Should Christians Be Preppers?

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00:00

It's Prepping Biblical.

00:02

That's what we're going to talk about today on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

00:07

Welcome to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:28

My name is Keith Bosky, and I am a Calvinist, and with me is Uncle Rich.

00:33

Uncle Rich, how are you doing today, brother? Doing good.

00:35

Doing good.

00:36

Apologize if I'm shining.

00:38

We've been doing some work here.

00:40

Yes.

00:41

Yes, absolutely.

00:42

And we are doing our first show from the Theo shed.

00:45

Yes.

00:47

That's what we're calling this.

00:48

This is my new shed slash office slash studio.

00:51

We don't have anything up on the background yet.

00:54

We're still working on it, but we wanted to try our first ever podcast from the studio.

00:58

We got our mic set up.

01:00

We got everything set up, and I think we're sounding okay.

01:04

Sounded good to me when we were testing it earlier.

01:06

So yeah.

01:07

And once you get all your knickknacks on the wall and get it specialized, it'll be sweet.

01:13

Be nice and pretty.

01:14

Well, today we're talking about the subject of prepping and preppers and whether or not that is biblical.

01:21

But before we get into that subject, we're going to cut to a video of you and I testing out some emergency prepper food, which was donated to us, 72 hour survival food kit.

01:33

And we're going to show everybody what it takes to prepare that, what it tastes like.

01:38

And they're not a sponsor, but they could be.

01:41

I always put that out there.

01:43

You're going to watch.

01:44

We're going to shoot over to the video and then come right back in here.

01:47

This is a 72 hour survival food kit.

01:52

Uncle Rich and I are going to sample this 72 hour survival food kit made by four patriots.

01:59

Not a sponsor yet.

02:01

Maybe.

02:02

If they want to be a sponsor, just give us a call.

02:05

We're going to see if this is any good.

02:07

We're going to taste the breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

02:10

What's in this package? We're going to find out what's good and what's not.

02:14

What's your initial prediction? I had some survival food that was dehydrated years ago and it was okay.

02:21

It was like sausage and chicken and stuff like that.

02:23

So I'm 50-50 on whether or not it's going to be any good.

02:26

First things first is we're going to actually open this thing up.

02:29

All right.

02:29

So let's see what is in the bag.

02:32

If the cat jumps up, takes a bite and leaves, that's all you need to know.

02:36

Okay.

02:37

The bag is full of other bags.

02:40

We have creamy rice and vegetable dinner.

02:46

We got Grammy's sweet oatmeal.

02:48

I'm guessing that's breakfast.

02:49

Okay.

02:50

So Grammy's sweet oatmeal.

02:51

That's all.

02:51

Okay.

02:51

There's three packs in this 72 hour survival food kit.

02:57

Delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

02:59

It's 72 hours, but it's only three packages.

03:03

One's breakfast, one's lunch, and one's dinner.

03:08

I have a curious, are you supposed to like, because 72 hours is three days.

03:14

That is correct.

03:16

I guess you got to ration it out.

03:18

So what I'm thinking is what happens here is you make the whole thing and then you ration from there for the next 72 hours.

03:24

Okay.

03:25

So this is one person.

03:26

It's got to be one person.

03:27

It's one person for three days, but you're going to be eating the same oatmeal, mac and cheese, and creamy rice and vegetables.

03:36

You know what I don't see? Meat.

03:40

Dude, I didn't make the kit.

03:43

Again, there's no, I would have thought, you know, something in here would have had.

03:47

Here's the thing.

03:48

It's called four patriots.

03:50

If there ain't no meat, like canned meat somewhere, they're going to go kill some meat.

03:55

All right.

03:56

So don't worry.

03:57

So what we're going to do now is we're going to go cook all this up and get it ready to go.

04:01

So next shot you'll see, we'll have it out here and prepped and we're going to try it and we'll see what we got.

04:36

Okay.

04:37

So we have, uh, we have done all the cooking.

04:40

It took about 30 minutes to do all the prep.

04:43

Some of it took 20 minutes to cook.

04:45

Some of it took only a couple of minutes to cook.

04:48

So I think we should do this in order of how we would eat it in life because breakfast is the first meal of the day breakfast.

04:56

We have, uh, what did it say? Grandma's? Grandma's oatmeal or something like that.

05:01

It sounds like it's got some maple syrup in it.

05:03

Sweet oatmeal, sweet oatmeal.

05:05

I'm just going to dip some up for the camera to see.

05:07

Okay.

05:08

My own.

05:09

All right.

05:10

So there you go.

05:12

This is oatmeal and, uh, I'll eat mine out of the bowl.

05:16

How about that? There you go.

05:18

Here we go.

05:18

All right.

05:18

Three, two, one.

05:21

Hot.

05:22

Yeah.

05:23

That's the last thing we cooked was oatmeal.

05:25

It smells like a McGriddle from McDonald's.

05:28

You get a McGriddle, it's got that heavy syrup smell, sweet smell, but you don't taste a lot of it.

05:33

It's just bland.

05:33

It's not bad.

05:36

I mean, if I had to eat it, I could eat it.

05:37

Yeah.

05:37

I mean, if I was surviving, again, it says survival food.

05:41

Right.

05:42

So, I mean, it's all right.

05:43

And there's more in there, right? Like there, like this was a bigger amount.

05:48

Right.

05:48

There's a whole pot of this.

05:49

Mm-hmm.

05:50

So.

05:51

Three days worth of food might be good.

05:51

This is three days worth of food.

05:52

Now.

05:53

This is a pretty big one.

05:54

This is almost all the macaroni.

05:55

There's a little bit of macaroni left.

05:57

This is all the dinner.

05:59

So, you've got to splice that up three ways.

06:02

So, it seems like the idea is eat a big breakfast, eat a middle-of-the-road lunch, light on the dinner.

06:10

Because I think the mac and cheese is the lunch entree.

06:14

You think mac and cheese is lunch? I think that's lunch because there's more of it.

06:16

Well, here.

06:16

Give me some.

06:17

So, let's give it a shot.

06:19

Three, two, one.

06:24

Again, you know, I'm not going to pay for this at a restaurant.

06:31

It's not bad.

06:33

I could eat it.

06:35

Now, let's say I came to your house.

06:36

Mm-hmm.

06:36

And you were having dinner.

06:37

And you served me this and called it macaroni and cheese.

06:40

I probably wouldn't say anything.

06:42

Like, it would probably be enough macaroni and cheese like that it's not.

06:48

It wouldn't cause suspicion.

06:51

It would just make me think you bought cheap mac and cheese.

06:53

You know when you have a church potluck and there's always that one dish of mac and cheese that's just dry and just it's barely mac and cheese? Mm-hmm.

07:02

This is that.

07:03

This is that one lady in your church that can't cook.

07:06

She doesn't deserve to be a Baptist.

07:11

Now, that I'm interested to see if it's worth a darn.

07:15

So, this is.

07:16

Oh, that's all right.

07:18

He said darn.

07:19

One per episode.

07:21

At least once, Rich has to say darn.

07:26

Now, I realize I'm doing it.

07:28

All right.

07:29

All right.

07:29

So, this is the creamy rice and vegetable dinner.

07:35

It looks like goo, but we'll see.

07:40

Smells like rice and roni.

07:41

Ready? That ain't bad.

07:44

That's good.

07:45

I know, that's good.

07:45

Now, I like that.

07:47

That's actually not bad.

07:48

And this is the one that's got the least amount of.

07:51

I could eat that whole bowl.

07:52

Yeah, yeah.

07:53

This is.

07:54

Now, that's good food.

07:58

That is good.

07:59

Now, I said earlier there's no meat.

08:02

Right.

08:02

But this, this would.

08:04

This is hearty.

08:06

Right.

08:08

I could eat all of that.

08:09

Mm-hmm.

08:10

That I like.

08:11

4Patriot 72 hour survival food kit.

08:14

Delicious meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

08:16

Breakfast in this pouch had supposedly three days worth of.

08:21

Oatmeal.

08:22

Oatmeal.

08:22

It was good.

08:23

It was, you know.

08:25

A little salt, a little pepper, you'd be all right.

08:27

Yeah.

08:28

Macaroni and cheese, a little dry, but it tastes like macaroni and cheese.

08:31

It doesn't taste like sand or something.

08:33

It's a little dry.

08:35

It's like, you know, like you said, the one thing at the potluck, the lady can't cook.

08:39

It's okay.

08:40

You had to do it.

08:41

But this stuff, this is the winner.

08:43

Yeah.

08:44

I mean, if this was a contest, this is.

08:46

That would definitely win.

08:47

I'm going to sit and eat this while we do the podcast.

08:50

I would say taste, I give it an overall 7.

08:54

I can agree with that.

08:56

Okay.

08:56

6 or 7, yeah.

08:57

Easy to prepare.

08:58

I'd say also maybe an 8, because really it's just boil water and pour it in.

09:02

Right.

09:03

It's measure out water and boil it and mix it and cook it for 20 minutes.

09:06

I mean, that's the easy.

09:07

And amount, I give it a 4.

09:10

Right.

09:11

Well, we're also judging it by American food.

09:14

What we normally.

09:16

A plate of food used to be a big and that was all you needed.

09:19

And people went all day on that.

09:21

And now we've just grown it to where it's these massive.

09:24

You want a steak? You want the whole left side of the cow.

09:27

I just got a carrot.

09:31

He got something he didn't like, ladies and gentlemen.

09:33

No.

09:35

No, the carrot was fine.

09:36

It just was big.

09:38

That was a replacement for the meat.

09:40

So, I mean, if you're in a serious crisis situation, this will work.

09:45

As I said in the video, I'm still eating the rice.

09:50

It was really good, except for I just bit down on a green pea.

10:01

Sure wasn't broccoli? No, that was a green pea.

10:04

Okay.

10:05

And it was not suitable for consumption.

10:11

You found the one thing that didn't cook in all of it.

10:14

That's hilarious.

10:16

It was hard.

10:17

Okay.

10:19

So, as you and I know, there's a lot of people out there that do what we call prepping.

10:25

And what we wanted to discuss today was whether or not the idea of prepping is biblical.

10:30

Whether or not we would consider ourselves to be preppers or in that camp.

10:36

And there's sort of a spectrum, I think, of people that would consider themselves to be preppers or prepping.

10:44

And so, we wanted to ask the question, is prepping biblical? What does it mean to be a prepper? And ultimately, is this something that a Christian should want to be or a Christian should try to be? So, what do you think of when you think of the word prepper, Richard? Is it somebody that just has things and savings, food and stock? Or is there more to it than that? Well, my mind goes to a spectrum.

11:13

Because I've seen different levels of it.

11:16

I've seen the level where, with my own eyes, where a fella had a garage.

11:24

And he had multiple shelves.

11:25

And he had everything from canned meat to canned vegetables.

11:29

Some of the stuff that we, the kits.

11:33

The whole garage.

11:35

I mean, floor to ceiling, all the way around.

11:38

Loaded with food.

11:39

He had years worth of food in there.

11:42

And that was because he was worried about when everything falls apart.

11:47

And this is 10, 12 years ago.

11:48

Everything falls apart.

11:49

He wanted to be, he didn't want to rely on anyone.

11:52

So, you got that extreme level where it's, he had to spend a lot of time and effort.

11:59

Him and his wife putting all this together.

12:01

And then you got those who, like you said, do nothing.

12:05

So, it's just, it depends on what you're prepping for.

12:09

Are you prepping just to make sure you can feed your family? You got people, I've seen, there used to be a TV show called Preppers or something like that.

12:18

Doomsday Preppers.

12:20

They had bunkers.

12:21

I mean, they put bunkers in the ground and loaded them up so they could just hide.

12:27

I don't know from who.

12:29

Yeah.

12:30

And again, I know folks who are like, who watch the show and it's like, dag-uh.

12:35

And to a degree, I can understand the idea of wanting a bunker that you could lock from the inside and you're self-contained for two or three years.

12:44

Because if, let's say you had like a crisis scenario where there's no food on the shelves, there's no grocery stores, there's nothing.

12:56

Yeah.

12:56

And your neighborhood gets wind that you got two years worth of food.

13:02

Guess whose house they're coming to? Sure.

13:04

You're going to get robbed blind.

13:06

That's why a lot of folks who store food also store some type of tool to protect.

13:14

The food, whether it be firearms or something like that.

13:16

So that's the extreme though.

13:19

They're thinking about if it all just goes in a handbasket, they can hide and nobody can get to them.

13:27

You're going to have to blow the door off of their staggum bunker to get in there to them.

13:31

Yeah.

13:32

They'll sacrifice the house.

13:34

They'll be staying in their little 30 by 30 underground cubicle with everything they need.

13:39

Yeah.

13:39

So, okay.

13:40

So that's the extreme.

13:43

Then you got middle of the road and then you got people who do nothing.

13:46

And I'm sure we'll talk about each level of that from a theological perspective as we go further.

13:51

But that's where my mind goes when you talk about preppers.

13:53

Yeah.

13:54

And like you said, if we put it on a spectrum, it would be the spectrum of you've got people who do, who are completely self-contained and they go what some people call off grid.

14:06

I remember a few years ago when we first moved into this house, I wanted to get solar panels on the house.

14:14

Right.

14:14

And I asked the lady to come to the house or asked them to send a salesperson out so I could talk about solar panels.

14:20

And when they were here, I said, I want to get solar panels on the house.

14:26

And they were saying, and the lady was, you know, well, why do you want solar panels? What's your motivation? I said, well, I want to be able to have electricity if the electricity doesn't work.

14:37

You know, if the grid goes out, I want to still have electricity.

14:41

And she said, oh, you want to go off grid.

14:43

I said, no, I'm not.

14:44

I don't care about being off grid.

14:46

I want air conditioning if it's hot.

14:51

I wasn't trying to separate myself from FPL or JA or whoever, you know, whoever the electrical group is.

14:58

I wanted to be able to have my house.

15:00

And she says, well, you need a generator because solar panels don't work that way.

15:04

They have to, you know, they feed the grid and you still get your electricity from the grid, which surprised me.

15:08

I didn't realize that.

15:10

If you have solar panels and power goes out, your power goes out because the solar panel is feeding the grid.

15:17

It's just a way to save money, supposedly.

15:19

Yeah.

15:20

And so, like you said, there is a spectrum.

15:23

And I did want to look at a few Bible verses today because I think the Bible verses sort of speak to the spectrum.

15:30

I think the Bible verses sort of help make a line.

15:33

And we'll pull up a few here while you do that.

15:36

There's another element I just came to my mind that of another kind of prepper.

15:41

But it's not like story.

15:42

It's the homesteader.

15:44

So they can in real time just survive off of their property.

15:48

Yes.

15:48

There are people that are attempting to do that.

15:50

They're not necessarily off grid.

15:51

But if they didn't have power, they have their manual wells.

15:56

They have enough crops and livestock and so forth and so on that they could survive off of their own resources for a period of time.

16:05

Yeah.

16:07

Provided you don't have the situation we were talking about before where you just start getting looted out of your brains.

16:11

Yeah.

16:12

And you get taken over and all your stuff is stolen.

16:16

But like you, you have a garden.

16:18

Yeah.

16:18

I've got a fairly good sized garden.

16:20

Yeah.

16:21

I mean, if I compare it to my garden, which is like 10 by 14, we have two rows of corn, a row of green beans that ain't growing.

16:29

And we got a whole mess of zucchini.

16:31

So the zucchini is doing well.

16:35

The one thing I don't eat is doing great.

16:38

Out here, squash and zucchini, those kind of plants go crazy.

16:41

Yeah.

16:41

But you have a couple of acres worth or maybe not a couple of acres.

16:46

I've got, it's probably, rows are probably about 30, 35 feet long, but the garden goes for 150 feet.

16:56

So it's not a huge garden by some standards, but it's big compared to what most people think.

17:01

Sure.

17:01

Yeah, it's not a farm, but it's definitely a pretty good sized garden.

17:05

So if you were, let's just say you needed to survive, how much food does that produce for you? Well, I don't know what this one's going to do because I haven't ever gardened this particular ground.

17:21

It's a different challenge than where you're at.

17:23

Yeah.

17:23

Where you're at was where I gardened before.

17:25

So I can use what I did here.

17:28

If you were to take and do what I did here, which I had three garden plots that were 24 by 60.

17:34

I was able to put up enough green beans, squash, corn, zipper cream peas, and what else do we have? Oh, we had okra, but we were doing that just to pickle and sell.

17:49

But I was able to put up enough for those vegetables to feed then five people, four people for the whole year.

17:59

So I had enough to where I could do a meal a week with each item.

18:04

So I had 50, 60 quarts of green beans.

18:07

I had 50, 60 quarts of squash.

18:09

I had 50, 60 quarts of corn.

18:11

So I could, you know, once a week use the vegetables.

18:15

And a quart, I mean, if I had to split it up, I could split it up.

18:18

So I say a year's worth.

18:20

I had at least where I could do a meal a week with each vegetable.

18:26

Which was not bad considering I only had three plots that were 60 feet by 20 feet.

18:33

When people talk about, what is it, the phrase people use? Eating whole food.

18:41

Like that's whole food.

18:42

When you put the seed in the ground and you're harvesting it, preparing it and all those things.

18:49

There were times where we'd have a meal and I'd have redfish I caught and vegetables out of the garden.

18:55

And that's all we had.

18:56

Everything came from me.

18:57

It was something I harvested.

18:59

I didn't have to buy any of it.

19:00

And not to go off the subject, there's a certain sense in which that feels good.

19:06

Right.

19:07

When I sit down to my cream corn, my zipper cream peas and my redfish that I've grown and caught.

19:13

I caught it.

19:13

I killed it.

19:14

I skinned it.

19:15

I've cooked it.

19:16

But you don't skin fish.

19:17

What do you do? I fillet the fish.

19:19

I fillet the fish.

19:21

Yeah.

19:21

And all that.

19:23

Right.

19:23

So there's a certain wholesomeness to that.

19:32

And in that sense, that's great.

19:34

Your son, we went fishing.

19:37

Your son's just like you out there, casting, reeling, pulling.

19:42

I'm trying to bait the hook, having a hard time.

19:44

Again, I was made for the indoors.

19:48

Right.

19:49

I'm real good at tech stuff.

19:51

Not so good at the outdoorsy stuff.

19:53

But I'm trying to get better.

19:54

And beyond fishing, I ain't worth a darn hunting.

19:58

Well.

19:58

So there's guys out there that can go and harvest a whole lot more meat than I could.

20:03

Yeah.

20:04

But the grid goes down.

20:05

I got the vegetables.

20:06

They got the meat.

20:07

We'll trade.

20:10

Well, what you just said kind of gets back to what we're talking about.

20:13

So, like I said, the grid goes down.

20:14

And that's what a lot of people, when they say prepping, they're prepping for that.

20:17

But also, we saw when COVID hit, the reality of empty shelves.

20:24

The first thing to go was toilet paper.

20:27

It blew my mind.

20:28

I know.

20:29

But it was.

20:31

First thing to go was toilet paper.

20:32

And people had to realize, okay, what do I do now? Buy a bidet? I mean, use rags? What are you going to do? Right.

20:43

But then we started seeing food off the shelves.

20:45

We started seeing no water.

20:49

Which, again, bottled water isn't necessarily a necessity if you have a tap at the house.

20:53

But when you see things on the shelf gone, it begins to remind you that these supply lines are always very dependent.

21:03

And vulnerable.

21:04

Vulnerable.

21:05

Thank you.

21:05

That's the word I was looking for.

21:06

A better word.

21:07

Yeah.

21:07

So, we have vulnerable supply lines.

21:09

And people say, well, I want to know that I can provide for myself and for my family in the event of an emergency.

21:16

Right.

21:17

And that's often what the prepper is thinking about.

21:21

Like I said, we get to the hard extremes of the doomsday thinking.

21:29

I think that's a hard extreme.

21:30

But most folks, good fathers, good mothers, wanting to provide for their families and ensure that their families have everything that they need, there's some nobility in that.

21:42

In fact, there's a lot of good in that.

21:44

So, let's look at a few scripture verses.

21:46

Here's one that came to my mind whenever we were thinking about this particular subject.

21:50

This is from Proverbs 6.

21:53

And it deals with the sluggard versus the ant.

21:58

It uses the ant, the animal, or the insect, as an example of diligence and work.

22:07

And Proverbs 6, verse 6 says, Go to the ant, O sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.

22:16

Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.

22:24

How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber.

22:36

And want like an armed man.

22:41

So, the proverb here is warning us about the problem of laziness.

22:51

Sluggard is laziness.

22:53

In fact, I'll tell a funny story real quick.

22:55

My son, when my wife was teaching my son through the Proverbs, this is JJ, and he heard the word sluggard.

23:02

And he just got very interested.

23:04

What is a sluggard? What does it mean to be a sluggard? And she's a lazy person.

23:07

And he made this big, like, he would, like, Mommy, am I being a sluggard? Like, it really got to him.

23:14

Like, I don't want to be that.

23:16

I don't want to do that.

23:18

And to the point where one day he goes, I think don't be a sluggard should be one of the Ten Commandments.

23:23

Like, that was his, you know, he was really concerned.

23:28

But when we think of a sluggard, we think of someone who is lazy.

23:33

Right.

23:33

Is someone who isn't preparing for the future being lazy? Well, when I think about, when you read this verse as you're reading it, my mind was going to, let's talk about the time frame it was being written.

23:54

Okay.

23:54

And let's go, let's think about, like, early American settlers, especially in northern areas.

24:00

The winter's coming.

24:03

So there wasn't, like, grocery stores.

24:06

And so you had to get the food you needed to survive the winter.

24:11

Yep.

24:12

The lazy person has got enough for now.

24:15

But when the hard times hit and you can't grow the crops and you can't find the meat and you can't even be out in the elements because it's too cold, you're going to be looking to your neighbor to support you.

24:27

Yeah.

24:27

And that's what I think that's the heart of what this proverb is.

24:30

You need to be self-sufficient and prepare to be able to take care of your family.

24:34

So that means you've got to do more work now.

24:37

So when everything's just dead later, you're prepared.

24:41

You've got meat in the proverbial freezer and they cured it with salt and stuff back in the day.

24:47

But you understand what I'm saying.

24:48

You had to prepare for those long winters and stuff like that.

24:51

And I'm sure biblical times there was times you had to do that as well.

24:55

In today's context, because we have grocery stores, it's easy to be lazy because we have a ton of people who do not work, who live off of the government and have groceries at their fingertips.

25:13

You literally can go online now.

25:15

I don't other than going and delivering my cakes, I can do everything from home.

25:20

Hit up Kroger, have the groceries delivered.

25:24

Want to eat dinner but don't want to cook it? Have the pizza delivered.

25:28

Everything's at your fingertips.

25:29

The concept of working and providing for yourself is no more.

25:36

And I think that's the context we're missing here because there was an element of prepping back in the old days.

25:42

Yeah, they didn't call it prepping, they called it living.

25:44

They called it living.

25:45

Okay, so we've got from March to, and I'm just guessing, April to September to get everything in line.

25:56

Because October, November, December, and January and February, it's going to be rough.

26:00

And we ain't going to be out there tilling the ground and planting stuff and we ain't going to be out there hunting.

26:05

Because they ain't going to be able to do it.

26:07

You better have your ducks in a row.

26:09

So six months, six, seven months a year, you're preparing for that downtime of the year.

26:13

You don't have that now.

26:15

So we had to flip the context to now, okay, if you're not prepping for the future in the sense of when everything reverts back to that kind of lifestyle.

26:28

Because the grid goes down, electricity is no more, you don't have running water, there's no more, you know, you can't just go to the grocery store and just pick up what you want.

26:36

Kroger ain't running, whatever the case may be.

26:40

Are you prepared to make it six, eight months while our government gets everything back in line? That's the idea.

26:48

Yeah, and I think a lot of people aren't ready to make it six or eight days.

26:53

Right.

26:53

Most people are paycheck to paycheck.

26:58

And if you're watching this, you're listening to your paycheck to paycheck, because that's just your lot in life right now.

27:04

Please understand, I'm not putting you down.

27:06

Sure, yeah.

27:09

But there are folks that are paycheck to paycheck because they put themselves so far in debt, they can't be anything else.

27:14

And so they need to get themselves out of debt so that they can have an emergency fund or whatever the case may be.

27:21

And listen, I couldn't make it eight months off of what I've got saved up and what little bit I got in the pantry.

27:31

I'm in the same position.

27:34

I'm trying to get to where I'm storing up food and doing those things, but it's expensive to do, especially nowadays.

27:42

So there's a lot of folks that I haven't prepped for that disastrous time.

27:49

And a lot of country folks, and I'm talking about guys like me, they think, well, the grid goes down, I'll just go out there and I'll hunt and I'll kill a deer and I'll do this and I'll do that.

27:58

I'll be fine.

28:00

Well, some of you may be able to do that.

28:01

But some of you may realize, OK, maybe I won't be able to kill a deer every day of the week, once a week.

28:08

I might not be able to.

28:09

And if everybody's trying to kill the deer.

28:11

There you go.

28:11

If everybody's in that same state, because you're not the only one that's going to have the supply line dried up.

28:18

Everybody's going to have the supply line dried up if that were to happen.

28:21

So if that's your mentality, walk outside and just look around your neighborhood and think, OK, if I had to compete with the 20 other people in this area, am I going to come out on top? Or am I going to be able to work with the 20 people in this area so we can put a little commune together and work together? And therein lies another part of this.

28:40

And that is because I was reading up a little bit as I was preparing for today's podcast, just sort of reading on what some different people have said about the subject.

28:48

And one of the things that was said was that prepping is selfish.

28:53

And the argument was because you're only concerned about your survival and you're only concerned about your family.

29:01

And by stockpiling your things, you're not thinking about what you just said, which is can the community come together and mutually benefit and survive? And again, I'm sure there are some people that do fall into that category.

29:20

Me and my family is all that matters.

29:24

And there wouldn't be any attempt to work together.

29:27

So I could see that being an issue.

29:29

I could see that being at least...

29:32

I think my mind while I was thinking about coming to do this program today, my mind goes to what we've been talking about in our Wednesday night classes.

29:39

We've been talking a lot about idolatry.

29:42

And idolatry is basically anything that takes precedent over God in your life.

29:47

So the way Cody put it was, if I take X away from you or if you can't do X, does it upset you to the point where you're like angry, mad, despair, whatever? If you can't have X or do X, can you function? Still have joy.

30:09

Still have joy.

30:10

And if the answer is no, that's your idol.

30:14

So there is an element, I think, where you can...

30:17

And we're going to talk about the pendulum swings now.

30:19

You can swing all the way to the too far and fall into the ditch of, okay, I've got to get five years worth of stuff up.

30:29

And that's got to be my main focus for now until I get it.

30:32

And the problem is once you get it, then you're like, well, what's the next thing I got to do? Well, maybe I get six or maybe I get...

30:37

And that becomes like you're so focused on that and making sure you survive the zombie apocalypse or whatever you're worried about coming, that you take a complete focus off of Christ, your family, all that.

30:53

Because you're so worried about making sure your family's okay that you begin to neglect your family and the spiritual needs that you as a father are supposed to take care of.

31:04

But then the pendulum swing the other way of, and we talked about this on a phone call, just let go and let God.

31:12

God will provide for every little need I got and I don't need to worry about it.

31:16

If the bottom falls out, He's going to make sure I got something to eat.

31:19

Okay.

31:21

But those people still go to work every day.

31:23

Why don't you use that same mentality for every day? Yeah, and that brings to another verse.

31:28

There's two more verses I want to look at.

31:30

We're kind of rambling there for a little bit.

31:32

No, it's fine.

31:33

It takes me to this because this verse says, and this is 2 Thessalonians 3.10.

31:40

For anybody who wants to look this up, it says, for even when we were with you, we would give you this command.

31:47

And the command is this, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

31:54

So there is a biblical ethic of work.

31:59

We've talked sometimes about the Protestant work ethic, which is something that historically is pointed towards Protestantism, where men began to see their vocations as callings from God.

32:14

So rather than just, you know, you're not just a plumber, but you're a plumber.

32:18

You're God's plumber.

32:19

You're a plumber to the glory of God.

32:21

You're not just a cake man.

32:23

You are God's cake man.

32:25

I understand the thinking behind that because when you work, work it to the Lord.

32:31

Everything you do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

32:33

I'm going to be preaching on this in a couple of weeks.

32:35

Colossians 3 tells us everything you do, do in the name of the Lord Jesus.

32:39

When I used to have my screen printing business, I had on the wall Colossians 3.16.

32:44

And it was for that purpose of reminding this is the call.

32:50

And that is to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

32:54

Might be 3.18.

32:55

I might have got that wrong.

32:56

So check my addresses, people.

33:00

Don't assume.

33:02

So with that in mind, yes, we are called to work.

33:05

We're called to be diligent workers.

33:07

We're called not to be lazy.

33:08

Work is not a product of the fall.

33:09

People sometimes say that work is a product of the fall.

33:11

But Adam worked prior to the fall.

33:15

Difficulty in work.

33:16

Thorns and thistles and a garden that won't produce.

33:21

That's the product of the fall.

33:23

Yeah, I told my wife yesterday we were weeding the garden.

33:26

And I stopped for a minute.

33:27

I looked at her and said, I just want to slap Adam and Eve in the face.

33:31

Because this is drudgery because of the fall.

33:35

There was a brief time in man's history where this was enjoyable.

33:39

And you didn't have to do this.

33:41

Just grow it and it grew.

33:44

But going back to the idea of being lazy and what you said there about if a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat.

33:51

And back to idolatry.

33:54

It's a heart issue.

33:56

If you're prepping and putting food up and making sure that you've got supplies for three months, six months, eight months.

34:04

Making sure you've got some people instead of having cash under the mattress or in the bank.

34:11

Especially nowadays with the banks kind of doing what they're doing.

34:14

They've got gold and silver saved up and stuff like that as a hedge against the dollar crashing or whatever.

34:23

You have currency.

34:24

Going back to old school currency.

34:26

If you're doing all that because you want to do your job as a husband and do your job as a wife and a mother and a father.

34:37

To make sure that you and your family is protected and taken care of.

34:42

But it's not taking the place or superseding your job as a husband and a wife to disciple and discipline and take care of the spiritual needs of your children as well as the physical needs.

34:57

And Christ is still in the center and the top.

35:01

Then I don't see anything wrong with it.

35:03

You're just taking the next logical step in being the provider and protector for your family.

35:11

In the physical sense.

35:13

The needs are met day to day.

35:15

The bills are paid day to day.

35:17

But what if? Let's make sure we can feed these four or five kids for six, eight months.

35:25

If I didn't have the job.

35:27

And there's an element in which you might lose your job and it might take.

35:30

I'm 43 years old.

35:31

I'm skilled in one thing.

35:36

Retail sales.

35:37

So if tomorrow McKee Foods decided to sell Little Debbie and just sell it to a factory who's going to make ammunition or something, whatever.

35:46

And I'm out of a job.

35:48

It's going to be tough for me to find a job at 43 years old with just some Winn-Dixie and vending experience.

35:54

Yeah.

35:55

Starting at the pay that I'm making now.

35:57

It's taken me 17 years to get to this point.

36:00

So I might have a month or two span there where there ain't no income coming in.

36:05

Yeah.

36:05

So I got to make sure my family's taken care of if I have a gap like that.

36:10

And the Bible does say that if a man does not provide for his family, he's worse than an unbeliever.

36:16

Worse than an unbeliever.

36:16

And then look to the aunt O'Sluggard.

36:18

Yeah.

36:19

What is the aunt doing? They're constantly preparing, not just for that day, but for days to come.

36:25

I mean, the aunt constantly works.

36:27

They never stop.

36:29

And looking to the Proverbs, there's all kinds of things like that.

36:32

It talks about the blessing of a man who leaves an inheritance for his children.

36:37

That means he's put something away for them to have when he passes.

36:43

And that leads me to the last verse, and I do want to begin to draw to a close, because this is the verse that everyone would throw up at the preppers, those who are anti-prepper, or those who would say prepping is sinful or wrong or bad.

36:58

And it's Matthew 6, verse 25.

37:01

These are the words of Christ.

37:03

Obviously, we take this very seriously.

37:04

This is the word of God.

37:06

These are the words of our Savior.

37:08

When he was talking in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, Look at the birds of the air.

37:24

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

37:29

Are you not of more value than they? And which of you being anxious can add a single hour to his lifespan? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

37:41

They neither toil nor spin.

37:43

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

37:46

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

38:06

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

38:13

And then he goes on to say, Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

38:21

Right there, the passage would seem to be saying, on a cursory reading, that we don't need to worry about tomorrow.

38:30

God's got it.

38:31

As you just said, God's got it handled.

38:33

God's going to take care of it.

38:35

And yet we have to harmonize the Bible.

38:39

Well, what does he end there with? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.

38:45

So everything I just said that you don't need to worry about, if you're living in obedience to Christ, obeying his word and following his commands, and having him in his proper place, all these things will be taken care of.

39:00

So in other words, the whole point is, you don't need to worry.

39:02

I'm going to take care of you.

39:05

So keep doing what you're doing.

39:07

Follow after me.

39:10

Work, because I've commanded you to work.

39:13

Take care of your family.

39:14

Do what you've been doing.

39:15

And I will make sure that those things are provided for you.

39:19

You may not have the most.

39:21

You may not have more than this guy or that guy.

39:23

You may not be rich beyond your wildest dreams.

39:26

But you will have food.

39:27

You will have housing.

39:28

You will have clothing.

39:30

I will care for you the way I care for the lilies of the field and the sparrows.

39:34

You can't, like you said, you can't take that and say, well, God's got it, so I don't need to worry about prepping.

39:41

Like I said earlier, then why do you go to work? If God's got it, you ought to get checks in the mail that's going to pay your light bill, your house payment, your phone bill, your truck payment, put gas in the car, and put food on the table, and you don't have to do a thing.

39:56

People will just show up and pay your bills for you and bring you tons of food every day of the week because God's just got this.

40:03

If that's what it means.

40:06

That's not what it means.

40:07

It's a passage about being anxious and worrying about where your next meal is going from, where your clothes are going to come from, where your housing, all those things.

40:16

He makes it very simple.

40:18

Seek ye first my kingdom and my righteousness, and these things will be added unto you.

40:24

There's a responsibility for you.

40:26

So what does it entail to seek him? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

40:31

Be obedient to his commands.

40:32

Well, what's one of the commands we find in Scripture? If you don't work, you don't eat.

40:37

You don't need to worry about where your food's going to come from, but you still need to strive to make the money to buy the food.

40:45

You still need to work toward that end, and God will provide the means in which that end will come to fruition.

40:53

In other words, if I lost my job tomorrow, I don't need to panic.

40:59

As a believer, I don't need to panic that I don't have a job.

41:03

But that doesn't mean sit on my hands and wait on a job to come to me.

41:08

I need to seek.

41:09

Pray to God, well, give me a job and help me find that job he has for me, and then go seek it.

41:15

His will and my movement harmonize however that works, but God brings everything come to pass that he wants to come to pass.

41:25

You're just living it in real time, but you trust that he's got it under control.

41:29

So to say to a prepper, you don't need to prep because of this verse is nonsense.

41:38

That doesn't work out because all you got to do is just kind of pull a couple strings that's just basically, okay, well, if God's just going to provide everyone a need and you don't have to worry about it like he does for the sparrow, then just sit at home and just wait and tell me when your house is getting foreclosed because I'd like to get it on the cheaper rate because it doesn't work that way.

42:02

And think about the sparrow.

42:04

The sparrow still leaves the nest, goes and looks for worms, and goes and looks for food.

42:11

The sparrow still does work and does toil as well, but God provides the worm that he eats and the nesting material he needs.

42:20

Hello? Lilies of the field, they still need water.

42:23

They still got to.

42:24

If you ever watched like a timescape of a field, you can literally watch the flowers follow the sun.

42:35

You know what I'm saying? Plants move and what are they doing? It's photosynthesis.

42:40

They're trying to eat.

42:43

Everything moves toward that purpose, but God provides the means for that purpose to come to pass.

42:50

So anyway.

42:51

I think the key to this, and you kind of hit on it, but the key to this is the word anxious.

42:57

In the Greek, the word anxious comes from, it's a derivative of the word meremna, which means worry, where we would translate for worry or anxiety.

43:09

And Laonitis says this.

43:10

It says to have an anxious concern based on apprehension about possible danger or misfortune.

43:19

And that's typically what we think of when we think of worry.

43:23

We think of some possible dangers coming.

43:27

Something is happening.

43:30

And I don't necessarily think that prepping is always because of the potential of danger, but because of the expectation of need.

43:38

I know that we're going to have need.

43:40

We're human beings.

43:42

Like you just said, the flower needs the sunlight.

43:44

The animals need food and water.

43:49

The sparrows go out and get the worms.

43:51

These things, there are need.

43:53

And I got kids.

43:54

They are need machines.

43:55

They are just constantly in need.

43:57

And my job as a father is to provide for those needs.

44:01

Right.

44:01

And I cannot in good conscience pass off that to the government and say that the needs of my family are going to be on the government's shoulders.

44:17

Because one, I don't trust that that's going to happen.

44:21

But also, that's not what I've been called to do.

44:23

I haven't been called to pass that on to someone else.

44:25

I've been called to provide as best I can.

44:28

And I seek to do that.

44:30

I seek to provide for my family.

44:33

And that's what I think, when we think about prepping, maybe to say providing.

44:40

We want to be able to provide as best we can.

44:44

And again, I'm not putting myself in the category of a prepper.

44:46

Because I certainly know people who are much more prepared than I am.

44:50

Right.

44:51

But in the sense of, I understand the need and the desire and what they're wanting to accomplish.

44:57

They're wanting to provide and to be able to provide.

45:00

And at the same time, trusting the Lord, saying, this is all, this is me.

45:07

Like you said earlier, we don't just pray and sit at home.

45:11

We pray and go.

45:13

As we say, as I've said many times, you don't lean on the shovel and pray for a hole.

45:18

Right.

45:18

You dig the hole, right? You do the work and trust the Lord.

45:24

And there is a harmony to that.

45:26

And that's the part that's difficult.

45:27

Because where I see the real danger is I see the danger in the people who would say, well, if things go wrong, I'm going to rely on Uncle Sam.

45:37

I'm going to rely on the government.

45:39

And we see people who have done that to their own disaster.

45:44

To their own disaster.

45:45

But there's one last thing, and we'll finish with this.

45:48

I think there's also an eschatological side to this that can be an issue.

45:52

And that is whatever someone's eschatology is, whether their eschatology is that doom is coming.

46:00

Or their eschatology is that prosperity is coming.

46:03

Whether you're post-millennial and you're looking forward to Christianity sort of flourishing and taking over the world.

46:10

Or you have the pre-millennial tends to look at it, there's a tribulation coming before the millennium.

46:17

And we're going to experience it, unless you're a dispensational pre-millennial.

46:20

So if you believe in pre-tribulation rapture, you're going to be taken out before then.

46:24

But the idea still is that you've got this.

46:27

There's coming some time where we're going to have to hunker down and get through it.

46:31

Did you see the video of MacArthur this week that went out? The thing where he said, we lose? Did you see that? No, I didn't see that.

46:40

I have some difficulty with it.

46:42

Again, I love Dr.

46:44

MacArthur, but I don't believe everything he says is that.

46:47

I disagree with him on a few things.

46:48

Yeah, yeah.

46:49

Well, he said, we lose down here.

46:55

We are going to lose down here.

46:58

And if I can get the video, I'll slide it in here.

47:00

But he was very emphatic.

47:03

And it was all over Twitter.

47:05

People were posting it and saying, see, we said dispensationalism was loser theology.

47:10

So that's been the refrain from people.

47:15

But I mean, he clearly said, we lose down here.

47:17

We win on the big scale, but we lose down here.

47:20

So the idea for a lot of people that are in the dispensational pre-millennial mindset, it's we got to get ready for hard times, because hard times are coming.

47:29

That's where the post-millennialists would say, good times, better times are coming.

47:33

Even though some would say there's hard times before good times.

47:37

And there's all kinds of different views.

47:39

But eschatology does play a part.

47:41

And I think, again, it comes down to trust.

47:43

We are to provide for our family.

47:45

We are to work, be diligent, save.

47:50

But at the same time, we are not to live lives of anxiety.

47:54

Right.

47:55

And to live a life that would say, I am constantly having to white-knuckle everything, because I'm so afraid of what I'm going to lose.

48:04

I'm so afraid of what I'm not going to have.

48:07

And I'm always just constantly just hoarding.

48:11

I'm not thinking about others.

48:12

I'm thinking about myself.

48:13

I'm thinking about only what I can do.

48:15

And I think, again, this is where there's got to be – there's a ditch on either side.

48:19

Right.

48:19

And you can talk about a lot.

48:21

And you can work yourself into a lather.

48:23

Because, I mean, I've thought about what – you know, I've had those days where you think, okay, I don't have an X amount of dollars in the bank account.

48:31

You know, the refrigerator is about empty, ain't been in the grocery store.

48:35

If the bottom fell out tomorrow, what am I going to do? Gas is almost out.

48:40

Right.

48:40

And what am I going to do? And then that can almost send you into a panic mode of, well, I've got to get this.

48:47

Well, I've got to get this.

48:47

I've got to get all this.

48:48

I've got to get all this.

48:49

And you just want to just run out and get everything.

48:52

When, in reality, it may not be that bad.

48:57

So – and there is an element, and I know we've got to close this out.

49:01

We're getting a little long.

49:03

There's an element in which Matthew 6 does play a role in the sense of, okay, you know, there are going to be those people who can't put anything up because they just financially can't.

49:14

They are so paycheck to paycheck, and it's not because they're in debt or anything like that.

49:17

It's just because that's just where they're at in life.

49:20

And they can't do anything, and the bottom falls out.

49:23

Well, the Lord will either provide someone to take them in and help them, or that's where a situation where a true believer who has nothing and everything goes to pot, the Lord's going to take care of them.

49:36

The Lord provides for them.

49:39

And the church, being a part of a covenant community, where we covenant that no one in our church is going to go without food or go without a place to live.

49:47

Absolutely.

49:47

And that's the thing we didn't talk about in this, is the church's role in all this is that if you have a family like that and everything goes bad, everybody needs to come together and take care of each other.

49:59

Those that have need to give to those that have not.

50:02

So, yes, you may have hoarded up six years' worth of stuff, but you don't want to be like the troll in the Trolls movie who's stuck down in the ground, and he's got all this extra stuff, and he don't want to give anybody nothing, and then they just come down there and eat it all anyway.

50:18

You don't want to be that guy.

50:21

Or maybe to take it a little more biblical, the man who built up the storehouses and then he died.

50:27

Tonight your soul is— Required of you.

50:29

Yeah, exactly.

50:30

Well, I was just talking about— No, I know.

50:32

It's funny.

50:33

If you're a part of a church and you've got eight, nine years' worth of stuff and nobody knows it and the bottom falls out and the church needs to come together, you need to be like, all right, guys, I guess this is why God had me doing all this.

50:46

But these are all scenarios that may or may not happen, and that's the thing is as long as your heart's in the right place, it's not becoming idle for you.

50:54

You're doing it for the right reasons, and they're biblical reasons, then there's no problem with doing it.

50:58

But if you're on this pendulum over here, you may need to back off.

51:02

And if you're all the way over here, it's like, well, I don't need to worry about nothing because God's got this.

51:06

Well, you need to reevaluate your understanding of Scripture.

51:09

There's a balance to be struck, and I get it every time.

51:13

There's a balance to be struck, and you need to find yourself in the middle somewhere.

51:17

So anyway.

51:18

Absolutely.

51:19

Absolutely.

51:19

All right, listener, I hope you enjoyed today's video.

51:23

I hope you enjoyed watching us try the food and hearing us talk about prepping.

51:27

What are your thoughts about prepping? Do you think it's a good thing, a bad thing, a biblical thing, or do you think that there's a balance like what we talked about? I'd really enjoyed it if you left a comment in the comments below and told me your thoughts.

51:38

I'd also enjoy it and appreciate it if you would like and subscribe to the channel.

51:43

If you want to follow me, you can do so on Twitter, at YourCalvinist.

51:47

And if you want to support the show, you can go to buymeacoffee slash yourcalvinist.

51:51

And I want to thank those people who have already gone there.

51:54

I've already had a few people who have gone there who have made donations, who are supporting the show.

51:59

I am super grateful.

52:00

My family is super grateful.

52:02

The time that goes into this is time that you guys are helping to afford.

52:05

So thank you so much for giving to Conversations with a Calvinist.

52:09

I'm grateful that the material continues to be a blessing to you.

52:12

I want to thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

52:14

Thank you, Rich, for being on the show today.

52:16

Uncle Rich, appreciate you as always, and I appreciate you, listener.

52:19

Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

52:21

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

52:24

May God bless you.