WEBVTT 01:32.400 --> 01:35.600 Alright, go ahead and open your Bibles to 2 Chronicles 1. 01:37.120 --> 01:42.640 Be in 2 Chronicles 1. If you don't have a Bible, there should be one underneath the seat in front of you. 01:44.000 --> 01:46.560 Be in 2 Chronicles 1. 01:51.800 --> 01:56.440 2 Chronicles 1, the Bible reads, And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, 01:56.440 --> 01:59.800 and the Lord his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly. 02:00.360 --> 02:05.240 Then Solomon spake unto all Israel, and to the captains of thousands and of hundreds, 02:05.240 --> 02:09.560 and to the judges, and to every governor in all Israel, the chief of the fathers. 02:09.560 --> 02:14.840 So Solomon and all the congregation with him went to the high place that was at Gibeon, 02:15.400 --> 02:18.360 for there was the tabernacle of the congregation of God. 02:19.000 --> 02:22.600 which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness. 02:22.600 --> 02:27.800 But the ark of God had David brought up from Kirjath-Jeram to the place which David had 02:27.800 --> 02:31.800 prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem. 02:33.480 --> 02:40.040 Moreover, the brazen altar that Bezalel the son of Uri and the son of Herum had made, 02:40.040 --> 02:45.400 he put before the tabernacle of the Lord, and Solomon and the congregation sought unto it. 02:45.900 --> 02:54.900 And Solomon went up thither to the brazen altar before the Lord, which was at the tabernacle of the congregation, and offered a thousand burnt offerings upon it. 02:54.900 --> 03:00.900 And that night did God appear unto Solomon, and said unto him, Ask what I shall give thee. 03:00.900 --> 03:10.900 And Solomon said unto God, Thou hast showed me great mercy unto David my father, and hast made me to reign in his stead. 03:11.700 --> 03:16.820 Now, O Lord God, let Thy promise unto David my father be established, for Thou hast made 03:16.820 --> 03:21.180 me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. 03:21.180 --> 03:26.520 Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people. 03:26.520 --> 03:28.960 For who can judge this, Thy people? 03:28.960 --> 03:29.960 That is so great." 03:29.960 --> 03:31.960 And God said to Solomon, 03:31.960 --> 03:33.900 Because this was in thine heart. 03:34.200 --> 03:39.360 And thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honor, nor the life of thine enemies, neither 03:39.360 --> 03:45.880 yet hast asked long life, but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest 03:45.880 --> 03:50.280 judge my people over whom I have made thee king. 03:50.280 --> 03:51.800 Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee. 03:52.300 --> 04:03.300 And I will give thee riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like. 04:03.300 --> 04:11.300 Then Solomon came from his journey to the high place that was at Gibeon to Jerusalem, from before the tabernacle of the congregation and reigned over Israel. 04:11.300 --> 04:18.300 And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen, and he had a thousand and four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen. 04:19.000 --> 04:23.160 which he placed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem. 04:23.160 --> 04:29.560 And the king had silver and gold at Jerusalem, as plenteous as stones, and cedar trees made 04:29.560 --> 04:34.240 he as the sycamore trees that are in the veil for abundance. 04:34.240 --> 04:38.120 And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn. 04:39.400 --> 04:50.400 The king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price, and they fetched up and brought forth out of Egypt a chariot for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for one hundred and fifty. 04:50.400 --> 04:57.400 And so brought they out horses for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria by their means. 04:57.400 --> 04:59.300 Brother Eli, will you pray for us? 05:19.900 --> 05:31.900 Good morning. All right. So we're in 2 Chronicles, chapter 1. Look down at verse 10. 05:32.600 --> 05:37.240 It says, Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this 05:37.240 --> 05:43.640 people for who can judge this thy people that is so great? 05:43.640 --> 05:49.560 And God said unto Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, 05:49.560 --> 05:54.700 nor the life of thine enemies neither yet hast 05:54.700 --> 05:56.600 asked long life. 05:56.600 --> 06:02.780 but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou may judge my people over whom I 06:02.780 --> 06:04.800 have made thee king. 06:04.800 --> 06:09.000 Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee, and I will give thee riches and wealth and 06:09.000 --> 06:16.040 honor such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there 06:16.040 --> 06:19.520 any after thee have the like." 06:19.520 --> 06:21.000 The title of my sermon is. 06:21.300 --> 06:24.660 Solomon versus the world. 06:24.660 --> 06:26.300 Solomon versus the world. 06:26.300 --> 06:27.300 Let's pray. 06:27.300 --> 06:28.660 Lord, thank you so much for this day. 06:28.660 --> 06:31.220 Thank you, Lord, that we can come here and listen to your word preached, Lord. 06:31.220 --> 06:34.300 I pray that you would fill me up with your Spirit, Lord, and have me preach the sermon 06:34.300 --> 06:35.980 that you've laid on my heart. 06:35.980 --> 06:39.500 In Jesus' name, amen. 06:40.200 --> 06:48.200 Solomon, this is one of my favorite passages in the Bible going through the life of Solomon. 06:48.200 --> 06:52.200 Solomon, you know, he was the son of King David. 06:52.200 --> 06:55.200 He reigned in about 970 BC. 06:56.300 --> 07:01.400 And and he was just and and this is just kind of an illustration of 07:02.560 --> 07:07.660 You know when God actually appeared to him and asked him what he wanted 07:08.300 --> 07:14.980 And it actually if you if you go back and read you'll read that when David was praying over his son 07:15.180 --> 07:21.500 He asked that he asked God for his son to have wisdom and then fast forward now 07:21.500 --> 07:24.300 God's literally standing there in front of Solomon asking him what he 07:24.300 --> 07:29.180 wants and what Solomon says, like, I want wisdom, you know, to rule your people. 07:29.180 --> 07:35.900 And it just, it's an example of how fathers can have influence over our sons. 07:35.900 --> 07:38.780 And that's something that we should always take away from this. 07:38.780 --> 07:44.340 But you know, Solomon, you know, we talk a lot about the bad with Solomon, but you got 07:44.340 --> 07:46.540 to remember, Solomon wrote three books of the Bible. 07:46.900 --> 07:51.620 Solomon was the wisest man in the world, period, besides Jesus Christ. 07:51.620 --> 07:56.260 I mean, because Jesus wasn't, he was God, okay? 07:56.260 --> 08:04.260 But Solomon was incredibly wise and he wrote a lot of that wisdom down. 08:04.260 --> 08:10.340 And it was just, it's something that I go back to and it's something we all should 08:10.340 --> 08:13.860 go back to because, you know, Proverbs should be something that we should be reading. 08:14.500 --> 08:18.220 Lot okay, there's a lot of really good stuff there. There's a ton of wisdom 08:18.500 --> 08:26.800 You know God grants him wisdom and and more you know he you know King Solomon reigned over the greatest time of peace and 08:27.320 --> 08:31.880 Prosperity in the history of Israel he built the temple he did all these amazing things 08:32.500 --> 08:34.180 for God and 08:34.180 --> 08:40.620 And he was he was ruler that you know like like most rulers in the Bible. He had ups and downs 08:41.300 --> 08:47.680 And, you know, we don't want to sweep the downs under the rug, obviously, but we do 08:47.680 --> 08:54.380 need to focus on a lot of the wisdom that he had, that he got from God. 08:54.380 --> 08:58.460 Go to 1 Kings chapter 10, 1 Kings chapter 10. 08:58.460 --> 09:00.700 First thing I want to do is I kind of want to... 09:01.100 --> 09:05.740 Because we're doing Solomon versus the world and it's really the wisdom of Solomon versus the world 09:06.420 --> 09:09.940 because the world absolutely hates everything in Christianity and 09:10.300 --> 09:13.980 And everything that's in the Bible they will tell you that that's not true 09:14.660 --> 09:17.860 Every proverb that's in the Bible. They will tell you don't do that 09:18.540 --> 09:24.980 And and it time after time after time you'll see that you know, and I want to go through some of those 09:25.060 --> 09:27.060 Just how you live your life 09:27.980 --> 09:29.100 You know the book of 09:29.100 --> 09:31.500 Proverbs versus what the world says. 09:31.500 --> 09:38.300 But first I want to talk a little bit about Solomon because this actually came up, I was 09:38.300 --> 09:44.220 having a conversation with Brother Jesse and because there's this kind of common thing 09:44.220 --> 09:45.220 in the Bible. 09:45.220 --> 09:50.020 So God says that he is the rich, he's going to be the richest king. 09:50.300 --> 09:54.700 that will ever be. I mean, if you look back at verse 12, it says, 09:54.700 --> 10:02.460 none of the kings have had that, have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have 10:02.460 --> 10:07.100 the like. Okay? And that's a pretty definite statement, that he's going to be the richest 10:07.100 --> 10:11.980 king in the world. But if you go to Wikipedia and you look up the richest king in the world, 10:11.980 --> 10:18.220 it's this Muslim king, Masa Musa, I'm probably mispronouncing it, and he supposedly 10:18.300 --> 10:21.140 is the richest king in the world. 10:21.140 --> 10:25.460 And so years ago I actually was like, this doesn't make any sense. 10:25.460 --> 10:29.620 And so I did a little bit of research and just easily debunked it. 10:29.620 --> 10:34.980 But I was talking to Brother Jesse about it and I'm like, I haven't preached about this, 10:34.980 --> 10:37.760 but it's something I've actually known for a while. 10:37.760 --> 10:43.120 And there's a reason why the world pushes this. 10:43.120 --> 10:45.520 And obviously it's because they hate the Word of God. 10:45.520 --> 10:46.300 So if God says... 10:46.300 --> 10:53.660 it they're going to say opposite. But they even debunk themselves. That's the worst part. 10:53.660 --> 11:00.020 If you look this up at all, it's easily debunkable. But let's see what the Bible says about King 11:00.020 --> 11:07.060 Solomon's wealth. Go to 1 Kings chapter 10. 1 Kings chapter 10. Because you have to really 11:07.060 --> 11:11.900 understand, I mean, it's hard to actually wrap your head around the scope of the wealth 11:11.900 --> 11:12.740 that he had. 11:15.200 --> 11:20.560 But we'll try and do that. So, 1 Kings chapter 10, look at verse 14. It says, 11:20.560 --> 11:28.080 Now the weight of the gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred three score and six talents of gold. 11:28.700 --> 11:35.180 And then verse 15 says, besides that, he had of the merchantmen and of the traffic of the 11:35.180 --> 11:40.860 spice merchants and of all the kings of Arabia and of the governors of the country. 11:40.860 --> 11:43.980 So leave a bookmark there because we're going to go back to it. 11:45.200 --> 11:52.400 So during the reign of King Solomon, and it's disputed exactly what years it was. 11:52.400 --> 11:59.640 It was about 970 to about 930 BC, give or take a couple years. 12:01.200 --> 12:11.120 You know, and during that time, he was in a really amazing position in Jerusalem because 12:11.120 --> 12:16.720 basically all the major merchandise of the world was going through Jerusalem, was going through 12:16.720 --> 12:23.200 Israel. And he was able to tax it and levy it and everything. And that was one of the reasons why 12:23.200 --> 12:25.120 he became so wealthy. But... 12:26.900 --> 12:32.480 You know, the undoubted masters of the Mediterranean Sea during that period were the Phoenician 12:32.480 --> 12:35.480 mariners of Tyre. 12:35.480 --> 12:48.320 And it talks about how Solomon, in about 950, somewhere around there BC, Solomon persuaded 12:48.320 --> 12:54.880 his ally King Haram of Tyre to join him in mounting an exciting 12:54.900 --> 13:00.440 trading venture. Solomon, with the help of the Phoenician shipbuilders, built a new fleet 13:00.440 --> 13:13.660 of heavy Tyron-style cargo ships at Azon Ghibber, modern day Aqaba, near the Ilet of the Gulf 13:13.660 --> 13:15.420 of of Aqaba. 13:15.700 --> 13:20.100 which Harem sent experienced sailors from Tyre. 13:20.100 --> 13:24.700 After three years, the expedition returned with fabulous riches of gold 13:24.700 --> 13:27.900 from Ophar on the east coast of Africa, 13:27.900 --> 13:31.100 together with silver, ivory, apes, and monkeys. 13:31.100 --> 13:34.700 And there's a whole list of them in 1 Kings, Chapter 10. 13:34.700 --> 13:36.700 You can actually go and read that. 13:36.700 --> 13:39.900 And so this is a massive expedition 13:39.900 --> 13:43.100 with basically the greatest sailors in the Mediterranean. 13:43.700 --> 13:47.380 Solomon's bankrolling this whole thing and he's getting a really big cut at this. 13:49.200 --> 13:54.720 King Solomon also controlled the ancient incense road, often referred to as the spice route, 13:54.720 --> 14:00.000 which connected southern Arabia to the Mediterranean ports. This network facilitated 14:00.800 --> 14:08.080 massive frankincense and myrrh trades, prominently highlighted by the camel caravan visit of the 14:08.080 --> 14:13.920 queen of Sheba. Sheba in the lower Arabian peninsula, that's where we have modern-day Yemen, 14:13.920 --> 14:17.120 And what they did... 14:17.200 --> 14:23.720 they had this huge dam that they made on the Adnod River in Sheba. 14:23.720 --> 14:24.960 I mean this thing was huge. 14:24.960 --> 14:31.520 It was like 60 feet tall and it had all these and it irrigates and everything. 14:31.520 --> 14:37.400 It's kind of like when it talks about Egypt and it talks about the basin and how fertile 14:37.400 --> 14:39.280 and green everything was. 14:39.280 --> 14:44.880 Well the same thing was going on in the Arabian Peninsula right there or Yemen is because 14:44.880 --> 14:45.200 they 14:45.200 --> 14:50.680 dammed this river and then they actually irrigated all these crops. 14:50.680 --> 15:00.320 And it was perfect for growing all of these really hard to get and expensive spices. 15:00.320 --> 15:01.300 Um 15:01.400 --> 15:07.960 The water was let off into canals for irrigation purposes, which was to give the land fertility. 15:07.960 --> 15:12.120 And the remains of this you can actually see today. 15:12.120 --> 15:14.760 And this is before the Muslims took everything over. 15:14.760 --> 15:20.320 I mean, this is way before all that stuff. 15:20.320 --> 15:23.840 Because of this, Sheba was the land of spices. 15:23.840 --> 15:29.400 One vast scented garden of the costliest spices in the world in the midst of the 15:29.400 --> 15:34.840 the capital which was called Marib. For about 1,500 years the Garden of Spices 15:34.840 --> 15:42.600 bloomed around Marib. That was until 572 AD and then the dam burst and you know 15:42.600 --> 15:44.300 the desert basically just... 15:44.400 --> 15:52.480 took everything back over. So all of this spice trade went through Israel. And something we 15:52.480 --> 15:58.880 actually found out was that in the desert between Israel and Egypt... 15:59.600 --> 16:03.440 where a lot of this trade went through, they found a lot of structures. And before, 16:05.200 --> 16:10.240 until recently, they thought a lot of them were made later, but now they're finding a lot of 16:10.240 --> 16:15.840 Psalm-aic stuff there when they do an archaeological digs. And so it looks like Solomon actually, 16:15.840 --> 16:21.840 because it talks about Solomon building cities in the Bible, but we don't know 100% where they were. 16:21.840 --> 16:27.440 Well, it looks like he was building them to protect those routes, which 16:27.600 --> 16:31.280 would have made sense because that's where a lot of his wealth is coming from. 16:31.760 --> 16:41.120 But he was basically the hub of some of the most massive trading that was happening in the world 16:41.120 --> 16:43.000 at the time. Because you've got to remember. 16:43.600 --> 16:49.040 in this area is like 80% of the population of the world, 85% of the population of the world. 16:49.040 --> 16:55.680 This is the empires in Asia and everything, they weren't, they were nothing basically. 16:55.680 --> 17:02.800 Okay. So this is the vast majority of the world getting all their trading goods and spices and 17:02.800 --> 17:09.840 all these things and it's all going through Israel. And so Solomon was able to capitalize on that. 17:10.500 --> 17:15.500 and to tariff it and do duties and all that stuff. 17:16.300 --> 17:21.300 But if you go back to 1 Kings, 17:21.900 --> 17:24.900 look down here in chapter 10, look at verse 14, 17:24.900 --> 17:26.700 it says, now the weight of the gold that came to Solomon 17:26.700 --> 17:30.020 in one year was 600, three score and six talents of gold. 17:30.020 --> 17:31.620 Now, did anyone catch that? 17:31.620 --> 17:33.860 Cause that's 666. 17:34.100 --> 17:41.860 Okay, 666 pounds of gold. The best I can find, and Brother Bill can back this up, hopefully, 17:41.860 --> 17:51.860 a talent was about 75 pounds of gold, which is a lot, which makes it about 25 tons of gold every 17:51.860 --> 17:56.260 year that he was collecting. And what I find amazing is when you look at verse 15, 17:57.000 --> 18:04.340 It gives you that that sum of gold in verse 14 and then in verse 15. It says besides that so not including that 18:05.500 --> 18:12.080 He had of the merchant men and of the traffic, of the spice merchants and all the kings of 18:12.080 --> 18:13.080 Arabia. 18:13.080 --> 18:17.780 So that includes that whole, because I mean he ruled over that entire land. 18:17.780 --> 18:23.060 So you have the place that's producing all the spices of the world. 18:23.060 --> 18:28.900 It's got just tons of money and guess who's ruling over it and getting tribute from it? 18:28.900 --> 18:29.300 Solomon. 18:29.600 --> 18:37.100 Okay, and then and of the governors of the country so so besides the 666 talents now 18:37.100 --> 18:41.180 I have to now you have to add on all the tribute and everything that was being given to him 18:41.180 --> 18:43.520 And it's just and it doesn't even give us a figure 18:43.820 --> 18:49.300 But you can imagine that this is just a massive amount of wealth okay, and and so 18:50.060 --> 18:53.240 It's really hard to even put that stuff into perspective 18:55.860 --> 18:57.100 But you know 18:57.400 --> 19:04.160 It's amazing to me, and the main reason why I'm telling you this is because this is God 19:04.160 --> 19:05.640 keeping his promise to Solomon. 19:06.100 --> 19:11.340 He's telling him he's going to be the richest king and he obviously is. 19:11.340 --> 19:12.780 Brother Bill sent me this one. 19:12.780 --> 19:24.780 As of 2026, approximately 220,000 tons of gold has been mined throughout human history. 19:24.780 --> 19:29.940 Because it's virtually indestructible, the vast majority of it we still have. 19:29.940 --> 19:30.940 But this is the thing. 19:30.940 --> 19:34.100 And two thirds of that 200,000 tons has been mined since... 19:34.100 --> 19:44.020 1950 and which basically means that's like 73,000 tons. 19:44.020 --> 19:52.620 But really if you look at it, the vast majority of gold, like 86% of it has been mined over 19:52.620 --> 19:54.180 the last 200 years. 19:54.180 --> 19:57.060 So it's actually more like 35,000 tons. 19:57.300 --> 20:00.180 And then when you go back even further, I mean, 20:00.180 --> 20:01.940 because you gotta remember, 20:01.940 --> 20:04.220 they brought a lot of gold over from the New World 20:04.220 --> 20:07.520 and everything, so the pool of gold 20:07.520 --> 20:11.140 that Solomon was raining over was way smaller 20:11.140 --> 20:12.140 than we think about today. 20:12.140 --> 20:15.260 I mean, like all the gold in the world right now 20:15.260 --> 20:18.520 will fit in like three Olympic-sized swimming pools. 20:18.520 --> 20:22.100 So if it's like 86% less than that, 20:22.100 --> 20:23.520 and that's only the stuff that's been mined 20:23.520 --> 20:25.100 over the last 200 years, 20:25.400 --> 20:30.680 I mean, I don't know how much gold was in circulation, but it wasn't as much as we think at all 20:31.960 --> 20:37.240 when you compare it to what we have today. So if he's getting 25 tons a year, and that's just 20:38.200 --> 20:44.840 the first bit, right? That's got to be a substantial amount of the world's gold every year. 20:45.560 --> 20:48.360 This isn't something that's just happening once. This is every year. 20:49.640 --> 20:52.680 So he was rich. He was really, really rich. 20:53.200 --> 20:57.360 And the reason why I bring all this stuff up is because if you look... 20:57.360 --> 21:01.760 Oh, actually, let me go over this. 21:01.760 --> 21:05.240 So just for reference, and this is another one from Brother Bill. 21:05.240 --> 21:11.280 Brother Bill's really great on this stuff because he does all the coins and everything. 21:11.280 --> 21:13.320 The Treasury of Per... 21:13.320 --> 21:14.320 Persepolis? 21:14.320 --> 21:15.920 Percephalus? 21:16.500 --> 21:23.140 Aha, all right, I got it. All right, the treasury of Persepolis of the Persians that Alexander looted 21:24.380 --> 21:25.740 He looted 21:25.740 --> 21:31.820 3,000 tons of gold and that kind of that was kind of like their Fort Knox at the time and they were probably 21:33.260 --> 21:38.820 You know, they're probably the richest at that time and then a portion of that was 21:39.420 --> 21:42.720 Probably looted from the destruction of the first temple which happened 21:43.300 --> 21:47.500 And I want to say like 590 ish BC. 21:47.500 --> 21:49.420 That's when they did the first temple. 21:49.420 --> 21:52.700 And then what they're talking about now, 21:52.700 --> 21:54.900 Alexander said it'd be like 300 BC. 21:54.900 --> 21:58.460 So they took 3,000 tons of gold. 21:58.460 --> 22:00.700 And we don't know how much of that came from Solomon, 22:00.700 --> 22:04.700 but it was probably quite a bit from the temple. 22:04.700 --> 22:08.060 So that's just kind of a FYI. 22:10.900 --> 22:21.700 You know, because the Bible says none of the kings have had that have been before thee, 22:21.700 --> 22:24.580 neither shall there any after thee have the like. 22:24.580 --> 22:27.620 So that's God promising him these riches. 22:27.620 --> 22:32.500 But you know, I'm comparing what Solomon, what is in Solomon versus the world. 22:32.500 --> 22:34.000 So what does the world say? 22:34.000 --> 22:37.640 The world says that this guy, Mansa Musa... 22:38.100 --> 22:51.100 who lived from 1280 to 1337 AD, so this is, you know, within the last thousand or so years, 22:51.100 --> 22:59.000 was the richest king of all time. And so I started looking into this. 23:00.100 --> 23:04.260 You know, and I mean, this is like West Africa, okay? 23:04.260 --> 23:05.860 This is Mali. 23:08.700 --> 23:11.900 And so, you know, their naval progress 23:11.900 --> 23:13.940 stopped with dugout canoes. 23:13.940 --> 23:15.900 You know, they didn't really have like 23:15.900 --> 23:17.540 the most technological advanced things. 23:17.540 --> 23:19.440 So that was kind of the first thing that really, 23:19.440 --> 23:20.700 they didn't have the wheel. 23:20.800 --> 23:23.700 Okay, and so I'm like how are they getting all this gold? 23:23.800 --> 23:29.680 But they were getting it primarily just through by picking it up off the ground because there is a lot of gold in West Africa 23:29.680 --> 23:32.500 And I'm not going to dispute that there's a ton of gold in West Africa 23:34.480 --> 23:40.520 But but the proof of this is only a handful of of of historians 23:41.100 --> 23:44.780 And a lot of those historians reference themselves. 23:44.780 --> 23:50.640 So it doesn't, it doesn't, but even if you believe their numbers, it still doesn't match 23:50.640 --> 23:53.980 up to what God promises. 23:53.980 --> 24:03.100 There are four main primary sources to our knowledge about Mali and West Africa that 24:03.100 --> 24:05.340 are around the time of Mansa Musa. 24:05.340 --> 24:07.660 resources or travelers, even. 24:08.000 --> 24:14.320 Patuda and Leo Africanus, which you might recognize that one because he was kind of famous 24:14.320 --> 24:21.840 and historian even calden and even ala umari and first thing right off the bat these are these 24:21.840 --> 24:28.080 guys are mostly muslims and so they have kind of a baked in interest to make it so that oh yeah 24:28.080 --> 24:33.120 the richest king in the world he's muslim you know so so there might be some bias in that 24:33.500 --> 24:39.820 But, you know, these guys are really sketchy and a lot of the numbers that they have, a 24:39.820 --> 24:43.580 lot of numbers to get bandied about, aren't even brought up by these guys. 24:43.580 --> 24:53.100 Several of these guys never actually bring up an amount of gold that this guy had. 24:53.100 --> 24:55.540 So basically where this comes from... 24:56.100 --> 25:01.820 Is that Mansa Musa decided to go on a pilgrimage? 25:02.820 --> 25:09.460 And this is al-mari his chronology is the closest historian to record in in the record 25:09.460 --> 25:14.140 so he he actually lived right around the same time of Mansa Musa and 25:15.300 --> 25:23.060 And so Mansa Musa supposedly what he did is he decided to go on a hodge to Mecca 25:23.800 --> 25:39.200 And so he loaded up a whole bunch of stuff with gold and went to Mecca and he was given out so much gold along the way that he literally crashed the gold economy in Alexandria and Cairo. 25:39.200 --> 25:43.600 And they have very little evidence for this, but I'll kind of go over it. 25:44.800 --> 25:51.780 So it seems like there's really only a single source that gives us an amount and that's al-mardi conducted 25:53.620 --> 25:55.620 Contradicted by other historical data 25:56.320 --> 26:00.180 That have about exchange rates at the time supposedly exchange rate 26:00.180 --> 26:05.280 So so how you figure this out is the exchange rate, right gold and silver have an exchange rate 26:05.280 --> 26:10.820 So so classically like brother bill like what what's the classic gold to silver exchange rate? 26:16.300 --> 26:25.900 Okay, yeah, and that's basically what I've found, is that you get, you know, for every 26:25.900 --> 26:33.860 one piece of gold, you get like 13, in some cases you get like 17, some of the sources 26:33.860 --> 26:37.660 say 20 to 1, it just kind of depends on who you go with. 26:37.800 --> 26:42.240 And so once you get down, depending on the area, 26:42.240 --> 26:47.160 you know, 17 to 13 to 1, you can really impact the economy, 26:47.160 --> 26:48.200 basically. 26:48.200 --> 26:51.640 And so that was the idea. 26:51.640 --> 26:53.680 I don't know if I've got it here. 26:53.680 --> 26:55.100 I'm pretty sure I do. 26:55.400 --> 26:59.160 Okay, so Musa went on a hodge to Mecca in 1324. 26:59.160 --> 27:04.040 And this is, so I'm gonna read off what Wikipedia says. 27:04.040 --> 27:06.760 Now, contrary to popular belief, Wikipedia, 27:06.760 --> 27:08.760 look, if you don't like Wikipedia, 27:08.760 --> 27:11.580 just, they have references. 27:11.580 --> 27:13.400 If you don't like using them as a source, 27:13.400 --> 27:15.240 go down and actually look at the references, 27:15.240 --> 27:18.120 and I did on this one, and most of them look pretty decent. 27:18.120 --> 27:20.480 We're talking like Cambridge College and stuff like that. 27:20.480 --> 27:22.960 So these aren't like just fly by night. 27:22.960 --> 27:23.400 But there is 27:23.400 --> 27:30.400 There's one in here that really got me and I tried to source it and I'll go into that 27:30.400 --> 27:31.400 in a minute. 27:31.400 --> 27:36.960 Musa went on a hajj to Mecca in 1324, traveling with enormous entourage and a vast supply 27:36.960 --> 27:37.960 of gold. 27:37.960 --> 27:43.080 Unroute, he spent time in Cairo where his lavish gift-giving is said to have noticeably 27:43.080 --> 27:44.720 affected the value of gold in Egypt. 27:45.100 --> 27:48.060 and garnered the attention of the wider Muslim world. 27:48.060 --> 27:53.060 Musa expanded the borders of Mali Empire in particular. 27:54.100 --> 27:56.200 So that's the other thing, Mali Empire, 27:56.200 --> 27:58.240 they didn't even have a capital city. 27:58.240 --> 28:01.360 So they didn't have the wheel, they didn't have like, 28:01.360 --> 28:03.760 I mean, if you look at the other, 28:03.760 --> 28:06.100 the same historians that talk about his wealth. 28:06.400 --> 28:08.400 They didn't even have family structure. 28:08.400 --> 28:11.840 Okay, these are very backwoods, backwater people. 28:11.840 --> 28:13.200 They just have a whole bunch of gold. 28:13.760 --> 28:17.120 You know, they're not making their own, they're not making their own clothing. 28:17.120 --> 28:18.640 They're buying it mostly. 28:18.640 --> 28:20.000 They're not making their own tools. 28:20.000 --> 28:22.400 They're not, and this is, this is like... 28:22.800 --> 28:30.400 This is the 14th century, okay? This is not BC. This is, you should have the wheel at the 28:31.040 --> 28:36.600 bare minimum, but they didn't. But they had a ton of wealth, but they didn't use that wealth. 28:36.700 --> 28:41.740 I mean, like if you go to just about any other part of the world and you dump that amount 28:41.740 --> 28:48.620 of wealth on them, they're going to invest it into education and all these other things. 28:48.620 --> 28:51.980 But really, if you look at Mali, it just kind of stagnated. 28:51.980 --> 28:55.820 I mean, you can go there today and they've got the same mud huts. 28:55.820 --> 28:58.720 They really haven't changed. 28:58.720 --> 29:03.500 And so even with this vast wealth, it didn't really do them any good. 29:04.300 --> 29:09.460 Garnered the attention of the Muslim world, Musa expanded the borders of the Mali Empire, 29:09.460 --> 29:14.500 in particular incorporating the cities of Guyot and Timbuktu into his territory. 29:14.500 --> 29:20.740 That's probably the most well known, but Timbuktu was not settled by Malians, it was Berbers 29:20.740 --> 29:23.300 that started that city. 29:23.300 --> 29:26.100 So they didn't even start the biggest city that they're known for. 29:26.600 --> 29:32.400 He sought closer ties with the rest of the Muslim world particularly Mamluk and Madrid 29:33.920 --> 29:37.800 Sultanites he recruited scholars from the wider Muslim world 29:38.400 --> 29:46.400 to travel to Mali such as Andalusian poet Abu Iskwa al-Sayed 29:46.400 --> 29:50.400 and helped establish Timbuktu as a center of Islamic learning. 29:50.400 --> 29:54.400 So he basically took a city that was founded by people that had sailed there 29:54.400 --> 29:57.400 because the Berbers weren't from West Africa. 29:57.400 --> 30:01.400 And he said, hey, that city you guys made, well, I'm going to pump a bunch of money into it 30:01.400 --> 30:05.400 and actually build it up. So he didn't even start the city. 30:06.500 --> 30:14.400 His reign is associated with numerous construction projects, including a portion of the Donjabur 30:14.400 --> 30:16.900 Mosque in Timbuktu. 30:16.900 --> 30:21.140 So he's basically just building religious mosques and religious centers. 30:21.140 --> 30:22.960 And they didn't do this locally. 30:22.960 --> 30:25.560 It's not like they had local people coming to do this. 30:25.560 --> 30:30.620 He's paying people from other countries to come in and build this because they have no 30:30.620 --> 30:32.060 ability to do it. 30:32.300 --> 30:36.340 uh... moves to made the pilgrimage between thirteen twenty four thirteen 30:36.340 --> 30:39.180 twenty five spending twenty seven hundred miles 30:39.180 --> 30:45.380 and his procession reportedly included uh... upwards of twelve thousand slaves 30:45.380 --> 30:48.340 all wearing a brocade of yemen silk 30:48.340 --> 30:51.780 each carrying about four pounds of gold bars 30:51.780 --> 30:56.340 with heralds dressed in skins bearing gold staffs organized horses and 30:56.340 --> 30:57.660 handling bags 30:57.660 --> 30:59.100 I'm going to go back to this one. 30:59.400 --> 31:06.300 Musa provided all necessities for the procession feeding the entire company of men and animals. 31:06.300 --> 31:12.920 Those animals included 80 camels, which each carried up to 300 pounds of gold dust. 31:12.920 --> 31:15.300 So 80 camels, 300 pounds. 31:15.500 --> 31:19.500 Musa gave the gold to the poor and he met along the route. 31:19.500 --> 31:26.020 Musa not only gave to the cities, he passed by to Mecca including Cairo and Medea, but 31:26.020 --> 31:28.300 also traded gold for souvenirs. 31:28.300 --> 31:32.500 It was reported that he built a mosque every Friday. 31:32.500 --> 31:34.740 uh... ship shab 31:34.740 --> 31:39.500 al dyn al amari who visited kairos shortly after musa's 31:41.200 --> 31:48.360 Pilgrimage to Mecca noted that it was a lavish display of power wealth and unprecedented by size in 31:49.320 --> 31:51.320 his 31:51.520 --> 31:56.920 Giving Musa made a major point of showing off his nation's wealth. So 31:58.800 --> 32:01.720 There's a couple problems with these Wikipedia entries 32:03.660 --> 32:06.800 There are several of them that are very well cited 32:07.180 --> 32:12.420 But I noticed something really interesting especially when it started talking about the amounts of gold 32:12.980 --> 32:18.700 It said where you would normally click to find where it came from. It said citation needed 32:19.600 --> 32:26.720 And that's because this is all just something that someone just popped in there with zero, 32:26.720 --> 32:27.920 with anything to back it up. 32:27.920 --> 32:31.780 Because these other ancient historians that talk about them don't really give you an actual 32:31.780 --> 32:33.760 value of everything they had. 32:33.760 --> 32:35.320 It talks about his 80 camels. 32:35.320 --> 32:38.720 It doesn't say he had 300 pounds of gold on each camel. 32:38.720 --> 32:43.640 That's a lot of gold to be putting on a camel for, what, 12,000 miles or something like 32:43.640 --> 32:44.100 that. 32:44.700 --> 32:47.100 Yeah, yeah, he's got a lot of other supplies. 32:47.100 --> 32:51.220 I mean, he had 12,000 slaves supposedly, which each had a gold bar. 32:51.220 --> 32:56.860 I don't know about you, but giving a slave a four-pound gold bar, especially 12,000 of 32:56.860 --> 32:59.740 them, that's probably not the smartest thing to do. 33:00.100 --> 33:06.900 So, let's take these numbers at face value, okay, and actually add them up. 33:06.900 --> 33:08.740 And these are best case numbers. 33:08.740 --> 33:12.820 I'm not giving you, because some of these guys say it was only 50 pounds of gold per 33:12.820 --> 33:13.820 camel. 33:13.820 --> 33:18.220 So, we're doing 300 pounds, 80 camels, that's 12 tons of gold, okay? 33:18.220 --> 33:19.980 Now, remember what Solomon was getting. 33:19.980 --> 33:22.540 He's getting 25 tons of gold a year. 33:22.540 --> 33:24.460 This is just one little caravan. 33:24.600 --> 33:29.600 And then you've got supposedly 12,000 slaves, each carrying four pounds. 33:29.600 --> 33:32.600 That's 24 tons of gold. 33:32.600 --> 33:43.600 And so best case scenario, he had 36 tons of gold that he took from Molly on this hodge over this course of a year. 33:43.600 --> 33:50.600 And you know, spoiler alert, the other thing that they don't tell you about is that he ran out of gold on the way back. 33:50.700 --> 33:54.700 So like, he was not very smart with his wealth. 33:54.700 --> 33:57.700 This guy was basically just dumping it all over the place. 33:57.700 --> 34:01.700 But you got to remember, Solomon was getting this every year, 34:01.700 --> 34:07.700 and it didn't even count the tribute that was given to him by all these other governors and people. 34:07.700 --> 34:12.700 So right off the bat, the numbers that have no citation, 34:12.700 --> 34:15.600 because they basically just pull him out of thin air, 34:15.700 --> 34:19.540 Well, so far Solomon's beating all that with what's written in the Word of God. 34:19.540 --> 34:22.580 I mean, it's pretty simple. 34:23.800 --> 34:31.120 You know, and so this is just another situation where you have the world saying, 34:31.120 --> 34:32.780 oh no, no, the Bible, when it says, 34:32.780 --> 34:34.320 Solomon was the richest king in the world, 34:34.320 --> 34:35.200 ah, no, it wasn't. 34:35.200 --> 34:40.920 It was this backwater West African leader who, 34:40.920 --> 34:43.240 I mean, they didn't even have the wheel or, 34:43.240 --> 34:45.080 I mean, they had dugout canoes, 34:45.080 --> 34:46.580 they had mud huts, 34:46.580 --> 34:48.760 but this dude was the richest, trust me. 34:48.760 --> 34:51.000 Trust me, bro, that's their evidence. 34:51.000 --> 34:51.800 Okay. 34:51.800 --> 35:01.960 And so, for me, it's just kind of the start of this whole thing because... 35:02.400 --> 35:07.400 You know, the world is always going to tell you that the Bible is lying to you. 35:07.400 --> 35:10.400 It's always going to tell you, you know, oh no, no, no. 35:10.400 --> 35:11.400 God didn't create the world. 35:11.400 --> 35:12.400 It was evolution. 35:12.400 --> 35:17.400 So every single time the Bible says something, the knee-jerk reaction of the world is just 35:17.400 --> 35:18.400 no. 35:18.400 --> 35:21.400 And then they just blindly spout this stuff. 35:21.400 --> 35:29.400 You know, every single book that's in a kid's school where it talks at all about this, they 35:29.400 --> 35:30.280 They don't tell you something. 35:30.400 --> 35:35.500 was the richest man in the world, they put some black dude, African guy on there, Mansa 35:35.500 --> 35:39.100 Musa, and say, no, no, he was the richest guy in the world. 35:39.100 --> 35:44.340 And a lot of this stuff is because they hate, you know, I mean, they're just, they're racist. 35:44.340 --> 35:48.260 I mean, they hate anything that, you know, oh, well then the colonizers showed up and 35:48.260 --> 35:49.340 took all of his gold. 35:49.340 --> 35:50.660 That's always what it comes down to. 35:50.660 --> 35:56.020 It's like, it's like, oh no, no, no, Wakanda was real, okay. 35:56.020 --> 35:58.240 They had all this amazing stuff. 35:58.400 --> 36:00.640 Then the white man came and took it all from them. 36:00.640 --> 36:02.360 And it's absolutely ridiculous. 36:02.360 --> 36:06.320 These people, they didn't even have the wheel. 36:06.320 --> 36:08.820 And I'm not saying, I don't care about their race. 36:08.820 --> 36:12.840 The thing is that they had all this wealth. 36:12.840 --> 36:14.640 I'm not saying he didn't have a ton of wealth. 36:14.640 --> 36:15.640 He did. 36:15.640 --> 36:17.720 But what did he do with it? 36:17.720 --> 36:18.720 Nothing. 36:18.720 --> 36:19.860 He just blew it. 36:19.860 --> 36:20.480 That's all he did. 36:20.900 --> 36:23.900 He didn't educate his people. 36:23.900 --> 36:25.980 He didn't make his nation great. 36:25.980 --> 36:31.300 He didn't do anything that you see Western civilization doing 36:31.300 --> 36:32.380 with wealth. 36:32.380 --> 36:37.460 And it's pretty pathetic. 36:37.460 --> 36:40.980 So again, if the Bible says it, the world hates it. 36:43.860 --> 36:45.020 So that's. 36:45.900 --> 36:47.040 That's the first part. 36:47.040 --> 36:53.340 Now we're actually going to go into a lot of the biblical references for this. 36:53.340 --> 36:56.140 You know, what did Solomon ask for? 36:56.140 --> 36:59.220 He could have asked for wealth, he could have asked for riches, he could have asked for 36:59.220 --> 37:00.220 all these things. 37:00.220 --> 37:01.660 He asked for wisdom. 37:01.660 --> 37:03.980 And really, that is the most important thing. 37:03.980 --> 37:08.340 That's the thing that you really need, that you should be asking God for. 37:09.200 --> 37:14.200 And the great thing is that when you ask God for wisdom... 37:14.800 --> 37:17.320 He already gave it to you in the book of Proverbs. 37:17.320 --> 37:19.240 You don't even have to wait for it, man. 37:19.240 --> 37:21.880 You can just be like, oh, please give me wisdom, God. 37:21.880 --> 37:23.800 And God's like, yeah, it's right there. 37:23.800 --> 37:26.440 It's like, oh, sweet. 37:26.440 --> 37:28.120 Reading a proverb a day is something 37:28.120 --> 37:32.160 that I have done on and off and I've been getting back 37:32.160 --> 37:34.600 into recently. 37:34.600 --> 37:35.920 First thing, what is a proverb? 37:35.920 --> 37:40.480 Proverbs is a wise saying or precept for all the kids 37:40.480 --> 37:41.800 that don't know what that means. 37:41.900 --> 37:45.940 You know, and it teaches us how to live our life. 37:45.940 --> 37:48.620 It teaches us what we should be doing in life. 37:48.620 --> 37:53.220 And so that's kind of what I mapped out, where it's like, okay, what does the book of Proverbs 37:53.220 --> 37:59.380 say individually what we should be doing versus what the world says? 37:59.380 --> 38:03.020 You know, and it really is a stark contrast. 38:03.020 --> 38:04.020 Let's start with birth. 38:04.020 --> 38:05.020 Go to Proverbs. 38:05.020 --> 38:06.860 We're going to be staying in Proverbs from now on. 38:06.860 --> 38:07.860 You don't have to go back. 38:07.860 --> 38:08.800 You don't have to be in Kings. 38:09.000 --> 38:13.000 Proverbs chapter 23 verse 25. 38:13.000 --> 38:14.500 I'll let you get to that in a minute. 38:21.300 --> 38:26.300 First thing is, you know, when you're born, when you're a child, what does the world say? 38:26.300 --> 38:27.800 The world says kids are a burden. 38:28.200 --> 38:32.000 The world says don't have kids, you're going to ruin your life. 38:32.000 --> 38:38.160 I mean, I can't tell you how many people I've met that are in their 20s that have sterilized 38:38.160 --> 38:40.800 themselves because they don't want to have kids. 38:40.800 --> 38:46.240 I mean, the DNC, when they were doing their big thing in Chicago, they literally had like 38:46.240 --> 38:48.560 a vasectomy truck out there. 38:48.560 --> 38:49.560 I know. 38:49.560 --> 38:54.480 It was like, you people are absolutely nuts. 38:54.480 --> 38:56.180 like, you know, we're going to have massive. 38:56.200 --> 39:00.460 of gaps in the generation because they just refuse to have children because they think 39:00.460 --> 39:01.960 that they're just horrible. 39:01.960 --> 39:04.200 And, you know, children are a gift from God. 39:04.200 --> 39:09.700 You know, it says, it says, thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bear 39:09.700 --> 39:11.000 thee shall rejoice. 39:11.000 --> 39:12.960 So we should be rejoicing. 39:12.960 --> 39:17.300 You know, our children are something that we can rejoice about, and having more children 39:17.300 --> 39:18.680 is something we can rejoice about. 39:19.000 --> 39:21.880 You know, God wants us to do that. 39:21.880 --> 39:22.880 And I'm praying. 39:22.880 --> 39:27.520 There are a lot of verses about this in the Bible, but I'm sticking with what Solomon wrote 39:27.520 --> 39:30.900 down because that's what this sermon is about. 39:30.900 --> 39:32.600 And Solomon did write these down. 39:32.800 --> 39:39.840 You know, I mean, this is God's word, but you've got to remember, He gave Solomon wisdom, 39:39.840 --> 39:41.780 and Solomon's writing this down. 39:41.780 --> 39:51.320 And so Solomon was incredibly wise to put this stuff down, and we'll go over that in 39:51.320 --> 39:52.400 a minute. 39:52.400 --> 39:54.320 Go to chapter 17, verse 6. 39:54.700 --> 40:01.820 Chapter 17 verse 6, children's children are a crown of old men and the glory of children 40:01.820 --> 40:02.820 are their fathers. 40:02.820 --> 40:08.220 So children's children, so your grandchildren, you know, they're a crown of glory. 40:08.220 --> 40:15.500 I mean, children should always be something that's positive in your life, okay? 40:15.500 --> 40:19.820 And having more children should always be a positive thing in your life, you know? 40:20.500 --> 40:26.500 It's a crown of glory. You know, early on, even before I really read the Bible, 40:26.500 --> 40:35.500 this was something I came to the conclusion of because I interviewed a whole bunch of World War II vets. 40:36.200 --> 40:42.640 And literally hundreds of them over the course of several years for a project I was doing 40:42.640 --> 40:45.200 with the Smithsonian. 40:45.200 --> 40:49.420 And it really put a lot of stuff into perspective because these guys would talk about their 40:49.420 --> 40:54.480 lives and talk about their kids and everything. 40:54.480 --> 41:01.720 And I remember I just kind of came to the conclusion one day that, you know, in the 41:01.720 --> 41:02.560 end of their life. 41:03.300 --> 41:06.840 Something that these guys never say is, you know what? I wish I had less kids. 41:08.000 --> 41:12.180 And I'm like, you know, that's, so at that time, 41:12.180 --> 41:14.020 this was before I was married, I'm like, 41:14.020 --> 41:15.480 you know what, I wanna have a big family, 41:15.480 --> 41:18.720 because that's something that, you know, 41:18.720 --> 41:21.360 it really is true, that, you know, 41:21.360 --> 41:24.280 hey, look, parenting is hard. 41:24.280 --> 41:26.460 Having kids is hard, okay? 41:26.460 --> 41:28.920 We've got a newborn, and, you know, 41:28.920 --> 41:31.300 baby gets up every three or four hours, 41:31.300 --> 41:33.260 if we're lucky, you know, 41:33.260 --> 41:36.000 and wants more food and everything. 41:36.000 --> 41:38.760 and you lose sleep, and especially as you get older, 41:38.760 --> 41:40.760 man, you really feel it, okay? 41:40.760 --> 41:43.380 You're just like, oh, I can't get out of bed, you know? 41:43.380 --> 41:46.000 But baby's crying, gotta get the baby, you know? 41:46.000 --> 41:50.180 It's just, but you know, ultimately, it is a positive thing, 41:50.180 --> 41:52.680 and that's what we should be thinking about. 41:52.680 --> 41:54.280 We should never think about having kids 41:54.280 --> 41:55.440 as something negative. 41:55.500 --> 41:58.700 But that's what the world does. They see it as a negative thing. 41:58.700 --> 42:04.000 Kids are a burden. Have an abortion. You know, you shouldn't have children. 42:04.000 --> 42:10.200 And so this is a stark contrast in the book of Proverbs between the world and the book of Proverbs. 42:10.200 --> 42:12.500 What's the next thing? Education. 42:12.500 --> 42:17.000 Go to Proverbs 1.17. Proverbs 1.17. 42:22.100 --> 42:28.180 And I'm just trying to go through like someone's life basically and just pointing out proverbs 42:28.180 --> 42:35.940 that can help you live life to the fullest, help you live life the way God wants you to. 42:37.140 --> 42:42.580 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. 42:42.580 --> 42:48.180 And what does the world say? God doesn't exist. No, we need to fear God, right? 42:48.900 --> 42:54.900 And that is the beginning of knowledge. That's the basis that knowledge is based on. 42:54.900 --> 42:57.900 It's the fear of the Lord. 42:57.900 --> 43:03.900 And so if you want to know anything, you better be fearing God right off the bat. 43:03.900 --> 43:07.900 You don't have to turn to all of these. Proverbs 4.13, it says, 43:07.900 --> 43:13.660 take fast hold to instruction, let her not go, keep her, for she is thy life. 43:14.200 --> 43:19.200 And then Proverbs 18, chapter 18 verse 15, 43:19.200 --> 43:21.200 the heart of the prudent geteth knowledge, 43:21.200 --> 43:24.200 and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. 43:24.200 --> 43:25.700 You know, you know... 43:26.400 --> 43:32.460 Christians we need to seek after knowledge. We need to constantly be expanding our knowledge 43:32.920 --> 43:38.920 in the Bible and also also knowledge and other carnal things too. Reading about history, reading about 43:38.920 --> 43:39.340 I mean 43:39.340 --> 43:44.940 I just showed you a bunch of stuff in history and I find that very interesting and it adds a layer of 43:45.240 --> 43:47.760 context in the Bible that I think is invaluable for me. 43:49.600 --> 43:52.760 So, but you know, what does the government say? 43:52.760 --> 43:55.360 You know, the government's going to educate you. 43:55.360 --> 43:56.360 Don't educate yourself. 43:56.360 --> 43:58.240 You know, they're going to educate your kids. 43:58.240 --> 43:59.240 You know? 43:59.240 --> 44:04.000 But really, the truth is, is that these days you can graduate from both the state of Oregon 44:04.000 --> 44:07.440 and the state of Washington and you don't have to read. 44:07.440 --> 44:13.720 I mean like that, something like 40 odd percent of kids in Oregon, I know specifically, graduate 44:13.720 --> 44:16.440 without being able to read. 44:16.440 --> 44:16.960 Think about that. 44:17.400 --> 44:22.960 I mean, because they want them, yeah, yeah, 47th and 48th in education. 44:22.960 --> 44:25.300 It's terrible. 44:25.300 --> 44:27.840 And you know, it's because they just push them through. 44:28.100 --> 44:34.340 You know, these kids, they don't know how to read, they don't know how to write, and that's exactly 44:34.340 --> 44:38.740 the way the government wants them. They want them dumb. They want them to just walk around all day 44:38.740 --> 44:44.740 and do whatever the phone tells them to do and watch TikTok and, you know, maybe work somewhere. 44:44.740 --> 44:50.340 I mean, like, there is no work ethic, you know, and that's where a lot of this education comes 44:50.340 --> 44:56.020 from. I actually, I know a guy who does some script work in a hall. 44:56.100 --> 45:00.300 And this was like two years ago when I was talking to him. 45:00.300 --> 45:02.320 And he was in a writer's room. 45:02.320 --> 45:04.760 And this was like during COVID, you know? 45:04.760 --> 45:07.320 And it was a little longer, it was like three years. 45:07.320 --> 45:10.240 So, or no, this was like right after COVID. 45:10.240 --> 45:12.240 And he said, he went into a writing room 45:12.240 --> 45:13.240 with all these other writers. 45:13.240 --> 45:15.480 And he's my age, he's in his 40s, okay? 45:15.480 --> 45:18.360 And he helps Dr. Scripps, you know, 45:18.360 --> 45:20.100 make them better and everything. 45:20.200 --> 45:24.900 And he's in this writer's room and there are all these like 20-somethings writers. 45:24.900 --> 45:27.100 And they're talking about... 45:27.300 --> 45:32.460 Like, they're talking about this, it was like a TV show or something like that, and they 45:32.460 --> 45:35.140 were talking about plot lines and everything. 45:35.140 --> 45:40.300 And he said someone got up there and was talking about some episode of like, I don't know, 45:40.300 --> 45:45.240 like MacGyver or something like that, and how he thought that, oh, this was a good base 45:45.240 --> 45:46.740 point for that episode. 45:46.740 --> 45:51.460 And he stood up and he's like, yeah, that's Moby Dick. 45:51.460 --> 45:52.460 You know, that's... 45:52.460 --> 45:52.600 you 45:52.900 --> 45:55.940 That's like Captain Ahab type character and they're all like, 45:57.300 --> 45:59.460 huh? What are you talking about? 45:59.800 --> 46:03.200 And he's like, do you guys read? 46:03.200 --> 46:05.720 Like, do you read classic literature? 46:05.720 --> 46:08.440 Because that's where this stuff came from in the 1980s, 46:08.440 --> 46:09.880 the television shows. 46:09.880 --> 46:12.080 They read classic literature, and they're like, hey, 46:12.080 --> 46:12.920 let's ape that. 46:12.920 --> 46:15.880 You know, let's make a Captain Ahab character. 46:15.880 --> 46:18.000 And then you fast forward, and now these kids 46:18.000 --> 46:19.240 are like watching. 46:19.240 --> 46:21.120 You know, they're getting stuff from their past. 46:21.120 --> 46:23.040 And because they never read books, 46:23.040 --> 46:25.240 they're going back to TV shows. 46:25.240 --> 46:26.840 And then they're recreating all those. 46:26.840 --> 46:27.800 So it's like. 46:27.800 --> 46:32.680 The concept of classic literature is just totally, they don't even understand it. 46:32.680 --> 46:37.800 And what's great about classic literature is it teaches you so much. 46:37.800 --> 46:39.840 I mean, that's something I love doing with my kids. 46:39.840 --> 46:41.640 They've read a ton of classics. 46:41.640 --> 46:44.640 And when you read classic literature, you pick up stuff. 46:44.800 --> 46:51.100 not just the main story, but you also pick up, you know, just how life was. 46:51.100 --> 46:56.740 I mean, like, and you, there's a lot of, especially in anything that's historical, 46:56.740 --> 47:01.380 you know, you learn a lot about geography, you learn a lot about science, math, 47:01.380 --> 47:05.760 I mean, all these things are in the, read the Sherlock Holmes books. 47:05.760 --> 47:07.420 I mean, they're incredible. 47:07.420 --> 47:12.460 I mean, deductive reasoning, I mean, like, it's a master class on deductive reasoning. 47:12.700 --> 47:15.620 And, and, but they never read this stuff. 47:15.620 --> 47:20.820 They just watch the television show that just glosses over it anyway, you know, and they're 47:20.820 --> 47:22.460 like, oh, that's pretty good. 47:22.460 --> 47:24.180 You know, let's just go ahead and do that. 47:24.180 --> 47:28.580 But that's, and that's a very carnal reference because I'm talking about, you know, like 47:28.580 --> 47:29.580 a TV show. 47:30.100 --> 47:35.460 But when we educate our children, we should be having them read, 47:36.100 --> 47:40.820 we should be obviously having them focus on the Bible. That is the focus that they should be 47:40.820 --> 47:45.940 doing and going to church. But there's a reason why it's called classic literature. 47:45.940 --> 47:51.860 Okay. And you do have to curate this stuff. Basically, if it's something written within the 47:51.860 --> 47:56.580 past 50 years, I'm really not interested in having my kids read it because it's usually just full of 47:56.580 --> 47:58.080 of garbage. But you know, even 47:58.100 --> 48:04.020 stuff back in the teens and 20s, I mean like, you know, like the Grapes of Wrath and this, 48:04.020 --> 48:13.820 just great gatsby is terrible. But like, it's like, I'm sure the storytelling is okay on 48:13.820 --> 48:19.060 a couple of those, but the moral is always horrible, okay? And that's what you want to 48:19.060 --> 48:22.740 avoid. You want to have like good morals. So like my girls, they love to read like Jane 48:22.740 --> 48:23.240 Austin. 48:23.700 --> 48:29.500 Okay, and those have pretty decent morals and they have really interesting character 48:29.500 --> 48:33.360 interactions. 48:33.360 --> 48:39.440 So any education should have a lot of classic literature. 48:39.440 --> 48:45.000 And they basically excise that from public schools and the biggest way they've done that 48:45.000 --> 48:47.640 is by just not teaching them to read. 48:47.640 --> 48:48.000 So. 48:48.300 --> 48:50.220 So, congratulations. 48:50.220 --> 48:51.220 It was terrible. 48:51.220 --> 48:58.380 At my work the other day, we actually ended up firing this guy because he came in and 48:58.380 --> 49:00.540 he couldn't read apparently. 49:00.540 --> 49:03.100 And what he was doing is he was using his phone. 49:03.600 --> 49:10.800 to like take pictures of the stuff that we had and then it would tell him what it said. He literally 49:10.800 --> 49:18.560 couldn't read. He was like a 20-something year old guy, could not read at all, was using his phone as a crutch. 49:18.800 --> 49:21.200 And he got through a lot of steps. 49:21.200 --> 49:24.160 We literally hired him before we figured out 49:24.160 --> 49:25.000 that he couldn't read. 49:25.000 --> 49:27.200 And when you do what I'm doing, man, 49:27.200 --> 49:29.020 you gotta be able to read tie-ins. 49:29.020 --> 49:30.780 You gotta be able to write stuff down. 49:30.780 --> 49:32.680 It's just, there's no way you can't. 49:32.680 --> 49:35.080 So that's what we're doing. 49:35.080 --> 49:37.300 We're breeding a generation of morons. 49:37.600 --> 49:44.240 And, and that's that, that, and so when, when the Bible is telling us that we need to, to 49:44.240 --> 49:49.000 take hold fast to instruction, you know, getting instruction from your elders, getting instruction 49:49.000 --> 49:53.800 from classic literature, getting instruction, obviously, from the Word of God and from, 49:53.800 --> 49:56.760 from the man of God, you know, these things we need to do that. 49:56.760 --> 49:58.640 And so you kids need to sit up and pay attention. 49:59.000 --> 50:05.320 You know, don't treat your education like it's just some annoyance. 50:05.320 --> 50:07.400 You know, oh now I can get outside and play. 50:07.400 --> 50:15.400 No, you really want to, because the kids in your generation are going to be done with bricks, okay? 50:15.400 --> 50:17.320 And you're going to need all the help you can get. 50:17.500 --> 50:22.500 So you need that classic education and you're going to go really far. 50:22.500 --> 50:27.500 Because think about this, when you show up at a job interview and you've held fast instruction, 50:27.500 --> 50:33.500 then you've learned to read and you can actually do math and you can actually make change, 50:33.500 --> 50:37.500 which is just a foreign concept these days. 50:37.800 --> 50:42.760 I was in a store and like the power went out on something and so they were doing cash and 50:42.760 --> 50:48.800 and the gal behind the cash is like it it she was she could not figure out how to do 50:48.800 --> 50:55.080 the most basic math she had to get her phone out and like okay calculator you know and 50:55.080 --> 51:01.360 it's like it's like okay yeah it's like 35 cents is my change this is hard to figure 51:01.360 --> 51:01.960 out. 51:03.300 --> 51:12.100 But it's the lack of education and then the world is just like they just don't even care, you know, because they hate kids anyway. 51:12.100 --> 51:17.900 So why would they want to give them a real education if they already hate kids? It doesn't make any sense, you know. 51:17.900 --> 51:19.200 So... 51:19.800 --> 51:25.800 You can learn a lot from the book of Proverbs about education. 51:25.800 --> 51:26.800 Work! 51:26.800 --> 51:32.680 You know, the book of Proverbs gives us a lot of information on how we should be acting, 51:32.680 --> 51:34.840 how we should be working as Christians. 51:34.840 --> 51:37.440 Go to Proverbs chapter 10 verse 4. 51:37.440 --> 51:40.880 Proverbs chapter 10 verse 4 says, 51:40.880 --> 51:44.240 he becomeeth poorer that dealeth with a slack hand. 51:44.600 --> 51:47.360 But the hand of the diligent maketh rich. 51:47.360 --> 51:48.360 Hey, you know what? 51:48.360 --> 51:51.920 If you do shoddy work, if you're lazy at your work, guess what? 51:51.920 --> 51:53.560 You're not going to make much money. 51:53.560 --> 51:59.940 But if you're like the best worker there, if you're diligent, they're going to notice 51:59.940 --> 52:01.880 that and guess what? 52:01.880 --> 52:03.360 You're going to be rich. 52:06.000 --> 52:12.200 14 verse 23 it says in all labor there's profit but the talk of lips tendeth 52:12.200 --> 52:16.180 only to penury and you know this is kind of preaching to myself here because you 52:16.180 --> 52:20.760 know if you just stand around talking right you're gonna be poor okay you need 52:20.760 --> 52:24.200 to actually work all right when you go to work work 52:24.300 --> 52:27.500 I'm not saying that you can't have a conversation with someone. 52:27.500 --> 52:32.500 What I'm saying is that the primary thing that you're there to do is work, and so that's 52:32.500 --> 52:33.500 what you should be doing. 52:33.500 --> 52:39.060 You shouldn't always be like, you know, rubber-necking for the boss, you know, is he seeing me talking 52:39.060 --> 52:40.060 to someone, you know? 52:40.060 --> 52:45.640 You know, because we all have that, where we're like, you know, we're working, right? 52:45.640 --> 52:49.100 And then we'll be like, oh man, I'm going to take a break for a minute, and then you 52:49.100 --> 52:52.260 go and do something, and you're, you know, that you're, you know. 52:52.300 --> 52:55.420 that's not like your primary job and then your boss comes around the corner and you're 52:55.420 --> 52:59.340 like, man, if he would have come around the corner 10 minutes earlier, it would have caught 52:59.340 --> 53:04.340 me working. 53:04.340 --> 53:12.060 But you know, that's not that the attitude we should have is to be diligent and that's 53:12.060 --> 53:14.300 what the Bible is telling us here. 53:14.300 --> 53:19.860 And it's telling us that there isn't profit or that there's profit and labor. 53:20.100 --> 53:24.300 Not just stand around talking. Unless you got a job where you just stand around and talk. 53:24.300 --> 53:25.900 And I've had those before. 53:25.900 --> 53:31.900 But you know what? I think you get a lot more fulfillment in actually doing something. 53:33.500 --> 53:36.540 Chapter 13 verse 11, it says, 53:36.540 --> 53:40.240 Wealth gotten by vanity shall also be diminished, 53:40.240 --> 53:43.020 but he that gathereth by labor shall increase. 53:43.020 --> 53:47.840 So if you're getting all your wealth through vain things, 53:47.840 --> 53:49.100 through things that, you know, 53:49.100 --> 53:54.100 or like if you're defrauding someone, or usury, 53:54.380 --> 53:56.640 I mean like every once in a while, 53:56.640 --> 53:58.480 so this is kind of my rule of thumb for this, 53:58.480 --> 54:00.380 and you can thank me later. 54:00.380 --> 54:01.220 But if... 54:01.500 --> 54:07.780 If you are buying a product where that product literally is the only thing that that store 54:07.780 --> 54:10.580 sells, you are being taken to the cleaners. 54:10.900 --> 54:17.200 If you go into a mattress store to buy a mattress, okay, because you got to remember, they got five salesmen on the floor. 54:17.200 --> 54:18.900 All those guys have to make money. 54:18.900 --> 54:20.900 They got someone in the back doing this stuff. 54:20.900 --> 54:25.700 So mattresses have an extremely high margin, okay? 54:25.700 --> 54:29.700 They're making 100, 200, 300 percent when you buy that mattress. 54:29.700 --> 54:34.500 When you spend $1,000 on a mattress, they're pocketing $800 of it, okay? 54:34.500 --> 54:38.900 And I was in sales for a long time, and these numbers are accurate, okay? 54:38.900 --> 54:43.700 And so, and so go to a wholesaler, you can find them. 54:43.700 --> 54:46.460 There are guys out there, and I'm not talking about like used mattress place. 54:46.460 --> 54:48.780 I'm talking about like a wholesale mattress place. 54:48.780 --> 54:53.180 You can literally buy a thousand dollar king size mattress for 200 bucks. 54:53.180 --> 54:55.700 And it's because they got them from wholesale. 54:55.700 --> 54:57.260 You know, oh, it's last year's model. 54:57.260 --> 54:59.300 It doesn't, it doesn't have the up to date color. 54:59.300 --> 55:00.300 I don't care. 55:00.300 --> 55:01.300 It's going to have a sheet over it anyway. 55:02.000 --> 55:05.600 But if it's a standalone place, a tire store, okay? 55:05.600 --> 55:10.240 So I will give this a caveat emptor on the tire stores. 55:10.240 --> 55:13.640 I have seen some tire stores, especially if they only have like one or 55:13.640 --> 55:16.840 two employees where they'll do really good pricing. 55:16.840 --> 55:21.840 But I've literally gone to, and I'm not gonna name any names, but 55:21.840 --> 55:25.640 they're all around and they also used to give out beef. 55:25.640 --> 55:25.800 Thanks for watching! 55:26.100 --> 55:36.060 But, and yeah, so I went there to get some new tires for one of my rigs and they quoted 55:36.060 --> 55:38.900 me like $1,200 for tires all the way around. 55:38.900 --> 55:43.060 And then this other guy that I went to who owns his own shop but he only has, it's him 55:43.060 --> 55:50.540 and his brother that do it, the exact same tires, mounted, balanced everything was $560. 55:51.300 --> 55:56.900 That's because there's so much margin. There's so much built into these tires that you know 55:56.900 --> 56:00.740 I because if you go to these other places, you'll see 15 people standing around 56:01.140 --> 56:01.780 You know 56:01.780 --> 56:06.020 You'll see the salesman on the floor that's trying to upsell you on all those people need to be paid 56:06.100 --> 56:12.620 That giant building needs to be paid for and guess who's paying for it you because you're paying massive markups 56:12.620 --> 56:16.560 So if you're going to a store that only sells one particular product 56:17.100 --> 56:20.100 then you're being taken to the cleaners for the most part. 56:20.100 --> 56:23.700 Okay, there are some caveats in there, but you know, 56:23.700 --> 56:26.500 mattress stores, tire stores, what? 56:26.500 --> 56:27.340 Coin stores. 56:27.340 --> 56:28.580 Coin stores, yes, definitely. 56:28.580 --> 56:33.260 But you know, going to a coin store, 56:33.260 --> 56:35.340 you also pay for other expertise too. 56:35.340 --> 56:39.200 I mean, like there are caveats to all that stuff, but. 56:40.100 --> 56:47.660 But my point is that if there are 15 different mattress store companies and they're all standalone 56:47.660 --> 56:49.940 stores, guess what? 56:49.940 --> 56:52.260 There's a lot of money to be made in the mattress business. 56:52.260 --> 56:58.940 There's a lot of money to ... I used to sell audio video equipment and especially speakers, 56:58.940 --> 57:06.300 like high-end speakers, I'm talking like 10,000 bucks a pop, these things would cost us like 57:06.300 --> 57:07.300 like $1,200. 57:08.000 --> 57:13.160 Yeah, and we'd sell them for tons of money and I that's one of the reasons why I got out of that business 57:13.480 --> 57:18.080 Bose oh, they're they're so bad at this. They'll sell surround sound system for 57:18.920 --> 57:26.480 $1,400 and cost is like 190 bucks. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that it's so so yeah 57:26.480 --> 57:28.960 just you know, do yourself a favor there and 57:29.500 --> 57:32.020 and shop around, you can find stuff, 57:32.020 --> 57:34.560 or even find stuff at wholesale or used 57:34.560 --> 57:35.800 or anything like that. 57:35.800 --> 57:38.800 And we should be, we should be thrifty as God's people. 57:38.800 --> 57:41.140 You know, where was I? 57:41.140 --> 57:43.840 Man, I went off on a really long side tangent. 57:43.840 --> 57:45.060 Okay, we have, 57:45.060 --> 57:47.880 wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished. 57:48.000 --> 57:51.380 But, you know, gathered by labor shall increase. 57:51.380 --> 57:56.820 So if you get, if you're going after wealth the right way, then that's going to be, you 57:56.820 --> 58:01.800 know, increased by the sweat of your brow always feels better than just getting it over 58:01.800 --> 58:05.000 on somebody, you know, because someone's got to lose, right? 58:05.000 --> 58:07.520 You're taking it from someone. 58:08.400 --> 58:10.400 Better is... 58:10.760 --> 58:12.760 Chapter 16 verse 8 says, 58:12.760 --> 58:17.160 Better is a little with righteousness than great revenue without right. 58:17.160 --> 58:22.400 And that's the same kind of thing, you know, it's better to be righteous. It's better to make... it's better to make a good deal. 58:23.280 --> 58:26.120 It's better to not swindle people, you know. 58:27.320 --> 58:33.280 You know, and unfortunately in this day and age of, you know, 30% plus interest rates... 58:33.800 --> 58:37.800 You can see where all that money is really going and you know why. 58:37.800 --> 58:43.800 I mean, we're basically run by banks and this is where it comes from, 58:43.800 --> 58:49.800 is that they're getting revenue without right. 58:50.800 --> 58:56.680 But you know conversely what does the world say about working? You know they say oh, no just get on welfare be lazy 58:56.760 --> 59:00.660 You know I mean like years ago the tagline for Portland was 59:01.240 --> 59:07.080 Was like you know Portland's great. You know it's it's the place where 30-somethings go to retire 59:07.560 --> 59:11.680 You know and it's cuz they all they're all these hipsters, and they dude 59:11.680 --> 59:17.240 I can't tell you how many hipsters especially years ago when I worked in downtown Portland. They all have food cards like all of them 59:17.800 --> 59:22.440 They're all wearing like high waters and they got the weird hair and everything and they got 59:22.440 --> 59:26.680 and they're oh I'm hip and cool and then they're pulling out their Oregon Trail Card 59:26.680 --> 59:29.160 you know because they're what because they're on welfare. 59:29.700 --> 59:30.700 They're getting free healthcare. 59:30.700 --> 59:33.780 They're getting free, I mean, and they always vote for it too. 59:33.780 --> 59:36.780 And that's stuff that we've got to pay for, you know. 59:36.780 --> 59:41.140 And then you see these people on the street corner, you know, like able-bodied men. 59:41.140 --> 59:47.080 I will never give an able-bodied man money ever again, okay? 59:47.080 --> 59:50.220 If you're sitting on the street corner with a sign that says, please help, and you're 59:50.220 --> 59:54.060 an able-bodied man, I'm not giving you nothing, okay? 59:54.060 --> 59:55.860 Get a job, hippie. 59:55.860 --> 59:57.180 Oh, man. 59:57.500 --> 59:59.860 I know where it comes from. 59:59.860 --> 01:00:01.340 And the world wants us to be lazy. 01:00:01.340 --> 01:00:06.780 The world wants us to just sit down and watch TV and watch our phones. 01:00:06.780 --> 01:00:07.980 They don't want you to be diligent. 01:00:07.980 --> 01:00:09.720 They don't want you to work hard. 01:00:09.720 --> 01:00:12.820 They want you to just be another cog in the wheel. 01:00:12.820 --> 01:00:14.260 They want you to be dumb. 01:00:14.260 --> 01:00:18.020 They want you to be lazy. 01:00:18.020 --> 01:00:23.780 This is what the world wants you to be and it goes contrary to God's Word. 01:00:23.780 --> 01:00:25.380 We looked at, you know... 01:00:25.700 --> 01:00:31.700 being born and educate and work. And then now let's talk about how God wants us to live. 01:00:32.740 --> 01:00:35.620 Go to Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3. 01:00:39.000 --> 01:00:41.560 This is how God wants us to live our lives. 01:00:41.560 --> 01:00:46.480 It says, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase. 01:00:46.480 --> 01:00:53.100 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. 01:00:53.100 --> 01:00:58.240 So this is something that's talked a little bit about in Scripture, but you know what? 01:00:58.240 --> 01:01:02.120 We need to honor the Lord with our substance and our first fruits. 01:01:02.120 --> 01:01:03.120 That's pain tithe. 01:01:03.120 --> 01:01:04.120 Okay? 01:01:04.120 --> 01:01:06.120 And that's something Pastor Thompson like never talks about. 01:01:06.500 --> 01:01:10.900 All right, and this is really the truth. If you're not tithing, you're not right with God, 01:01:10.900 --> 01:01:18.580 period. Okay? And you will be blessed, all right? And I'm not saying that hyperbole. That is a fact. 01:01:18.580 --> 01:01:24.660 Okay? I know that for a fact because it has happened to me. Okay? I have been blessed. 01:01:24.900 --> 01:01:29.600 Okay, and and you know and it's like oh, it's too much money dude is 10% 01:01:29.960 --> 01:01:33.780 So if you have a little bit of money, it's 10% of that if you have a lot of money 01:01:33.780 --> 01:01:37.820 It's 10% of that and you know my wife she even she even ties 01:01:38.080 --> 01:01:44.260 You know like what she cans you know the strawberry jam and the beans and chicken and all that stuff 01:01:44.420 --> 01:01:51.600 She's like oh, we got tied that and and that's a great attitude to have you know every single time that you increase 01:01:51.780 --> 01:01:52.900 You should be tight 01:01:52.900 --> 01:01:58.760 You should be giving that back to God to do great things for the Lord. I mean, what does the church do with it? 01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:02.820 Well, we do soul in with it. We pay for invitations. We pay for this building 01:02:02.880 --> 01:02:08.500 you know, none of this stuff is free and and we need to be working for the Lord and we need to be 01:02:08.760 --> 01:02:10.760 providing for a man of God 01:02:10.760 --> 01:02:13.700 So that he can focus on doing all these things 01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:22.400 Go to Proverbs 13.20. 01:02:22.700 --> 01:02:29.820 He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." 01:02:29.820 --> 01:02:35.700 So living your life, if you're around wise men, if you're coming to church and you're 01:02:35.700 --> 01:02:40.480 talking to other men that are in God's Word and doing the will of God, guess what? 01:02:40.480 --> 01:02:42.540 You're around wise people. 01:02:42.540 --> 01:02:46.540 But if you're going back to the world, if you're going back to your buddy that you used 01:02:46.540 --> 01:02:50.020 to spend time in the bar with and all that stuff, guess what? 01:02:50.020 --> 01:02:50.700 That's a company of. 01:02:50.700 --> 01:02:57.020 Okay, and so and so we need to tune our lives see see you know when you get born again 01:02:57.660 --> 01:02:59.760 Guess what that old life is passed away 01:03:00.540 --> 01:03:06.740 Okay, and so if you have the exact same friends now is when you weren't saved. That's that's a problem 01:03:07.400 --> 01:03:11.920 Okay, you need to unless you got him saved praise God if you got him saved 01:03:12.360 --> 01:03:16.300 But you know what that that that rarely happens, okay? 01:03:16.300 --> 01:03:21.220 And and you should be doing that you should be you should be spending your time with wise people 01:03:21.840 --> 01:03:24.160 That make good godly decisions 01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:28.800 Chapter 27 verse 10 says, 01:03:28.800 --> 01:03:32.200 "'Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not, 01:03:32.200 --> 01:03:36.040 neither go into thy brother's house in the day of calamity, 01:03:36.040 --> 01:03:39.840 for better is a neighbor that is near 01:03:39.840 --> 01:03:41.120 than a brother that is far off.'" 01:03:41.120 --> 01:03:43.760 You know, we should be making friends, 01:03:43.760 --> 01:03:45.280 we shouldn't be isolating people. 01:03:45.280 --> 01:03:46.120 You know, it says, 01:03:46.120 --> 01:03:49.320 "'Thine own friend and thy father's friend.'" 01:03:49.320 --> 01:03:50.920 And that's another really good example too, 01:03:50.920 --> 01:03:53.520 because if you look at the life of King Solomon, 01:03:53.520 --> 01:03:54.000 He was 01:03:54.000 --> 01:04:00.660 His David made a lot of friends including that king of Tyre and what did Solomon do he didn't he didn't cut him off 01:04:00.660 --> 01:04:04.620 He didn't he didn't you know belittle him. He's like no man. He's my friend, too 01:04:04.620 --> 01:04:06.440 I'm gonna I'm gonna treat with him 01:04:06.440 --> 01:04:11.760 I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to him and that's something that we should be doing we should make friends with our with our parents friends 01:04:11.760 --> 01:04:14.620 I mean obviously as long as they're you know godly people 01:04:16.640 --> 01:04:18.640 But you know 01:04:20.500 --> 01:04:23.540 You know, if your brother, and when it says, 01:04:23.540 --> 01:04:27.260 for better is a neighbor that is near than a brother that's far off, 01:04:27.260 --> 01:04:32.580 you know, and in this I see it more of like an actual physical brother. 01:04:32.580 --> 01:04:36.020 And you know, if you've got siblings that aren't saved, 01:04:36.020 --> 01:04:38.500 you shouldn't be going to them for everything, okay? 01:04:38.500 --> 01:04:41.100 You should be, you should be, you should be, 01:04:41.100 --> 01:04:44.180 you know, that neighbor that comes to church every week, 01:04:44.180 --> 01:04:48.300 you should be doing more stuff with them than you should be with someone who's unsaved. 01:04:48.500 --> 01:04:54.420 Proverbs 2, 1. 01:04:54.800 --> 01:05:02.680 Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge, but he that hateth reproof is brutish to you is is brutish 01:05:02.680 --> 01:05:04.680 So if you're not willing to take reproof 01:05:04.880 --> 01:05:09.700 Like if you're living life and and you can't take reproof and this is and this is what I think about 01:05:09.700 --> 01:05:13.060 I think about the person that's like you don't know me 01:05:13.060 --> 01:05:20.780 I mean, you know the whole the whole that whole culture where they can't take any reproof at all where you can't you can't correct 01:05:21.020 --> 01:05:22.800 Anything they just have it 01:05:22.800 --> 01:05:28.160 in their mind and you know and you know oh I'm I'm 20 so I know everything now 01:05:28.160 --> 01:05:34.000 no you don't you don't know nothing okay the older I get the the the dumber I 01:05:34.000 --> 01:05:39.300 actually you know realize I was okay it's it's really the truth 01:05:39.500 --> 01:05:43.500 And so this culture of not being able to take reproof, 01:05:43.500 --> 01:05:47.500 not being able to take, and shame culture too. 01:05:47.500 --> 01:05:50.500 We used to have a shame culture in this country. 01:05:50.500 --> 01:05:53.500 If someone did something abhorrent, we would shame them. 01:05:53.500 --> 01:05:56.500 And that's a good thing because it keeps them, I mean like, 01:05:56.500 --> 01:06:00.500 it kept the homos in the closet for a long time. 01:06:00.900 --> 01:06:08.280 Okay, but now no, I just come on out, you know dress up in your queer clothes and dance in front of my kids at the library 01:06:08.280 --> 01:06:13.460 I mean, it's sick, you know, but that's what that's what leads to that kind of culture is 01:06:13.820 --> 01:06:19.860 That is that hating of knowledge a hating of instruction that hating of reproof, you know 01:06:20.740 --> 01:06:26.100 Because now they just have no shame before they were like, oh, I can't do that because someone's gonna stand up and be like 01:06:26.260 --> 01:06:27.800 That's wrong 01:06:27.900 --> 01:06:30.900 And then now, oh, just do whatever you want. 01:06:30.900 --> 01:06:36.900 You know, like, I don't even want to go into it because it's so sick. 01:06:36.900 --> 01:06:39.900 But this world just gets worse and worse. 01:06:39.900 --> 01:06:42.900 And then what else does life tell you? 01:06:42.900 --> 01:06:45.900 What else does the world tell you to do, how to live your life? 01:06:45.900 --> 01:06:48.900 You know, I can't go down the street without seeing all these signs for buying weed. 01:06:49.300 --> 01:06:51.800 and buying booze. 01:06:51.800 --> 01:06:53.900 And that's just what we live in today. 01:06:53.900 --> 01:06:56.300 We live in a drugged out, drunkard society 01:06:56.300 --> 01:07:01.000 that the world not only likes, but it affirms. 01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:03.700 Like it says, no, do this. 01:07:03.700 --> 01:07:06.800 You know, buy the cheap drugs, buy the cheap booze, 01:07:06.800 --> 01:07:08.900 you know, get sauced. 01:07:08.900 --> 01:07:12.000 You know, oh no, you can't have fun unless you're drinking. 01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:14.200 You know, that's what the world says. 01:07:14.600 --> 01:07:17.360 And, you know, what does the Bible say? 01:07:17.360 --> 01:07:19.080 In Proverbs 20 verse 1 it says, 01:07:19.080 --> 01:07:22.000 wine is a mocker, strong Greek is raging, 01:07:22.000 --> 01:07:24.960 and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. 01:07:24.960 --> 01:07:28.960 Look, you can't be wise and be getting drunk all the time. 01:07:28.960 --> 01:07:29.920 You can't be wise. 01:07:29.920 --> 01:07:31.280 I don't care what anyone says. 01:07:31.280 --> 01:07:33.100 If you're a pothead, you're a moron. 01:07:33.300 --> 01:07:39.660 Okay, there are these guys out there. They're like, oh no, my mental faculties haven't waned at all. It's like yes, they have 01:07:40.240 --> 01:07:44.220 Okay, maybe in your own mind they haven't Wayne but I don't I don't care 01:07:44.220 --> 01:07:46.340 I mean like there was this one guy who was like a 01:07:46.820 --> 01:07:52.420 Nuclear physicist or something and he was like going around telling it was all I use weed, but I'm really smart, dude 01:07:52.740 --> 01:07:55.460 Well, yeah, he might have been number smart on a bunch of stuff 01:07:55.460 --> 01:08:01.300 but I noticed in the interview that he was just like he was saying a lot of really stupid things and and you see 01:08:01.300 --> 01:08:06.460 that quite a bit from intellectuals. Well, they'll be really smart in one area, you know, 01:08:06.460 --> 01:08:13.540 but you know, they'll just be dumb as a post and others. And weed, because it destroys 01:08:13.540 --> 01:08:19.500 your brain cells, it just makes that even worse. And you know what? If you think smoke 01:08:19.500 --> 01:08:24.740 and dope is, you know, that's fine, you're still going to be fine, your mental faculties 01:08:24.740 --> 01:08:26.380 are still going to be there, look, man. 01:08:27.300 --> 01:08:32.780 I have known so many potheads. Just go talk to someone who's been doing weed every day for 10 years, 01:08:32.780 --> 01:08:35.700 and you're gonna be like, they ain't all there. 01:08:36.340 --> 01:08:38.340 Okay, there's something wrong. 01:08:38.700 --> 01:08:42.380 And it's the absolute truth and this proverb is born out. 01:08:42.380 --> 01:08:43.980 But you know, the world says no. 01:08:43.980 --> 01:08:45.500 The world says, I don't get drunk. 01:08:45.500 --> 01:08:46.700 And that's because they wanted that. 01:08:46.700 --> 01:08:48.300 They want people docile. 01:08:48.300 --> 01:08:49.820 They want people stupid. 01:08:49.820 --> 01:08:53.900 They want people uneducated so that the elites can rule over us 01:08:53.900 --> 01:08:55.660 and just do whatever they want. 01:08:56.300 --> 01:08:58.540 And it's really terrible. 01:08:59.300 --> 01:09:04.860 Go to Proverbs chapter 5, and this is kind of the ultimate how to live your life lesson 01:09:04.860 --> 01:09:06.780 for me in the book of Proverbs. 01:09:06.780 --> 01:09:09.860 Proverbs chapter 5, starting in verse 1, it says, 01:09:09.860 --> 01:09:14.100 My son, attend to my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding, that thou mayest 01:09:14.100 --> 01:09:19.900 regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge. 01:09:19.900 --> 01:09:25.300 For the lips of strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. 01:09:25.700 --> 01:09:29.940 But her end is bitter wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 01:09:29.940 --> 01:09:33.940 Her feet go down to death, her steps take heat hold on hell. 01:09:35.460 --> 01:09:44.020 Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. 01:09:44.660 --> 01:09:45.940 Hear me, hear! 01:09:46.600 --> 01:09:51.540 Me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 01:09:51.540 --> 01:09:57.680 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh unto the door of her house." 01:09:57.680 --> 01:09:59.760 So this is talking about strange women. 01:09:59.760 --> 01:10:05.760 This is talking about this advice to young men saying, hey, don't go after strange women. 01:10:05.760 --> 01:10:08.440 Go after godly women. 01:10:08.440 --> 01:10:09.600 And what does the world say? 01:10:09.600 --> 01:10:11.400 The world says, no, fornication is fine. 01:10:11.400 --> 01:10:13.040 What are you talking about? 01:10:13.040 --> 01:10:14.600 after going after Lucy 01:10:14.600 --> 01:10:15.600 That's great. 01:10:15.600 --> 01:10:18.600 And it's like, no. 01:10:18.600 --> 01:10:24.640 Look, it says right here, it says that her end is bitter wormwood. 01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:26.480 And that's exactly what it is. 01:10:26.480 --> 01:10:30.920 So you need to be going after a good godly woman, and women, you need to be going after 01:10:30.920 --> 01:10:32.480 a good godly man. 01:10:32.480 --> 01:10:36.600 And this is, for me, this is a real basis of how you're going to live your life, unless 01:10:36.600 --> 01:10:40.540 you're going to be like Paul and just not get married. 01:10:40.540 --> 01:10:41.800 But that's a hard life. 01:10:42.200 --> 01:10:45.680 You know, that's a really hard life. 01:10:45.680 --> 01:10:48.160 And then what does the Bible talk about marriage? 01:10:48.160 --> 01:10:50.800 What does the book of Proverbs say about that? 01:10:50.800 --> 01:10:54.640 Because that's also an aspect of living our lives. 01:10:54.640 --> 01:10:56.220 Chapter 18 verse 22, it says, 01:10:56.220 --> 01:10:58.800 Whosoever findeth a wife findeth a good thing 01:10:58.800 --> 01:11:00.680 and obtain the favor of the Lord. 01:11:00.680 --> 01:11:02.240 What does the world say? 01:11:02.240 --> 01:11:03.840 Don't marry, don't get married. 01:11:04.200 --> 01:11:11.180 Don't do that. That's terrible. You know, I mean you get these guys that are like that will literally when you talk about someone getting married 01:11:11.180 --> 01:11:16.080 They're like, oh, that's terrible. It's like no, it's not, you know, what do we have now? 01:11:16.080 --> 01:11:20.900 We have like the men going their own way the MGTOW movement, which is so stupid 01:11:20.900 --> 01:11:26.820 I mean, I don't even want to get into that but look the Bible says when if you find a wife you find a good thing 01:11:26.820 --> 01:11:31.460 And and that's what it is, you know, it doesn't say if you find a whore you find a good thing 01:11:32.800 --> 01:11:37.360 It says a wife, okay, so don't be trying to find a wife in a bar. 01:11:37.360 --> 01:11:42.080 Don't be trying to find a wife in these horrible, seedy places. 01:11:42.080 --> 01:11:44.000 Find a good, godly woman. 01:11:46.400 --> 01:11:48.080 Proverbs 19 verse 14 says, 01:11:48.080 --> 01:11:52.640 House and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord. 01:11:57.200 --> 01:11:58.880 And ladies, if you want... 01:11:59.400 --> 01:12:02.400 to find a good husband, be a prudent wife. 01:12:02.400 --> 01:12:03.400 Okay? 01:12:03.400 --> 01:12:05.800 Train yourself, educate yourself, and men, 01:12:05.800 --> 01:12:08.800 if you're raising daughters, raise a prudent wife. 01:12:08.800 --> 01:12:09.800 Okay? 01:12:09.800 --> 01:12:11.500 Don't let them go off into the world. 01:12:11.500 --> 01:12:15.600 Look, you know, you guys know this already, 01:12:15.600 --> 01:12:17.800 you know, my kids don't have cell phones. 01:12:17.800 --> 01:12:20.100 They don't, they're not on the computer. 01:12:20.100 --> 01:12:21.800 We're not watching TV. 01:12:21.800 --> 01:12:23.800 I mean, it's... 01:12:24.900 --> 01:12:29.940 That was probably the absolute best decision I've ever made in my entire life, was just, 01:12:29.940 --> 01:12:36.260 I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let our kids do that. Because, look, these kids are 01:12:36.260 --> 01:12:42.820 addicted to it, you know, and it's terrible. You know, my teenage daughters love me. 01:12:43.200 --> 01:12:44.200 Okay? 01:12:44.200 --> 01:12:50.440 And, you know, I talk to guys at my work that have teenage daughters and they're on drugs, 01:12:50.440 --> 01:12:53.400 they're running away, they're pregnant, they hate them. 01:12:53.400 --> 01:12:55.880 I mean, that's what the world does. 01:12:55.880 --> 01:13:02.400 Sending your kids to public school and giving them unfettered access to the world and all 01:13:02.400 --> 01:13:04.000 this peer pressure. 01:13:04.000 --> 01:13:08.760 I mean, girls these days, all they care about is trying to look like whores and harlots. 01:13:09.200 --> 01:13:12.700 and listening to music sung by whores and harlots 01:13:12.700 --> 01:13:15.000 that have all been engineered by mostly Jews. 01:13:15.000 --> 01:13:17.000 I mean, let's be honest, you know? 01:13:17.000 --> 01:13:19.100 I mean, every single one of these girls 01:13:19.100 --> 01:13:20.940 that are twerking and all this stuff, 01:13:20.940 --> 01:13:23.240 they all came from Disney. 01:13:23.240 --> 01:13:25.500 And I mean, these are all curated. 01:13:25.500 --> 01:13:27.700 They figured this stuff out years ago. 01:13:27.700 --> 01:13:30.940 Hey, this is how we crash an entire society. 01:13:30.940 --> 01:13:33.440 And they do it from the inside out. 01:13:33.800 --> 01:13:38.800 And it's just, it's amazing what people fall for. 01:13:38.800 --> 01:13:42.800 You know, it's like, oh, oh yeah, Britney Spears, yeah, she was a Disney girl. 01:13:42.800 --> 01:13:45.800 And all these other singers, Disney girls. 01:13:45.800 --> 01:13:49.800 And then years later, you know, it comes out and they were all abused. 01:13:49.800 --> 01:13:52.700 And that's because it's a cesspool down there. 01:13:52.900 --> 01:13:58.820 Look, if most of California just fell into the ocean, it would be better for everybody. 01:13:58.820 --> 01:13:59.820 Amen. 01:13:59.820 --> 01:14:00.820 Okay? 01:14:00.820 --> 01:14:01.820 Right? 01:14:01.820 --> 01:14:09.140 Especially anything having to do with Hollywood, any of that stuff, it would be incredible. 01:14:09.140 --> 01:14:10.460 I would definitely celebrate. 01:14:10.900 --> 01:14:17.540 What do they have like that? What's the San Andreas fault that they have? They just did 01:14:17.540 --> 01:14:21.940 that whole fault line just all the way down and all that just fall into the ocean. There 01:14:21.940 --> 01:14:26.860 you go. What was that? What was that a plot to a movie? I'm sure it's been a plot to 01:14:26.860 --> 01:14:33.380 it. Was that like Superman or something like that? Oh gosh. Even even even Hollywood broadcasts 01:14:33.380 --> 01:14:38.500 their own destruction. That's how bad it is. 01:14:40.800 --> 01:14:44.000 Okay, just turn the north and I five there you go. Oh 01:14:44.920 --> 01:14:48.880 Yeah, yeah, you can you could take out most of Portland to and I think everyone would be happy 01:14:50.200 --> 01:14:51.640 but 01:14:51.640 --> 01:14:57.340 You just see this fault-wearing to snake around all like the normal areas and just hit all the big cities 01:14:58.020 --> 01:15:05.080 Okay. All right. All right. All right. I don't I don't really mean that YouTube, you know, I'm not saying that everyone should die or anything 01:15:06.000 --> 01:15:09.000 Yeah, I gotta- I gotta appease our overlords. 01:15:09.500 --> 01:15:10.000 Okay! 01:15:10.300 --> 01:15:10.800 Alright! 01:15:11.300 --> 01:15:12.000 Umm... 01:15:14.100 --> 01:15:15.300 Okay, uh... 01:15:15.800 --> 01:15:20.640 Yeah, Proverbs chapter 21 verse 9, it says, 01:15:20.640 --> 01:15:22.680 it is better to dwell in the corner of a housetop 01:15:22.680 --> 01:15:26.200 than with a brawling woman in a wide house. 01:15:26.200 --> 01:15:29.000 Do not be a brawling woman if you want to, 01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:30.360 if you want to find a good husband. 01:15:30.360 --> 01:15:31.480 And you know, what does the world say? 01:15:31.480 --> 01:15:34.160 Marriage is 50-50, what are you talking, no. 01:15:34.160 --> 01:15:37.200 Men rule the house, that's what it is, all right? 01:15:37.600 --> 01:15:46.740 Women, your husband says do this, you say yes sir, how high, whatever, that's your job. 01:15:46.740 --> 01:15:49.340 It's not to constantly argue. 01:15:49.340 --> 01:15:55.100 You can always do the excuse me, maybe they got something to contribute, but you know 01:15:55.100 --> 01:15:56.100 what? 01:15:56.100 --> 01:16:03.700 If your husband says this is what we're going to do, you just say yes sir and do it. 01:16:03.700 --> 01:16:03.800 you 01:16:04.100 --> 01:16:07.100 And you know, the world doesn't want you to... they don't want to hear that at all. 01:16:07.100 --> 01:16:13.100 So, Proverbs chapter 12 verse 4, it says, 01:16:13.100 --> 01:16:15.100 A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, 01:16:15.100 --> 01:16:20.100 but she that maketh ashamed is a rottenness to his bones. 01:16:20.100 --> 01:16:22.100 And, you know... 01:16:22.400 --> 01:16:24.840 That is absolutely true. 01:16:24.840 --> 01:16:30.640 Like if your wife is going around back talking you and bad mouthing you, if you're talking 01:16:30.640 --> 01:16:33.920 to your girlfriends about how terrible your husband is, guess what? 01:16:33.920 --> 01:16:36.480 You're corrupting your marriage. 01:16:36.480 --> 01:16:38.480 That's exactly what it is. 01:16:38.480 --> 01:16:44.020 And if you're a man in here and you're talking about the old ball and chain and everything, 01:16:44.020 --> 01:16:46.160 you're doing the same thing. 01:16:46.500 --> 01:16:51.200 You guys are in it to win it and that's the attitude you have to have. 01:16:51.200 --> 01:16:57.900 And you really need to, that's something I can't stand. 01:16:57.900 --> 01:17:03.100 I'll have guys at my work talk, I just stop talking to them. 01:17:03.100 --> 01:17:07.020 Once they start talking about either how bad their wife is or 01:17:07.020 --> 01:17:09.520 they're talking about how they're having an affair, I'm just like. 01:17:10.500 --> 01:17:13.620 I'm like, no, I don't want to talk about this. 01:17:13.620 --> 01:17:15.660 I don't want anything to do with that. 01:17:15.660 --> 01:17:16.820 I think it's wrong. 01:17:16.820 --> 01:17:18.100 I think it's bad. 01:17:18.100 --> 01:17:22.300 It's definitely unbiblical. 01:17:22.300 --> 01:17:26.580 And after a while, people just stop talking to you about it too. 01:17:26.580 --> 01:17:29.020 Same with using the Lord's name in vain. 01:17:29.020 --> 01:17:31.740 If someone's doing that a lot, I'll be like, hey, dude. 01:17:32.400 --> 01:17:37.160 Don't want to be around you if you're gonna do that and and most of the time they actually do so 01:17:37.160 --> 01:17:41.780 I haven't had anyone push back on that and and you know years ago 01:17:43.080 --> 01:17:45.080 You know, I I mean 01:17:45.840 --> 01:17:52.800 Swearing isn't something that's really like focused on in the Bible. But you know if if you're 01:17:53.700 --> 01:18:00.620 If you're just dropping f-bombs all over the place, it shows me the limits of your vocabulary and the limits of your intelligence. 01:18:01.100 --> 01:18:08.180 Okay, so if you can't have an articulate thing to say, you know, and you just have to fall back on 01:18:08.420 --> 01:18:12.060 every bad word in the book, then 01:18:12.620 --> 01:18:18.820 you're not very smart. I mean, and that broadcasts to everybody. Okay, it really does. 01:18:19.400 --> 01:18:24.400 And so early on I decided, you know, I'm gonna do that. 01:18:26.740 --> 01:18:28.940 I'm gonna clean up my language. 01:18:28.940 --> 01:18:31.680 And you know, people treated me more respectfully 01:18:31.680 --> 01:18:35.340 and they realized that I wasn't just some punk kid. 01:18:35.340 --> 01:18:37.920 And it really helped me in life. 01:18:40.200 --> 01:18:46.560 Proverbs chapter 31 is a great chapter on women and it's something that my wife especially 01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:48.640 is like, I mean she memorized it. 01:18:49.000 --> 01:18:54.100 You know and and kudos to her because it it that is what we should be doing 01:18:54.100 --> 01:18:57.560 We should be putting that before our eyes and putting that in our minds 01:18:58.120 --> 01:19:04.920 Proverbs 31 verse 10 it says who can find a virtuous woman her price is far above rubies and the heart of her husband does safely 01:19:05.120 --> 01:19:11.920 Trust in her so that he he shall have no need of spoil and that is the absolute truth 01:19:11.920 --> 01:19:16.960 You know if you're here as a husband, you know, you're if you're 01:19:17.000 --> 01:19:22.440 wife is a virtuous woman, you don't have to think about her stepping out on you or doing 01:19:22.440 --> 01:19:23.440 any of this stuff. 01:19:23.440 --> 01:19:27.040 I mean, like, this is one of the reasons why we have the rules in our house that we do. 01:19:27.040 --> 01:19:31.600 Like, we don't let, you know, men come into the house unless I'm there. 01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:35.320 And these are all old things that we used to do, right? 01:19:35.320 --> 01:19:39.040 I mean, like, you know, like, if a man shows up at the house... 01:19:39.300 --> 01:19:43.220 He's not coming in unless I'm there, period. 01:19:43.220 --> 01:19:57.300 Because we shouldn't even be having anything that could be even seen as evil in our homes. 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.540 Okay, all right. I'm almost done here. Oh boy. Oh man. Okay, so 01:20:05.460 --> 01:20:10.040 Raising children, you know, what was what does the world say? It says don't have kids get an abortion 01:20:10.080 --> 01:20:14.520 You know, what does the Bible say? It says the road it says train up a child the way should you should go? 01:20:14.640 --> 01:20:21.000 And when he's old and will not depart from you, you know the Bible I already went over verses about how great having children are 01:20:21.640 --> 01:20:26.720 But but this is how we have to raise our children, you know, what does the world say don't spank them? 01:20:26.760 --> 01:20:28.000 What does the Bible say? 01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:31.300 It says, he that sparreth his rod hateth his son, 01:20:31.300 --> 01:20:34.000 but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. 01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:36.160 We need to discipline our children. 01:20:36.160 --> 01:20:38.280 If you do not discipline your children, 01:20:38.280 --> 01:20:40.240 they will grow up to hate you, period. 01:20:41.300 --> 01:20:42.560 I don't even have to elaborate on that. 01:20:42.560 --> 01:20:43.940 They will hate you. 01:20:43.940 --> 01:20:47.680 I mean, when I talk to my parents, 01:20:47.680 --> 01:20:49.600 I think of all the stuff I got away with, 01:20:49.600 --> 01:20:51.600 and I'm like, I should have been spanked more. 01:20:51.800 --> 01:20:57.480 I really should have because then I wouldn't have a lot of bad habits that I have today, you know, 01:20:57.480 --> 01:21:03.400 and it's something that, you know, the Bible talks a lot about. The Bible talks a lot about... 01:21:03.800 --> 01:21:07.240 Raising children, you know, it says it says the rod and proof give wisdom 01:21:07.640 --> 01:21:13.800 But a child left him himself bring it his mother's shame. Look if you're a mom and you're just letting your kids run roughshod 01:21:14.080 --> 01:21:21.160 Okay, that's shameful. You need to spank your children. Do not wait for your husband to come home. You need to spank your children 01:21:21.360 --> 01:21:25.680 Okay, and that's something that needs to be just absolutely proclaimed from the pulpit 01:21:26.000 --> 01:21:27.800 Right, you should be spending it. 01:21:27.800 --> 01:21:30.560 And it shouldn't be a, well if you do that again, 01:21:30.560 --> 01:21:33.080 no, it's nope, you're getting one right now. 01:21:33.080 --> 01:21:33.920 All right? 01:21:33.920 --> 01:21:38.160 And we need to do that or your kids are gonna hate you. 01:21:38.200 --> 01:21:44.440 A few years ago, and it bears out in the Bible because there are several passages that are 01:21:44.440 --> 01:21:50.280 like this, but I remember hearing from this old guy, he's like, hey, if you don't spank 01:21:50.280 --> 01:21:52.880 your kid, he was telling this to a woman, he's like, if you don't spank your kid, you're 01:21:52.880 --> 01:21:56.360 going to be visiting them in jail. 01:21:56.360 --> 01:21:57.920 And that actually bore out. 01:21:58.500 --> 01:22:04.300 So it was, and that was that, I saw something I saw when I was young, and then yeah, he ended up going to jail. 01:22:04.300 --> 01:22:08.500 And it was like, I was just like, wow, that's, that was kind of crazy. 01:22:08.500 --> 01:22:14.000 But it's the truth, you know, if you don't discipline your kids, then they're not going to take any reproof from the world, 01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:17.500 and they're just going to go down a path that's worse and worse and worse. 01:22:19.300 --> 01:22:23.140 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother, for 01:22:23.140 --> 01:22:27.540 they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." 01:22:27.540 --> 01:22:30.380 You know, but what does the world say? 01:22:30.380 --> 01:22:32.460 It says, oh no, throw them in public school. 01:22:32.460 --> 01:22:33.900 Don't educate your own kids. 01:22:33.900 --> 01:22:36.060 Don't take them to church. 01:22:36.060 --> 01:22:37.980 Don't teach them God's Word. 01:22:37.980 --> 01:22:39.860 We'll educate them ourselves. 01:22:39.860 --> 01:22:43.340 Make them nice little consumers that are waiting in line for the next iPhone. 01:22:43.340 --> 01:22:45.380 You know, I mean, like that's what they do. 01:22:45.380 --> 01:22:46.580 That's all kids care about. 01:22:46.580 --> 01:22:47.300 They care about consumers. 01:22:47.300 --> 01:22:50.700 They need the hottest new thing, and that's all designed. 01:22:50.700 --> 01:22:51.700 It's all engineered. 01:22:51.700 --> 01:22:58.100 It's all the consumer lifestyle that we have. 01:22:58.100 --> 01:23:04.420 And we need to show a good example to our children, too. 01:23:04.420 --> 01:23:09.100 In Proverbs chapter 20 verse 7, it says, A just man walketh in his integrity, his children 01:23:09.100 --> 01:23:11.860 are blessed after him. 01:23:11.860 --> 01:23:11.900 you 01:23:12.300 --> 01:23:16.300 So we need to be walking in our integrity for our kids to be blessed. 01:23:16.300 --> 01:23:20.300 Okay, if they're looking at us and we're doing the wrong thing, guess what? 01:23:20.300 --> 01:23:22.300 Most of the time they're going to do the wrong thing too. 01:23:22.300 --> 01:23:30.300 It's very rare that you see a kid come out of a really poor household and actually do way better. 01:23:30.300 --> 01:23:31.300 And then death. 01:23:31.500 --> 01:23:34.640 You know, that's an aspect of life. 01:23:34.640 --> 01:23:38.080 It says right here in Proverbs chapter 12 verse 28, it says, 01:23:38.080 --> 01:23:43.620 In the way of righteousness is life, and the pathway thereof is no death. 01:23:43.620 --> 01:23:44.620 What's that talking about? 01:23:44.620 --> 01:23:45.620 Well, you know what? 01:23:45.620 --> 01:23:46.620 If you're saved, guess what? 01:23:46.620 --> 01:23:47.620 You're not going to die. 01:23:47.620 --> 01:23:50.340 If you're righteous, you're not going to die. 01:23:50.340 --> 01:23:51.340 That's salvation. 01:23:51.340 --> 01:23:54.100 That's right in the book of Proverbs, okay? 01:23:54.100 --> 01:23:56.100 In verse 11 verse 4 it says, 01:23:56.100 --> 01:23:58.100 Riches profit not in the day of wrath. 01:23:58.900 --> 01:24:01.500 But righteousness delivereth from death. 01:24:01.500 --> 01:24:07.940 Again, if you're righteous, if you are justified by Christ, you're not going to die. 01:24:07.940 --> 01:24:15.300 And it's even talking about that in the book of Proverbs. 01:24:15.300 --> 01:24:16.300 And what does the world say? 01:24:16.300 --> 01:24:17.980 The world says, oh, when you die, you're nothing. 01:24:18.300 --> 01:24:24.340 You're just off into space, you know, there is no God, there's nothing after it. 01:24:24.340 --> 01:24:31.220 And so all of these points are in a clear contrast to what God's Word actually says. 01:24:31.220 --> 01:24:37.780 But you know, obviously we know that even though King Solomon was the wisest man in 01:24:37.780 --> 01:24:40.580 the world, what was his end? 01:24:40.580 --> 01:24:43.380 His end was doing some pretty unwise stuff. 01:24:43.800 --> 01:24:48.800 You know, and I'm just going to read this to you in Nehemiah. 01:24:48.800 --> 01:24:56.500 In those days saw the Jews had married wives of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab, and their children 01:24:56.500 --> 01:25:01.480 spake half the speech of Ashdod and could not speak the Jews language. 01:25:01.480 --> 01:25:03.300 but according to the language of each people. 01:25:03.400 --> 01:25:11.160 And I contended with them and cursed them and smote certain of them and plucked off their hair and made them swear by God saying ye shall 01:25:11.400 --> 01:25:16.520 Not give your daughters unto their sons nor take their daughters unto the sons or yourselves 01:25:17.120 --> 01:25:24.960 Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things yet among many nations were there no kings like him 01:25:25.200 --> 01:25:31.320 Who was beloved of his God and God made him king over all Israel nevertheless even? 01:25:31.400 --> 01:25:35.880 Even him did outlandish women cause to sin. 01:25:35.880 --> 01:25:37.160 He was a great man of God. 01:25:37.160 --> 01:25:38.240 He was loved by God. 01:25:38.240 --> 01:25:40.360 He was beloved by God. 01:25:40.360 --> 01:25:41.360 But guess what? 01:25:41.360 --> 01:25:47.240 Even though he was the wisest man in the world, he didn't take his own wisdom. 01:25:47.240 --> 01:25:48.440 He didn't actually live it. 01:25:48.900 --> 01:25:53.460 And as Christians, we need to actually read and apply this to ourselves. 01:25:53.460 --> 01:25:58.660 And every time I read this about Solomon, I think about what 1 Corinthians says. 01:25:58.660 --> 01:26:04.900 It says, wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 01:26:05.300 --> 01:26:10.300 If Solomon, the wisest man in the world, who's literally writing the book of Proverbs 01:26:10.300 --> 01:26:13.800 about what not to do and what kind of women to have and everything, 01:26:13.800 --> 01:26:17.300 if he can fall to this, then we can all fall to it. 01:26:17.500 --> 01:26:24.020 And we need to take that as... that's the biggest lesson we need to take away from Solomon. 01:26:24.020 --> 01:26:28.760 Solomon didn't just write the book of Proverbs, he also wrote the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. 01:26:28.760 --> 01:26:30.860 And I'll finish it out with this. 01:26:30.860 --> 01:26:34.060 In Ecclesiastes chapter 12 verse 7 it says, 01:26:34.060 --> 01:26:39.180 And then shall the dust return to earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God 01:26:39.180 --> 01:26:40.180 who gave it. 01:26:40.180 --> 01:26:41.180 He's talking about death. 01:26:41.180 --> 01:26:44.460 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity. 01:26:44.460 --> 01:26:45.460 and moreover because the 01:26:45.500 --> 01:26:50.020 The preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge. 01:26:50.020 --> 01:26:54.320 So even though he did bad stuff, he still taught the people knowledge because he was 01:26:54.320 --> 01:26:55.320 wise. 01:26:55.320 --> 01:27:01.420 Yea, he gave good heed and sought out and said in order many proverbs, The preacher 01:27:01.420 --> 01:27:07.180 sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even the 01:27:07.180 --> 01:27:07.940 words of truth. 01:27:08.400 --> 01:27:13.920 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, 01:27:13.920 --> 01:27:16.960 which are given from one shepherd. 01:27:20.500 --> 01:27:25.460 And further by these, my son, be admonished of making many books. 01:27:25.460 --> 01:27:29.300 There is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. 01:27:29.300 --> 01:27:32.140 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter." 01:27:32.140 --> 01:27:34.860 So Solomon lived this life of lavishness. 01:27:34.860 --> 01:27:38.020 He had everything that he ever wanted, okay? 01:27:38.020 --> 01:27:41.400 And he's going to give you the conclusion of life, okay? 01:27:41.400 --> 01:27:43.680 This is his conclusion, right? 01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:45.500 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. 01:27:45.800 --> 01:27:51.440 Fear God, keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 01:27:51.440 --> 01:27:57.160 For God shall bring every work unto judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good 01:27:57.160 --> 01:27:58.680 or whether it be evil." 01:27:58.680 --> 01:28:03.560 In the end of life, there are only two things that matter, okay? 01:28:03.560 --> 01:28:07.240 And that's fearing God and keeping His commandments, right? 01:28:07.240 --> 01:28:10.160 And what's the number one thing that God wants you to do? 01:28:10.160 --> 01:28:10.880 He wants you to be saved. 01:28:11.600 --> 01:28:19.120 Okay? And so we need to be reading the book of Proverbs. I challenge you this month, 01:28:19.120 --> 01:28:22.880 this upcoming month, to read a chapter in Proverbs every day. 01:28:23.200 --> 01:28:26.400 Okay, because it'll change your life. 01:28:26.400 --> 01:28:27.400 It really will. 01:28:27.400 --> 01:28:32.920 And it's something that as Christians, if you ever neglect your Bible reading and then 01:28:32.920 --> 01:28:37.200 you're like, oh, I just want to pick up and read the Bible, whatever day it is, just open 01:28:37.200 --> 01:28:40.100 up to that proverb and I guarantee you'll get something out of it. 01:28:40.600 --> 01:28:41.600 Alright, let's pray. 01:28:41.600 --> 01:28:43.380 Lord, thank You so much for this day. 01:28:43.380 --> 01:28:46.080 Thank You so much for the people that came out in the service, Lord. 01:28:46.080 --> 01:28:49.000 Pray that You would just continue to bless our church, Lord, that You would bless the 01:28:49.000 --> 01:28:52.840 soul in him that we have to come, Lord, and that You would open the hearts of the people 01:28:52.840 --> 01:28:54.840 that we talk to, Lord, so we can get them saved. 01:28:54.840 --> 01:28:55.800 In Jesus' name, amen.