Sid Roth welcomes Charles Vance
Sid: Now, my guest is red hot for the Messiah. He understands poverty and he understands the principals of the Bible that cause people to prosper. And as a result, I mean you don’t have to be a mental giant to know that the world economically is in trouble. Although, interesting enough, guess what country is prospering beyond anything you ever imagined. Israel. I mean, I should amazingly, but it is. Yeah, most of the other countries are really running into economic problems. So I asked Charles Vance, because, and you’ll find out his background in a moment. Because of his background to teach a series called “Prospering in the Hard Times” because it is not based on the economy. It is based on the Kingdom of God principals. And why did I pick Charles Vance to do this? Because, #l. He was born in West Virginia. Charles, for those that aren’t that familiar with West Virginia, tell me a bit about the economy of West Virginia.
Charles: Well, according to my last censes Sid, I don’t think that’s most recent, I don’t think all the results are in, but that the last censes, it was the most poverty stricken state per capita in the union.
Sid: And you know a, it seems to me as I read a bit about your life, for instance in 1975 you went into the construction business and you were barely getting by. But, what we were your expectations inside of you having been raised in poverty?
Charles: Well any, I think any time you are raised around poverty you are going to think poverty. The mentality is, this is, this is what’s gonna be pretty much the rest of my life. And that was my thinking.
Sid: I’ve seen so many people, their parents had nothing and they have nothing and they don’t realize it but they are just reproducing their parents.
Charles: I call it going to seed. Until something different gets planted in someone, they’re going to reproduce the same thing over and over and over again from generation to generation.
Sid: Okay, so you get in the construction business in ’75. You don’t think you are going to do much and you don’t do much. But, then in 1981 you ran into an interest rates going up to what 21% and what happened to your business?
Charles: Well, it stopped. I think the construction business around the country stopped in 1981. They raised the prime interest rate to 21% and nobody was borrowing any money to build anything. To build new homes or to build remodeled, to do anything hardly.
Sid: And one day, a friend of yours, who was a Pastor, you had him on the telephone and things were so bad you said “please pray for me.” What did he say?
Charles: He told me no! It was just kind of like somebody stuck something in my face. I thought, man we’ve been friends for a long time, I can’t believe you’d…no, I need your prayer; I’m in tough financial condition. The kids are sick it’s a mess. People from church were handing me, we call them, a spiritual Pentecostal hand shake, Sid, and they’d have a ten dollar bill folded up in their hand to give me some money or bring me some food. We were in a horrible financial condition.
Sid: And so, he would not pray for you, but he said he wanted to spend some time with you and as a result of this time; keys were opened up to you. I don’t understand why you didn’t understand some of these keys, having been in the church so long.
Charles: You know if nobody teaches them, I’ve found for myself, that you can read the Bible and just read it through and if you don’t have revelation of it you are just reading words. But if somebody can wet my taste on a particular direction in the Word of God, for instances about the goodness of God, the love of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God, the things that God desires for me to have. The things that was purchased through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, things come alive. Start coming alive and I start hunting then and this is actually what happened when my friend started sharing with me some truths. Just some Biblical laws, it caused me to start hunting through the Word of God. And as I began to hunt through the Word of God, I discovered that God wanted me to prosper even in the midst of a poverty stricken state, He wanted me to prosper.
Sid: In the midst of a poverty stricken state and in the midst of even recessions and interest rates zooming up. I mean you had everything going against you except for these Biblical Principals and as a result of following these, principals what happened to your finances in 2004?
Charles: Well, in 2004 we actually became millionaires my wife and I, and, were still in the state of West Virginia. I’ve had people say, have you lived there all of your life. Not yet, because we are not dead yet. God is continuing to bless us.
Sid: Now, according to what I’m reading here, according to the United Nations report, you and your wife are among the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world. And I understand when you teach these principals to others, people have actually become millionaires from following these principals which are right in the Bible.
Charles: This is as simple as somebody making Jesus Lord of their lives. You know that the Bible says in Roman’s chapter 10:9 if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. So I am saying something, I’m saying it by faith making Jesus the Lord or the boss of my life and then believing inside of me that Jesus died for my sins and He was raised from the dead the scripture says you shall be saved. There’s a positive, there are laws in, I hate to use this term, but it’s like a recipe or a formula in the Kingdom of God that God gives us routinely throughout the scripture. When he tells us to do something he tells us that there’s a blessing attached to our obedience by faith.
Sid: But you must have tremendous business knowledge. You must have tremendous abilities in the business world.
Charles: Thank you, your flattering way way to much because that’s not true.
Sid: Wait a second, if you’re in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the world you’ve got to be just brilliant.
Charles: My Uncle Vic was eighty years old and he walked through this building with me that we are currently our ministry is housed in is 40,000 square feet. By the way, it is paid for completely with two business deals that God allowed me to make. And he walked through this building and stopped back at our TV production department and said Charlie, son you couldn’t have done this, he said you’re not smart enough to do this.
Sid: Now, did you agree with him or were you embarrassed?
Charles: No, I thought it was funny. He is a real frank fellow. He went on to be with the Lord now, but I said Uncle Vic, you are exactly right. He said this was the Lord, son. He always called me son, he said, this was the Lord. Well, there is no question about it. Now, did I have to use some diligence? Did I have to use the knowledge that I had?
Sid: Now, did you have to work hard? Or did you just sit back and let it happen?
Charles: No, you know work hard, but I think work smart is a lot more intelligent way to do any kind of business. And I’ve learned that to work smart with the principals of the Word of God the God that I’ve learned through His word. They’ve changed my life financially, but they have to be put to work. You can’t just say, well there it is so it’s going to fall on me. It doesn’t happen like that. Nothing in the Kingdom of God happens like that. No matter what God creates for us, if we don’t work or do what he instructed us to do, James said faith without works or action is dead. We have to put our faith together with the Word of God and we have to put action with it. We have to do something. Follow the instruction that God gives us and we have found that when we follow the instructions of the Lord, even when we are in the midst of a state that is just covered in poverty. The poverty mentality is just extraordinarily horrible here. People think poverty, they talk poverty. We’ve just discovered that when we put those principals to work, that it reminds me of Isaacs in Genesis 26 when he sowed in a land of famine because he obeyed the instructions of the Lord, he received a one hundred fold harvest in the same year. And it’s happened time and time again for us.
Sid: I have to tell you many Bible believers are so turned off about the manipulation on many Christian programs having to do with money, that they just want nothing to do with it. Is that equivalent to throwing out the baby with dirty bath water?
Charles: Oh, I certainly believe that it is because there are Biblical principles. You know, I tell our folks this, at our church. You spend forty, fifty, sixty hours a week working for money and then when you come to church a lot of times you don’t want to hear anybody talk about money. Well, it what you do the most of your waking hours. Why wouldn’t you want to hear what God’s Word says about your money and about your finances? Because it’s threaded throughout the Word of God and it’s not just in one spot here and there. It’s all over throughout the Word of God. And God has principals, not for us just to operate our life spiritually by but he wants us to operate our lives while we’re on this planet by the principals of His Word. And every time that we do and do them by faith success has been the result for me and I know that it has been for many people that I know as well.
Sid: Well, you have taught a four CD series called prospering in hard times and you’ve taught these principals for many years. Give me one quick testimony of someone that has taken your teaching and I might add, it is the most balanced teaching that I have seen and you also include “You’ve Got To Be Walking in Biblical Character”. Tell me one quick testimony of someone who took your course and what happened.
Charles: There’s a couple people that attend our church that have been here for a few years, probably ten years that was in church with me.
Sid: Were out of time, bottom line what happened to them?
Charles: They started mowing fields for a utility company and became millionaires.
Sid: Okay, I’m not saying that you’re going to become a millionaire, but I’m saying if you follow these principals, you will prosper in all areas of your life.