How A Single Verse In The Bible Saved Me From Losing (More) Money -By Joe Dauda

I am a typical do gooder. This is the derisive way the Americans describe a person that is so kind he is sometimes taken advantage of due to lack of experience, overpowering sentiments, or just lack of discipline. You read that right. Doing good requires a certain amount of discipline in order to be effective. Without discipline, money meant for your nuclear family will be spent on your extended family and money meant for your extended family will be spent on your friends. Money meant for school fees will be spent on sponsoring the laziness of a person who knows how to plead and act like, if you don’t approve their request for financial aid, they will die the next day. There is room for sacrificial giving but discipline requires that you understand that you cannot give what you do not have. And that could have been the title of this piece: You Cannot Give What You Do Not Have.

Just because there is money in your pocket, it does not mean you must dip your hands inside that pocket and give to anyone who asks you. Remember I aggressively encourage giving and even broadcast a post about giving tilted “This Is Not A Scam”, where I shared a personal testimony of how I was led to give away my last card and, shortly thereafter, was blessed tenfold through a job given to me by a Special Assistant to a certain Nigerian President. It was amazing and I urge you to read “This Is Not A Scam” if you did not read it when it was posted last year.

My point is that one could exhibit foolishness in giving; in helping; all the while thinking they are doing the right thing and pleasing God. I’m motivated to share this wisdom because of the danger of giving foolishly. When you give or help without discipline (like sending your child’s school fees to someone to pay their rent) and your expectation of a miracle from God does not take place (causing your child to be sent away from school) that experience may cause you to hate God and begin to accuse Him of abandonment, not knowing that it is your foolishness that you are suffering for. Remember God’s famous lamentation?

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

If you are a do gooder, you need a certain knowledge in order to prevent financial calamity and even spiritual calamity because the problems you face for helping foolishly could so discourage you it sours your relationship with God. Below is the story about how a true knowledge of the word of God (in the Bible) saved me from financial loss. It is amazing — but 100% true.

While driving around the Area 1 overhead bridge in Abuja one evening, I saw a guy I used to know in the university. So I pulled up. To cut the long story short, I think I offered this acquaintance a ride (I can’t accurately describe him as a friend because we were not friends in school) and tried to encourage him. I am forgetting the details now but I must have given him some cash. And I think he told me about what he was doing at that time (fixing printers) and that he also had a chicken farm. What I can remember is that he eventually asked for a loan of N100k to support his business. For the right perspective, note that this was over 10 years ago and the value of the naira was about N150 to the dollar. I gave my friend the N100k loan and offered a healthy dose of motivational talk. You can make it, I told him, and generally tried to make him feel good. But I suspect that he misinterpreted my encouragement. In retrospect, it seems that the Mercedes Benz I was driving and my encouragement created the impression in him that I had lots of cash and was basically swimming in a pool of money. After giving him this 100k loan, the next thing (I think) was that he showed up at my house with his wife. Now I remember that I had already gifted him N20k even before the loan issue came up. So he came to my house and refunded N20k out of the N100k loan. While still owing me N80k, he came up with convincing stories of how he needed more cash to do certain things on his farm that will result in great financial gain. If he did not do those things, there will be great financial loss. I think it was a similar story that led me to give him the N100k loan in the first place: he needed to buy chicken feed or something in that category and I did not see why I shouldn’t have helped him. I had gifted him N20k but this N100k loan was different. I wasn’t ready to “dash” him N100k but was certainly willing to loan him.

So this guy came to my house with his wife and, after refunding me N20k out of the N100k, said he needed more cash. Not from me: but I had a role to play. He had spoken to his bank and they were willing to give him a loan of N300k. With that amount, he would make a whole lot of money from his chicken farm. He knew I wanted him to make lots of money — not for me, but so that he could take care of himself and his family. So he knew I was going to be excited. Indeed I was excited. My friend said his bank was willing to give him the N300k loan — if he could provide a surety.

Hmm.

What I’m telling you is that, if not for a straight command of wisdom from the Bible (Proverbs of king Solomon) I would have foolishly signed up as a surety for a N300k loan by a guy who I had freely given N20k and who still owed me N80k. What am I talking about?

Some days or weeks before my guy made his move, God had caused me to read the following words in the Bible:

Proverbs 11:15
“He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it (margin: shall be sore broken): and he that hateth suretyship is sure.”

The first time I read that verse in the Bible, I found it intriguing. It corrected a misconception I used to have about how far we were permitted to go in the name of trying to help others. I was amazed that the Bible categorically forbids one from acting as surety for a loan. I later read kindred verses that reinforced this doctrine.

Proverbs 17:18 (KJV)
A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.

What?

Void of understanding?

So being a surety makes one a fool?

Of course sir because, if you have the money, why not just give the person instead of signing up for something that may take away your liberty and cause you (in the olden days) to be sold as a slave?

Proverbs 22:26-27 (KJV)
Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?

With the words of Proverbs 11:15 still floating in my head, I declined my friend’s request to serve as surety for his loan. I had no idea that God had just saved me from a financial quagmire. The way such quick bank loans are structured are dangerous. After 30 days, that N300k loan will automatically become N330k. And that is how 10% will be added every month until the loan balloons into something entirely different. In one year, that N300k loan will become at least N660k and it never stops until you pay every dime.

I will just save your time by stating that, since 2011 or early 2012 when I was led by the Spirit and the Bible to decline serving as a surety for my friend, I have not set my eyes on him again. My N80k balance was never returned; but that was not the main problem. Instead of telling me the truth (which probably was that he wanted to go to Dubai) this guy kept posting me until, as we say in pidgin English, “my eye clear.”

While asking him to repay the N80k he still owed me, he never lacked a story to tell until I advised myself to stop calling him. Months later, his wife told me he had gone to Dubai. She told me how he basically abandoned her and her two sons. The heartless way this guy treated his wife sent shivers into my spine.

What if I had agreed to surety his loan?

His dishonesty would have guaranteed that I will not know the truth until the loan had ballooned into multiples of the initial amount — and I will be liable to pay everything. That’s what being a surety means and it seems this guy planned his Dubai trip around tying me up as a surety and then basically escaping into thin air. If not for my habit of always collecting people’s phone numbers, mind you, I wouldn’t have had his wife’s phone number and I wouldn’t have known he had gone to Dubai.

More than 5 years after this guy left for Dubai, he did not make contact with his wife — and their two sons. I don’t believe he has made contact with them until today. When I eventually read an article about how Nigerian males were being enslaved in Dubai by some unscrupulous Dubai businessmen (by ceasing their passports and locking them up and forcing them to work) I couldn’t help wondering if that was the fate that had befallen the young man. I had every reason to believe that theory because my brother in-law also went to Dubai and was basically lucky to return in one piece. He told us of the dangers immigrant workers faced — which was why he found his way back to Nigeria.

In summary, people will try to take advantage of whatever they can take advantage of. I’m not excluded from this group. So don’t think I’m preaching at you. What I’m saying is that the Bible was written to protect us from a lot of things — including our own foolishness. Today, I realize that, in helping people, I can only give what I have.

There are a whole lot of amazing instructions in the Bible — all geared towards making us live wisely in this wicked world. So pick up your Bible and, after the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, pivot back to the Old Testament and look at the book of Proverbs. It saved me from loss: it could save your life.

Addendum
Please don’t trust your senses (and your sentiments, experience, deduction, etc.) or the senses of others you have been groomed to respect — trust God and obey His word in the Bible.

When Peter tried to prevent Jesus Christ from going to the cross (Matthew 16:22), it looked like he was Jesus’s best friend. But Jesus called him Satan, Matthew 16:23. The will of God and the word of God is what matters. In these last days, Satan (and his Ministers) will come as an angel of light. That means he (and they) will try to mimic Jesus and His disciples.

Beware!

Child of God, I say beware!

How would you differentiate the true friends of Jesus from His secret enemies?

Watch their relationship to the commandments of God. Jesus said:

John 14:15
If ye love me, keep my commandments.

But today’s standard Christian theology says the law (the ceremonial laws plus the Ten Commandments) have been nailed to the cross.

Note: Another word for “iniquity” in Matthew 7:23 (which identifies those deceived into thinking they are people of God) is lawlessness. This has everything to do with the commandments. And it is not for nothing that the Bible emphasizes that, if you keep the whole law and offend (ignore) one point, you are guilty of all. James 2:10-12. And the Bible doubles down on this theme by identifying those that will inherit the kingdom of God. It won’t be those who cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, or prophesy in His name, or do many other wonderful works in His name. While none of these things are bad, the thing that will enable you inherit the kingdom of God (after the grace of God has freely washed you from all your sins through the blood of Jesus Christ) is that you acknowledge God’s Commandments and do them. Whenever you fail, you accept your failure as sin, confess that sin, receive forgiveness, and move on. Please don’t let anyone (including your beloved Pastor) deceive you.

Revelation 22:14 (KJV)
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

When was the last time your Pastor told you about this free visa to the kingdom of God?

They avoid it like a plague because they don’t know how to deal with the 4th commandment. Tradition (handed down over many centuries) is more convenient because more acceptable to the crowd, because more popular. But hear your Lord:

Matthew 15:9 (KJV)
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Do you want to worship God in vain?

Do you know what “in vain” means?

Are you worshipping God on the day and in the way He commanded and declared holy or are you more comfortable with tradition?

No excuses please, especially because God already prophesied that His enemy will tamper with the particular commandment that has something to do with time.

Daniel 7:25 (KJV)
And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws:

The law of God has been changed. Now you know who changed it. Not Jesus, but His enemy who “speak great words against the most High, and (shall) wear out the saints of the most High . . .”

Apart from Roman Catholics (who reject the 2nd commandment by bowing down to images) virtually all Christians accept 9 out of the Ten Commandments and consider it a sin for you to have any other God, or bow down to images, or take the name of God in vain, or dishonour your parents, or commit murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness, or covet. The only point of disagreement is the 4th commandment. If there is a prophecy in the Bible warning that the enemy of God will change a commandment that has to do with time (and only the 4th commandment of the Sabbath has anything to do with time) what else do you want God to do?

Are you waiting until all the men of God you respect accept the 4th commandment before you do?

There is no problem with that strategy. After all, it is your right to do as you please. But just don’t claim that Jesus Christ is your Lord. Be honest enough to accept the fact that the men of God whose permission you require to obey a plain commandment of God are your real masters.

The fact is that it was people like you that Jesus was thinking of when He lamented:

Luke 6:46 (KJV)
And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Remember Noah!

Remember Elijah!

Remember Caiaphas!

The road to the kingdom is not necessarily for the majority.

And for those of us who are Sabbath keepers, never forget that you can keep the Sabbath and still end up in hell fire. James 2:10-12 applies to all Ten Commandments.

May God have mercy on all of us.