0:00:00 - 0:00:23 And value adjustments in the end times. Um Boy, this is a big ball of wax. The I'm about to tell you a bunch of new and important things, but I'm just gonna barely be able to touch on the heads of a whole bunch of ideas here. Eventually these things will be in books, hopefully time permitting. Um But 0:00:23 - 0:00:49 as I've got the notes in there, I I um I have a strong impression to share these things now uh for reasons that will hopefully be a little more obvious in a minute, but um basically which revolve around increasing your intensity here and now to draw closer to the Lord in every way that is already available 0:00:48 - 0:01:12 . Bef before you, you see one of our many tendencies as humans that are, that are negative is to presume that things will always be as they are right now. In fact, there's a, there's a scripture about that. Things will be the same tomorrow as they are today only even better, but that is not the way it 0:01:12 - 0:01:37 goes um on a normal basis and we're not in normal times, it'll be even worse in our day. So let's uh let's see if I can give you some compelling reasons to change your perspectives. Um And, and to get on the stick, so to speak. OK. So first we need to, we need to uh introduce a picture that maybe you've 0:01:36 - 0:02:03 seen before. This is called the normal distribution or the bell curve. And basically this, this is a histogram um which is a kind of graph that counts something compared to something else. So, um this is a very important distribution. Um It, it describes many things in the world and um sometimes when 0:02:03 - 0:02:29 we think of things along these lines, like if we want to look at height and weight across the population or IQ, um this distribution does a very good job at describing the properties of a population. Um Meaning that whatever we're measuring here will be uh start out, the count will start out very low 0:02:28 - 0:02:57 uh at whatever property we're measuring here. So if this were IQ this would be down at, you know, 50 or something. And then as you cruise up to around 85 the number of people fall into those buckets increases. But then all of a sudden, almost all people are in the center measurement or range and with 0:02:56 - 0:03:21 IQ 100 is right here, there's some shifts in different subpopulations. So men versus women or Asians versus everyone else. But um this is, this is in, in general, this, this is where everyone is. And then as you get up to 1 25 1 35 1 45 and so on, it drops off, it drops off. It becomes very rare to have 0:03:21 - 0:03:44 a very high IQ. So it's very rare to have a very low IQ. Please excuse my voice. I'm still recovering from sickness. It's very rare to have very low IQ is very rare to have very high IQ. And most people are in the middle. If you look at height, uh for women, especially women tend to be more self similar 0:03:43 - 0:04:03 than men across several traits, including intelligence. By the way, there are more very stupid men and very smart men than there are very stupid women and very smart women. Um That's just, that's just the way it is. So, but with women in height, almost all women are almost all the same height, that's 0:04:03 - 0:04:28 less true for men, but it's still the shape for men, but there are more short and tall men, then there are short and tall women anyway. That's a normal distribution. So when it comes to value, most people think that most things have a pretty good value and the, the things that have a whole lot of value 0:04:28 - 0:04:46 are so rare that you know why even bother thinking about them. It's like you get struck by lightning, but in a good way and the things that have low value are just as rare and like getting struck by lightning or getting cancer or something that's something that, oh, well, we pretend like that never happens 0:04:46 - 0:05:06 . That's the, the view that people have of value and it's wrong. It's dead wrong. Now, there are reasons why so many people believe it's like this today. And I'll talk about those in a minute. This is how value actually is. This is another distribution. This is called the Pareto distribution. And you 0:05:06 - 0:05:27 know, the shape can vary a little bit, but this is just my crude scribbling to give you the gist. The point is with the normal distribution. The average is in the middle of whatever we're measuring down here. In this case value or height or IQ with the Pareto. The average is way down here is way down 0:05:27 - 0:05:52 here. Almost all people are really low on whatever we're measuring here. Uh If we're measuring people, um in the case of value, we're measuring everything. And so, um, what, what this shows is that, you know, you could turn this on its side and it starts to look like half of a mountain. Um And that's 0:05:52 - 0:06:15 , that's not coincidental. It turns out that in life, we're surrounded by things of middling value and um, almost everything will lead you to mediocre ends at best. Now, again, in modern times, it's not the way we see things and there are reasons for that, that we'll get to. But it turns out that it's 0:06:15 - 0:06:35 really important to understand that this is the way that value works. And as the days go by, you'll have less of a choice in that because this is gonna fling be flung right into your face every single day for the rest of your life in increasing frequency and intensity. And so the sooner you can wrap 0:06:35 - 0:07:02 your head around and start living life as if value were distributed this way, the better off you will be, the more chances you'll have to be up here. So let's jump into what this has to do with the end times. So the fact that value will radically change in the end times has been prophesized for thousands 0:07:01 - 0:07:23 of years. Um The fact that there is value way up here that most people have no clue even exists. There are many scriptures about that. There, here's just two of them. I'll read one of them since that. Well, Paul is quoting Isaiah here. So I guess technically it's one scripture, but since the beginning 0:07:22 - 0:07:43 of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the I seen. Oh God beside thee, what he has prepared for him that waite for him. So uh we've been told for an awful long time that there's value beyond what most people have any clue about. Now, here's something interesting that 0:07:43 - 0:08:03 you might not realize these scriptures are quoted very frequently. I've quoted them very many times, but there are also scriptures that indicate that the fact that these, that I have not seen is not something that's unavoidably true. It's true for the most part, it's been true through time and it's definitely 0:08:02 - 0:08:26 true through most people. But God has actually explicitly promised to reveal all things in the end times, including whatever it is that I have not seen or ear heard. And this is very important because what we, what God has done is he's explicitly promised that he will reveal what has not ever been revealed 0:08:25 - 0:00:00 before. And that includes this idea of very high value. What exactly leads to that. And also because value is a perspective, it's, it's a anyway, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it is God's will to reveal these things and, and not to quote unquote special people, but to babes and sucklings, 0:00:00 - 0:09:19 the only qualification is that you love the Lord and you actually submit to him and seek him in all things. So as with all things, everything we'll talk about today has a pre prerequisite requirement of repentance. All right. So here's some, some uh additional detail about exactly who to who to whom 0:09:19 - 0:09:47 the Lord will reveal these things. Those who serve me in righteousness and in truth unto the end, those who fear me to them will I reveal all mysteries from days of old and for ages to come? Well, I make known unto them the good pleasure of my will concerning all things pertaining to my kingdom. So it's 0:09:46 - 0:10:11 everything now we could spend a lot of time on just the ideas that have been presented on these three slides. But I want to limit the discussion to these points about value. And so the normal distribution is how people see these things now still. And then the preto distribution is how they really are 0:10:10 - 0:10:37 . And in order for this one to turn into this one, some changes have to happen. The volume under this curve has to shift most of it goes over here, which means that's less value. So things that you think have value are going to get squished down and you will realize that they have very little value and 0:10:37 - 0:11:02 things that some, some tiny slice of that is gonna go up here and it turns out that there will be revealed to you things of far greater value than anything you've ever imagined. Now two points here when I say things that's just a catch all, it's everything, things, people, situations, you name it, whatever 0:11:01 - 0:11:32 you can find value in. That's what we're talking about. That's the first thing. The second thing is that the stuff that appears here is not new stuff any more than this stuff is new stuff. These things are already all around you, but you, you associate way more value with them than they actually have 0:11:31 - 0:11:57 . For the most part. It's a tiny sliver of this actually has way more value than you currently know. These are not new things, they're all around you already this is a massive, massive, massive point because most people, especially Christians believe that heaven is something that's radically different 0:11:56 - 0:12:21 than earth. It will have new stuff. Some things are absolutely different in heaven. I'm telling you from my firsthand experience, they're absolutely different, but I have never experienced anything in heaven that doesn't have some very near neighbor here on earth already. If you're expecting that the 0:12:21 - 0:12:45 increase in value in heaven is going to come from new stuff. You are going to be sorely disappointed because you'll find yourself surrounded by things where you say, wow, that's just like this on earth. That's just like this on earth. And um the process of, yeah, I've said this phrase, heaven is an acquired 0:12:44 - 0:13:06 taste, attaining heaven is less about going to a place with new stuff and more about seeing the stuff all around you in a new way. And that is really important for you to understand. It's so important that I am going to spend a lot of time on that topic in the future. And I already have in the past few 0:13:06 - 0:13:30 years. Most of that though, I have not shared, you're seeing a little chunk of that today, just a little chunk. So this is this graph is all about shifting the thing, how you see the things you already know about the things people in situations, by the way, that includes God himself. This is a funny 0:13:30 - 0:13:58 thing. One of the many, one of the many unknowns for most people in this things that you don't know yet, is that the way you see God is so, so limited compared to how he actually is. And uh your value of Him, even, even if you would tell me that He is your world, he is everything to you that you love 0:13:58 - 0:14:21 Him with your whole heart might mind and strength. If you saw things the way he did or more like he did, you would disagree with that statement. Now, from your perspective, it might be true, but your perspective is very limited. And so part of this whole process of him drawing you to him is helping you 0:14:21 - 0:14:47 uh reconcile your value to be something more close to his. Um I don't just mean the value that you have or the value that he sees in you. Um Mostly what I mean by that is the value that you see in other things people and situations compared to what he sees, you do not value what God values. It's not 0:14:46 - 0:15:12 even close, it's not even close. So in order for you to obtain more joy, you need to bring your value into alignment with His value. So what is in in this is graphically, we showed this picture and described how this adjustment is going to happen in the end times it's already started, but it's going 0:15:12 - 0:15:38 to continue and accelerate. So textually, let's give a stab at explaining this, what you're going to find is that things that you esteemed as good enough. So what the choices that most people make to live their lives, um, how that looks, what they put into it, what they obtain. It won't be good enough 0:15:38 - 0:16:01 anymore. The average will not be good enough anymore. Remember with a normal distribution, the average is good enough. You're, you're better off than half of people under normal distribution. But under Peredo, under a Peredo distribution, if you're average, you're way at the bottom because everything's 0:16:00 - 0:16:22 clustered down at the bottom, right? You have to be way better than average to be good under a proto distribution. And what you're going to find is that's true. It's true. It's, it's true people, it's true things, it's true of situations. The average is no good people think it's good, but I'm going to 0:16:21 - 0:16:42 show you why and I'm going to make a case of why that's going to change and it's already changing. Also, what you currently think of as good is going to be revealed as far less than what is best right now, you think this stuff is great. If you're, if you're dealing with something down here, that's great 0:16:42 - 0:17:05 . But what you're going to see is that actually this just keeps going for a long time. And if you're not in this, if you haven't become like this or you're not having experiences like this, you don't know people like this, you are missing out big time and once this is revealed to you, you cannot be very 0:17:04 - 0:17:26 happy without it. That's the thing about when really, really, really good things are shown to you that you didn't even imagine were possible before. If you don't have them, you're going to be very unhappy or if you're not, not like this, you're going to be very unhappy. Whereas under the previous understanding 0:17:25 - 0:17:50 , if you're just above average, you're gonna be feeling pretty good. Finally and importantly, there's going to be a dramatic shift in your perception of cost because what you have assumed everyone was entitled to is going to be revealed to be astronomically expensive. And the way that will be revealed 0:17:49 - 0:18:16 is that it will be taken away for all except those who are willing and able to pay a tremendous cost. You're going to see that pattern again and again and again, if your eyes are open, you see it already, there's plenty of evidence all around us for this already and it will get more extreme, ok? To put 0:18:16 - 0:18:37 this in, in plain English, you are going to find the value of all people and things to drop out, the bottom is going to drop right out from under you. And then there's going to be a revelation of much more valuable things, but mostly you're just going to be shown that the things you took for granted 0:18:36 - 0:18:57 are way more expensive than you thought. Now I'm just gonna give you a just right now, a very, very simple specific temporal example of this uh air conditioning, I think is something that most people in the United States at least consider part of a normal life. If you can't afford air conditioning, you 0:18:57 - 0:19:21 are definitely poor and most poor people have air conditioning even. And so that wasn't true 50 years ago, but it's been true for 40 years. And so if you don't have air conditioning, uh well, let's back up to, to pre COVID. If, if we're sitting in 2018 and you don't have air conditioning, you're in a 0:19:21 - 0:19:48 bad spot financially. Right. Well, fast forward to now is just a few years after that. And, uh, due to AAA collection of circumstances, you'll find that it's extraordinarily expensive to install air conditioning in new construction and it's extraordinarily expensive to fix it. If it breaks, which those 0:19:47 - 0:20:10 are systems that have to be maintained, they don't last forever. And so we're in a position where today it costs about 50% more to do any of that with AC than it did three years ago. And, um, that's a big deal. So, something air conditioning that everyone took for granted has now become a luxury item 0:20:10 - 0:20:34 . It's a luxury item now, at 40% more cost than three years ago, it's really expensive because it was really expensive then to have a technician come out to fix your AC was extremely expensive then. And now it costs 40 50% more. And so it's all of a sudden going into a column of nice to have but not 0:20:34 - 0:20:56 expected to have. Why? Because people know it's crazy expensive and people living check to check cannot afford to drop $2000 on an ac maintenance bill. Right. Or if, if you're, if you're building a house, you're gonna be looking at way smaller ac systems. Um, or, or trying to do some kind of a design 0:20:56 - 0:21:20 where your house is in less sun or something, all of a sudden everything changes. Now, is this a small thing on its own? It's kind of small. I mean, it's, it's not a small thing if you live in Arizona, but the, you know, for, for some areas of the United States, it's not too big of a deal, I guess, but 0:21:19 - 0:21:44 it's not just one thing, there's a whole lot of these things and that's just today and you're going to see over the, the next while the number of these situations, the frequency and the intensity of these situations is just going to continue to increase. So this is one of several fulfillment of something 0:21:43 - 0:22:04 you'll see referred to over and over again in the scriptures. But here's one specific reference from D and C 35 7. It shall come to pass that there shall be a great work in the land even among the gentiles for their folly and their abominations shall be made manifest in the eyes of all people. Now, I 0:22:04 - 0:22:23 don't wanna get too much into this because this is a big old topic and I'm just gonna completely ignore this great work in the land. But what we are seeing is folly and abominations being manifested in the eyes of all people. Now again, I'm not saying this is the only thing that scripture is referring 0:22:23 - 0:22:50 to. Not by a long shot. It's a piece of it though. You're seeing that the value that people place in certain things is completely wrong. Now, I went into depth with this ac example. Let's just roll with that for a second because I want to extract more um more value from that. Ironically. So as things 0:22:49 - 0:23:14 happen, you see the cost and the benefit change situations shift, but also information shifts and in combination, it changes our perception of the cost and the benefit. Now, in retrospect, let's suppose, let's suppose that you have an ac unit that you've been waiting to fix central air conditioning in 0:23:14 - 0:23:34 your house, you've been waiting to fix it because it was expensive. You're just trying to save up the money to do it or whatever and then COVID hit and now we're dealing with in, in the aftermath of all of that. Uh and, and part of this, a big chunk of this is political. So if you waited till after the 0:23:33 - 0:23:55 most recent presidential election, that's a big, big factor in this. So now you're, you're looking back And you're saying, dang it, I wish I would have done this three years ago because I would have saved 40% on my bill. And in a way, I would have made 40% of that money because I'd have the benefit of 0:23:55 - 0:24:15 this expensive ac unit at 40% less cost. This is super duper important folks because what you're gonna find is that still, even though we're in a process where all these values are shifting radically and it's just gonna increase in frequency and intensity. I promise you, even though we're in that already 0:24:15 - 0:24:38 , every day is an opportunity to find and obtain greater value at a lower cost than you will be able to tomorrow. I'm gonna say that again because it is super important. Maybe it's the biggest takeaway from all of this. It's as if everything is on sale right now because there's a lot of reasons for this 0:24:38 - 0:25:00 one is we, we are not held to the true cost of things yet it's going to happen and we're in the process of getting there, but it's still very uneven. And so it's like everything's on sale and when, when everything's on sale, you don't buy everything but you sure as heck buy the things, you know you're 0:25:00 - 0:25:22 going to need, right? If you had the money to do it, you'd do it and you have the money to do it. I'm telling you, I don't care how busy you think you are compared to 5, 10 years from now, you're going to look back and you're going to be filled with regret for all the opportunities that you let pass 0:25:22 - 0:25:47 by because you had no clue how hard it was going to get, how soon it's very important to listen to what I'm saying right now, it's like everything's on sale. And so you need to know what is actually valuable and you need to drop your money on it. Uh Now I'm not saying that literally necessarily that 0:25:47 - 0:26:11 this is monetary, but I'm saying you have massive resources right now, time being your most valuable one and it's not going to be like that in the future, I promise you it won't be. And so how you spend that now, it it is massively important. It is massively important. You were born in a time where people 0:26:11 - 0:26:34 would be given through faith, the opportunity to obtain massive blessings that no one else has ever had access to in ways that no one else has ever had access to. And it has to follow this pattern of getting access to things before they seem important and then things change. And the people that had faith 0:26:34 - 0:26:58 and obtained those things of value prior to things changing are the only ones who have it because the window has closed and it's too late for everyone else. And maybe they can have some of the same things, but they're gonna have to pay out the nose for them and it just won't be anything comparable if 0:26:58 - 0:27:22 they can have them at all. Ok. That was, that was a big dump. But that, that's the point of all this. So let me give you some more practical examples. So another thing we take for granted is the quote unquote, middle class lifestyle. We live in the United States and in Canada we live in great abundance 0:27:21 - 0:27:41 . We live in tremendous unmerited wealth. And any time you're in a situation you don't deserve. You better be really careful about how you use it because God's giving it to you. Not because you deserve it and not because it's going to last. He's giving it to you as a trial as a test. And your challenge 0:27:40 - 0:28:00 is to change, to come up to the point where you do deserve it. And if you can't do that, at least get the most out of it while you're in the situation, like the parable of the unjust steward. And he knows he's going to get fired from his stewardship. And so he writes off the bills of all of his master's 0:27:59 - 0:28:19 debtors knowing that once he gets turned out from his master, he'll be able to go to all those people who now owe him because he's written off massive debts on their behalf. And so it would be really easy to get goodies from those guys because they all owe him. So that's the attitude that we need to 0:28:19 - 0:28:43 have in this time of unmerited abundance. What are you, what are you uh transforming that unmerited abundance into? You? Better have a good answer for that because the time is ending, where that the time of that unmerited abundance is ending anyway. So the cost of living is a great example of this value 0:28:43 - 0:29:07 shift because what you're going to find and if you have your eyes open, you see it already is that a middle class life so called, it's going to be unreachable for most people. Um I took my family out to a lake the other day and in the parking lot there, there was one of these uh big vans that were converted 0:29:07 - 0:29:27 into a living space and it was really obvious and these two young ladies were in there or, or I guess coming out of there to go to the lake. And uh my kids were just kind of dumbfounded that anyone would choose to live in a vehicle. And I said, well, this is actually this is becoming a really common 0:29:27 - 0:29:48 option. It's not a, it's not a bad idea honestly, to save money. If you're a young person, if I were young and single, I would, I would totally live in a van, maybe down by a river, maybe down by a lake, but whatever and save up tons of money. So the fact is that most people under 30 today will never 0:29:48 - 0:30:16 own a home. Is that literally more than 50%. I believe it will be. I believe it will be. Um, most of them will never have even one child. They won't be able to afford it. There's not a path for that. Not for most of them. A lot of them are never going to own a car. Now, you think about that. You know 0:30:16 - 0:30:38 , and I think in the definition of middle class, we still have this idea of going on vacations annually, maybe at least every couple of years. End of retiring one day, the time for all of those things has ended, it's done, it's already done. There are several years of adults, people who are already over 0:30:38 - 0:31:04 18 who will never know those things. Do you get that? Cause it's happening right in front of your face and yet most parents are leading their kids in the same exact patterns of life that have failed to produce what they knew in current generations. So people from 18 to 30 right now were raised on that 0:31:04 - 0:31:25 insufficiency and the fruits are real obvious. It wasn't enough, wasn't good enough, but people are still feeding their kids into that way of, of thinking and living. It's not good enough anymore. Remember the, the normal distribution in the patto? Here's an example. You can't just put your kids into 0:31:24 - 0:31:46 what everyone else is doing and expect them to have some radically better outcome than everyone else. They're gonna end up in the same place on average Now, what about, here's an unpopular one that's very important, the cost of marriage. Now, I'm not gonna sit here today and walk through Isaiah four 0:31:46 - 0:32:13 with you. I don't have time. But I've said for a long time that there would be a time coming when women would struggle to find men who are willing to marry them and have Children. And that is absolutely true today that has been fulfilled and it's accelerating and getting a lot worse. I think that all 0:32:13 - 0:32:30 of so we've talked before about foundations being removed and people don't notice and the house is still sitting there and then a storm comes or whatever little earthquake and the whole thing falls apart and people are shocked, how could this have happened all of a sudden? Well, wasn't all of a sudden 0:32:29 - 0:32:48 , you don't take out a foundation all of a sudden, it's slow and methodical, especially when the house is still there. It's a lot of work and you know, when you're carrying buckets of dirt out or whatever concrete rubble through the house, you know, it's going on, you really have to try to not see it 0:32:47 - 0:33:14 . Unfortunately, people are very good at being intentionally diluted. But if you look around the reasons for men avoiding marriage are abundant and sufficient, in fact, they're so abundant and sufficient. I am actually shocked at how many men are still playing this game at all. Now, they're dropping 0:33:14 - 0:33:44 out in, in great numbers with great reason to do. So, the, the pool is definitely poison, but it's nothing compared to how it should be. If you ask me if guys had any clue what was possible in marriage. And also how abundantly the average case, how abundant the average case is, they wouldn't touch this 0:33:43 - 0:34:08 with a 10 ft pole. There is no compelling reason to do so. And, and you might be thinking well, yeah, but I mean, there's some amazing women out there, I'm sure there are. But the system itself has been turned against men. So it doesn't matter. That's, we've reached the point where the actual qualities 0:34:07 - 0:34:31 of the woman are no longer sufficient to justify the choice we are there. We've been there for quite some time actually. And so the only reason women have any chance at all of finding a husband today is because so many men are still so stupid. That's it. That's it. And by the way, you know, no woman 0:34:31 - 0:34:58 wants to marry a stupid man. If you find one who's wise proportionally, he's not going to want to marry you. Do you understand? So it's like running into a hail of bullets. That's what marriage is for a quality man today. It's very, very hard to justify. Now, am I saying not to do it? Not necessarily 0:34:57 - 0:35:23 , not necessarily, I don't want to spend too much time on this. But this is a great example of what I'm talking about with this value. Shift. It's already upon us, it's already there. And so the cost of marriage for, for a man, it has skyrocketed in what he's risking and the likely outcome uh and what 0:35:23 - 0:35:46 he can get out of it frankly, and for a woman, her opportunities have been squished down to nothing. And I'm not sure anyone's really aware of that, at least anywhere near how much like, like uh to the, to the degree that it's actually happening or it's actually true. I'm not sure anyone has an accurate 0:35:45 - 0:36:14 representation of this. Um I, I haven't seen anyone who really gets it yet and it's going to get worse. So, um, all of the extremities at the beginning of Isaiah, what's described there, the sufficient reasons for men and women to act that way are already true. They're already here and it's going to 0:36:14 - 0:36:40 get worse, much worse. What about the cost of a career? This overlaps the cost of living. It's no longer sufficient to make anything near average money, I think right now, the per capita average income in the US is around 35,000. A man has to make three times that to be a viable candidate to be a husband 0:36:39 - 0:36:56 . Now, there's gonna be a lot of pushback against that. But I'm telling you, if you're a woman and you're choosing a man who makes less than that, you're very foolish. Now, now, if you can't attract a man who makes that, it's sort of a different story. You have to deal with the bed that's made. Right 0:36:56 - 0:37:21 . Let's play the cards. You've been, you've been handed, there are ways to navigate that, by the way. Um, but for the most part that, that, I mean, you can't, you can kick and buck as much as you want to against what, you know, the need to make way more than average money if you're a man. But that won't 0:37:21 - 0:37:43 change how much things cost. If you say, well, it's ok for a guy to make 50,000 a year, that's fine. But everything that comes with that has to come with that, which means you can't have kids and if you can, you can have one maybe, but your wife is gonna have to work. And even if she's ok with that when 0:37:43 - 0:38:04 she's young and has tons of energy and is still pretty delusional about life how life really is. Um, even if she's ok with that, then she is not gonna be ok with that when she's 30 or 35 or 40 and she's tired and she doesn't wanna go to work anymore. She wants to stay at home with the kids. It might 0:38:03 - 0:38:26 change the second she has her first kid that usually happens. That's, that's usually what happens. So, you know, if people are upset with that fine, you can have it. But I'm telling you, and so the cost of a career, meaning the sacrifices you have to make to get into a decent career. It's not s 1975 0:38:25 - 0:38:47 where you can wake up the day after you graduate high school and walk down to the local industry and get a job and be set for life and get your gold watch after 40 years or whatever, it hasn't worked that way in a very long time. Even among my generation, I'm 39 right now. And most of my peers, most 0:38:46 - 0:39:13 are not independent people, a whole lot of them are living at home. Very few of them can afford to have Children at all. Very few of them live in their own home. Uh, it like a single family home versus, uh renting an apartment or whatever. And, uh, those are people who were 39. So how much worse is it 0:39:13 - 0:39:35 for the 30 year olds to 25 year olds? They're all living at home. They don't have the money to do anything more than be subsisting on others. And why? Because it takes extreme choices. Pareto distribution. You have to be on the long tail to get by today because average is not good enough. You have to 0:39:35 - 0:39:57 understand that average is not good enough anymore. Now, I say anymore and I haven't gotten into this yet. So we're gonna talk about it. This is the historical norm, the things that we're talking about. It's just that we've lived in a bubble for the last 100 years. And so our living memory all the people 0:39:56 - 0:40:22 alive today and the ancestors they knew have lived in a bubble and that bubble is done. And so we have to get used to the way things always were. So you can look for these changes to happen all across the board. Think about what this is, what this looks like in religion or in health care. Um Let's just 0:40:21 - 0:40:44 give a few examples of this. You're going to find that this traditional, oh I'm just gonna get up and go to the my local church every Sunday. It's just not gonna cut the mustard for most people anymore. It's not good enough. Um This like I'm just gonna go and hear what a pastor has to tell me once a 0:40:44 - 0:00:00 week. That's not good enough anymore. You actually have to open your scriptures and be a student of them. You actually have to have your own relationship with Jesus and, and nothing less than that is gonna be good enough anymore. And so the people stuck at average are just gonna lose what they have. 0:00:00 - 0:41:20 That's another pattern that I haven't explicitly mentioned yet. The people stuck at average will lose what they have cause it's not good enough anymore. And so people who are doing the average religious thing, they're going to leave their churches and if they don't, their kids will, has that already 0:41:20 - 0:41:47 happened. Yes, it has. And it will get worse because just like the career choices of their parents were sufficient for their parents, but insufficient for their Children. Same thing goes for their religious choices. What about health? Think about our norms today, you get people who, um, you know, they 0:41:46 - 0:42:06 age a couple decades and whatever, all of a sudden they start having everything on their body replaced like the bionic man or woman. It's a normal thing to have macular surgery on your eyes when you start getting cataracts or whatever that's called, it's just a normal thing. The old people that go in 0:42:06 - 0:42:26 and they get this eye surgery done. It's a normal thing to get your knees replaced or your hip replaced. These are astronomically expensive surgeries. The only reason normal people can even think of getting these things done is because we have a ridiculously subsidized public health system. What happens 0:42:26 - 0:42:50 is the costs just keep skyrocketing well and more and more people do it because more and more people are overweight and unhealthy. Well, it's not available anymore and it has to get rationed and it ceases to be the norm. So if you're living the average, you're going to lose what you have. It's not going 0:42:49 - 0:43:10 to be a normal thing when people my age get to be 65 we're not gonna be able to just clock out and have someone else take care of us financially and while being independent in every other way. That's not a normal thing. That is a very strange thing. It doesn't make any sense and the only reason it can 0:43:10 - 0:43:35 continue is because we're, we're still on this glut of unmerited prosperity due to fossil fuels. That's I'm stealing my own punch line, but that's the key. You take that away and it's being taken away and everything that it funded has to go away. And so you get this radical shift in cost and benefit 0:43:34 - 0:43:57 , no one is going to be on dialysis if they have to pay $100,000 out of pocket per year, like it would cost in any other country, not any other country, but anywhere outside of the first world. And so get ready because those changes are coming. I mean, what, what's the difference between a trucker who 0:43:57 - 0:44:19 can go out on disability at 56 today? Cause his back hurts and a trucker where there is no disability, he just has to either suck it up and a lot of those people could continue to work and so they will and they'll just suffer or he'll be ded to because if he's truly handicapped, there won't be anyone 0:44:19 - 0:44:39 to take care of him and he sure as heck hasn't saved his money all these years because he was raised like we all have been with the assumption that it's someone else's problem and if everything falls, falls through, someone else will take care of you. Ok. What about the food you eat? That seems like 0:44:39 - 0:45:04 a pretty basic one. But you know, at some point the cost of food can only go up so much before you start changing what you eat. And um for those with eyes to see the writings on the wall, you could plot out the points and extrapolate the line and it's very obvious that the time is coming very soon where 0:45:03 - 0:45:25 you will make more money by spending your time growing your own food at home, then you will going to work and spending that money on food at the supermarket. Mark my words, it's going to happen. Now, if you've tried this at all, you know, a few things again, I don't want to dwell too much on this point 0:45:25 - 0:45:47 , but you know, you need to live in a place where that's possible. First and foremost, most of the places that most people live today are not places where you can grow the food that you eat if it's geographically in the right spot, like I grew up in Maryland and that's certainly in the farming belt and 0:45:47 - 0:00:00 it rains and the weather is good and the soil is good. But guess what? Those idiots have put houses everywhere, all the farms have suburbs on them subdivisions, the old farms, all the farmable land, not all of it. Almost all of it is suburbs. So where are you gonna grow your food? And you say, well, 0:00:00 - 0:46:30 like I've got a little postage stamp backyard. Good luck with that buddy. It takes about 10 acres to grow everything that you eat, things can be done to get more, out of, less land, but it is very difficult. And then a whole lot of people live in places where no one else lived before oil. And that should 0:46:30 - 0:46:53 tell you something. If you live in a place that was considered uninhabitable until you could drive to the store, that's probably not a great place to live if we fully expect there to be a time where you will need to grow your own food even partially. So, um yeah, that's kind of where these things are 0:46:53 - 0:47:17 headed. So again, going back to the curve on what you eat. So, um you know, you think you go to the grocery store and you fill your cart with feta cheese and all these fancy things that you'd never have in a subsistence farming situation. Well, what's the value of having land that you have prepared that 0:47:17 - 0:47:34 , that, let's see, is capable of growing food that you've prepared to grow food and that you've actually worked the land and you know how to do this and you know, you have all the stuff to do it and the know how, you know what works and what doesn't work and you even have the seeds and the tools. What's 0:47:33 - 0:48:01 the value of that? It's, it's incredible. I was just talking to my wife yesterday about how we can, where we live. We can go outside and, and put a chair outside and sit and just hear the birds and watch the blue skies and see the mountains, see all the green. And I said, what's that worth? Because so 0:48:00 - 0:48:22 few people in this country can do that. And, and why are we in this position? Because we made a lot of choices very differently than most people do. And they were hard choices. They came with a great cost in the eyes of people who were making different choices. But if you ask me, it was exactly the right 0:48:22 - 0:48:49 thing to do. And uh when you do stuff like this, people think you're crazy. But here's the thing, wisdom is shown through time, time, vindicates wisdom. And so if you see these things ahead of time and you make the choices today based on how you expect things to be in the future, you will come to a radically 0:48:48 - 0:49:14 different outcome than those who do not do that. Because the windows close where I live, if, if, if I was five years later than I was in getting here, maybe seven, we could not have moved here. There's no way I could have afforded the house that we're in it. Not even close. No, no stretch of the imagination 0:49:13 - 0:00:00 . Nor would I have had any chance to buy it because there are so few houses on the market since then. And so um it's super important to understand these things. Ok. Now, I want to make this point gradually and then all at once these things. They're already happening. I've given you tons of examples. 0:00:00 - 0:50:01 They start out subtly, but I promise you there will be extreme events. We've already had some, I would say the presidential election was an extreme event. COVID was certainly an extreme event and there will be many more that will make those things look like nothing in comparison. And so here are just 0:50:01 - 0:50:25 two scriptures they want to share with you that talk about outcomes of extreme events. Um In Isaiah 1312, we read, I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. And in Ezekiel 719, we read, they shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be 0:50:25 - 0:50:47 removed, their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity. What's this all about? Just very quickly? I want to give you some keys to understanding 0:50:46 - 0:51:07 ancient prophecy. You need to understand. Um I've heard other people say things like there are these dual prophecies that you know, part of it gets fulfilled in a prior time and part of it gets fulfilled in a latter day time, OK, fine, whatever. But there's a bigger idea here, that's way more important 0:51:07 - 0:51:28 than all of that. And that is that God is impartial there are conditions, there's a law, there's cause and effect, there are conditions under which certain things always happen. And so this is why history rhymes with itself and in the scriptures, when you're reading a description about cause and effect 0:51:27 - 0:51:51 , you should care a lot less about when quote unquote, when this was fulfilled, care a lot more about what were the conditions and what was the outcome when it happened or if it's happened yet, doesn't matter if you can extract the principle, then you can predict the future. And I've just given you a 0:51:51 - 0:52:16 tremendous key. So um with these scriptures, whether they're talking about something that's been fulfilled in the past, because both of these have been true in many times in the past, not just once these things will happen in the future, in the near future, they will happen and to that extent, they're 0:52:16 - 0:52:42 kind of true already cause it's this is something someone's turning up the volume knob. OK. Well, for both of these, because these, these cause and effect laws, they happen to be on a continuum. They're things that happen by degrees. So is a man more precious than a giant chunk of gold today? No, but 0:52:42 - 0:53:11 is the value of a man a good man a quality man? Is it increasing radically over time? It is, it is so a very simple fulfillment of this is the the cacophony, the choral cacophony of middle aged women saying, where are all the good men. And now that's a message you hear from much younger women too. And 0:53:10 - 0:53:32 the, the answer, well, I don't want to get into that. Um, they exist but they're hard to find. They're rare. They're not hard to find at all. Actually, I've made videos about that but they are rare. They are very, very rare. The value of a good man is going to continue to skyrocket. It's, if you're a 0:53:32 - 0:53:54 woman, there's no better investment that you can make. The value over time will just skyrocket. I promise you, I could give you a very long argument as to why and tell you exactly why. What about gold and silver? This cracks me up. I remember it actually made me quite sick one time. I was sitting in 0:53:54 - 0:54:20 a shopping center. This was probably 12 years ago or something. And I was watching all these retirement age men walk into this gold and silver store and um I, you know, I was doing something else obviously, but that I was people watching while I was waiting and I saw this and it made me sick to my stomach 0:54:19 - 0:54:34 and you see these people and they go in there and they were just like, well, I've got a little extra money this week, so I don't really need my social security because I already took care of all that. So I'm just gonna buy some gold or some silver. And you see these commercials on TV, all the time at 0:54:34 - 0:54:58 the time, it was a big deal. Get into gold, get into silver. Well, look, the value of precious metals has gone up over time, no doubt so far, but it has not even close to tracked inflation. And so it's been a depreciating asset, not as fast as, as cash, obviously, but it's been a terrible investment 0:54:57 - 0:55:20 . So why is that? There are reasons that, that have to do with market manipulation, which is well known that that's been going on in this industry. But here's a reason that that people have not seemed to figure out folks who are 30 younger, they see the world very differently than their forebearers and 0:55:20 - 0:55:42 I mean, their forebearers at their same age, it's very, very different. Those people in aggregate are never going to care one lick about gold or silver. The whole gold and silver market is dependent on old people caring about gold and silver. It's always old people for the most part. If there's not a 0:55:42 - 0:56:04 next generation of old people who are gonna start caring about this, the value will drop. That's like people who don't realize the demographic shift in voting traditionally for a very long time. Uh conservatism was correlated with age, as people got older, they had more chances to make more money and 0:56:03 - 0:56:25 as people make more money, they are less happy about having it taken away by the government and given to people who haven't worked as hard for it. And so you could bank on older people voting further toward the right. That is not true anymore. That change doesn't happen anymore. And not surprisingly 0:56:24 - 0:56:47 part of the problem is that younger people don't experience this increase in earnings that prior generations did at the same age. So anyway, there will come a time. So you see all these things happen subtly they're true by degrees already today. But there will be things that happen, extreme events that 0:56:47 - 0:57:15 happen that all the sorry hit the mic. All of a sudden, it radically shifts from a gradual change to a sudden jump, a sudden shift in value. And there will literally be a time. I'm gonna say this, you're not gonna like it. There will literally be a time when quality women beg quality man to marry them 0:57:15 - 0:57:42 , literally beg. There will be a time when people who have gold and silver literally throw it into the street. I promise you these things are gonna happen. There are people alive today who will live to see it. I promise you and let me give you a situation for the latter. If you are fleeing for your life 0:57:42 - 0:57:58 with everything you have that will fit into a backpack. You can imagine a situation where you put gold or silver in there. If you happen to have some because you've been told your whole life. If everything breaks down, people will still regard gold and silver as money and they'll give you stuff in exchange 0:57:58 - 0:58:18 for it. But if you read the scriptures and you understand them, you will understand that there are going to be situations where that's just not true anymore because there still has to be some basic semblance of society for that to be true. If you're fleeing for your life with everything you own on your 0:58:18 - 0:58:47 back, you are going to realize how heavy precious metals are and you're going to realize very quickly that no one cares if it's not food, everything breaks down. This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Everything breaks down when, when bad things happen uh to the degree that the bad things are bad. And 0:58:46 - 0:59:17 the only things that have value to normal people in really bad situations, our food, water, weapons and women, gold and silver do not qualify. And in those circumstances, if it's not one of those things, it doesn't go into your bag, obviously a sleeping bag or clothing or something cause cold is a big 0:59:17 - 0:59:44 problem. All right, it's that simple. So we've barely touched on the scriptures that intersect all of these ideas. If we were to take the time, I could easily fill three full days walking you through, through the scriptures to pull out verse after verse, after verse, after verse that talks about everything 0:59:44 - 1:00:05 we've talked about here. So there's no time for that. But in your own scripture study, I want to give you some examples of phrases and words that you can look for and you'll see them everywhere. So this is, I, I think if we had to pluck out one passage, um This is from Isaiah two, the lofty looks of 1:00:05 - 1:00:26 man shall be humbled and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. Um I don't think any normal person would have any clue what that sentence means. So let's break it down that what this the themes here that you're gonna see, echoing all through these 1:00:25 - 1:00:48 kinds of passages of scripture is you're gonna see that what people value is wrong today. Now, whenever now is the normal valuation of humans is wrong, you know, the natural man's an enemy to God. What does that mean? What the natural man wants is not good. What the natural man thinks is good is not 1:00:48 - 1:01:07 good. They don't even want the things that they recognize as good. You know, they think about somebody who's like, oh, I can't stop smoking. That person doesn't believe that smoking is good, but they do it anyway and they don't do what's good, but a person's natural understanding of what is good is also 1:01:07 - 1:01:30 wrong. It's not the best. That's out there. What's, what's this business about haughtiness? So there's haughtiness of men, there's haughtiness of women, there's haughtiness of humans. You could break it down in those and other categories. It's to have an inflated value. That's what it means. More than 1:01:30 - 1:01:55 what it should be. And to have that bow down and have the Lord exalted. What this means is that everyone's value valuation, it tends towards um what is more correct. And the only correct hierarchy is to have the Lord on top of everything and have everything sorted. There's a preview for where we're going 1:01:54 - 1:02:27 , have everything sorted by how much like God, it is very, very important. That's the key. And in that day when all this stuff happens, he will be at the top, not incidentally, this is what it means. Part of him, putting all things under his feet. It means for people to recognize truly that He is what 1:02:27 - 1:02:48 it's all about and nothing is greater than God, which is funny because it's supposed to be the most basic thing in the world. Have no other gods before me. It's right there at the, at the front of the list and yet how many people actually live their life that way if you can find me one, I'd like to know 1:02:48 - 1:03:13 . Ok, for the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon everyone that is proud and lofty and upon everyone that is lifted up and she he shall be brought low and upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up and upon all the oaks of Bashan. What is this about? You gotta understand trees are 1:03:13 - 1:03:37 used as uh allegories for people, the cedars of Lebanon. These were the highest quality trees. Those forests were renowned for being the best lumber you could get in the oaks of Baishan. It's the same thing. It's uh these are, these are people who are regarded as better than everyone else. And what God 1:03:37 - 1:03:57 is saying is that the value structures, how we value things is just gonna be totally demolished because it's totally wrong. And this theme continues upon all the high mountains, upon all the hills that are lifted up, lifted up beyond what beyond where they should be upon every high tower and upon every 1:03:57 - 1:04:17 fenced wall, upon all the ships of Tarsus, upon all pleasant pictures. And I'm skipping over things. I can't take the time to jump into all this in the lofty ness of man shall be bowed down in the haughtiness of men shall be made low and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. So come full circle 1:04:17 - 1:04:38 to the beginning in the idols. He shall utterly abolish. Idols aren't just little dolls that people worship scripturally speaking in idol is anything that's treated as more than it actually is. And this is a very important concept. There's a difference between an ideal and an idol and an ideal is a way 1:04:38 - 1:05:01 point that leads us towards God, a greater understanding of his actual glory and goodness and, and character. But when we take those good things, those things that are good, beautiful, true, desirable, and we make them the actual goal instead of something that helps us better understand the goal or move 1:05:01 - 1:05:29 closer toward the goal, which is God, those ideals become idols and God destroys idols as do his servants. That's what they do. Abraham got in big trouble as a little kid when he smashed up all the idols and the idle room where his father worked. So that's what servants of God do. That's what God does 1:05:29 - 1:05:55 . He smashes idols. All right. And why, and why does he do this? Because that's how he's exalted. That's how his value is demonstrated to us because it's a lot lower than it should be in our perception. So if you look for these phrases, mountains being taken down trees, being chopped down haughtiness 1:05:54 - 1:06:20 of men and women, idols being destroyed. You're going to see these themes of how God corrects our value of things. And you'll see a whole lot of scriptures that pertain to the end times because this is one of the central reasons why it all happens or why, what happens happens. So why would God do such 1:06:19 - 1:06:43 a thing? I've already sort of given you the answer. The reason is we're here to have greater joy. And while you continue to have less joy than you should in certain things, and you continue to not have motivation to obtain the things of greatest value, you are inhibited in your fulfillment of the purposes 1:06:43 - 1:07:14 of this life. Critically. A lot of these things can only be obtained here. A whole lot of your eternal disposition is determined here and can only be determined here. And so, while it might seem like an extreme thing to totally shift around the things that we consider valuable, you have to understand 1:07:13 - 1:07:42 that no mortal cost could ever be compared to eternal blessings. It's all nothing compared to that. And so even the worst things on earth, quote unquote are worth the cost of what they bring in eternity. You can't compare them. So put another way we come back to this diagram. Why would God do this? Because 1:07:42 - 1:08:07 first and foremost, it's the only way to bring this about. And when there are people on earth who would qualify for and obtain this, which there are currently, there are, that's not always the case, but it is the case right now. When there are people on the earth who would obtain this, God must make 1:08:07 - 1:08:39 it possible. He has to open that door. And the only way he can do that is by squishing this down. And there are various reasons for that. But furthermore, and importantly, the only way these people will ever submit to God is if he pushes this over, here's some evidence for that second point, Isaiah 26 1:08:39 - 1:09:03 9. For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. That's another cryptic verse that you're probably not gonna understand just reading it. What is righteousness. It's how God is. It's how God is. What are His judgments and what does it mean for them to 1:09:03 - 1:09:25 be in the earth? It means for His law of cause and effect to be in greater force, it means for. And this is another scripture of key. You're going to see this all over the place, mostly referring to end times and after his justice being in the earth, that means his law of cause and effect is in full 1:09:25 - 1:09:51 force. What we're used to is delayed justice, delayed justice. And we, we talk about things getting squared up in the resurrection, but that's about to change. It's already changing. It's a process. And when his justice is quote unquote in the earth, his judgments are in the earth, it means that his 1:09:50 - 1:10:17 full meritocracy is established. It means when you live the law, you get the blessing and when you don't live the law, you don't get the blessing. That's what it means. So he has to take away unmerited prosperity and that's what part of what's going on here is. You live a middle class life but you do 1:10:17 - 1:10:43 nothing to deserve it. Guess what? Welcome to the third world that's happening. You think that you have a right to a happy marriage just because you got out of bed today and you're a completely normal person in every way. Guess what, greater than 80% divorce rate? You think you have a right? And we could 1:10:42 - 1:11:06 just keep going with this. Do you think you have a right to own a single family home? Just because you have some job that anyone else on the earth could do. Question. Welcome to live in an apartment for the rest of your life or a van. And uh another reference, the same ideas in revelation 15 4. Who shall 1:11:06 - 1:11:33 not fear thee o Lord and glorify thy name for thou only art holy, for all nations shall come and worship before thee. For thy judgments are made manifest. When will all people bow the knee to God? When they understand more of His value? In order for that to happen, most people will require being hit 1:11:33 - 1:12:05 over the head many times with consequences. In other words, his judgments are made manifest. They have to see the righteous exalted and they have to see everyone else pushed down. And what does it mean to glorify the name of God? It means to see Him as being more valuable than you currently do. So that's 1:12:05 - 1:12:26 here's a really simple test to see where you are on that continuum. Do you see God as someone you reach out to when you need help with something or someone who can help you get what you want? Or do you see Him as the source of what you should want and what you do want? Those are very different things 1:12:25 - 1:12:53 . It's critically important to know where you stand on that and to move towards wanting whatever God wants by definition and totally detaching from what that might be other than the fact that it comes from God, that's what you're after. OK. Now we have to transition into a very important point which 1:12:53 - 1:13:23 is um this diagram of how much value is in how many things people and situations. There's an unspoken key to understanding this and that is that this axis of how much value is in the thing people are situation this graph, it it's the same, the axis is the same exact thing as saying how much is this thing 1:13:23 - 1:13:54 , person or situation like God. This is an absolutely critical idea. These two things are the same value is from and fully expressed in God alone. And so if your objective is to seek out the greatest value, you can find here, your objective is to search out everything person and situation that is like 1:13:54 - 1:14:34 God in some way specifically, that is more like God than you. All right. Now, how does this work with things versus people? There's a difference between kind and degree people, dogs, bugs trees, rocks. Every category of creation is a different kind, right? But among kinds, they're not created equally 1:14:33 - 1:14:59 , humans alone are created in the image of God. Now, that does not mean that you can't find a tree who better fulfills the purpose of His creation than a certain human, which is really sad. But that's true that so many people are so far from their potential, that you could actually find a rock who's 1:14:59 - 1:15:22 done more to live up to the potential God has given them than a human. In specific cases, you will find that that's the, that's true. But just talking about kinds, categories of potential humans are at the top of the pyramid. There's no question. We're the only creation in the image of God. But there 1:15:22 - 1:15:44 are differences in degree and there, by the way, there are differences in degree in dogs and ants and trees and rocks. They're not all the same. I've talked about this before. I'll talk about it again. OK. But what about just talking about the humans? There is a difference between people and how much 1:15:43 - 0:00:00 like God they have become so far. There is a difference and you will not be surprised to hear that the distribution is Pareto. Isn't that interesting? Meaning most people are very little like God and some people are a lot like God. But the numbers drop very quickly. The more like God, we're talking, 0:00:00 - 1:16:44 that's what's depicted here. Nothing here is the scale. It's just the idea. Interestingly, if you were to plot this out, the triangles is what it would look like. The number of things decreases, the more like God we consider that's really bad grammar. But hopefully you get the point. So the more like 1:16:44 - 1:17:14 God, your bar your your metric, the fewer the things will meet that standard, right? So we read in the scriptures that Jesus Christ was in the express image of the father. And so he's at the top of the pyramid. And we know that there are people who are nothing like God except in their potential. And 1:17:14 - 1:17:40 it turns out there's everything in between. OK. So if you put all this together, one of the takeaways is this idea, the value tends toward humanity. What do I mean by that? Well, if God is a source of fulfillment of all value, you should expect to see more of him in a person than you do a rock and you 1:17:40 - 1:18:04 should expect to see more of him in a person that's actually like him than a person. That's nothing like him. And as you seek out things of greater value, you are going to find that you're increasingly looking for things that are connected to people and that they become fewer in number. As you search 1:18:03 - 1:18:30 out higher value, you every single person experiences this, even if they're not religious at all. And they have no idea about anything. I just said you're saturated in these principles, whether you like it or not. Let me give you an example that I saw uh over eight years of working with college age students 1:18:29 - 1:18:56 . So, uh in my research lab, I'd always employ a bunch of students and um we were under a lot of pressure to strive to have at least half of those students be female uh to to help boost the number of females in computer science. And so, um, I typically had about half of my students were females and I 1:18:56 - 1:19:16 got to know my research, uh, assistants relatively well, because we'd meet together maybe twice a week or once a week, at least. And, uh, you know, we were working together on a bunch of projects there in the lab and I'll tell you something that I saw, uh, almost universally amongst the women in the 1:19:16 - 1:19:35 lab is that, you know, a lot of these folks, I'd, I'd meet them when they were young, undergrads and then they'd stay to the completion of a master's degree. And so we're talking 3 to 5 years of getting to know them. And over the course of those years, it was interesting to see this pattern and maybe 1:19:34 - 1:19:59 you've seen it too in your walk in life that the, the freshman, sophomore age, uh young women, they'd have tons and tons of friends, tons of friends. But then over time, what would happen is that circle of friends would shrink down. And typically this co occurred with those friends getting married. And 1:19:59 - 1:20:23 um I guess this sort of reveals what time frame this was because 24 25 26 year olds were still getting married back then. Um So what, what's interesting about this is the friend circle. It shrinks and the ones who are left are more intense friendships than the ones that the average uh, at the starting 1:20:23 - 0:00:00 point when there were way more of them in that circle. And so you see this trajectory in the life of a young woman where she goes from, typically from having tons and tons of very cheap friends, low bar, um, very superficial relationships down to just a few friends down to getting married. And then, 0:00:00 - 1:21:06 and then that friend circle just evaporates. And it's like when I'm in town I'll call you. Right. That's the pattern I've seen over and over with, with young women with, with guys. It's different, which is interesting but off topic, right? But this happens with people over time and I've, I've talked 1:21:06 - 1:21:30 to a bunch of middle aged guys who, who have reflected on this and they say how uh the relationships in their life have sort of dropped off and it's them and their wife and they might have a friend, maybe one and um they just find all the other offerings way too superficial. So this is the pattern, the 1:21:30 - 1:22:00 value tends toward humanity and um the quality has to go up and that is synonymous with people who are more like God or situations that more um clearly convey the attributes of God. That's the way it's meant to be that we're supposed to progress along this over time. Ok. So, um we need to cover just 1:22:00 - 1:22:22 a few more pieces of this. You might not see your current value scale like this compressed. And um this is just another view of the normal distribution where, where all your stuff is in here. I could have used this picture. Maybe that would have been clear is an amalgamation of notes across different 1:22:21 - 1:22:46 things. But I assure you it is this way, it is this way compared to things that are more like this, which are not here yet. So you don't know that what I'm saying is true, but you will know one day. And so what happens is, is you go this way, some things will bifurcate, they'll push one way or another 1:22:45 - 1:23:07 . So for example, you're going to find that some of the people or kinds of people that you thought were relatively valuable. You know, I just spoke of the friends groups, superficial friends, they're gonna be revealed to be not so good actually, right? And you're going to have a growing list of people 1:23:07 - 1:23:30 in your life who are straight up evil, straight up evil beyond the balance of how you'd currently define the limit that's going to happen. OK. Other things that were pretty tightly clustered, you're going to see a range develop. So for example, maybe you really like books and you'd say I really like 1:23:29 - 1:23:51 books and, and if I asked you like, well, what kind of books do you really like? You'd say no, just books I like to read. You don't say things like I like to read when you're over here because the relative difference between a, a good book and a bad book is huge. It turns out it's huge and the vast majority 1:23:50 - 1:24:14 of books are not worth reading. Same thing goes for movies and while books and movies. So those are changes in degree. Let's talk about changes in kind. While books and movies are tightly clustered right now. Relatively speaking, you're going to find that, that they become quite different to each other 1:24:13 - 1:24:33 . So there's difference here and there's difference here, degree and kind. OK? And then some people are going to be revealed to be immensely more valuable than you thought. Not just then you thought, but then that you thought possible, just like people will be revealed to be more evil than you thought 1:24:33 - 1:24:57 possible. Same thing with goodness and you will find things like little kids, babies, especially to be immensely valuable, immensely valuable. Way more than anyone realizes when they're changing diapers. OK? You're gonna find tremendous value in nature. You're gonna find tremendous appreciation for food 1:24:56 - 0:00:00 that you just took for granted, even vegetables. That's what happens is you move this way. It's a tremendous change in value. OK? So why do we mash all this up? I mean, this is pretty messed up. And now finally, we get to what I told you, we talk about, it's a mix of human bias in modern prosperity. 0:00:00 - 1:25:52 And whenever we say modern prosperity, we have to add a conditional like synthetic or unmerited because that's what it is. But the long story short is that we squish these things together because we're not honest. That's the answer. People are inherently dishonest. That's why. So what do I mean by this 1:25:52 - 1:26:13 ? If you look around and hopefully you have to look around, but odds are you can just look inside and hopefully you change that. If you look around, you'll find all over the place. You can't look at any person without seeing someone who's continuing to do and desire less than what is best according to 1:26:13 - 1:26:36 their own definition of the word, not yours. Theirs, you will see them continue to to be involved in things that are less than the best that they know to to desire things that are less than the best to do things. You will see people run from opportunities to learn more about cause and effect. It's not 1:26:36 - 1:27:00 just that they avoid opportunities to learn more, they run from them, they will do everything they can to hide from it. Reread John three about the reaction of people to light. They do not go towards it, they go away from it and probably more than any of these other things. The modern unearned prosperity 1:26:59 - 1:27:27 , it's toxic. It's toxic because it masks cause and effect. It. Masks merit it masks what things are really worth because we take things for granted when we don't have to pay for them. Think of Rich Kid syndrome is is any Rich Kid well situated for life they will not appreciate good things for the most 1:27:27 - 1:27:49 part. And they tend to be really rotten people. They never had to learn the cost of things because everything was just given to them. And that's the situation of modern people because everyone is wealthy in the first world. Even the poorest people are rich. If you disagree with me, look at how many of 1:27:49 - 1:28:13 them are obese. Never in history have poor people been fat because you can't be poor if you're fat, that means that you have an abundance of food and, and even if you're homeless, which no one has to be in the United States because of the social welfare system, even if you choose to be homeless, there's 1:28:13 - 1:28:34 plenty of food. If you want to see poverty, you have to go to the Philippines or Africa or Guatemala doesn't exist in the United States and I know a lot of people are gonna get upset about that. Uh Odds are we can compare cards, but I probably grew up in greater poverty than you. And I'm here to tell 1:28:34 - 1:29:01 you there's no such thing in the United States. Ok. So what do we mean by, by this? And where did it come from? There's a lot more to say about this. It's gonna be a recurring theme that's basically fossil fuels and technology. So what you have in, in fossil fuel fuels is you have massive massive amounts 1:29:01 - 1:29:26 of energy that are concentrated and portable and so you get out of it a lot more than you put into it. And it's the first time in history, anything like that has happened on anything like that kind of scale. If you think of any, any, any of the closest the nearest neighbors, you have things like horses 1:29:25 - 0:00:00 or slaves and there's tremendous inputs for those and the outputs are really limited. It used to be the case. I think I'm trying to remember the statistic that I think most of the crops grown in the United States went to feeding horses at one point. Um So that shows you just how popular horses were, 0:00:00 - 1:30:05 but also how costly they were because think of if you have to feed a horse, think of all the grain, you have to grow all the extra work you have to do to keep that horse going and yet it's worth it because your work and doing all that, you get more output out of the horse than you would if you were just 1:30:05 - 1:30:30 working directly for yourself without a horse, that's why people had them, right? The amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline is insane. And I'll go into more detail this in another time. But when you jump in your car and you drive to mcdonald's, you or the Bouncy House with your kids, you have no idea 1:30:29 - 1:30:52 the wealth that you're spending in human terms. How many hours of human production did you just burn it's insane. It's literally insane to see the ratios. And so by definition, you do not appreciate those things as you should. And if you did, you'd probably be using the fossil fuels to set up a system 1:30:51 - 1:31:17 for when they run out, which is a gradual and then all at once situation, you'll have a system that's best situated for what remains strengthen, what remains to quote revelation. What's this word? Surfeiting mean? It's one of many scriptural words that we use without, while we read without thinking about 1:31:17 - 1:31:38 what it means. It's important enough that the Lord used it. Luke 21. He said, take heed to yourselves lest at any time, your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life. And so that day, the end times come upon you unawares for as a snare, shall it come on? All them that 1:31:38 - 1:31:55 dwell on the face of the earth. Watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and stand before the son of man. What's a snare? If you have a snare and you're trying to catch a rabbit, it's like a, it's a metal wire that looks like 1:31:55 - 1:32:16 a circle and it's set up in a path that the rabbit runs through. And the thing about a snare is when the rabbit realizes it's in it, it freaks out and it keeps running forward even faster. And so it's something that traps you initially. But then as it traps you, it traps you worse than it did before 1:32:15 - 1:32:47 cause you're, you continue into the trap and make it worse. So how is, how is the issue of value a snare? Well, it, it sucks you in and it becomes more entrapping. So for your heart to be overcharged with surfeiting. Surfeiting means to gorge yourself. That's what it means to go way overboard. Like when 1:32:46 - 1:33:11 my friends and I we'd go to the all you can eat place for lunch and try to stay through dinner to get her money worth. I think I've been kicked out at least once from one of those places. So that's surfeiting, right? So hearts are an analog for desire in the scriptures and what this means is, your desires 1:33:11 - 1:33:34 are so focused on just gorging yourself and what's in front of you that you have no idea what's coming later. You're not thinking about it, you're not planning for it. And this is drunkenness. What's it like to be drunk? Your brain doesn't work, right? And so you lose the ability to make rational decisions 1:33:33 - 1:33:57 properly. And even if you haven't lost it completely, it becomes a lot harder than it was before the cares of this world. And the more you get into all this, the less prepared you are for the day that's coming. It comes upon you unaware. You, you can't see it coming. It just, it happens to you. So Jesus 1:33:56 - 1:34:24 says, watch and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things. And so this is important to understand part of the purpose of life is to learn to discern good and evil. And this is a topic I've talked about a lot. It's not so simple as defining two buckets, one being good and 1:34:24 - 1:34:45 one evil. And then you just have to put everything in life into one of the buckets. What's in the buckets changes all the time and not just what's in the bucket but how good and how evil those things are. And that, that one's even bigger. The differences in, in degree are even bigger than the differences 1:34:44 - 1:35:09 from good to evil or evil to good. And, and we're here to expand out our value scale. Everything's sort of in the middle here so that we learn what's really, really bad and what's really, really good. And we're not just squishing everything together inaccurately. And what you'll find again is as you 1:35:09 - 1:35:37 go through this process, you're going to begin to focus an awful lot on people and people are also distributed this way and, and as you ascend in the value that you're seeking and finding in life, you're going to find that it is concentrated in people and fewer and fewer people as you ascend in value 1:35:37 - 1:36:01 . And the pattern is the number of things always reduces as the value of those things increases. And this is, this is really important here. So I'll specifically call out the folks and many folks who've talked to me and said, like I feel so lonely as I, I love learning these things, I love drawing closer 1:36:01 - 1:36:28 to God. I love repenting. But as I do all these things, I feel like I'm cutting myself off from the world because I have less and less joy in more and more people and things I can't enjoy the things I used to enjoy. And so my message for you is to understand that as the number of things or people decreases 1:36:27 - 1:36:55 the value of those things and people increases and there is no loss, there is no loss. I'll put it to you very simply in the following terms. Is it worth if you, if you had the world to give, would it be worth giving it for God. Jesus said, what's the worth of the whole world if it costs you your soul 1:36:55 - 1:37:23 ? And so if your relationship with the father is worth everything that could possibly be paid and it is then is it so hard to believe that as you move towards the father, both in how you are and what you value and how you, you know what you know about him, those three things, what you know about Him 1:37:23 - 1:37:52 , how you are and what you value as you move, move towards the father, the set of things that you find fulfillment in will. Absolutely shrink in number. However, the quality will increase so much faster that you will find yourself with far more than what you had before. And so when Jesus, uh when the 1:37:51 - 1:38:26 disciples asked Jesus, they say we've left all to follow you, what will we have in the resurrection? And he says, anyone who's left houses, lands, father, mother, wife, husband, son, daughter, for my sake, we have 100 fold in the age to come in eternal life. And so don't mistake the temporary barriers 1:38:25 - 1:38:58 that are in place is a blessing to enable you to continue to have faith to grow even more than you have yet. Don't mistake those barriers for the lack of existence of what makes it worthwhile because there will be a day when those barriers are removed. And you see that there are people who are like you 1:38:57 - 1:39:25 and who are better than you. And those people make it all worthwhile, make everything that you've gone through worthwhile. And so don't forget that well, realize that to start with because I doubt anyone's ever told you. So now someone has and all of that leads toward the fulfillment of the greatest 1:39:25 - 1:40:08 fulfillment of this pattern is to find yourself with God, face to face in possession of what nothing else and no one else can compare to. So as a silly little practical example of this, we've been through quite a few dishwashers in my tenure as a homeowner for various reasons. But um at some point, my 1:40:08 - 1:40:35 wife prevailed on me to buy a halfway decent dishwasher and not the cheapest one at the box store. And uh the simple question is how many broken dishwashers is a working dishwasher worth? So, as you're going through life and you find yourself um in this shrinking set of things of value, realize that 1:40:35 - 1:41:01 it's unwise to compare the value of things, to come to the value of things that are obviously insufficient. So, um, don't mourn the broken dishwashers. They don't do what they're supposed to do. They're just paperweights that cost money. And so the things of lesser value, the things, the people in the 1:41:01 - 1:41:24 situations don't get hung up on that don't measure your life by that because those things aren't worth very much at all. What you ought to be aiming for is the stuff higher on the scale and orient your whole life to the greatest value you can find and actually live according to that. Not some imaginary 1:41:23 - 1:41:42 . I know that's out there somewhere and I'm just gonna keep living this way and pretend that there's a line from here to here. There isn't, there's no connection, there's a gulf between those two things. Those, those, those categories of outcome. You actually have to learn what has the greatest value 1:41:41 - 1:42:01 and then you have to learn what the price is and then you need to pay it and it is expensive. It's way more expensive than anything here. But it's also way more worth it than anything here because these are all broken dishwashers. There is no fair price for a broken dishwasher. Every dollar will just 1:42:00 - 1:42:23 be a waste because it doesn't do what it purports to do if you find the stuff that endures and that actually does what the label purports it costs you something. But in the end, it's way cheaper to buy a functional dishwasher that doesn't break than it is to keep buying the ones that break. So there's 1:42:22 - 1:42:45 a, a saying, buy once, buy value and buy it once and in life, what you're gonna find is that these things do not yield to competition. You can do 20 of these things at once in your life. You know, you can have three jobs that are never gonna go anywhere and you can have 50 friends who, none of whom actually 1:42:45 - 1:43:08 care a lick about you. And when times get hard they'll disappear. Or you could have one friend who's actually your friend who will actually be there no matter what and for whom you can be there, no matter what. You know, you can date 100 people who are worthless or you can marry one person who's actually 1:43:08 - 1:43:34 worth marrying. And a lot of times, a lot more often than people realize these things. Can't coexist things up here. Typically it's choose one, not choose several, choose one. You want one high value career is probably gonna have to happen to the exclusion of a bunch of other options. You really want 1:43:34 - 1:43:56 to own a house, you're going to have to sacrifice things to get there. You can't have your $6 coffees every day or whatever. So these are all principles and while this video is long, uh I've actually given you massive, massive pieces of information here that, that would have taken a lot longer to get 1:43:56 - 1:44:05 to you otherwise. So I hope that you rewatched this video and that you, uh, apply these lessons to your life.