Heavenly Father, again, we do thank you for this day. We do thank you for your word, that it is so rich and it guides us in every way. We do pray for your wisdom today. I do thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, last week my subject was on prosperity and I failed to get through everything I wanted to because the first time I got through everything I wanted to, I was told by a number of people, her name being Karen, that I went way, way, way, way, way too fast, so I slowed down on this one and I cut this one in half. Okay, so we have the same handout as last week. Yes, sir? Thank you, Karen. We have the same handout as last week. Our first three subjects from last week were anxiety and lack, financial fears and contentment, and blessings. Today I'm going to start with hard work versus fraud versus inheritance. One being biblical, one being unbiblical, and one being could be either. Hard work is biblical. Fraud is unbiblical. Inheritance, the way it's treated, could be either biblical or unbiblical, okay? Proverbs 13, 11. Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it. And Proverbs 20, 21. An inheritance gained hurriedly at the beginning will not be blessed in the end. Okay? So, what the scripture is talking about is gaining wealth through hard work. Okay? Nothing unbiblical about gaining wealth. Right? We've talked about over and over and over again that money in and of itself is not evil. It's the attitude toward the money, the way we handle it, the way we think of it. If it becomes our God, then it is unbiblical. Okay? It is unbiblical to gain wealth deceitfully. And then we're going to talk about also gaining wealth quickly through inheritance. What's wrong with that? So let's start with wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it. The example I have for this one, if anybody remembers Rodney King. Who remembers Rodney King? What happened to Rodney King? He got beat up. Unfortunately, we only saw part of the video, or actually the video was only part of the story, but the story shows that he was beat up and what did he do? He sued. Anybody know how much he sued for or how much he won in his settlement? Yeah, 3.8 million dollars. If I was awarded $3.8 million at a settlement, and that was 15 years ago, that $3.8 million would probably be worth about $10 million today. On December 8, 2006, kabc7.com reported, and I quote, King has had at least nine other brushes with law enforcement since the beating, including arrests based on allegations of DUI and hit and run, indecent exposure, assault, and drug use. Anybody know how much money Rodney King has from his settlement? Left. He has nothing. He is dead broke. Okay? So what happened was, and I'm not saying that the way he gained his wealth was by fraud per se, but it surely wasn't from hard work. Okay? And inheritance gain, oh, there are others, and let me start talking about fraud. Anybody know who Ted Kozlowski is? Ted Kozlowski. He's a happy Polack. Yes, he's what? He was the CEO of Tyco. What is he now? He's in jail. Okay. He took Tyco down. As with companies like Enron and Global Crossings, these men in high places who committed just unmentionable fraud actually men and their wives because one of these guys, and I can't remember his name, they gave a birthday party for one of their kids and it was a five million dollar birthday party on the company. Okay? Well, all of these guys who led these companies and gained literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars by fraud are now either totally bankrupt or in jail or bankrupt and in jail. Okay? So, wealth again by hard work is how God says that wealth should be accumulated by hard work. Okay? Yes, sir? It seems to me that there's a cultural implication of those guys. Because I worked for a company that had... Peregrine. Crooks at the top who did the same thing. Right. And openly admitted they had phony books and everything else. And that is... Other people suffer besides the vendor. The employees that lost their pension plans, or their stock options, or their stock, or customers, whatever. Vendors that don't get paid. It seems to me that their sin is not individual only, and its implications are resolved. Oh, that's absolutely true. Let's take Enron, for example. Enron, if I have the numbers correct, The value of Enron before it went under was about $85 billion. And most of the employees of Enron who were in their stock purchase plan and in their 401k plan and retirement plan owned nothing but Enron stock. So when it went down, All these thousands of employees went with it. You're absolutely right. Not only the person who commits the fraud suffers, but there's collateral damage, untold collateral damage. We were a stockholder of Global Crossings, and I'm not gonna tell you all the sorry statistics, but there was a settlement of Global Crossings, and for what we owned, we, no, actually for what our kids owned, each one of them received the option to buy six shares of the new company. And at the value of the purchase, it came out to be one penny on the dollar. So for every dollar we invested in Global Crossings, we got one penny back. So that's the damage. So it's not only employees, it's not only the fraud, it's all the stockholders out there, all the pension funds, especially in companies like this who are supposed to be very, very stable companies. It's usually the aged that invest in companies like this because they're very stable, they give a dividend, they provide them income, there's not much risk And what happened was is these people took down literally millions of other people. Okay? Secondly, an inheritance gained hurtly at the beginning will not be blessed in the end. Can anybody give me a biblical example of that? Prodigal son. Could somebody go for me to Luke 15, 11 through 16? Troy? Thank you for volunteering. Luke 15, 11 through 16. And he said there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me. And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country. And there he squandered his property and reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything Okay, so here's a young man who wants to separate from his father. He asks for his inheritance. His dad gives him half of his wealth and he goes away. And because he has no idea how to faithfully work with the finances he's been given, he squanders it away in, what kind of living? Loose living, it says. Loose living. Okay? So let's talk about inheritance. Is inheritance inherently evil? No. Okay? As a matter of fact, my next section about future generations, which I'll just read the first proverb, 1322, a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Okay? So it can't be evil. If God says that a good man leaves for his children's children, then it can't be inherently evil. What's wrong with an inheritance is how a father or a grandfather or a mother or a grandmother leave it to their children or their children's children. A perfect example of this would be if you're unfortunate enough to own your own business. And I say that kind of jokingly because our tax laws work against anybody who's self-employed. But let's say you own your own business and you are very, very, very successful. through years and years and years and years of hard work. And you raise your son or your daughter, and that son or that daughter goes to college and graduates, and the minute they graduate from school, you make them vice president of operations of the firm. Is that a wise decision? No, why not? Yes, ma'am. Well, they don't have any experience and they're giving them power beyond their years of wisdom. Correct. Hard work develops wisdom in business. Okay? And if you don't make your child work hard, then you are sacrificing them to unwise decisions. Okay? Same thing Let me give you another example of, let's say you want to invest for your son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter in an educational IRA. And you invest for 20 years and by the time you finish investing, you have a quarter million dollars in this educational IRA and you give it to your son, right? Yes, no? No, what should you do? What you do, okay, if you want to use wisdom in investing, is you take enough money to pay for the first semester's tuition. And you say, tell you what, you're successful in school, you study hard, you work hard, You get good grades. Notice I didn't say you get A's or B's. You get good grades because you have to look at the way your child has performed through school, what school the child is going through, and you say, if that happens, I will pay for the next semester. And if you work hard and you study hard and you get good grades, I will pay for the next semester. So what you're not doing is you're not just giving an inheritance early. You're actually making the child learn to work for the finances that you're giving him. Okay? And I'll tell you what, that brings appreciation in the child. That the child is just not getting something for nothing. Okay? An example, I'm going to use my son as an example. We just got an email from my son and we asked him what he wants for Christmas. And this is the most amazing statement I've heard from my son in 22 years of life. He said nothing. Why did he say nothing? Because you have been so good to me in helping me through school. Okay? So, and we never, never, never just gave him A quarter million dollars to go to school and say, spend it how you will. It's, we'll pay for this semester, you come back, you show us your grades, we'll pay for the next semester. And then we have rules and regulations that he has to follow. Any questions? Yes, ma'am? Do educational IRAs leave the parent in control? After the child reaches 18, or is the name on the account automatically transferred over? Because there's other things that when they turn 18, it becomes their property. Correct. The one that I'm thinking about is the, I don't even know what it is anymore, not an educational IRA, but a 529 plan, which is an educational investment plan. That money can only be used for education. Period. If you do not use it for your child's education, you can change the name on the plan so that it goes to another child for education, but it cannot just be taken out. Because then it gets penalized, and taxes, and it's horrible. Okay? Okay? So no, it just doesn't go to the child. Other questions? All the questions the first time I taught were concerning what was the line, what was the word that gets filled in. Okay, so here's what I'm doing. Do you have email? I am sending my study to Brian and he is actually putting it on the church website. So every one of these fully filled in will be on the church website. Not that I'm picking on you. Yes, you are. But I am. You went to Pittsburgh, she deserves it. She went to Pittsburgh, she deserves sympathy. So, again, remember the first time I talked, how do you gain wealth? By hard work. Saving a little over a long period of time. I would like, if I can, one of these days, if we can get the whiteboard up here, I'll go through some calculations to show you what I mean by saving a little over a long period of time because people really don't understand. What happens is, if you have a long-term vision, and you really have to have a long-term vision, it can't be five years from now, eight years from now, 10 years from now. It has to be 40 years from now if you're 25 years old. 50 years from now if you're 20 years old. Your investment pretty much goes like this. For about the first 25 years, it looks like it's doing nothing. And then all of a sudden, with the beauty of compounding, it actually skyrockets at the end in about the last 10 years. Same thing, who owns a mortgage? How much of your principal do you pay off in the first 20 years? I think you pay off about 20% to 25% of your house in the first 20 years of making payments. And you pay off the last 80% in the last 10 years. So your payoff goes like this. Same thing with investing. I do business plans for emerging companies, and when you look at the growth of a company, that's exactly the same as the growth of a company. They start small, small, small, small, small, and when you double from 20 to 40, from 20 to 40, it doesn't sound like too much, you go from 40 to 80, then 160, 320, 640, 1280, 2560, it starts going really fast. Okay? So that's why you have to be faithful and a little bit over a long period of time. Because also what I said a couple of weeks ago, if you start late in the game, then it's not that you just, if you waited 20 years, you just have to double or triple what you should have invested. You have to invest 20 and 30 and 40 times more to get the same results. Okay? Yes, sir? I was doing one of those spreadsheet numbers with my son, Andy, when he was young. And if he waited one year, his $2,000 IRA back in the year 2000, it would cost him $50,000 at the end. So I said, Andy, that $2,000, if you don't invest it now, it'll cost you $50,000. That's how much it was going up at the end. Reasonable amount of return, but it was like 40, 50 years later, about 40 years later, it's $45,000. So that's the kind of numbers we're talking about. You're right. Okay? Section E, what about future generations? I already brought up Proverbs 13, 22. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. Okay? And I'm gonna bring this in earlier than I was supposed to. Look at our generation, my generation, The generation that now is following my generation, and look at the generation before me. Okay, Herman and Ellie's generation. Okay, Shirley's generation. Okay, my dad and my mom. My dad and my mom lived their whole lives for the success of their children. And to make sure that their children were better off, not that ultimately it would end up that way, but they worked to make sure that their children got the education that they lacked. And they also saved and sacrificed and sacrificed and sacrificed so that when my dad was no longer at working age, that he would have sufficient so that he would not be, one, a burden on society, and two, a burden on his children. Okay? Even though it is our responsibility to take care of our parents. In today's day and age, it's completely different. Today's adults want everything now. I have to have it now. I don't care about the future. The future's not important to me. As I said, I work with a guy who literally over his 30-year career has made millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. And he has nothing, absolutely nothing. Okay? Completely different attitude about taking care of ourselves and taking care of future generations. Okay? So it's our responsibility, yeah, it's our responsibility to take care of Jack. No, I'm not your dad. Okay. Those who care only for themselves are storing up their wealth for righteous person. Psalm 37, 17 through 22. Who can get that for me, Gabe? Psalm what? 37, 17 through 22. When the arms of the wicked shall be broken, the fifth, Lord, upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever. They are not put to shame in evil times. In the days of famine, they have abundance. But the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastors. They vanish like smoke, they vanish away. The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives. For those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. Okay, those blessed by the Lord will inherit the land, those cursed by him will be cut off. Okay. where I got this study from, the author says that these verses point to either one of two interpretations. That the plight of the wicked is because of irresponsible dissipation, which means that the wicked are so irresponsible that their wealth gets passed off to the righteous. Or, it's divine retribution, which In many, many, many places in scripture, God says that he's gonna take the money from the wicked and give it to the righteous. Per Ecclesiastes 2.26, it's vanity for the wicked to store up wealth for themselves because God gives riches to the wicked so that he may give to one who is good in God's sight. And what I had just said before, Cobb, Our generation, anybody know what our generation was? What's this generation called today? The Y, what was it before that? The X, what's our generation called? Those who are in their 40s and 50s? Well, baby boomers, but what else was it called? It was called the me generation. It was apropos, wasn't it? Everything was about me. And again, with our parents, everything was about the children and everything was about preparing for rainy days. The biggest curse for an accountant, me being an accountant, the biggest curse for an accountant is there's always a dark cloud with inside a silver lining. So people like me always prepare for the bad times. Because the good times will never be good enough and the bad times are always going to be worse than you possibly can believe. So people like me take it way past the bounds of sanity when it comes to preparing. But what we need to do is we need to prepare for those times where there are financial hard times, financial and economic troubles. Let's talk about our government. Anybody knows how our government works? State government, federal government, city government, county government, when it comes to money? Well, not always. When good times are good, when good times are good, they spend up to every single penny of tax revenue they get. And that can be proven back in the late 1990s with the state of California, with the boom of the tech industries and the dot bombs, and the tax revenues coming into California were on Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And California spent every single dime it earned. And when times got bad, what did it do? Borrow. Oh, actually, the state of California cannot borrow. It must have a balanced budget. So what does it do? This is my favorite thing for ballot initiatives. What does it do? It writes a bond. Because a bond is not debt, right? It's not. It's just a promise to pay. I'm being facetious here, but people actually believe that bond is not debt. People actually believe that the state of California lives on a balanced budget, even though in the last 10 years, I think the state of California has written in the area of $50 billion of bonds, which we will be paying for over the next 30 years. OK? What God tells us is to save money in the good times so that you have it in the bad times and don't have to borrow. Okay? Last section, a good name and integrity. Proverbs 22.1, a good name is to be more desired than great riches. Favor is better than silver and gold. And Proverbs 28.6, better is the poor who walks in his integrity than he who is crooked though he be rich. Okay? Good name and integrity are much more important than riches and prosperity. Okay? Even though prosperity is not wrong. Correct? There's nothing wrong with being prosperous. God doesn't tell us that we're in sin. It's the attitude that we work with. Okay? Jay Adams translates this Proverbs 28.6, better is the poor man who walks in his integrity than he who is crooked. translates crooked as double dealer. Okay, the double dealer is opportunistic. Okay, lives according to no standards at all. His goal in life is what? Make money and what else? That's a fill in the blank right there, Daphne. Advance himself. Right? All about me. It's all about me. What am I going to do for me, for me to make money, for me to be comfortable, for me to have the things that I want? So, finishing this out, poverty is not bad. It's not necessarily bad. Riches are not necessarily good. Vice versa. Poverty is not necessarily good, and when is poverty not good? When is it sinful? When you are a sluggard. Right? When you are a sluggard. Okay? When we lived in Texas, and we worship in, it was in Humboldt, Texas, which is right outside of Houston. We have a mercy ministry, and we would have, and at that time, it was 1982 to 85, which we have seen recessions here in California. The late 1980s, right now we're moving, I think we're moving close to a recession. In 82 to 85 in Texas, it was a depression. There were people jumping off of bridges, people living out in the streets. It was horrible. But we had a mercy ministry. And we had people all the time come in to us and ask us for food. And we would ask them one question. And what was the question we would ask them? Are you willing to work? Not, are you able? Not, do you have the time? Are you willing? And we found work for these people, and they actually pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. And we biblically looked at people that said, nope, not willing to work, and we turned them away. OK? Because they were sluggers. So poverty is not good or bad. Riches are not good or bad. It's the attitude toward either that's good or bad. Okay? God is the one who decides how he's going to bless us. We decide what we're going to do with the blessings that he gives us. Okay? Now, John was gracious enough, he has an investing letter that he buys or gets from his phone, so they're calling him right now to tell him what the latest investment advice is, so he's going to leave because he's going to tell you what the next greatest stock is out there. And John said he has given me the right to announce that he's going to put this on, he's going to send this to Brian to put on the website. And the reason that he sent me this one and I'm saying this to you is because this specific article, and when you get back into it, it talks about their investments and what you want to do, but it talks about a biblical blueprint. 10 steps, 10 most important financial moves for 2008. And I'm just going to read these and then we're going to conclude with any questions or whatever. First one is do a spiritual self-assessment. And if you get this off the website, you can read everything that's involved in these. I'm just going to read the headings. Second one is commit to honoring the Lord by being generous. Set biblically inspired goals and put them in writing. If we fail to plan, we plan to fail. Renew your resolve to get debt free. Anybody know how to Get debt-free on your mortgage in a fast period of time. Downsize is one way. Don't upsize. What other? You have a mortgage for 30 years. How do you make that a 15-year mortgage? How fast? Well, there's three different ways of doing it. The easiest way to do it is $100 a month extra. Doesn't sound like much. but over a 15 or 18 year period, you will drop between 12 and 15 years off your mortgage payment. The other way to do it is make bi-weekly payments. Okay? Bi-weekly. No, no, no. Bi-monthly is every other month. Bi-weekly, which means that there are 26 payments as opposed to 24, so you're making an extra month worth of payments a year, but because you're making them early, it will drop 10 to 12 years off your mortgage. Okay, and the other way to do it is, at the beginning of every year, pay a double payment, right off the bat, and then pay your normal payments for the next 11 months. It's amazing how much money it takes off your mortgage, just those few things. Okay, so renew your, Renew your resolve to get debt free. And after Paul speaks next week, and I don't know if he's going to take one or two weeks, then my next two weeks are going to be solely on debt. We're going to talk about debt and how to stay out of it, how to get out of it, how to live without it, how to live within it. Develop a plan for paying off your credit cards in 2008. You know what the biggest business for credit card companies are today? College campuses. It is amazing how many credit card applications our son gets on a weekly basis. Fortunately, he's in London, and fortunately, the mail comes to us. He gets no less than five pieces of mail a week that he is pre-qualified for debt, though he doesn't earn a penny. How do the companies make their money if these kids are defaulting on all that? Oh, it's not the defaulting. That's okay. That's already built in. It's 19 to 25 percent interest on minimum payments. That's where they make their money. Yeah, they've already built into their analysis and their systems. They've built in the losses. They're already calculated. They're taken care of. They're making bundles. And they have an extra cycle program, too. They'll actually send you one that says, oh, take the month's payment off. So instead of paying the $300 you owe us, just pay us the small $25 processing fee. Do the arithmetic. You just gave them 110% interest. So, OK. Create a budget if you don't have one. And by the end of this class, you will have the ability to have one. We will give you a model. We will even give you a template. But it's your job to do one. OK? Pursue spending strategies that will stretch your dollars and help you live within your budget. We went shopping yesterday. I love shopping, not the day after Thanksgiving, but the day after the day after Thanksgiving. 50% off, 15% off on top of that, and for every $50 you spent, you get a $10 coupon to spend $10 more. So what you do, You get all those off and you, we didn't do this yesterday because we missed it by a day, you withhold part of your purchase. And I go in and I purchase everything I want and I get my 50% off and my 15% off and I get my free box and I hand it to my wife behind me. And she goes in and she takes her purchases and she gets the immediate discount on the clothes that she wants to buy. Things like that to stretch your dollars. Did you wear a disguise? No, sir. This face cannot be disguised. Begin thinking strategically about your next car purchase. Better to save now, buy later, than buy now, save later. Buy now and pay later. Your best car, your cheapest car, is the car that you own. Or if you can sell it and buy a cheaper car, Okay? Pay a little extra on your mortgage. Oh, I already said that. Each month. Okay? Make it a priority to complete... Yeah, no, this is all. That's it. Okay? Any questions? Comments? Telephone call comes for mortgages, and I say, I don't have a mortgage. And they don't know what to say. Here's another thing if you live in California, and this is only for people who are my age. Anybody know about that little known California law that once you turn 55, you get to sell your house once. And the value of the old house for tax purposes becomes the value of the new house for tax purposes. So whenever we retire, what we can do is move from where we are, downsize our home, and even though prices have gone up hysterically, not historically, hysterically, when we go for taxes, our tax base will be the same as it is right now. How does that help you? Well, when you're 53 years old, don't go and go buy a new home. Wait for two years. Be patient. Then go buy a new home. I have a guy that I work with that just bought a new home. His tax bill went up five times. Five times. From $2,000 a year to $10,000 a year. Okay? Lost money. It's family. I enjoy your teaching, but I have to say that sitting here listening, it's really a little discouraging when you're on a, you know, one income family and, you know, you live in hand to mouth. Really, I don't understand and I don't see how, you know, I was, okay, let me back up a little. I was paying extra money on our mortgage and it got to the point where that was money out of our mouths, food off the table. So we stopped doing that. I'm discouraged because I can't see a way to try to get out of debt, try to get ahead, try to do these kinds of things. We don't have money to invest in stock. We have some IRAs and things like that. Can you address that? Yeah, we're going to work on that. In the next two weeks that I'm doing it, it's going to be on debt, what to do to debt. And the last three weeks are actually going to be on budgeting. But it's not just budgeting, it's how to live, how to make decisions, how to live. I understand that you're discouraged, but do you know that even the prepayments that you've made have actually done something? It's not that you stop prepaying and therefore you're back to normal. Because you have made prepayments in the past, every mortgage payment you made now is paying off more principal than it should have, which means you're paying off earlier than you should have. I don't know how many years you've cut off your mortgage, but you probably have. Yes, a one wage earner income in California is nearly impossible. in California, as with most of the country, but here it is. But it can be done. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of sacrifice. And I know you do, but we'll go over things that can be done to save to the last little penny. It takes a lot of Discipline, thank you. It takes a lot of discipline and working through discouragement. Let me say, for example, some of the discipline it takes. I will tell you in your budget that you must, must, must, must, must go on a date. You must. You're best to go out on a date every week. I can tell you that you can go out on a date to a very nice restaurant and it will cost you $7.75. Go to Acapulco, and we've done this when we were very, very, very strapped. Acapulco, Nachos Grande, two waters. Nachos are $6.50. Tax and tip, $7.75. You've gone out of the house for three hours. You've been on a date. You've been able to talk. You've been able to have fellowship. And it hasn't cost you $40 and $50 and $60 and $100 and $130 and $150 for a dinner. And movies. Well, movies are $15 for two, so that's not really well. But things like that, we'll talk about how to stretch your dollar so that your dollars become more valuable. For example, Who keeps their temperature in their homes in the wintertime at 70 degrees? 70? For every degree less, it's a 10% savings. And once you hit 65, nine o'clock at night, you're going to bed, you're under your covers, you hit 65, your thermostat, you're basically, heat never goes on? And if it does, take it down to 62. Okay? Sorry. My parents in Pennsylvania, theirs at night at 55. 55. Okay? When my daughter went to college, they stayed with a deacon in the local church at Grove City. And what was the temperature? 55 at night and 65 during the day. Hardwood floors. You know how cold that was? You know what they did? They bundled up. Okay? That's one way of going from a $175 a month electric bill to $90 a month. Okay? So things like that we'll talk about. Yes. Yes. Yes. It has to be the same as you're selling it for. Yes. So yeah, so the reason you would do it is you're moving locations. It's not that you're, you can even downgrade in size, but if you move from Escondido to Carlsbad, you can downgrade in size, and it'll be the same price, and then your tax structure is much less. Yes. Yes, sir. This is subject change. And Andy is a Los Angeles County area, and he asked for a location. neo-naval emergency units. So we'd ask you to pray for him. Do you remember his wife was pregnant? Oh, for their, for his... Was she in labor? No, I don't know. He wouldn't say. Loma Linda? No, no, Loma Linda's waiting. Okay. So they're thinking of going to UCLA. Okay. Yeah, so we'd ask you to pray for them. So we'll pray for them before we end. Or Daniel Freeman. What? Daniel Freeman. Where is that? Downtown LA. Downtown LA. Peter Simon. I don't have a question, but one of the things that you can trust in is if you're doing all that you know before the Lord, and you don't see what we're talking about, this physical wealth, You can trust Him. That's His will for you then. There's a difference, like you said, between being a sloth and not having anything and wanting and knowing that God has called you, you know, to live the way He's called you to live in contentment. There is great reward in that. The difference is if you're irresponsible with what he's given you and you're living that way and you don't need to be. I think that's what we're talking about. And being responsible and being content with where he puts you over a period of time, and we're talking generational time, 20 to 40 years, it's hard to see that when you're in the middle of, you know, like Dee's talking, raising five or six kids. Yeah, you're not going to have all that then, you know, the odds are. But it's faithfulness over a period of time, and that's, you know, we do need to look at that big picture. Mark, did you have a comment before? Not to this. I just told Paul, we need to pray because the synagogue teachers are holding our children hostage. In other words, I need to close in prayer, don't I? Is that what you're telling me to do? But you were telling Paul and not me? No, I was telling Paul for the next time he talked. Oh, OK. Okay, that's right. Heavenly Father, we do praise you and thank you again for this day. We do thank you for your word that is sufficient for our life. And I do now pray for Andy, his wife, and the children that are growing with him, Lord, that you would protect them and bless them, that you would help them find the hospital, Lord, that if necessary, and they do need doctors and neonatal, that you would give them the wisdom. We do pray to you and we pray for your spirit to be upon us the rest of this day. Thank you, God, for seeing all that we're saying to you. In Jesus' name, amen.