It looked like it looked that homemade.
That, by the way, does have like a lot of strength on it.
Not that.
Yeah, it's a lot of rock.
Yeah.
I wonder what if it's got a little spring of living water in it.
All right, everybody, welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
Glad to have you here this afternoon.
Let's go ahead and take out our hymnals.
We're gonna turn to song number 210.
Wonderful grace of Jesus
Again that's song number 210 wonderful grace of Jesus
Song number 210 the same nice and loud
Now shall my tongue describe
Where shall this place
Taking away my burden setting my spirit
Jesus
I am in the mountains sparkling like a built-in
By the precious
I
Say
James have been torn asunder
For the wonderful grace
Oh
Dear father we just thank you that we could be gathered together
Tonight to hear the preaching of your word
And I just pray you'd help us all to be edified by the sermon preached give pastor Shelley
boldness and fill him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches us your word and help us all to learn from the message tonight we
Love you father and please continue to bless our church or give us more labor so we can go out and reach more people
And save those that are lost in Jesus name we pray amen
Next song is going to be song number
419
sound the battle cry
Again that song number 419 sound the battle cry
Oh
Good afternoon, thank you so much coming to steadfast Baptist Church
If you didn't get a bulletin
You can slip your hand up real quick and an usher can come by get you a bulletin on the front
We have the Bible memory passage
Exodus 20 verse 20 and then also on the inside we have our service and so winning times as well as our church stats
I'm gonna get a count for the last few days
Soul winning was there anything to report from Thursday?
Anything on Thursday?
Okay, what about Friday was anything Friday?
Was there anything on Saturday was not part of the marathon by chance
one all right and
Then today, I don't think we had anything in the van. What do we have outside of that?
All right keep up the great work on sewing 11 for today praise the Lord on that also
We have our expecting ladies and prayer list. Please keep in mind and being pray prayer for them
Ardmore so winning marathon went really great. We had 53 soul winners and 42 salvations
And so it was a lot of fun and a lot of great soul winning
Thanks to all who participated on the back. We have another soul winning marathon July 3rd. It's gonna be nice and cold
I'm just kidding. It'll be nice and hot, but you know we're gonna go out there and preach the gospel because it's still hotter in
hell all right and
We have our fire-breathing Baptist Fellowship October 6th, so really looking forward to those
Let's go ahead and go to our third song for the evening
119 till the storm passes by song
119
In that song number 119 till the storm passes by
Oh
You
Leviticus chapter 25
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Mount Sinai saying
Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them when you come into the land
Which I give you then shall the land keep a Sabbath under the Lord
Six years thou shalt sow thy field in six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard and gather in the fruit thereof
but in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest under the land a Sabbath for the Lord thou shalt neither sow thy field nor
prune thy vineyard
That which growth of its own accord of thy harvest
Thou shalt not reap neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed for it is a year of rest under the land and
The Sabbath of the land shall be meet for you for thee and for thy servant and for thy maid and for thy hired
servant and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee and
for thy cattle and for the beasts that are in thy land shall all the increase thereof be meet and
Thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years under thee seven times seven years and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be under
thee forty and nine years
Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement
Shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land?
And he shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land under all the inhabitants thereof
It shall be a Jubilee under you and he shall return every man under his possession and ye shall return every man under his family a
Jubilee shall that fiftieth year be under you he shall not so neither reap that which growth of itself in it
Nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed for it is the Jubilee it shall be holy under you
He shall eat the increase thereof out of the field in the year of this Jubilee
Ye shall return every man under his possession and if thou sell alt under thy neighbor or biased alt of thy neighbor's hand
Ye shall not oppress one another
according to the number of years after the Jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor and
according under the number of years of the fruits
He shall sell unto thee
according to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of
It for
According to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee he shall not therefore oppress one another
But thou shalt fear thy God for I am the Lord your God
Wherefore ye shall do my statutes and keep my judgments and do them and ye shall dwell in the land and safety and the land
Shall yield her fruit and ye shall eat your fill and dwell therein in safety
And if he shall say what shall we eat the seventh year behold we shall not sow nor gather in our increase
Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year and it shall bring forth fruit for three years
And he shall sow the eighth year and eat yet of old fruit until the ninth year until her fruits come in
Ye shall eat of the old store
The
Land shall not be sold forever
For the land is mine for ye are strangers and sojourners with me
and in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a
redemption for the land if thy brother be waxen poor and hath sold away some of his possession and
If any of his kin come to redeem it
then shall he redeem that which his brother sold and if the man have done have none to redeem it and
Himself be able to redeem it then let him count the years of the sale thereof and restore the over plus
Under the man to whom he sold it that he may return under his possession
But if he be not able to restore it to him
then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year of Jubilee and
In the Jubilee it shall go out and he shall return under his possession
And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled city
Then he may redeem it within a whole year after it is sold within a full year
May he redeem it and if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year
Then the house that is in the walled city shall be established forever to him that bought it throughout his generations
It shall not go out in the Jubilee
But the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country
They may be redeemed and they shall go out in the Jubilee
Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites and the houses of the cities of their possession may the Levites redeem at any time
And if a man purchase of the Levites
Then the house that was sold and the city of his possessions shall go out in the year of Jubilee
For the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel
But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold for it is their perpetual possession
And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee then thou shalt receive relieve him
Yea, though he be a stranger or a sojourner
That he may live with thee
Take thou no usury of him or increase but fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee
Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury nor lend him thy vittles for increase
I am the Lord your God which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to
Be your God and if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor and be sold under thee
Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bondservant
but as an hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with thee and shall serve thee under the year of Jubilee and
Then shall he depart from thee
Both he and his children with him and shall return under his own family and under the possession of his father's shall he return
For they are my servants which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as bondmen
Thou shalt not rule over them with rigor but shall fear thy God
Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you of them
shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids moreover of the children of the strangers that do so drawn among you of
them shall ye buy and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land and they shall be your possession and
You shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for possession
They shall be your bondmen forever
but over your brethren the children of Israel you shall not rule one over another with rigor and
If his sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor and sell himself under the stranger
or sojourner by thee or
to the stock of the strangers family
After that, he is sold he may be redeemed again
one of his brethren may redeem him either his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him or any that is nigh of
kin unto him of his family may redeem him or if he be able he may redeem himself and
He shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him under the year of Jubilee and the price
of his cell
shall be according under the number of years according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him if
There be yet many years behind according unto them
he shall give again the price of his redemption out of the money that he was bought for and
If there remain but few years under the year of Jubilee
then he shall count with him and according unto his years shall he give him again the price of his redemption and
as a yearly hired servant shall he be with him and the other shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight and
if he be
Not redeemed in these years then he shall go out in the year of Jubilee both he and his children with him
For unto me the children of Israel are servants
They are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Let's pray
You heavenly Father Lord. Thank you for steadfast Baptist Church and all the souls that were one today
Please Lord bless pastor Shelly with your spirit and allow him to preach boldly your word and please Lord allow us to be edified
I pray you'd minimize distractions and in Jesus name. Amen
Amen
Look up back at verse number 8 again
Leviticus chapter 25 verse number 8 the Bible reads now shall number 7 Sabbaths of years unto thee
7 times 7 years and the space of the 7 Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee 40 and 9 years
Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month in the day of atonement
Shall you make the trumpet sound throughout all your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty
throughout all land unto all the
inhabitants thereof it shall be a Jubilee unto you and you shall return every man unto his possession and you shall return every man
unto his family and
Leviticus chapter 25 is explaining a lot of different things here
It's a it's really a long chapter
But it's really talking a lot about Jubilee specifically and in this special Sabbath that is supposed to occur every 50 years
where essentially the children of Israel as far as economically speaking kind of hit a big reset button where everything kind of goes back to
a normalcy level where everybody kind of returns back to their original inheritance and
It kind of allows people to have a chance to start over if they were really poor if they lost their land
They had sold it or they'd been in bad position
Financially or maybe that just happens to be they inherited that situation where their family had sold all their goods sold other possession
They just started out with nothing
But essentially once they get to that 50th year the economy kind of restarts everybody
Gets their portion of land back and they basically get to start over again, and this is really an interesting concept
There's not really anywhere in the Bible that I could point to and say here's where the children of Israel
Executed the year of Jubilee. So I don't know if they ever did or if they did not
Execute the year of Jubilee, but there's definitely lots of times where they're definitely not
I mean, there's lots of examples where they're not doing this
I don't know if early or at some point. Maybe they did I would speculate they probably never did
Assess because the Bible teaches that you know
they went into Babylon because they weren't doing just the regular Sabbath and
He's like because you didn't rest the land
I'm basically gonna make you
Have to you know go into captivity for 70 years to let the land rest for 70 years
And so that would imply to me that they didn't ever keep the Jubilee
But again, that's just you know
I can't point to a verse that says they never kept the Jubilee but just based on
Reading the text and reading that they never really kept it
And this is an important thing to understand how God's economy though could actually last for forever
and the thing is that we live in a world today where
You know
we don't have any kind of economy that matches what the Bible teaches and a lot of people take some of the
Economies that exist today and they'll try to say well this is actually a biblical economy
but unfortunately all man-made economies fall short of what the Bible clearly teaches and
The problem with most economic systems is this they end up forming monopolies
Okay
and I'm doing I've been doing a financial series and there's still a lot that I want to teach that the Bible actually kind of
Talks about and so I can't remember which number this is like five or six or something part five. All right, we're on part five
monopolies, okay, and
Jubilee is actually supposed to help fix this problem of monopolies forming
Because Jubilee is gonna allow everything to just reset on a on a continual basis now
what is a monopoly a monopoly according to the dictionary is
exclusive ownership through legal privilege command of supply or
concentrated or concerted action
exclusive possession or control a commodity controlled by one party or
Or just essentially just it breaks down to this one person owns something and nobody else has access that could be land
Goods, it doesn't matter what the resource or the service is necessarily
But it's basically one person has all the power control or authority over a particular resource asset or anything like that
Now in America, they would say that our economy is more or less defined as capitalism
Now that's kind of true we definitely have had a lot of capitalism
You know more like traditional capitalism in their past. We're definitely got a little bit of social and mixed in there
Don't let them fool you but to understand these these economic systems. What is what is economics?
You know, it's a it's a class you have to take in high school
You don't really care about it's taught by a football coach and he doesn't really teach anything. Sorry. That's my personal experience
but but
economics is you know, essentially just
Understanding how things are bought and sold in the area that you live and we could we could look at this as a personal economics
You know how you interact in the world that you live in how you manage your money your resources and everything
You could have economics as far as a church. You could have economics as far as your city
Economics as far as your state economics as far as your country and economics globally
So there's a lot of different ways that you could look at economics
But economics is basically just you know understanding how things operate. Okay, so
You could look at a city and you could say how is the economy? How's the economy in this city?
How's the economy in Dallas Fort Worth or something? Let's say what are they gonna be the things that they bring up?
Okay, how what is the job market like, you know, how how easy is it to get the job?
How much money are people paying for these type of jobs? They'd ask what's the real estate like, you know?
How easy it to buy a house? How hard is it to sell a house?
They would ask questions about how easy how expensive is it to buy goods?
You know get gas or to buy food and clothing and these type of things
These are basically just how you interact in the world and it affects every single person
don't you all care about how much money it costs to buy a house and to buy your food and
How much gas costs and all these all these things you're gonna be experiencing no matter where you live
No matter what time you live an economy is just essentially just stating what it's like in the area you live in
so if you live in an area where there's nobody hiring and
All nobody can sell a house. You'd say it's probably a bad economy, right? It's basically
There's no one moving there. There's no one coming in and going there's there's not really any opportunity to gain
A lot of money or anything like that a good economy is you have what a lot of people hiring
Housing's maybe kind of cheap prices of goods are kind of cheap. You'd say that's kind of a good economy
Sometimes people evaluate economy as being good as everything's expensive because they're just they have a high
Domestic product essentially that they're exporting now again
I just want to make it real simple because obviously economics can get really confusing or there's a lot of big topics that we could
that we could cover but
Essentially we all deal with this whether we understand the the terminology per se right
Economy is just how you manage your resources and how other people manage their resources now from a capitalism people say there's capitalism
socialism
Communism there's other systems like feudalism and you know a dictatorship
There's other things that could exist but most for the most part in the world today
we live in most countries either a capitalist society or they're a socialist economy and we are kind of a mix but
capitalism
Essentially, I just wanted to make it like a really simple a simplified definition for you. Just give you an example
Okay, here's what capitalism is. I own a car. I
Sell you a car
Okay, all the money I make on the sell of that car is my money
It's profit and then a portion of that profit. I have to pay in taxes to the government
Okay. Now, let me explain to you socialism. Okay. Socialism is the government owns the car. I
Sell the car the government gets all the money from the sell of the car
That's socialism. Okay, so you don't own anything and so instead of paying a portion of the profit in taxes
They just own everything. Okay, that's basically socialism
Socialism is the idea of everybody owning everything but the reality is everybody owns nothing
There's one person party or individual or group that basically decides how all of the resources are distributed
Which is typically the government so the government would say this is what you get
This is what you get and I don't want to go on a long train of socialism because I'll there's a different sermon for that
Okay, but basically capitalism has poor people in
socialism
Everyone's poor. Okay. That's how you really define it people get mad at capitalism and say oh look at all these poor people in capitalism
Okay
Well socialism everyone's poor except for the government except for the one person that's in control of everything and owns everything
That's a really simplistic idea
But what happens when you live in a capitalistic society? Okay. Well in capitalism
Essentially everybody owns their own stuff. It's all private ownership
So then it gives you all of the opportunity to make as much money as you want or to be as poor as you want
I mean you can be as rich as you want you can be as poor as you want and it's gonna be based on the
Decisions that you make it's gonna be based on the goods that you sell your labor how you interact with the market around you
But what happens is in a truly capitalistic society without regulation
Somebody could end up cornering all of one particular resource, right? Couldn't they they could own all of the gas?
They could own all of the apples they could own all of the bread
They could own all of the electricity or whatever good that is
And then they basically just get to pick whatever price they want for that good, don't they they could just say hey apples are now
$10,000 an apple and it's like well that's expensive that escalated quickly
But that's because there's a monopoly only one person has all the apples
Whereas it in a capitalist society where multiple people have apples
they're gonna all be competing against each other and it'll drive down the price to where it's about the most affordable price that you could
Potentially have and what supposed to keep capitalism in check is regulation from the government, but we all know where that goes
So essentially what?
Capitalism has competition
but whenever you have a monopoly competition ceases to exist and
Prices rise and not only prices rise but the the quality
Declines because essentially if I own all of one particular good
There's no real incentive for me to improve the quality
What's actually the biggest incentives for me is to make it as cheaply as possible to maximize profit
Okay, and so that's why a lot of times people that have a monopoly they're they're good ends up getting worse and worse over time
Because there's no real incentive to try and improve the quality because you're not competing against anybody else
And so there's definitely problems with capitalism
I'm not gonna get up here and say capitalism is perfect because it's not and it's not necessarily fully biblical
because without a Jubilee the problem with capitalism is
Monopolies are gonna form and not only will monopolies form
Essentially, it'll all go to where there's just one monopoly of one person owning every single item. That's the end of capitalism
Okay. Now look at chapter 25. Look at verse number 13
I kind of gave you a little bit of a foundation for the sermon. Look at verse number 13. The Bible says this in
The year of this Jubilee Isha returned every man
unto his possession so in the idea of
The Word of God
They do have some idea of capitalism in the sense that hey if you want to sell goods you can sell goods
Everybody has private ownership of goods. It's not like the government owns all of the goods
It's actually held by private individuals and then they have the right to do whatever they want with their
Possessions they can buy it sell it give it to the Lord not give it to the Lord
I mean they can do whatever they want. They can tithe not tithe they can sell it. They could make more they could steal
I mean they can do whatever they want
but essentially at the the year of Jubilee everything goes back to the beginning everything goes back to a
Basically a fundamental
Starting point where everybody kind of has the same amount of inheritance
Now there are a few things that are exceptions to this and I'm not really focused on the exceptions because that's not
Necessary for you to understand what I'm preaching
But cities where they had houses built in that that never went out in the Jubilee
Apparently if you read this chapter and you read other chapters if you had a house in the city
And you did not redeem it within a year, then it was a permanent establishment
So that's basically like houses today if you buy a house today in the city
It's yours forever until you basically sell it or you know you give it to your children
But you could give it to your children
And they could have it forever and forever and ever so those possessions would theoretically be perpetual
There's nothing stopping that possession from changing hands. It just goes from generation to generation generation
but in
Land that was outside the city according to the Bible if I am and go and buy Dylan's house out in the countryside
I buy his land and the year Jubilee. It's gonna return back to either him or his descendants
He would get that back at the end of 50 years
So a monopoly would not be a perpetual thing eventually
Things would reset things would go back and everybody would be redistributed and have their own possession
Now in America, we don't have this concept. We don't have a concept of a Jubilee
So what does this mean this means that certain generations certain people in America?
Just constantly are inheriting more and more wealth
And they're getting wealthier and wealthier and richer and richer and there's nothing to reset that necessarily except for their own mistakes
or their own
Problems their own issues and the opposites true as well that people that start out with nothing
There's never gonna be this reset button where they all of a sudden get a whole bunch of land or get a whole bunch of
Possessions that they didn't have before they basically just continue to have nothing until they change their own situation
They have to make something of themselves from nothing
Now I'm gonna pull out the board for a moment because there's a game
That's pretty much got the name of my sermon in it and it really helps us understand these concepts and these things it's called
Monopoly, all right now who's played Monopoly?
Wow, I didn't know okay great, so we got a lot of mini Jews in here and I'm
Now the game of Monopoly helps you understand all these concepts and really
It'll make sense, this is basically America you could just say this is American economy
Okay, we are basically all in the game of Monopoly whether you like it or not. Okay, so your real life lot is Monopoly
So this is gonna help you understand if you play Monopoly and you understand the game works
Then you're gonna understand a lot of things quickly
But what would be a monopoly will be an example of monopolies in America or in Texas? Well, there used to be a monopoly for
electric
Okay for the utility of electric it used to be a monopoly where
Essentially have one power point. I'm sorry
What one power plant one company that controls all of the electricity and so if I want electricity I buy from them
Now what's the problem with that theoretically they can jack the rates to whatever they want and then I'm just stuck paying the bill no
Matter what so they have this idea of deregulating
The electric company and basically allowing multiple companies to all
Theoretically sell electricity and since they're competing against one another the theory is that that'll drive the price down
Okay
Now that doesn't really happen with electricity and it's only a theory
Obviously all these people they price set so they just basically all agree upon each other what they're gonna do
But in Texas electricity is the weirdest thing ever
Because you basically have to try and find a company that's gonna do your electric and they have all these gimmicks and all these weird
Contracts, I remember coming back to Texas when I was moving here and trying to figure out the electric thing and it's confusing
I don't care how smart you are. It's really confusing and it's confusing on purpose because they're ripping people off. Okay, and
Basically, you have to take multiple companies and you have to read all the fine print of all their contracts to figure out exactly how
They're gonna price every single
one of your watts of electric that you use electricity and you have to just
Try to figure out what would be the cheapest model now?
I took like five or six different contracts and you have to do like they have a
startup fee and then they have a
Rate and they have a rate per how many kilowatts and then they have a rate like you get free nights or free
Weekends or you have like this rate for this many kilowatts or you it's like a matrix of crazy things
I took five of these and then I plugged in like a hypothetical
Percentage of usage, I don't know how much I'm gonna use for the year
I don't know if I'm gonna use a thousand watts and a certain month or fifteen hundred or two thousand or whatever
but I basically tried to make a really educated guess and
based on all of those
matrices
there was a difference of like
$1,500 from one company to another and
If you don't lock in a contract with one of these electricity companies
I mean you're basically begging for them to just rip you off for thousands and thousands of dollars from one another
So I'm not saying that you know not having a singular public utilities necessarily bad, it's it's really a bad
It's just really a difficult situation to manage. Okay, either way
But it's supposedly the government and anything that's a public utility
They're supposed to regulate it and they're supposed to try and keep the price down and keep it reasonable
But at the end of the day, even what we're trying to do in Texas
It's really confusing and it's really frustrating but because that monopoly existed, Texas supposedly
deregulated
Electricity and allowed for multiple companies to sell it
But then it just became even more confusing game and I don't know that it's necessarily cheaper that way or not
But that's why when there was that freeze some people got like a seventeen thousand dollar
Electricity bill for the month of February or something like that
It was like insane you say why because they had no contract and then they were just charging them these like crazy rates
And so, you know, you got to pay attention to that one. All right
But regulation is supposed to break up monopolies to create fair markets again now, what would be other monopolies that actually still exist today
Facebook
Google okay, you know Facebook also owns what whatsapp and messenger and
Facebook is the number one social
Platform in the world. So they have I think they have like
2.1 billion users or something crazy like that like almost a quarter of the entire world is on Facebook supposedly. I
Don't know what percent is it trolls?
I mean, that's like there's a lot for that too, but whatsapp and messenger now Google it has the second largest social platform
But it's not really Google. It's YouTube. They bought YouTube and so YouTube is the second largest
I think it's like 1.6 or 1.7 billion users on YouTube
And then you also have companies like Apple and Twitter and stuff. But here's the thing. They are really monopolies because
If you want to get information out there if you want to advertise, let's say
Pretty much you have two options Google ads or Facebook ads and they control the majority of the market. They control what's advertised
they control what people are gonna see and
Google's become so synonymous with searching that people don't even say I'm gonna search something on the internet where they say I'm gonna Google it
Because it's just become so commonplace
That's what you think of and so they've really become such a monopoly in the world today where it's not really a fair market anymore
There's a lot of stuff that they should really be broken up
They should be regulated but the problem is in America if I go and pay off the politician
He's not gonna regulate me. And so that's what you see with Facebook you YouTube Google Apple Twitter
but Microsoft and
Amazon and Apple are also monopolies because
Microsoft sells
Tangible physical hardware. Okay, they sell machines. They sell computers
Here's the problem if I buy that machine
I also have to buy their operating system
Their operating system is typically attached to Microsoft now Microsoft lost a couple lawsuits in the past over being a monopoly
where they had certain
regulations on their software because if I create an app or I create some kind of software and
Then Microsoft tweaks their operating system. They could basically destroy my entire business and
So they have to deregulate themselves a little bit
They had to kind of you know, a couple decouple some of their operating systems with their physical platforms because it's essentially monopoly
but they're just allowing them to be monopolies today if you have a phone it's either Android or Apple and
If you want to build an app you have to follow the rules of either one of those now
They're technically what you call a duopoly because it's not a monopoly. Yeah, there's technically two options here
But it's basically a duopoly. It's about the same
Okay
And then they basically price fix amongst one another they have see secret meetings and if you want to if they want to deplatform
You they can
But what essentially is happening with these companies is they buy everything? I?
Mean Google is huge and then there's a big company coming up that could possibly enter into the market YouTube
so what does Google do just buys it and
Then there's you know Facebook. They want to be the number one social media platform, and they're doing great
but then a new app comes up called Instagram, and then what do they do buy it and
Then they have what's that and they buy it and they're so big they're so massive
That basically they just buy them or they threaten to they threaten to destroy their app
They basically talk to them
And they say look you're either gonna sell your company to us right now
Or we will make it to where you cannot even exist as a company
And you say how could how could one of these people do that well?
They just say hey
we're gonna talk to Apple and tell them to take you off of their platform unless you let us buy you and
They will literally destroy the or they'll say hey
We'll just take your code
And we'll just reproduce your app
And we'll we'll just go ahead and make it where you can't even be searched you can't even find us
And we'll just take your entire business away, or you can sell it to us your option, buddy
And so they become so powerful they have so much wealth that they've acquired that they're just buying everything and all things up
you know that
Microsoft owned by Bill Gates he owns two hundred and sixty nine thousand acres of farmland
Why because they're literally buying everything
They're buying everything up. This is what Gates farmland
This is what he bought he bought all of the farmland that produces all the potatoes for the fries for McDonald's
So if you want if you're gonna eat McDonald's fries Bill Gates is your guy
He owns all the farmland that produces all the carrots and the onions too
That's what you call a monopoly, okay, but let's think about our game for a moment
I've said a lot, but let's think about our game
How does the game work you put all your pieces on the go and then you roll the dice don't you and you go around?
The board and what's the goal at the beginning of the game if you've played monopoly
And you're any good the goal is to buy as much property as possible
Okay, you're trying to acquire as much property as possible and in fact if you look in the directions
This is the the objective of the game monopoly
The objective of monopoly is to send every other player into bankruptcy
Or become the wealthiest player through buying renting and selling property
So what's the goal of monopoly to own everything?
Now you say what's the goal of America?
To
Own everything and guess what?
We're playing that game
The thing is is that there's a lot more players in the game when you play Monopoly you have like what ten pieces at most
Or something like that eight ten pieces or something like you be the shoe or the dog or the airplane or whatever
Thing what is what what the version of it or addition you're playing, but here's the thing we have lots of different people playing this
game
But as time goes on America
You're gonna have less and less people playing the game as you play Monopoly
What happens people end up starting buying and they get enough of these colors in a row that they can start putting what houses?
hotels on there
increasing the price of the rent can't they they trade and
Who's playing Monopoly and someone's like dirty trading against you? It's like you play with four players
You don't have a monopoly, but these other two guys they trade they have Monopoly, and they won't trade with you. It's called
Facebook and Google
They have monopolies, and you're all Instagram over here like man
I got this going and they're like sell to us, or we're gonna crush you and you're just like
alright, and then they just sell your YouTube and they say sell to us or a crush you I'll sell and
Again it that's how the world works
And there's not always gonna be fair trades and in fact you could trade with someone and then they betray you later couldn't they?
They could stab you in the back and look none of these people are loyal to each other. It's all a rat race
They all just want to get to the top
They just all want to win the game of Monopoly and the thing is is it's not gonna be in one generation
Obviously, but as time goes on what's gonna happen in America more and more people are gonna be eliminated
Now when you play Monopoly and you get eliminated you just go and do something else you just go and have fun
but when you get eliminated in the real life game of Monopoly you know what you become a slave a
Slave now when you think about the game of Monopoly
There's a few things that happen
You pump more money into the game. Don't you because every time you go around go you get 200 bucks
This is like America where they print money. Okay, but here's the problem with
Injecting $200 into this game the price of goods goes up way more than the amount of money that you're injecting into the system
So ultimately the price of goods ends up going much more than the amount of money that was in the game
Making the amount of money you have
Have less value. This is called inflation
okay inflation is the
concept of how the prices of goods increase and
because the prices of goods increase that means the amount of money you have is worth less than it used to be and
We could we could observe this very clearly
Through history. I mean my dad would tell me how when he was in college
They he would go and buy a burger for like a nickel
a
burger for a nickel
Today I mean what like the cheapest burger
I mean, I see McDonald's but I'm saying like a quality burgers like at least five six seven eight dollars
Sometimes it's even more than that. I mean talking about a nickel houses, you know in the 50s and 60s or some, you know
like ten thousand dollars
Cars are like 1500 bucks
You know, everything is obviously getting way more expensive way higher in price
and the amount of money that people have
Becomes worth less every single second and every time they print more money and they inject more money. It becomes less valuable now
How does that work in the mini-game monopoly? Well the first time around the board you let's say you land on boardwalk
Okay, but there's no monopoly you pay like 50 bucks
But you land on boardwalk late in the game when there's a hotel on it. I mean we're talking to you you're done
I mean, it's just like thousands. It's the same place though, and
That's the reality the price of goods keeps going up and when you have a monopoly you can put the price at whatever you want
Why because they have no other option
Imagine you go into a town and they have one hotel and you don't have anywhere to stay the night
You're just paying whatever they say
That's basically how it works in the game when up that's how it works in reality
That's how it works in the world. We live in today if you want to live somewhere
Okay, aren't you subject to whatever that price of the goods are what if someone owns all of the real estate in your area?
They can set that price to whatever they want and there's a there's a couple companies like BlackRock and other places now
That are literally buying as much real estate as they possibly can they're just buying every kind of house in America
They're just buying all kinds of real estate
They're paying way over asking and they're just trying to get as much property as possibly say why would someone do that?
Because they're playing this game and
You're not
And I'm gonna say I'm just saying most people are not playing this game because they don't realize they're in the game
Whether you realize you're in the game or not doesn't matter
you're basically they called you for you and you weren't there and so they just rolled the dice for you and
They're just they're just taking the money that they set aside for you and they're just giving it to themselves
They're like, yeah, you definitely wanted to you know, give me this didn't you you really wanted to stay here, didn't you?
So
I'm just trying to explain a few things to you
Another thing is this once someone gets all the property though. They basically now you your economy changes
your economy changes from being a capitalistic society to being a complete socialist society and
Really? What's the difference between socialism and communism? I don't know you explain it to me here
Here's the difference between socialism and communism
socialism they talk about how
We're doing this for a great social cause communism they're just like yeah, you're screwed
It's basically they're just not admitting it when it's socialism
Okay, but it's essentially the same thing now before you get to that
I mean you have kind of feudalism and you have some other economic things that are happening
But how do you protect against this? Well in America, they protect against it with regulation, but there's a problem
Government officials are bought off constantly and they're not regulating these industries properly
So they're allowing Facebook's and Google's and all these companies to get away with buying all these different
I mean they had Mark Zuckerberg stand before Congress and testify on buying
Instagram and they had lots of people saying this is an obvious monopoly, but he somehow just gets away with it
They just like oh, okay. No problem. I'm sure no money changed hands
I'm sure you know, there wasn't any backroom talks on any of those things, you know
We go if you would to verse number 14
Let's see what the Bible has to say about these things
It says and if thou sell autumn to thy neighbor or bias out of thy neighbor's hand
Ye shall not oppress one another
according to the number of years after the Jubilee thou shalt buy it of thy neighbor and according under the years of
Number of years of the fruits he shall sell unto thee
according to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof and
According to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it
But according to the number of the years of the fruits that they sell unto thee
He shall not therefore oppress one another but thou shalt fear thy God for I am the Lord your God
So the Bible actually teaches that whenever you were pricing land, you're pricing these goods
You're supposed to put in consideration the year of Jubilee and then based on how far away you are from the year
Jubilee is the price of the good
So essentially if I have a piece of land that I'm gonna sell you but next year's Jubilee
I don't really have the right to charge you a huge price on that because I'm gonna get it back in one year
But let's say the Jubilee is not for 40 years then yeah
I have every right to charge you a pretty high price because you're gonna have this thing for 40 years
So you're just saying the price is dependent upon the amount of use or utility
Someone would get out of that product or good, but he makes it clear not supposed to oppress one another
Okay, you're not supposed to take advantage of somebody meaning if somebody is you know caught between a rock and a hard place
They really need a piece of land
But Jubilee's next year you can't charge this guy full price
That wouldn't be right because he's gonna lose it in one year
So he's basically saying you need to make sure that you're trading you're buying your selling is very equitable
You're considering how much they're gonna actually get out of these goods
Look at chapter 27 and look at verse 16 look at chapter 27 in verse 16 gives you in more detail
The Bible says and if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession
Then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof an omer of barley seed shall be valued at 50 shekels of silver
If he sanctify his field from the year of Jubilee according to thy estimation it shall stand
But if he sanctify his field after the Jubilee then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain
even unto the year of the Jubilee and it shall be abated from thy estimation and
If he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it then he shall add the fifth part of the money
of thy estimation unto it and it shall be assured to him and he will not redeem the field or if you have sold the
Field to another man it shall not be redeemed anymore
So basically it's saying again if I sell some kind of a good or I'm gonna buy back a good
It's gonna be based on the year of Jubilee. That's a factor. Another thing is this if I sell a piece of land to somebody I
Have every right to buy it back whenever I want
But if I'm going to redeem it
I have to pay a 20% or add a fifth to whatever that price would be
But it gives you the ability to just buy that back whenever you want
You have the ability to take that back that does not exist in America
You know if Bill Gates buys all your farmland, you can't come back and say like oh that was a bad idea
Because now the potatoes quality is going way down
I mean if you're the only supplier to McDonald's, what incentive does Bill Gates have to make a quality product?
Because isn't McDonald's gonna buy his potatoes period
If you own all the farmland and you make all the potatoes they say I want potatoes. Where do I go Bill Gates?
That's it. He has no incentive to make a quality product. What is his incentive to make it as cheap as possible?
and
So that's what he's gonna end up doing
But if you say wow this sucks, I don't like eating these potatoes
I'm gonna go back and buy my farm back and start making quality potatoes
According to the Bible you could you could go back and you can say you know what you suck
You're not a good farmer. You're ripping us off. I'm buying by back my land and I'm gonna start making quality potatoes
But in America, you don't have that because you're playing Monopoly
You had a lot of people that get all excited about America's system, and it's like but it's not biblical
It's not even close to biblical and there's a lot of problems with American capitalism, and this is the problem with every system sin
Because even theoretically they say all socialism could work. Yeah, if no one was sinful I
mean there's nothing wrong with everybody getting an equal share if everybody's working the same amount of effort and
The person making all the decisions is a fair and equitable person
I mean yeah, of course theoretically socialism could work if
Everybody would have no sin if everybody was righteous, but guess what no one's righteous
And so when it comes to economic systems when we know that people are sinful wicked and greedy
Socialism is way worse than capitalism. Okay in that regard so that but again. What's better than capitalism biblical economics
What the Bible did the year of Jubilee?
Jubilee in the estimation here's another thing that's interesting the Bible does not have inflation
The Bible does not introduce the idea of well, we're gonna start printing more shekels or printing more
You know Geras or whatever. It's basically the same price at forever
So you don't have to worry about well
I bought my land for $100 or I sold my land for $100 two years ago, and now it's worth $300
It's still the same price
Everything stays the same. This is good. Why would people create the idea of inflation?
Because they want to take more money from you
Because they want to decrease your money and increase their money increase their goods
And basically they just speed up the game of Monopoly. Okay now
Go back and look at verse 17 again of chapter 25. I want to read this verse again
This is a really important verse in understanding some of these concepts the Bible says in verse number 17
He shall not therefore oppress one another but thou shalt fear thy God for I am the Lord your God now
Here's a problem with capitalism. Here's a problem with monopolies is it's oppressive. It's very very oppressive
Go to go to Proverbs 22 for a moment. Go to Proverbs 22
Keep your finger in a little bit as 25 if you can because we're gonna keep coming back to that
But the Bible says that oppression is a very wicked sin. It's very evil sin. What is oppression?
Addiction a definition is to crush or burden by abuse of power or authority to crush or burden
Oppression is when you have all of the power all of the authority over someone in some way
And then you're abusing that authority you're abusing that power. What would be an example of this?
I don't know a husband that's really a jerk to his wife
that could be oppressive a parent that's a jerk to their children a
Government that's a jerk to its citizens. It doesn't matter who's in a charge. It just matter
Hey the person that's they have all the power all the authority
But then guess what they use that and abuse and crush and burden those that are underneath them
Okay, even a pastor could be very oppressive, you know putting burdens on the people taking advantage of the people
Abusing the people that would be a picture of oppression and a capitalistic society when you're a monopoly you have all the power
Because you have all the power what can you do?
You can say this this Facebook post does not meet Facebook regulation standards
It's you've been censored. Hey, we're gonna demonetize your platform. Hey, we're gonna eliminate your account
Hey, we're gonna for what for telling the truth
Am I there for your enemy because I tell you the truth the answer is yes
Why because they held all of the power now
I think if every social media company was about the same and had about the same
influence and about the same amount of money and about the same amount of users if one platform started abusing and crushing its
Users, they would all flee to the other platforms and that company would destroy itself. But when you're a monopoly I
Mean if you're not gonna be on Facebook, where are you gonna go?
gab
But the problem with get what's the problem with gab?
Well, Apple won't let it be on their phones
Microsoft won't let it be on his phones. Google won't show it in the search results a lot of times
No one will get on there and talk positive about it. So like there's almost nobody on it now
Hey, I'm all for you know alternative platforms
But the end of the day it's unrealistic to compete with someone like Facebook because of all the other
partners in the game all the other people that have the the dirty trading deals and all the secret agreements that they have with one another
And they basically are just crushing everybody else. Look at Proverbs 22 and look at verse 22
Proverbs 22 verse 22 the Bible says rob not the poor because he is poor
neither oppress the afflicted in the gate for the Lord will plead their cause and
Spoil the soul of those that spoiled them notice
God doesn't take it kindly whenever you're ripping people off whenever you're oppressing them when you're taking advantage of them
And look there's tons of people taking advantage of all kinds of people in this world today
It's very wicked go to Proverbs 14 for a moment Proverbs 14. Just flip back and look at verse 31
He that oppresseth the poor reproach it is maker
But he that honoreth him hath mercy on the poor go to Proverbs chapter 3 flip back again Proverbs chapter number 3
You say well, I want to get one of these monopolies
Well, here's the thing whenever you get in this position of so much power and authority though
It's easy to oppress people. Okay. Look at Proverbs chapter 3 verse 31 envy thou not the oppressor and
Choose none of his ways. So here's the thing. I'm not super interested in being a capitalistic society
Hey, if it's between capitalism socialism sure capitalism is better, but you know, it's really better as the Bible
What's really better is biblical economics. That's what we should really be striving for and you know
If Christians knew what was good for them
They would ask for more regulation of all these monopolies and all these things that are going on and they would start playing the game
And start buying property
They would actually start buying things and stop allowing these
Monopolies to just take all of the land all the goods and all the resources and just ripping everybody off in the process
You will lose the game of monopoly if you don't buy anything
You cannot win. It's impossible to win the game of monopoly if you own nothing
You
Will eventually become their slave you will eventually be eliminated and killed. Okay, that's it's not really killed but kind of all right
And you say well
How does that work in American?
Economy if you own nothing you will eventually get to the point where you're bankrupt and you have nothing and you just you're just completely
Decimated in this economy and you say how do you know that?
It's just because that's how it works
They're gonna constantly inflate the money
They're gonna constantly
Rise the prices of goods and eventually they're gonna get to a point where they can increase the good all the necessary goods to where?
nobody can own anything and
Everybody becomes what a slave
Everybody becomes completely oppressed you say well
What keeps that from happening people owning things as long as there's enough people in the game?
It just keeps going but as people keep getting more more people get eliminated and more goods are owned by just a few different people
It's just gonna get really ugly really really quick
go back to Leviticus chapter 25 go back to Leviticus chapter 25 and
Look at verse 23 Leviticus chapter 25 and look at verse 23
Now where I live back home in Amarillo you could see a lot of farmland was being
Consolidated to the large farms and a lot of these farmers were taking their cash out
They were finally just saying you know what I'm gonna sell the land and they were getting they were cashing in on their land
But here's the thing it'll be peace and truth in their days
What's gonna happen to the next generation?
What's gonna happen to the further generations when they sell and they cash out and they don't have anything to show it for they don't have
Anything to do with their money?
Look these people are in it the the Googles and the Facebook. They're in for the long haul they know what they're doing and
They're gonna keep doing what they're doing
You better believe me. That's gonna keep happening look at Leviticus chapter 25 and look at verse 23
The Bible says this
The land shall not be sold forever for the land is mine for year strangers and sojourners with me
Why did this system work because they realize the lands not theirs?
It's God's and you say well is that just that's just the children of Israel though. No the whole earth is God's and
If we actually realize that America is not the government's it's not ours
It's God's and it's not right to oppress your brethren
It's not right to take advantage of your brethren and you say well, what system does that a capitalistic society?
Because what happens you eventually if somebody is gonna own more than another person and they're gonna start forming and they're gonna get bigger
And bigger and bigger and they get to the point where they have monopolies
And they get the point where they start oppressing people and taking advantage of people what prevents that Jubilee
What prevents that hitting that reset button and going back and saying you know what we need to redistribute
The goods amongst the people and let everybody have their own inheritance. That would be the only way to perpetually
Have an economy and think about the game enough. Let's say we played Monopoly. We are all playing
Okay, we also and we all start rolling dice and we all start buying properties
But after the tenth roll we all go back to go and we put all the properties back at the bank and we start over
Again, how long would the game be longer than a normal game? It's pretty long. Okay, you would play forever
But wouldn't you want that in an economy?
Who wants an economy to get to a point where you can't play anymore? So that's why God built a system. That's perfect
That's why God built a system that could last forever where you could have
You know generations not go to this curse of just being poor for forever for generations to actually climb out of it
They don't have to suffer the consequences of the previous generations over and over and over again and that some people they can't stack
Well for forever and eventually is going to go back and they have to start over again
Now it says in verse 35. Look at verse 35
And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen decay with thee then thou shalt relieve him
Yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner that he may live with thee take thou no usury of him or increase
But fear thy God that thy brother may live with thee thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury nor lend him
Thy vittles for increase
I am the Lord your God which
Brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God and if thy brother that
dwelt by thee be waxen poor and be sold unto thee thou shall not compel him to serve as a bondservant
but as an hired servant and as a sojourner he shall be with thee and shall serve thee unto the year of
Jubilee so here's another thing some people say oh the Bible teaches slavery. No, it doesn't
the Bible teaches that if someone were
Sold unto you or someone was so poor they were so indebted to you that they had to serve you
You're still not supposed to treat them with rigor. You're not supposed to treat them with hard bondage
You're supposed to treat them like a hired servant and you're supposed to treat them well and then in Jubilee they go out anyways
So they would go back to their possession they go back to land
And in fact, you could even redeem the land for them
Look what it says in verse number 25 again if thy brother be waxen poor and has sold away some of his possessions
And if any of his kin come to redeem it
Then shall he redeem that which his brother sold and if the man have none to redeem it and himself be able to redeem it
Then let him count the years of the sale thereof and restore the over plus unto the man to whom he sold it
That he may return unto his possession
But if he be named not able to restore it to him
Then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that hath bought it until the year Jubilee and in the Jubilee
It shall go out and he shall return unto his possession
So the Bible is making clear
Even if you were super poor just a brother just somebody else
Could redeem it for you
They could even allow you and restore that land for you
If you didn't have the money, they could be kind enough to just say hey, you know what?
We're just gonna go ahead and redeem that for you
And you know you see pictures of this in the story of Ruth you see Boaz
You know taking on the possession of a limelack and taking on Ruth and you know, basically redeeming that possession
And there's a lot of great
Spiritual illustrations that we could make here go if you would of Ezekiel 47 Ezekiel 47
I'm gonna show you another passage here about how this would work and you say well
Why it why I have this in the Bible if no one's gonna do it
I mean is America gonna implement Jubilee pastor Shelley? No, okay
Not gonna happen. I would I would love for it. Hey if it was on the ballot, I'd vote for it
Did the children of Israel do it probably not
But there are spiritual pictures here and understanding the carnal truths help us understand the spiritual truths and just realizing like
The economies that we have are failed flawed. They have all kinds of problems and because of sin, you know, it's never gonna be right
But even in that economy system that God had created
You would say well
How do I get in because if I wasn't born a child of Israel, does that mean I can never be part of the nation?
That's not true. You could actually join and
Then eventually you would get land
Wherever you join look what it says in Ezekiel 47 and look at verse number
21 so you divide this land and you according to the tribes of Israel and it should come to pass that you shall divide it
By lot for an inheritance unto you and to the strangers that sojourn among you which shall beget children among you
And they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel
They shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel and it shall come to pass that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth
There so you give him his inheritance say the Lord God
So what does this look like? Well, if we theoretically lived where we're trying to follow Bible perfectly
What would happen is that every Jubilee we would redistribute the land based on the citizens of our area
so we'd say whether Texas or maybe we go to a county level maybe Tarrant County and
You would basically
Redistribute the land to all of the citizens and they would get their portion
they would get their
Inheritance to have and anybody that was a foreign citizen someone was a foreigner a stranger that came to live among us
But became a legitimate citizen of our country of our area
They would get part of the land and they would get a whole chance to start at the very beginning again now
Look you say well, that's not fair
Yeah, but you're all starting at a good spot again nobody starts to get a monopoly is like well this game sucks
It's already started out bad. No, you all start about the same spot, but then you get a chance to own property do good
You just don't get to the oppressive stage
What's the oppressive stage building houses and hotels and eliminating people?
That's not the fun part of the game, you know for the people that are losing
It's fun with you know, I guess for the people are winning but that's being oppressive, isn't it? That would be evil
That's not something you want to do. And so according to God's system you would have you know
There's Jubilee resetting you have the Sabbath and in people could never be perpetual slaves
They're not even supposed to be treated with rigor. They're never supposed to be a slave in the first place
Okay, now go go to Romans chapter 7
Romans chapter 7 and I want to finish on a spiritual note. Okay, but some people would say this
Well, why preach a sermon on this then pastor Shelley? What's the point of teaching all this?
Are you saying that I should own property or own possessions?
You do whatever you want
But I think there's a biblical precedent to say that you should own possessions
You should own goods and you're playing this game whether you like it or not. They say what would be that precedent?
well, you know when
Jeremiah is talking to the capital of the Babylonian captivity. Okay. He's talking to the people in the Babylonian captivity in Jeremiah 29
He tells them to build houses
He tells them to plant vineyards he tells them to marry he tells them all these things to do
Why because they're gonna be there a while. They're gonna be there for 70 years and
Why would they not because they're getting all these weird preaching from false prophets saying like oh, we're going back to Jerusalem tomorrow
You know, oh, we're gonna return to Jerusalem and God's gonna rescue us out of it
so they're not trying to plant roots in their life because
Essentially, they think that tomorrow they're gonna get raptured
and
You know what's that there's Christians that live in the world today and they don't want to plant roots
so they don't want to do anything with any kind of longevity because they think they're gonna be raptured tomorrow and
There's all these rapture date setters and there's all these false problems. I mean I heard of a family
They literally sold all possessions that they owned and they were sitting out in a field waiting for Jesus to come
That
Idea okay
Now you say hey pastor Shelly. Do you think that Christ is coming in your life in your lifetime? I have no idea. I
Don't know the day or the hour and you know, honestly, this is my personal opinion. I think it's like
Probably 51 49 is my personal opinion than 51 is that he won't I?
Personally think I'll probably die of old age
But even if it happens in ten years from now, okay, that's fine
I don't care. That'd be great if I die of old age. That's great. If I die for Christ tomorrow, that's great
Hey, there's nothing, you know, I don't really care but I I think that everyone should have this mentality
I'm gonna live my entire life
And when you have the mentality that you're gonna live your entire life, you should plan for the long term
You should plan for your children. You should plan to you know, basically
Have things and pass them on your children whenever you don't have this type of planning
You're gonna destroy your family destroy yourself. And look there's plenty of reasons to believe it's not gonna happen in our lifetime
There's some reasons to believe it could I'm not saying it couldn't it very well could it's not like it couldn't
I'm just saying every generation before us virtually has thought it was gonna happen in their lifetime and they were all wrong
Okay, so it's not that far-fetched to think that it wouldn't happen in our lifetime either
So don't live this weird lifestyle like you're gonna be raptured tomorrow
That's a bad that's a bad philosophy, especially since there's no preacher rapture. Okay. Sorry to bust burst your bubble
Bible says the man of sins gonna be revealed before the second coming of Christ and you say well
When do I start changing my lifestyle when the man of sins revealed?
That's what I think until the man of sins revealed
I'm just gonna live my life as normal as I possibly can and
Do the things that I possibly you know, the best things I can and you know, what's gonna keep evil at bay
Christians owning things
The less that Christians own the more that they oppress you because if Black Rock buys all of the real estate in the Dallas
Forthwood area, you know what's gonna happen? They're gonna jack the rates up real high
And you know how expensive is to buy a house in San Francisco? I
Mean the cheapest houses are a million dollars
Almost nobody in this room could buy a million dollar home
I don't know your finances, but I'm just being honest
Like you can't afford that type of a down you can't pay that down payment nor that principal every month
Principal and interest or the taxes welcome to Texas
taxes on a million dollar home
man, that stuff that would be more than you probably everybody's mortgage just the taxes and
So I'm telling you if they own all the property and all the land
They just keep rising prices and they just keep skyrocketing
It's gonna get to a point where nobody can own anything
You say what prevents that everybody owning stuff and not selling it to these weird creepo freaks. Okay
But let's go to a spiritual application and I'll finish
When we talk about monopolies, we're talking about carnally, but you know what? There's another monopoly out there
It's it's a spiritual monopoly and that monopoly is sin
Sin has a monopoly on the unsaved
They have no choice to do anything they're in bondage to that monopoly that monopoly dictates whatever it wants them to
I mean it's game complete control of
Them and look what it says in Romans 7 verse 11 for sin taking occasion by the commandment deceive me and buy it slew me
Sin is like this game where it just takes complete control over you
When they're when you're not saved the unsaved they have no other option. They're completely subject to
Sin now go if you would to Luke chapter 1 Luke chapter 1 but thinking about God's economy, you know, what's cool
Even though you've been completely destitute and made poor by sin
Your brethren can still redeem you can't eat
Even though you can't go back and redeem that land a brother could come and he could redeem that land for you
Couldn't he you know that is Jesus Christ
Look at Luke chapter 1 verse 68 blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people
Hey, isn't that great? You couldn't buy the land back
Sin had complete control over you were a monopoly go to Titus chapter 2 go to Titus chapter 2
Even though we're waxing poor and we have no ability to save ourselves redeem ourselves. Christ was going to redeem us
That's why I gave a lot of these illustrations of the Jubilee and these different
pictures in here
Look at Titus chapter number 2 and look at verse 14 who gave himself for us that he might redeem us notice this
from all iniquity and purifying himself a peculiar people
zealous of good works
So he redeemed us spiritually speaking in the fact that I'm no longer a servant of sin
I'm no longer in bondage to sin. It has no more dominion over me
I've been made free by Jesus Christ
And so I don't have to be subject unto that monopoly anymore that monopoly has been broken
Okay, it's been direct. It's been regulated by Jesus Christ. Okay, go over to Romans chapter number eight
So I get to be free from monopoly. I'm not in bondage to him, but not only that it goes beyond that I
Actually get to inherit the land with Jesus Christ
Now what was that monopoly is gonna send me to hell that monopoly was gonna take me down into hell
But I've been redeemed from that and not only am I redeemed
I also get to be a joint heir look at what it says in Romans 8 verse 16
The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and if children then heirs
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be also
Glorified together, you know, it's so incredible. Is that even though we're playing this game
And let me just tell you the end of the game like they're gonna win. Okay. Sorry
Eventually, you know you can't you can't win this game you can only survive for a while, okay
But even if they take over the whole earth
Eventually Christ is gonna come back and he's gonna take all of it back
But you know, what's so cool about this is that Jesus Christ doesn't set up his own monopoly
He redistributes the land to all of us and we get to be joint heirs with him
Isn't that incredible could he could just say you know what? Hey, guess what?
I just get it all and you're just all my slaves again, but no and rather he just says hey
I'm gonna redistribute it to everybody you could be joint heirs with me
He's not gonna just sit there and oppress his own people
We get to be his hired servant not his bond servant not you know, this indebted slave master
You know over a slave type situation we get to be joint heirs with Christ
Now look at Hebrews chapter 11 go to Hebrews chapter number 11 and I'll finish in this, you know
I preach this sermon for two real big reasons. Okay number one. I just I want people to understand the game that you're playing
You
Know I don't want people to just make bad decisions because they're just ignorant now
You don't have to own anything in this world because he can't take it with you
Christ had nowhere to lay his head
But at the end of the day if you have a family and you have kids that provide for and you know
The Bible says a good man leave with an inheritance unto his children's children, you know
I think it's wise to own possessions. God told his people to own possessions in
Babylon literally you're like well, we're Babylon. Why should I own anything? He told them known goods in literal Babylon
Okay, so if it's okay for them known goods in literal Babylon, I think it's okay for me to own something in spiritual Babylon, right?
But at the end of the day, you know, my physical possessions aren't gonna go with me into heaven. They have no spiritual significance
But at the same time it's not really there's nothing to glory in and being foolish with money
Being ignorant not not making wise decisions
Not providing for your children not being a hezekiah and being like well peace and truth in my days. See you suckers
You know, that's not really a good attitude either
Okay, so I believe it's it's best to understand how the game works understand what the Bible teaches and and doing the best that
We can with the money and the possessions that God gives us now
Like I said, there's nothing wrong with giving all your money to God
But there's no glory in giving it all to Mark Zuckerberg, okay
There's no there's no glory in giving it all the government there's no glory in giving it all the devil
There's no glory in giving it all Israel
Physical Israel, okay, no glory in that
So at the end of the day, you know, make sure you make wise decisions
but the most important thing is having a spiritual inheritance, isn't it and
Understanding the spiritual pictures here and realizing well, you know what?
I'm not gonna do very good at the carnal monopoly, but I want to do good at the spiritual monopoly
Like what it says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 13 these all died in faith not having received the promises
But having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth
For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country and truly if they've been mindful of that country from whence
They came out. They might have had opportunity to have returned
But now they desire a better country that is in heavenly
Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for yet prepared for them a city, you know
Instead of owning boardwalk and in this in this earth. I want to earn the spirit
I want to own the spiritual boardwalk and the spiritual park place and all the spiritual properties
Nobody wants the utility companies. Okay, they're not that great
But they they represent reality because in Texas, what do you do?
You just roll the dice and then it's a random assortment of the prices that you have to figure out. It's a matrix
But again taking the spiritual picture realize, you know, you will inherit with Christ
But your inheritance is going to be based on the decisions you're making today
So how good are you playing the spiritual game of Monopoly?
Are you buying property spiritually you say how do I do that soul winning?
preaching the gospel being faithful in church
Giving of your money time and effort energy to the Lord now that is how you buy the spiritual property
Some people are doing neither
They don't have physical property and they don't have any spiritual property now if I have to pick one
I'm picking the spiritual property
You know what? I say you should do your best
To make sure you manage both and you have a balanced view of the scriptures. Let's close in prayer
Thank You Heavenly Father so much for giving us so much wisdom
Thank you for redeeming us so that we don't have to be in bondage to sin that we don't have to go to hell
But that we get to escape the fires of hell and not only escape hell
but we actually get to be joint heirs with Christ and we get to inherit the earth and
That we get to enjoy the fruit of our labors here spiritually
I pray that you would give us all wisdom that we could make the right decisions
Not only carnally speaking but also spiritually speaking and that we'd realize the importance of laying up treasure in heaven in Jesus name we pray
Amen
You
Amen with that. Let's close it out with one last song for tonight
Go ahead and take out your hymnal again and turn to song number
123 the Christians good night
In that song number 123
Christians good night
Oh
Is I slumber
Mine is a perfect
Turn
We good
I
Tell me
Thank you all for coming y'all have a great night God bless
You