Boomers have intentionally destabilized younger generations by driving housing costs and interest rates to unattainable levels, prioritizing immediate wealth over intergenerational stability. While corporate giants like Amazon consolidated power during lockdowns, many Boomers sell businesses for cash rather than passing them down, contrasting with Steve Jobs' view that producing value is superior to charitable donations without skills. This shift from frugality to debt slavery reflects a modern idolatry of Mammon, abandoning biblical imperatives for generational generosity. Ultimately, the episode urges Boomers to use their privileged "seven years of plenty" to support struggling descendants and encourages youth to seek practical wisdom over financial handouts, restoring a natural order where distinct roles serve God's design rather than egalitarian fantasies. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Economic Systems Designed for Dual Incomes00:07:49
Today, the entire economic system is set up with the assumption of dual incomes.
They have intentionally made providing for a household on a single income extremely difficult.
They want households with moms staying with the children to be an upper middle class luxury lifestyle, totally inaccessible to the majority of the population in the middle and working class.
For the generation just starting out today, things are far more difficult.
The boomer.
Might well be right that the millennial and zoomer just doesn't have the work ethic his generation had, but he does not consider how much greater that work ethic was rewarded in his day.
This is one of my favorite chapters by far because the reality is that life is more difficult for younger people today, and you know, and I see it from both perspectives, just like you said in the book, Andrew.
You know, yes, there is a work ethic problem with some people, there's no question about it, but also.
I know a lot of very hardworking Zoomers or whatever you would call them nowadays.
And there's a lot of frustration and angst about the difficulty of things.
And so this chapter kind of does not try to put that under the carpet or anything like that.
It meets it square on.
This is a mountain, this is a cliff to overcome.
It might be steeper than it was when your dad grew up or whatever, but it doesn't mean it doesn't need to be climbed.
It still needs to be climbed.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, no, I agree.
It's objectively harder.
I mean, when you look at just housing prices, and you'll hear the older generation say, Whoa, I remember in the 70s, we had 15% interest rates.
Yeah, sure, on a $50,000 principal.
Yeah, but the cost of the house drove down the cost of the house.
It's doing the opposite now.
The inflation is still crazy.
It's still crazy.
We're getting close to 50%.
And granted, I think it would be crazier.
So, like my house, we bought it in 2020.
And we were able to buy it for under $400,000.
It's now, you know, it actually got up.
At the peak, I probably could have sold it for $650 if I had sold it in the summer of 2021.
Yeah, just about.
Yeah, exactly.
Just about a year after I bought it.
But then by, you know, 2022 and then 2023, the time of this recording, you know, it's come down.
And part of that, you know, in large part is the raising of the interest rate.
So I do think that they tamped.
You know, they tamp down principles.
I think things would be outrageous if it wasn't for the interest rates.
But the problem is, they tamp things down to an extent, but they did not really lower prices.
So you still have outrageous principles and you have, you know, 7% interest rates to where, like, if I was going to buy this house today, not only is it worth more than when I bought it, I was able to get a 2.785 or 2.875 interest rate.
It's essentially free money.
Yeah.
It would now be, you know, probably a 7% interest rate on a principal that's about.
30% higher than what it is.
So, when you look at like buying a 500, it's probably now worth, you know, like up to 650, and then came down to probably like sitting at like 525.
If I was to buy that at 7% now, even with a 20% down payment, which I don't know if I'd be able to do, the point is that my mortgage would be, you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure with property taxes in where I'm at in my county in Texas, looking at like probably 2.6% high property taxes, all those things considered, I'd be, I'd be.
I think over four grand on the mortgage.
It probably would double your payment.
It would double your payment.
Yeah.
And this is the thing that story you just told of the value of your house, right?
And a year later, it's $200,000 more or whatever it is.
That is all fake.
That doesn't happen in reality.
In a normal situation.
In a normal situation, you don't get that huge rise and then it comes down again in one year.
That's all fake.
That is all artificial.
That doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't be that way, but it's been engineered to be that way.
And the fact that they can affect the value of your house, which you really can't, the house's value is what it is.
But to just a few percentage points on the interest rate, and that's all artificial too.
It's not like a real interest rate where.
Market conditions are dictated.
It's based on the supply of money.
Yeah, it's not like that.
They're just designing what it is.
That's all artificial.
And so when you recognize that, you realize that the housing prices are artificially, like they make them what they want them to be, essentially.
Yeah.
And it seems, if that's the case, then it seems like they don't want people to be able to own a home.
Not today.
Except BlackRock.
If you count those as people.
They want you to rent from those people.
They want you to own nothing and be happy.
That's right.
That's not.
Just some crazy conspiracy theory.
That's reality.
They don't want people to have ownership of anything.
They don't want you to own small businesses.
I mean, it's not a surprise that during the lockdowns in 2020, the thing that was, you know, all the big giant corporations are allowed to be open.
The small businesses, that's right, they got to be closed.
That's right.
And what happens to them?
You can't be open.
We're not making any money.
And you go belly up.
And so all of these small businesses closed down in 2020 and are never coming back.
And all the property gets bought up by big giant corporations.
What a coincidence.
You know, it's funny, even with like, I think of, You know, Christian nationalism and thinking about our nation and not that far of a distant past, and like Sabbath laws.
You know, aside from all the religious value of a day of rest, you know, where people can go and worship the Lord, even just economically, the Sabbath laws were a great equalizer when it came to the marketplace.
Like, because one of the reasons why, like, an Amazon and these guys, you get to a certain point.
Like you could say, like this, you know, you could, and even this take with a grain of salt, but you could say Bezos earned his first billion, but the second billion was given to him.
Like, you know, like, I mean, the dude did start in his garage and those kinds of things, you know.
But yeah, he created it.
There was work, but the point is so it's not like guys who have these massive corporations didn't do anything to get there.
But once you're there, you're like, you can just absolutely, yeah, you can absolutely just neutralize all the competition.
And one of the reasons why these businesses thrive throughout COVID is because all these small businesses that were brick and mortar, flesh and blood, mom and pop, they were forced to shut down.
Whereas the businesses that already had the infrastructure of delivery and this factory over here and all, they were able to implement, you know, to salute the overlords with all the COVID mandates and abide by this and abide by that.
And then also, they're open 20, I mean, they're virtually in a virtual sense, but in a real sense, they're open 24 7 every second of the day.
Every second of every day.
So you can't compete.
You like if you're starting a small business, you cannot compete with something that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
But the Sabbath, if that came in and said, No, no, no, even online, there will be no purchasing, no buying on the Lord's day.
The market is closed on the Lord's day across the board.
That creates opportunities for the little guy, not in an egalitarian, forced kind of way, but it actually takes crony capitalism and reels it in.
All right.
And that's, I mean, just even the concept of.
Six days you shall work, on the Lord's day you shall rest.
Sabbath Worship vs Crony Capitalism00:02:13
It's claiming all time belongs to God, and He gives us six days as a grace.
And devoting that seventh day to him is an act of worship, right?
Well, and a recognition that all time is his, right?
And so by getting rid of the Sabbath and by having commerce on a Sunday, man is saying, All this time belongs to me.
All this time belongs to me, all seven days.
And we're sowing something that's going to be reaped, right?
And that's, I mean, we sowed Trash World and we're going to reap the destruction that comes of.
From it and every institution, everything that we have being ground under and cut down at the knees, that will have an effect in the future.
And we're already seeing the effect of it now.
All the social problems that exist that are continuing to get worse, it's because of things like this.
Because we exchanged the things that God wanted us to do for a little bit more money.
I mean, I always go back to thinking years and years ago when I would think about.
You know, ancient Israel and how they committed idolatry.
Like, you read the book of Judges, you read 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, and Israel's constantly, or the prophets, right?
Israel's constantly worshiping these gods.
And you think, why would they do that?
Like, what?
They have God Himself right there, and He's done all these things for them.
They've seen the things, even in the Exodus, right?
They see the things that God has done, and they rebel against Him, and they worship, they create the golden calf.
And say that's our God and they commit idolatry.
Why would they worship all these false gods when they've seen what God has done?
And it's because, right?
Well, Baal and Molech and all of these gods were real demons and they actually gave stuff to people, right?
Oh, you offer one child to Molech, one son, a little baby son, and burn him in the fire.
Well, you're going to get 10 kids because you saw your neighbor that worships Molech.
You know, now all of his wives are pregnant with sons and your wife is barren.
Idolatry and False Gods in Modern Context00:02:48
And so it's like, well, what are you going to do?
Are you going to trust the Lord or are you going to trust?
Molek.
And so that's why they exchanged.
It was an economic calculation.
I want my fields to be full of bounty, and I want my wife or my wives to be pregnant.
That's why they did that.
It wasn't just like, oh, they're silly, superstitious, stupid people, and we're so much better than them.
And then you think about our modern context, we're just like them.
We do all the same things.
We do all those same things.
I mean, it starts with the Sabbath, and it works to every other thing that God has made, where it's like, oh, we don't really need to do that.
We're modern men, and this will make me more money.
Right, so we will financialize everything, we'll squeeze every ounce of blood from the turnip in order to make more money, and we will, you know, we'll rob Peter to pay Paul.
Right, we will look to the future and we'll think long term, this will be better for me as an individual or my family or for the entire country and our economy.
Long term, continue to do the things we've always done, that would be for the best, but we can make a lot more money right now if we do X, Y, or Z, right?
And we choose X, Y, or Z rather than the long term health.
I mean, one of the examples is like.
Why don't we just import, you know, 100 million foreign people, right?
We'll have that'll drive labor costs down, the GDP will go up, and everything will be great.
We'll have so much money.
And, and you know, throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s, that's what happened.
And it's like, oh, what if we move all our factories over to China, right?
They pay, they we could pay workers pennies compared to uh dollars that we pay Americans.
And even though the cost of shipping stuff overseas and bringing it back, there's some cost there, but it will save so much money if we move all our factories to China and to foreign countries, moving to Mexico.
Right, we'll make way more money.
The economy will do great, the stock market will boom, it'll be awesome.
But then what happens?
The center of your country and all of the working class people, now they don't have jobs.
That's right.
Now you've impoverished your own people in order to make a lot of money at the very top.
And the working class people who are right near the end, they had a pension that's tied to the performance of the company, or they had 401ks and IRAs and things like that that are in the stock market.
Well, they benefit from that.
So, like the boomer retirees, Right.
They watched throughout the eighties and nineties their 401k or their pension go up and thought, well, this, you know, I don't like that all the factories are getting moved to China and I'm, yeah, I might lose my job.
But I'm going to have a nice retirement.
Right.
That's good.
I'll be able to, I'll be able to move to Arizona or Florida and, and, you know, and enjoy, you know, do the John Piper thing and collect seashells on the, on the beach and all of that.
Trade-offs Between Generations and Retirees00:03:43
But like, that's the mindset is like, I don't care about tomorrow.
I don't care about my children or my grandchildren because that's their problem to worry about.
They just need to work hard like I did.
I'm going to get mine right now.
And I did work hard.
And all of these giant macroeconomic forces that are way outside of my control, those don't really matter because, well, the big line went up, the GDP went up, the stock market went up, and I'm able to cash in.
So that's good.
Well, I think that's the one big difference between the boomers and the ancient pagans.
Right, you know, you said like, well, in some sense, they're the same.
You know, like somebody sacrifices one kid to Moloch so that, you know, Moloch, who's a real demon, will give him 10.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not like overt, like, well, yeah, oh, this is a demon I'm worshiping.
I understand.
Yeah, I'm not saying, I'm not accusing the boomers of, you know, being Moloch worshippers.
Not all of them, but yeah, people still worship demons.
Yeah.
Mammon is a demon that we worship.
That's right.
And so, but instead of, I'm going to sacrifice one kid so that, you know, Moloch will give my wife 10.
The one difference to me as I was listening to you talk is that at least the ancient pagans still thought about their posterity.
They thought about the church.
They thought about legacy.
They thought about their ancestors looking back and they thought about their posterity looking forward.
So as they were doing this tit for tat, like I'll make a sacrifice here.
They understood trade offs too.
Yeah, so they were doing trade offs just like the boomers, but they were doing trade offs for a few, not just for themselves, not eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
It wasn't just a trade off for me now.
It was a trade off for my line.
Like in there, it was selfish.
It was sinful.
But what I'm saying is that we, Western modern man, have become so utterly corrupt.
It's a whole other level of sin because the sinful pagan was thinking selfishly.
But even in his selfishness, he still would have recognized that if God cuts off my line, it's a curse.
Yeah.
Right.
So even the selfish.
His world was less fake than our world is.
So even the corrupt, sinful pagan is still thinking.
Right.
Um, uh, still thinking, I want sons, he's operating in the created order that God has made, right?
Even though he's doing so sinfully, exactly.
So, he's sinful, that's the yeah, that's it.
So, it's sinful, but not fake, yeah.
But what we have now, it was corrupt, um, it was corrupt but real.
What we have now is corrupt and fake.
That's a whole nother level.
We're going against not only God, but going against the rebellion against God, has has um, it has increased so far to the degree that now it's it's even blatant rebellion against nature, yeah, itself, God's natural order, and so.
That I think is the real difference between the boomer and the ancient pagan is that both were willing to make, I'll sacrifice this so that you give me that.
And both cared about mammon in different ways and cared about, you know, this guy wants a herd of goats and this guy wants, you know, another retirement home and whatever, but it's all resources, it's all mammon.
But the difference is that at least the ancient pagan, included in his selfish, sinful worldview, was, I want my family line to be powerful and to exist.
And to, you know, whereas the boomer is literally, it's not, I'm willing to do corrupt things in order for my family line.
To be superior to everybody else's for the next 200 years.
No, he's like, I'm willing to sell my birthright for just 18 holes on a golf course.
Generation Esau.
For 15 years.
It's Hezekiah.
Evangelism as a Dangerous Modern Idol00:04:48
Yeah.
It's Hezekiah.
You know, it's like 15 more years.
These things, but these things won't happen in your lifetime.
Good.
All right.
Fantastic.
That's the boomer mentality.
It's like, okay, yeah, the world's going to crap, but I'll be gone.
I'll be dead.
I'll be dead.
Yeah.
And it's like, wait a second.
You're a Christian?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you talk like that?
All right.
I'm just going to say it.
This show is fantastic.
You know it's fantastic.
I know it's fantastic.
But I'm willing to admit there is one singular problem the waiting zone, right?
You got to wait a whole week for each new episode of this show to drop on Fridays at 4 p.m. Central Time.
Unless you go on over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries.
And then you'll be able to binge watch every single episode of an entire season.
All in one day.
So, this is a season based show, right?
The whole idea is a deep dive on one singular topic so that you know everything there is to know.
Each season comes out in a quarter, right?
So, a three month period, anywhere from probably eight to 12 episodes in a season.
And the moment that the first episode of a new season drops to the public, then you can go over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries and watch all of those episodes without having to wait week by week by week.
For the next episode to publicly drop.
So, you know what to do.
Don't waste any more time.
Binge watch the whole season today.
And that's the thing.
It's like, because it isn't you bowing down to some big gold statue and offering your child up to it, it doesn't seem like idolatry.
Right.
And of course, that's the most overused Big Eva term there is anything that someone in Big Eva doesn't like, that's idolatry, that's idolatry, that's idolatry.
Right.
Throw out the John Calvin quote all the time about the human heart being a factory of idols.
And so, if you like a thing that's probably an idol, but then they, ironically, they would never touch something like this.
They never touch real idols.
Yeah.
They would never talk about, I mean, they wouldn't talk about abortion as literal human sacrifice.
And it's a human sacrifice for men.
And like, why do women kill their children?
It's because it's not typically because their abusive boyfriend says, you need to go kill this kid.
Right.
It's, I have a career and a job and I can't be a mother.
I don't want to be a mother.
I will lose money.
I'll be in poverty if I become a mother.
It's mammon, right?
They're offering their child to the Planned Parenthood Moloch because they want the financial reward for it.
So it's obvious in that sense.
And sometimes they'll maybe approach talking about that, although they'll never blame women for murdering their children.
But economic idolatry, nowhere will they ever, ever, ever touch.
Because they're fundamentally egalitarian.
They don't think about things in these terms of generations.
They don't think at all about the next generation, the generation after that.
And so they can watch the country get sold to the highest bidder.
You have all the economic production, industrial production being sent overseas, having literally like 100 million, like a third of the population added to the country since 1965 in order to drive down wages.
That's the whole point the people in Wall Street want the wages to go down.
How do you do it?
Well, you double the workforce by adding women to it.
And then you also bring in all sorts of foreign people.
Uh, to drive down the lowest wages, and um, and then you profit, right?
It's just basic supply and demand, right?
And regular people don't see this, or they don't have anyone to stand for them.
So, you see, like in 2016, why were people so you know enthusiastically in favor of Trump because he actually talked about this stuff, right?
And and so, like, the evangelical people, evangelical leaders, they don't talk about this stuff at all because then you then you start sounding like Donald Trump, or even before that, like Pat Buchanan, right?
Oh, and that those guys are bad, they're They're fascists.
Well, and the mindset of Big Eva, you know, part of it also is I mean, since we're calling everything an idol, you know, like, well, you know, I'll just take a page out of their own book.
Evangelism is one of their idols.
Yeah.
You know, and that, like, you know, I remember hearing guys say this.
I think even Ligon Duncan might have said this.
But, you know, what if, you know, when it comes to global evangelism, you know, like you guys are talking about borders, you're talking about this, but what if this is God's providence?
Well, a lot of theonomists say that too.
Yeah.
Well, theonomists say that too a lot.
Sometimes, yeah.
Like who?
Yeah.
Like, uh, uh, what's Joel McDermott?
I'm sure, I'm sure Joel said before.
What's his little buddy, too?
That's the guy's name, Bojadar.
Recognizing Hard Times for Future Generations00:15:54
Bojadar said that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some of the more like left leaning theonomists, definitely, yeah, like libertarian type theonomists, yeah, yeah.
Um, you'll see that.
I can't think of any other, I know some other examples, but I don't want to say names that I'd be wrong about.
I don't want to accuse people falsely.
I have one on the tip of my tongue that I don't want to name either, yeah, I believe.
Um, but like, that's that's part of it, is like, um, Then it just becomes like the Ben Shapiro idol of big line must go up, right?
Worshipping the free market economy.
And it's like borders are a hindrance to the movement of labor and capital.
And so we want the big line to go up.
And so, well, maybe there are sociological and political and cultural reasons why you have borders and distinct nations.
And those things are good.
And you're upsetting that and destroying that.
And you're destroying the very thing that makes the American economy so productive the American people.
Right there.
It's not just all the natural resources and the size of the country and things like that.
It's actually the people that live in your country.
The big line going up, though, is also so fake.
I mean, it's just, you know, you ship out your actual production of goods, right?
And then if you, all that goes somewhere else, you know, China, Mexico, wherever.
And then your line back home goes up.
And that's great.
And that sounds great, right?
But the problem is you're actually, all the actual economy, that's actually not there anymore.
Now it's in China.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You don't own that stuff anymore.
Now, now, And if China, for whatever reason, cut us off on anything, we're in a scramble now.
You know what I mean?
With computer chips or whatever it is.
That's one of the reasons why I think, and by the time this gets on YouTube, we're recording several weeks early.
So I could be totally wrong about this and everyone will laugh at me, or they won't be laughing because we'll all be dead.
But one of the reasons I don't think World War III is going to happen is because, or at least in the scale of something like World War II, we could not outfit and supply.
Millions of American troops because we don't have the factories to produce the uniforms, the guns, the ammunition, the artillery shells, the missiles, like even just the missiles that we sent to Ukraine.
We are like five years behind to refill that stock.
That's why, like, all the stuff with Israel is like, well, we can't actually give any missiles to Israel because we're fresh out.
And so, like, I think World War III can't happen or a draft can't happen because I would have to dress myself to go join the army.
Right.
That's right.
I'd be in my suit.
And so, like, that's a big part of it we don't even have the factories to supply the factories that would build the artillery ships.
That's right.
Like, that, I mean, the reason we won World War II, I mean, there's several reasons, but because the United States was separated by two oceans and had all the factories.
In the world.
And the reason we had all the success from the boomer generation in those 50 years is because the rest of the world had all their factories bombed and had to rebuild them over the next 20 years.
And we're the only people supplying anything to the entire world.
So, yeah, actually, industrial production really matters quite a bit.
We supply dollars to the rest of the world.
That's our export.
And we hold a button to their head that says, use our dollars or else.
And everybody complies right now.
But as they see, like the military disasters in Afghanistan, And even Ukraine, the American power is not as strong as everyone thought, then other countries will be like, well, maybe we don't need to use the dollar anymore.
And so the major strength, the financial strength, and really the bedrock of the American economy is not going to exist.
And so this is another one where I'm like, I hope my wife's not listening because the next 40 years could be really bad economically for America.
But the flip side of it is if it forces industrial production to return to America, That actually would be good long term.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So we could be in for hard times, but it'll end up being better.
It'll be the opposite.
The boomers had good times that created bad times, right?
So it was making, you know, we'll sacrifice the future.
Yeah.
But, but I mean, economically, like we'll sacrifice the, you know, the economic future to have, you know, to just have it now.
And we may have, you know, some hard times that, but, but, but that things are better in the future because of that.
But all that being said, back to the boomers, I don't think that, you know, just for the record, for the, you know, the average person who's, you know, in their 60s or 70s who might listen to this, I don't think the average person, I don't think my parents, for instance, knew some of these things.
Oh, no.
They had no idea.
It's not like the regular.
There were some guys on the top who absolutely knew, but the regular, when we're saying this, we're not saying that 90% of the boomer generation.
This is what I do want to say.
They obviously knew this and they voted for it and did it anyways because they hate their kids.
They should be, you know.
Yeah, so we're not saying that.
But this is what I do want to say, though.
This is where I think boomers, especially those who profess to follow Christ, where they should be convicted, is not saying that you were complicit.
You knew.
This was deliberate.
You sold our future for your present convenience and wealth and blah, blah, blah.
I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is you didn't know.
And if I had been born in your generation and when I was in my 30s and 40s and the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, like you, I probably wouldn't have seen it either.
So, no harm, no foul.
Wouldn't have done anything wrong.
But you know now.
Yeah.
I know now.
You know now.
We all know.
And we all know now.
And if you're a boomer, so what I'm talking about is, What do we do today?
Because it's not condemnation, disparaging somebody for something that happened years ago.
But today, if you're a boomer and you're refusing to recognize that your kids and your grandkids economically are going to have things exponentially harder than what you had, if you recognize that, hey, you know what, households, I'm a Christian, right?
You're a boomer and you profess to follow Christ.
You say households are a good thing.
Husband and wife in a single income household is not a luxury.
That's God's ordinary design.
That's a good thing that the kids get to grow up with mom, like my kids, like your kids did.
Your kids got to grow up with mom.
I did too.
Right, exactly.
So if you're a boomer listening to this today and you profess to believe the Bible and to follow Jesus, you say households are good, single income, the man can go out and work and provide, the mom gets to actually be there in the home with the kids.
All that I'm challenging you with is not taking some kind of false responsibility for what happened 30 years ago when you were just working at a factory and didn't even know.
What I am though, asking you to do, challenging you to do is to say, um, there's no way.
And if, and if you're not willing to say, um, you know what, the world is messed up.
But the one thing that I have is I got to, I got to work during the eighties and nineties.
Yeah.
I didn't.
But if you got to work in the 80s and 90s, you have an unparalleled blessing, an unparalleled financial blessing.
You were reaping during the seven years of plenty.
And now your kids and grandkids, they're coming into the workforce in the seven years of famine.
So can you just recognize that and say, I'm going to help them out?
Not because.
And this is the boomer thing that I think is sin.
When it's like, well, I worked hard and made my own way, and they should have to make their own way.
Nobody helped me.
You made your own way.
We're not atomized people.
You're connected to your kids.
You're connected to your grandchildren.
You made your own way.
Sure.
You worked.
Yeah.
And if your parents didn't help you, like that's on them.
Right.
They should have helped you.
That's right.
They should have helped you, and they didn't.
But you, yeah, sure.
You made your own way, but you made your own way during a time of plenty, seven years of plenty.
Making your own way in seven years of famine, it's sure.
There are some young people that don't have good work ethic.
But there's also young people who the reason they don't have much to show for their efforts is not because they're lazy.
It's because we're having to do agriculture in a metaphorical Sahara desert.
Yeah.
You were doing it next to the Nile River.
We're in the Sahara desert.
That's a really important point that incentives drive things.
And so no matter how hard you work, and I've been at jobs like this where you can just bust your butt and work as hard as you can.
And the other people that are doing the same job as you do the bare minimum, and you all end up getting the exact same.
Right.
Right.
I mean, and it's, of course, it's, you think of like Jesus' parable where, you know, the different guys come at a different time of day, and they all get paid the same amount.
And the point of that is not to say, oh, it's fine to pay people different wages.
That's not the point Jesus is making.
But you see how incentives drive things.
And if that landowner was operating that same way every single day, He would not be able to find anybody to work the first hour of the day.
Like, I know how this guy operates.
I'm going to wait until the 11th hour.
Yeah, it was his right to, but he wouldn't be able to operate.
You know what I mean?
He can't continue to wait.
Yeah, the point was about the master having a right to be generous.
Yeah, that's the point.
And the master in the parable is God.
It was not teaching economics.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And so.
Learned how to read a parable.
That's right.
Yeah.
And the point here is that if hard work is disincentivized, and it majorly is today, in a way in the past it wasn't.
Because we live in an insane world where there are different priorities besides hard work that get rewarded.
You can have people that don't work hard and they get rewarded because they are the right diversity score.
And so if you're a young guy, a Zoomer or younger millennial that's just starting out, there's a few things you have to think as well where you might have boomer or older Gen X parents who.
Lived in the time of plenty, and they're completely clueless about how bad things really are.
And there's also, you have to recognize the circumstances you're in and understand they might never get it, right?
They might never get it.
And they might have that bumper sticker on the car of spending my kid's inheritance and think it's just the funniest joke in the world and not get how hard you have to toil just to keep your head above water.
And so you can't be bitter towards them.
That's right.
You cannot be bitter towards them because that's not going to solve anything at all.
That's right.
I mean, it goes back to like the Like the manosphere and red pill kind of discussion, like that we had before, where guys who get it and get how the intersexual dynamic is totally messed up today.
And so then what do they do?
They just start hating women.
Yeah.
Right.
It's like, you can't do that.
The sin just starts with you.
At some point, the sin has to stop.
Yeah.
You know, even if the boomers don't get it, you have to be the one.
You have to get it and you have to act upon it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I just had a thought when you guys were talking, and this is, it kind of made me sad just now.
And I never thought of it in a sad way before.
But when I was a young man, you know, I wasn't looking for a house or anything.
I didn't have a wife at this point.
I found out that when my father bought his first house, that my grandfather had lent him some money to make the down payment.
And then for Christmas every year, he would cut off a few points or whatever.
Anyway, but when I found that out, I was shocked.
I was like, why would he lend you money?
And that's sad that I was shocked about that.
Shouldn't that be normal?
Like, Dad, I don't have enough money for the down payment, but I'm starting a family.
Can I borrow whatever it was, $5,000?
Who knows what it was?
And that was normal.
And I just now thought to myself, That's sad that I was shocked by that.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Totally.
Of course, that's, yeah.
Of course, that should be normal.
And that being said, you know, to I, and I'm hesitant to say it.
I want to say it because I want to boast on my in laws, but I know that they would just be nervous.
They'd be horrified.
They don't want me to brag on them.
Yeah.
But we, when we moved here, they were very generous and helped with the down payment.
And so, so this is not to say that no boom, and they're boomers.
Yeah.
And God bless them for their generosity, their kindness towards us.
So we're not talking about everybody.
We have to be able to talk about, Groups.
We understand that we're not saying each and every individual.
That's because that's part of the problem we make the footnote.
If we can find one exception, you know, there's one guy who's a quadriplegic, so we can't ever say that men should work out, right?
There's one boomer couple that's generous, so we can't ever say, you know, like.
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Yeah, and my parents are an exception too.
Like, they helped my wife and me out a ton when we were first starting out financially.
And so, there's other ways to do this besides money, by the way.
Like, and in the book, you talk about this helping with the kids and stuff like that.
You know, and you know, my wife doesn't work.
We're pretty blessed in that way.
But my wife's parents, we live in the same town as them.
They're taking the kids all the time.
Yeah.
You know, my folks do too.
I need time to go to the store, you know, and they're there and they're willing to do it and they want to do it.
Same with us.
That doesn't require a dime.
I mean, it, You know, maybe a few lunches here and there.
You know what I mean?
But it also means, like, if, especially in the current housing conditions, like if you're single, there is absolutely zero shame living in a home.
Absolutely none.
At all.
Like anybody's, you're a loser who lives in your mom's basement.
It's like, no, you're an idiot that pays $1,000 a month for an apartment.
For a studio apartment.
Absolutely.
It's foolish.
Take that $1,000 that you're not paying and save that up so I have a down payment.
You could have one fairly quickly.
Yeah, in a couple of years.
Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah, so, and part of the reason why we moved here to Texas, to Central Texas, was we don't just have my wife's parents, but we have my parents.
So we have both sides within.
My wife's parents are, I think it's 3.7 miles, and then my parents are like 12 miles.
It's amazing.
And so, like, all the help that we get with the grandkids, like, my mom right now is teaching piano lessons to my wife because she grew up and they were, you know, a sports thing.
My family was all music.
It was like, you're going to learn math, English, science, and music is right there.
I like your size, family.
So they did sports and they're dumb, you know.
But my family did music.
And so my wife, like, she's learning.
It's cool to see my wife develop this friendship with my mom.
Yeah.
And they're talking about musicals, you know, and she's teaching her piano lessons and these kinds of things.
And so, anyways, all but having the grandparents in the life of your children and having generosity if it's needed, and often it is, you know, financial generosity, but other forms of service and generosity and wisdom and just time and energy and just, That's all of it.
Family Traditions and Musical Connections00:11:52
So, anyways, what I want to say is this that I think as we're trying to chop down old Donner's oak, you know, and then not just that, but then rebuild one of the quickest ways, you've heard people say like, one of the quickest ways we can beat, you know, the clown world, you know, whatever, is just conservatives having kids and then keeping them out of the public school.
And there's some truth to that.
Like, you know, go ahead.
Yeah, it's like, yes, but it's like the critique of the Benin adoption.
It's like, oh, yeah, fall back and have intentional community.
And it's like, then what?
Right, right, right.
Have kids, keep them out of the public school.
Like, then what?
Yeah, right.
What do you fill them with?
What do you have them do?
Yeah, exactly.
You don't just have them and then that's it.
Right.
But have kids.
Keep your kids.
Don't send them to Caesar.
And then, with Christian schools, give them a good, solid education, whether it's through homeschooling or through a classical Christian school, whatever it may be.
But also, one way that we can chop down that pagan tree and actually do something, rebuild Christendom, is like, could you imagine?
I hear so many of the boomer generation saying, like, we'll be gone soon.
And man, things are bad now.
They're going to get really bad once we're gone.
You know, like, we're the lone bulwark, you know, holding back the tide, you know.
And they kind of are.
They kind of are.
Yeah.
But they know how to fix, like, make things work.
That's true.
That's like, yeah.
And so my generation doesn't.
Right.
So, but what I was going to say is that, like, imagine if every Christian boomer just, like, one of the ways that Christendom was built is that Christians left an inheritance to their children.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's literally built into the Bible.
A good man or a wise man not only leaves an inheritance to his children, but his children's children.
Like, could you imagine if all the wicked, you know, so and think of it like the wealth of the wicked laid up for the righteous.
Okay, so let's say there really is some wicked wealth that has been laid up during the 80s and 90s and by the boomer generation.
Just a little.
Just a smidge.
But let's say there was some wicked wealth accumulated on the backs of some corrupt dealings and things that were wrong.
And maybe certain boomers who were just middle class and just trying to live a life, they didn't know what was going on in those back rooms.
But they see it now.
Okay, great.
Then you've got some of that wicked wealth and you yourself didn't necessarily do a wicked thing.
We're not blaming you, but you've got some wicked wealth.
During this time of plenty where the future was sold and cheated.
It's not your fault.
Okay, so take, do what the Bible says take the wealth of the wicked and give it to your Christian kids and your Christian grandkids.
And just for the record, be thoroughly biblical with this.
If your kids, if your millennial kid has denied the faith, write him out of the will, disinherit him, don't give him a dime, and give his portion to whatever one of your kids didn't go trans.
Yeah, right?
And that's how we win.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cut off the wicked.
I want to say this too, because I want to give advice to both sides of this, right?
The boomers and then the younger guys.
Yeah.
Here's the thing you can't assume that the other is going to know what to do here.
So, exactly.
If you have an idea or a feeling that maybe your kid needs help, right?
Yeah.
Ask him.
This is good.
Ask him if you can help him.
Yeah.
Because he's not going to know to ask.
He's not going to know he can ask you.
He might be in my situation where that's completely foreign to him.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, and I put myself in that situation.
What if I was.
You know, 20, 23, and I was about to start a family.
Would I have asked my dad for help?
I don't know that I would have.
You know what I mean?
Because I didn't even know it was really a thing.
Right.
Yeah.
So that's the one thing.
Don't wait to be asked.
The other thing on the younger man's side, ask.
Ask for help.
Be willing to ask for help.
And they might say no.
And they might say no.
But ask.
Be the one that's at least reaching out.
And that's what I did with, you know, I knew the situation between my parents and my wives.
And so I sat down with one set that I felt comfortable asking, knowing their position.
And they did a really good job, you know.
And I asked, and it was really good because I asked, and I'll just throw myself under the bus here.
They came back and said, Okay, yeah, we actually were already thinking about that.
But I think you're going too far.
You need some skin in the game.
Okay, so we're going to split the difference here, you know.
And so we're going to help with this much.
But if you're going to own something, we need a little blood.
We want to see you.
And they were right.
That was good.
That changed my perspective.
They were absolutely right.
And so they were able to teach me in that moment.
Who was actually pretty smart?
They are smart.
They are.
So it was like, absolutely.
So it was both generosity and conviction.
And some discipleship that came with it, some wisdom that came with it.
But yeah, but we have to be able to have that conversation without them getting offended.
I can't believe you asked.
And they did.
And then them pushing back and saying, okay, so you're asking for generosity, but maybe you actually work a little too.
Maybe get a job.
Yeah.
They want to incentivize you, you know, and without me getting offended and say, okay, sure, mom, dad.
That makes sense.
And they might think you're really lazy and tell you that.
Like, we would help you, but you're super lazy and we need to see something else.
And maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong.
And you're able to explain, no, actually, can I just show you the hours of my week and what I've been doing?
And unfortunately, this is what.
But like many things, often the truth is somewhere, you know, you split the difference.
And you know what?
Maybe we should be working a little bit harder, you know?
And then also, hey, maybe you also, you've got something that, yes, you built.
But also in the promise of God, you built during a time when building really paid off.
And there's truth on both sides.
Yeah, some of it too is, you know, if there is some kind of wealth, I mean, you see this a lot where, and I don't mean to like throw the boomers under the bus totally because I mean, I don't think you are.
Yeah.
Anytime that you like bring up the intergenerational thing, like especially people in the boomer generation get extremely offended because they worked extremely hard and they know that they worked really hard and they see the younger generation not work hard.
And so they think you're just ragging on them for being old and not with it.
And I can see how that's like really insulting.
Because when you worked hard for what you have, somebody saying you don't deserve that makes you really mad.
And so I'm not saying that at all.
But what I do think I see all the time is like someone from that generation will work hard, they'll build up a business, it'll be successful, they'll work their entire lives to build this.
And they have kids, they could bring the kids into the business and hand the business off to the kids or set up an arrangement where they can buy it from the parents or whatever.
But more often than not, what do they do?
They reach retirement age and sell the business.
Where here's this business, this money generating, wealth generation machine that you've devoted your entire life to making.
And good for you for doing that.
And yeah, God bless you for doing it.
But you have posterity that could be part of that and should have been part of that, that maybe you didn't include, maybe they didn't want to at a time or whatever.
There's all sorts of different particularities, right?
But so often the case is they'll cash out and maximize how much money they can get for it rather than giving it to their son.
Or their sons or their son in law at a discount, and they're going to make less on it.
They could keep working at it a little bit, semi retire.
You see a lot of that happen too, but more often than not, it's we're cashing out of the business, you go build your own.
Right.
Remember who was the guy?
So part of this is the pietism.
So the idea, so some boomers will actually, because here's the deal you're forced to be generous.
At the end of your life, you can't take it with you.
Yeah.
So everybody, you know, I remember, you know, talking to somebody about tithe, and they're like, what do you think about tithing?
And, you know, and that's a big conversation, you know.
And so we were talking about tithing.
And so I've never talked about money in my church once.
Now, granted, the church is two and a half years old.
We're a church plant.
And I'm not even bragging about it.
Jesus talked about money all the time.
So it's fine.
And it's a huge idol in a lot of people's hearts.
And so I plan to talk about it.
But part of the reason I haven't talked about it is because I recognize I planted it halfway through 2021.
We quickly came into 2022 and 2023.
And I'm just like, everybody is barely getting by.
I know how hard it is right now.
I am sympathetic as a pastor.
And by the grace of God.
We've made some good decisions, my wife and I, over the years and things like that, but also just God's kindness towards us.
And so I know that, you know, my family is in a better situation financially than a lot of families in the church.
And it's not because the church pays me some exorbitant salary or anything like that, but other financial people are in a better situation.
I saw the private jet parked out in the front.
Oh, actually, no.
What'd you say?
I saw the private jet parked out in the front.
Yeah, you guys know because you've been borrowing my car all week long.
I didn't even rent you a car.
I let you borrow my car.
It is nice.
Yeah, Iska was like, the suspension is pretty bad.
I'll say it.
2003 or 2004, it's bad.
It's a bad car.
You said I weighed too much.
But I bought it for you.
But that was another good decision.
I bought that bad boy in cash for five grand.
No car pay.
In Ramsey style.
Exactly.
So, anyways, all those things being said, my point is part of it is the pietism situation.
That I think you.
So, I was having the conversation with a dude about Ty.
That's how I got there.
And I said, here's the deal.
He was like, well, how much money should you give?
And I said, really, the question is to who and when should I give?
We always think how much, but really, I would think timing and to who do I give.
So think more about when and who, not just about what.
Because the answer is for all of man, whether you're Christian or not, you could be just a rank pagan.
With all of humanity, if we're talking about how much, every single human being who has ever lived has given 100%.
That's the number.
So if we're talking about the what, how much will I give?
Uh, eventually, you will give it all.
It'll either go to the state, you know, with some death tax or whatever, or it'll go to you know, some Southern California millionaire is going to give it to her dog, you know, or like write them into the so you give it to the state, you give it to the dog, you give it to your kids, you give it to um, but everybody's going to give it to someone.
And this is the I think part of the problem with uh, Christians um, with who have adopted pietism is that well, I'm not going to give it to the state, I'm not going to give it to my dog, um, I'm going to give it all to the church, but not my kids.
And so I think it was Hobby Lobby.
This is what I was trying to get back to.
I think it was Hobby Lobby.
The owner of Hobby Lobby, it came out a few months ago that instead of giving his business to his son, who wanted it and was a part of the business, I think on the board and all these kind of things, he's selling the whole thing and giving it all to charity.
Yeah.
It's like a reverse Corbin law thing.
Yeah, like the parable that we talked about before.
Yeah, it's just in the reverse.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And a lot of people see it as like a lot of older Christians who are more pietistic.
Oh, how a godly thing to do.
Wow, look, this Christian business is now going from the Christian caterpillar into the cocoon and coming out the Christian butterfly.
It's the full climax of a Christian business that glorified God and now is going to glorify God infinitely more by being sold for parts and given to a church or some Christian charity.
Where I'm like, no, hold up.
One of the ways we build Christendom is not just giving to 501c3s.
One of the ways you build Christendom.
Is you actually make a good product.
I think it was Steve Jobs, and there's plenty of problems with him, but it's still worthwhile.
He was talking about Bill Gates, ragging on Bill Gates, and between the two, I'll take Steve Jobs any day of the week.
Exalting Poverty vs Christian Business Growth00:12:43
But he said this.
He said, People were like, Well, Bill Gates gives way more to charity than you do.
And he said, Well, Bill Gates has to give to charity because he doesn't have any skills to offer.
Like, that's the only way.
The reason why he gives to charity is because that's his only way of being generous.
He said, I've given to the world by actually producing something good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course, people are like, that's so arrogant.
But it's like, yeah, it's based, but it's not necessarily arrogant.
It's true.
And Steve Jobs never forced me or tried to force me to take a vaccine.
That's right.
Amen.
He's not trying to make me eat.
He died before he came.
Exactly.
So, all that being said, but the point is, we don't think of generosity in those terms.
Like, you know, Rod Martin has some good stuff on this, talking about like Rockefeller, you know, and things like, okay, here's this guy.
He's uber, uber rich.
But his contribution, think about it like this with his contribution, did he become a billionaire and then everybody else?
You know, at the expense of everyone, everybody else went down a little bit.
No, no, no, he went way up, and in him skyrocketing into the stratosphere, everybody else actually went up not as much as him, but they went up some too because production was lengthened.
The hours of production, you've got oil burning, you know, with lights and all these things.
And so, anyways, all that being said, in terms of like what can I give to the next generation, it's not just a check.
And I think boomers need to know that it's like these last, it could be your last 15 years of life, and maybe you don't have a ton of money, maybe it's like.
Joel, I don't know what boomers you're talking about, but I ain't one of them.
I got just enough in my 401k, 401k, and with everything that's happening with the stock market and all these things, I'm nervous that I may not make it.
I might have to go back to work.
I might outlive my money.
And that's a real thing.
So, but right now, you're like, but right now, technically, I'm not having to work right now, or I'm only having to work 10 hours a week, or blah, blah, blah.
Great.
So, you don't have any money to spare, but you have time, you have wisdom, you have insight, you have experience.
That's right.
So, help your son or help your grandson start a business.
Sweat, you know, a little bit, you know, that's right.
Indoors and air conditioning.
I'm not saying break a hit, you know, but like, but you know, some of them will.
The work ethic's still there among these guys, too.
So, there's a lot of ways to be productive and generous.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think when it comes to like buying a house and things like that, Like I said, there's a lot of angst out there.
Yeah, if you can get help, then get it.
Some people can't get help, right?
It's going to take more effort from you.
You just have to come to terms with that.
It's going to take more effort.
It's going to take more patience.
It's going to take a lot more than it took your father or your grandfather or anything like that.
And the reward might not be as big.
And the reward might not be as big.
And I bought my house probably right around the same time you did, Joel.
And I bought a smaller house than I could have afforded at the time.
I was concerned about the economy after COVID.
I didn't know what was going to happen.
That was the end of the world as far as I was concerned.
So, you know, I did all the things that you should do, right?
At the end of the day, though, you're going to have to be able to compromise, I think.
You might not be able to buy your dream house.
And very few people do buy their dream house the first time around, or maybe you'll never be able to buy your dream house.
But the thing is, you can put up with a lot more than you think you can.
You know, I've got four kids, and we live in a 1,500 square foot house.
We have one bathroom.
I think you were mentioning you guys do too.
And you know what?
It could be that we'd never move out of that house and I have to put in a bathroom or we have to deal.
We figure out some kind of strategy with four boys and then me and my wife.
Right.
Well, yeah.
I mean, I like to think about it like when everyone's complaining in my house because someone's using the bathroom, we all have to go.
Right.
I like to think back to, okay, when my great great grandparents had eight kids.
Yeah, that's right.
And they lived in a smaller house than I do now.
Yeah.
How did they live?
Did they view themselves as living in squalor?
No, they didn't.
And that is one thing about the boomers.
They survived.
The boomers were rewarded more for their work.
But they also were very hard workers and they were way more frugal.
They were not spending $6 on a coffee every day.
They would never do that.
They would just be cliche.
But there's truth in that.
Absolutely.
It's like we drink crap coffee every day.
And that's just what we do.
And it's cheap.
And so there was a frugality.
Absolutely.
I know the coffee guys are going to hate me for saying this, but there's very little difference between the really cheap coffee and the really expensive coffee.
You can get by and it's fine.
Is this episode sponsored by a coffee?
It might be.
I don't know.
You're going to have to cut that out.
But seriously, though, I mean, you might have a house that you need to actually fix up and you don't know how to do it.
But you're going to need to figure that one out.
And I think.
And you can with YouTube.
But I think even the boomers that won't help you with the money, They already know how to do a lot of the stuff you need to do, and if they can help you in that way, but you're gonna have to get a little bit out of the comfort zone that you're expecting to be in.
Yeah, you have to tell your dad, Dad, I don't know how to put up drywall.
Can you do it?
Can you show me?
You know, yeah, and they'd be like, Oh, you know, I'll show you how to, yeah, exactly.
It was like, you know, uh, reverse psychology, right?
It's like, Dad, I don't think you know how to make put drywall in.
It's like, Oh, yeah, let me show you.
I don't think you can change your transmission in the car.
So, what you're saying is, you may not be able to get your boomer father to buy you a house.
But with enough reverse psychology, you can get him to build your house.
He's on a plot of land.
I mean, they have that work ethic where they just want to show you that they can do stuff.
And it doesn't take much to get them to want you to do it.
I've got a very industrious friend of mine who lives in the same town as I do.
And he is currently right now, he bought a house on his father's plot of land.
And it was very old and very broken and stuff like that.
So what he did was he bought it.
And then he also bought an RV, not a great RV.
And they're living in the RV right now.
Like a breaking bad RV.
While he's fixing the house.
Yep.
And we've got, Two families in our church are doing the same thing.
Right.
That's the way to do it.
He's fixing up this house and he got the house, you know, for a reasonable price and everything.
It might take something like that.
Yeah.
It might.
You got to find these kind of workarounds.
Like, and that's the thing.
It's like, I don't want to exalt poverty.
Like, I want to.
No.
Even in the book, when I'm telling, you know, what that you read in the cold open, some people read that and think, well, he's telling young guys to just not even try to go to college and things like that.
I'm like, no, no.
If you should go to college, you should.
Like, if it was 1960 or 1920, And you are the kind of person that would have gone to college to go be an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer or something like that.
If college is for you, go to college.
Then go to college.
Then go to college.
But if you wouldn't have had any business being in college then, you shouldn't try to go now just to get some degree as a credential for working because you're going to be your ceiling there.
Even though, generally speaking, the ceiling is pretty high, your personal ceiling is going to be low.
And you should go to pursue something that will be the most benefit to you and your own abilities.
Right.
And so, each, I'm writing generally, understanding that there are particularities and everybody is different.
Everyone's situation is different.
If you're the type of person who would not have gone to college in the 1960s, you probably shouldn't go now.
Don't go.
And what that ends up meaning is different people are different.
You have different skills and abilities, and that is good.
And I want people to pursue the most productive ends for themselves so that they can have this.
So, I'm not exalting like, Poverty, either like, yeah, live in a 1400 square foot house with your eight kids because that's truly godly living.
It's like, no, you should want the big house that you can fit your large family in.
You should want a nice car.
It's not wrong to want these things, it's not idolatry to want nice things for your family and for your children.
But when you're in tough times, you might have to make that sacrifice to get there.
There may be a season where you have to do it.
I remember growing up, like, my parents were extremely frugal.
Like, we would maybe go out to eat.
On vacation, maybe once or twice a year.
And when we did, I'd be like, oh, I want a pop.
I want a pop.
Can I have a pop?
You're getting water.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Every time, the first time I ever had a pop going out to eat was when I was in college.
So, yeah, it's like they really were that frugal and they really did squirrel away money and save and scrimp.
And the ones that are retired now, we've kind of joked around about retirement.
The ones that are retired and enjoying their life, and yeah, they're going golfing in Florida or whatever.
That it's not wrong for them to enjoy that.
They worked extremely hard to get to that point.
It's the question of what trade off are you making necessarily to be able to do that?
Because you do have duties to your kids and your grandkids.
Are you making a trade off there that is not a good one?
It only becomes idolatry if you do stupid things to get what you want, right?
You do things that are sinful to get what you want.
And so you can want the nice car, right?
But if you're abandoning your children to get it, then that's a problem.
And likewise, if you're a young man and you want a nice car, That's nothing wrong with that.
But if you're putting yourself into debt slavery to get it, that's a problem.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So it seems like another marker of trash world is back to, you know, you were talking about there are disparities between people, and that's a good thing.
God didn't create this androgynous world.
Like, not everybody's going to be, not everybody's going to be, you know, a rocket surgeon.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Certainly not me.
Certainly not the guy saying rocket surgeon.
You know, so like, not everybody's going to be, you know, a rocket scientist, you know, brain surgeon.
That was intentional.
But, yeah.
So, like, not everybody's going to be able to do that.
Yeah, joke.
But, man, one of the biggest graces in my life has just been, you know, Not viewing yourself more highly than you ought, but viewing yourself with sober judgment.
And just at an early age, coming to terms with, okay, here's my skill set.
Here's what I'm good at.
Here's what I'm weak at.
And just stay in your lane.
Just do your thing.
Just, you know, and be a blessing to humanity and honor the Lord by working hard in the thing that you can do well.
And for some people, that's going to be brain surgery.
And for other people, that's going to be plumbing, you know.
And, you know, I think of the Office episode where Dwight Schrute, you know, there's, Three people, and he's like, One of you is going to be rich, one of you is going to be mediocre, and one of you is going to be a really great mother.
And it's like he's got three interns, there's two guys and a girl.
We love it.
Hashtag base Dwight.
But you know, so whatever it is, you know, just doing it, knowing who you are, doing it to the glory of God, and realizing it is a grace.
It is not oppression.
It is a grace that we live in a world that is not androgynous.
We do not live in an egalitarian world, we live in a world of hierarchy.
And the sooner you accept that reality at every level, from male to female, from older to younger, but then also with each individual person in terms of this guy's smarter, this guy's not quite as smart, this guy's stronger, this guy's weak, you know, like, and just recognizing, okay, we're different and learning your role as a man, learning your role as a young man or an old man, married, single, at every single level, as a woman,
learning your place in God's created order.
Yeah, will pay dividends.
Yeah, no matter what you do, uh, it's going to be go much more well for you, uh, if you know who you are, you know, God's world, and you know where you fit, and you accept that with joy and get to work.
Yeah, you know, so yeah, and that flies in the face of every like elementary school teacher, where it's like every single one of you in this classroom is going to be the president of the United States, right?
And that you actually believe that's true, like, not all of them could be surgeons, but but.
We have seen that anyone can be the president of the United States.
There is no additional responsibility that can be the president.
That was a dark prophecy that sadly has been fulfilled.