i went to his house i didn't have any you know i would meet him at social events pic picnics, political meetings, and so forth.

Sometimes we would go someplace to McDonald's or something like that, sit and talk. Anyhow, everybody in this community where I lived, everybody who knew him, we all believed he was a college professor. I think you've told me this story before. Now, he told us he was a professor across the state line at a state college, there was a college there. And so it was across the state line at a state college. There was a college there and so it was across the state line. Nobody in our community, you're not going to go over there. It's another state.

Okay, the likelihood of going there is remote unless you're just passing through. And so we all believed he was a professor at that college. And then he just disappeared. I mean just gone. Years later, I wasn't a Christian at this point, right? Years later I got a call from him. Now I'll tell you when I got the call I had just been saved. I was a brand new Christian. So I was probably about 25, 26 years old. And he called me and I was surprised to hear from him because I had not heard from him for several years. And he said, and I'm like, Hey, well, where are you? You just disappeared. Nobody has seen you. He goes, well, I moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Those of you in PA,

you know where I'm talking about Bucks County. Okay. And I said, what are you doing up there? You teaching in college? He goes, no, I got elected county judge. I go, you're a judge? He goes, yes, sir. He goes, I'm a, I got elected to the Bucks County Circuit Court. I was, wow, congratulations, you know. And I talked to him. Doc, when that call was over, you know, this is back when you had big old black telephone, you know talking I'm a new Christian and I heard the Holy Spirit say it's all I all of it We say we several other people who knew him I

Started talking to them and we began our investigation. He was never a college professor. He was not elected a county judge, okay? That man lived a lie for decades, okay? Why do people do that stuff? See, now there's a stranger that if you would strike your hand and go into a business deal with him, everything about him is a lie.

It appeared to be true. It was a lie. Yeah, but the debt is real. If you go into a business deal, the debt is real, but the person you entered into the contract with isn't real. I don't even know if the name he had was his real name. I don't know. Okay. I guess, you know, the lesson here is, you know, be on guard. Don't be cynical, don't be cynical, but be wise.

Don't be cynical, but be wise. Harmless as does, wise as serpents, as wise as serpents. As wise as serpents, okay? And pray and seek the Lord's revelation and advice before you enter into any kind of business relationship with somebody or any kind of financial arrangement, okay? So I'm reading some of the comments making me laugh. Okay, let's wrap it up. I'm going to go drink my dawn free coffee and enjoy it, okay? We'll pick up tomorrow with verse two. We did a whole hour on one verse.

Yes, but I think we squeezed that verse pretty hard today. I do, there's not much left in it, is there? And I'm sure there are some things that people have picked up today that they're applying to their lives, or they're looking back at their lives and going, oh me, and so a little bit of both for me today. And so, but wisdom is the principal thing, folks. Wisdom is the principal thing. Wisdom in all things, whether it's in relationships with people like we talked about in chapter 5,

you know, various relationships, the relationship with the opposite sex or what comes to money. We'll be talking about a lot more things here in Proverbs 2 as we travel along in this journey. I hope that you're learning some things, folks. I hope that you're learning. Blaine wants to know if you'll give him a loan. Will the terms, Blaine? Hey, we got to make a, Doc and I need to make a decision about Friday, July 4th. It's a holiday in America. We'll talk about it. I would, let's just have a holiday in America. We'll talk about it. Let's just have a holiday.

Wade Brown says, take the day off. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right, Wade. Thank you for giving us a day off. Thank you, everybody. We'll be back here tomorrow. God bless you. We love you. We'll see you on the next edition of Morning Manna. God bless you.