(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

I found a friend who is all to me, His love is ever true. I love to tell how He lifted me, And what His grace can do for you. Saved by His power divine, Saved to new life sublime, My value sweet and my joy is complete, For I'm saved, saved, saved. He saves me from every sin and harm, Secures my soul each day. I'm leaning strong on His mighty arm, I know He'll guide me all the way. Saved by His power divine, Saved to new life sublime, My value sweet and my joy is complete, For I'm saved, saved, saved. When poor and needy and all alone, In love He said to me, Come unto me and I'll lead you home, To live with me eternally. Saved by His power divine, Saved to new life sublime, My value sweet and my joy is complete, For I'm saved, saved, saved. The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin, The light of the world is Jesus, Like sunshine at noonday His glory shone in, The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light, it's shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon thee. Once I was blind, but now I can see, The light of the world is Jesus. No darkness have we who in Jesus abide, The light of the world is Jesus. We walk in the light when we follow our guide, The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light, it's shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see, The light of the world is Jesus. Ye dwellers in darkness with sin-blinded eyes, The light of the world is Jesus. Go wash at His bidding and light will arise, The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light, it's shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see, The light of the world is Jesus. No need of the sunlight in heaven we're told, The light of the world is Jesus. The Lamb is the light in the city of gold, The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light, it's shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Once I was blind, but now I can see, The light of the world is Jesus. Come to the light, it's shining for thee, Sweetly the light has dawned upon me. Also on the back we have the church reminders. Please make sure your kids aren't running around anywhere in the building, but also that they're not on the stage in our kitchen area or unattended mother baby rooms. Also please make sure that if you do for some reason have to take older children in the mother baby rooms, that they're sitting with you in the room and that they're not roaming around. Also please don't share any toys and then we've been observing a quiet time from Sundays from two to four. Also upcoming events, I think it was penciled in there just slightly wrong, but the Pastor Anderson guest preaching is July 12th. That's the Wednesday. So I think we accidentally put the Thursday in there, but he is preaching on the 13th, so that is accurate. It just wasn't here, okay? So if you'd like to hear him preach here, that'd be a great opportunity to come July 12th. Also invite people. You know, invite friends, family members. Pastor Shelley won't be preaching, so you can invite all the people you want to invite to church finally. No, I'm just kidding, but that'll be a great time to come out. Even if you don't come on Wednesday nights to hear me preach, please come out just to hear him preach at least. Also, August 17th to the 19th is our Mighty's Men's Conference. There should be a sign-up sheet out here, and that's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We have Pastor Bruce Mejia is going to be coming out and joining us, and he's going to be preaching for the men on Friday night, and so that's really exciting to have him come out. Also, we have the Firebreathing Baptist Fellowship in October, and then we have the congratulations to the Negara family on the birth of Ana Luisa. She was born on July 6th, 2.31 a.m. weighing 9 pounds and measured 19.5 inches long. Congratulations to them. That's really exciting. Also, I think we ran out of those Velcro patches, but if you want them, just let Dylan know, because we're going to order some more, so if people want those, preservedbible.com and or sodomitedeception.com, we'd like to get those to you. That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements, so go ahead and sing our third song. Psalm, it's in our Psalm booklet, Psalm 126. Psalm 126. When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them, the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them, the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Then said they among the heathen, the Lord hath done great things for them, the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. As the offering plates are being passed around, please turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 10, Proverbs chapter number 10. Proverbs chapter 10, the Bible reads, The Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivereth from death. The Lord will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famish, but he casteth away the substance of the wicked. He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame. Blessings are upon the head of the just, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot. The wise in heart will receive commandments, but a prating fool shall fall. He that walketh uprightly walketh surely, but he that perverteth his ways shall be known. He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow, but a prating fool shall fall. The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life, but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins. In the lips of him that hath understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of him that is void of understanding. Wise men lay up knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction. The rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. The labor of the righteous tendeth to life, the fruit of the wicked to sin. He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction, but he that refuseth reproof ereth. He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander is a fool. In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver, the heart of the wicked is little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for want of wisdom. The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. It is a sport to a fool to do mischief, but a man of understanding hath wisdom. The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him, but the desire of the righteous shall be granted. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the slugger to them that send him. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked shall perish. The way of the Lord is strength to the upright, but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. The righteous shall never be removed, but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth. The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom, but the froward tongue shall be cut out. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked speaketh frowardness. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray, Lord, that you would bless Pastor Shelley with the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit as he preaches to us and help us to be edified by the sermon this evening and apply it to our lives. We also pray, Lord, for your hedge of protection over our church. And, Father, we thank you for the opportunity that we have here to serve you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Here in Proverbs chapter number 10 is where I'm going to make my first point, but I'm kind of preaching a little bit of a different sermon. It's geared towards the men, and the title of my sermon this evening is Life Skills for Men. Life Skills for Men. Now, that doesn't mean that if you're a lady you should just tune out because a lot of the points that I'm going to make this evening apply to both men and women, yet it's just mostly targeted for men. Also, you ladies need to raise your young men, you need to raise your children to become the same kind of men that we're going to read about and talk about here from the Bible. And you young children, you are starting to become men, and you need to learn what it's like to be a good man and all the skills that you need in life for men. And really we're going to look at a lot of Proverbs because if I look at the book of Proverbs itself, it really just gives a lot of instruction to men on how to live their lives. And a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today, many men have already made the mistakes and not taken this advice. So if you're a young man, you're a teenager, or just a young boy, you have the opportunity to not make these mistakes and to learn from the wisdom of God's Word. Now, I think when it comes to being a man, you know, they're under attack from a lot of angles in our world today, and I think mostly most men just, they're not given very clear direction on what their life should look like or what kind of a list to do. Now, I'm not going to say that my list is replete in the sense that there isn't other things that you should do as a young man, but if you're going to do the things that I have on this list, you're going to be in really good shape, okay? So I have 14 things, and I'm going to try and go through them quickly. Some of them I'll go through very quick. A few of them I might dwell on for a little bit longer. Some of them will probably be a little more obvious to you going to our church. Some might be a little newer, okay? Point number one, life skill for men. You need to learn how to work hard. You need to learn how to work hard. It is not automatic. Most people do not work hard in this world whatsoever. They're not hard workers. And so as a man, you need to learn how to work hard. As a young child, you can start learning already, helping your dad, helping your mom, helping around the house. You need to learn how to work hard. And look what it says in verse 4. He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causes shame. So the Bible really hammers this point of being a hard worker. And some of the references the Bible gives is in the context of working in the summer. Why in the summer? Because the summer is going to be the hardest work because it's hot out. It's difficult. Someone that's going to go out soul winning in the heat is definitely going to go out when it's 70 degrees and perfect. Or when it's in the Bahamas or something. Whenever it's really nice or really comfortable or really easy. And what it's saying is that those who work hard will work hard no matter what the climate, no matter the obstacle, no matter the difficulty. And one thing that you need to learn as a child is not just necessarily getting the job done, but getting the job done right. Because I think sometimes we just want to get done with the task and so we just take shortcuts or we're sloppy or not necessarily concerned with the quality of the work. You know, a hard worker is concerned with the quality of his work as well. And he's making sure that the work he's doing can be done successfully. When you do a good job, when you do work really well, you don't have to go back and revisit it. You don't have to go and fix it. You know, I can tell that those who build roads don't work very hard because they're always having to go back and fix it, aren't they? I mean, man, it's annoying when you see areas where they have to get patched just over and over and over. It tells me they're not doing a very good job on that patch, are they? Or they're not doing a very good job on that particular piece of construction. And you know what, it's really frustrating in any line of work where someone is not doing a good job and it constantly has to be going back, revisiting it, fixing it again and fixing it again. No, you want to be able to be the person that gets it all done right the first time and then you never have to deal with it again. It's, you know, once saved, always saved, right? Once you get saved, you don't have to work on that ever again, right? I don't have to ever work on getting saved because it's already done deal. And it comes to the job place or the workplace, you need to do the same thing. Go to Proverbs 30 for a second. Go to Proverbs chapter 30. The Bible gives us a lot of animals in the Bible and it talks about how they have a specific work ethic. For some reason, the animal or insect more specifically that's referenced as being a hard worker is an ant. And you know why it's interesting, I think, about ants? Is every time you see an ant, they're always working, aren't they? They're always doing something. You know, I never see the ant just like kind of kick back just like, you know, woo. You know, and there's other insects. There's other bugs that just kind of chill or sit around or, you know, even flies. They'll just eventually just land, right? But an ant is just always moving, right? And if you hit it, he's moving over here and he's moving over. I mean, just ants are just always doing something, always working. And it makes me think of this. At your workplace, you want your boss to always catch you working. Every time he notices you, you're just always working. It's not like, oh, he's checking his phone again. Oh, he's using the bathroom again. Oh, he's taking a break again. Oh, he's doing, you know, you always want to be caught working. But the only way to be caught working every single time is to always be working. Because it's frustrating. I remember one time I worked for a boss and it was just, it must have been just a sheer coincidence because I worked pretty hard and I was always usually doing something. But like I guess he tried to find me like a couple times in a row on some day and just happened to be like I went to get a drink of water or I went to use the bathroom or something. But he said something to me. He's just like, how come every time I come to your office, I'm never finding you working? And I was just like, oh, man, what in the world? And it just made me feel really bad because, you know, you want your boss to always be finding you working, always knowing where you're at, doing a good job. And this is a skill that many men don't have. Many men are just, they're just clocking in and they just can't wait until the time expires. They're not thinking like how can I be working hard while I'm here. They're just ready to already get off. But look what it says in verse 25. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer. So notice the ant is again working in the summer. You know, it's funny to me especially, I don't understand it entirely, but, you know, for whatever reason when it comes to church, summer is always the most scarce for a church. Who's noticed that? You know, is it just me? Okay. It's just like for whatever reason, it's like school and church have like the same pattern. It's like church is, whenever school gets back in session, everybody starts going to church again for some reason. And then in the spring, they're kind of going. But then during summer, it's just like, well, I guess I don't need to go to church anymore or something. For whatever reason, I guess it's because they never grew up. They were used to going to school where they got the summer break. But it's like there's no such thing as a church break, folks. And there's no such thing as a work break. You know, us men, we don't get summers off. That would be nice. But, you know, we don't just take three months off or whatever. We actually just keep working and keep being diligent and notice that this aunt is willing to work hard. Why? So that he can have food in the winter when it's not as easy to work. And, you know, sometimes you have to do this as a man. Sometimes the getting is good for a job or for a specific industry or a specific company where it's seasonal. And you want to work really hard in that time when it's the right season, when you're in season. So you're laying up for yourself for the next period of time. Many jobs throughout history did not have the same kind of a pay system as we do where you get paid just every two weeks. You would actually just get paid like once a year. You would have your crop and you would sell your crop in the fall and then that was your income for the rest of the year. And the farmers are still like that today, where they essentially just get one big lump sum once they sell kind of all their product or all their crop in that portion of the year. And the rest of the year, they're not getting a paycheck. So they have to then set aside all of that income and prepare for that entire year and work really hard to get that big paycheck in the future. And when it comes to your life, even though you might have a day job, other ways to make income or to make profit often is something that you're not going to see just right away. If you start a business or you do some kind of an investment or maybe you're working on a project, maybe it's like building something. Maybe build furniture or maybe you're buying houses and investing in flipping houses or there's a lot of different avenues that people go to try and make profit. Those businesses, those industries, you're not going to just see money day one. You might even work for a really long time before you even get paid. I was fortunate one time I got an opportunity to build an entire software system for a company, but I wasn't going to get paid until the entire thing was done. And I remember negotiating and said, how about we do halfsies? Like I'll get half and when I get about halfway done, just so I'm not just like holding the bag. You know, it took me over two years to even see a penny. I worked for like two years, probably a thousand hours or something like that. I'd never even seen a dime. But then, once I got to about halfway, they gave me half and then once I delivered, they ended up giving me the rest of that. But you know, it took a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of energy to get to that point. But I wasn't just sitting on my hands waiting and hoping that money will just come on a money tree or something like that. No, I actually worked really hard in preparing. And even if they had never paid me, at least I would have had a lot of skills to be used for another job or for a future opportunity or something like that. And so when it comes to being a man, if you want to be different than everybody else, you need to work hard. Proverbs chapter 6, look at verse 6. Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Look at verse 7, Proverbs 6 verse 7. Which having no guide, overseer or ruler, provideeth her meat in the summer and gather their food in the harvest. Notice again, it's just bringing up the summer, the summer, the summer. So I believe it's just trying to help you understand. You need to work hard no matter what the season, no matter what the difficulty and try to end up providing for yourself. Verse 7 is really important, having no guide. If you're a man, you don't need someone to tell you how to work. You already know how to work. And there's certain men in our church, people like brother Brian Robertson, man, that guy, you just tell him what you need done, he just does it. It's just like you don't have to tell him what to do. You don't have to be like, here's how you hold a screwdriver and here's how you put a nail in. It's just like he just gets stuff done. And you just look at it, this is a man, right? You just look at certain people and you just know they're men. People that are not men are like, how do I do this or what do I do? Or I don't know how to hold this. Is this a left-handed screwdriver? That's how you know it's not really a man, okay? And that could be just one industry, right? There's going to be industries that I'm ignorant of. Someone said like, hey, can you take my car apart and put it back together? I'd be like, no. I mean, I might be able to take it apart, but there's no guarantee that things ever come back together. You'll probably have a lot of extra parts when I put it back together. And that's okay. But as a man, that's not me bragging in that. That's a deficiency I have. As a man, maybe I should learn more or get more understanding about these things. But as a man, you need to be able to just know how to fix everything and do everything and be able to work hard and to study and to learn, because someday you may be the man of the house if you're not already. And guess where the buck stops? It stops with you. And you have to be able to rule your family and your house with no overseer. Notice with this, no guide, no ruler. You are the ruler. You are the overseer. As the man of the house, you get to decide where you're going to go, where you're going to live, what house to buy or not to buy, or what car to have or what car not to have, what kind of job to have, what you're going to eat. I mean, everything. You literally get to decide everything. You need to be someone that's making decisions based on an attitude of working hard, saying, hey, we're going to work hard as a family, and I'm going to provide for this family, and I'm going to do a really good job. And let me tell you something. You want a wife that's going to really like you? You want to attract young women? Men, be a great provider. Because they'll excuse how you look, okay? And we have a lot of examples in here, all right? They'll excuse a lot of things. But you know what? They're really not interested in a guy that doesn't know how to work hard. They're not really interested in a guy that can't provide. And if you're a guy that says, like, I want my wife to look attractive, well, you know what? That's a double standard if you don't realize she's going to want you to provide. She wants you to be able to pay the bills and to give her the things that she needs and to give her that security. Just as much as men want their wives to be attractive and to stay healthy is the same for men to be the ones who are providing and working hard and providing the things that they need, okay? That's your main role, according to the Bible. In fact, if you're not providing for your own house, according to the Bible, you're worse than an infidel. That's pretty extreme, you know, and that's coming from God's mouth. So point one is this, work hard. Point number two, go to Psalm 119 for a moment. Go to Psalm 119 for a moment. And I want to look at verse number 99. Ninety-nine, you really, you know, you could probably preach a whole sermon on working hard, and it should be had, but the goal of this sermon is not to just dwell on every point for a really long time. It's just to kind of give you a high-level picture. But as a man, you need to work on working harder, getting diligent, ask the Lord to help you to work hard. I think that one thing that will just help you if you struggle with this is creating some goals, okay? And maybe those goals are lofty goals and goals that cannot be achieved or attained instantly. So perhaps you say, you know what, I want to buy this type of a house, but, you know, it's going to take me five years or something to build up enough money or get the equity. And so you have this big goal that can help remind you every day, hey, I need to work hard because I want to get this goal. You know, I want to buy this house or I want to invest money into this particular business or I want to start my own business or whatever the goal. You create some kind of a goal with your life. Say, hey, me and my family want to do this or, you know, whatever the strategy is, but you're identifying something. You're working for something because when you have no goal or no ambition, it's just like why provide meat in the summer? You know, the aunt already had a long-term goal. He already knew I need to get all this done now so that I can actually reap later or I have food in the future for myself. Also, you can't live paycheck to paycheck and not expect to go on hard times because unexpected things will happen. So if you're not already laying up for yourself in the summer, you know what, then you're going to be in trouble when the winter comes, when that bad thing happens, when the issues arise and you have medical problems or you have car problems or you have house problems or you have just all kinds of problems that just were unexpected, you didn't anticipate it, you didn't want it, but it's called life. Life is never going to be always easy in this happy path. Sometimes you have to go through difficult situations. So create some goals so you can work hard. Here's number two is learn on your own. Learn on your own. Look at verse 99. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. As a man, you need to learn how to learn. Learn how to learn. Working in the software industry, I figured out that's the only skill I even have. As a software developer, you talk to most software developers, they don't even know many of the times what they're doing, but they're really good at figuring it out. They're really good at learning or figuring out how to solve a particular problem, but a lot of times they don't even necessarily know everything that they're going to do, and part of the process is learning, identifying, and figuring things out. Because frankly speaking, when I would work full time at a software job, if I looked at the physical labor that I did for the day, and I'm not joking, the physical labor that I did in a day's work at a software job could probably be done in about 30 seconds to a couple minutes. Because all you're doing is just putting in certain code in specific places. You know what, it might take a whole day or a few days to figure out what all that code was that you wanted there, when you wanted it. If you just knew exactly what you were going to code that day, even if you did a great day, it might only take like 15 minutes to physically type all the things that you did that particular day. So most of it is just learning. Now again, this is a lot of many jobs. There's many times where you watch someone that knows exactly what to do, and they do it so much quicker than other people that are trying to figure it out. You know, I'm talking to some people here, they're plumbers, and there's a particular plumber they really like and look to and praise, and it's like, man, this guy just gets in, he just knows what he's doing, he just gets the job done in like an hour or two, and you're just like, what in the world? Why? Because he knows what he's doing. And we as God's people need to be lifelong learners. We're constantly growing. I guarantee your job has more stuff that you could learn. Not only your job, but just life in general. And that will help you as a man, learning about your car and your house, and learning about taking care of your yard, learning how to cook brisket, amen? Hey, this is a skill, folks, okay? And learn all kinds of different things. There's so much to learn, and you know what, it just makes you a better person. Plus just learning the Bible. This will make you a really great person, and you don't need someone else. Notice what it said. I have more understanding than all my teachers. Who is the smartest person in this psalm? The person speaking. Who taught him? God did. God taught him through the Bible. There's nothing holding you back from being the smartest person in the world, except for yourself. You are the only person holding yourself back. And as a man, you need to learn how to learn on your own. It would be great if our students, these homeschool students, would start learning how to learn on their own. You need teachers, and there's nothing wrong with teachers, but you know what, it should get to a point where you can read material yourself, figure out what it's saying, and then figure out how to learn things on your own. That's a skill that you need to develop while you're in school, because eventually you won't be in school anymore, you won't have a teacher, and you still need to learn things, so that's why you need to learn on your own. Look, this is not just limited to men. Go to Proverbs chapter 4, go to Proverbs chapter 4. You ladies need to do the same thing. You need to be a lifelong learner. Say, well, I'm not going to get a career, so I don't need to learn things. That's a bad attitude. Number one, you're going to, God willing, educate your own children, and that's a huge task. And I mean, even my children who are not necessarily that advanced yet in their schooling, even some of the stuff that Clayton's doing right now, I'm thinking like, man, I didn't remember all this. I kind of forgot how, you know, you explain some of these more advanced concepts of language or even just what seems like basic math, but just how to solve a lot of these problems, the best methods and things like that. So I can't imagine when it gets even more elevated in time how important it's going to be for my wife to know these things and to refresh on these attitudes. Plus, there's a lot of knowledge that women can have that can't be taught very easily. One would I say is cooking. I don't know, like you can follow a recipe and it tastes terrible because you just don't, there's so much to cooking that's just not on paper. And I know this from experience. Like I've made lots of different things over my life and some of them were terrible. I remember trying to make an apple pie. Who likes apple pie? I love apple pie, right? I'm trying to make this apple pie and it's just like it was so hard and the thing was just terrible, okay? I don't know, like it looked kind of good with the ingredients and I like, I made the apples all cinnamon. I was like, yeah. But I made my own crust and it was just like, it was a mistake, okay? It was like all gooey and then it was like it was a sandwich and it was like, then the apples were mushy and I was just like, this sucks. Like I thought I followed the recipe and I don't even know what I'm doing. You know, you kind of have to go through that process and to learn a lot end up becoming really good at cooking. There's another thing I made, so there used to be at Slotsky's, okay? Slotsky's used to have this thing called Wisconsin cheddar cheese soup. Who knows what I'm talking about? Anybody? There's at least one safe person, all right. This is like the greatest thing ever. But then they like took it off their menu or redid it or something and it's not good anymore. I don't think they sell it. So I was like, I'm going to try and make this. But in order to make it, you have to make a roux, okay? Now, I know you men don't know what I'm talking about, all right? But a roux is kind of a little bit more of a complicated thing if you've never made one before and it's like the basis of a lot of different cooking elements. But I didn't make it right, and when you don't make a roux right, it tastes grainy, okay? And because you're just kind of putting some flour, you're putting some butter, and you can potentially put some other things like it helps if you put like maybe some chicken stock or something in there. But you're trying to make this consistency that's a little bit thicker so that when you make a soup, it's not just water, right? You don't want to just be broth. You want it to actually have a little bit of texture consistency. So you have to make this roux. I made fresh bacon. I cooked all these ingredients, and then I throw it in this like soup, and it's all grainy, and it was terrible. I had to throw the whole thing out. And I was just like, man, this is just so frustrating, and then I just gave up. I wasted all this cheese. I wasted all this bacon. And it's just like, what am I doing? But there's a lot of skill in cooking, and it takes learning. You have to learn. Sometimes you can only learn by doing as well. So many different things. Go, if you would, to Genesis chapter 41. Go to Genesis chapter 41. I'm not going to go to the other verse that I had. But the Bible says to get wisdom, get understanding, forget it not, neither decline in the words of my mouth. We need to get learning. We need to learn on our own, because if we're not a lifelong learner, we're going to be dumb. And God does not praise stupidity. He does not praise people being dumb on purpose. There's a movement out there where preachers will get up and talk positively about how dumb they are. It's one of the biggest face palms I think I've ever seen, because if you're not smart on a particular subject, you should not glory in that. No one in the Bible is glorying about how stupid they are about something. That's actually a deficiency. And as a man, you should do the exact opposite. Who are the men in the Bible that we look to in praise? How about Solomon? And what was Solomon praised for? Knowing everything. Solomon is praised for being one of the smartest, wisest people to ever live. We often look at elderly people with a lot of respect when they're very knowledgeable, when they have a lot of wisdom, when they can explain different things to you. When I look to the preachers that I say, I really like this preacher. You know why? It's because he knows a lot. It's because he has a lot of wisdom. I'm not looking at this guy and saying, hey, I really like how this redneck talks about how retarded he is, but he just believes the Bible. It's like, I'm not seeing, hey, how can we mix country music with preaching? It's just like, get some smarts. Get some wisdom and be a lifelong learner. And your boss at work will never appreciate you saying, well, you know what, boss? I don't know how to do anything here. In fact, I'm kind of retarded, but you know what? I believe in the company. I really believe in the company. I have no idea what I'm doing. Please don't put me in charge of heavy machinery. It's like the boss is going to be like, well, I like your spirit, but you can not work here. Maybe they'll make you the greeter at Walmart when you're so stupid. But why would you think that God up in heaven, your boss in heaven, is thinking, man, I really like this guy's attitude of how stupid he is on purpose. No, he likes the guy that's actually working hard and learning and as a man, you should be someone who's smart. You want your wife to respect you? Know how to do things and not just, well, dad can figure it out or the repairman or somebody else. You be the guy that has all the answers. Look at Genesis 41 and look at verse 39. This is my third point. The Bible says, and Pharaoh said unto Joseph, for as much as God has showed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art. Thou shalt be over my house and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled. Only on the throne will I be greater than thou. You know, when he's being commended here, Joseph, he's not like, wow, you're really stupid, but I just like you anyways. He's saying, you know what, no one is like you. He says, hey, there's none so discreet and wise as thou art. Nobody is like you, Joseph. And so, when it comes to being a man and getting good life skills, number one, you need to work hard. Number two, you need to learn on your own. And number three, you need to be skilled labor, skilled labor. Why is Joseph selected for this job? Because no one else can do it. No one else can do it. And let me tell you something. If you want to advance in the workplace, become the guy that can do things that no one else can do. Become irreplaceable. And I'll tell you, I've worked for a lot of companies where you have certain individuals and they're irreplaceable. You know, it doesn't matter what they do. The company is never going to fire them, never going to get rid of them because they just, they can't. They can't afford it. They could never replace this particular individual. And so, this person is just locked in. Whereas, there's other people that is just like, I can get a bozo off the street to do your job in two weeks. You're in a bad position when you're like that. You want to be the guy that has special knowledge, that works harder. And here's the thing. Do tasks that other people won't do or don't want to do. This will help you secure a place in the workforce. And be someone that's skilled. You know, if you have nothing to offer to employers, you're probably not going to get paid well. If you have skills that other people can't do, they're not capable or they're not willing to do these things, you know, you're going to make a lot more money in the workplace. And let's be honest, we all have to work. I don't know anybody here that's independently wealthy. And since we all have to work, I might as well get as much money that I possibly can while I'm at the workplace. There's no sense in me just saying, well, I'm, you know, the greeter at Walmart. Because that's the only skill that I have. Hi. You know, it's like, if they're letting people that are mentally handicapped do your job, you need to get some skills. Okay? And I saw the cashier at Target, when I was in Oklahoma, was mentally retarded. And I was like, I like him better than all the woke people anyways. So, you know, I'm thinking these woke people have no skills. Because they literally have a mentally handicapped person doing their same job, and I liked him better. You know, because he wasn't a freak like they are, all right? He was normal. You know, the mentally handicapped people are way more normal than your average leftist and democrat today. And I'll tell you what, they don't have any skills. They're not skilled labor. Why is it that when you go, and it's like virtually every Starbucks and every unskilled job out there, it's all these leftists, democrats, and faggots, is because they have no skills. And why would you want to be that person? Say, I don't want to work with faggots. Well, then get skills. And then you won't have to work with any of them, okay? Because they're not skilled, they don't work hard, and they won't do jobs that are difficult. They're lazy, they're slothful, they're stupid, and they only want to do jobs that they can complain and look at their phone the whole time while they're doing it. That's why they also don't work at Chick-fil-A, because you have to work too hard there, I think, too. Go to Proverbs chapter 20, go to Proverbs chapter 20. Hey, I'm telling you, if you are a man, you want to become a man that has good skills, work hard, learn, and get some kind of a skilled labor job. I don't care what it is. It doesn't really matter whether that's electrical work or plumbing or construction or, you know, something in the business world, something with technology. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that you have skills that another person could not acquire quickly. You know, and again, if you're in a position where someone could do your job in six months or less, it's probably just not skilled labor. You just have to face the facts. And if that's true, then you might not likely get paid very much in the future, okay? That's why it's important to, you know, get on the right kind of path so that every year, you're just adding to your skill level just a whole other year and a whole other notch in your belt and you're just moving forward, you know, at a better rate. You know, what if you were trying to learn fighting and you were picking between a professional thumb wrestler and, like, karate or something like that? It's like, you know, in karate, you actually have this tier system of belts and you're getting higher and higher. And so, like, you could eventually get to a point where you're so high in karate that there's an order of magnitude difference between the beginner in karate and the person that's an expert, right? Whereas a thumb wrestler, it's like, how high can you go? You know, it's like, okay, well, it didn't really, it doesn't really elevate to the same degree. It's like, I'm a ninth-degree thumb wrestler. You sound like a Freemason or something, you know? It's like, what are you talking about? He's like, you know, oh. Someone's going to chop that up and say I'm a Freemason now. But it's silly and the same could be like, you know what, I've worked 20 years at McDonald's, you know, as a cashier. And it's like, oh, yeah, well, we hired a mentally retarded guy and he did it in two weeks, the same job that you're doing. It's like, that's probably not going to really elevate you in a career. So as a man, and I'm telling you these things because I don't want you to be uninformed about the decisions that you're making. Proverbs chapter 20, look at verse one. Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Here's number four, life skills as men. Never drink, never smoke, and never do drugs, ever. Now, again, these are one of these examples of some of the men in this room have already failed. Many of us that are older have already failed in this category at some point in our lives. But you know what, let's not fail anymore, number one. And let's not teach our children that this is cool, acceptable, or something to experiment with. Because it never benefits anyone. No one has ever made positive life decisions based on drugs, alcohol, smoking, marijuana, or any of these things. It just destroys the mind, it destroys the heart, and it destroys your willpower. All the first ones we talked about can be destroyed instantly by doing this. You can be someone that works really hard and has learned a lot, and you have a lot of skilled labor, and then you just become an alcoholic and throw all those first three away. Become addicted to drugs and throw all the first three away. Never, ever do it. It's never worth it. In many cases, you don't even actually enjoy it. You know, I don't know a lot about drugs because I've never done it. I've never smoked marijuana, I've never done any drugs. I don't want to. So maybe it's enjoyable. But I'll tell you what, alcohol tastes like garbage. You know, if you children think like, oh, I want to try it, it sounds cool. You're going to hate it when you try it. It's not even fun. There's nothing cool about it. It is just, it tastes like piss, it tastes like literal burning. It just burns, it's not pleasant, it smells like garbage, and it'll make you feel sick. It makes you feel sick to your stomach. It makes you have headaches and have all kinds of problems, and you end up losing control of your own body. There's nothing beneficial about it. But you know what, the whole world is given alcohol, basically. Our society is just built around drinking and drugs and alcohol, and men are destroying themselves in this country because of drugs and alcohol and because of just smoking and getting high. It's stupid. And you know what, they make way worse decisions because they did it. Go to Proverbs 23. I want to show you just a few verses there. Proverbs 23, look at the end of this chapter, verse number 31. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder. How many people here want to be bitten by a snake? The Bible is saying this is what alcohol is like to you. It's like being bitten by a snake, and it's just going to be detrimental to you. It's going to hurt you. It's going to destroy you. Flip to Proverbs 31 for a second, all the way to the end. As a young man, you need to never drink. And you know what, you ladies in here, you better teach your sons to never drink, to never smoke, to never do drugs. Warn them from these dangers. I know so many people and their children or they themselves who are addicted to this stuff, and it has destroyed them. It has destroyed them, it destroyed their lives, and it's a danger. You just don't want to get sucked into this lifestyle. Look what it says in verse 4. It is not for kings of Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Look, when you drink, you forget stuff, and you end up having perverted judgment. You make bad decisions. You end up going to bed with people that you would never go to bed with because you drunk alcohol. And you know what, it's just a fool's errand to drink. It wastes so much money. I think America wastes $250 billion a year just on alcohol sales. Think about what we could do with that kind of money as a country. $250 billion. And that's not even to mention all of the property damage and all of the crime damage and all of the medical damage caused by alcohol. That doesn't even consider all of the sales that are related to alcohol. Advertising, bars. I mean, bars wouldn't even exist. And bars are the most disgusting places on the planet anyways. They're just dens of iniquity. They're just helping people commit more fornication and adultery in our society. Look, if you eliminated drinking in our society, it would change things really fast. You know, and it's sad that people say, well, I want to be a Muslim because, you know, at least we don't drink. It's sad that the Muslims understand drinking better than Christians. We're a Christian nation, yet we're getting drunk and high and doing drugs. And people don't even have a respect for Christianity anymore because pastors are getting drunk. Pastors are drinking alcohol. What a shame. Go back to Proverbs 23 for a moment. Go back to Proverbs 23. So point one is this. As a man, you need to work hard. Number two, you need to learn. Number three, you need to have skilled labor. Number four, don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. Never do it. And you know what? Never date someone that's involved in any of this stuff either. Number five is don't have any bad friends. Look what it says in verse 20. Be not among winebembers, among riotous eaters of flesh, for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe the man with rags. Don't even hang out with people that are doing that. Don't even hang out with people that are doing this. It's not that I don't drink and smoke and do drugs. I don't even hang out with people that do it. It says be not among winebembers, among riotous eaters of flesh. Let me explain something to you. Most people, if not all people, only drink because their friends are drinking. It's not really a lot of times that people just like, oh, I just, you know what? I don't know what to do today. I think I'll just drink alcohol for no reason. No, it's usually they're hanging out with certain people that are already drinking, and then they're putting pressure on you. They're wanting you to do it with them, and it's a social thing. And so because of that social environment, you need to be leery, and you need to stay away from people that are going to pressure you to do things that you shouldn't. That's why you should have friends from church. You should be afraid of having the worldly friends that are going to cause you to go down a dark road. Go to Proverbs seven for a moment. Go to Proverbs chapter seven. There's a lot of people that you need to avoid in your life, and people that are drinking and smoking marijuana get away from them. I remember in college one time I went to hang out with some friends, and everybody was drinking, and I kid you not, the entire time I hung out with them, the only thing they were saying to me was trying to get me to drink with them. They have no other conversation. We couldn't talk about anything else. It's like, look, I've already said no a thousand times. Back off, and just like, oh, come on, you chicken. Why don't you want to do it? Come on, just do it. It's cool. Just do it. Come on, just do it. Just do it. Just do it. And finally I was just like, bye. You know what? People just can't handle you not sinning with them, so they've got to drag you down with them. And so you just stay away from these people. Proverbs chapter seven, look at verse six. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, and behold, among the simple ones, I discerned among the youth a young man void of understanding. So this guy already failed point two. He didn't get any knowledge or the wisdom from the Bible, did he? Now, what is his problem? Well, it says in verse eight, passing through the street near her corner, and he went the way to her house. So this guy, he's stupid in general, but he knows what he's doing in the sense that he's going out at night looking for a particular woman, and he's going to go pass by her corner. He knows where he's going. And he's ended up stumbling upon this woman, verse nine, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And behold, there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart. She is loud and stubborn. Her feet abide not in her house. So point six is this. As a man, you need to avoid whores. Avoid whores. And look, most women, unfortunately, today are whores today. In America, it's just, it's littered with whores. You say, well, what does a whore look like? Well, it says in verse 10, the attire of a harlot. If a woman is dressed inappropriately, you should get away from her. Get away from her. Stay away from her. If it's especially at night, it's at night, and the woman's dressed inappropriately, as a young man, stay away. I don't care if you're married or unmarried. Stay away. Personally, once you're married, I don't even think you should form friendships with any woman apart from your wife. If she's not blood, bye. I don't want to have any kind of relationship. Don't get around other women that you're not married to. Joseph was found alone in the house with part of his wife. He should have never even gone in there. He knew better, because she'd already been trying to lie with him a million times before. He should have said, you know what? I'm never, ever going to go into that house unless I have a buddy with me or something. Or I'm just never going to go in there again. I don't even need to go in there. He's got plenty of servants. He could have decided, I'm never going to be around this woman ever again. And you know what? If you work at a place, I'm telling you, men, if you work at a place, and the secretary has hit on you, or your coworker has hit on you, or your boss has hit on you, stay away from her at all times, as much as humanly possible. You might even just change jobs if you need to. But don't hang around with a whorish woman. Don't let her whisper in your ear. Don't come near her corner. Stay away from this woman. She will destroy you. Look at verse 26. For she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. Miles then talks positively about this woman. And you know, as a man, you need to learn you need to stay away from whores. Go to Proverbs 31. Go to Proverbs 31. This is a hard lesson for young men because as a young man that's not married, you really want girls to like you. In fact, sometimes it's all you can think about. I want a girlfriend or I want a wife or something. So you're just so wanting a woman to be into you that then the whore comes out of nowhere and she's like the perfect trap because it's now this woman that likes you and you're just thinking like, oh wow, I didn't know that girls like me. But here's the problem. Whores don't like you. And you say, well how do I really discern between the two? Well if you study the Bible, you notice a difference between the wife and the whore. The wife found you, you find the wife. Okay, the whore will find you. Sorry, I may have misspoke there. Sometimes I'm gonna do this. The whore will find you, you find the wife. Okay, you go out and you find the woman that's working. You know, go find a girl that's getting water at the well. Go find a woman that's doing something godly with her life. You know what? The woman that's just dressed like a whore standing on the corner is like, I found you. She's a liar. And sorry to break it to you guys, you're not that good looking, okay? When this woman is telling you everything you wanna hear and you've never met her before, she's a whore. Because godly women do not just praise men they don't know. You know, you have to kind of earn their respect and in fact, many times they're hard to get. And that's okay. You want a woman that's hard to get. You don't want the woman that's easy to get. Because if she's easy to get, everyone can get it. It's like beating Mario level one. You wanna get to the end where the princess is, okay? I won the first level. It's just like, hey, if any guy can get her like this, how easy is it gonna be for her to commit adultery on you? Whereas if she was super hard to get, you know, now you're locked in. You're Mr. Stud and no one can take her away because you got princess locked up in the ivory tower, okay? But you know what? You do not want to go for the cheap and the easy woman. And I'm sorry, guys. The girls that just are super into you like that are fake. It's not real. You're not that great looking. It's a lie, okay? So you need to avoid all the women. Look at all the whores. Proverbs 31, look at verse three. Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways that that which destroyeth kings. Notice women destroy kings. Read the Bible. Wow. Every king just constantly is getting destroyed by women. And you know, as men, we have proclivities to sin, but this is probably our worst. Probably, I mean, every single guy has this problem unless they're a faggot, okay? And we don't have any of those here. So every single guy struggles. You say, why do you think every single guy struggles with this? Because every single guy in the Bible struggled with this, except for the guys that couldn't struggle with this, okay? And you don't want to be that guy either, all right? So if every single guy in the Bible struggled with this, don't think like, oh, there's something wrong with me. Realize it's normal. Realize it's natural, and you need to put boundaries in your life. You need to avoid these people. And look, you're not strong enough to overcome these temptations. No man is strong enough. You have to avoid it. You just have to stay away. It's not about like, oh, you know, I can handle it. Yeah, I could be around attractive women trying to come on to me and not do anything. You're a liar. You're a liar and you're deceiving yourself. Just stay away from them. Stay away from whores. Don't ever look at them. Don't ever talk to them. Don't let them talk to you. Be like Joseph and run away. Stay away from them, because they will ruin your life. Go to Proverbs chapter 28, go to Proverbs chapter 28. So what's our point so far? Life skills for men, you need to work hard. Two, you need to learn on your own. Three, you need to have skilled labor. Four, you need to never drink, smoke, or do drugs. Five, avoid bad friends. Six, avoid whores. Number seven is you need to avoid interest. You need to avoid interest, like the plague. Proverbs 28, look at verse eight. He that by usury and unjust gain increases the substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. Number one, and this is not necessarily the point I'm trying to make, but you should never charge interest to other people. Okay, it's a wicked idea. It's not a good way to make money. It's a bad way to make money. Now, let me say it this way. It's a good way to make money if you're carnal and satanic. And you will make a lot of money. If you want to be right with God, it's a horrible way to make money. Okay, and God will end up causing bad things to happen to you, and he'll end up taking your wealth away from you and giving it to someone else because it's a wicked way to make money. And you know, of course, who loves making money this way? Jews, okay. Is it any coincidence that the like really only prohibited career in the Bible? Jews love this. Why? Because they don't work. They're lazy, they just give out money and have predatory lending practices with their interest and with their usury. Okay, so as a man, man, don't fall into this Jewish trap and get sucked into infinite amounts of debt and infinite amounts of interest because it will destroy you. Now, because we live in such a debt-ridden society and the previous generations were not godly and didn't follow God's commandments, most of us did not inherit anything. Most of us don't even have anything hardly to speak for. We had to basically start from scratch in many cases. So therefore, you have to a lot of times get into debt just to drag yourself out of this broken system. So I believe there's a handful of debts that you could justify very easily in our society and it's the only way to get drug out of the system. So a house, a car, or a very specific job or training, those are the only things that I would probably even consider ever getting a loan that has interest with it, okay? Because number one, you have to live somewhere. And I've proven this in a lot of other sermons, but the only way to get out of the housing fiasco is to own your own house. But the only way to own a house is to pay for it. The only way to pay for it is to have a lot of money. And that takes a lot of time. But you don't have time. You've got to live somewhere today. You've got to live somewhere tonight, okay? So therefore, sometimes it makes sense to still have to have a mortgage. In fact, I'll probably have a mortgage most of my life and I'm not saying that I want it or that it's ideal, but it's just the reality of the situation. And with inflation, it's hard to even catch up. And by keeping money in a bank account, you're losing the inflation every single day. Having property helps you so much with this particular problem. Also a car, I mean, you need a reliable car. Sometimes that can be a big chunk of money and you may not be able to afford it, especially with the inflation that happened the last two years. Car prices just like tripled or something. It's like insane. And so just to have a reliable vehicle that's going to take you to work and take your family, you're not constantly going to have to fix it up, sometimes you might have to get a car loan. That's okay. I'm not saying that that's necessarily bad. You know what? Don't be getting loans on things that you don't even need, like a TV or furniture or credit cards or a timeshare. Don't even buy a timeshare, let alone on an interest loan, right? Some people, plus some people are gambling while they have debt, you know, and they're just like spending money on stupid things, on drugs and alcohol. This will destroy you as a man by just getting tied down with interest. It's just taking away a lot of the income that you have. So we don't want to give the Jews any more money. They already have enough, okay? Let them have the money they have. Proverbs chapter 22, go to Proverbs 22. You know, I was saying, there's this funny, it's kind of like a meme video or something, but it was this guy, he was making fun of how BlackRock owns anywhere from, it was like two companies, it was BlackRock and Vanguard. Between the two companies, they own about 20 to 30% of virtually every major corporation in America, and a lot of people were saying like, oh, well, we need to break them up so they can't own all these different companies because it's bad. And frankly speaking, it is bad. But here's the problem. They have that wealth. That wealth exists. So even if they weren't allowed to own all these companies, they're going to do something with that money, and they're just evil. So, I mean, frankly speaking, you know, you're just trading one punch for another. I mean, it's just like, what do you want? When the evil people have trillions of dollars to spend at their disposal, bad things are going to happen because, you know, they're not going to put their money to investing in fundamental Baptist churches. You know, it's like, oh, well, we took it out of this company. I guess we'll build more casinos then, or I guess we'll build more banks, or I guess we'll, you know, like we'll build more Hollywood studios or something. You know, they're going to still commit sin with their money. So what we shouldn't do is fund their projects by being so debt-ridden as a society. You know, if they didn't have all that money and all of that wealth, and we weren't beholden to all of these different people, you know what, things would be a lot different. We're just allowing them to enslave us by going into all kinds of interest, debt, and all kinds of problems as a society. Not only should you avoid interest, you should sort of avoid debt in general. Look at Proverbs 22 verse 7. The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. You know, I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but debt is a bad thing. Go over to 1 Kings chapter 22, go to 1 Kings chapter 21. You know, in the Great Depression, the economy had gotten so bad that no one was making money, and the banks were failing because people were losing their money and everybody's trying to go get their money out of the bank, and the banks are like fractional reserve lending institutions. They don't even have all the money. It's all a bunch of a Ponzi scheme, but everybody started taking all their money out of the banks. The banks are failing. People don't have any income. Nobody's spending any money, and what happened is essentially everybody has mortgages on their land, houses, and everything like that, but they weren't anticipating not getting any income, but now they don't have any, so you know what happens? The bank takes every single person's property. You know, you could have, think about it this way, and this is an interesting thought, though. You could have like $200,000 in equity in your house, but what happens when all of the jobs go away tomorrow? How are you going to pay your mortgage next month? You're like, well, I could make it next month. Okay, how about six months from now? And then what happens? The bank comes, and they say, hey, you're going to pay, and then when you can't pay, they have to sell it. You know what? Because you're in that situation, everybody else is in that situation, so no one can even buy it, so the price of your house gets driven down to basically nothing, and some Jew comes in and buys it for pennies on the dollar, and you end up losing all the equity and your home and everything, and basically everybody would just own nothing again. Why? Because of debt, and debt is a bad vehicle. If we have a really bad financial or economic collapse again as a society, most everybody will lose everything they have, okay? Now, I'm not that worried about it because we'll all be in the same boat together, all right? So, you know, I already know if that happens to me, it's happened to like everybody else already, too, because especially in Texas where we live, we're probably the most insulated from economic disaster in America. You know, places like Detroit and some other really inflated areas, they're going to be hit the hardest the quickest, okay? But where we live is probably the most insulated, so if it hits us really bad, everybody else is screwed with us, okay? So we're just in a bad spot. But I'm not even worried about that because if we're in times Babylon, we're going to have fun all the way to the end anyways, okay? So don't get too nervous. What I'm telling you is that debt is a bad thing. You should try to avoid debt. They say like, well, I didn't have any debt. I just had money in the bank. Okay, well, after the inflation and all the other stuff, you'll have nothing, too, so we'll all be in bad shape. I think it's good to invest in property. So this is where I had you go to 1 Kings chapter number 21. So this is my ninth point, and I'm getting to where I'm going to kind of wrap up here, but you should invest in property. Invest in property because it is one of the best investments. Now, if you can do this without debt, that's great. Sometimes you can't, and that's okay as well. Obviously, it can still help you get really far ahead by owning a lot of property. But look what it says in 1 Kings chapter 21 verse 1. And it came to pass after these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house. And I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it, or if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it me that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee. Notice that Naboth refused to sell his property unto Ahab. And, of course, if he exchanged it for another piece of land, financially it wouldn't have mattered that much. And there's a lot of spiritual things going on here. But if you just look at the carnal aspect, he's not going to just take his land and just take money in the hand. He goes, What are you going to do with that money? Waste it on stuff. He's going to waste it on a bunch of junk that you don't need. And then eventually you'll just have no wealth. And then your children have nothing to inherit. And then their children have nothing to inherit. And it's a vicious and bad cycle. You know, and the baby boomers have done this to us. Go to Proverbs chapter 13. Where they've sold all their wealth so that they could live their lives in more luxury. And society today doesn't know any better. And that's what most people are doing. Instead of saving and putting money and investing it into property or having goods, they're just eating out more. They're going on vacations more. They're buying more luxury items that they didn't necessarily need. Because instead of putting all their money to a house or to something that's of tangible worth, they're investing all their money into fun and pleasure. You know what? They're really just dirt poor and have nothing. And you know who's getting all of their wealth? All these multinational corporations. People have basically taken all the wealth that they had from the middle class, their houses and their cars and everything, and they've just put it all on debt and then taken and extracted all that wealth and they just spend it every single week. They just spend it on clothes and cars and eating out. Why is there a fast food restaurant or restaurant on every corner everywhere? And look, it's not cheaper to eat out. It's because people have just extracted all of their wealth and just given it to all these major corporations instead of actually building some kind of equity or building some kind of inheritance. Now, again, I'm not talking about becoming rich or filthy rich or a love of money because, frankly speaking, by just being a hard worker and doing things that are honest, you're never going to be like them anyways. It's not even possible. You realize that Elon Musk has over $100 billion net worth? You know how long it'll take for you to get that working an honest job? Like a billion years. Like you're never going to get there. You and I are never going to have that kind of wealth. I don't care how hard you work. You have to do some shady stuff. Like Elon Musk, oh yeah, getting in bed with Jews and making PayPal, a way to extract wealth from money. Getting in bed with the government to make electric cars. He could have never made the electric cars if he didn't get all these giant government grants and selling his soul to the government devil that's out there. How about SpaceX? Who do you think is giving him any money for that? When's the last time you bought a rocket? How do you think he's getting that kind of money? Oh yeah, governments are giving him money to do space exploration. The guy is not just working an honest day's job. The guy is in bed with a bunch of wicked evil people. And he's doing their bidding. That's why he has so much wealth. Now, is he smart and hardworking? Sure. But you know what? He's doing it by bad means and doing all kinds of weird shady things to get in the positions that he's in. People that work really hard and are really diligent, they're never going to be like those people. You could get a couple million dollars in net worth probably by working hard, but you're never going to have a hundred billion dollars. Unless inflation goes a lot faster than I thought. But maybe we'll all be millionaires pretty soon. But I'm telling you that you should invest in property. Look at what it says in Proverbs 13 verse 22. A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is laid out for the just. Don't tell me that there's anything wrong with having some level of investment or some kind of wealth to give over to children because the Bible calls that person a good man. A good man. And it's saying he doesn't even necessarily leave something to his children, to his children's children. That's a lot of inheritance. Now, of course, there's spiritual inheritance to pass down that's more important, but we need to do that as well. Go if you would to Proverbs 18. These last few I'm going to give you are going to just be really quick because most of you already know. But quick recap. Life skills for men. Number one, you need to work hard. Number two, you need to learn on your own. Number three, you need to get skilled labor. Number four, don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. Number five, avoid bad friends. Number six, avoid whores. Number seven, avoid interest. Number eight, eliminate debt. Number nine, invest in property. And then number ten, new point, go to church. Go to church. You want to actually be a godly person, you've got to go to church. Because if you're not going to church, you're just not going to be motivated to do the right things. You're not going to make serving God a priority. Hebrews 10 makes that abundantly clear. Number 11, read the Bible. You have to read the Bible. These things are probably interconnected because the guy that's not reading the Bible is probably not going to go to church. And the guy that's not going to church probably isn't going to be motivated to read his Bible. And so these things are really, really important as young men. Number 12 is you need to marry the girl, all right? Now look what it says in verse 22. Whoso findeth the wife, findeth the good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord. If you're a young man and you're not married and you want to be married one day, don't go through this weird, long dating phase. Once you realize she's the one you want to marry, marry her. A lot of guys struggle with quote commitment issues, right? Or they're just trying out all these different women hoping they'll find the right one. You know, a lot of times it's just, they're never going to find the right one because they don't even know what they're looking for. And I'll tell you what, I think personally it's never been easier to get married in any time in history than today. I personally believe that getting married today is the easiest that it could ever possibly be for a lot of reasons. Number one, just mathematically there is more people alive today than there's ever been, okay? Number two, there's more people that are not married than there's ever been in history, okay? Number three, most people are taking even longer to get married than they ever have in history. So there's more women on the market than there's ever been ever before. Number four, most of the guys in this country are super lame losers that don't work hard and are not godly whatsoever and they're just waiting for some man to sweep her off her feet, okay? There's four points that you can't even argue with me. They're just facts. Now, did I say that it's necessarily that all the women out here are the most godly best option? Not necessarily, but okay, it's still easy to find one and rehab it, you know, refurbish it a little bit, okay? You know, the Bible talks about this. Go to Ephesians chapter number five. Go to Ephesians chapter number five. You know, once you find a girl and you say, you know what, I like the way she looks, okay? That's important. Number one, I like the way she looks. She's saved. She has generally the same goals in life as me. She's gonna follow my lead and I'm jealous for her? Marry her. That's all you need. To have a successful marriage, you have to be physically attracted to her. If you're not physically attracted to her, okay, don't marry her, all right? I get it, right? But if you're physically attracted to her, she's saved, you both have generally, not I'm saying like everything, but you're saying generally, she's like, yeah, I wanna go to church with you and serve God and I'll follow your lead. If she's basically saying that you're equally yoked and you're jealous for her, meaning you would never want another guy to be with her, marry her. That's all you need. Everything else can work out, everything else can be improved, everything else can be fixed, but those things are really important. But why Terry? And why think like, you know what, I just need to try out all these women. People that live together before marriage are way less likely to actually get married and they commit more divorce. You know, it's stupid, you know, once you find them, you know, the Bible talks about to rejoice with the wife of a youth. It's good to get married young. It's good to get married young and to find that woman. And you know, I see guys, sometimes it frustrates me, it's like, yeah, I think I, there's no other woman I want to marry. She checks all the boxes, but we're just waiting and I'm thinking like, why? That's stupid. It's like, look, if she checked the boxes, why Terry? You know, if you're of age and you can provide or whatever, you know, you're not like 15 or something, okay, I get it, but like, you know, once you're of marrying age, you know, don't date for anything other than marriage. And once you've got that thing locked in, just do it. Just get married. Just seal the deal, okay? What does it say in Ephesians chapter number five? Look at verse 25. And this is kind of my next point, but it also parlays with what we're talking about, is that as the man of the house, you're going to be responsible for her and you can help both of you grow together. Look what it says in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25. Husbands, love your wives. He who is in his cripe also loved the church and gave himself for it. That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. According to the Bible, you are supposed to sanctify and cleanse her with what? The washing of water by the word. So after you've married her, point 13 is read the Bible with your family. Read the Bible with your family. Sanctify them, help them to get back. What does sanctify set apart? So they're not looking like the world, acting like the world, wanting the desires of the world. You know, you're trying to clean up your family. Adam should have been reviewing the verses that God had given him in the Garden of Eden with Eve. Hey, we're not going to go to this tree. We're not going to eat of it. If serpents talk to you, don't talk back, right? They should have been having snake for dinner. Okay, they would have been better off. You know, it's like, review the things with your wife. Talk to your wife and, you know, encourage your wife. And don't expect her to be perfect and don't expect her to change on a dime. You know what? Put some effort and energy in your family and read the Bible with your family. You are the priest and the king of your home. And as the priest and king of your home, you need to read the Bible with your family, out loud. Your children should have memories of, hey, dad sat us down and read us the Bible. And as the wife, you know, you want your wife to change, well, get this to change her. You know, I can't change my wife, but you know what, this can change her. It's like, she's rebellious. Okay, well, get the Bible to change her mind. You know what? Get her more in tune with the scripture and read some Bible with your family so that maybe, you know, things can change. But don't expect them to just change by you doing nothing. It's called leading. Lead them, guide them, teach them, help them. You know, be a man. Men lead, men guide, men have the answers, men do things, men have vision. Men are men. A person that has no vision, no drive, doesn't know how to lead anything, doesn't know anything, it's like, are you even a man or are you a boy? And we have a lot of boys in society that are addicted to video games and drugs and whores and they don't know how to lead. They have no vision. They're not guiding anybody. You know what? We need to be men in this room. And last point, go to Proverbs 11, we'll finish. You need to go soul winning. I'm not saying this is a replete list of everything you could possibly do or good advice, but I am saying this. This is a great start. And personally, I think this, if you're doing everything on my list that I gave you, you're doing great. In fact, just focus on these and you probably are gonna do really well. Don't worry about other things. Don't worry about other ideas or tasks. This is gonna do a lot of great work in your life. You're gonna be really far ahead of most people. Most men, like, number one, working hard. Most men don't work hard. Number two, most men don't spend any time learning anything. Number three, most men don't have that much skilled labor. Number four, most men are drinking alcohol or doing some kind of drugs or smoking. Number five, most men have bad friends. Number six, most men don't avoid whores. Number seven, most men are chock full of interest. Number eight, most men have lots of debt. Number nine, most men are not investing in property. Number 10, most men aren't going to church. Number 11, most men aren't reading the Bible. Most men, number 12, are not just marrying the girl. We have just an epidemic of young people not getting married anymore, not getting married young, not even interested in marriage at all. There's this stupid phenomenon where men decide now they don't want to get married. And it's like, well, yeah, don't marry any of the whores that you are going around. They realize, like, wow, whores are dangerous and bad. I don't want to marry them. It's like, yeah, don't marry a whore, though. And then don't ruin yourself to where those are the only kind of women that are interested in you. Number 13, most men are definitely not reading the Bible with their family. And number 14, most men are not going soul winning. Proverbs chapter 11, look at verse 30. Real famous verse. The Bible says, the fruit of the righteous is the tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. If you're doing these 14 things, you will really separate yourself from the other men in this world, and you'll become a godly man that God looks at, like he said about other people in the Bible. Look at Daniel and say, hey, he's 10 times wiser. Than all the other men. And our society is being destroyed because they're attacking men. I look at, you know, you know what frustrates me is I look at this area, and the Cedar Hill area is predominantly black, like, more than other areas. Like, it's one of the highest percentages of black people. And a lot of people talk about how the black community's suffering. You know why the black community's suffering? It's not because Republicans. It's because they're not doing these 14 things. They're not working hard. They're not learning anything. They're not seeking the word of God. They're not going to church. They're not avoiding whores by any means. They're not avoiding drugs and alcohol. They're not avoiding the bad friends. They're not doing the things that I said. If we want to change these men's lives, we need to get them on this program. And you need to get other men on this program. And you need to help them and say, hey, I'm struggling to know what to do with my life. Do this. And you will have great success. And God will bless you. Let's go to prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us such wisdom and instruction. I pray that the men in this room be motivated to get a lot of life skills from the Bible so that they can be successful, so that you can bless them. And we know that they're the leaders. I pray that you would use these men to lead their wives. And I pray that the women in this room would understand the wisdom from the Bible to teach their sons to be strong men and that they, too, would be greatly used of God. And I pray that you would help the young ladies to learn what to look for in a man and to marry the right kind of guy. Please also get us home safely. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. All right. For our final song is 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. 315, Take My Life and Let It Be. Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love, at the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee. Take my voice and let me sing, always only for my King, always only for my King. Take my silver and my gold, not of mine could I withhold. Take my moments and my days, 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 royal throne, it shall be Thy royal throne. Thank you all for coming. God bless. You are dismissed. Thank you.