Well, hello, children. Welcome to Spring Branch Academy, where we are seeking to instill wisdom and inspire worship in every student to the glory of God. We're starting a new unit in theology on personal finances. That means the money that you manage. And even as a child, you have money to manage, don't you? There are two extremes to avoid. One is asceticism, and the other is materialism. Asceticism is the belief that poverty is piety, that to be really poor is what it takes to be really good. And so those that drive around in really bad cars and wear really raggedy clothes like a monk, that's what it means to be close to God or is needed to be separate from the world and close to God. The other side extreme is one we're probably more familiar with, and that's materialism, where money is a god. And Jesus described it as a god when he said, you cannot serve God and money. And so some people, in fact many Americans, live for stuff. And so they think that having wealth is where happiness is going to be, instead of knowing God, who is life. And so there are two extremes. The one extreme, asceticism, poverty is piety. If I'm going to be close to God, I can't have anything. And then on the other side, materialism, that makes things into a God. And of course on that side, it's like he who dies with the most toys wins. In the middle, though, God has taught us to seek first his kingdom and then be content with his will. Sometimes we'll have plenty, and that gives us opportunity to share with others. And sometimes we'll have lack, and that gives us opportunity to trust him and see him provide. And so walking with God and being content with the lot that he gives us Or as Hebrew says, being content with what we have is God's will. And so God bless you, children, to not covet money and live for it, nor to treat it as evil and a hateful thing. It's just a tool that God gives, sometimes more, sometimes less, for us to manage. In language, we have four principal parts to an English verb. Present, past, present participle, past participle. This is to give you an example, sink, sank, sinking, sunk. Every language has different amounts. German has three principal parts, Greek has six principal parts, English again has four. What are they? Present, past, present participle, past participle. In scripture, we're in the book of Joshua today. We're about ready to enter the land and God tells Joshua, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. For God to be with you is for God to give us success. That's a promise that we will have ultimate success no matter what the initial setbacks are. If God is for us, who can be against us? So again, have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1.9. At the end of the book, Joshua calls the people to make a choice. Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Again, choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And I hope that your family has made such a choice too. At least you can make such a choice in your heart and someday leave your family with that choice that we will serve the Lord. And the book of Judges describes, though, how the people didn't, and they're gonna need a king. And it says in Judges at the end of the book, in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And so they need a king. They're going to learn, though, they need the right kind of king. They don't need a Saul, they need a David. But that's for another book, 1 Samuel. Well, the parable of the wedding in Matthew 22 is how a king threw a banquet for his son and those noblemen invited made excuses and did not come. So he destroyed their city and called others to the banquet. Surprisingly, one from another nation, it seems, came to the banquet without wedding clothes. He didn't honor the son by even bothering to get dressed, and so the king threw him out. Both are a picture of ultimate punishment in hell. When those that didn't respond at first are destroyed with the destruction of Jerusalem, that picture is the Jews who rejected Jesus. The invitation is given to the rest of us, to the Gentiles, but there's a warning if we accept the invitation, we accept an invitation to the son of a king, and we should honor him in our heart and our life, and not fool ourselves into thinking we're genuine believers when we don't act as if Jesus is Lord, and we don't bother to have our life look like him and give honor to him. And so it's pretty simple, kids. When you're invited to a great banquet in honor of a great king, dress up, And when you're invited by Jesus to embrace his salvation and to be changed, let him and let him change you and make you look like you're ready to worship the King. In math, we have five fundamental operations. We have addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, and then exponentiation. I just call it exponents. Addition and subtraction are opposites or inverse operations. Multiplication and division are also inverse operations. In other words, they undo each other. Addition is when you join things. Multiplication is when you have multiple additions. And exponents are when you have multiple multiplications. In science, We have four fundamental measurements. It's been interesting to look. All the measurements that science makes, it seems, can be reduced to METS, M-E-T-S, METS, mass, energy, time, and space. And so I dare you to find one that's not. And when you do, please let me know. because then I'll be able to put an asterisk by this and say there are exceptions. But mass and energy are related to each other according to Einstein's law, and time and space are also related to each other, and God created them both at the same time in Genesis 1-1. At that time, God also then made all the mass and energy apart from miracles that exists in the universe, and the first law of thermodynamics says, that speaks of the conservation of mass and energy, that it is neither destroyed nor created, it just changes form. The second law of thermodynamics, though, seems to have started with the Fall, where everything moves from order to disorder. It appears to have the shape of a curse, where God curses the world to always lose order. Unless we bring some order about, but even when we bring it about, the overall process still loses order in the form of heat, primarily. And so the first law of thermodynamics is the conservation of mass and energy. What God made is what is there, And the second law of thermodynamics is that everything moves from order to disorder, including your bedroom, I dare say. Geography and chronology supports our history timeline. And so today, to introduce the rest of the year, basically, we have six periods of modern Europe. They all start with R. That means they're alliterated. Renaissance, Reformation, Rationalism, Revivals, Revolutions, Ruin. Again, Renaissance, Reformation, Rationalism, Revivals, Revolutions, Ruin. They span from the 14th century to the 20th century. And those six categories capture a lot of what happened in European culture since the time of the Middle Ages. Again, Renaissance, Reformation, Rationalism, Revivals, Revolutions, and Ruin. Finally, in history, we're about ready to enter the Reformation. We have two morning stars of the Reformation, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus. In English, we call him John Hus. Wycliffe was a professor at Oxford and he challenged the Pope and he challenged the English King on what is the nature and limit of legitimate authority. In other words, When is the king rightly using his authority and when is the church rightly using its authority? Neither the king nor the Pope appreciated this. In fact, the Pope ended up having his body brought out of the grave, burned, and his ashes thrown into a river. Jan Hus, I think it was the Pope that had it, it could have been a bishop or somebody else, but that's what happened to him. And then Jan Hus is from Bohemia, He was a professor that was very popular. He loved Wycliffe's writings, he loved the Bible, and he preached in a church that sat 3,000 people. Eventually, the Pope forbid him to preach, but the people in Prague, in Czech, where the Czech Republic is, they loved him. And he challenged the Catholic definition of the church, saying that the Pope is not the head of the church, and that the The cardinals in Rome are not the body of the church, but Jesus is the head of the church. And those who are predestined are the body of the church, the elect. And so this is a huge challenge to the authority of the Roman church. And it's the start of a strong free church called the Unity of Brethren, Eventually, they become or they lead to the Moravian Brethren, which have a strong missions movement in the 1700s. And Wycliffe himself also led to a popular movement called the Lollards. I guess it's a name like la la la la la, like they talked a lot or something. But they actually were involved in the translation of the Bible from Latin into English. and so disseminating God's word and eventually are brought into the English Reformation. So these two lead off the Reformation in the Middle Ages, the 14th century for Wycliffe, the 15th century for Jan Hus. Sadly, Jan Hus was given safe passage to the Council of Constance. But then they condemned him as a heretic and they denied his safe passage and they burned him at the stake. His name means goose and that's why in your catechism it says that the goose was cooked at Constance. Jan Hus was put to death wrongly at the Council of Constance. Well, children, I hope that helps you understand God's works in history, his works in nature, and may he do a strong work in you. Amen.