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Self-quarantine day 5. I managed to go down to the local trading post and trade my AR -15 for this can of Lysol and this sword. Initially the deal was just for the can of Lysol, but I figured I've played enough video games to know that when you don't have a firearm, the next best thing is a melee weapon.
Alright, alright. Today's a bit of a grab bag. A lot of pushback on yesterday's video on the economy. I really don't understand why people don't get this. And this is one of those things, sometimes I'll say something that I know is controversial, I know is debatable.
This is not debatable. If you don't understand how a man's ability to work and make an income and provide for his family is directly connected to his life, if you don't get that, frankly you don't get much.
That's a very simple concept to understand. I saw Governor Cuomo from New York saying, Well, if the choice is between the economy and lives, that's a no-brainer. And I'm like, well, you obviously don't understand the economy.
If you think the economy is just this extra thing that's external to men and it's not really part of life, critical to thriving in life and God's plan for people, if you don't get that, you need to go back to the drawing board.
I mean, you understand the Bible at a very infant level. You need solid food. You need to move on from milk eventually to get to the solid food. And so the reality is that I'm never going to back down on that one.
It's not about a few extra bucks in your pocket. It's not about your portfolio doing a little bit better than it could be doing. It's not about that. It's literally a matter of life and death. The economy, especially for the vulnerable, this is the part about this argument that I don't understand.
You think it's so compassionate. Oh, we need to save lives and shut down the economy in order to do it. And I'm like, well, that might be well and good for middle class folks. That might be well and good for rich folks.
But for people that are super vulnerable when it comes to their finances, that's a matter of life and death. That's a death sentence. You need to be able to think about this at a little bit more than infant level.
And I'm sorry if that comes across kind of strong and all that kind of thing. But seriously, you're thinking like a child. There's no other way to put it. Children think in that way where they think of the immediate pretty much exclusively.
They think of the immediate consequences, the immediate value, the immediate benefit to a certain action. They don't think a few steps ahead. You need to train a child to think a few steps ahead. That doesn't come naturally, but that's what should happen as you grow up.
You tell a child, all right, listen, listen, kid. I'll give you a marshmallow right now, or I'll give you three marshmallows in 30 minutes. A lot of kids are just going to go, I want the one marshmallow right now.
Because all they're thinking about is that sweet, delicious, fluffy taste in their mouth right now. They're not thinking about what could happen in 20 minutes. This is something you need to train as an adult, delaying gratification.
It's something that you need to do. The reality is people that are making this a simple thing, it's not a simple thing. Because if shutting down the economy was a no-brainer to save any amount of life, we would have to shut down the economy permanently.
Because driving down the street to deliver a package, an unnecessary package. Let's say you order a game from Amazon, a video game or something like that. Driving down the street, the truck driving down the street is putting lives at risk.
Do you realize how you take your life into your hand every time you go into the street? Have you ever thought about this? I've thought about this. You ever go on those highways, not the freeway type stuff, but the highways where it's like 50, 55 miles an hour, and it's two-way traffic.
You ever think that you come like 10 feet from a car that's coming at you 60 miles an hour or more, and you're going towards it 60 miles an hour or more. And the only thing keeping you alive is about 10 feet worth of space and the trust that the other guy is going to stay in his lane.
You take your life in your hands by engaging in everyday frivolous commerce. And so if really, if it came down to economy or life, and that was just that simple, like the way a child thinks about it, then we couldn't do anything.
There could be no economy. It's just, it's so, it boggles the mind how stupid that argument is. I can understand self-quarantining in situations like this. I can understand taking proper precautions.
I can understand all of this stuff. All I'm saying, though, is that shutting down the economy from on high and expecting daddy to take care of you, the government, is a stupid, stupid idea. It's a matter of life and death for the most vulnerable.
You say you care about people. Well, I don't believe you if you're not following God's law. It's just that simple. I don't believe you. Anyway, a couple of additional things about that topic. Someone said to, someone said to me, or actually, I think they said it to someone who was was agreeing with me on this.
All of a sudden, there's all these Christians that are experts on the economy and medicine. And one of those gotcha things. And the reality is like, like, this is something that we also, this is also thinking like a child.
This is also thinking like, oh, daddy's going to take care of me. So don't, you know, because the reality is that there are not many economics and medicine experts out there. That's why they're experts.
There's a handful. There's a few. And I don't mean a literal handful, but compared to the population, few are experts in the economy or medicine. The reality is, though, you have to understand that experts.
There's two things here. Experts disagree. So you look at one expert in the medical field and they say, well, this virus is not that big a deal. You see another expert in the medical field. This virus is the death, the black death.
It's the plague. And so now it's like, well, which experts do I believe? It's the same thing with the government. You know, you say you have to listen to the government. You have to. Romans 13. Somebody asked the question on my Twitter.
It was a really good question. I forget who did it. Somebody asked the question, OK, so what happens when Trump says to go back to work, but my governor says to not go back to work? Or what happens if vice versa?
Trump says don't go to work, but my governor says, OK, you can go to work. And they disagree. Who do I listen to? Romans 13. Who do I listen to? You know, because there's different layers of government, right?
There's city government, state government, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, OK, so they're disagreeing. Now what? Now what? OK, that's not how we do things. That's not how God's system works. That's not how God's system works.
It gives certain authorities certain authority. The family has certain authority. The church has certain authority. The state has certain authority. And we need to respect those boundaries. God's going to show us if we don't respect it.
He's going to show us. And so that's the first thing, because you say, well, trust medical experts. Well, which ones? Which ones? And that leads me to my second point, because the reality is I am not an economy expert, and I am not a medical expert.
Yet, I am still solely responsible. The responsibility falls on my shoulders, what happens to my family economically, and what happens to my family according to their health. God puts that responsibility on me, not medical experts.
I can look at the medical experts, but at the end of the day, I need to make a decision. So whether or not I am an expert, I need to come to some conclusions. I need to take responsibility for it myself.
I need to decide whether it's best to have a sword or an AR -15 to take care of my family. I need to decide what to invest my money in or to pull my money out of the stock market in order to take care of my family.
And it doesn't matter that I'm not an expert on macroeconomics. It doesn't matter that I'm not an expert on microeconomics or fiscal policy or any of these things. It doesn't matter. I still need to make decisions with the information that I do have.
And so this kind of thing, well, you're not an expert. Yeah, I'm not an expert, but I still need to make decisions. And the responsibility to take care of my family is not on the expert side. I can outsource some of the data gathering, some of the recommendations and stuff, but I cannot outsource the decision.
You see what I'm saying? God does not allow me to outsource the decision making. Just like God doesn't allow you to outsource the responsibility for training your kids. You could hire somebody to do it, but the responsibility is still yours as to what they learn.
You see what I'm saying? This is the thing. We're going to learn. God's going to teach us. We're going to learn today. God's going to teach us. And so anyway, that's just a couple things that I was thinking about.
I had another person talking about, whoa, I was talking against the stimulus package and they were shocked. They couldn't believe it. What would you do to save the economy? And I'm like, well, it's very simple.
I would eliminate 95 of taxes, 95 of government agencies. I would have the government sell all of their assets, pretty much, not all of them, but most of them, and give the money back to their debtors and stuff like that.
I'll tell you what I definitely would not do is to ease my pain right now, burden my children and my children's children with crushing financial obligations. That's what I definitely wouldn't do because the Bible says that a good man, a righteous man, leaves an inheritance to his children, not crushing debt.
Not crushing debt. And so you see what I'm saying? Again, we have to think more than one or two steps ahead or more than the immediate. We need to think one or two steps ahead. Yes, would it be nice to have an extra $4 ,000 in my pocket from the government?
Yeah, it would be nice to have that. But the reality is that $4 ,000 is going to cost much, much more in the future. And it's not going to cost me. It's going to cost my children's children. That's sinful to promote that kind of stuff.
That's sinful to come up with those kinds of schemes. It's not right to do. A wicked man does that. A sinful man does that. Not a righteous man. A righteous man leaves an inheritance to his children's children.
He doesn't leave them with crushing debt. You see, again, this is the thing with the marshmallow. We should be training our kids to be able to delay gratification, to be able to think a couple steps ahead to what puts them at an advantage, not to just only consider the immediate.
This is very shallow, very childish, and Christians ought not to think in this way. One thing I've been talking a lot about is that this whole crisis is revealing what people really believe. People can say they believe anything.
It's very easy to say with your mouth you believe something, but it's very different to see how somebody acts. You see, if I say I love Christ, if I say I believe in limited government, I believe in the free market and stuff like that, and then the minute I get a little pressure, a crisis of this magnitude, then I start throwing this stuff out the window and say, oh, a little socialism is okay.
Well, what I've proven is that I really don't believe what I say. You can know what somebody believes based on their actions. It's very easy to talk. It's very different to act. What we're getting is a lot of revelation.
I recommend this guy. I've promoted him before on my channel. Josh Sommer. Joshua Sommer. Check out his YouTube channel. He put out a video yesterday that I'm halfway through about the Sabbath and how even people who claim to take the Sabbath very seriously are revealing that they actually do not in this crisis.
It's a very compelling video. I really think it's interesting. I've said many times, I think I've even said this to Josh, that if there's one area that I'm squish on, I'm a little squishy, it's the Sabbath.
I know that going in, I'm a little squishy there. Maybe it's just my sinful, rebellious heart that I'm not doing what I ought to do, but this has made me rethink a lot regarding the Sabbath. If you notice, when God comes in judgment in the Old Testament, there's a few things that he mentions consistently about the reasons why justice is one of them, and absolutely as a church, we're getting justice all wrong.
We're confusing it with pagan justice, of course. But then there's another thing he mentions often. It's the Sabbath. It's not remembering the Sabbath. It's profaning the Sabbath. And I just wonder, I'm just saying this out loud, I don't know, I just wonder if we don't have God saying, okay, you don't want to keep that Sabbath holy?
You don't want to remember the Sabbath? Well, now you can't be. How do you like that? I'm not speaking for God, but it's just very interesting the way this has gone down. And we've got essential businesses can stay open, liquor stores, porn stores, stuff like that.
But churches can't, and we're just going along with it. And I think this is a trial is where things get revealed, and things are getting revealed. I hope this doesn't end on a down note. Let me say this, I also see a lot of really encouraging things with Christians out there, with pastors.
There's a lot of pastors that are rising to the occasion. And I pray for you guys, man. It's very easy for me to get on here and say what I would do. I'm not a pastor. I don't have these decisions to make.
They're not mine to make. I have a YouTube channel. It's one thing for me to say something, but it's another thing for all you pastors out there. Joshua's a pastor. My brother's a pastor. To go and do what you believe is right.
Praise God for you guys. Praise God for you guys. This is a bad situation, but we're going to come out stronger, I think for sure. Christ is building up his church. Christ is strengthening his church, and we know that all things happen for the good of Christ's church, and that includes this coronavirus pandemic.
Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless. I also got this Bear Grylls survival knife. It has a flint and steel on it in case I ever need to start a fire. I also got this rubber ball. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I just want to sweeten the deal a little bit.