Sermon Central
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Winning The Lottery
Contributed by Sermon Central on Jun 9, 2011 (message contributor)
WINNING THE LOTTERY
Christmas night 2002, Jack Whittaker had five out of five numbers in the West Virginia Power ball drawing.
Jack Whittaker had just won $314 million, the largest undivided lottery jackpot in history. He took the one lump payment and received $113 million after taxes.
Listen closely to this part. He tithed, gave 1/10th of his winnings to his church. That’s 11.3 million…to his church.
Jack was a solid church attender and respected member of his church. Over the next few months he frequented a strip club called the Pink Pony, and was picked up for a DUI.
Over the next 2 years Jack’s marriage would dissolve, his granddaughter, who he had raised, would die from a drug overdose, his business deals would lead to numerous lawsuits, and close friends would abandon him, as his winnings changed him to the point where many couldn’t stand to be around him any more.
We need to take a lesson from Solomon – he wanted to know what was really important in life. And in his search, he tried everything.
Listen to what he discovered. "I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."
(From a sermon by Jeremy Poling, Trivial Pursuit, 4/4/2011)
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