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["In the Hall of the Mountain King"] Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab a song book, and let's turn in our hymnals to song 314, More Love to Thee. 314, More Love to Thee. 314, More Love to Thee. O'er love to Thee, O Christ, O'er love to Thee, Hear thou the prayer I make on bended knee, This is my earnest plea, O'er love, O Christ, to Thee, O'er love to Thee, O'er love to Thee. 314 on the second. Once earth made joy I crave, sought peace and rest, Now thee alone I see, give what is best, This all my prayer shall be, O'er love, O Christ, O'er love to Thee, O'er love to Thee, Let sorrow do its work, send grief and pain, Sweet are thy messengers, sweet they refrain, When they can sing with me, O'er love, O Christ, O'er love to Thee, O'er love to Thee, And shall my latest breath whisper thy prayers, This be the parting cry my heart shall raise, This still its prayer shall be, O'er love, O Christ, to Thee, O'er love to Thee, O'er love to Thee. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day, and thank you for this church. I pray that you just bless, just bless, just bless, just bless. Fill us all with the Holy Spirit and with understanding to be able to receive your word preached tonight, and pray that we would just sing out in our hearts to you to glorify you, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our next song, we'll go to song 118, Near to the Heart of God. 118, Near to the Heart of God. 118, Near to the Heart of God. 118, Hold us who wait before Thee, Near to the Heart of God. 118, There is a place of comfort sweet, Near to the Heart of God, A place where we our Savior meet, Near to the Heart of God. 118, O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, Sent from the Heart of God. 118, Hold us who wait before Thee, Near to the Heart of God. 118, There is a place of full release, Near to the Heart of God, A place where all is joy and peace, Near to the Heart of God. 118, O Jesus, blessed Redeemer, Sent from the Heart of God. 118, Hold us who wait before Thee, Near to the Heart of God. Good singing. Good evening, thanks so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't already get a bulletin, you can slip every hand nice and high, and we'd love to get you a bulletin. One of our ushers will come by, and hopefully we can pass out those bulletins. On the front, we have our Bible memory passage, John chapter number one, we're on verse 13. On the inside, we have our service and soul winning times, as well as we have our church stats, and I'm going to get a count for some soul winning for the last few days. Is there anything to report from Monday, by chance? Any Monday, two for Monday? What about Tuesday? Anything from Tuesday, by chance? All right, nothing for Tuesday. What about outside the van today? Anything outside the van today? All right, keep with the good work on soul winning. On the right, we have our list of expecting ladies, and continue to pray for all of them, as well as we have our prayer list. We'll go ahead and go over this real quick. We have the Negara family, continue to pray for the health for them. Also Ms. Lucy's mother, if you'd continue to pray for her tumors, continue to pray for brother Cameron Hall's leg, Verity Baptist Manila, if you'd continue to pray for them, and Pastor Kevin Sepulveda, they are in Australia. Brother Jeremy Gore, just continue to pray for his recovery from surgery. Brother Paul Weathers is just asking for a prayer about his job situation. The Goodwin family was asking for additional prayers for health, and so if you'd continue to pray for them. Also, we have listed below is for Tony and Eva Garcia, if you'd pray for their work situation as well. So we've got a lot of prayers there. We'll just say a quick word of prayer as our church family this evening. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us this opportunity to meet and to hear the word of God being preached. I pray that you would just bless all of the expecting ladies that are here in our church and those that are not able to make it this evening, that you'd bless them, you'd help their babies to develop correctly, that you'd give them strength for a timely delivery. I pray that you'd also bless the rest of our church family with health, those that are dealing with various health concerns, that you would just strengthen them, that you could be with them, that you could comfort them, that you could just bless them with just restoration. We just pray that you would also bless the rest of our church family with their various concerns and then their burdens, that you would come alongside them, that you'd give them favor, and that you'd bless them. We just thank you for all that you've given us. We pray this in your Son's name, in Jesus' name, Amen. On the back, we have our list of upcoming events. We have the Waco Texas Soul Waning Marathon sign-up sheet. It's coming up really soon, February 26th. So that's not this Saturday, but it's the next Saturday. So it's going to happen pretty soon, and it's going to be a lot of fun. I highly encourage you to participate in our Soul Waning Marathons. It's really a great opportunity to get kind of plugged back in, especially if you've been kind of hibernating on your Soul Waning, all right? It's already warm, all right? It's already Texas weather. It's February. You can start to go out there preaching the gospel. We got the sign-up sheet, and we'll feed you and everything like that, and so I'm excited about it. Also, we have a Soul Waning Seminar that's going to be happening March 24th to 26th. We have a College Station Soul Waning Marathon, April 2nd. Homeschool Field Trip, the 29th of April, and then 21st, we're having an Austin, Texas Soul Waning Marathon. So I mean, we're just hitting up all kinds of different places, and I'm really excited about that. Make sure to put those on your calendar and to sign up. That's pretty much all I have for announcements this evening. We'll go ahead and go to our third song. 315. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 215, Take My Life and Let It Be. 15, Take My Life and Let It Be. 16, Take My Life and Let It Be. 17, Take My Life and Let It Be. Let them flow in ceaseless praise, Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my will and make it thine, It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own, It shall be thy glorious throne, It shall be thy royal throne. As the offering plates are passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 47. That's Genesis chapter 47. We'll read the entire chapter prior to the beginning of the sermon. Genesis chapter 47, the Bible reads, Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan, and behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. They said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come, for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee. The land of Egypt is before thee, and the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell. In the land of Goshen let them dwell, and if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. You and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers and the days of their pilgrimage. And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh. And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father and his brethren, and all his father's household with bread, according to their families. And there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, Give us bread, for why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth. And Joseph said, Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses. And he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent. My lord also hath our herds of cattle. There was not aught left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies and our lands. Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh. And give us need, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not, for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them, wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day, and your land for Pharaoh. Lo, here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that you shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food of your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives, let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's. And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen, and they had possessions therein, and grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years. And the time drew nigh that Israel must die. And he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt, but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in the burying place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, Swear unto me, and he swear unto him, and Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for Genesis chapter forty-seven, and for the opportunity that we have tonight to learn more about this portion of scripture. I pray that you fill Pastor Shelley with your spirit and give him clarity of mind as he preaches for us this evening, and help us to listen, and give us ears to hear, Lord, so that we can learn as much as possible tonight. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. We're in Genesis chapter forty-seven, and we're kind of wrapping up the book of Genesis. And in the previous chapter, we had the children of Israel dwelling in Egypt. They've come down. Joseph's kind of like their rescuer. Joseph's the guy that's basically taken over the role of really the entire world, in a sense, because he's the second ruler in Egypt, but ultimately everybody's just doing whatever he says. In fact, Pharaoh's even just basically whatever Joseph says goes. And Joseph has a lot of great pictures in the Bible. He illustrates Christ in so many different ways in the Bible, and he's probably one of the greatest characters in the Bible. He does a lot of great things. He's a very hardworking person. And because he represents Christ throughout the entire picture here, you can kind of sometimes get this idea of elevating Joseph in your mind to a position where he's kind of better than he really is. But I think that this chapter brings us back to reality, because throughout the story of Joseph, he's really just kind of done everything right. I mean, like everything that Joseph does is just always just like he's very honest. He has a lot of integrity. He's very hardworking. He pictures Christ in so many ways. He saved everybody, and now he's been put in a position of ultimate power. He's even brought his entire family back and rescued his entire family, rescued all the Egyptians, and rescued really the whole world that was a part of this dearth. And I think that this chapter kind of helps us realize the difference between Christ and humanity, because Joseph is going to show his humanity in this chapter and show us what people are really like when they find themselves in these positions of great power. Are they truly going to be as benevolent as Christ would be? Because, you know, the best form of government or the best form of a ruler is a benevolent dictatorship. But the reality is the only time we'll ever truly have a benevolent dictatorship is with Christ. Christ is really the only one that will actually rule in this manner. And even as great as Joseph is, for whatever reason, in my opinion, this is an epic failure. And it really shows, you know, how much power and wealth can corrupt an individual and cause them to make a lot of bad decisions in this specific chapter. But it says in verse number 1, it says this, Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their flocks and their herds and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan, and behold, they are in the land of Goshen. And he took some of his brethren, even five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What is your occupation? And they said unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers. They said, Moreover, unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come, for thy servants have no pasture for their flock. The famine is sore in the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, we pray thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee, the land of Egypt is before thee. In the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell in the land of Goshen, and let them dwell, and if thou knowest any man of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle. Now, when we start out the chapter, it's going really well, in the sense that Pharaoh, even though the Egyptians in general don't like Hebrews, and they find them to be an abomination, we see here that we have the blessing and the favor of Pharaoh, where he is allowing Joseph and his whole brethren, known as Hebrews, to still exist in the land, and even have the best of the land, live in Goshen, and not only that, Pharaoh makes them rulers. Pharaoh puts them in charge of people and basically elevates them to positions of authority. And really, there's a lot we could talk about here, but whenever you serve God, whenever you're a diligent worker and you work hard, God will elevate you to positions of authority. He'll make you rulers over things, even in this life. Now, of course, this would have application in the spiritual way, in the afterlife, in the sense that when we go to heaven, we're going to rule and reign with Christ, and those who are diligent, those who serve God, those who are the righteous, are going to be the rulers set over others. But we even see in this context that the Christians, quote-unquote, God's people, are the ones that are put in positions of authority and power. Why? Because they're willing to work, because they're good at their job. And you know what? I find the same thing today, that Christians often succeed in the workplace. They are the hardest working individuals. In fact, today's economy, while it's very tumultuous and there's a lot of problems and we have inflation, the job opportunities are exploding. I mean, there's really just opportunities everywhere right now. Everyone's hiring. There's more than enough work to go around. It's really hard to find people that want to work. If they only just want to work, they're going to work hard. They're going to show up on time. They're going to say, yes, sir. They're going to actually deliver on the promises that they make. So if you're a person that actually has integrity, where you're going to really show up and you're going to actually do your job and you're going to say, yes, sir, you have a great opportunity here to become a ruler. And what would that mean in a modern vernacular? Manager, right? Managerial positions or elevated to a boss or a leader or anything like that, because non-Christians have no integrity. They just have this entitled, selfish attitude. They don't even want to work. And when they show up, they want to talk bad about the boss. And think about it. Non-Christians, they're not hearing any positive messages. They're hearing from NWA that says, F the police, you know? I mean, they basically are saying, we need to bring down the man and white people are bad and just all the messages of media and online and Hollywood. You've got Eminem bowing at the Super Bowl halftime show. This is a show how racist we are. I mean, if you just watch TV, you would think that we live in this weird, like, racist, anti-establishment society that we basically just have to resist the power. We need to bring down all the corruption. Who's going to work hard in that environment? And we even see that trickling down in our society. We see people literally having these entitled attitudes, feeling like they should be paid more money, even though they're not willing to actually show up or work hard or do anything. It's just like, I deserve more money. You know, pay me more money. That's not how you get elevated in society. And I don't care if it's a Jew, a Muslim. I don't care if it's an atheist. If they're a business owner, they want people to show up on time to their business. They want people to treat customers correct. They want people to actually follow the rules. They're in it to make money. Maybe the Jeff Bezos of this world, they have political slants and stuff. They're not. But you're just local mom and pop shop. Your local business isn't here. They want to make money. They want to meet their deadlines. So they need to find people that are actually going to do what they say. And so they like Christians. Because Christians will actually show up, work hard, say yes sir, and notice they're going to be made the rulers, not these lazy, entitled, selfish pricks and punks today. And you know what? If you do the right thing, you work hard, you keep your head down, you say yes sir, you will find yourself in good positions and making good money. Our economy is really bad for the lazy. You know what? There's a lot of opportunity for the hardworking. There's more than enough to go around. And really the only people that are going to suffer are the ones that are falling victim of these entitlement propaganda messages that are being delivered from the government, thinking that, oh, I can't succeed because of my skin color or something like that. That's stupid. Or thinking, I can't succeed because I'm white. No, you still can succeed because you're white. There's no reason to just make yourself a victim. The children of Israel are not making themselves victims and they never find themselves to be a victim. You just need to work hard and do right and have integrity and you will succeed. The people that don't succeed are the ones that just simply don't want to work hard. They simply don't want to put in the effort. Now of course you're going to have setbacks. We read in the previous chapters, we read about people like Jacob. Jacob had a bad boss. Laban really ripped him off and took advantage of him and it happened for a long period of time. But eventually he got it all. Eventually God rewarded him. And that can happen in the workplace now. You might be in a job where you're kind of being overlooked or mistreated or you're in a bad situation. But as long as you keep integrity, you work hard, you keep gaining skills and assets and doing that which is right, God will put you in a place where you could be a ruler, you could be making good money to provide for your family. Let's keep reading. It says in verse number 7, And Joseph brought in Jacob his father and sent him before Pharaoh, and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Oh, I thought Pharaoh was a reprobate. Not everybody is just a bad reprobate. Notice that Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh is the king of Egypt here. Some people have this idea that every king and just like every ruler and every person in position of authority is just like some wicked person. That's not necessarily true. Even Pharaoh here is blessed by Jacob. We should default to essentially wanting all people to be saved. Whether they be a king, a governor, it doesn't really matter what position of authority they're in, we should want people to be saved. Now, he says in verse number 11, And Joseph placed his father and his brethren and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded. And Joseph nourished his father and his brethren and all his father's household with bread according to their families. And there was no bread in all the land, and the family was very sore, so the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. So, essentially, they're in a bad spot. They've come to dwell here. And it's really interesting how Jacob responds to Pharaoh. Now, this phrase to me, it really just kind of stuck out. But notice what it says. He says that he's 130 years old, Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. Now, what I find interesting here is just his perspective on life, because he's saying that his life has basically had a lot of evil. Now, if you think about it, it kind of is. Let's just play a little trip through memory lane with Jacob, right? First of all, he has a soldier. He has to go find his wife. There's no women, I guess, around. He has to go travel to this distant land to go and find a wife. Then he ends up finding the girl that he wants to marry, but he has to serve seven years for her. That's a really long time. I mean, most people are not engaged for seven years. Then it finally comes the wedding day, and he gets Leah. He doesn't even get the wife that he wanted. He gets the other sister, and it's the other sister, right? Well, then he finally gets Rachel, but Rachel can't even have children. And look, that's got to be tough. Anybody that's ever struggled to have children, that's definitely a real struggle. To have your wife be disappointed and frustrated. They don't even have medical technology the way it is today. They couldn't necessarily go to the doctor and find out what the problem is. They don't really know why they're not having children. He has a lot of children with Leah, but there's a lot of contention between Leah and Rachel. Then he ends up having children with the concubines, but that doesn't seem to be going well. Now, you could say, oh, but he has all these children. Yeah, but all of his children are kind of crappy, if you think about it. I mean, when Joseph comes to give the report of his brother, and he gives an evil report. And so, you know, you have four wives. You have like 11, well, you have 10 sons that really aren't that great. You know, got a lot of problems going on. Then you have famine, then the one son. You have one son that you're like, man, I really like this guy. You know, I really like Joseph. I'm going to give him this really special garment. And then he dies at 17. Now, that's got to be extreme. Anybody that's lost a child realizes it's rough, but I think that 17 would be an age that would be one of the hardest ages. Because as your children grow, and as they get older, you get a deeper relationship with them. You know, if you have a miscarriage, that hurts. But if you actually have the child born, it's even harder, because you've actually seen them, you've got to hold them. As they get older and older, you have more time, more memories, more experience with them. So, your bond with that person just gets stronger and stronger. So, the loss of a child basically is compounded by your relationship with them. So, at 17, it's like they're kind of at that prime, they're going to finally move on. You've had all these memories, and you just lose your child at 17, it would just be so horrible. It would be so horrific, so awful, especially when it's like, I kind of only like one of you, and that's the one you lose. You know, when he lost Simeon, it was just like, I don't really care. It wasn't as big a deal. He's like, well, we got food though, right? You know, it's like, all right, we'll just keep eating. And then whenever they run out of food, they're not saying like, let's go get Simeon. It's like, let's get more food, you know. And he doesn't want to literally lose Benjamin. So, you kind of start thinking about this. You know, his life has been kind of rough. He even lost his favorite wife. He lost Rachel. So, he lost Rachel. He lost Joseph at some point in his life, obviously, okay. So, if you think about it, a lot of his life has just been kind of rough. It's been kind of a bad situation. He doesn't have a good relationship with his brother for a long period of time because obviously he tricked his brother, you know. And so, he's kind of just living this rough life. And to me, a little bit, he kind of reaped what he sowed. Because if you think about it, he kind of supplanted his brother, kind of tricked his brother, he conned his brother, he's been a conman his whole life. And then he ends up kind of reaping a lot of what he sown. And he ultimately just says, you know, my days have been few and evil. Now, the few is also weird. Because we see in this chapter, he's 147 years old when he dies. And he was here 17 years. That's what it says. What's the verse? It's verse 28. It says, And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years. So, the whole age of Jacob was 147 years. So, he's 147 years old. Seventeen of those years were in Egypt. Can you imagine somebody like saying, I'm young, 147 years, or I'm 130 years old at the time he meets Pharaoh. He's like, I'm kind of a young guy, kind of a few. But this is relative. Age is always relative. Go back to Genesis 35 and look at what it says about his father. It says in Genesis chapter number 35, it says in verse number 28, And the days of Isaac were 104 score years. Now, a score is 20. The four score would be 80. But he's saying, Isaac was 180 years old when he died. So, if your dad died at 180 and you're 130, you're like, I'm still pretty young. You know. I mean, I've got 50 years to go. Okay. In fact, you know, based on modern numbers, most people die 75 or 77. And if you're past the age of 30, you're closer to death than Jacob was thinking, you know, when he was 130. Just to put that in kind of perspective. So, he's saying, I've only been here a little bit at a time, 130 years old, but my life's been really evil. Okay. But this also triggered a lot of verses on my mind. Go over to Matthew chapter number 6. Go to Matthew chapter number 6. You know, I was thinking like, oh, well, Jacob has an evil life. But the reality is we're all going to have an evil life in the sense that we're going to all have problems. We're going to all have difficulties. We're all going to have struggles. And it kind of just comes down to your perception, your perspective of life. But in the grand scheme of eternity, our time here is evil. Because in heaven, in paradise, there is no more evil. There is no more pain. There is no more suffering. The Bible says that God will wipe away all tears. You know, there will be no more death. There will be no more cancer. There will be no more, you know, separation from loved ones. There will be no more, you know, all the pains and the struggles that we go through life. Nobody will get fired. Nobody will, you know, have to go through the loss of a child. You know, nobody will have to go through a lot of these evils and the pain and the suffering. Everybody is going to be, you know, full of love for the brethren. So, when we think about our life here, in reality, it's kind of evil. This is the evil part of our life, you know, in the sense of like eternity. Okay. Now, the Bible brings up a passage that kind of talks about this. Look at Matthew chapter number 6 and look at verse 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. That's further proof of my first point that when you're actually doing right and serving God, he gives you all these... What was the context of Matthew 6? He's saying houses, lands, clothing, all the stuff that you need. When you seek God first, he just gives you all that other stuff, makes you a ruler, you know, in like a local type of a sense. And we're supposed to seek God first. Verse 34, take therefore no thought for the morrow. For the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Meaning what? You're definitely going to have problems tomorrow. Okay. Like, we don't even have to wonder if you're going to have problems tomorrow. Don't worry about tomorrow, just worry for today. Just deal with the problems you have today. And this is what I notice, and this is a temptation for all of us, is to really stress about problems that might happen in the future. And I want to put a big emphasis on this, the word might. And people sometimes get this like permanency doctrine in their mind where they're going through a problem and they're like, I can't go through this problem for the rest of my life. And it's like, but you're not going to have that problem for the rest of your life. Okay. You don't even know that. Just worry about getting it through it today. It's like, well, I can get through it today, but I can't get through it for the next 10 years. It's like, but do you know for sure you're going to have that exact problem for the next 10 years? You may not have that problem for the next 10 years. And people start freaking out and worrying about all this stuff. It's like, how am I going to pay for college with all this inflation for my kids who are one years old? You don't even know if college is going to exist, you know, at that point in time. Like, you don't even know what's going to happen. Why are you so worried about affording college when your kid's one years old? It's like, can you pay the bills for today? And it's like, well, yeah. It's good. Because I guarantee the pipes are going to explode or something tomorrow and you have to worry about that problem, right? Why don't you worry about problems that are real, that are happening today, rather than all the problems and all the hypotheticals and everything that could happen in the future? Because you're going to have problems for sure. We all know that. And sufficient unto the day is the evil there. Okay. I guarantee you'll have problems. But we need to just live a life where we can, you know, get through today. Just one day at a time. You know, here's my example when I think about this analogy. Go to Ephesians chapter 5. But it'd be having children. Okay. When you have children, your children are going to go through a lot of phases. You know, that first, like, few weeks is its own little phase. And then eventually it's going to go to a completely different phase. Like, and the first phase is usually the best. Because the first phase, they just kind of, like, they're cute and their cry isn't even often that bad. It's kind of like, eh, eh, eh, eh. They kind of have this cute, like, little eh. But eventually it's going to get loud. Okay. So that phase is nice. You know, they just sleep, like, 20 hours a day. And you're just, like, you just get to look at it and it's cute and whatever. But then you go to the next phase. And it's just, like, they scream and they can get colicky and you can have all kinds of weird issues. And you're just kind of, like, I can't do this the rest of my life. But then it'll go to another phase and it'll be, like, fine again. Okay. And you kind of have this, you, like, I want them to crawl. You know, you finally get to this, you're, like, I can't wait until they crawl. Then they start crawling and you're, like, wow, can I go back? You know. And then they start crawling for a while, get used to it. And you're, like, oh, I want them to walk. And then they start walking, like, I want to go back to the crawling phase. You know. And it's just kind of always just this constantly changing thing. But what'll happen is you kind of get locked in to the current moment and you're just thinking, like, I can't go through this phase the rest of my life. Or changing diapers the rest of my life. Or I can't go through, you know, struggling to feed them for the rest of their life. Or I can't go through this phase of teaching them how to read. That's a real phase. Okay. Teaching them how to read. You know what? They'll eventually learn how to read. You know, they'll eventually learn A and B and C. They'll eventually figure out how to form words. And they'll go on to the next stages of life. And sufficient under the days of the evil thereof. Don't always worry about all the things that could happen. Or what might happen. Worry about what you can affect today. You know. Just deal with the things that you have to work upon today. Because unfortunately a lot of people, they just stress out and so worried about things that'll never happen. You know, or they're just like, the new World War is going to happen tomorrow. Or, you know, World War II is going to happen tomorrow. Pastor Shelley, this is going to happen tomorrow. These people are going to do this to me tomorrow. And I'm just like, you don't know that. Has it happened? They're like, no. It's like, okay, well, are you sure that's going to happen? You know, what if these people find out, you know, what I believe about something? And it's like, did they find out? No. But what if? Like, I don't know. I don't want to plan every hypothetical with you that could ever happen in the future. You know, let's just worry about the problems you do have when they happen. Because I guarantee you have problems now. Right? And again, your life is going to exist around problems. You're never going to have a future where it's like, I'm never going to have evil anymore. All my problems, especially with kids, you know, you have some evil before you, you know. Kids are going to get hurt. They're going to cause problems. They're going to break stuff. They're going to break other people's stuff. You know, I mean, there's going to have things that are going to happen. It's life. That's why they say you can't have nice things because you have kids. Look what it says in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 16. Redeeming the time because the days are evil. So not only is it Jacob's opinion that his life was evil, Christ is saying evil is on the horizon. And then clearly in Ephesians it says, hey, the days are evil. Meaning what? This world is a world of struggle. This world is a world of problems. Why? Sin is affected this entire planet. And it's full of evil. You know, we know that the world is evil. You know, we're not of the world. But guess what? The world, you know, lieth in darkness. The whole world lieth in darkness. The world doesn't love Jesus Christ. The world is full of sin. The world is full of problems. And we have to live in this world. We all are living in this world. In fact, we contribute to some of that evil. We contribute to some of those problems. That's why it's important to realize evil is coming, but you know what? I just worry about today. And just take it one day at a time, one problem at a time. Look what it says in chapter 6, verse 13. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. So notice another preparation of saying, look, the evil day is coming. What do we want to do? We want to armor ourselves so that we are prepared for that evil day. So that we can actually keep standing through that evil time. Now, I don't want to stand up here and promise you your best life now. I don't want to stand here and tell you you won't go through difficulty. In fact, some of you, the worst day of your life hasn't even happened. And I'm not trying to say that to scare you. I'm trying to just say that to prepare you. Like, the worst things that you've ever gone through may not even have happened yet in your life. And I pray that they have. I pray, you know, that we be delivered from evil. I don't want to go through evil. But the fact is, and the reality is, that there's a lot of evil days ahead of us. And the goal of Ephesians chapter number 6 is to prepare ourselves for that day. Not to say, well, I don't want to go through that. I don't care what you do. I don't care if you decide to never go to church, never read the Bible. Evil days are going to come. And so you better get prepared so that you can actually endure that evil day. What happens to the world when they go through the evil day? Well, they lose their child, and instead of finding comfort in the Scriptures and finding comfort in church and finding comfort in their brethren, they find comfort in Jack Daniels. They find comfort in some kind of drug. They find comfort in some kind of whore or something like that. And then they get even more problems. Now, they used to have just the loss of a child. Now they have gonorrhea. Now they have a bastard child. Now they are in jail. Now they killed somebody for being a drunk driver. Now they have a drug and alcohol addiction. Now they have even more evil in their life. And it's silly to think you're going to escape evil. It's foolish to say, well, you know what, I just want peace. Your peace is in heaven. That's it. And if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going to hell. There is no peace. There's no rest day nor night, is what the Bible says. The only option for peace is in heaven, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And here on earth, we can find temporary peace, satisfaction, and joy and comfort through the Holy Ghost. You know, we're going to have to go through difficulty. We're going to have to go through struggle. But the Bible talks about a peace which passeth all understanding. Meaning that even though you could go through something so horrific, so evil, so bad, you could still find joy in the Lord no matter what you have to struggle through. Go back to Genesis 47. Go back to Genesis chapter 47. I just want to encourage you that, you know, you can get through difficult things in this life. But I want to prepare you in the fact that you will go through difficult things. You will have struggles. And we don't know what they are necessarily. And it makes no sense to worry about them when they haven't happened. And I guarantee every mother does this. Every mother will anticipate horrible things that could happen that have not happened. And it's like, just try your best to not, you know. Just worry about your problems you have now. I guarantee you have plenty of problems now. But you're like, but what is going to happen in the future? Who are my kids going to marry? It's like they're three. You know, teach them how to read first, you know. Teach them how to use the bathroom first. Because I guarantee if you don't teach them how to use the bathroom on their own, nobody will want to marry them. Okay. Get them potty trained. Then maybe we'll talk about marriage, you know. Then we'll worry about those type of things. You know, it's easy to get trapped into worrying about everything that could or might happen in the future. But I'm telling you, you know, when you just trust the Lord and you're serving God faithfully, He's going to get you through the evil times. He's going to help you put you in the place that you need to be. Look at what it says in Genesis, chapter 47, verse number 11. The Bible says, So, Joseph is now nourishing his family. And you know, a little biblical precedent here is that children should take care of their parents when they're elderly. The Bible says to honor thy father and thy mother. And it's used in the New Testament as actually paying for your elderly parents. Whereas the Pharisees had come up with a false doctrine or basically this, like, lame excuse of any time their parents were asking for any kind of help that they wouldn't help their parents. They would just say, oh, it's Corbin. It's a gift. It's a devoted thing. Basically saying they don't have to help their parents or bless their parents or do good under their parents. And, you know, that's not the right thing. We should take care of our parents and basically help them and nourish them if need be. Now, of course, you know, the Bible says in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul is talking about how the parents are supposed to lay up for the children. The children aren't supposed to lay up for the parents. And so, you know, ideally parents would take care of themselves to the bitter end. But if need be, children should be willing to step up to the plate, take, you know, some of those responsibilities on. And really the main one is a widow, is the woman. Because a man, you're a man, take care of yourself, right? But a woman who's been a kept wife, who's taken care of the family and has had a man provide for, if for whatever reason that husband were to die, she needs the other men of the household to step up and be the man of the house and take care of their mother, take care of their grandmother or whatever ladies are in their life. They're supposed to provide for their own. And if they don't, the Bible says they're worse than an infidel. I mean, so it's really important that we take care of our own and nourish them. But even our father, if need be, if there are 130, okay, you know, step up to the plate, okay? It says in verse 13, And when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, give us bread. Why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth. So literally money could fail. And I want to spend a little bit of time talking about this, but let's keep reading because not only did all of the money fail, it gets worse. It says in verse 16, For the cattle of the herds were the asses, and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When the year was ended, they came unto him the second year and said to him, You will not hide it from my lord how that our money is spent. My lord also hath our herds of cattle. There is not aught left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands. Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes? Both we and our land buy us and our land for bread. And we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh. Give us seed that we may live, not die. Let the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh. For the Egyptians sold every man his field because the famine prevailed over them. So the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not, for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh. And did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them. Wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold I have bought you this day in your land for Pharaoh. Lo, here is seed for you and ye shall sow the land. It shall come to pass in the increase that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh. And four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field and for your food. And for them of your households and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives, let us find grace in the sight of my lord and we will be Pharaoh's servants. Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day that Pharaoh should have the fifth part. Except the land of the priests only, it became not Pharaoh's. So we have a really interesting situation here. Joseph was warned in a dream that there would be seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. In the seven years of plenty they took a fifth part of all of the corn from all of the people. So they basically exercised a plenteous tax where they're just saying give us 20% of your income and we're going to lay it up. Then in the seven years of famine nobody could produce anything. Nobody could basically generate any kind of crop. So they had to go to the government, quote unquote, they had to go to Pharaoh and they basically had to buy corn. And notice even the Egyptians who had literally given all of this corn to Joseph and to Pharaoh. They had to buy back their own corn that they had given unto Pharaoh and had given unto Joseph. Now this immediately makes me think of social security. Okay, where basically Americans are being forced to give all this money to the government that's supposedly ours. But then the government ended up mixing social security with the general fund and now it's just gone. And, you know, how are we going to get that money back? Well, I don't know, it's gone. Okay, now of course they're still giving some people social security and then it's kind of a big problem that they've created in America. It's become this big burden because they didn't really, you know, actually save that money. They spent it on, you know, I don't know, crack pipes or Hunter Biden or something. I don't know what they spent it on anymore, it's just ridiculous, right? Some government program where they basically just paid off Hillary or something. But, you know, in this scenario, I believe it's extremely wicked and evil for what Joseph to have done here. Why wouldn't you give the food back for free? They're the ones that already gave it. Okay, you're just giving them their money back. You're not like selling them something that you earned or that you worked for. They are the ones that planted and grew the crops and produced the corn and everything like that. They're the ones that gave it to you and now you're selling it back to them? I mean that just kind of seems wicked if you ask me. And it really just kind of goes to show a difference between Joseph and Jesus. Because Jesus already owns everything and then he just gives it to us for free. And he just lets us to inherit the kingdom with him. I mean we literally get to know Jesus isn't like going to sell it back to us or like make us his slaves or something like that. No, he makes us joint heirs with him. Well in this situation, Joseph's literally taking the entire group of Egyptians and the children of Israel and making them slaves by enslaving them into the government. Now this does not happen overnight though. We see a process by which this happened, right? First was money failed. Then he took all their possessions. Then he took their lands, okay? And really this is how every society has worked throughout history. Where they have a slow degenerate process to enslave the human population. And if you actually pay attention, it's a little bit scary when you start thinking about America, okay? Now this is probably the first time for money to fail in a big society that we know of. But it's not the only time that money's failed. In fact, I did a lot of research on this. In China, there was the Chinese UN, okay, is their currency. And in 1949, they had an inflation rate, their annual inflation rate was 5,000%. 5,000% in one year. In fact, inflation was so rampant in their country that prices would double every 5.34 days. I mean, that's some intense inflation. Can you imagine? I mean, in America, it's like every six months. In China, it was like 5.34 days. I mean, prices are just doubling like this. 5,000%. I mean, just crazy things that are happening. And this has happened in all kinds of societies. And I was reading a couple of articles about this and they said, here's the causes for why money fails in a society, okay? And there's multi reasons, but this is what they say. Massive government spending. I wonder if that happens. Use to finance conflict. Public projects or servicing debts. I wonder if we have a big debt in America. Anybody ever heard about that? Or just printing money. Because why? Printing money devalues the currency. It causes as much money as, if you print money, all you're doing is you're just making all the money more worthless in essence. Another reason why you have this money to fail is a loss in economic productivity. And that's exactly what happened in Egypt. They literally, their economic productivity went to zero all of a sudden. I mean, they're producing no goods, nothing whatsoever. Now, if you think about America, this is scary. Number one, we have massive government spending. I mean, it's insane constantly spending out the wazoo. We're printing money like crazy, which is driving up insane amounts of inflation. And from an economic productivity perspective, we're really just getting worse. Nobody wants to work. We have all kinds of supply chain issues. And at the end of the day, what does America even produce? We're like a service production society. We don't actually produce, like, any real tangible goods. Who wants, you know, it is my pleasure at Chick-fil-A. Nobody wants that. We're like a consumer nation. We're not really producing, like, good cars anymore. Sorry for all you Ford owners or whatever. It's called fix or repair daily, okay? And who wants a Dodge? I mean, I don't know. I mean, like, these things just break and just, a Buick. I mean, why would you want to buy a car from the auto manufacturer that literally can't even make a profit? You have to beg the government to constantly bail them out. They just, they may have made good cars in the past. I'm not trying to knock them for their entire history. But everybody knows if you want a good car, you buy foreign. I mean, the foreign. Look, the Toyota Tundra out here is about to hit 350,000 miles, okay? And I'm not just saying that because it's my vehicle. I saw a guy had a Toyota Tundra go a million miles. A million. That's crazy, isn't it? On the same engine. So, I mean, you know, it's not that they can't make good quality products. It's that it's not for a lot of money, right? They're more interested in making money than they are making high quality products. But when you look at America, you know, we're driving ourselves into a position where money could literally fail in America. And so, I just want you to be aware that that could happen. And from an end times perspective, it makes sense. Because if money failed, what would happen? Then we have to have a new currency, okay? That could be like an electronic only currency. Where you can turn it on and off if people have a mark in their hand or their forehead, right? That doesn't sound familiar. Oh yeah, it does sound familiar. Now, what's interesting is other societies like this, Roman society, okay? So, in Rome, they had a currency that was called the denarius. And a denarius was a silver coin. Now, what's interesting about the word denarius is that's where we get some root words, like dinero. Who knows what I mean by dinero? That's the Spanish word for money, okay? So, that's kind of where that's rooted from. But the denarius was a pure silver coin. Now, what the rulers did, the emperors realized is they said, you know what, if we don't make this 100% silver, we make it a little bit less, we can save a little bit of that silver and we'll actually get more money for ourselves. And so, the emperors started changing the currency to where it was like 98% silver. And they basically save a little bit because they're basically ripping everybody off by getting like 2% silver. You know, when you're talking about thousands of coins or millions of coins, it adds up a lot for the government and they basically just are devaluing the currency. So, now that same coin is worth only 98% of what it used to be. Well, every single emperor decided, hey, that's a good idea. So, it went from like 98% to 95% and then like 92%. And by the first century, it had gone down to 90%. So, about 200 BC approximately to about the first century, it decreased from like about 100% pure silver to 90%. Well, by the second century, it dropped down to 70%. Now, it's only a 70% silver coin, okay? By the third century, 5%. And then, it got to a point where it was .02% silver in the coin. It got to where it was basically pointless. Now, here's the thing you have to understand about inflation in America. The US dollar from 1913 to today has decreased 97% in value. So, in perspective, we don't even realize how much purchasing power has just changed by inflation. And again, inflation is driven by the government. By what? Printing more money, by affecting interest rates, by doing all kinds of Judaistic type philosophies. And I say that literally. Now, I went to a website that's not a Christian website, okay? And this is what they said about mortgages, okay? This is interesting. I went to mortgagecalculator.org. You can go there, right? Because I was curious about mortgages because they ended up selling their lands, right? They said this, God condemns money lending in Jewish law. And I was like, amen. Go to Exodus 22, let's prove that, all right? But it says, according to the American Law Register, the origin of mortgage history lies in the sacred Talmudic scriptures. They said, the ancient Greeks and Roman civilizations simply borrowed these concepts from Judaic sources. So, they say, hey, you want to learn about how we rip people off? It's from the Jews. And they're saying ancient. They're not saying, like, past Christ. We're saying pre-Christ. And you got to understand, Joseph's pre-Christ, my friend. And you want to talk about some really wicked lending practices? It's called Joseph. Now, selling people back their own money and doing these mortgage practices, you know what he's charging them? He's charging them a 20% interest. Think about this. A fifth part had to come back. That's 20%. Now, in America, did you know that mortgage rates or interest rates used to be 20% at points in time in history? Now, what does the Bible have to say about interest? Well, guess what? It condemns all interest, all usury. And that's the word that the Bible uses. In our modern vernacular, we would say interest. And some people, they would think, like, oh, well, the Bible condemns, like, high interest. No, no, no. It condemns interest. Okay? Exodus 22, look at verse 25. If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as a usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury. According to the Bible, you're not allowed to charge any interest. It's wicked to charge interest to someone. Go to Leviticus chapter 25. Go to Leviticus chapter 25. So we have an institute or a policy of essentially tax. We have, like, a Social Security vaguely, thinly veiled, and even kind of like a mortgage situation where they sold their property onto Egypt. Now, why are they doing that? Because they don't have any money. Now, if you look at American society, people would praise our society and think that it's great. But if you realize we're, like, way down the list and we're way down on the position of where we're going into slavery, like, a free society, no one has debt. People actually have money and own all their land. They don't even have a house. They have land. They have land, houses, goods. And not goods that are like PlayStations and stuff like that. No, goods that have value. Like cattle. Okay. All the possessions in your house are probably worth about a thousand bucks, you know, in a fire cell. You know what? Cattle actually have value. They would actually be worth something. Nobody wants your leftover clothes and, you know, your bookcase and all this stuff. You know, all that stuff's kind of junk. You know, we're talking about real physical assets that have value associated with them. A good society, a healthy society is one where all the individuals are producing their own goods, producing their own income naturally. They own all their own goods. Think about where we've gone. Nobody here is probably producing their own goods. Very few. I mean, you probably don't have a farm. Probably not producing any of your own milk and vegetables and goods. You probably don't have any goods or assets to trade or to barter with. You probably don't have any cattle. You have a fake currency called dollars that you have some money in a computer system somewhere. You know, a lot of people just rent. They don't even own any property. And it's like, do you know how close you are to becoming a slave? Like, you don't even realize how close you are to literally becoming a slave. You know, if you have millions of people that have their own land, have their own assets, they're producing their own product like crops and goods and everything like that, that's a hard group of people to enslave. When you have a whole group of people that own nothing, have no goods, and the money that they have could just turn into liquid, you know, vapor tomorrow, that's a real easy group to enslave tomorrow. Because what do they do? They turn up the spigot and you start getting hungry tomorrow. And then you start saying, like, just make me a slave. You know, just give me some bread. Give me a Twinkie. Just give me a Ho-Ho or whatever. And you don't realize how they slowly enslave the population. And it comes through practices like mortgage lending. Mortgage lending is super wicked. And I don't care what the banks tell you. The banks will tell you it's the greatest thing ever and they've helped all these people get homes. No, they've helped take people's money is what they've done. They've helped themselves to the wealth of the citizens in this area and they've literally just ripped it around. Now, of course, living in our society, you have to mortgage. Right? I'm not condemning the Israelites for mortgaging their lands to eat food because if they didn't, they were going to die. And, in fact, in Nehemiah, we'll go there in a minute, but in Nehemiah, they had to mortgage all their stuff. Otherwise, they were going to die. Okay? But Nehemiah got really pissed at the Jews for being usurers onto them. Okay? And we'll get there in a moment. Go to Leviticus 25. Look at verse 36. What does the Bible say? Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee. Now, we're not supposed to take usury of him. Who's the him? Look at verse 35. And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner, that he may live with thee. So, if he's poor and has no money, what would I do to him? I don't exact usury. And think about this. Joseph not only took their lands and gave them cord, he then on top of that said, oh, yeah, give me 20% in the future too. Oh, and forever. This is kind of like a 30-year mortgage, because it's basically forever. I mean, come on. Thirty years. Like, that is literally forever. People that usually own have a mortgage their whole life. Okay? Almost nobody doesn't have a mortgage. And, you know, praise the Lord, there's some people that don't. Like, my father finally paid off his mortgage, but he's, like, 78. Okay? You know, he doesn't have a mortgage, and that's great. And, you know, that would be a wonderful thing. But not having a mortgage, it should be, like, the norm. It should not be the rarity. If you want to have a healthy society, if you want to have a healthy economy. And I'm not condemning you for having a mortgage. I have a mortgage. I'll probably have a mortgage for the rest of my life, because of the debt-ridden society we live in, because of the practices of these Jewish bankers. Okay? What I am telling you is that it's a very wicked practice. Go to Nehemiah Chapter 5. Go to Nehemiah Chapter 5. I want to put on a board to just show you how bad this is. And how interest rates were so horrible at some points in American history. Now, the 20%, this is what's crazy. If you live in the DFW area and you buy a house, and I'm just putting up random numbers, okay? But the average price for, like, a normal home right now is, like, I don't know, like, $300,000. It's, like, ridiculous. Okay? So I'm just saying, like, a normal, like, three or four bedroom home in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, like a $300,000 house, probably more. I'm just throwing out numbers, okay? If you buy this house, you have to put some money down. Let's just say you put, like, 5% down, okay? Your mortgage would be $285,000 on this particular situation. If you got a 30-year mortgage and you had 20% interest, okay? Let me show you how much money you would have to pay for the life of that loan if you decided to pay it all in full, okay? $1,714,465.17. And then the mortgage company, you know what they'll say? We really helped you buy that house for 1.7. Like, who wouldn't want to help you buy a house for 1.7 that's only worth $300,000? Of course you would. Because at any point you default on this loan, they get to sell your house and they get to collect all the interest that they made on that stupid loan that was at 20% interest. This is insane, folks. And you know how much of this was interest? 1.4. You know? You subtract $285,000. I mean, literally, this is how you make money. You want to know how you make money? On interest. Especially at 20%. And you know, credit cards are these rates. And of course, you know, most people don't have this much money on credit cards. You know, they're pooling from such a large pool of people that their numbers are astronomical. That they're making on these credit cards, on interest, on usury, and all it's doing is bankrupting the general population and making super wealthy individuals at the top. At the top of American society, they're so much more wealthy than the average individual, it's gross. It's just gross how much money these people have and they're just bankrupting people. Now, just to illustrate the difference here, what if you got the exact same loan but it was just 4% interest, which is the current interest rate, okay? Let's say you got the same loan but it was 4% interest. Your total payments would be $489,828.09. It's all the same except for just the interest rate alone. And look, we're talking about $1.3 million in difference. Where does this come from? Predatory lending. And obviously, you say, well, what's the right number? Zero interest. Zero interest would be the healthy right number. But of course, what have they done? They've tried to exact all of this money, all this usury, taking advantage of people that don't have a house, that don't have goods by collecting all their future wages through mortgage programs, through interest programs. And you say, well, Pastor Shelley, I'm safe from this because I rent. But here's the thing. You're paying someone else's mortgage. So you're still paying all this. You're still getting ripped off and the rental rate is even higher than if you own the property. You're getting more ripped off typically, okay? So it's not like, well, I got to escape that because I don't even own. No, no, our whole society is a mortgage-based society. It's an interest-based society that's ripping off its citizens and it's really just driving us to being enslaved. And you say, when are we going to be enslaved? I don't know, but eventually the money will fail. Like, if you've ever played the game Monopoly, people don't get added to the game. People only get eliminated. People only lose, okay? And here's the thing. In a capitalistic society, which is what we live in, supposedly, you know, the only thing that's happening is people are getting eliminated. Now, if you basically have no assets, you have no home or whatever, let me just say some kind of a sad reality. You've been eliminated from the game. Whether you realize it, you're like, well, I have 50 bucks in the bank account. You've been eliminated from the game, okay? No, no, no, Pastor Shelley, you don't understand. I have $500 in the bank account. You've been eliminated from the game, okay? It's not even close. These people that are at the top are billionaires, billionaires. Their amount of money is so high. Now, this is what they're going to do. They're going to keep rising prices to the point where a milk, a carton of milk is just like 50 bucks. Each. Where, you know, every single good just gets to that point where every one of us can't buy anything. Only the rich can. Now, of course, if you're Jeff Bezos, if you're Elon Musk, you could buy $50 gallons of milk all day long. It doesn't bother you. It doesn't really affect you. So then what happens? Everybody has to become your slave. That's what's going to be driven. That's what's going to end up happening, okay? And there's no stopping it. It will eventually just completely just collapse and money will literally collapse. Every fiat currency has eventually collapsed. The dollar will collapse unless Jesus comes before them. I think it probably will because that will help us usher in the Antichrist. So, you know, the best thing from a financial perspective is to own things that are not in dollars. You know, gold, silver, land, things that have, you know, a value that's protected against inflation and these other things. Again, you know, sufficient of the day is the evil thereof. I'm not really that worried about it right now because I'm worried about paying bills today, okay? I preached that at the beginning so that you're not, I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to warn you about the evil day that's coming though, okay? And there's going to be a Joseph that knows, or there's going to be a Pharaoh that knows not Joseph pretty soon, all right? Go if you would to Nehemiah, hopefully you're there. Look at chapter number five and look at verse number one. We'll just kind of read a little bit of the story. It says, and there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren, the Jews. Notice who they're mad at, the Jews. Verse two, for there were that said, we are sons and our daughters are many, therefore we take up corn for them that we may eat and live. Some also, there were that said, we have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses that we might buy corn because of the dearth. Doesn't that sound familiar? It's like the same story. What if they had to mortgage everything? It says in verse number four, there were also that said, we have borrowed money for the king's tribute and that upon our lands and vineyards. So notice they had to sell everything in order to pay for their goods. And that's what's happened in our society. People didn't have any money so they had to sell everything in order to just live. And this is what America has tried to convince all of you of doing. America right now, instead of you saving up money and buying a house, what they want you to do is eat at McDonald's. What they want you to do is buy the next iPhone. What they want you to do is go and buy more clothes that you're not going to wear. What they want you to do is waste all of your money on consumer goods that have no value rather than actually having goods. Because you could pick, well, I could have $15,000 to put down on a house or I could just go out to eat. Or I could just spend $15,000, I could go on vacation. I could own a vacation home. A bunch of pointless, meaningless stuff. I could own season tickets to the house cowboys. And what society has done because of the love of money and these corporate shields is they basically tried to convince people to buy things that they shouldn't buy. Things that they can't afford instead of actually putting their money in responsible assets and responsible goods. Actually being good money managers. And we live in a society that's trying to keep up with the Joneses that's just throwing money away on just stupid perishable goods. And there's consequences to those actions. Now, of course, you know, we're not supposed to, you know, worship money or love money or care about money. You know, I'm not trying to sit here and lay up treasures on earth. You're supposed to lay up treasures in heaven. But the Bible also teaches we're supposed to be good stewards of the money that God's given us. And you know what? God is not glorified by you blowing all your money on fast food rather than owning a home. That's stupid. That's foolish. You have to live somewhere. You have to have certain goods. You have to have certain things. And look, I'm not again. I eat fast food. OK, I'm not. I'm just trying to condemn everybody. I'm just saying, look, we need to have moderation and we have self-control. And just because the banker says you can have this good doesn't mean you should buy it. Why do they want to have these mortgages? Well, because they want to give houses to people that can't even afford them to drive up the price of real estate. Called the 2008 bubble. They were literally just giving mortgages to people that couldn't even afford them, couldn't even have this house. It didn't even make sense financially just to keep selling them. And when there's that much demand, what happens? All the prices of houses just keep going up and they can keep getting more interest off all kinds of interest rates. And they just basically play the stock market on both sides too. And they just make so much more money. And they're just trying to extract all the money from the middle and lower classes of society. How do they do that? They get your mortgage, they get your land, they get your goods, they get everything. And eventually the middle class, there's no distinction between the middle and lower class. It's just one upper ruling class and everybody becomes their slaves. That is what's happening in America. It used to be that people would own property. It used to be that people had goods. It used to be that people had savings. You know, in order to have a mortgage, I looked this up. In America, like in the beginning of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century, I guess in the 1900s. A mortgage, you had to put 50% down on the purchase price. And the mortgage amortization was only five years. Talk about having to have responsible, you know, finances. I mean, today people are getting houses that put nothing down, you know. And the loan to value ratios are just astronomical. When I was trying to buy a house, it used to be you had to have a 33% loan to value. After that, towards the 2008 crisis, it got so high, people were getting at 80%. 80% loan to value. And what that means is basically that 80% of your income is spoken for on your mortgage. That's a bad run of numbers, okay? 33% was considered high. Like, that's a stretch. But then they went to like 40, then 50, then 60, then 70. I mean, the bankers will do whatever to, you know, hand you stuff and give you stuff. We need to be responsible with the things that God has given us and not let the Josephs of this world take advantage of us as much as we can, okay? And I don't want a 20%, you know, interest rate mortgage. I mean, that's insane. Now, go if you went to Proverbs 28. Go to Proverbs 28. And I'll finish the last part of our chapter here pretty quickly. What's the moral of the story? Number one, don't be a usurer, okay? Number two, don't worry about tomorrow, okay? I know I'm talking about a lot of things that can and will happen, but it's similar to things like the Antichrist is going to come. Christians are going to be beheaded. Don't start worrying about that yet. Don't become a prepper, okay? You know. But you know what? You should live your life as if you're going to live it to the end. You know, you should live your life with preparation, with planning, you know, making an inheritance to leave under your children's children, making good decisions, being responsible. And typically when you listen to the world, they're going to try and convince you that this is good. It makes me think of how the children of Israel responded. Remember they told Joseph, you saved our lives. It's like he's ripping you off and you're thanking him for it. And that's literally what happens in our world. You know, they're printing money and then giving it to people in welfare, and they're like, this is great. And it's like they don't even realize they're getting destroyed by it. They don't even realize that it's ruining them. It's causing them to become lazy and it's ruining their economy and it's taking jobs away from these people and it's destroying small businesses and it's just like, I mean, the game of Monopoly is just being fast-forwarded, you know, in our society. And you know, the game of Monopoly always has an end. Theoretically, our capitalistic society was supposed to have regulations on it where companies couldn't become monopolies. They couldn't just own all these industries. They couldn't collude on prices and all this stuff to basically prevent it from becoming a one-world dictatorship. But all that ceased through lobbying efforts, through the corruption in the government. I mean, we have literal monopolies. We have literal price fixing from these major corporations. They know what they're doing. They basically run the entire gamut. And you know, Facebook and Google, they just buy any company that's a competitor to them anyways. They're so big. Any of these companies that are big that would fail, the government bails them out. So it's just gotten to a point where they've rigged the system now and it's just an inevitable collapse. Now, they've done a lot of things to try and prevent it from collapsing. What would be one of those things? Putting women in the workforce. Because if you increase your economic production, then essentially that helps offset a lot of these losses. Women shouldn't have been in the workplace. They should have been home raising the children, doing as God said. But because we basically just got pseudo, like all these new people into the workforce, it kind of stimulated the economy. Right? Then what happened? Well, then they started doing weird lending practices to basically just constantly increase economic productivity. Interest rates were at 20%. So as they lower that, it increases economic demand. But guess what? Interest rates had gone all the way down to like 2% recently. Now they're driving back up. You know what happens there? Great depression. If interest rates turn to this tomorrow, great depression. In fact, all of our houses that just enjoyed like a huge boost in value would go down to basically worthless. No one would want to buy them. No one would be buying anything. It would just totally bankrupt society. And it could happen tomorrow. They say, I don't care because I'm still going to serve God. In fact, it would be great if it happened. More people might come to church. They have nothing to live for. They don't have any more, you know, things to worry about, you know. Covetousness ruins church, you know. When people go through hardship, they are like, maybe I need the Lord, you know. Maybe I need something spiritual. Proverbs 28, look at verse 8. He that by usury and unjust gain increases the substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Notice, these bankers, they're eventually going to waste it all and give it to somebody else, and eventually God will somehow redistribute it back to poor people. Wealth of the sinners laid up for the just. And we even see in Egypt, all this wealth is laid up, but then who gets to take it back with them? The children of Israel when they eventually leave. Okay. The land of Canaan, all this wealth and all these cities built up for the children of Israel to come and inherit. Okay. And eventually, we're going to get to inherit the earth anyways. Go back to Genesis 47. Let's finish these few verses here. I always preach a long sermon. I try to preach it shorter, but there's too much good content here. And obviously, if we didn't have spiritual goals, I would say from a carnal perspective, we need to kick this in gear and start owning possessions that are outside of the US dollar. Because those are the people that are going to survive. And obviously from an economic perspective, we want to prevent that. I've already preached a whole sermon on this, wise investments, golden land are always the hedge bet. In the sense that, I even looked it up, gold. If you bought gold in 2000. Okay. In the year 2000. If you bought gold in 2000, today it would have increased 5,000%. I was alive in 2000. I mean, that's a pretty good, that's 50 times your money. Why? Because inflation, you know, they can't do anything to the gold. I mean, people are still going to buy gold and silver and you can change that in any currency or whatever you want. Now, I wouldn't buy the like paper gold, because that'll just disappear. Okay. But I'm just saying like the real physical tangible things like gold and silver. You know, why did the denarius go to a point where it's worthless? Because there was no silver anymore. But if it had the silver, it had the intrinsic value. Let me tell you about the intrinsic value about your dollar. Zero. Bitcoin. Zero. It's a Ponzi scheme, my friend. Okay. There's these stupid people out there that are like, hey, you know, the dollar's going in the trash. Buy Bitcoin. You know who said that? The person that bought Bitcoin already and is trying to sell you on it. He's the guy that's trying to sell you his timeshare. He's like, hey, I've got this really great timeshare for you. I'm really enjoying it, but I would love to just sell it to you. Okay. I saw a billboard drive into Oklahoma. It said, be a winner. Sell your timeshare. And I was like, that's true. The only two advertisements to sell the timeshare are to buy them and sell them. You know, you never see anybody enjoying it. Okay. And I know people that have bought them, and they want nothing. They hate it. You know, it's like the worst thing ever. Does anybody know somebody that loves their timeshare? I'm not going to shame you. Okay. All right. Okay, someone loves their timeshare. All right. We got a person. We got a witness. Okay. Yeah, I know. He knows somebody. I know a guy that enjoys his timeshare. Okay. Look at verse 27. The Bible says, and Israel dwelled in the land of Egypt and the country of Goshen, and they had possessions there, and it grew and multiplied exceedingly. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years, though the whole age of Jacob was 147 years. The time drew nigh that Israel must die, and he called his son Joseph and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand unto my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me. Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt. I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, swear unto me, and he sware unto him, and Israel bowed himself upon his bed's head. We have the passing of Jacob, and this is what I love about the way this chapter is kind of set up. First of all, don't worry about the evil, but realize super bad evil things are going to happen. Okay. It's not perfect. Joseph was not Jesus. He ended up becoming the Jews, where he's basically horrible lending practices, 20 percent usury, taking all the goods, exacting everything of everybody. But then we end on this note that Jacob ultimately, he's not going to stay in Egypt. When he's dead, he's going to be buried in the promised land. And this is what I like. This world's screwed. The economic system is screwed. There's no way to prevent the downfall that's going to happen. You know what? You don't have to be buried here in the sense that you're going to live in heaven. Hey, he's going to go back to the promised land. And just like us, we're just a sojourning. We're just a passing through here. Who cares if this place is going to burn up? Who cares if this place is screwed? I mean, think about the writing on the wall for Egypt. It's like, hey, just want to let you know, Egypt's going to literally, like, all the waters are going to turn into blood. There's going to be frogs and locusts and lice. I mean, your wife's like, I'm ready to move. Darkness, which could be felt. I mean, the whole place, all the firstborn are going to get killed. I mean, that's not a really good future. But the good thing is they're leaving. They're getting out of there. It'd be kind of like if your apartment that you're living in, they say, hey, tomorrow we're bulldozing this whole place and it's going to be destroyed. You're like, but I'm leaving today. I don't really care. It's like, it doesn't matter. And look, this whole world is going to burn up and it's going to be just completely toasted. All the goods, all the possessions, all the wonderful things, they're all going to just be completely destroyed. You know what? We get to go to heaven. And then we get to come back to the new earth and we get to rule and reign with Christ. And so it really doesn't matter. You think like, oh man, I'm losing all my goods and all my possessions and I'm not good financially. It doesn't matter because you're going to lose it all anyways. Who cares? I just don't think you should be a bad steward while you're here. I'm just trying to help you realize, don't be a bad steward. God wants you to be a good steward. But at the end of the day, we're all going to have total asset failure. It's all going to be destroyed. It's all going to go to hell, essentially going to be burned up. It's meaningless. It's pointless. It's just vanity. But you know what? I want to have a character that shows God, hey, even in charge of stuff that's worthless, even in charge of this vain life, I was a good steward. And I was a good manager of the resources you had that were temporary. So will you put me in possession of resources that are forever? The true riches. If you can't even be faithful in the unrighteous mammon, how is God going to bless you with the true riches, things that have real value? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for this great chapter, for these pictures and these illustrations. Thank you for helping us have an eternal value of life, an eternal perspective, that we realize that these things are just temporary and vain. But I pray that even though they have a temporal state, that we would still exercise ourselves in godliness and in righteousness and we would use discretion and wisdom and we would be a good steward of the possessions that you give us. Even knowing their futility, but rather we use these goods for your service, for your honor, for your glory, and to show ourselves to be faithful stewards and faithful servants with everything that you've given us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Alright, for our final song, we'll go to our white handouts or your King James Bible, Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Psalm 15. Not with this tongue, Do not leave a hole to his name, Nor taketh up a reproach against his name, He that bideth not with this tongue, In whose eyes a vile, Vile person is content, But he underwent them that fear the Lord. In whose eyes a vile person is content, But he underwent them that fear the Lord. He that spareth to his own word, In changing not, He that putteth not out his money to drink, He that sweareth to his own word, In changing not, He that putteth not out his money to drink, Nor taketh reward against the innocent, He that doeth these things shall never be proved, Nor taketh reward against the innocent, He that doeth these things shall never be proved, For who shall abide in thy tabernacle, For who shall dwell in thy holy hymn? We have Brother Elijah coming for baptism this evening. Brother Elijah, if you trusted Christ as your Savior, then I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, buried in the likeness of his death, raised to walk in newness of life. Congratulations to Brother Elijah. Make sure to congratulate him. And his family, you are dismissed.