Posted on 12/27/2002 12:16:35 AM PST by kattracks
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr. thanks God that he picked the six numbers that won him the $314.9 million Christmas Day Powerball jackpot, and he's putting up the money to prove it.
"The very first thing I'm going to do is go home and make out three checks to three pastors," Mr. Whittaker said. Those checks, a tithe to the Church of God, will total $17 million.
"Seventeen million in the state of West Virginia will really do good for the poor," he said, adding that the three pastors will control the money and perhaps establish a Christian school.
The 55-year-old contractor, who won the largest single-winner lottery jackpot in history, opted to take a lump sum of $170 million before taxes, instead of 30 annual installments. The lump sum is worth more than $111 million after taxes, lottery spokeswoman Nancy Bulla said.
"I just want to thank God for letting me pick the right numbers, or letting the machine pick the right numbers," said Mr. Whittaker, who claimed his winnings dressed in black and wearing a big, black cowboy hat.
Mr. Whittaker lives in the small town of Scott Depot, about 20 miles west of Charleston, and is president of three construction companies that build sewage-treatment plants and other water projects.
"I've had to work for everything in my life. This is the first thing that's ever been given to me," he said.
Mr. Whittaker said he originally thought he had lost the jackpot because the numbers came up wrong on the televised drawing Christmas night. It wasn't until yesterday morning that he realized he won.
His wife of 36 years said she plans to go to Israel.
"I'd just go to go there. It's where Jesus walked," Jewell Whittaker said.
The couple planned to travel to New York City last night.
Mr. Whittaker said he would share the rest of his winnings with his family, and may expand his business. He has a daughter named Ginger and a 15-year-old granddaughter.
Ginger McMahan said she had cancer twice and had not worked for about a year. "I was getting ready to go back to work, but I think I'm retired now," she said.
Mr. Whittaker also said he wants to help "people who want to better themselves to have a better life."
"I'm getting really excited because of the good works I can do with this money," he said.
He said little about buying luxuries for himself — aside from a helicopter he said he had had his eye on for a while.
"I have 25 people laid off right now at Christmas, and I want more work so I can put them back to work," he said. He now employs 117 persons.
He told Miss Bulla he was not a regular lottery player but he bought $100 in tickets because the jackpot was so high. He plays when it reaches $100 million.
The ticket was purchased at the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane, 25 miles west of Charleston.
Mr. Whittaker went back to the store yesterday morning to fill up on gas and buy some biscuits, as he does each day. The clerk was the one who sold him the ticket. He told her he won, but "she said, 'No, you didn't, you're not excited enough to win the lottery.' And she just pushed me out the door," he said.
"It's so just that the poorest state in America wins the biggest Powerball in history," said Bob O'Dell, a 51-year-old resident of the town that's pronounced herr' ah cun. (West Virginia's per-capita income actually was second-lowest to Mississippi's in 2000.)
The Super Serve's owner, Larry Trogdon, will get $100,000 for selling the winning ticket.
"I have a daughter getting married this summer," he told NBC.
"I guess we're honeymooning in Hawaii," said his daughter, Amy, who manages the Super Serve and is getting married next summer to a clerk at the store.
"Heck, if you're going to Hawaii, I'm coming with you," Mr. Trogdon answered, laughing.
The jackpot was the largest ever for a single winning ticket, Miss Bulla said. It also was the third-largest jackpot in U.S. history.
An unexpected Christmas Day run on Powerball tickets pushed the already whopping $280 million jackpot to $314.9 million just before numbers were drawn, making it the Powerball's largest prize ever.
The winning numbers were 5-14-16-29-53 and the Powerball was 7.
Mr. Whittaker had the option of taking a cash payout of $170 million before taxes or collecting the entire jackpot in 30 payments over 29 years. He took the lump sum and Gov. Bob Wise presented him with an initial check of $10 million.
Powerball, the nation's largest lottery game, is sold in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Before the Christmas 2002 prize, the largest Powerball jackpot was $295.7 million in July 1998.
The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was a Big Game prize of $363 million, won in May 2000 by ticketholders in Michigan and Illinois. The second was a $331 million Big Game jackpot split between three tickets in April.
Spain's annual Christmas lottery known as El Gordo — "the Fat One" — is billed as the world's richest. This year's $1.7 billion jackpot spreads wealth among millions of people. About 10,000 numbers win some kind of prize, from $20 to $200,000.
For, for that matter, against Freeping. And with that I sign off. I've spent enough time!
Deuteronomy 31:19 comes close, it says "CHOOSE Life...."
'God is Pro-Choice' with a strong recommendation for His people of 'free will'.
Yes there is to all three (with the exception of a "medicinal" use of the drug). Good "night."
By the way, if one tosses away $50.00 with no expectation of return, that is wasteful use of the money that comes from the hand of God. At best, it would be considered poor stewarship. At worst, simply another form of theft.
The way state lotteries are run, the bulk of it will go to various state programs. It is, in essence, a voluntary tax.
Wrong.
Molestation and porn are both covered in the plain meaning of the Greek word "porneia" which the KJV translates, rather inadequately, as fornication. The NIV does better with this term: "sexual immorality."
Overuse of any drug causes harm to one's body disguised as pleasure, which is directly forbidden.
My spending a dollar or two that I can afford on a lottery ticket (and I don't buy them but suppose I did) need not sin. Most of what I spend goes to the government treasury (which reduces the amount of taxes that have to be otherwise raised) and a little of it goes to the winner.
It is immediately obvious from the last part of this definition that gambling is sinful. It involves breaking the eighth commandment: ‘Thou shalt not steal’. Gambling is basically an attempt to gain something at someone else’s expense without giving adequate value in return. The fact that the parties involved agree to this transaction is irrelevant and cannot justify it, any more than the fact that two men agree to fight a duel justifies one of the men killing the other. An agreement to do something wrong is itself wrong. If the one who gambles wins, he is a thief; if he loses, he is guilty of wasting that which the Lord has given to him in trust, whether money or property.
Such a view is discounted by the Scriptures. In Proverbs 16: 33, we read "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord." What people call "chance", therefore, is an element in God’s Providence. He controls every event. When a coin is tossed, it is not "chance" but God who decides whether the outcome is "heads" or "tails". When a dice is thrown, the particular number which comes up does not depend on "chance", but was decided by God in the counsels of eternity, The same is true of raffles and lotteries.
Gambling, therefore, in whatever form, is most irreverent and an insult to God, in that it attributes to "chance" what is actually the Providence of God, This is a violation of the third commandment: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." As the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, this command forbids "all profaning or abusing of any thing whereby God maketh himself known" (Q. 55).
Since God’s Providence is one of the means by which God reveals Himself, to make it the basis of a "lottery" or "raffle" is a gross misuse and abuse of it.
Thus, those who gamble are guilty either of "atheism" or "profanity." If they believe the outcome of any gamble is dependent on mere "chance", they are guilty of atheism.
On the other hand, if they believe that the outcome depends solely on God, they are guilty of trying to use God’s Providence to enable them to gain at other people’s expense.
This is nothing more than an attempt to use God, and to harness His power for sinful purposes. By so doing man seeks to make God his servant.
Christians, on the other hand, have consecrated their lives to God, acknowledging Him as Lord and Master, and promising to be His servants. To seek to do otherwise is sinful, and to make oneself liable to God’s judgement: "the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
The Bible reveals that God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient and without defect. No offense, but I would rather submit to the precepts of an infinite, perfect, omnipotent God, the creator and sustainer of all life, than submit to the morals of a finite, limited mortal such as yourself, possessing only partial knowledge of relatively little.
You are perhaps saying that I am simply submitting my will to that of another. Perfectly true. But you are resting your morality in the hands of yourself. You cannot present evidence that you are perfect, omniscient or immortal. I can present evidence that God possesses those qualities. You probably question the veracity of my evidence. Fair enough. But the basis I have for resting on the word of God is far more sure than whatever basis you have of resting on your own moral code.
How's that for an answer, pilgrim?
so gambling is now "stewardship"? LOL
so now its the size of the tithe that matters, not the heart? - I wouldnt have tithed that amount as I would have not gambled Gods money
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