Restoration 2012: Restoring Power

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Restoration Ministry

John Bradshaw

From Rags to Righteousness

Our Father in heaven, thank you that we can come to you tonight in the name of Jesus.

We have been blessed already and I thank you for that.

I pray now that you'll speak in a voice that will be heard.

I believe that when your people convene in an environment like this, in a theater like this, that you are wanting to bless in rich ways.

So please do so, and may we experience the power of your word and may your power be restored in our lives.

Bless us please we ask of thee In Jesus' name, please say, Amen.

It was reported first in 1946 in a newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal.

And because everything you read in the news is true, then we can assume with some safety, I think, that what we're hearing now is true.

During the last days of World War II, The Germans were occupying the town or the city of Sasten in what was then Czechoslovakia.

Of course, there has been no Czechoslovakia since 1993.

Sasten is near the border with Austria in what you would now call Slovakia.

They had made the mayor's office in the town hall their headquarters.

And In this office there were many large trunks that had been stuffed full of Czechoslovakian money it had all been looted from the Czechoslovakian Central Bank in Bratislava cases and cases of money Czechoslovakian Corunas you understand Well the Russians were coming they were closing in on Sastin and the Germans realized that they needed to get out.

I mean they needed to get out so quickly that in the alley behind the mayor's office, which was the German headquarters, there was a car running.

That meant that the the German, the Nazi commandant, needed to get out of there as quickly as he could.

The running car was waiting for him And he would just get in and off they would drive, because the Germans, sorry, the Russians, were that close.

Well, what was he going to do with all of this money, the commandant wondered.

As much as he wanted to, and certainly he wanted to, he could not take it with him because there was just no room on the jeep or something, the truck.

There was no room for cases of money, for trunks full of money.

And so he found a couple of locals and he charged them, yea verily, he threatened them.

He said, I'll be back, and when I come back, I'll be looking for these trunks.

If you do, you will be handsomely rewarded.

And he would have been in a position to reward them handsomely.

You will be handsomely rewarded, he said.

And with that, the sound of the advancing Russian army was heard.

He fled out the back onto the waiting truck, as I recall, and they sped off.

And of course, the first thing they were going to do was look around and look for clues and investigate and so forth.

They went into the mayor's office, anxious to go into what was the headquarters of the Nazi operation.

And in they went and they found these trunks and they said, well what in the world?

And so they busted them open and they found money.

In 1945 that was worth about 6000000 dollars in today's money.

Particularly when you consider the time in which these people were living.

The people had been denied and deprived and they had been hard done by.

This was a pile of money but on the mind of the Russian army leaders wasn't money.

They had been marching forever, they had been in military formation for a long time.

What was on their mind was getting to Berlin and capturing Berlin.

And so the leader of the Russian unit that came into Saston said this, he said, money?

I don't know how much longer I'll even be alive.

This money doesn't mean anything to me right now.

It wasn't an enormous city, you understand.

They hatched a plan, a thousand korunas for every year that you had been alive.

So the older you were the more korunas, the more crowns, the more money you got you see.

Some families made out with like 200, 000 korunas.

All the money was left behind and given to the local people who went literally from rags to riches.

And I don't know if you can hear a story like that without feeling just a twinge of envy, I mean you think to yourself, what if I won Powerball?

Those people the other day, they won, how much money was it?

It was like 600 plus million dollars, wasn't it something like that?

And people who couldn't afford to, and it's all too often people who couldn't afford to, were queuing, lining up to buy tickets in the hope that their 1 dollar might turn into the best part of a billion dollars, you see.

How wonderful would it be that you can go to the used car dealership and just buy without having to think.

You could just have, have, have and have.

A few years ago a fellow named Keith Goff, he was a baker, he lived in Great Britain, he and his, well he won the the lottery in Britain, 9000000 pounds, 13 and 3 quarter million dollars in the currency of the day.

Goff, he had it in his hot little hand and he was thrilled.

He would never have to work again and he didn't.

He would never have any financial worries again although that was not true.

When they won the money the Goffs said we'll never have another worry as long as we live.

Well because of that money they lost their marriage, they lost all that money and Mr.

Goff eventually died from a heart attack that had been brought on by worry about his money and alcohol abuse.

You see, he said he would never have to work again and he didn't, he had nothing to do but sit around and drink.

And the more stress came and the more worries came, the more readily the alcohol flowed and he died.

He told a newspaper the year before he died, what's the point in having money when it sends you to bed crying?

Sounds nice and might be, but it might not be.

Either way, tonight what we're here to talk about is the experience that every believer must have, must have, And that is the experience of going from rags to righteousness.

I wonder if you would take your Bible and turn with me to the book of Philippians.

Galatians and then Ephesians and then Philippians.

And when you get to the book of Philippians, feel at liberty to turn to chapter 3.

In the book of Philippians, The Apostle Paul deals with the question of experiencing true righteousness.

You understand that what anyone needs in order to get from this world into the world to come is righteousness.

But if you don't know what gold really is, it might be that you get excited about something that someone later on will tell you is only fool's gold.

And I wonder, in fact I believe, that there's a little too much, if I can say this without meaning to be disparaging, fools righteousness in the church.

People who think that what they've got is righteousness when in actual fact it may be just a fake or a pale imitation.

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From Rags to Righteousness

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