Oh Thank you. I that's I that's why I asked does it sound good is because I knew I'd forget something There we go much better. Thank you. Sorry about that folks. That's me just Not you were right. Yeah, I just okay. Here we go. What do we got? It's on Bible study now, right? Sure is. Okay, good Let's see here. Today is a 22 22 there's more noise going on in this church today. I cannot concentrate. We got phones going off and I just turn that thing off Let's hear may 22 Okay, this is called the Forgotten Basin the last half of the Lord's ministry was marred by envy and infighting among his followers and The disciples plotted against each other, even on the eve of Christ's crucifixion, prompting him to wrap himself in a towel and wash their feet in a servant's basin. The lesson was lost on many bishops during the ensuing centuries. As churches spread across the Roman world, the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome assumed particular leadership. The Antioch and Rome were, after all, prominent in the New Testament records, and the Alexandrian Church traced its origin through the evangelist Mark to Peter. The Council of Nicaea placed these three bishops on more or less equal footing. The Bishop of Jerusalem, arguing his city deserved recognition, became the fourth world center of Christianity. Soon there was a fifth. Emperor Constantine decided to move the Roman capital to his new city on the Bosporus, and the Bishop of Constantinople instantly assumed prominence. The Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople in 381 said that the Patriarch of Constantinople deserved honor next to the Bishop of Rome. a low-grade rivalry arose between the two. It worsened in 451 when the Council of Chalcedon issued the decree extending the authority of the Bishop of Constantinople with reason did the father's confer prerogatives on the throne of ancient Rome on account of her character and the imperial city and moved by the same consideration the bishops recognized the same prerogatives also in the most holy throne of New Rome. Papal delegates from Rome protested on the spot, and on May 22, 452, Pope Leo, and now we have a new Pope Leo here, launched three angry letters like warheads addressed to the emperors, the empress, the patriarch of Constantinople. Leo declared that the elevation of Constantinople was a work of pride on attack and attack on the other centers of Christianity, a violation of the rights given Rome by the earlier councils, and destructive to church unity. His letters only aggravated the situation. Eastern and Western Christianity drifted further apart until a complete schism occurred in 1054. They had it all, it seems, forgotten the basin and the towel. And if your Lord and teacher has washed your feet, you should do the same for each other. I accept the example." So there you go. That's kind of how the church got in the nightmare situation it's in, is because of the Roman Catholic Church making edicts that it had no right to make, and other churches wanting to be on the same level as the Roman Catholic Church. making proclamations that had nothing to do with getting the gospel out to people and pretty soon you've got a big bunch of branches of you've got the Eastern and Western Christianity and you've got the Russian Orthodox and the Greek Orthodox you got all these different things and you know they're isolated units they are you know we are the church and everybody else is wrong or something and there's not a lot of evangelism out of any of them and I've talked to Greek people that are part of the have come out of the Greek Orthodox Church and they say that that's one of the ripest fields for evangelism in the world is people sitting in churches right there in the Greek Orthodox Church because they've never been given the gospel, right? And this is people that grew up in that. And the same is probably true with Roman Catholicism and with the Russian Orthodox Church. These people have no idea what Christ came to do. They just are a part of a church that says, you follow us and you'll get to heaven. And that's not the gospel, and it's not what Jesus came to do. Thank goodness that there are little churches throughout the world, even in areas like those places, that proclaim the gospel. But it's just sad. It's a sad situation. Hedico, were you in here when I said that Kent died? OK. All right. I knew that you'd want to know that today. So anyway, sorry about opening again. I forgot to push the button and I knew I was doing something wrong. I just not really focused for the past week. And it's not surprisingly not what you think. Hideko will tell you that. I'm fine, you know, the hernias operation is no problem at all, but the thing that's really difficult is not working. It's terrible to just sit inside and to not pick things up and to go out and, you know, move things and cut branches and so it's very distracting. It makes days long and just distracting to not be able to say, okay, I've been at this computer now for 12 hours and I want to go out and plant something and you can't do it. Anyway, so Well, thank you. Very distracting. Anyway, Heavenly Father, here we are in your presence, and we had a list of people that we mentioned that need prayers, and we lift all of them up to you. The family of Kent comes to mind immediately, and unless I misread his email, he is gone, and we know that he will be raised On that day, because of this faith in you, and there'll be a wonderful day when all of us can get together and put all of this loss and unhappiness behind us. But until then, we just lift up the family and friends of Kent. And we thank you that he was a part of this church and he was such a blessing to all of us. And the other people we mentioned as well, we lift them up and we just ask that you be with them and help them in their situations, their troubles, their sicknesses. and Lord we're just very grateful for the chance to be able to have this class and to miss Rick and Steve who are now up in Indianapolis for the whole summer and here we are down in Florida and so I'm sure they'll be sending us lots of cool morning breezes through the mail so that we can enjoy what they're enjoying. Thank you that you got them there safely and Lord how good you are to us. We pray for this class and we just pray that it will be handle properly and that there would not be anything that would be offensive to you in our doctrine. And if there is, please let us know. Thank you, Lord, for your precious word, and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm totally distracted in my mind completely and it'll be nice to be able to get back to work but even then next Wednesday will be two weeks and I can start lifting up hundred-pound sacks of sugar and stuff but even then you know I'm going to go slow because I don't ever want to have to go through this again And I can recommend that just because you've lifted the same thing many times or you've done this many times, I can recommend wear a belt because if you don't, hernias will not correct themselves. They have to be corrected by somebody else. It's just not fun. It's not painful. I'm not in any distress or anything other than just not working. But if you don't like to work, go get a hernia. Then you'll have plenty of time off. So anyway, we're now in 2 Timothy 3, and we're going to start in verse 2. So you go ahead and read. I'll start at 1. Our last verse, two weeks ago. Look, mark this. There will be terrible times in the last days. Now for verse two, people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy. Okay, kind of the same couple different words, but for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Okay, so I'm glad you said that. I wasn't even thinking. We missed class last Thursday, and I apologize about that. Most people probably know, but just in case somebody listens to the Bible studies and not the church on Sunday, that was unintentional. I had her knee surgery. on Wednesday, but I had every intention of having class on Thursday. I was told that I would be able to do it and it would not be any problem at all, but I got a head cold on the same day. I think it was just one of those things and it was so bad. I must have sneezed 400 times. And when you have a hernia surgery and you sneeze, you've got to do this. I mean, I could not have held paper, had class, and blown my nose as it's running and all that. So I apologize, but it was my intention to be here. And it wasn't until late Wednesday that I was able to make the decision. And so I apologize about that. I try to never miss anything. I'm glad you didn't come. That's a good thing. Plus, just the sneezing is annoying. You're trying to listen to a Bible class and the guy is sneezing. Anyway, 3-2. Here's our comments. Paul now describes why perilous times will come. Once again, remember, I brought this up two weeks ago, is that this is speaking of the entire church age. People want to say, well, look at the state of the world we're in today. We are in the end times. And I know I explained this, but I want to re-explain it in case somebody missed that class, is that people have been saying this since the time of Paul. That's why he wrote, like, two Thessalonians, for example. And all throughout the church age all the way throughout the church age you are going to find writings of people that say Jesus returned must be soon because What Paul described is happening right now? It's worse than it ever was the next generation. You know even outside of Christianity Plato I think it was it said if we leave the world up to the next generation it will not last Okay, and it's been 2500 years or something since Plato. And I know that's a misquote of what he said, but that was the intent. And so, one, we can't trust our own children, and we probably shouldn't, but anyway, that's just human nature is to think we can take care of things and they can't. Second thing is that, like I said, all the way throughout the church age, people have said we are in the end times. It must be the end times because, and I read just some scholars like Charles Ellicott probably and Albert Barnes, they all said the same thing. And this has been going on for 2,000 years. So what we're reading here is not a proof that suddenly this church has entered into the end times as of X date or because of this event. It is something that is throughout the Church Age, and the reason why, and I don't know if I explained this two weeks ago, but here's the reason why, is because the Church Age was never defined. Its length was never given. Now, we can look back on prophecy and we can know looking back on prophecy, that Israel would be reestablished as a nation. We didn't know that until it happened and then those prophecies could be properly evaluated from Ezekiel 4 and Daniel and etc. But before that we had no idea that Israel would not be in the land for 2,000 years and that they would be regathered into the land at a certain point of time and that the church would still be here when that happened. We had no idea about those things. Everything is in retrospect in regard to that. And so, because the church age was indeterminate, and because... let me read it to you just so you know what I'm talking about. I always bring this verse up because it so many things hinge on it But it's Acts chapter 1 and it's verses 6 through 8 and it says there on start with verse 6 therefore when they had come together they asked him saying Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel and They had no idea. They had no idea that the kingdom that was promised to them, the Jewish people, the kingdom was promised. They knew that it was because it's all through the prophets. All the way through the prophets, there is a time coming where Israel will lead the nations. That was promised to them. That is not something that is set aside because the church is now the entity. That was promised to them and it will be fulfilled according to the promise of the word. Love you. So they asked him the very last question they ever asked Jesus before he ascended. Where is it? Six. Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And what did he say? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. We had no idea that the church age would be 2,000 years. They didn't know if it would be 2 years, or if it would be 20 years, or if it would be 200 years. No idea. No person had any idea. We are living in something... We still don't. What? We still don't. Yeah, we still don't. That's right, we still don't. We know certain things about the timing of Israel now because it's happened, but we do not know the timing of the end of the church. And that goes right in with predicting the rapture. People that do that are false teachers. If you watch these people that are predicting the rapture, you are watching false teachings. And all you're doing is getting bad information. You do whatever you want, but after a while, it's pointless. You know, if you want to know what these people say, go on and watch one of their videos and I wouldn't recommend you go beyond that because you are wasting your time in Christ watching false teachings. That's all you're doing. Nobody knows the duration of the church age. Nobody is going to know when the rapture is. Nobody's going to know when the tribulation period is. Those things are not known. They are not going to be known and if somebody's sitting in a class on YouTube Making all kinds of charts about this is the rapture turn them off. You're wasting your time. Okay, you're getting false information so They can make charts all day long about the sequence of events. We know that from the Bible. We know that the rapture is going to happen. We know that after that the Antichrist is going to be revealed. We know after that the tribulation period is going to come in. We know that the tribulation period is seven years long. There's something going to happen at three and a half years. There's something that happens at seven years. We know those things. The Bible tells us those things. It doesn't tell us the when of when those things are going to happen. And if you're watching that stuff, you are being unproductive as a Christian. That's just how I see it. I'm not going to change my mind on that and suddenly say, you know, I think you're wasting your time. That's what I think. They asked them. He said, it's not for you to know. Paul repeats that in 2 Thessalonians saying, the times and seasons. We are not going to know. We are not going to know these, but here is the sequence of events so that you at least know that. Okay? And then it says, Jesus goes on and he says, and he said to them, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Okay, that was what he said to them. That's the last thing he said to them, and then he left. And ever since then, the only thing that we have for our doctrine is what the apostles have received, such as Paul receiving direct revelation that was separate from the teachings that were given to the other apostles. He was given separate special revelation that nobody else had. Nobody had that doctrine because it wasn't needed because of who they were ministering to. Paul was the minister to the Gentiles and because of that he had special knowledge that he needed to transmit to those people. What do you call it? The rapture was specifically given to Paul as a doctrine. It was not given to anybody else, and therefore we can know that what is written by Paul initiates the rapture, explains the rapture, and is the end of the rapture doctrine. with references to it elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, there's Old Testament references. John in Revelation 4-1 refers to the rapture, but he doesn't give specific information about it. Paul gives that information. So, if you're going to Jesus' words in Matthew to get your rapture doctrine, you have erred. Your end times theology will now be wrong. Okay, so just remember those things. I know I repeat it all the time, but that's important because everybody out there is giving their opinion about the Bible. You're going to get it all day long and twice on Sunday from preachers all over America and You just have to decide. Is Charlie Garrett right on this issue? Or is this guy up here right on this issue? Or is this guy right over here? But Paul received the revelation. Nobody else received it. So why would you go somewhere else? Okay? The Church Age is indeterminate. Okay, so having said all of that, we do not know when the Church Age is going to end. By default, what we are now entering into, which is an explanation starting from last week, is the end times. In the latter days, these things are going to come. It means the entire church age. Because the church age is indeterminate in length, it must be speaking of the entire church age. We're not going to read these verses that we're going to go through now, and we're not going to insert ourselves into the Bible and say, see, this must be the end times, because That's been happening for two thousand years and for two thousand years we've been waiting. So, just remember that. They're great words. They do match the world now, but they also match the world a thousand years ago. OK. Perilous times will come. That was indicated in the previous verse. He will pen out a long list describing people whose life and conduct will bring about a stain on Christianity because of their character. As these are evaluated, remember that these type of people exist both in the church and outside of the church. That's an important point. This isn't something unique to the church, all right? This is something that is unique to human nature. Dogs don't do these things. As a matter of fact, we were just talking a minute ago about certain types of people, and Paul calls them unreasoning animals. Human beings are reasoning animals, but when they get certain things in their head, and he was specifically bringing up abortion, they're unreasoning. They have become like animals, and they are not willing to use their reasoning. And so Peter says this is what they're like. This is something that the Bible describes, because people have these characteristics in them. They are in people in the church, and they are in people outside of the church. We need to be aware of what's going on in the church, okay? Further, they have existed at all times in humanity. OK, here's, I think it was a commentary from Matthew. I don't know if it's one that came out today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or maybe it is something that I typed. I can't remember, because I got all these things that I type all the time, and I'm like 25 days ahead in typing the commentary. So all that stuff is waiting to be published. And Sodom and Gomorrah. Right? It was today. Okay, it was today. Okay, that's what I, the reason why I remember that now is because Daniel, I listen to Daniel when he reads it, and then I watch while Joey has it on the computer as well. And so that's right, it was today. And Sodom and Gomorrah was people acting wickedly. People acting just like they act today. Okay, they are doing the same perverse things in San Francisco, and in Munich and in Tel Aviv and in Seoul, Korea that they were doing in Sodom and Gomorrah. Okay, this is not something that is new, it's something that people have been doing all along. Okay, now the point that I made in the Matthew commentary is that it was the first where Jesus said Sodom and Gomorrah are going to rise up at the judgment and they are going to condemn you, speaking to Israel. Okay, now why would that be? I mean look at they're used as the epitome of bad conduct in the Bible. You'll see Sodom and Gomorrah remembered by like Ezekiel and Isaiah and you know it's throughout the Old Testament they are referenced as the epitome of wickedness. Okay, and then you have Jude mention Sodom, right? Okay, so all the way through, and even in Revelation, Sodom is mentioned. Okay, it's applied to Jerusalem, but it's mentioned as the epitome of badness. Now, you know this, so don't answer because you read the commentary. Did you read today's commentary? No. Okay, why would it be that Jesus would say that Sodom and Gomorrah would rise up at the judgment and condemn Israel? Why would that be? The reason why is because Israel has something that Sodom didn't have. They have God's revealed light. They started with the law of Moses. They continued with the prophets. They went all the way through. Everything is in the Moses and the prophets is pointing to what? Jesus. Right, Jesus. Okay, so because it's pointing to Jesus and then Jesus came and he gave them the good news and they rejected that. They will be judged more severely than Sodom and Gomorrah. See the logic there? Okay. So just because something is really bad here, and it might not be as bad here in our minds, that is not the case. In God's view of something, when something is... What's the saying? He says, to those who have much, much will be required. Okay? Israel had everything spiritual. Everything. before them. There was nothing they did not have before them that was necessary for them to understand what God was doing in Christ. It was all there in their writings, and He came and He said, I am the fulfillment of those things. And what is expected when somebody comes and claims to be the Messiah? If somebody came into this church today and said, I'm the Messiah, what would be expected of us? to tell him he's full of it. Well, if we didn't have Jesus. We'd look for godly things, it's like you should be able to... But what would we compare him to? The Word! That's right. That's exactly what we would do. If somebody, and I didn't mean to confuse you there, I'm just saying that if somebody comes up and he says, I'm the Messiah, and you know, we're in Israel, and they say, what do you do? You go to the Word and you say, okay, this guy's done this, he's done this, he's done this, he is validated, he's the Messiah. To this day, people in Israel are claiming to be the Messiah, or people are saying He is the Messiah. And so all they need to do, this is all they need to do, is go to the Bible and say, does this person match the qualifications? And one of them that is so obvious, It's so obvious that it's almost stunning that people would say, I'm the Messiah. There's a guy in the Philippines that claims to be the Messiah. There was a guy that lived in Miami. And they all had followers. Some of them, thousands and thousands of them. They're all around the world. There's a guy in Australia. I don't know if he's still alive or not, but he's the Messiah. the astonishing thing that people don't do. They got the Bible, okay? And it's a big book, and so maybe you'll miss some things. But you can at least go to the list, the checklist. Is this guy from Judah? Right? That's a number one requirement. He's gotta be from Judah, okay? And if he's from Judah, he must be of the line of David. He's gotta be of the line of David, okay? Now, somebody comes and he says, well, I'm from the tribe of Judah. What would you do if he said that to you? I would say, okay, prove it. And how is he going to prove it? And then you say you're from the line of David. Well, yeah, I'm from the line of David. How do you prove that? There are no records on this planet, there's not one record on this planet for any Jew, not one, to trace his lineage. Now, they have DNA that can identify the Levitical, the Levite's DNA. But that doesn't prove that he's from the line of David, it doesn't prove that he's from Judah, it just says he's a Levite. And they identified that because they were set apart from Israel for a particular reason. The rest of them were all intermarried and this and that. There is no record, it is impossible for a person on the planet today to be the Messiah. And yet all over Israel to this day there are people being proclaimed a Messiah. They should know this. That's what I'm saying. That is the whole point of this is that people are corrupt and they have to have something to help them think clearly in their state of corruption. The only thing that we have for that is this. That's it. Okay. I could go through a whole bunch of things in the checklist like were you born in Bethlehem? And that one's pretty easy. You know today we can verify somebody's born in Bethlehem because they would have a birth certificate that would say he's born in Bethlehem. okay that doesn't confirm anything else but at least you can say you don't have that you're not the messiah right people are not willing to do those basic things even in israel today or even in australia or in uh miami they're proclaiming people to be something that they're not and that people that could have checked the they didn't and they missed him And they've been on the outs for 2,000 years. We have to understand that God expects us to use our heads, and we're not willing to do that. So, having said that, we're in the Church Age. We don't know how long the Church Age is. They exist in the church and out of the church, okay? The last days in the previous verse encompass the entire church age. We've talked about all of that. So here we go. In his descriptions, he begins with, four men will be lovers of themselves. This is an obvious flaw that describes countless people. Okay? You know, there are movie after movie where you turn it on and here's the really arrogant guy and he just loves himself, you know? And you think, we would recognize that in ourselves because we recognize it in people in the movies, right? Oh, what an arrogant blah, blah, blah, right? And we say that to ourselves when we watch people in the movies. And yet we have these same traits in us and we ignore them. Okay, I'm guilty. I'm sure everybody else is. If you're not, you're a better person than I am because we do things about ourselves that we wouldn't do with other people. Okay, it's just naturally that way. There are a lot of people that are very selfless. Okay, it may have taken years for them to get that way. It may be born into them, whatever. But for the most part, we're pretty... This morning I was reading about Gaza. I read about Gaza every single day of the year, right? And in Gaza, they were out for like the third major rally. We need Hamas out. We need Hamas out. We need Hamas out. Okay, right. All right. If Hamas was winning this war, Would they be saying that? No. No. Okay. So they want Hamas out because Hamas is losing. And because Hamas is losing, that means they are now personally affected. Before the war, or as the war started, they were all celebrating that they had attacked Israel and we're going to get Israel and we're going to take over. They're all happy. All of them. They're all a very happy group of people in Gaza because now they got those bad Jews, right? and so all of a sudden things started going badly and they start talking bad about Hamas and those people get executed and so that quiets down for a while and then eventually it gets so bad that they're having giant demonstrations and in those demonstrations they are revealing their own selfishness because they're hungry and they want to eat, right? I'm a human being and I need food and so what do they do when they bring in food? look at the pictures. They push each other out of the way and they run to get the food ahead of everybody else. I got to be first, right? It's human nature. You know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. This is human nature. Okay, this is the way that we are geared. Very few people in Gaza, when those food trucks come rolling in, are going to say, everybody go first. There might be one guy that's willing to do that. I don't know. But Humans want to satisfy themselves before anything else. When we're satisfied, then we start getting gracious and we start giving things away and, you know, helping others and all that. But when we are at the end of our own rope, we're not usually, that's not in us to do that, okay? So, men will be lovers of themselves. It all depends on the circumstances, it depends on the situation, it depends on the times, the country you live in. Go on and on and on, but this is just a general identification of people. Okay, and it's just the Gaza thing is just highlighting it. It's highlighting how we love ourselves to the point where we have to feed ourselves first. Now obviously we're gonna die if we don't and it's uncomfortable going through the death throes without eating and all that. I'm not dismissing any of that. That's not my intent there. I'm just saying that if things were going better for them, they would be like, yeah, keep throwing the bombs into Israel. We're winning. We're winning. And they wouldn't care about these things. It just tells you that your perspective is geared around what you like and what will satisfy your nature. Okay? Most people are not that way. Okay, this is an obvious flaw that describes countless people, including Charlie Garrett. I admit it. In the church, it is wholly inappropriate. If a person is called on Christ, it is because that person realized his need to be saved. Okay? That's what we did. We called on Christ because we realized that we need to be saved. Okay? If we need to be saved, then that obviously means that we can't save ourselves. Okay? We know we can't do it. So that tells us that there is something else going on beyond us that we need to hold fast to. If one needs to be saved, then he realizes that he has fallen due to sin. Okay? That's what we were talking about before classes. There are people out there that admit that they are not sinners. I've never sinned. okay and when they a couple people heard that on a video they were watching today and they couldn't believe that somebody actually said did somebody actually say that i've never sinned or i have no sin there are people out there that believe that okay there are lots of people that believe that actually i you know um i have told you about my friend okay i know i brought her up before i think it was uh I mentioned it to somebody today, but a girl I went to high school with, and she's Jewish, and she believes that all Jews are going to heaven. That's it. They're going to heaven. And then she made a caveat. She said, except maybe the murderers. And I thought, you know, all of a sudden she has decided an exception. Maybe the murderers, okay? But all the other Jews are immediately going to heaven. That tells you that they do not believe that they have a sin problem in them. And there are people all around the world like this. You go to any foreign country and you talk to people about why they need Jesus and they'll say, well, I'm not a sinner. It's just the way that some people perceive themselves. They have no concept that their lives are offensive to a holy God. But once you realize that you're a sinner and that you cannot save yourself and that God expects payment for that sin, He expects it. Then suddenly you say, I need somebody to pay my sin debt, because I can't do it. That is the great thing about Jesus, and we don't process those things. We don't say in our heads, you know what, I... We have to be told that and we have to think it through Okay, and so once you've been told it once you think it through you have acknowledged that you are fallen but very quickly after becoming saved Christians tend to forget that precept and all of a sudden the right finger comes out and it starts pointing in everybody else and and it becomes the judgmental Christian. And the most important thing we can do is to keep reminding ourselves. I heard it in a sermon like 25 years ago, and I've always remembered it. When you are pointing at somebody, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself. Okay, you're just as guilty and probably three times as much as they are. Keep reminding yourself of that. You know, that's the great thing about Jose. Jose is out telling people about Jesus all day long. All day, every day. He drives all over the country. He flies all over the world to tell people about Jesus. And he understands that he is a sinner. He's never forgotten what he was, the pit he was pulled out of. But when we forget that pit, Very quickly the finger comes out, and it happens very quickly, unless we keep ourselves on guard against it. It's an important thing to do. For someone to be a lover of himself, he has set himself against a need for Christ cleansing from sin. Okay, that's a person that says I love me and God loves me and everything's okay And I don't need Jesus you have now set a wall between yourself and Christ okay self idolatry and true worship of God through Christ Cannot coexist it is impossible until you have realized until you've come to the you know one of the things that Helps us to process our own sin, and I'm talking about individuals and collectively. I was thinking about this guy today. When we had the class at Grace years ago, it was sometime after 9-11. I don't remember how long, two, three, four years. It wasn't long. And I said, you know, that was judgment on America. And one of the guys in the class was so upset, he got up and he left and he never came back. Do you remember that? You'd remember who it was if I gave you his name. Anyway, he was so upset about that. America's a great country. And I agree with that. America is a great country. I've always thought that. But when you take God in 1961 or 2 or whatever it is, and you take his word and you punt on it, and they kick it out of the school, and everything you do from that time on is against God, and you keep electing leaders that hate God, and then you elect parties that actually say we can't have God in our convention, and you elect them as your leaders, pretty soon God is going to judge you. Okay? And, you know, maybe my analysis is wrong. Maybe it just happened. But what does it say in, I think it's Hosea, it says, if disaster has come upon the city, has not the Lord caused it? Whether he caused it actively or whether he said, I'm pulling my hands back and I'm going to let it happen, the Lord is in control of that. And if we were living for the Lord, we would not have had that happen to us. It wouldn't have happened because we would have been living for the Lord. Now we look at ourselves and we're a better country because we've got a leader that is supporting Christianity. He did a couple great things for Christianity within the past 24 hours. And you think this is great and America's getting ahead and we're making more money again and how great we are. All it takes is the attitude of the people. And so the point that I was going to make about that is that after 9-11, Anybody that went to church at that time, if you went to church, you saw something that you didn't see before 9-11. You saw a lot of people coming to your church that weren't there the week before. Does anybody remember that? The church I was at, it went from like 90 people to like 400 people. It was a huge number of people that showed up. And after about three weeks, guess what most of them did? they stopped coming. And the reason why is because they were in churches that didn't preach the gospel. They didn't explain why, what happened on 9-11, happened. Why? They didn't explain it. They just said, well, God loves you and everything's okay, and people don't want to hear that when there's a crisis. They want to process why this happened and what is going to be done about it. And in New York City, they did a study some years after the 9-11, because they knew that every church in America had an increase in numbers. It just was almost an axiom. It was almost unanimous that people are going to go to church after a natural disaster or a That wasn't a natural disaster, but after a big disaster. And so what they did is they went into all the churches in one of the boroughs of New York, and they asked, how have your numbers maintained since the big increase you had at 9-11? and all of them told how many people were still there and how many were not there, and they found that one thing made the difference between it going back to the way it was or continuing to be at the same numbers that it was after the attack. In other words, if they went up 50 people, if they were still up 50 people, what was the difference? Preaching the gospel. Preaching the gospel. That was the only thing that made the difference, is that they preached the gospel. Man is inherently sin-filled. Man needs a Savior. You need Jesus. And those churches continued, probably to this day, because they're gospel-proclaiming churches, to have the same number of people. All the other people, they didn't get the answer that they knew they needed. There's a problem in our country. We've been attacked. We've lost people. We've lost finances. Our lives have been, you know, upheaved. Why did this happen? Okay, and so that was the one thing that made a difference in it. Okay, self-idolatry. America is great and we will always be a great nation and we're going to be on top of the nation will always lead to America's downfall. We have to say we need Jesus. We need to support Christian churches. We need to allow missionaries to speak in open forum without being arrested for, you know, what's happening up in Oregon and Washington State, where they're actually just going in and arresting people. Well, that won't happen anymore during this administration, but it was happening. They were arresting people for simply exercising their free speech. Okay in places where it can't be that you're in a public place as long as you abide by the laws of that public place and don't get me wrong if you see somebody that's arrested in a park and he's standing there with a speaker okay, and he didn't get a permit for that speaker and They have every right to arrest him. He broke the law. It doesn't matter if he's exercising his free speech or not. He is interfering in other people's right to privacy. Okay? And therefore, without a permit, they can arrest him. So make sure that you don't go ballistic and say, well, they're arresting Christians again when he's breaking the law. They have a right to remove people like that from society. Put him in jail and tell him this isn't going to happen again. That's their right. But if they have the permits, Or if you are using your audible voice, which is not amplified, they can say nothing. That is your right to do that. And yet they were arresting people for not violating the law, but just because they wanted to. That is a nation that needs to be humbled. Or that is a person, a mayor or a police chief or whoever, that needs to be humbled because he is doing what is contrary to the law. He is Self-idolatry. He's put Jesus on a wall on the other side and now there's a problem. So those are lovers of self. Next he says lovers of money. The sense here is someone whose God is money, okay? He is greedy for it. It is his passion and desire to get rich and to continue to increase in wealth. What was it? I might have the wrong guy. I think it's the... Who's the little guy? He just retired. Very rich. Just, he's bald, he's got all the money. Buffett, thank you. I think it was him. If I'm misquoting him, I'm sorry, Warren. Good friend of mine, right? Okay, anyway, I think it was him that somebody asked, well, how much money do you have? And he said, well, I got a lot, but he says, I wish I had a dollar for every dollar I had. Right. In other words, it's never enough. You can have $300 million and you need... He said something like that. It might not have been him, but it was somebody that was very wealthy like that. And he said, well, I just wish I had a dollar for every dollar I had. And yeah, it's kind of a funny thing to say, but it shows that there's never an end to the need, okay? That someone who's God is his money. And you know, there's a problem with that. There's nothing wrong with having money. There's nothing wrong with being rich. I know I typed that in the commentary within the past couple days, is that Paul never says don't be rich. Okay? He says that, you know, the rich need to humble themselves or whatever. We just did it a couple weeks ago at Timothy, I think. But he never, he doesn't say you can't be rich. He didn't say that you can't have a big house. He didn't say anything. But don't trust in those things. Okay? Put your trust in Jesus because everything you have can be gone in a minute. All right? That didn't happen to us during the storms. We lost some things and, you know, it was a very difficult time. But that same storm went up to Asheville, North Carolina, and it destroyed everything in some people's lives. And the last thing you would think in Asheville, North Carolina is, oh, we're going to be wiped out by a hurricane tomorrow. Now, who would even think that? So, you can't trust in the things you have or the money you have in the bank. I don't care how much money Elon Musk has. Tomorrow, he could have nothing, okay? And as he said a day ago, you know, somebody asked him a question and they said, are you still going to be in charge of Tesla in five years? He said, well, that's, yes, that's my goal. And then they asked him another question. He said, well, I can't if I'm dead. Right? He knows he's going to die. Humans know they're going to die. And so he can't give a guarantee that he's going to be doing whatever they were asking him in five years because he doesn't know if he's going to be alive. The Lord could call him to account tonight. And all of that money is gone. It's somebody else's now. All right? You can have all the money in the world, but you just don't need to be a lover of it. One could be a billionaire and not be a lover of money. I met one of those just a year or two ago. He was wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt, nicest guy, sat around a, what do you call it, a fire with us at a barbecue. You'd never know that he wasn't just a guy that worked as a plumber. You'd have no idea. He loves the Lord, he goes to church, very nice guy, but he happens to have more than a billion dollars in the bank. He doesn't love money, he loves Jesus. He just happens to have a lot of money. So, the possession of money is not the issue, but rather the desire for the possession of money. Jesus speaking under the law stated a truth which existed at any and all times. He said this in, we've already done this in Matthew, and shame on me, I don't remember. We're in Matthew 10 now, and this was back in Matthew 6. I do not remember what I was going to quote here, but Matthew 6 verse 24, he says, oh yeah, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, okay? If you got a lot of money, it doesn't mean you're serving money, but you can be not really wealthy and you can serve money, okay? Whatever your position in life is, if you're serving money, you are not serving God. Jesus said it. Even though it's under the law, it's an eternal truth. It's an axiom. Some of the things that Jesus said to Israel are to be taken as truths, regardless of whether the law is involved or not. The law was an instruction tool for Israel. He was speaking to them under the law. The things that he said generally, almost always, applied to Israel only. But when he says something like that, you can know that that's an eternal truth. It's not something that, oh, well, that doesn't apply to people in India. It does. If somebody in India is worshiping money, he's not going to be able to worship God, okay? So, Paul next says, those who are boastful, okay? The word describes a person who shows himself off in a loud and arrogant way. helps word study says of this word properly a wandering vagrant vagabond boasting to anyone who is foolish enough to take him seriously this kind of person claims many things he can't really do so he must always keep moving on to new naive listeners this person is a person who has the eye problem it's not the eye here the eye me okay he just wants to tell everybody about himself he wants everybody to know how great he is and you have probably, if you've been in the workforce long enough, you've probably worked with somebody like this. Have you ever worked with a person that knew everything? Okay, if they've done everything, it doesn't matter what you say, he's done it better. It doesn't matter if you've climbed that mountain, he climbed a higher one. It doesn't matter where you go with this person, he will always have a boast beyond everybody else. There's a point where you realize this just is not true. Okay. And some people are very convincing about it. And so they sound like, you know, he's done a lot in his life, but pretty soon you find out that it's not true. And then you think, now I've got to unprocess everything about this person and listen to this person until either he gets fired or I get a new job, because you just have to sit there and listen to it. And so most people know people like that. They're just, they just... Braggadocious. Very good word. Braggadocious. Yeah. Which, by the way, it rhymes with expialidocious. I never knew that. Okay, so, the next category is the proud. In the Greek, it is a compound word. Hyperephanos. The word phaino signifies to shine forth, okay? And the word hyper, before it, you can instantly get the sense. He overshines. He's a person that is It is a person who goes beyond the faith that he has professed because he tries to be more than what God directs. Okay, now once again, remember, I'm giving examples of people, a lot of them are from outside of the church, but Paul is dealing with people in the church. Okay, that's who he's speaking of. We've got people like this on both sides of the category, but here's somebody that comes into the church and he Claims to be you know hyper final finals, okay? I'm the word final it's shine for so he's a hyper shiner right now this guy at some point called on Jesus He wasn't hyper shining on that day right he realized that he needed Jesus and all of a sudden. He's this great person that You know and so you got to be careful about overshining Pride is they say there's seven deadly sins, and I don't think I could name them all but collect me pride That's two. Help me out here. Sloth. Sloth. I just can't stand sloth. I want to work all the time, but there are four or more, and it doesn't matter. But pride is like one of the seven deadly sins, and it is. It's the thing that is just so opposed to a relationship with the Lord, because you came to the Lord without anything. you know, you came with your hands absolutely empty. You were a poor beggar and he filled them up, okay? And so to come and to be a boastful or a proud person, especially after what he's done for you, is not a good thing. Now, don't get me wrong, you know, there are times where people will email me and they'll want to argue with something, you know, like, I don't know, some point about doctrine. and I will come back and I'll say that and eventually it's like you know you just have to cut the thing off because they're not going to agree and you're not going to agree and then of course they throw in a couple of pejoratives like you're a boastful person because you don't agree with their doctrine right you just get that then there's nothing you can do about that is not pride that is standing on doctrine okay but when people see that you are not going to cave to whatever they say they will quite often give that to you You know, you're a boastful, arrogant person and I never want to hear from you again. Well, we disagree. You know, did you have to say that? I mean, it could go either way. I mean, you're the one that came to me and told me that I'm wrong and your case is not correct. And here's why. And I've defended that. But now, because you don't want to engage in this anymore for whatever reason, probably because I defended my case and it's correct. You know, maybe not. I have changed my mind about things in the past, but in my case today, I'm correct and you're wrong. And so what do they do? They kick you real hard. They say something mean, and then you never hear from them again. All right? That happens. That's not pride. That is just standing on your doctrine. Pride. Greed. Wrath. Envy. Lust. Gluttony. Sloth. Now gluttony, I have to bring that one in because we were talking about eating a lot today. And I'd love to eat. Hidiko knows that. I usually can eat a lot. I'm not like her who could eat five meals and still be hungry. But I, you know, I love to eat, okay? Eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, right? You know, on taco day, which is my favorite day of the whenever she gives it, She knows I really overeat, but that is not gluttony. Do you know what gluttony is, according to... More of everything. Nothing is enough. Nothing is enough, but more. There is a way that they would present themselves, especially like the Greek feasts and the Roman feasts. It's sick. Yeah, they'd go and make themselves sick. And then they'd go in and eat more, purposefully. They would just eat to eat. It was just a thing to do. It wasn't that they were eating to live. It wasn't that they were overeating because they enjoyed it so much. It was they were eating simply for the sake of eating. And so they'd eat, they'd go throw up, and then they'd eat again. And that is gluttony. That is a person that has no control over the process and the purpose of eating. If the Lord has blessed you with a great meal, It's something that you really love and you over stuff yourself. That's not gluttony Okay, and people need to understand that because there are a lot of people out there that get you know They get scared about certain things from the Bible because we have a certain perception of what gluttony means or what this word means but Gluttony is one of those things you know it's there are people that are gluttonous just because that's all they want to do is eat all the time eat eat eat eat eat right, but I I think about eating all the time, but I just don't do it, right? So there you go, gluttony. And then you mentioned envy, which I said is the green-eyed monster. Envy is, I wonder if that's in here. I'm thankful. No, I don't see it. Envy is one of those things that is It will tear you up and it sets a wall between you and the Lord because it is based on the Tenth Commandment you shall not covet and as I love to tell this is that it is a commandment that nobody can tell except you You and God. Okay, now envy can be a little more than coveting. Envy can actually go to something where you start demonstrating it in public. Like, you know, you just, you know, these guys that follow movie stars and they're like, they just want to be with this girl and Jennifer Aniston is moving from her home. I read this a couple hours ago because somebody's been stalking her and she just can't stand it anymore and so she's getting away from there. That guy is envious of her in an inappropriate way, whatever. But envy is something that you are doing which puts a wall between you and God because you are putting other things ahead of Him. He's given you life. He's given you what you have. If you want to earn more, He's given you the ability to go out and try to earn more. It doesn't mean you're going to. but he's given you that ability. Okay, if you want to better yourself you can go to school. Okay, if you want to be a doctor and you're a nurse then you need to get a better education and become a doctor. He's given you those abilities to go out and do if you want. Okay, and if you can't pass the doctorate then obviously you don't have the ability to be a doctor and so you shouldn't be a doctor. Okay, we've got a process to make sure that people are safe with doctors in America. And so just because you want to be a doctor does not mean you are going to be a doctor. You have to go by what the Lord has given you. And so now you may be envious because you want to be a doctor and you can't be a doctor. These kind of things you have to think about. Am I displaying this in my life? Or am I content with what God has given me? And am I using what God has given me to better myself in a different way? Okay? boastful, proud. Paul mentions next. blasphemers. They are those who reverse both spiritual and moral conditions of reality and then use slanderous evil speaking. Okay? Spiritual and moral conditions of reality. God is God. We are not. Okay? I'm making myself God. Okay? That would be blaspheming because I am reversing the moral situation that is obvious in all people. you know, like I said, when did I say this as far as the rapture? I said it somewhere recently is that that doctrine has to be taught out of you, okay? It's something that it says it in the Bible and because it says it in the Bible it's very clear even if you don't understand the sequence and all that it's something that's very clear and so somebody would have to say no those words there don't mean what they say. That would have to be taught out of you, okay? The knowledge of God has to be taught out of you in one way or another. It may be a favorite teacher at school that, you know, his mom died and, you know, he hates God because of it. Because he hates God, there is no God, all right? So we hate the God that doesn't exist, all right? But anyway, then he teaches his students, and now they say, well, I always thought there was... No, there's no God. And they trust him, and so now they are atheists. That was taught out of them, but Innately, people know that there is a God, okay? And when you start making yourself God, you have taken and you have reversed the moral precept or the spiritual precept. That's blasphemy, okay? And that's why it says, you know, in the Bible, well, he blasphemed against this person or against, you know. And think of what happens in the context of what's being said and you'll see there's a reversal of something moral or spiritual which brought that accusation about. Okay. The next are those who are disobedient to parents. Now, thankfully, and I got my mom here to validate this, that was never me. She's got her eyes rolling. The family is the nucleus of a well-running society, which is, by the way, what we were talking about earlier is why we have all the problems in the projects that we have, and why you have to have a brother that will introduce a program that will help people like that. It's because they've destroyed the nuclear family, okay? The people, you know, this isn't just blacks, okay? The predominant people in the projects are black people, and that was because it was targeted at them in the 1960s. They are the people that this was targeted for, to subjugate them. They have now been freed from slavery. They have now been given rights. They are now coming up in the society and the very people that says we're going to do something to help them are the people that did not want them to get forward in society. And so what they did is they introduced this legislation that would destroy the nuclear family and it would keep them in bondage where they are. So that problem is resolved and now if we just give them a little bit of money every month, they will be voting for us. It was a trap, and these people are trapped there, and it's sad, but it's something that they are unwilling to do anything about. Okay, so we have people in churches and people that have ideas to get people out of the projects, and it's like a drop in an ocean. But you have to work with what you can. It's like what we do. It's a drop in the ocean. Out of all the places we go to, there might be, we'll say, a thousand people around us, and we might see only 12 or 15 a week. I mean, it's not, maybe more than that, but it's not all of them, okay? We're just doing what we can with what we have in our abilities. Okay, that's all. It's not only black people, but anytime somebody goes into the projects, you are almost always, there are exceptions, but almost always you will see that their nuclear family is destroyed. There will be a woman and she'll have three children and no husband. That is almost, would you say it's almost universal? It doesn't matter what color they are, but when they end up in there, that is what happens to them. And so, let's see here, well, they don't count because I can't talk about that one, but Anyway, it's the nuclear family, okay? It's the focus and what makes a society run properly. When you don't have, and you know what, I hate to say this, but I'm going to say it, and I've told him this every single time that I, not every time, but again and again I say it to Isaac. He will send out, faithfully, emails two, three, four a week, and he'll say what he's doing, who he's going to, And he will include photos. He'll go out in the back district and he'll have people that are living in such poverty. It's heartbreaking to see the photos. They literally live in mud hovels. They crawl in through a little hole and that's where they live. That's their home. That's all they have. And it's just mud that's been packed together. It's unbelievable, the poverty. almost every single photo. As a matter of fact, I can't remember one that is the exception. I can't remember one in all the years we've been helping Isaac is that he will send photos of him and he'll have a woman and she'll have at least one and sometimes eight children and there'll be no man in the picture. No man. There's nobody there for that family and that's why they're in the position they're in and that's why Uganda is a country that does not get forward. It's not going to get forward because they do not have the moral base of a nuclear family, a father, a mother, and children. And unless they have that, the country will never, never succeed as a country. It will always be a marginal, you know, they just, I reported on this last year, they found like 15 trillion dollars worth of gold is there in Uganda. Okay, they could live like millionaires around the world. It's not going to happen because they don't have the internal base to make that gold come out of the ground. Somebody else will come in and they will get that gold. And Uganda will get paid off. They'll get nothing. What? They'll get nothing. Well, no. The government will get paid off. There will be people that will get their hands greased along the supply line and all of that wealth, that trillions of dollars of wealth will be gone because they do not have the wherewithal to form a family and to learn to work in that context first. Everything else has to follow from there. And if you don't have that, you will not have success. It's very, very rare. Here's an exception, is Ben Carson. Mom raised him. Okay, he's an exception. But she was a Christian, you know, Seventh Day Adventist, so they got their you know, but regardless of that, regardless of them being a Seventh-day Adventist, she was, you know, a faithful person in the church. She said, I'm going to raise my children this way under Jesus. Okay, that is an exception, and they are out there. Don't get me wrong, but that is the exception, and it is not the standard. And like I said, we can go into the projects 20 years from now. I've been going out 19 years. He's been going 20 years this year. There are people that we saw 20 years ago and their families are there now and they've got younger people and they're in the same situation and there's no change in their lives. Would you agree with that? No change. We have had a few exceptions over the years. People have benefited from our ministry and they've moved out. They've become responsible people. They're the exception as well. But in 20 years, if I'm still alive and I'm still going to the projects, nothing will have changed down there if the government doesn't stop keeping them in bondage and doesn't stop causing them to have unmarried mothers in order to make money. But if that doesn't happen, Nothing will change down there 20 years from now. Okay, just mark my words on this The government has the they know exactly how to keep those votes coming in. They know exactly and they do it every single Week or what is it month? I don't know how they pay these people but whatever they're paid comes in they do it that way and that's That's how it works. So anyway nuclear family. I Let's see here. When a family structure breaks down, the society naturally breaks down as well. That's why America is breaking down so quickly right now is because all over America people are living outside of marriage instead of getting married or getting married and not staying married, breaking the family apart. these things will cause a society to crumble. Okay? So discipline within the family must be maintained. So great is the necessity for this that God, when speaking out the law to Israel, included this precept in the book of Deuteronomy. Let me take you there and see. what we have for you there. Deuteronomy 21 and it's verses 18. Okay, if a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, implying that he has a mother and a father. There is a nuclear family. He will not obey him who will when they have chastened him will not heed them then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city to the gate of his city and they shall say to the elders of his city thus this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious he will not obey our voice he is a glutton and a drunkard then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones so you shall put away the evil from among you and all Israel shall hear and fear. This was the law. If the family couldn't do it, the government mandated that the society in general did it. That's the law. If we don't take that attitude towards disobedience in our own family, then we are responsible for the degradation of the family, okay? You can't pass that off on anybody else. These parents said, this child is disobedient, we can't handle it, help us handle it. If the parents can't take care of a child in America today, they should kick him out. He should have no further rights in that family at all unless he's willing to change. You are out, okay? Now, obviously, if you ever watch the Deuteronomy 21 sermons, each one of those little things, make wonderful pictures of Christ, Israel, the church, you know, just they're wonderful pictures that come out of Deuteronomy 21. That may be my favorite chapter in all of Deuteronomy. And it's just beautiful what is tucked away in those few sets of verses, little this and then this and this and then this. They're usually between two and five verses each. It's a wonderful wonderful passage of Deuteronomy, and you know I love the song of Moses Deuteronomy 32 and there's just great stuff in Deuteronomy, but Deuteronomy 21 is really It's a marvelous marvelous one, so there are hidden things about Jesus in there, but just on the surface It was a part of the law maintain the family Do not let your children get unruly. If they do get unruly, here's how to handle it. Okay? We're not willing to do that. We're not willing to make the hard choices in America, and because of that, America is suffering. Okay? I think I've said it. Maybe I have not. In Japan, it's a completely different idea of raising children. It's bizarre. Have I told you what they do? Well, I can tell you what I think I know they do. Okay. And that's that the oldest boy can do whatever he wants. It's not the oldest boy. It's any, any child. Until they're about, what age would you say it is, Itiko? Five, six? Maybe five or six years old. There is zero discipline. Nothing. They can do anything they want. They can break things. They can take the family heirloom and bust it. They won't say a word. Nothing. If they're in a restaurant and the kid goes over to other tables and throws food on them, the other people just ignore him. Nobody does anything, you know. Yeah, in America, just... But, yeah. And then all of a sudden, They're expected to not do that anymore. And they are the most obedient society I've ever been in in my life. I've never seen such obedience. But those first couple years, they let them do whatever they want. Wilding. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. And they don't just do it all the time, but they just let them do it. Okay, it's not like there's chaos or anything. There's like structured chaos. I don't know how to explain it I don't know how they do it but we would go into a restaurant there'd be a kid two or three years old and he'd come up and he'd hit you and you that was it you just didn't do anything you know you just Anyway, totally different attitude. I don't know how they worked it out, but there was a mother, there was a father, and there was a set of rules. And they lived by them, and what a disciplined society. Now, you lose a lot in the Japanese society as far as life enjoyment. They really take their lives and they subjugate them to the society. In other words, in America, we've got the Marlboro man. He's out in the wilderness and he's running his own show, right? In Japan, there is no such thing as independent Charlie. They are subjugated personally. It's not the government doesn't do it. They do it to themselves. They subjugate themselves to the authority in a way that is you lose a lot. It's a content life, don't get me wrong, but it's just, I like the Marlboro Man. I want to be me, right? The one pelican, or what do you call it, the penguin. Ten billion penguins, they all look exactly the same, and one of them in the middle says, I gotta be me! Right? Anyway, that's, I... But they are Marlboro Men, until they're five. Yeah. Or whatever the age is. But it's just a different way of doing things. Anyway, but they have a family and they have a structure. That's the point there. It's crazy. It's like they go from one extreme to the other. I know it. I know it. It's just unbelievable. Okay, so likewise in Exodus 21-17, the Lord noted that anyone who curses his father or mother shall be put to death. Unfortunately, modern society has completely reversed the roles, and television shows commonly portray children who are insolent to their parents and who tell the parents what to do rather than the other way around. Okay? You see that on The Simpsons all the time. I haven't watched The Simpsons in 15 years, but I used to see Bart tell, you know, hey Homer, you know, and he told them what to do, right? And it's a joke. That's what they did. And what was it? I never saw any of these. So I may be talking about the completely wrong show, because I never watched any of that kind of stuff. But Malcolm in the Middle, was he one of them that told Dad what to do? I just remember. The dad was always portrayed as an idiot. Oh, OK. I don't know. All the shows. It was funny, but it was just like. I was speaking of The Simpsons there, knowing that that was held elsewhere. I knew it was, but I just never watched any of them to know. Let's see here. So yeah, okay. Portrait, insolent to their parents. This can only lead to chaos within a society because God's order of what is right has been rejected. If a child is disobedient, you need to discipline that child. Okay, and that is what we're seeing it right now. seeing it right now in several liberal states. Colorado is going through it right now. Washington has gone through it. Oregon has gone through it. They are passing laws where the child has the rights in the school system. Colorado is so, so heavily into this right now. The newest law that they passed recently, if you don't agree with your child's decision to change his or her gender, you will lose your child. They will come and take your children away. The child makes the decision, okay? And this has already happened in other states. Colorado has done it, okay? They are actively in school Instructing parents or instructing teachers to not tell parents when their children are disobedient, when their children do something wrong as far as like sexually. It happened up in Virginia a couple years ago in Loudoun County where the child did something wrong and a teacher reported it and the teacher was in trouble, not the child. Okay, sexually abused a girl. Okay, the girl complained and she's now in trouble. This is an intentional attack by the Democrat Party of the United States of America to undermine the morals of the nation by subjugating the parents to the children. This is exactly what he's writing about right here. Family is a nuclear family. We need to somehow upend that, and we're going to do that through the school system. That's why a judge just today said to Trump, you cannot dismantle the Department of Education, which he passed the EO, and they're in the process of dismantling it. This judge has come out, Bindham Pawlenty, and he said, you cannot do this. Now it's got to go up the courts again, then it's got to go to the Supreme Court, and they're going to say, yes, they have every right to, begin to dismantle the Department of Education. But they don't want that because the Department of Education is the very tool that they are using to destroy the nuclear family. So this is just reality. This isn't like politics. This is just how Satan works. In this case, he's working through the Democrat Party. That's reality. I don't think anybody could, honest, I'm talking about honestly, they could not say that isn't the case. Satan is working his wiles through these types of things, okay, whether it's a boastful person or whatever. He's using certain people to effect his desires. That's it right there. Anyway, like I said, that's not a political thing, that's just truth. That is what the Bible is proclaiming and how is it coming about. We see it every week in the projects. The next one is, oh wait, I didn't finish that. This can only, yeah, I did read that. Okay, after this are the unthankful. Here Paul uses a word found only here and in Luke 6 verse 35. It is a word that signifies experiencing grace, but it begins with a negative prefix, so it is The opposite you're not experiencing grace you are not experiencing grace Okay, negative prefix in other words not experiencing grace when one doesn't understand God's grace Which is unmerited favor they will naturally be ungraceful and unthankful Okay, we've seen that in people and there's one person that I actually had to kind of train it out of her is, you know, I probably mentioned this before, I may not have, but every year Hidiko used to get a turkey from her company and she'd bring it home. So we'd have to buy a turkey and this went on for years. And then I started taking care of 7-Eleven and the manager of 7-Eleven was such a nice lady, she gave everybody a turkey. So now we have two turkeys and we don't need two turkeys. So what did I do? I took a turkey down to the project. Giant mistake. Okay. I took the turkey down to the projects and I gave it to a lady that had three or four children in her home. And the neighbor is all by herself. And I said, if you're going to cook this for your family, I'd like you to get and take it to this lady. That lady was so angry at me. She was in tears, yelling about me not giving her a turkey. Well, I didn't get I didn't buy the turkey, I got a free turkey, and I'm going to do something nice about it. And so I told her, I wouldn't even talk to her for two or three months. When they went over to talk to her, I'd stand on the other side of the road. I'd just stand there. And finally, she started, okay, come on over, you know. And she never really apologized, but she let it known, be known that, okay, I get it. I didn't buy that turkey. It was grace to me and it was grace to this family and I was giving grace to that person by asking for her to be taken care of from the same turkey. That's an unthankful person. I deserve this. okay and it took and now we're like best friends i'm sure every single week of my life and we're like best friends but that took something out of me and it had to be reinstilled in me because of the process of getting through it you know it was just one of those things i just i can't understand how that could happen it's not in my thinking but it is in some people's thinking okay so we've worked through it we're very good friends now and that's the end of that but it just You've got to understand that some people don't understand what grace is, and so they are unthankful. Okay, the last in this verse is unholy. This is a word used only by Paul and only in 1 and 2 Timothy. It describes someone who ignores his duty to God, disregarding it as unnecessary to his life. They will profane the name of the Lord without compunction and simply give up right living for a life of sin and wickedness. Such degenerates are coupled with the profane The profane speak of sacred things in a lewd manner. Their actions may carry the same intent. Great examples of this type of person can be found all over the film and music industries. Okay, I started a movie yesterday. It was so bad. Don't ask me what it was. It's so bad I don't even want to admit that I was watching it. Hidiko was like, No, it was horrible. I will give the name of the main actor and you can go try to figure out which one it was. It was so, so terrible and it had just this in here, unholy and profane. It was a guy that does great movies, they're always comedy, Bill Murray. It was absolutely horrifying. okay so uh it's probably a newer movie because he looks really old in it but i gotta tell you what you want to see the profane and the unholy watch hollywood movies you're gonna find it but anyway he was like oh it just i i you keep waiting you know my uh daughter-in-law i told her about it and she says well why did you stay so long and i said it's what edgar allen poe calls the imp of the perverse it's got to get better. There's got to be something that they're doing this for to lead to a conclusion, right? You know what I mean? Some things just never go away. But you're sitting there and you're thinking, I'm going to keep watching for another minute just to see when it's going to get better. There's very few movies that I've ever said, well, I just can't take this anymore. One of them was a Chuck Norris movie. It was so bad I walked out. In Japan, we're watching this movie. It was terrible. But usually I just stay in and watch. And it wasn't a profane one. It was just terrible acting. It was horrifying acting. So they have Bit Angel. What? Bit Angel. That's just amazing. That wouldn't have helped this movie. That wouldn't have helped this movie at all. That's not the point. It's not just the profane and the unholy. Everything about it was just... bad. It was just horrible. So, anyway, Vinnie Angel would not have cured this movie. I don't care. You couldn't sprinkle it with gold dust and it wouldn't have gotten better. What? It'd be a blank screen. Yeah, blank screen. We fixed it. We turned it off for you. Horrifying. Anyway, life application and we are done because we are done. Paul's list is just getting started, but you can see that it describes people at all times and in all places. It's not unique to the church and it is certainly not unique to today. Jesus must be coming because, okay, that's not what's happening. It is the entire duration of the church age. Okay, so, when such things as these creep into the church, surely perilous times will come. We always need to be on the lookout for people like this and to ensure they are not allowed to come in and destroy the fellowship. Further, we need to remember what Christ saved us from and not allow ourselves to fall back into such sins as well. Okay? We don't want to become arrogant finger-pointers. We don't want to become boastful. We don't envy us and all those others. Envy wasn't not in that list. It was on that list. But anyway, we just have to remember who we were and what He brought us out of. And if we can keep that on our minds, you know, and people are always saying this to me, you know, someday We're not going to remember anything that we did in our lives. And I thought, what would be the point of being in heaven and seeing Jesus and not remembering the life he brought me out of? I can't think of a more pointless existence as going off into eternity without remembering the thing that he did for me. I don't believe that. I reject that type of theology completely. But I've heard a lot of people say, oh my pastor says we're not going to remember any of that. All this will be washed away and it'll be gone. I don't want it to be gone. It's more robotics. I understand. It doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense. This is who we are. This is what he brought us out of. I want to remember that forever. And I chose him to get away from that. That's exactly right. Anyway, Heavenly Father, thank you for the chance to come into your presence and to just learn about our own nature and how we can slip into any of these things. It's so easy to do if we don't put you first. And Lord, even when we do put you first, we can very quickly relegate you to second and third and last. It's our nature. So help us to guard our nature. and to just cling to the cross of Jesus and to boast in no righteousness except that of Christ. Help us in this, Lord. Please help us, because on our own we just are so prone to wander. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your wonderful grace and mercy, and it's in your beautiful name we pray. Amen. I've got no word at all on music, so I cannot answer that question. Alright, let me back this up. Maybe, but I have got nothing about music, so I do not know. Alright everybody, have a great week and take good care of yourself. We love you. Hope to see you Sunday. Bye-bye. Okay, this goes down here. You know what, I haven't seen any of the TV shows, family, I think Gilligan's Island. Yeah, Gilligan's Island. The last thing I ever saw. And you're talking about the man who, oh, the family is making an idiot out of him. It's always the husband, the husband's always the jerk. I think that probably is true of all men. Thanks. What's happening today,