Biblical Economics with Israel Wayne

Creation Fellowship

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Okay. And we are live streaming as well. So, I'm Terry Camerizell and I'm here with Creation Fellowship C &T.

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We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

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God created life and everything in just six days a few thousand years ago.

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We've been meeting online in this format since June of 2020. And we've been blessed by a blend of presentations of creation science, other theology topics, and even current events, various speakers.

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And you can find links to most of those by visiting our webpage, tinyurl .com

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forward slash CF Santee. That's C like creation, F like fellowship, and Santee is spelled

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S -A -N -T -E -E. You can also email us at creationfellowshipsantee .org

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or Santee at gmail .com so that you get on our email list. We don't spam and we'll send you links to all of our upcoming speakers.

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And tonight we're blessed not, as I mentioned, we do do a blend of topics.

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Tonight is not a creation science topic. It's a different theology type topic. We are going to be looking at God's word, but specifically the biblical view of economics.

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And we're blessed tonight to have as our speaker, Israel Wayne. Israel is a homeschool dad.

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He's an author and a speaker, and he is the founder of a ministry called family renewal.

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And basically you can find more information about him at family renewal .org.

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He also has a Facebook page, Israel Wayne. So Israel, I'm happy to turn it over to you.

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Oh, thank you, Terri. And, uh, you know, one thing I didn't get to share is we were chatting a little bit before going live here is that, uh, my wife and I actually visited

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Santee when we got married in January of 1999, I'm a

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Michigan guy. And so in Michigan in January, it's freezing cold. My wife was born and raised in Arizona, Scottsdale.

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So when we got married, we had our honeymoon in Southern California and we were both homeschooled students ourselves.

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And so one of the things that we desperately wanted to do on our honeymoon was to go visit the creation museum in Santee.

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And so we made a trip down there and it's a beautiful area. I know not all the people who are online are from that area, but if you ever get a chance to go out there, it's fabulous.

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And of course, I actually have a lot of roots in the creation movement that go back a long, long ways.

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Um, uh, you know, the two founders of the creation movement were Dr. Henry Morris and Dr.

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John Whitcomb. Henry Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research, which was the original founder of that museum in Santee that we were blessed to go visit.

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Uh, he was also the founder of a publishing company called Master Books, uh, which is a company that, you know, many decades later, he actually found co -founded that with Tim LaHaye, the guy who, uh, wrote the

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Left Behind series and, uh, whose wife, Beverly LaHaye started Concerned Women for America. Uh, Tim LaHaye and Henry Morris started

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Master Books back in 1975, the year that I was born. And, uh, many, you know, years later, they signed me as an author.

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I've been an author with them for a decade now and I have a great relationship with them. Uh, they publish a lot of authors like Ken Ham and Dr.

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Jason Lyle and Michael Ferris and Kevin Swanson and, uh,

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Todd Friel. And, uh, boy, I can't think of everybody, but I'd say Ray Comfort. Anyway, a lot of those guys, but, um, yeah,

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I just, I have a lot of roots in creationism. My, my dad was a seminary graduate. He, his, one of his professors, um, was

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Dr. John Whitcomb who co -wrote the Genesis Flood with Henry Morris back in 1963. So I cut my teeth on young earth creationism and, uh, have been a stalwart supporter of a literal interpretation of Genesis my whole life.

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And so it's something I'm very committed to. Uh, and I'm grateful to be invited tonight to get to speak, um, to your group online.

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Uh, it's a great honor. Uh, we're going to talk about biblical economics. And so I will share my screen here.

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We'll pop over to a PowerPoint and, um, walk through this.

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So as I was thinking about how to approach the issue of biblical economics, there's several different approaches.

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I think that we could take with this. Um, one is of course, that we could go back and talk about the system of economics that they had in the old

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Testament that the nation of Israel lived under. And that of course would be very fascinating from a historical standpoint, um, but maybe not quite as practical for us today in that their system of economics was very tied in with, uh, what we would call a theonomic system where, um, they, as the people of God, uh, living under the law of God had very special covenant promises that were tied to their identity as a nation.

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And so there were certain, uh, economic promises and, uh, benefits that were given to them within God's covenant to the nation of Israel.

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Uh, so anyway, fascinating story there, but we're not going to get into that tonight. I want to go through what the scripture has to say on the issue of economics.

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And we're going to look at, uh, some, some principles from God's word that will help us to be able to think biblically about, um, economics in a way that we can apply it today.

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So the first thing that I want us to look at is the aspect of the creation of wealth and what the Bible says about being able to generate or create wealth.

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Deuteronomy 8, 8, 18 says, you shall remember the Lord, your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.

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So wealth is ultimately not something that is completely within the hands or the control of us as humans, but it is something that really is within the sovereign hand of God.

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Uh, first Samuel two, seven through eight says the Lord makes poor and makes rich. He brings low and he exalts.

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He raises up the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor for the pillars of the earth are the

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Lord's and on them he has set the world. And then Proverbs 10 22 says the blessing of the

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Lord makes rich and he adds no sorrow with it.

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Uh, so we see again, that provision is something that is a gift from God.

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He gives us the ability to generate wealth. Um, but it's also good for us to know that he doesn't add sorrow.

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You think about some of the most morbidly depressed people in the world are some of those who are the most wealthy and the most famous.

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The things that the world tells us will bring us success oftentimes simply brings depression.

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And so when, when someone has accumulated wealth from the hand of God by doing it the right way and following God's principles, um, it doesn't have the same sorrow that goes along with it.

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I would say the most important principle that you could understand about biblical economics is this principle.

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And that's the God owns everything. Uh, this is absolutely pivotal to how we think about everything connected to money and finances and wealth.

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So first Corinthians 10 26 says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

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Everything belongs to God. Job 41 11 says, who has first given to me that I should repay him.

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Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. This is the Lord speaking to Joe. Everything under the whole heaven belongs to God.

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Psalm 24 one, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell there in, in Psalm 50 verse 12.

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God says, if I were hungry, I would not tell you for the world and all its fullness are mine.

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So God created everything. He created it for his glory. He it all belongs to him.

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So the next principle that I want us to think about is the principle of stewardship. And this really is,

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I think the most important concept that we can, um, develop as it relates to how we apply finances.

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And that is that we are to be caretakers and stewards. And so we remember the parable of the talents that Jesus talks about in Matthew 25, and verses 14 through 30, where there's this master who has great wealth and he entrusts his servants, his stewards to invest his money, uh, and to try to, um, multiply what they were given in terms of resources.

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And so he gives to one of these stewards, five talents, and he gives to another two talents and he gives to a third one talent.

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And then he gives them time to invest this and he comes back and he expects an accounting and the steward who has given five talents had multiplied it.

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And he, uh, was able to produce 10 and the other who was given two was able to multiply it and produce four.

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Uh, but the one steward simply buried his talent and he did nothing with it.

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And, and so the master was very angry with him. And, uh, you see the bitterness in the heart of the steward where he accuses the master.

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And of course, you know, in the parable is talking about God, but he accuses him of being unjust and being unfair and, and trying to, um, reap where he hasn't sown and to benefit, uh, in ways that are, that are unjust.

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And, um, the, the principle though, behind this parable, the talents, although there's probably many life lessons that we can draw from it, um, is the concept that we are all stewards of the things that God gives us.

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And so God in this parable is the master and we are the stewards. And so nothing ultimately belongs to us.

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And I think this is key. This is pivotal for us as we move forward. And we begin to think about ownership because ultimately

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God, as we just saw owns everything. And as his stewards or caretakers, we own nothing.

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So if you think about these three stewards, which one of the three stewards was the most wealthy? Well, it's a bit of a trick question because really none of them were wealthy.

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They all had nothing. Um, the person who was wealthy was the master because it was all the master's resources.

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It was his wealth. It was his money. And so an illustration I would use for us would be, you know, suppose we work for a company and we had a mutual boss and the boss said,

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I want you to take an account for the company and manage it. And so let's say that you are given a million dollar account and another coworker was given a hundred thousand dollar account.

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And I was given a $10 account, right? And we were told to manage this for the company. Well, which one of us is more wealthy?

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Well, intrinsically, none of us are more wealthy than the other. And in terms of what we're given, we're just given one's given much greater responsibility, right?

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So the person who's stewarding the million dollar account, that's not their money. They don't have that money. That's not theirs.

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Um, but they do have responsibility over that million dollar account. So there's a greater sense of culpability, um, liability, responsibility.

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And so we're told in the scripture that to whom much has been given much will be required.

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And that's that concept of stewardship, that we all are to carefully steward what the

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Lord gives us. So the principle of stewardship is that as Bible believing Christians who belong to Jesus, we don't own anything.

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God owns everything. We nothing. We are simply stewards and caretakers of his wealth.

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And Luke 16, eight, uh, there's a parable of the dishonest manager. And it says that the master commanded the dishonest manager for his shrewdness for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

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And so Jesus in this parable is not in any way and donning dishonesty.

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He's not setting that up as a model for us. But what he is saying is that people in the world are often better at knowing how to manage finances in a practical way and to know how to, uh, just be shrewd in the way that they do business, uh, than are the sons of light.

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And those would be, you know, those of us who belong to Christ, but, but this is a rebuke to us. Um, you know, really as people who understand the word of God, we should be better financial stewards than people who don't know

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God, because the God who has created the principles that govern economics, that govern how the world is supposed to work, um, has given us those lessons and those principles in the

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Bible. And so when we align ourselves to the teaching of scripture, uh, and God's ways and his character and his nature, uh, we should be far more, uh, proficient in managing, um, funds than people who disobey

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God and do not know God. Um, so in, uh, Luke 16, first beginning verse 10, it says one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.

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And one who is dishonest and a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches.

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And if you have not been faithful in that, which is another's who will give you that, which is your own, no servant can serve two masters, or either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

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You cannot serve God and money. So there's a lot that we can pack into this, but, um, we are told the importance of financial stewardship and how it often is a reflection of our values.

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Um, and we see, I think, even with the qualifications for elders in first Timothy three and Titus one, um, having a good reputation with outsiders, um, probably has to do with our integrity and how we do business and how we relate to other people.

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And so if somebody has been dishonest, uh, in their finances, we wouldn't want to put them in charge of church leadership, for example, because it's a character issue.

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So the way that we spend, uh, our resources often exposes what is in our heart.

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And, um, it says you cannot serve God and money. There was a great man of God who taught on financial principles for a lot of years.

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Who's now with the Lord. His name was Larry Burkett. He started a ministry, uh, called Christian financial concepts and later became crown financial ministries.

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And Larry Burkett wrote a lot of great books, had a lot of great resources, but I remember one thing that he said that was really powerful is he said,

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I can tell you what you love. I can tell you what you value. I can tell you what you worship by looking at two things, your calendar and your checkbook.

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And he said, reason that is, is because everything that you have in your life is allocated through those two means through the time that you have and through the resources that you possess.

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In other words, that's your life, how you spend your time and your resources is how you spend your life.

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And so there's oftentimes where we lie to ourselves about what our true values are.

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And we say that we, we love God. And we say that we love our family, for example, and that those are our number one and number two priorities in life.

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But in reality, oftentimes our, our time and our money lies or tells the truth about the lies that are in our heart.

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Just for example, the U S government in 2020 put out a research statistic from the department of statistics that said that the average mom today only spends one hour a day with her children.

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And the average father only spends 29 minutes a day. If you ask those parents what their number one value in life is, a lot of them would say it's their children.

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And yet it's not those same parents watch four hours of television or Netflix every night of their life.

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And so their real value is themselves. They spend seven hours a day in multimedia, including mostly social media.

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And so, you know, we, we say to ourselves that we love God and that we put him first, but what we end up doing usually is serving ourselves.

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And there's only one throne in our life, you know, and, and if Jesus is not enthroned in that life, then, then someone or something else's and it's, it's usually us.

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Right. And so it's, it's very easy to give lip service to saying I'm a Christian and I love

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Jesus, but in reality, oftentimes the priorities of our life show that we, we love ourselves and we put ourselves first.

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So the scripture speaks about the principle of avoiding debt. Romans 13, eight says, oh, no one, anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law in the old

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Testament. Deuteronomy 15, six says for the Lord, your God will bless you as he promised you, and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

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You shall rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over you. So the principle here is that being able to give, being able to share is a biblical, but borrowing and being in debt and not being able to pay our own financial obligations is not a blessing.

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Debt is always referred to in the scripture, either as a directly a curse or as something that we should seek to get out from under.

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And yet within our culture, we're taught to apply for debt, to pursue debt. But the scripture shows that we should seek to have money that we can lend and that we can, we can give to others.

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The scripture also speaks to us about avoiding greed and covetousness. And so I want to define those terms.

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Greed is wanting more and covetousness is wanting what someone else has.

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The billionaire John Rockefeller was famously asked, how much money do you think it will take to make you happy?

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And his famous response was just a little bit more. And so first Peter five, two tells us not to be greedy for money, but instead to be eager to serve.

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When our contentment is found in money, we will never be content. We will never have enough.

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We'll always need just a little bit more. But when our contentment is in Christ alone, then we can certainly, you know, manage much money or manage little money.

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And yet our contentment doesn't change. But greed and covetousness is in an indication that we are not content in our heart with what

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God has given us, that we, we aren't content with the level of stewardship that he has provided for us that we feel like we are owed a greater stewardship.

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When in reality, that's not true. In reality, we should be content with whatever level of stewardship

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God has given us. Bible also speaks against hoarding and accumulating wealth, stashing it up and storing it for ourselves.

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Ecclesiastes five, 13 through 14 says, I've seen a grievous evil under the sun, wealth hoarded to the harm of its owner or wealth lost through some misfortune.

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So that when he has a son, there's nothing left for him. Psalm 39, six is man heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.

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Matthew six, 19 says, do not store up for yourselves treasures here on earth. Hebrews 13, five says, keep your lives free from the love of money.

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Be content with what you have, for God has said, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.

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So having wealth is not the problem. It's about stewarding the wealth.

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Having resources is not what's problematic. It's about viewing it as belonging to us and using it selfishly for ourselves.

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Philippians four, 12 through 13 speaks to the issue of contentedness. The apostle Paul says,

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I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

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I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

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Paul so well balances the imbalances that we sometimes have within the

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Christian community. We have a ditch. I always say there's a ditch on either side of the narrow road.

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And one of the ditches is the ditch of prosperity gospel, which is this idea that God wants you to be rich and he wants you to drive a luxury

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Rolls Royce or a Lamborghini or whatever, and flaunt your wealth with diamonds and mansions and all that kind of thing, which is a false gospel.

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But there's a ditch on the other side, which is what I would call the poverty gospel mentality. And that is that you are somehow more righteous or more holy if you drive a rusted out vehicle that's falling apart and that's constantly in the shop and you don't have any guarantees that it's going to get you to work in the morning and your children run around in raggedy clothes and you can't pay your mortgage for month to month.

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And that is not a biblical view of finances either. You are not more godly when you live in desperate financial situations.

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That's not neither one of those pictures is a biblical view of wealth and finance.

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And I think it's very easy for us to, as Christians, either have a poverty mindset, which is not a biblical mindset, or to have like a prosperity gospel mindset where we believe that God owes us something or that God is somehow contractually obligated to shower down money from heaven because we want it, we demand it.

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Paul is just so balanced in this that he says, hey, I've had times where I've had a lot and I've had times where I've had little.

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And in my circumstance, it didn't change my serenity with God because his peace with God was not predicated on his circumstance.

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It was predicated on who he was in Christ and being in the will of God. The Bible also speaks to the issue of generosity.

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Proverbs 22, 9 says, the generous will themselves be blessed for they will share their food with the poor.

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It speaks of the Proverbs 31 woman in verse 20. So she opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.

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Now we know this woman, she's also caring for and stewarding for her own household. So her children are taken care of.

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She's not causing them to be in deprivation in order to reach out. Their needs are met.

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Their finances, their financial situation is covered, but they have an abundance.

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They have an ability to be able to give to the poor and the needy. And this is seen as a symbol of godliness, even for a

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Christian woman. In first Corinthians 16, 2, the apostle Paul is talking to the church there in Corinth about the necessity of giving.

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And so he says, on the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money according to his income, saving it up so that when

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I come, no collections will need to be made. This is a controversial point that I'm going to talk on here, but I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there.

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If you do a careful study through the New Testament, I think it is very difficult to sustain the idea that a 10 % tithe to a local church is mandated in the scripture in the

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New Testament. The main concept for that actually comes from the Old Testament because of the tithes that were required for the support of the

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Levitical priests in the Old Testament. And so people have taken that concept in the Old Testament, transferred it to the

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New Testament and said, well, the temple of the Old Testament is now the church today. The priest of the

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Old Testament is the pastor today. And you don't find that correlation.

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You don't find that transfer in the scripture itself. It's inferred, but you don't find any teaching that actually pushes us in that direction.

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The teaching of the New Testament regarding giving is that we see in this passage that you should set aside a sum.

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It doesn't say how much. This is a sum of money. Then it says according to your income.

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So a percentage base makes sense that you save up. And then on the first day of every week you give it.

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And why do you give it on the first day of every week? Well, because if you keep it longer than that, you will probably run into some financial crisis, at least an imagined crisis where you'll use it, you'll spend it.

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But when you are budgeting and you're setting aside that money each week and putting that to the work of the

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Lord, then you are keeping the right accounts with God as opposed to thinking, well,

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I'll let it build up until it's something substantial. Not a good plan. People who do that tend to not give.

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And so giving is required for the believer in the New Testament, but there's not a specific percentage that is put upon it.

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For those who want to have a 10 % tithe, basing it off of the concept from the Old Testament, that's fine.

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I mean, a 10 % tithe is a fine idea. There is a biblical requirement for those who teach the word within the church to be compensated for what they do and for them to have their financial provision met.

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So that is mentioned in the scripture. We just want to be careful that we don't legalistically make laws and rules where the scripture itself does not make laws and rules.

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So the scripture is very clear on the necessity of the Christian to give, particularly to the poor.

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But the concept of a 10 % tithe, and I encourage you to study it yourself, don't take my word for it, is not one that's directly taught in the

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New Testament. A lot of pastors believe so. A lot of pastors teach that it is, and I respectfully disagree with them on that, but it's also an issue on which

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Christians, thankfully, can disagree. It's not a salvation issue. Second Corinthians 8 -7,

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Paul says, just as you excel in everything, see also that you excel in this grace of giving.

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I love that term, the grace of giving. He wants us to be above average in this grace of giving.

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A couple of great examples of giving in more modern times within the 20th century, there's a guy named

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R .G. Letourneau who built earth -moving equipment during the Great Depression, and he became a millionaire at a time when most people were in poverty, and he was able to do a reverse tithe.

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He actually would keep 10 % of his income, and he would give 90 % of it away to the work of the

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Lord. He wrote a book called God Runs My Business. There's also another great book about his life published by Moody Publishers, a classic book called

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Mover of Men and Mountains by Moody Publishers. You can still get a copy of that, but he was asked by a reporter one time, how is it that you can give away so much money?

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Because he gave away about 12 million dollars during the Great Depression. How can you give away so much money and still be a millionaire?

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And he explained it this way. He said, well, the fact is God shovels money to me, and I shovel money back to God, and it just so turns out that God has a bigger shovel than I do.

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Another guy that is a great person to read about related to this was the founder of the

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U .S. Plastics Corporation, Stanley Tam, and he wrote a book called God Owns My Business.

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He actually approached the U .S. government and said he wanted to incorporate his business with God being the legal owner of his company, and he was able to do that in 1942 during World War II.

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And he gave over 100 million dollars to Christian ministry. 49 % of all of his gross sales from the

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U .S. Plastics Corporation were given to ministry causes. So these are men who are great stewards.

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They truly understood the necessity of being caretakers of what

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God had given them, and seeing that money was a means. It was not an end. It was a means to an end, and the means was to serve the

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Lord. In 2 Corinthians 9 -7, Paul gives us a template for how charity should be addressed, and I wish we had time to delve into this with some length, because there's an entire biblical theology of charity, just as there is of everything.

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There's a biblical theology of everything, but in 2 Corinthians 9 -7, Paul says each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly, key phrase here, or under compulsion, if you can underline that, like or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

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So this is one of the reasons why we need to understand that any type of quote -unquote charity that is being funded by tax dollars is antithetical to scripture, because all taxation by definition is compulsory.

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It's taken by force. It is taken, if not literally at gunpoint, it's taken under duress with the threat that you could lose everything you own.

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You don't pay your income tax, you go to jail. You don't pay your property tax, you have your home taken away from you.

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And so taxation, while there is a biblical theology of taxation, and there's a place for taxation,

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Jesus taught that, Paul taught that, so that the government could do what God created it to do, which is punish evildoers and protect the citizens.

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Charity was never given to the government, because the government doesn't have any money.

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The government only has what it takes by force from one person to redistribute to another person.

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And so to do that for charity is always unjust, and it's always biblically unlawful, and it's immoral.

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And yet you look at the government's involvement in health care, that is government -sponsored health -related welfare.

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Of course, standard welfare, housing, government housing, government education, whether that be

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K -12 public schools or whether that's state colleges and universities, all of those things are funded through a forced redistribution of wealth.

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And forced redistribution of wealth is a concept that comes out of Marxism and Socialism.

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It never comes out of Scripture. Scripture teaches very clearly that charity is supposed to be given freely, not reluctantly, never under compulsion, because God loves a cheerful giver.

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So the question then is, okay, so if we're being forced to give to government -funded redistribution of wealth under the name of charity, even though it's not, what do we do?

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Do we have to pay that? Well, yes, you do, because if you don't pay it, Scripture tells us that they bear the sword and they will punish those who don't do what they want.

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And so you can lose everything and go to jail for not paying your taxes, which is a stupid thing to do.

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We're told that if we are arrested, we should be arrested for something very noble, like obeying God and preaching the or something like that, not for refusing to pay our taxes.

34:05

So we should know, though, that there are taxes that are just taxes and there are taxes that are unjust taxes.

34:13

And we should not be fooled into thinking that this is a biblical concept. And so a lot of people have championed this idea that Jesus was a socialist and that Jesus favored government -sponsored welfare and forced redistribution of wealth, and Jesus and the apostles opposed it in their teaching.

34:33

And so there's a great article, if you want to look it up, by Lawrence Reed, you can look it up.

34:38

It's called Was Jesus a Socialist? Was Jesus a

34:43

Socialist? by Lawrence Reed, R -E -E -D. He's with the Foundation for Economic Education.

34:49

Great article if you want to learn more about that. And there's the principle of sowing and reaping in the

34:55

Bible. Second Corinthians 9 .6 says whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

35:06

Those of you who have ever planted a garden, you know that in order to have something come up, you have to plant seeds.

35:12

If you plant a lot of seeds, you're going to be more likely to have a bigger increase or bigger crop.

35:18

Plant a few seeds very sparingly, then you're going to have sparse crop. And so this is true with financial investment as well.

35:26

Obviously you can risk a lot, and you can lose a lot if you have bad financial investments, but the more sparingly that you invest, the less opportunity you have for reward as well.

35:39

And certainly in terms of spiritual reward, if you are giving sparingly, then you're going to reap sparingly in terms of spiritual reward.

35:54

The Bible speaks against the concept of usury. Usury is essentially charging people, particularly

36:02

God's people, interest on loans. Some people say that it's any interest, some people say it's excessive interest, but at the very least, it seems that anything over just a couple of percentage points in the

36:16

Bible is considered to be usury. So in Nehemiah chapter 5, 9 through 11,

36:23

God's people were commanded not to charge their brethren interest. In Ezekiel 18,

36:29

God condemned usury. Deuteronomy 22, 25 says that you were not to charge any interest whatsoever to someone who is a brother.

36:39

There were cases where the Israelites were allowed to charge a small interest to foreigners, but never to a fellow

36:45

Israelite. And then Leviticus 25, 14, and then verses 35 and 39, the

36:53

Israelites were told not to take advantage of other people financially. So God hates unjust weights and measures, and he hates usury.

37:03

He wants us to be just in how we relate to other people. Another principle that we're warned against in scripture is the concept of surety, which is essentially co -signing loans for other people, guaranteeing loan payments for other people.

37:19

Proverbs 6, 1 through 5 says, my son, if you have put up security for your neighbor and have given your pledge for a stranger, if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this, my son, and save yourself.

37:32

For you have come into the hand of your neighbor. Go hasten and plead urgently with your neighbor. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber.

37:40

Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter and like a bird from the hand of a fowler.

37:47

The reason for this is that you don't have any control over the decisions of another person.

37:53

And so when somebody says, I can't afford to buy this car, I can't afford to buy this house,

37:58

I can't afford to start this business, I need you to put up surety for me and sign a co -sign on a loan for me, you can almost be assured that you will end up having to pay the whole thing off and probably get very little or no benefit from it yourself.

38:16

It's just not a wise thing to do. It's probably wiser if you actually felt to help a person in that situation, just give them the money as a gift, because then there may not be the hard feelings that are associated when they fail to live up to their word and they fail to give back what they promised to give you.

38:34

This can damage relationships. And so the Bible gives us some warning against doing this.

38:41

There's a reason why that person can't get the loan. And in most cases, it's because they have a history of making bad financial decisions.

38:50

I mean, I'll just, I'll say here, I think there's maybe a place where if you have a teenager who has no credit, and they're trying to establish credit and get a car and you co -sign on a loan for them, maybe that's a good way for them to help establish some credit and be better for them to save up and pay cash for the car, of course, as opposed to going in debt for it.

39:12

But you need to be prepared as a parent, knowing full well that you may be on the hook for the whole thing.

39:18

And if you can't afford to do that, you're not okay with doing that, don't do it. Don't get into a situation like that.

39:26

So finally, what is a Christian view of money? John Wesley said, make all you can, save all you can and give all you can.

39:37

I think this is the end of my slides here. Yeah, I've got some resources I want to talk about, but there's a couple of things that have come to my mind here that I think

39:44

I have time to address here quickly. One of the things that comes to my mind here is where Jesus is talking about this principle of how you can't love riches and go to heaven.

40:03

And he says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.

40:15

And I've been in church my whole life and I've heard so many twists on that particular topic.

40:22

And one of the most famous ones is pastors will often go back to some cultural analogy and they will say, well, if you go back to the time of Jesus, there was a place in the walls of Jerusalem, there was a gate that was called the eye of the needle and the camels would go through, but it was a very low opening.

40:42

And it was so low that in order for the camels to get through this gate called the eye of the needle, they would have to get on their knees and they'd have to take everything off of the camel.

40:51

And then the camel would have to crawl through on their own. And this is what it was referring to. And I don't know if you've heard that or not.

40:59

I've heard that particular explanation of it. I actually don't think that's what it's talking about at all.

41:06

I think sometimes pastors reach a little bit too much and they stretch a little bit too much. I think that what

41:11

Jesus was saying in that passage where he says, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to go into heaven.

41:19

I think it's very legitimately, honestly, and literally that it's easier for a camel to go through the literal eye of a sewing needle than for a rich man to go into heaven.

41:33

And you say, well, then that's impossible, right? Well, that's what the disciples said. Well, then that's impossible. And Jesus said, well, it is, it is impossible with man, but with God, all things are possible.

41:44

And so you say, okay, well, he's talking in riddles here. What does he mean by that? Well, I think the way that we properly understand that is to think of it in this way.

41:53

If you are rich, and this has got to think carefully about what I'm saying here. If you are rich, you can't go to heaven, period.

42:03

And you go, oh, that doesn't make sense because look at all the rich people in the Bible. Look at Abraham, look at David, look at wealthy people today who love

42:11

Jesus, and they're saved by grace through faith, and they have a lot of money. You're saying none of them are going to go to heaven.

42:18

Well, here's what I mean by that. Let's go back to the parable of the talents and the principle that we talked about with stewardship.

42:27

The first couple of principles actually that we talked about here, the first one that God owns everything. And the second principle being that we don't own anything as believers.

42:38

And Paul talks about this. He says, do you not know that you were bought with a price? You're not your own, therefore glorify

42:45

God with your body. So we don't own ourselves. In fact, Paul uses this term called doulos, which means slave.

42:52

You're a slave to Christ. You don't own anything. Everything that you have belongs to him.

42:57

So how rich is a slave? Well, a slave is completely broke, like has nothing. The master may be really wealthy, but the slave has nothing.

43:06

When you truly understand stewardship, biblical stewardship in the right way, you see that you are always completely broke.

43:16

You have nothing. And God has everything. Again, those passages we looked at,

43:23

God owns absolutely everything. And everything that God gives you, whether it's $5, whether it's $5 ,000, whether it's $5 million, whether it's a billion dollars, it's not yours.

43:36

It's all God's. And so if you're stewarding a billion dollars for God, or you're stewarding a million dollars or $5 or $50 for God, that's just greater levels of responsibility.

43:52

But you're not rich. And I think that's what Jesus was saying there, where he says, it's impossible for a rich man to go into heaven.

44:00

Why is it impossible for a rich man to go into heaven? And why did he tell the rich young ruler, sell everything that you have, give it to the poor, then come follow me and you can be my disciple.

44:11

And the guy went away sad. The reason he did not inherit eternal life, the reason that he did not press into and obtain eternal life was because he owned the stuff.

44:21

It was his. And so if you own the things that you have, then they don't belong to God.

44:29

And if you're holding something back in your life and saying, this is mine. I own this.

44:35

This does not belong to God. I will not give this to God. I'm in control here. Then you are still king of your life.

44:42

You are still on the throne of your life. You have not really surrendered to the

44:47

Lordship of Jesus Christ. And I would say you're not saved. And so you really need to understand what true discipleship is.

44:57

True discipleship is that there's one king in the relationship and it's not you. You don't get to make the decisions for your life.

45:05

You don't get to call the shots. You don't get to be Lord of your own life. Jesus said, why do you call me

45:10

Lord, Lord, but you don't do what I say. Because there'll be many who come at the end of time and say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these things in your name?

45:17

And he'll say, depart from me. I never knew you, you worker of lawlessness. And so those who belong to him recognize his total and complete authority over their life and that he owns everything and that they own nothing and that they are merely caretakers and stewards.

45:35

So that person could have access to a lot of wealth and can have a lot of resources that they steward for God, for his kingdom.

45:48

But they look at it kind of like R .G. Letourneau and Stanley Tan. Like, this is not mine. God shovels money at me.

45:54

I shovel it back to him. He has a bigger shovel. And so God will provide for your needs. He will make sure that you have what you need for your provision, for your life, for your family.

46:04

But when you have a true biblical understanding of stewardship, it's revolutionary. And then you truly, back to what

46:11

Burkett said, the way that you allocate, the way that you spend your time and your resources that he's given you indicates what's in your heart.

46:19

And when you're hoarding, when you're being greedy, when you're being covetousness or covetous, it's all about you.

46:28

And you're still functionally the king of your life. You maybe have given lip service to belonging to Christ and being his child.

46:37

But in reality, you're still very much in control. And so you should question whether you have actually really surrendered your life to Christ.

46:46

So I guess that'd be my appeal to you is, as you're listening to this, if you'd say, wow, I don't know, maybe

46:52

I haven't ever really fully surrendered my life to Christ and given everything that I have over to him and just given him complete control over everything, complete control over my bank accounts and my house and my resources and my time and my family and everything that he owns it all, he controls it all.

47:11

I encourage you to do that. And that would be actually the most encouraging and inspiring thing that would come out of a seminar like this would be you actually coming into a right relationship with the

47:23

Lord Jesus Christ. And then aligning your resources and finances with him in that.

47:31

Let me just share a few resources real quickly, things that I've written. Some of you don't know much about me or my ministry or things that I've done, but this is a brand new curriculum published by Masterbooks.

47:41

It's called Foundations in Faith. It's a 36 week Bible doctrine curriculum that the publisher is targeted for teenagers like ages 12 to 18.

47:51

I actually think it's great for adults, but it's a five day a week Bible study. It goes through actually the primary doctrines of the

47:58

Christian faith. So it talks about who is God and who is man. And we go through creation.

48:04

And then of course, the deity of Christ and the historical resurrection of Jesus and justification and sanctification.

48:16

And we have a whole thing on biblical hermeneutics, how to interpret the Bible. In fact, that'd be a fun thing to come back and do another night with you guys on that, on biblical hermeneutics.

48:29

If you've never covered that topic, I'd be glad to come back and do that with you sometime. But this is available on our familyrenewal .org

48:35

website. This book, Questions God Asks, is a topical Bible study through the

48:41

Old Testament based on 19 different questions that God asked humans. I was just doing my own

48:48

Bible reading through the Old Testament many years ago, and kept seeing over and over that God asked people questions.

48:54

Like he asked Adam, where are you? And he asked Moses, what's in your hand? And he asked Elijah in the cave, what are you doing here?

49:01

And he asked Jonah, do you have a right to be angry? And he asked Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah?

49:07

And so I took these different questions and wrote out Bible studies based on the context and the topics that were being discussed there.

49:16

19 different questions in the Old Testament. Then I wrote a sequel, Questions Jesus Asks, which is 20 questions in the

49:23

New Testament that Jesus asked people. And Jesus was the master of asking questions.

49:28

So if you're looking for kind of a devotional or a Bible study, these are written for adults, but they also are great family read -alouds.

49:36

And so these are resources. There's completely different topics and questions Jesus asks and questions

49:42

God asks. So between the two, it's like 39 completely different topics. This book is called

49:48

Raising Them Up, Parenting for Christians. That's actually the name of a Facebook discussion group that we have as well.

49:56

If you're a Christian parent, we'd love to have you come join our Facebook discussion group. Just look up that title, Raising Them Up, Parenting for Christians.

50:02

This is a book on the big picture of how to disciple your children from toddler through young adult. I am the father of 11 children, ages 22 down to two.

50:12

My oldest is, well, I have five sons and six daughters, put it that way. So my wife and I have been married over 24 years.

50:22

And you will, I think, learn a lot. I try not to just share much from my experience, because I don't think that's necessarily very beneficial.

50:30

But this is a biblical theology of the family. What did God say about how to parent? What's a mother's role? What's a father's role?

50:36

How do we discipline our children? How do we encourage them and inspire them and disciple them?

50:44

This book, my wife and I wrote together, it's called Pitching a Fit, Overcoming Angry and Stressed Out Parenting.

50:52

This book is actually our bestseller. It's helped thousands of families to get out of, the parents in particular, to get out of the trap of habitual anger and stress as it relates to their children.

51:06

This book, Education, Does God Have an Opinion? I think is probably the most comprehensive book on a biblical philosophy of education that you can buy today.

51:15

I go through what God has to say about education, teaching, instruction of children in the

51:21

Bible. And it's a lot. There are a lot of passages in the Bible that talk about how God wants us to educate our children.

51:28

He's not silent on the issue, but it also develops a biblical philosophy of every subject.

51:34

So what is a biblical philosophy of mathematics or history or science or language arts or logic or music or art?

51:43

And so this will be, I think, just a life -changing book for you to change the paradigm of how perhaps you've thought about education.

51:54

And for those of you who are homeschooling or interested in homeschooling, this book, Answers for Homeschooling, The Top 25

51:59

Questions Critics Ask, takes the top 25 objections that people raise to homeschooling and reasons why homeschooling is a bad idea and why you shouldn't do it.

52:09

And it debunks all of them with research and statistics and facts.

52:16

My family began homeschooling, my mother began homeschooling, my older sister and I back in 1978. So we're coming up on what, 45 years now of homeschooling experience.

52:27

And Michael Smith, former president of HSLEA, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, called this the

52:34

Walmart and Costco of homeschool information. He said that this book basically answers all of your questions and that you shouldn't have to go to any other resource to have all of your questions about home education answered.

52:48

Whether it's how to choose a curriculum, am I qualified? How can

52:53

I afford to homeschool? What if I don't have enough patients to homeschool? What about the single mom? How can she homeschool?

52:59

And my mom actually was a single parent in my teen years. So I have some authority to speak on that issue.

53:07

What about sending our children to the public schools to be salt and light? Shouldn't we be doing that? And what about socialization?

53:13

And what about high school? And what's dad's role? And what about college? And all those questions.

53:19

I have chapters on all of those things in this book. I'd like to give a gift for those of you who have been part of the webinar.

53:26

If you go to our familyrenewal .org forward slash store, you can find an audio presentation of your choice from my website.

53:34

I have tons of audio messages, workshops from conferences and messages. Just type in promo code gift and you can get one of your choice for free.

53:44

A free probably hour long MP3 audio. Just go to familyrenewal .org forward slash store, type in promo code gift.

53:53

And it's my gift for you. If you like audio and video, I also have a USB drive. It's got about 75 hours of digital video and audio that you can get from our web store.

54:04

And I encourage you to check that out as well. So again, our ministry is familyrenewal .org.

54:11

I have a Christian apologetics website at christianworldview .net. I am on Facebook at Israel Wayne author and also family renewal.

54:21

My personal page, there's Israel dot Wayne. Twitter is at Israel Wayne. Instagram is at family renewal.

54:26

We have a podcast called family renewal. You can look it up on YouTube. Just type in family renewal podcast or you can

54:34

Google search family renewal podcast or listen to family renewal wherever you listen to audio podcasts.

54:39

And we'd love to have you sign up on our email list. I don't know that this will work. But if you go to family renewal .org

54:46

forward slash subscribe, I would love to have you sign up so that if I'm speaking in your area, because I speak at a lot of conferences,

54:55

I can let you know when I'm going to be in the area and would love to actually come speak in Santee, California sometime.

55:01

That would be amazing. But also wherever you live. And if you're interested in having me booked for a conference or to come speak at an event in your area, you can contact us through our website, which is family renewal .org.

55:16

Or you can also email family renewal events at gmail .com family renewal events at gmail .com

55:23

to get more information. I would love to come to your area or if you even have a small group, we can do something like this.

55:30

We can do a zoom meeting, a live Q &A webinar presentation, something like this.

55:36

So I'm available as a speaker. That's what I do. I've been doing this full time for over 30 years now.

55:43

And so talking a lot of different types of topics, parenting, marriage, biblical worldview, apologetics,

55:49

I preach in churches, I do a lot of Sunday morning, regular sermon stuff, education, homeschooling, lots and lots of different topics.

55:59

So again, love to have you visit our website, family, family renewal .org. And appreciate you letting me share tonight on the issue of biblical economics.

56:08

I hope some of the ideas have been thought provoking and hopefully helpful for you in reorienting our thinking to align more to scripture and less to the humanistic viewpoints on wealth and finances that we perhaps were raised with.

56:25

Well, that's very good. I very thought provoking for me. I, I struggle a lot with finances because my parents were both raised during the depression.

56:35

And they raised us like we were in the depression. And so yes, that gave me a lot to think about.

56:43

Thank you. Sorry, Terry, go ahead. Okay. Okay. So um, yeah,

56:48

I was gonna say also it was that was a really good presentation. So I know I have some experience with stewardship, because for one thing, you mentioned

56:59

Tim LaHaye and Santee area, which is where we're based from my pastors,

57:05

David Jeremiah, which is the same, same church. And every January, he spends three weeks doing a stewardship series.

57:12

And so that's, that's a real blessing. And then also, um, you know, I did some part time work for a financial um, advisor who his ministry was to teach his clients biblical financial stewardship.

57:26

So it's been I'm putting my stamp of approval on your presentation.

57:32

Much appreciate that very much. So we do have some questions. And then I have a few, a couple of things.

57:38

Also, let's start with the homeschool. So, um, I don't think in our actual group, we have a lot of homeschool families, but we do have some,

57:49

I know that you have made it. I know that you have very strong feelings about school vouchers, and taking funds from the government for schooling.

58:00

And I actually had hoped to have you talk about that. But I realized that maybe that that wasn't the best thing for our whole meeting tonight.

58:08

But I wonder if you'd like to go ahead and talk about that a little bit right now. Yeah, I would. And I would say that the very first thing is to remember that the government doesn't have any money.

58:17

The government only has what it takes by force from some people to redistribute to other people.

58:23

And that is actually not something that we find in the scripture, that's something we find in the

58:28

Communist Manifesto. So the idea that we should be, you know, taking money by force from some citizens to redistribute to other citizens for educational welfare, not a biblical idea, that's a

58:39

Marxist idea. So that's the very first thing I would say about it. The second thing is, whatever the government pays for, it controls.

58:48

And so with government funding comes government regulation. I have an article, if you go to familyrenewal .org,

58:55

and then go to our blog, I think the latest article on there is on rethinking school choice.

59:03

Because it's actually the Republican Party that is pushing school choice, which is very ironic.

59:08

But I would encourage you to definitely think twice on that issue. So there's a bunch of links in that one article to other resources.

59:17

So if you want to do a deep dive, go to familyrenewal .org, go to the blog and find that article on school choice.

59:23

And I think that'll help you. But there's already a bunch of examples, and I point to them in that article, of places where Christian schools have been taking school vouchers and the government's coming after them.

59:37

New York City, the Hasidic schools there, Alberta, Canada, Utah. In fact, you're going to have

59:43

Alex Newman on. Alex Newman is a guy who's a wealth of information on that. And he just wrote an article on the

59:52

Utah situation, where as soon as Utah started doing these ESAs and providing government funding, that the legislators immediately are trying to come in with regulations.

01:00:02

So basically, rather than expanding educational freedom and opportunity, what it does is it expands government control.

01:00:09

Expands government control over areas that are currently free. We already have educational choice. We don't need educational choice.

01:00:15

We have educational choice. We have private schools, we have home schools, we have co -ops, we have hybrids, we have cottage schools, we have all kinds of online opportunities, we have lots and lots, we have a smorgasbord of endless variations of school choice.

01:00:29

So that's not the issue. It's a myth to say we need school choice. You have lots of choices.

01:00:36

What you're saying is, I want government money. That's what, it's code for that. It's code for, I want government money.

01:00:43

And with the government money comes the government control, and you can't control the content of what you teach.

01:00:49

And you will have to teach the LGBTQ affirming curriculum. You will have to teach their standards. You will have to have their standardized testing.

01:00:56

You'll have to comply with all their regulations. And basically you become a government school. And so I think what happens is basically private schools and home schools just become branches or arms of the government.

01:01:08

We don't want that. It's like the one freedom bastion that we have, our privately funded Christian schools and home schools.

01:01:16

We don't want government control over that. So yeah, I think you need to think more deeply about this issue.

01:01:24

And again, if you read the blog article and the links that are inside of it at my website, familyrenewal .org

01:01:31

forward slash blog, I think you'll find it to be very helpful. Terry had told me about your stance on that, and I did some investigation into it.

01:01:41

And you're absolutely right. And I went to our office in Orlando on Tuesday, and we have some guy from England who is living here and working here, and he has his kids in a private school.

01:01:58

And another guy was saying, well, you could send them to a charter school and not pay so much.

01:02:05

And then I broke out your information on them. And the guy from England agreed that the private school was the best.

01:02:14

Well, yeah, it's definitely something I think most people just have never really thought about. And it's something I've given thought to for a long time.

01:02:21

In fact, I found a quote for myself from an article that I wrote in 1994, where I said,

01:02:28

I believe that the biggest threat on the horizon for private education is not going to be that the federal government is going to take away our liberties by force.

01:02:40

We're going to give away our liberties by accepting government money. I said that in 1994, so going on 30 years now.

01:02:49

So I've been banging the drum for a while. Yeah. And I homeschooled my son as a single mom.

01:02:56

And in California, public charter schools are a real big option for homeschooling.

01:03:02

And they'll even tell you, oh, it's okay if you use... Don't ask, don't tell.

01:03:07

Yeah. I mean, they're really... It robs families of the joy of true

01:03:15

Christian homeschooling. So I know the director of our PSP, she was really passionate about that.

01:03:22

So I learned that also. So I appreciate your input on that.

01:03:27

And we do have a question from somebody here in our Zoom. What about when it comes to special needs children?

01:03:34

What are your thoughts about taking government assistance for helping with those? You know, that's a very difficult situation because unfortunately, the

01:03:43

Christian community has not provided nearly the resources and the information that we should.

01:03:51

For homeschoolers, I would highly recommend going to HSLDA's website, Homeschool Legal Defense Association, HSLDA .org.

01:04:00

If you become a member of HSLDA, they have a whole branch that helps special needs students.

01:04:07

And so there's a lot of resources available for them. I would like to say that I'd like to see the day where we have a lot more options that are privately funded.

01:04:18

But there are often times where you can find resources that you don't have to go to the government. I'll just throw out something.

01:04:24

Like we had a son who needed speech therapy. And we were like, oh, you should go to the government because government offers speech therapy.

01:04:31

It's government funded. Well, we found a private Christian college that had a speech therapy class at the school.

01:04:40

And then students who were learning to become speech therapists. And they said, our students want practice working with real children with issues, you know, speech issues.

01:04:51

So if you bring your students to our class and let our students at our Christian university work with your students, we can give you speech therapy for like $20 an hour, which is, you know, nothing.

01:05:04

And so we got great quality speech therapy through a Christian university for $20 an hour because we were helping their students and they were helping our child.

01:05:14

And it was just a wonderful fit. So there's, I think oftentimes resources that we don't look into and that we don't investigate because our first thought is just run to the government because they're our savior, you know, and the government should be our first, you know, run to the government nanny to take care of all of our needs.

01:05:31

And quite often, there are resources that are available that are affordable. There's not enough and we need to do better there.

01:05:39

But again, you know, if you go the government route, then they control it. And there's a lot of negative things that sometimes go with plugging into that system as well.

01:05:50

You often don't have control over your child anymore. You know, they view it as this is our child because we're funding your child.

01:05:59

Yeah. I can appreciate your insight on that. So, okay.

01:06:04

So by the way, you mentioned hermeneutics and we did have a speaker come and talk to us about hermeneutics, but it's been like three years.

01:06:13

So we're due for another one. So maybe next year, we'll bring you back for that.

01:06:18

That'd be fun. So, so we would like to hear, we have open dates in October.

01:06:25

Oh, that's right. We do. I'll be in touch. Have your people contact my people.

01:06:31

I'm looking here. I found the chat here and I see Robin mentioned that she took Andrew Rappaport's class on hermeneutics.

01:06:37

Okay. Let me just tell you, please, if you get a chance to send a note to Andrew and tell him that Israel said, he thinks it's terrible how much people pick on him and that he is very misunderstood.

01:06:50

He does get picked on a lot, but his hermeneutics class was so good. It was,

01:06:55

I don't know, 15 weeks long and it was two hours once a week. And, but it was really good. And I will pass that on.

01:07:03

Yeah. He'll think, he'll think that's funny. Okay. Next, next up,

01:07:09

I want to ask you, so are you familiar with the website secondvote .org

01:07:14

and okay. And so I, I noticed that you didn't spend much time really addressing in your presentation about ways that Christians can avoid funding things that are not in God's will.

01:07:31

I guess that's the best way that I could phrase it. So I have an article, I'm trying to think of how to, how to get it to you guys.

01:07:40

But it's called beyond boycotting to stewardship. That's the name of the article beyond boycotting to stewardship by Israel Wayne.

01:07:50

And it's on a website called Illinois family Institute. And so I have the whole blog article that I've written on that topic.

01:07:58

And basically what I say is, you know, I don't like the caricature of us as always being angry, reactionary

01:08:05

Christians. And it's like, Oh, we got miffed and offended by something. So we're going to stomp off and boycott this or that, and you're not going to see our money.

01:08:13

It's, but I don't think that's the right posture. I think it's the right attitude for us, but basically fundamentally, whatever we fund with our dollars bros and whatever we don't fund with our dollars shrinks.

01:08:26

And so I think it's fascinating how Christians seem to be tenaciously committed to funding their ideological enemies, and they don't fund their ideological allies.

01:08:39

Atheists don't do that. Atheists fund their, their allies, and they try to starve their enemies financially.

01:08:48

But, you know, Christians will support corporations.

01:08:53

And I don't know that I need to name them, but Christians, Christians will fund corporations who hate

01:08:59

Christians, who hate God, who hate Christ. And we will spend thousands and thousands of dollars with them joyfully when we have other options, you know, and I understand like you can't possibly, you know, boycott every living thing on the planet.

01:09:16

That's bad. I get that you have to buy gas somewhere and you have to buy groceries and I get it. So, but, but there are companies who have planted a flag in the ground and say, we are anti -Christian and Christians will fund them for thousands of dollars a year joyfully.

01:09:32

And yet there are Christian organizations that are underfunded. And another, another group that is really good at this concept of buying within your own philosophical neighborhood are

01:09:42

Mormons. Mormons love to make money on, from non -Mormons, but they spend it inside their own community.

01:09:49

So they will get, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. And one of the biggest funders of the

01:09:56

Mormon church right now is Evangelicals. We're buying their movies. We're buying their homeschool curriculum.

01:10:03

We are funding their entertainment and that all funds their missionaries who knock on the door and show up with another revelation, another testimony of a revelation, a testament of a revelation of Jesus Christ, which is a false gospel.

01:10:19

We, we fund their evangelism and they don't do that.

01:10:25

They don't reciprocate that. They, they love evangelical money and they spend their money in house.

01:10:31

Christians could just be a lot more shrewd in that way. You know, like Jesus said, the children of darkness are often more shrewd than the children of light.

01:10:38

We spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars as a Christian community every year, supporting and building up our ideological enemies.

01:10:48

And they don't do that. They don't spend it in our, you know, directions.

01:10:54

So, well, if I could just, you know, like make a clip of that last few minutes of your talk and show it to everybody in the world,

01:11:05

I would love that. I just, it, it, it really, I feel very passionate.

01:11:11

Some of the people in here know too, because, because I was taught God put me through a season of my life where I've been taught so, so thoroughly, how important it is that we use his resources in ways that please him, that we glorify, that we worship the

01:11:28

Lord with this, with the resources he's given us. So yes, for sure. Okay.

01:11:35

So we do have another question here. If somebody is wanting to make a change in their life to start looking more, more from a biblical perspective of how to get their own finances in order, what would you recommend as a good place to start?

01:11:52

We have a couple of great resources on our web store. So if you go to familyrenewal .org forward slash store, you can get, there's something we call the economics bundle, which is like three books for $30, something like that, which are great.

01:12:09

Two of them are kind of on macroeconomics and one is on microeconomics. And that would be a really great place.

01:12:16

I think I would recommend for you to, to go. One of the books there on microeconomics is called for the love of, it says for love of money, but money is scratched out and it says

01:12:25

God over the top. So for the love of God, but it's actually a really good book kind of on microeconomics on budgeting and you know, how to, how to manage your daily finances.

01:12:37

But then the other ones kind of give you the big picture on how to think about economics from a biblical framework on a more macro level.

01:12:45

So, so those resources resources would be good. I just put a link in the chat session there for our store.

01:12:51

And so people could go check out, just type in like economics or money. In the search feature of our web store and things should come up there.

01:13:02

I see somebody mentioned Howard Dayton too in the comments. Larry Burkett started

01:13:07

Christian financial resources, and then joined with Howard Dayton to form crowd financial resources.

01:13:13

So Howard Dayton was kind of the successor to Larry Burkett. Great, great resources from Howard Dayton as well.

01:13:21

I had a quick how do you feel about the Dave Ramsey? Yeah, I generally like Dave.

01:13:29

Dave didn't have the kind of biblical, I mean, not Dave's a Christian, but they, they,

01:13:35

Dave doesn't have the same kind of biblical foundation that Larry Burkett did. Dave's practical.

01:13:42

And I think he does a lot of good in telling people that they're, that they're stupid to be spending their money the way they are.

01:13:52

He's, he's kind of the no nonsense, tough love guy that helps people get out of financial, bad financial patterns.

01:14:00

So I like Dave Ramsey overall. But I wish that we had someone on the scene right now that was more of the

01:14:07

Larry Burkett because Burkett had the great principles, but also the biblical why behind it that I don't,

01:14:15

I don't see that Dave has the handle on that quite as, as much. But yeah, generally

01:14:20

I like him. I think his personality, you either like it or you don't, but you know, generally he's pointing in the right direction.

01:14:29

I've been told I could teach his class. I have a hard time spending money.

01:14:38

That's not all bad. And I also put the same thing, the link that you put and the, and the article

01:14:48

I posted them into the comments on Facebook as well on our video feed, including the article.

01:14:56

It was not hard to find, to search for the article and find it. So I put a link there. But, but we're going to wrap up our time on our live stream and recording.

01:15:05

So if you want to just tell people one more time how they can find you and, and support you. Yeah. So I'm on all the social media platforms, you know, wherever you hang out, look me up.

01:15:15

I would love to connect with you there. If you ever want to write to me personally and have something get to me, probably

01:15:21

Facebook messenger is the best way to do that. Cause I'll actually see it. And then our website again, it's family renewal .org.

01:15:31

And we would love to, to connect with you there. There's a contact form on the website as well.

01:15:36

If you have any questions. And so I appreciate you letting me get on here and share. It's been delightful.

01:15:43

You have a great group here. And so I'm glad you let me be part of your community for the evening.

01:15:49

Yeah, it's been a blessing to have you. So, and again, we are creation fellowship Santee and you can find links to most of our past presentations by typing in tiny

01:15:59

URL .com forward slash C F Santee that C for creation

01:16:04

F for fellowship and Santee is spelled S A N T E E. You can also email us at creation fellowship,

01:16:12

Santee at gmail .com. And next week we're going to be taking off so that we can I think some people might be traveling and also we're going to be celebrating the sacrifice that Jesus made by dying on the cross for our sins and defeating death.

01:16:28

But when we come back in two weeks, we're we have a couple of speakers right off the bat that are going to be good topics.

01:16:36

We have Alex Newman returning to us to talk to us about his visit to COP 27 and the new 10 commandments of climate change.

01:16:45

And then also we have judge Saul from persecuted equipping the persecuted, and he's going to be talking to us, bringing a message from persecuted

01:16:55

Christians. So those are a couple of big presentations you won't want to miss. So with that, we're going to go ahead and sign off for, for our.