The economic reality, the only certainty is uncertainty, and the conventional wisdom is usually wrong because we think more money is the answer. No, we need more of God. Last time I read it, it's still on the Bible. In God we trust, it's on the dollar bill as well. We need a moral revival, and if it's gonna start, it's gonna start with us as Christians. But you know what I see? You're seeing this. We're seeing an aging population in the church. It's wonderful to see young people today. But you and I know there's an aging population in our churches. And then there's an apathy in our church. Let someone else go do it. We've gotten comfortable with all our abundance, we've gotten comfortable, and then we don't realize that the storm is coming. The conventional wisdom is usually wrong. Do seek God's wisdom, and we need a nation that's gonna seek God. This pandemic didn't turn people to God, what is? I don't know about you, but in the past three weeks, I've had eight friends of mine pass away from the COVID. All right. And some of you say I'm a mask and I'm a no mask or whatever you are. The reality is I know eight people are dead that wouldn't have been there. And so the conventional wisdom is not going to work that we just trust in ourselves. And then, you know, thinking, well, if we can find a better investment, that would be better. No, no one investment is going to work perfectly every time. I would say this, if you don't have a house, one of the best things you do is get a house, right? But how do you get a house? So I can give you a whole lot of ideas. That's a whole other seminar. And I would just say, read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and you'll figure it out real quick. It worked for me, I'd say it worked for me. We did it very, very easily, yeah. No one investment works correctly every time and correct principles work correctly all the time. We need Bible principles that will work. And so what we're seeing is because we've gotten away from God, we've got the worry man's blues and all across our country. We're fearful and fear is gripping our hearts. And I don't believe God wants us to have fear. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding. But some of us don't understand it anyways. Yeah, we just know you got a dollar, you buy, we used to say, you got a dollar, you buy a brick. Now you got a dollar, no, you need $10 to buy a two by four. All right, it's up to $9. I see he's got to get as high as $9. $75 for a two by 10. Who's going to build a house there? You're not going to build houses. And what's going to happen? More unemployment, more people out of jobs. And I want to tell you this morning, what we need to do is not trust in the uncertain riches of this life. We need to trust in God. We need to trust in God. Most of the stuff we worry about, by the way, are never going to happen. Most of the things we worry about. I read a story about a judge. I mean, he was a district federal judge and he was very fearful that someone was gonna crack, get in and get into this cocaine case. He was on a real high profile cocaine case and he was fearful that even for his own life. So he decided to get away for a couple of days with his wife. just to get away from the pressure where no one would know where he went. When I go away and I go to conference, what do you think my wife's going to do? With six grandkids, she's going to find the nearest Goodwill store. You're laughing because you're guilty, aren't you? Yeah, she's going to find that. Well, this judge's wife, she found one of these stores and she went out there and she bought him a nice tie. Boy, this is, you know, sometimes you get some pretty good ones there. Yeah, and so, anyway, she bought her husband a tie, and then they went out to dinner that night, and she presented him this gift. And he opens it up and finds there's a tie in there. And then he feels that tie, and he feels like something's inside that tie. And he says, where did you get this tie? Where did you get it at? She said, oh, I got it at the Goodwill store. Well, who sold you at the Goodwill store? Somebody's trying to bust this case wide open. They probably put a bug in there. And so, you know, they were worried and the next morning they rush off to the post office, send it to the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to make sure that there's no bug and someone's not bugging this case and gonna bust it wide open. Maybe they're trying to kill us, you know, as a judge. And he's all this, ugh, you know. And sure enough, when they sent it there, they sent it to D.C. and they're worried, worried about it, but the next day, He got a phone call from the FBI in Washington, D.C. after they took an analysis of the tie. Someone phoned him from FBI and said, we found out what the problem is. When you squeeze it, it plays jingle bells. You see, the things we worry about Most of them don't ever happen. And we're all worried about the economy, you know, in my 401k plan. Listen, we're all in it together. And God's still in control. God's in control of the economy. Some people think they are up in Washington. No, they're losing control because of their greed. I think it was Mark Twain said, I am an old man but I have known many troubles and most of them never happen. Yeah, yeah. Most of the things we worry about never happen. So we're looking at this morning, the concerns of worry. Yeah, the most prevailing characteristic of our day, the concerns for worry. $28 trillion in GDP. Anyone know what the GDP is? Gross domestic product. So you take the gross domestic product, that's a sum of everything, everything for a whole year bought or sold. Anything you buy and every household, everybody. The sum total of everything bought and sold comes to only 22 trillion. But the government is in debt to 28 trillion. So if we took everything from everybody, anywhere in the US, took it away from them, and gave it to the government, we still couldn't pay the debt. Now somebody go to Washington and tell them, stop. Because I'd like to see my grandkids grow up. Yeah. Stop this. The concerns are worry. Worry is created by continually thinking about unsolvable problems. We don't have an answer. Man's greedy heart is gonna keep spending like this. And the way politics is, well, anyone know what the definition of a politician is? Polly means many and a tick is a blood sucker. We got many of those. And worry is continually thinking about those unsolvable problems. You can do nothing about them. And your energy is turned inward, inward against the one who seems to cause problems. So now we give it all this energy getting angry at the government. It's just human nature. We just need somebody who's, you know, but you tell somebody you're a Christian, boy, you're against this, this, and this. They list everything you're against. Well, it's not so much I'm against, it's what I'm for, the Bible. And you're against the Bible. That's something to be really concerned about when you're against God. The concern for where the cause worry is worry as a result of focusing on oneself rather than on the promises of God. When you focus on yourself, yeah, it's like a person has his mind pulled in two directions. Your mind's going one way over here, but you're worried about that over there. I'm gonna say something here, because this is gonna divide us up here. Some of you men will drive your, I know I am, I drive it right down to the E line on and the red lights on. And my wife, she's got to refill the tank up when it's only halfway. All right, go ahead. Is he guilty? Come on. Anyone else? I confess my sin. But fortunately, I have my car and she has her car. But woe unto me if I do that in her car and then bring it back and the red lights are on. Oh my, you know, the cause worry, hey, sometimes we just don't have the control over it. And we think we ought to have control. Mark Twain, his statement was very clear. I'm an old man, but I never, and have no many troubles, but most of them never happen. I remember this guy named Archbishop Trench. Some of you don't know that, was some theologian way back when. fairly famous guy, Archbishop Trent, came to a time in his life where he was fearful that he was gonna lose his legs. You know, you had this pain all the time, and just one of these days, I'm gonna lose my legs, and I was gonna have no feeling in my legs. It's gone worse and worse. And so, anyways, and people who knew this theologian and were friends with him, say he's his pastor or minister, they knew that he had this fear that he felt like he knew for sure he's gonna have to have his legs amputated, because he had had no feeling in them. And it come and go. And then it got worse. And one night he went out to dinner. And so they went out to dinner with some of his friends and they all sat down around this table waiting for the right waitress to come and so on. They sat down at the table and some people put your hands on the table, what do you do, just lean against the table? Well, he put his hands down here and then he's hitting his legs and he said, it happened, it happened. I have no feeling it's in my legs and he's slapping his legs. I have no feeling in my legs. worried, scared, this has finally happened. And then the lady next to him said, my dear sir, I'd have you to know your hands are on my legs. You see, we get ourselves so worked up for something, we're convinced it's going to happen to us, and it isn't. And you drive. I know. I drive my wife crazy because I let that E thing, the light comes on before I put gas in it. Now I'm trying to change that. So now she doesn't drive my car, I don't drive her car. We've got a deal. All right. But most of the stuff we worry about never ever happens. A study up in the University of Wisconsin came up with this. University of Wisconsin study said 40% of things we worry about never happen. And 30% of them have already happened. 22% are petty worries, leaving only 8% of things that were really worth worrying about. But we can come up with a list. If we had to come up with a list of us, some of us wouldn't have a problem coming up with about 100 things we're concerned and worried about. In reality, it's only 8% of those worried. I think it was Charles Mayo, the Mayo Clinic. Some of you have ever heard of the Mayo Clinic, but anyways, hope you never had to go there. He said, I never known a man to die of overwork, but of overworry. I have never known a man to die from overwork, but many of overworry. The trouble with worry is it's interest paid before it's due on the troubles of tomorrow. We cannot carry two days in one. The Bible is very clear today, the concern to worry, the cause to worry, the command, do not worry. Don't be worried. The command, be careful for nothing. Well, that's it. God tells us not to worry. Because most of it never happens anyways. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. Yeah, I'm concerned about the COVID. There's some things I may disagree with some of others here, but I'm married to an e-yarner, so I got a little bit more information. And we've got three Bob Jones girls living with us who are in their master's in nursing program. And so we get a little bit of different effort and innovation than the average person would get on the street. And we're seeing people we know who have passed away. The most amazing one, how many of you know Pastor Robert down in Winchester? Anyone? Here's a man who had COVID really bad. They got the family together and said, he's gone. He just won't make it. Everybody and the pastor, I mean, his son's assistant pastor, and then the head deacon and his family, they all went to the hospital and said that he's not gonna make it. And while they're standing there, you know, the heart monitor, beep, beep, it stopped. For five minutes, it stopped. That's brain damage, two minutes. And all of a sudden it started coming again. And he came back to life after they pronounced him dead. And he preached on Easter Sunday morning, I was there, he preached on up from the grave he rose. You know, there's things like that really do happen. And God's still in the miracle business. It ain't over till God says it's over. But we worry about it, and worry about it, and worry about it, and we can't do anything about it, most of it. Like Charles Mayo said, I've known many a man who have died from overworry, but only a few have ever died from overwork. Yeah. It's just taxing on the system. Be careful for nothing, the Bible does in Philippians 4, 6, the command to not to be worried. O.S. Hawkins says, many of us assume that God merely looks upon worry with a frown, but the facts is that God strictly forbids it. God forbids us to keep worrying. So we're worrying about this economy. We're worried about our job. And I think, where's the next generation? Give me five minutes and I'll show you all my grandkids, you know? Any proud grandparent would say the same thing. But I'm really concerned what they're gonna face. Yeah, because we're facing a moral revolution that has, when Herod asked Jesus, what is truth? and everything rises and falls on truth. So now you can redefine what truth is, because truth is what you feel, not the fact. And when truth becomes what you feel, and then the government starts making decisions based on how people feel, we're in a mess. Yeah. Many of us have worried and found worry and worried over this. I'm saying God is still in control. Matthew chapter 6, 25 to 34, I don't need to read all of that, but it tells us not to be worried about food. Consider the birds of the air. I don't know, we got a bird feeder, I don't know if you got a bird feeder in your backyard, we got a little bird feeder on the back porch. And if the birds don't get it, That squirrel, that squirrel, he is the only guy I know can hang by his tail. Fearless Freddy, that's what my wife calls him, Fearless Freddy. He gets up there and hangs upside down by his tail over a branch and grabs that birdseed feeder. God can take care of us. God has a way of feeding us. He takes care of the food. He takes care of the food and then talks about worry about fashion. We're all concerned about what we got to wear. Don't dress to impress. Yeah. Now these days, I don't know what they're dressing. They're not dressing. There's no sense of decency and morality. I was a lifeguard in the 70s. What we wore then and what they wear today is a world of difference. Back then, it was grandma's old bathing suit. It went down to your knees. I still remember that. I remember when I grew up as a kid in Canada, in French-speaking Canada in the 60s, they had, girls had to have it below their knee. Yeah, now it's okay. You couldn't even watch part of the Olympics to see what's going on. I loved to watch the diving. I did some judging on the diving. You know, you can't even watch that anymore because we lost our moral compass. We're fearful. Fearful because of food. Fearful of fashion. Fearful of our fitness. Fearful of our finances. And we're fearful of our future. What's going to happen to America? My heart was broke on Friday. as I saw what was doing in Afghanistan, and if you look, if you've got relatives and family members who've gone over there, I know many a soldier's gone there, and we just turned our back on that. Those very good Afghan people who went and put their life on the line to help us, to try to help them, now we left them for the butchers. Worry, I'm worried about this government, because God's judgment is going to come. The answer is not politics. The answer is prayer. Yeah. You know, prayer starts with us, my people, who are called by my name, so humble themselves and pray. The considerations Jesus gave us not to worry. Why shouldn't we worry? Why should we worry about all this? The fowls of the air, behold the fowls of the air, are we not much better than they? So he gives us a reason why we shouldn't worry. Consider the fowls of the air. If God takes care of the birds, he'll take care of you. What about the flowers in the field? The flowers in the field, solemn was not arrayed like one of these. Wow, you know, we got some beautiful wild flowers until the deer come in our backyard. Oh my. I got a house that goes back to a creek. It's not a very big creek. It's, you know, just about, you know, and maybe three or four inches of water in it and a good day. But all the deer come back there and they want to eat all the flowers and we got wild grapes, raspberries and stuff that just grew wild. And, you know, I'm looking there and saying, okay, leave those raspberries for me and leave some of those blueberries for me. And, you know, the deer's over there saying, God put these for me. Yeah. Solemn was not arrayed as much as the flowers of the field. God takes care of that. Some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen was I've done some diving down in the Caribbean. My wife dragged me on a cruise ship once. And so I want to go do some diving. And it's beautiful underwater, the miraculous stuff, the colors, and it's beautiful. Some of those, you've seen some nice aquariums. Well, now see that when you're in the aquarium, it's God's aquarium, the Pacific or the Atlantic. to see that God takes care of them. The flowers of the field, we see the fowl of the air, that God takes care of them. And then we see the faithfulness of worry. Oh ye of little faith. When you're worrying, it's you that's lacking faith. Because worry is nothing more than you and your lack of faith and trust in God. We worry, and when we worry, we're showing we're not trusting God. I'm concerned, yeah, legitimate concerns. Like that judge, I would say I'd be concerned if he thought it was a bug planted in here. But most of the stuff we worry about never happens anyways. It's a lack of faith in what God says in his word. And then we see the foolishness of worry. Or which of you can take, by taking thought, can add one cubic to a statute? None of us can make ourselves, just thinking about it doesn't make you grow an inch. But you can think about it and say, I wish I was taller, I wish I was shorter, I wish I was, you know, and you got all your wishes, you wish you were different. Just thank God for what you do have. God made everyone is different, individuals. And many times we worry about the future and the foolishness of worry. You know what the cure for worry is? We need to turn to God with our worries. You know, You know, I got a dollar bill and it reads on the dollar bill, in God we trust. Even on our coins, in God we trust. We need to trust God. Part of me says that won't last very long, not with the current administration. In the next four or five years, you'll see that taken off the coin too. Just like, so we got men and women on the restroom stores. Take it all away. Yeah, we need to turn to God with our worries. If my people are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray. Friends, we need to pray like everything depends on God and we need to live like it depends upon us. Friends, instead of worrying about anything, we are to pray about everything. Philippians 4, 6 says, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. We're to turn to God. We're to talk to God about our worries. Most of the worries can be traced back to the fact that we haven't talked to God about it. The more I talk to God, the less I have got to worry. Sometimes, you ever find yourself, I know, I said, Lord, I just don't know the answer. And Lord, this is your problem. Someone sent me this thing, a text on my phone one day, and I keep it on the phone now. If God will bring you to it, God will bring you through it. Amen? If God will bring you to it, He will bring you through it. And some of you, you're carrying some heavy burdens, financial burdens, friends, family, burdens. Take it to the Lord in prayer. All what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Those loads are too heavy. Yeah, when a mother says, hey, my child, I don't think she's gonna make it, and it's only three weeks old, Yeah, we got one of those grandchildren that, hey, you gotta put her in the emergency room. She's only three weeks. Okay, what's going on? You know what it did? It got us praying like we didn't pray ever praying. It got us praying. Friends, we need to get to that point now. Not after the fact, but we need to pray for our nation. We need to make sure we're trusting God through it all. Turn to God with your worries. Be careful for nothing, nothing but everything by prayer and supplication. And we talk to God about our worries. Most of our worries can be traced back to the fact that we haven't talked to God about it. And then we're to trust God. Trust God about our future. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways, he shall direct your paths. You know, what are we ought to trust? Trust God's power. Because God's got power just to speak it. He breathed it and he can speak it and the universe became in existence. Trust God's power. Trust God's promises. Carry everything to God in prayer and supplication. Let your requests be made known unto God. God's promises. God's not sitting on the edge of the universe and saying, oh, let me get that one. Bing, hit you off the head. No, God's not doing that. That's some cartoon character you got. But that's not God. God is always up to something good in my life. I can trust Him. You ever have things don't go your way? You ever, you got it all figured out and it doesn't work your way? Let me tell you, as a pilot, I've been there. Taking off, getting up off the ground, going up, climbing up, climbing up, then the engine dies, bang. Yeah, whoa. So what do you do? Say a little prayer real quick, and then you do everything you were trained to do, and don't think anything else. This is bing, bing, bing, bing. And it took us less than 15 seconds. We got the engine started backing up. But 15 seconds, when you're a heavy piece of metal, you can go down a long ways. Yeah, trust God. Trust God. I'm watching our time. How many know David Gibbs? Attorney David Gibbs, anyone? Yeah, OK, a few of you know him. You ever heard some of his stories? Yeah, you don't want to be an object of one of those stories. Well, anyways, David Gibbs, he was up in Anchorage, Alaska, and had to go from Anchorage all the way up to Fairbanks. Now, that's like going from here to South Carolina. It's not just next door. And then you only have one road. And that road winds through the mountains and up over the hills and all there, and then they got frost heaves on the road. You know what frost heaves, when the ground gets, it gets so cold, when it gets 50, 60 below zero in Alaska, the moisture in the soil, when something freezes, it always expands. So now you got frost heaves on the road, you're going down a road, and every year they gotta redo some of these roads. And there's only one road. They said, you don't want to take and drive this. He said, I want to see the senior. Listen, I got a friend over here. He's got an airplane, and he'll fly you up to Fairbanks. So you're going to preach down here Sunday morning at Jerry Prevost Church, and then you go to Duffin's Church on Sunday night, and you can preach there. OK, and then you got the men's retreat Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. You're going to have this men's retreat. We're going to have a bunch of men come from all over the state come preach them. OK, he finally said, OK, I'll do that. And so they met at the airport at Sunday afternoon, and they took off and went up, climbing up. Here's, he doesn't fly, but he was sitting there, if you know him, he's, yeah, he needs every bit of the room in the front seat, put it that way. So the plane took off as it climbs up, and here's one of the deacons in the back seat and another member of the church who owns the airplane. And all of a sudden, as they were climbing out, got maybe 1,000, 1,500 feet and started to turn north, The guy in the pilot, he was gone. I mean, D-E-A-D, with a capital D, exclamation point, gone, dead. What do you do? You know what you do? Panic. And some of you, that's just what you do. You don't know what else to do. You just scream. Well, great. So, come on. Are you okay? Come on. He didn't even punch. And then all of a sudden he falls upon the yoke. He falls forward on you. Hey, hold him in the back. What's the matter? And the guy in the back, he's just grabbing, hold him, keep him from falling over on the yoke or something. Because if you get on that yoke and push it down, you're going, that's not the way you want to go. But on autopilot, and then he grabs the microphone, help, help, help, help, help, help. Screaming into it. Take your finger off so that somebody can talk back to you. You know, worry and panic. Yeah. And that plane just, so when they did that and they took the frame, somebody way up above, one of those jumbo jets that flies from New York to Tokyo and they fly over Anchorage. heard this guy, heard David Gibbs screaming on there, help, and they got a word in and said, what's the problem? The guy's dead, the pilot's dead. We don't know how to fly this thing. Where are you? We just took off from the Anchorage airport and we're climbing up and the pilot's dead. Wow. So anyways, that guy up above called the Anchorage airport and told him what happened, and the Anchorage Airport got back on the same channel where they were and talked David Gibbs into landing that airplane. And if you never landed an airplane, the odds of you doing that is very rare that you would even make it, even if you had some instructor. It's not something that anybody and everybody could do. Coordination, and you better listen to everything he says. When the guy in the tower called, he said, look, there's a guy next over here, down here, one of the controllers, he has an airplane just like yours. And they got him on, and he talked David Gibbs into landing that airplane, brought it back to Anchorage. They're up there, if you know where Wasilla is, you fly back about 30 miles back, and you get down there. and you land, he got it down to the runway and it came down, you know, boom, boom, boom, bouncing, and then he, you know, if you never steer with your, you steer with your hands, right? Not in an airplane, you steer with your feet. And if this is the first time you ever did that since you were a little kid and tried the little cars that you pedaled, you're not gonna, especially when you're going 80 or 90 miles an hour, steering with your feet, and you've never done it before, all of a sudden, you know, they landed it, it bounced all around, and then it went off into the gravel, but they stopped the plane. They got it stopped. And they lived through it. Then the real scary thing happened. The dead man came back to life. He had narcolepsy. Well, if you never knew you had it, if you had it, you wouldn't be flying. The FAA isn't going to let you fly with that. And they lived. They all lived to tell about it. Get your prayer life caught up to date before you get up in an airplane. No. Here, I am a pilot telling people to do that. No, you need to spend some time in prayer. I like it when I get on a plane and I get someone who's panicky. And I said, why don't we just turn this over to God right now? Yeah. And I love to take young people like these people down here in front. I love to take them. take them up in an airplane, then I take my hands off it and just pretend I'm dead. No, I'd love to see it when a teenager says, I've never flown in an airplane. You know, there's 6 billion people on the earth and only 180,000 pilots. If you get to fly an airplane, that's something. My son said, dad, don't do that, don't do that. I said, what do you mean? And he said, you mean this? No, don't do that, dad. I said, well, you're spending $100 on six flags to get them to do that for you. I'll give it right in every, that's what I want. Panic, panic. Fear often comes from ignorance. And if you don't know the Lord today, you're gonna be panicky. In the day and time we're in, there's some real dangerous things coming up in the future. Make sure you know the Lord Jesus Christ is your personal savior. Turn everything to God in prayer. George W. Truett, famous theologian years ago, said, worry is a mild form of atheism. And when we're worrying, we're acting like there is no God. And that's what we do. We're pretending there is no God. I remember reading a story about a little girl who, Her daddy was a captain of one of the ships, one of those big steamers way back in the early 1900s. And they lived in England. And once in a while, they might be able to go with their father on the ship. And they get out there. I don't know if you've ever been on one of these big ships where the thing is rocking. I don't care if it's a cruise ship in a carnival or wherever it is. In Norwegia, they all rock up and down. And then you get a really bad storm. I've had times where the front end of the bow went down over a wave, and then waves came over the top, and then it comes up this way, and the wave comes over the back end, and that's enough to swamp it. And yeah, worry, worry, worry, and talk about it. And you know, this little girl got on that ship, and she got really fearful, really fearful. And then she thought for a moment, and she says to her mother, is Father on deck? Meeting his dad, daddy, the captain, his father on deck. And the mother said, yes, honey, father's on deck. Then she went back to sleep and fell on her pillow. Friend's father's still on deck. Right? Father's still on deck. No matter what the economy does, no matter what the president does, and whatever these radical people are trying to do, Father is still on deck. God is still in control. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for what you've taught us today. Thank you for giving us guidance