of Jesus, God, heart, and race, ♪ We acknowledge his great names he hath done ♪ ♪ And pray thou rejoicing through Jesus our son ♪ ♪ But know, O heart and mind, what greater will be ♪ ♪ Our wonder, our transport, may Jesus be seen ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, praise the Lord ♪ ♪ O come to the Father ♪ Through Jesus the Son ♪ And give Him the glory ♪ Great things He hath done ♪ Amen, please remain standing for prayer this morning. Brother Bob Reichel, would you pray for us, please? Amen. Thank you. You may be seated unless you celebrate a birthday and anniversary. anniversary couple right here. Brother Tim, how many years ago are we? Seventy. Seventy years. Seventy years. All right. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary to you. Happy anniversary to you. Happy anniversary. God bless you. Happy anniversary to you. A lot of blessing. I just hope to live to be 70 in here. A lot of blessing. Praise the Lord. Well, a few things from the bulletin. Of course, most of you know, Miss Caitlin's mama went home to be with the Lord. We were at the service yesterday and Lalo and Caitlin told us that they wanted to express to the church how much your prayers have meant to them during this time. And they're looking forward to being back home on Tuesday. And so, I'd been talking with them, you know, every day, and they had finally decided that on Wednesday they were just going to come home. And they no more than got about an hour out of town, her mom passed away. They've been missing home missing being here. They're excited to be back. So let's just really smothering with love On Wednesday night. Okay, you guys know how to do that. You do it. Well, you want to maybe? Get a sympathy card And put a gift card in it would probably even be a nice little touch. Just let him know that we love him and praying for him, care for him. And so I know that they're excited to get back. I'm excited to get him back because he's got a lot of work to do. But we sure love him, appreciate him. And so if you would. I just pray for them. Sunday School and Children's Church, we'll be having a meeting on September the 10th, following the afternoon service, teachers, helpers, anyone interested in being a teacher or helper with Children's Sunday School or Children's Church, please be there. Patch Pirates getting ready to kick off on September the 13th. There's a science sheet on the back table. If you have any questions, see Brother Stephen Foster about that. We have Brother Hardy with us today. Excited to have he and Miss Grace here. And then we're going to have Brother John Roy with us on September 17th. Youth Rally coming up. September the 8th, looking forward to that. This week, it costs us $5 a team. Sign up sheet there in the foyer for volunteers. Brother Lalo will definitely be having a meeting Wednesday night about that. Men's recharge coming up the 22nd through the 23rd. Brother Sam, Brother Alfred King, Brother Chad Berry. All three will be preaching. The cost is $60 and includes a shirt. And it looks like we have about 11 guys signed up so far. Still plenty of room. Would love to have you go. And so if you want to go, please sign up. Revival Brother Harold Wells will be the 24th through the 27th. Looking forward to having him. him and I know that his family will be a blessing so please be praying about that plan to be here. That'll be Sunday. We'll have regular services then Monday night, Tuesday night and Wednesday night each start at 7 o'clock and so mark that down. Outreach on October the 7th. From our prayer area here, I ask that you'd remember to pray for these that are listed. Deanna Johnshire came through her surgery well and is at home recovering. Of course, Lalo and Caitlin. Pray also, if you would, for Dawn Merrill. This is the Benson's daughter. She had quite an extensive cancer surgery. They took a knot off of her shoulder. It was quite successful. The doctors were super excited about what they were able to get done. Just pray for her as she heals, that that would go well. And I know they would appreciate your prayers. It's good to be able to be in the Lord's house today, amen? Amen. And I'm so thankful Brother Bob prayed for snow. What a blessing. And I'm just waiting for it to come. It'll be a wonderful time. But until then, we'll remain faithful. This week, we have a builder coming, Brother Augustus, who we just took on earlier this year. We'll be pulling in Tuesday evening, maybe Wednesday. I told him not to rush it and break anything. It's about a 10-hour drive. They're coming out of Texas. And so he'll be here, and we'll get started on getting this mess repaired, which will be a blessing. Amen. Three months behind my schedule, I'd like for it to have been repaired the weekend after it had all made a mess, but that's not the way it is. But praise the Lord, progress will get started that way. Pray for them as they travel. Augusta, his wife, and their little baby, gotta keep them safe on the road. As they travel, come be with us, and then we'll be able to get a lot accomplished in the time that they're here. And guys, we'll probably throw a work day in there, possibly that Saturday. We'll kind of weigh that out with Augusta once he gets here and decide. But if you're kind of keep that weekend maybe free that Saturday, we'll just kind of wait and see where we're at once he gets here. All right, it's good to be here. Let's go ahead and stand. We'll have Brother Foster come and have another song, then I'll officially introduce the Hardings. God bless you. Hymn number 18, take the name of Jesus with you. Sing the first and the last verses. ♪ At the name of Jesus bowing ♪ ♪ Bowing prostrate at his feet ♪ ♪ King of kings and heaven will crown him ♪ ♪ When our journey is complete ♪ ♪ Precious King, oh how sweet ♪ ♪ Hope of earth and joy of heaven ♪ ♪ Precious King, oh how sweet ♪ It was good. We went down on Friday and we were able to take the college kids out to eat. And so they're doing good. And they always appreciate getting to go out and eat, you know, when you're on a college budget. Many of you remember what that was like. But they've got great spirits and working hard on their schoolwork and all that good stuff. So we also got to see Lauren Ellsworth. and took her to dinner with us, just had a good time fellowship with them. So remember to pray for the college kids while they're down there and God would just continue to work in their lives and help them to make good choices as they continue to seek God's will in their life. Well it's an honor to have the Hardys here. I look forward every year at this time for the Hardys coming and just appreciate the fellowship that we have and now they've been able to stay on campus if you would. That's been exciting. It was a little bumpy. Motorhome lost power while they were on vacation in the middle of all the heat. And I know that they lost the stuff in the refrigerator, some stuff like that. But they didn't get mad and leave. They, you know, they stuck it out. And so we appreciate the Hardees. They're going to fly to California on Tuesday. So pray for them as they go out there to be used of the Lord. and then they've got other things going on in the area here, so their vehicle will be with us for a while, and they'll be in and out. It's just always good to have them. Brother Hardy, would you mind coming and preaching? Miss Grace, we love having you, and appreciate all that you do for the Lord. Pastor? My friend. You too. Well, it's always good to be here, and I'm always looking at this pulpit. It's still the biggest one I've ever been behind in my whole life. So at our church, ours were a little bit larger than some, and I remember Art Wilson coming there and looking at it, and he said, three bedrooms, two baths, six bedrooms, four baths, whatever the case, but anyway, privileged to be here. Good to see you all. And really, even though we've been here a number of times, like Pastor said, first time to just kind of be on the property and stay on campus, you know, so to speak. And we certainly have enjoyed that. And the more I'm around here, this is just a beautiful place. I mean, I don't know who did all the work on the landscaping and so forth, the building, all of it. I don't know how you would improve on it any except the roof doesn't leak or the or whatever happened here, I think, maybe with a piping, whatever the case. But that's part of life, isn't it? It just takes place. And the first time for us to have Barnabas with us. Now there's a big kind of black and silver thing sitting out here. And we live in it biggest part of the year, about 40 weeks out of the year or something like that. We call him Barnabas. Well, the only reason is it's a Tiffin Allegro bus. That's who makes that. And we adopted him when he was 13 years old. I don't recommend it. I think you should adopt earlier than that if you possibly can, because you have to correct a lot of things after 13 years. And we've had him a little over five now. So he's 18 years old and acts like one. which means he needs constant care and direction and improvement, but it's really worked out, especially since the economy has changed. You know, really, if any of y'all are traveling across country, if you get a decent motel, not necessarily a Hampton, but a decent one, and eat three meals a day, you're looking at 200 to 250, I was looking at our missionary, you're looking at $250 a day. And I mean, and if you're only gonna be in churches like on a Sunday, you can't expect them to pick that up. So Barnabas saves us a lot of money. Now, we also have a little Honda CRV, and his name is Barney. Barnabas weighs 35,000 pounds, and Barney weighs 2,900. And he hooks on the back of Barnabas. He does everything Barnabas says. and never argues or anything like that. thought i just got a mention to you we enjoy uh... serving the lord and enjoy coming to church is like your view just when i say the same i mean that the right way godly church in uh... everything the kind of people and so forth will god bless you for that i hope that never changes and continue to uh... to grow in the lord now you should have a little piece of paper about if you don't like you'll get those out real quick if you would take care of that, and I hope I have enough of those. I wasn't sure how many would be here today. If we come up a little bit short, maybe we have a husband and wife that would get along well enough that they could look on. We'll start with pastor and wife, could look at the same one if they need to. Maybe we're a little bit short, but I'd rather you not get too busy reading those right now. It won't take you but about two minutes to do it, but I'd rather us come back to those just a little bit. If I had a title this morning and what I'm kind of drawing from scripture and also drawing from this life as it is in America right now, We'd have to do with understanding the times economically, and I am NOT an economic person in the sense of knowing all the business ventures that are taking place. But the Bible always has a lot of good information for us. Look back and see historically some of the things that happened during the Bible which give us a little bit of understanding as well. So if you might, just to begin with today, 1 Chronicles chapter 12, if you could find that, we'll go to a couple of places this morning. 1st Chronicles chapter 12 and primarily just looking at verse 32 I love to hear those pages turn, it's good I know some of my preacher friends use a iPad I'm not going to, I'm going to use my Bible I can see I didn't get any response here But I have a preacher friend down in Texas named John Collier. He is older and had just turned the church over to someone else. But before he turned it over one time and he decided he was going to be high tech and he's probably about my age. And so he had his iPad up there and he said something that sounded like Siri, probably the word serious. And Siri came to life. and then he said, and he made a point, and GOD in Sirius said, God's not in your contacts, and he was the preacher, so it's good, you know, technology has its place. Verse 12, now what has happened here is that the Philistines have been at war with Israel, and then Saul and his son Jonathan, who seemed to me to be a wonderful young man, have BOTH been slain in battle. We'd have to go back a few chapters and we'll not do that. I just want you to have the context of this particular verse. Because now we're dealing with the children of Issachar. It says in verse 32, And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, Now that's the particular part of the verse that we should be thinking about. These were men that had understanding of the times. It would be good for us, as best we can, to have some understanding of the times. Now Bishop Ryle, many years ago, listed in order the three most important things that we should study. Number one, study our Bibles. Number two, study your own heart. which you may not enjoy, because it's deceitfully wicked, the Bible says so. Number three, study your times, because the times are always changing. and i was thinking about you know seventy years of marriage i thought i was doing pretty good at sixty one but i just kind of got out and done here today but that's wonderful but as the years pass a lot of things do change and the children of israel which were men that had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do so we're talking about something national here the heads of them were two hundred and all their brethren were at their commandment And so we have a country, too, and I love America, served in the Navy on submarines. I would do it again tomorrow. They probably wouldn't let me because of my age, but happy to have had a part. was able to be at the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 when we stood against the Russians that were going to put missiles in Cuba. Some of you know about that. You're old enough to know, and some would not. So I'm thankful. I love America, and I'd give my life for it again in just a moment. I know maybe a certain number of people wouldn't, but it's still the greatest, with all of its problems, the greatest country on Earth. It really is with all the problems, and I'm hoping that some of those problems can be solved, and I don't know whether they will be or not right now. Things look a little bit cloudy, and the storms on the side in the distance, you know, that you maybe can kind of see. Also, I'd like you to turn back in your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 28. Now, if you're a computer person, I guess all of us are to a degree. I don't anymore, and I have to. But if you kind of want to Google, you know, America and Rome, with the idea in mind is how many familiarities there would be between America and Rome, you will see an unbelievable number of hits about that. And I'm not here to talk about Rome, but Rome was never defeated from the outside. And Rome was around a lot longer than we've been around. The judicial system in Rome was over a thousand years in being developed. We're 200 and something years old. We have borrowed a lot from the legal system. It was a republic, and so a lot of things like that we maybe would keep in mind. What happened in Rome is that, morally speaking, they fell apart from the inside. I'm afraid that's going to be the demise of America. Americans would put up horrendous battle. We have shown that and proven ourselves in years gone by. but from the inside it's hard sometimes to know what to do. But now to have the Lord's blessings, let's kind of compare ourselves with Israel and what God would expect. So Deuteronomy chapter 28 beginning in verse 1, And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and do all his commandments, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth, God did that for America. I mean, a lot of Americans don't even think about this. If you go back to World War II, maybe World War I, but especially in World War II, nobody wanted to mess with America. back in those times. What a powerful nation, and in a lot of ways a very good nation, helping everybody they possibly could. And God put us there, I think. While I was in the Navy, spent my time on submarines, I had the privilege to ride an aircraft carrier, the USS Ranger. And I rode it back from Hawaii to California, and of course the aircraft carrier's a little bit bigger than the submarine, and a lot of things to learn. And I was just amazed at those airplanes on the deck of a carrier that go from zero to about 200 miles an hour in 2.1 to 2.3 seconds. Now if you've got a hot rod car and you think you've got thrust, you have to give some thought to that. In other words, it was amazing. And they didn't do that just under the power, even though the jets were powerful. It was because of what they called back then a catapult. for us old guys to understand, it would be like a gigantic slingshot. In other words, really, that catapult, even with the power that the jet had, primarily the catapult almost, if you could say it this way, THREW that plane off the deck. You know, Pastor, what I think? God saw the early American people and our Founding Fathers and the nation they wanted to build, and He catapulted America to the front. that's what he did. You say, why would you say that? You read your Bible, you're reading about nations that's been alive for 2,000, 3,000 years! Qua in fe, the major powers. Pray tell, tell me! Because they weren't serving God like our forefathers wanted to serve God. We're still a baby nation, when you think about Rome being over a thousand years just in our judicial system, and here we are 250 years old, something like that, thereabouts, and we're a baby nation of God. I mean this verse is for US, even though it's in here for Israel. Maybe I could really be wrong, and if you want to call me that, that would be OK. I can hardly see how God was any better to Israel than He was to America. Over and over and over I see God's hand. involved in America. Verse 2, And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou wilt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God. I'll move pretty quick, I might miss a word. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, blessed shalt thou be in the field, blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of thy ground, the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thine kind, the flocks of thy sheep, blessed shalt thou basket and thy store, blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THAT IN THIS COUNTRY. But, you get to verse 15, these conjunctions really get in the way, don't they? The word BUT, ALL THIS CAN BE OURS, IT HAS BEEN OURS, and now we're beginning to feel what's happening in these next verses because we have MOVED. Now when I say we, I'm not necessarily talking about someone sitting here hopefully I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about America as a country and using the word we for plurality. Verse 15, But it shall come to pass, if that will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, our country isn't. to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes if we could just do SOME of his commandments and statutes which I command thee this day that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee CURSE SHALT THOU BE IN THIS CITY and CURSE SHALT THOU BE IN THE FIELD CURSE SHALT BE THE BASKET IN THY STORE CURSE SHALT BE THE FRUIT OF THY BODY AND THE FRUIT OF THY LAND THE INCREASE OF THY KIND AND THE FLOCKS OF THY SHEEP CURSE SHALT THOU BE WHEN THOU COMEST IN and CURSE SHALT THOU BE WHEN THOU GOEST OUT he's talking to Israel But again, I don't think any other nation probably compares more to America than Israel. Let me just read something to you here that I want to share with you that I picked up out of the newspaper some years ago. Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Titler, T-Y-T-L-E-R, made this profound observation, and I quote, A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority discovers it can vote itself largeness out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits. With the result, the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always be followed by a dictatorship and then a monarchy." That was in the Daily Oklahoman, December the 9th, 1951. And we're going to look at cycle of nations here in just a moment, but I'm reading another little thing here. The exact origin of the cycle of great nations is still in question. You can find that on your computers at YouTube. But the saying has been around and tossed around a good while with thousands of fragments on Google. Regardless of the author, there are enough similar thoughts and statements as well, self-evident truth, to render the idea worthy. of thought. Oh, now America has known all the good times that we have mentioned, and He's been good to us, and we're still feeling the effects of that. But now we're beginning to feel the effects, beginning over in verse 15 with the but, we're not doing what we used to do. So now you have your little piece of paper there, and it's what they call the cycle of great nations. And as far as we know, as best we can tell, that it would have been that obscure Scotsman named Titler who lived from 1747 to 1813 that came up with that, and we could just look at it. So what I'm going to ask you to do as we kind of move through this, decide in your mind where we are, okay? So note the cycle of great nations. First of all, from bondage to spiritual courage. If you want to in your mind, you can think back about Israel for a moment, and they're in Egypt, and then of course they're in bondage, and then they get spiritual courage, and they have Moses, and they're able to go. Well, I just mentioned that as an illustration And then we can kind of look at the rest of them and then you can think about, but we're going to think about America. Where is America? So we can look back historically and America was the same situation. We had a revolutionary war so that our people could be free to work and enjoy what they gained by their labor. Number two, spiritual courage to freedom. And America had her freedom and Israel had her freedom at that time. I'm going to ask you to VOTE when we get through looking at all these, so pay attention to them, and then we'll kind of decide where you think that we are right now. Spiritual Courage to Freedom, and number four, Abundance to Selfishness. Abundance to Selfishness. Number five, selfishness to complacency or apathy. They're very similar but not exactly the same. And then from apathy to dependence. And number seven, from dependence back to bondage. Now think about it for a moment. And then I'll just give you a number, and we'll just see some hands and see what we'd say here. So I don't think there's any use going back past number three. That's as far back as I'll go. But if you just raise your hands, I'm just curious, and you can see as a congregation. No one's right or wrong. It's just where you're thinking where we might be in this scale right now. So who would say number three is the main place where we are? Anybody? Techers on number three? No Techers on number three. Number four, abundance to selfishness. Okay, nobody's going for number four. Number five, selfishness to complacency or apathy. Okay, just hold them for a moment, just kind of a little bit of a count. You don't mind holding them back if you still have them up? Okay, looks like about eight or nine, okay. And number six, apathy to dependence. Looks like 16. And the end of it's dependence back into bondage. Okay, you got the one, every time I've done this in the last year or so, it's been number six, except for just one here a while back. Apathy to dependence. So you're the one that's decided on a scale, it's been out for a long time, just about where we are. Remember, we want to have wisdom about the understanding of the times as the best we possibly can. Now economically, excuse me, I think that America is probably in some tough spots. I'm not really a big phone person, but I want to tell you what can happen to a nation. I just decided to pull this up, see if it's still accurate. This is about Germany back in the forties. and germany has been a very you know much older country than we are and been very strong i mean you know they're responsible for world war one they were responsible for world war two they had a lot of power hyperinflation affected the german paper mark the currency of the weimar republic between nineteen twenty one and nineteen twenty three primarily in nineteen twenty three by mid nineteen twenty three the german mark was losing value by the minute The apex of the hyperinflationary cycle in November of 1923, now listen to me carefully, and you can pull this on your phone, 4.2 trillion marks. Now the mark is normally bigger than a dollar. Some of y'all know that if you travel. 1923 in November, 4.2 trillion German marks worth the same as one American dollar. 4.2 trillion. Now, you know, you always talk to some people about what can happen. I don't think, all right, Germans didn't think so either. They woke up the next morning and their paper, their money was nothing. You got to realize our money has no inherent value. Do you know what I mean by inherent? If it doesn't have something to stand behind it, I remember reading a book years ago, and it was really probably back in the 60s, Pastor, I don't know when it was, and people talking about, you know, the price is going up, and the man with the book said, prices aren't going up, dollar's going down. And back then, I think a new Impala was only like 20-something thousand dollars, or about $20,000, and he said, if you will give me $20,000, I mean $5,000 in dimes, I'll buy you a new Impala. And you could because of the silver in them. You see the difference? 5,000, 20-something thousand. The stuff in your wallet is worth nothing if what happened to Germany happened to America. I'm not trying to be down. I'm just trying to say we need to be mature and see what has happened. And right now, our country is on a free fall of spending. Or everything you can think of, things that you and I would say, we're going to spend money on what? And there it kind of goes. So I just want you to just be thinking about it. It's important enough to keep in your minds. So maybe some thoughts here that I would just share with you as an individual person. I don't have a lot of money. I'm a preacher. You better go do something else if you want to have, and I'm not complaining about it. I love serving the Lord, and I've never missed any meals, and of course I'll eat anything done to eat me first. Missionary and I were talking about that. Missionaries drive me crazy. They're supposed to eat everything, right preacher? So this is just some thoughts for you to think about maybe in chapter 28 we read in the Bible. Things you need to have. Well it's hard for Americans to make it without a car because our country's big. People that come from Europe come over here. They think they're going to drive across America and Texas is bigger than most of Europe. So, you know, it's really something. So when it comes to cars, you may not agree with me, but it's not necessary to buy a new car. But it's good to have a good used car with a lot of miles left on it. And don't get a weird car. I'm glad some people in here are thinking about it. I had a friend of mine, a pastor friend of mine, he had to get an Audi. And I'm having an Impala. And he finally got one, and he didn't have a garage, so he built him a little building out there, he called it the Audi House. And then of all things, his water pump went down. And about the same time mine did. His water pump cost him 400 and something bucks. Mine probably cost 32. And I said, have fun. Now, you can say what you want to. Well, I like. All right. The thing is, you better get the best you can with the right kind of money that will last. Buy something that will make a lot of the same kind of engines, because does that make sense? Easier to get the parts. So and cars are important. Number two, I'd say improve the efficiency of your home if you can, you know, a lot of times they build those houses are kind of short on insulation, maybe you can put some more. If you got single pane windows, if you can, maybe you better spend that money on double panes doors. Trees that'll knock out the sunshine in some places of the country where it gets real hot, whatever. And just the color of your siding and things all can make a lot of difference with those. I'm just throwing some things out there. Your electric bill will change. Electric bills are unbelievable right now. Especially our electric and water is bad in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Number three, this is especially for the men, but some of the ladies are really good with tools and things too. Increased stock of items that will not date, but will increase in price. One thing is good tools. Amen, brothers? Thank God for good tools. I do most of the work on my car. And no, I've overhauled three engines, but that was way back, and I hope I never overhaul another one, but anyway. I'm glad to have the tools to fix what I fix and change oil and put belts on it and brakes and things like that. That saves a lot of money. Did you know if I have the oil change in my motorhome, it's probably about $375 to $400 because it holds eight gallons and the filter's that big? Well, I do it for about a third of that because I do it myself. Someone said to me one time, I don't know how to change oil. I said, oh, when I was born, I knew how to change oil. Don't show your ignorance. Learn how to do it. And I like people to smile when you're talking about that, you know. It's good. So things like saw blades and drill bits, if you're going to work, you've got to have that hardware. Like, for instance, with me, I always keep an extra stock of filters. So I read that Roadway, one of the biggest trucking companies we ever had in America, They used so much oil that they were about to get them in trouble, you know, the EPA and so forth. And so they started not changing the oil, putting a new filter on it, topping it off, and getting a sample of the oil to see how it's doing. And found out that their Series 60 diesel engines would run right at a million miles before they chucked without changing oil. So now if things go bad and you can't get oil, it'd be nice to have some new filters. Those are only about five bucks each. A lady's shaking her hand. Where's the rest of you guys at? Well, anyway, she can help you all out on some of that. Some people say, I don't know how to do it. I understand that. None of us know how to do everything. Have you heard of do-it-yourself books? Can you read, get them, and learn from those books? And then you say, I got a phone, I know, but I've never seen that print disappear on the page of a book, but I have seen it disappear here. Please bear that in mind. They can kill it just like that. I'm not trying to be bad about it, I'm just trying to say, Be ready for whatever may come your way. Supply food for several days. I grew up on pinhole beans, fried potatoes, cornbread, long green onions, and iced tea. And I love it now. And I was just with Dwight Scott, and I got collard greens. I like them, too. He said, well, we have a stock of food. We could easily make it 90 days. He said, well, what are you going to do then? The point is, I've got time to think about it. Right? If you've been going to the store when the weather's bad and everything's coming and the shelves are half bare and you don't have anything at home, okay. God's letting you see that so you know. Be careful. You say, well, bar from, that's not right. You know what maybe can come like everybody else. Take care of it. Men, man up. Be ready to lead and take care of your family, whatever you have to do when you see those things coming. Gardens, if I had some good dirt, we have tried. We spent more money on trying to have a garden at our house than I'm ever going to spend again, but anyway. Be creative about the kind of work you have. I tell the younger guys at church when they ask me about it, I said, don't get a job that can be outsourced. I'm sorry if I offend anybody, but you're a computer operator. Somebody in Taiwan can do your job. You know that, right? But if you're a plumber, they can't. Because you've got to be there. If you're a mechanic, you can't. You've got to be there. So it can be outsourced. It'd be good if you have a job that cannot be outsourced. Maintain some cash or precious metals. in oklahoma we say uh... precious metals or you ought to be good to know this my wife just showed me yesterday that you know that walmart is selling gold and silver now but it ain't no discount pardon the grammar you know walmart may give you some deals on some things but they're not doing it on that so in oklahoma we say uh... precious metal is gold and silver and lead and people say i didn't think lead was important it helps you keep your gold and silver That okay? But really, I'm serious about that. Because you can buy an ounce of silver for somewhere around $20, $21, $22, you know, it varies, I can't give you exact amount. You say, well, you know, and if you'd buy one of those a week, you know, you'd, and just think, if the dollar itself was worthless tomorrow, a $21 piece of silver right now might be worth I don't know. But it would be nice to have a few, right? Have a few shekels in your deals. Well then, we're running out of time here. So, things could go and hit the bottom in America because we, and I'm sorry if you disagree, we deserve it. God been good to us, unbelievably good. And so if things go to pot, If anybody's going to make it, we're going to make it. David said, I've been young and I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken as seed begging bread? And have you not seen we had everything we want? And Jesus reminds us, a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. And I love Acts 2.46, and they continued daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, and ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. I can just see myself leaning up against the wall of one of my buddies eating a big taco or something, you know. We don't have a lot, but we've got something, you know, that we can eat. Someone has said, you know, I believe it was Centennial that said it, that if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it. Now, just a few thoughts I picked up here not too long ago. in nineteen forty one in forty two america had the eighteen largest army in the world did you know that not number one number eighteen and at that time churchill had sent a letter over to roosevelt and said if germany lands seven divisions on your shore you can't stop them and he was right Franklin Delano Roosevelt was responsible for the Great Depression. My dad grew up in that. How do you have a Great Depression? Let the government be in charge. And so back at that time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt realized he had failed, and I appreciate that. And then he turned to William Knudson, who was the president of General Motors, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. at that time, uncontested. So, when he did that, then things began to move. In 1944, America was producing 150 tons of steel per minute. America produced an airplane every five minutes. They can produce aircraft carriers in a month. It'll take six or eight years now, if not longer, to do that. And we think about the changes that have been made. And I look at young people and so forth, and I realize you're not been here that long, but I was your age. and I watched our country and I'm looking at it now and I really love it. But there's some things you gotta process. How many of y'all know what a B-52 is? It's been here longer than y'all, you should know. A B-52 bomber is 70 years old. It was built with a slide rule. But Americans today can't build one better with a computer. But all the people are going to have to live with it. Because when we face off or have to with the Chinese and everybody else, they're not going to say, well, I understand you guys had it tough. This is your country. And I remember being in a McDonald's here a while back. And I'm going to say this and finish. And my price of something was $3.10. So it was a while back. I gave them $5. And I reached in my pocket. Remember $3.10? I found a dime. I pulled a dime out, and the high school board behind her said, don't even think about it. Because he knew if I laid the dime down, he wouldn't know what to do to make change. Now, we can't change everybody else, but we can be what we ought to be. and be the best Christians and the best Americans that we possibly can be. God bless you for your time. It's always great to be here. Time's up.